Charles Colcock Jones, Jr.
Charles Colcock Jones, Jr. was born in 1831 in Savannah, Georgia.
His family owned over 100 slaves who cultivated rice and cotton along the Newport River in coastal
Liberty County. His father, a Presbyterian minister and planter, was constantly on the road during much
of Charles' childhood, fervently preaching and writing in his The Religious Instruction of the Negroes
in the United States, (1842; see link below) that, while slavery was condoned by the Bible, it imposed a
Christian duty on masters to take care of their slaves' health, comfort and particularly their spiritual
instruction. By the time he went to college, Charles Colcock Jones, Jr. had a passion for American Indian
relics, which would lead him to become the first president of the American Anthropological Association,
and publish Antiquities of the Southern Indians, Particularly of the Georgia Tribes (1873). Jones
then attended Princeton and later Harvard Law School. Upon his return, he took up the practice in
Savannah, where he also served as alderman and later mayor. In 1860 he married his cousin Ruth, but soon
after he joined the Confederate Army, his two children and wife were dead. After the war and with a
new wife, he moved to New York and returned to his practice, historical pursuits and the revision and
publication of his fathers' A History of the Church of God During the Period of Revelation. His
publications included his memoirs of the Civil War, including The Siege of
Savannah (1874, see link below). Jones returned to Georgia in 1877 and settled in Augusta where he
remained an ardent defender of the Old South and of the "compassionate slavery" ideals of his father. With
the publication and great popularity of Joel Chandler Harris' Uncle Remus tales in the
Atlanta Constitution in the 1870s and in book form as Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings in
1880 (the basis of Disney's Song of the South), there began to be an serious public and academic
interest in American folklore. When Harris began running out of sources for his next book, Nights
with Uncle Remus, he contacted Jones. Jones, also concerned that these African American traditions
would be lost, ran with the idea, collecting 57 tales over the next five years. Unlike Harris whose
tales came from central Georgia, Jones collected his tales along the coast, in the region where his
family had their plantations. Charles Colcock Jones, Jr. died in 1893.
E-TEXT:
The Religious Instruction of the Negroes in the United States, 1842:
1,
2
The Siege of Savannah, 1874:
1,
2,
3 (excerpt)
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A review by Georges T. Dodds
Charles Colcock Jones, Jr., while a learned and cultured man was, even by the standards of the latter
half of the 19th century, a slavery-promoting racist (for example, in his preface, he refers to the
storytellers as "old plantation darkies").
However, like it or not, it was white men like Jones and Joel Chandler Harris who first preserved the
pre-emancipation folklore of African Americans. But with today's political correctness even
Disney's Song of the South (1946), based on Harris' Uncle Remus tales and
winner of two Academy Awards, remains unreleased on video in North America (though it is available
in Europe and Asia in PAL format). For all the unsavouriness of Charles Colcock Jones, Jr. the
man, he did collect some very amusing and entertaining African American tales which, as Susan
Miller Williams points out in her Foreword, continue to be read and interpreted in new ways, even today.
The majority of forty-something individuals have probably had some contact with Harris'
Uncle Remus tales, be it through the numerous reissues and repackagings of his works,
or Disney's Song of the South. However Gullah Folktales differs in a number of ways
from Uncle Remus. Firstly they come from the marshy coastal regions of Georgia and
the Carolinas, with a distinct dialect and culture, whereas Harris' tales came from central
Georgia. In Uncle Remus: His Songs and Sayings, Harris presents the folktales as children's
stories, with a framing story of an elderly black ex-slave telling the stories to a young white boy.
In contrast, Gullah Folktales presents, in a manner more reminiscent of professional
folklorists, just the tales, with no window-dressing or attempt to present them for children,
though he only identifies a couple of the story-tellers. Even the characters have slightly
different roles in the Gullah tales: in Uncle Remus Brer Fox is the trickster, but
in the Gullah tales Buh Rabbit takes on the role. Harris, in addition to the tales presents a
number of plantation songs, where Jones presents no songs, but includes some essays, which while
they contain some folkloric elements are largely a place where he can express his views of how
nice and cosy "compassionate slavery" was for both sides.
Gullah Folktales is difficult to read, even compared to the Uncle Remus tales;
however, Jones does include a convenient glossary at the end. Here for example is the first
paragraph of the Gullah version of the Tar-Baby story:
Buh Wolf and Buh Rabbit,
dem bin lib nabur. De dry drout come. Ebry ting stew up. Water scace. Buh Wolf dig one
spring fuh him fuh git water. Buh Rabbit, him too lazy an too scheemy fuh wuk fuh
isself. Eh pen pon lib off tarruh people.
Ebry day, wen Buh Wolf yent duh watch um, eh slip to Buh Wolf spring, and he full him calabash
long water an cah um to eh house fuh cook long and fuh drink. Buh Wolf see Buh Rabbit track, but
eh couldnt ketch um duh tief de water.
To some extent I think it is easier to understand if read aloud, particularly since
the material did come from oral storytelling tradition. The tales include stories of
trickery and morals tales with animal protagonists (a rare few with elements of European
folktales), and some humorous tales of the interaction between slaves and masters.
While these tales, or particularly their compiler, may grate on some people's
sensitivities and reading them is an effort, it is an effort richly rewarded. In the
tradition of Aesop, La Fontaine and Le Roman de Renart, the animal tales present
a spectrum of characters from the indolent but sly rabbit, to the dangerous but dim-witted
alligator, reflecting the variety of people in everyday life. Certainly anyone interested
in pre-civil war traditions in the Southern US and/or African American culture should read
this book, for you others read it simply because the stories are entertaining and funny.
Copyright © 2001 Georges T. Dodds
Georges Dodds is a research scientist in vegetable crop physiology, who for close to 25 years has
read and collected close to 2000 titles of predominantly pre-1950 science-fiction and fantasy, both
in English and French. He writes columns on early imaginative literature for WARP,
the newsletter/fanzine of the
Montreal Science Fiction and Fantasy Association
and maintains a site reflecting his tastes in imaginative literature.
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