Joshua McCarter Simpson

Joshua McCarter Simpson was a well-known abolitionist songwriter, herbal physician, and Underground Railroad conductor. Subversive in his use of familiar tunes, Simpson created a “double voicing” in songs of emancipation that included an antislavery rendition of “America.” Born free in Morgan County, Ohio, and bound as a laborer until age 21, Simpson survived a difficult childhood. He attended school for only three months but taught himself to write. Within 10 years of publicly singing his first poem in 1842, he had published a pamphlet of antislavery songs.

Simpson attended Oberlin College from 1844 to 1848, hoping to become a teacher. In 1874 he collected and published two decades’ worth of work—53 song-poems and two satirical essays. Simpson’s songs combine simple diction, repetitions, and refrains with topical humor, often to strike militant tones. His use of familiar hymns and folk and patriotic tunes is often ironic, disguising angry protest in common rhythms. The songs were especially popular on the Underground Railroad in the 1850s.

Simpson’s Original Anti-Slavery Songs (1852) is among the earliest verse collections published by an African American and possibly the only abolitionist music collection composed by an African American. Known for his song “Away to Canada,” Simpson also published The Emancipation Car, being an Original Composition of Anti-Slavery Ballads, composed exclusively for the Under Ground Rail Road (1874).