John the Conqueror second cousin/That little Johnny Conqueroo", and in "I'm Your Hoochie Coochie Man" it is called "John De Conquer Blue". John the Conqueror was an African prince who was sold as a slave in the Americas. Despite his enslavement, his spirit was never broken and he survived in folklore as a sort of a trickster figure, because of the tricks he played to evade his masters. Joel Chandler Harris's Br'er Rabbit of the "Uncle Remus" stories is said to be patterned after High John the Conqueror. Zora Neale Hurston wrote of his adventures ("High John de Conquer") in her collection of
The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit The Tales of Uncle Remus: The Adventures of Brer Rabbit is a 1987 Children's book by Julius Lester and illustrator Jerry Pinkney. It is a retelling of the American Br'er Rabbit tales. "Publishers Weekly" in a review of "The Tales of Uncle Remus" wrote "This collection is important as a way of introducing readers to the Harris tales; it also stands alone as a volume of wonderfully funny folktales. For many purists, though, it will not replace the original stories. Pinkney's drawings, both black-and-white and color, nicely combine realistic detail