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
Robert Roosevelt the United States Fish Commission. Roosevelt was a popular author and a friend of writers such as Oscar Wilde. He sometimes wrote under the pseudonym "Barnwell" or "Ira Zell". He edited "Political Works of Charles G. Halpine", supplying a memoir (1869). Robert's nephew Theodore Jr. credited him with being the first to scribe the "Br'er Rabbit" stories (which had been passed down orally by slaves), "publishing them in "Harper's", where they fell flat. This was a good many years before a genius arose who, in 'Uncle Remus,' made the stories immortal." Roosevelt was first married to Elizabeth Ellis (1829–1887), a