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
Joel Chandler Harris Visiting" and "Heyo, House!" are particularly similar. As a boy, Milne recalled listening to his father read one Uncle Remus story per night, and referred to it as "the sacred book." Charles Chesnutt's most famous work, "The Conjure Woman", is strongly influenced by the Uncle Remus tales; he features Uncle Julius as the main character and storyteller. Chesnutt read the Uncle Remus stories to his own children. Many scholars cite Harris' influence on William Faulkner, most importantly in terms of dialect usage, depictions of African Americans, lower-class whites, and fictionalized landscape. Poets Ezra Pound and T. S. Eliot corresponded in