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
George Remus Cincinnati region. George Remus George Remus (November 14, 1874 – January 20, 1952) was an American lawyer and bootlegger during the Prohibition era. Remus was known to have referred to himself in the third person after his rise to power during the early days of Prohibition, which he reportedly continued to do until his death. It has been claimed that he was the inspiration for the title character Jay Gatsby in "The Great Gatsby" by F. Scott Fitzgerald. Remus was born in Berlin, Germany in 1874 to Frank and Maria Remus. Remus' family moved to Chicago by the time he