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 Tale of Mr. Tod in the stories of Uncle Remus. There, both rabbits and foxes contend, but unlike the fox in Uncle Remus, the Potter fox is not particularly wily and the rabbits win, not by outsmarting the fox, but only because they enjoy a stroke of luck. The badger is not a typical animal in Uncle Remus, but in Potter he is the clever one. The finale reunites the rabbits, but the wily animals win nothing. "Mr. Tod" and the Uncle Remus stories are only similar in depicting the powerless triumphing over the powerful. "Mr. Tod" was adapted to animation and telecast as