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
Uncle Remus times, African American mothers are known to read the Br'er Rabbit stories to their children to teach them about the significance of protecting the small from the big and the weak from the powerful. Harris modeled Uncle Remus after a man known as "Free Joe" Edwards. In 1885, Free Joe was stabbed to death by Bell Todd in a quarrel over a woman. Todd was convicted of murder. An "Uncle Remus and His Tales of Br'er Rabbit" newspaper Sundays-only strip (King Features Syndicate) ran from October 14, 1945, through December 31, 1972. The stories have inspired at least three feature