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 collection has encountered controversy. "Uncle Remus" is a collection of animal stories, songs, and oral folklore, collected from southern African Americans. Many of the stories are didactic, much like those of Aesop's Fables and Jean de La Fontaine's stories. Uncle Remus is a kindly old freedman who serves as a storytelling device, passing on the folktales to children gathered around him. The stories are written in an eye dialect devised by Harris to represent a Deep South Negro dialect. Uncle Remus is a compilation of Br'er Rabbit storytellers that Harris had encountered during his time at the Turnwold Plantation. Harris