''Ring, Ring de Banjo'' is a minstrel song written in 1851. The song's words and music are from

Stephen Foster Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826January 13, 1864), known also as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and minstrel music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, inc ...

. The song, written to mimic the dialect of Black people in the

Southern United States The Southern United States (sometimes Dixie, also referred to as the Southern States, the American South, the Southland, or simply the South) is a geographic and cultural region of the United States of America. It is between the Atlantic Ocean ...

, is about a newly-freed slave who wishes to come back to his master's

plantation A plantation is an agricultural estate, generally centered on a plantation house, meant for farming that specializes in cash crops, usually mainly planted with a single crop, with perhaps ancillary areas for vegetables for eating and so on. The ...

. As his old master is dying, the singer plays the banjo on his old master's deathbed until he dies. It is one of "minstrelsy's most explicit evocations of the potentially violent relationship in slavery between master and slave" and inspired a number of imitators, including the abolitionist Harriet Beecher Stowe.

References

{{Stephen Foster American folk songs Songs about musical instruments Blackface minstrel songs Songs written by Stephen Foster 1851 songs