Printable Version
Working in the Cane Fields
Digital History ID 13
Author:
Carrie Fisher
and
Leo Fitzpatrick
Date:1910
Annotation:
Plantation songs describe caneworkers’ lives.
Document:
Awake! Stir your bones! Rouse up! Shrieks the Five o’Clock Whistle. Don’t dream you can nestle For one more sweet nap. Or your ear-drums I’ll rap With my steam-hammer tap Till they burst. Br-r-row-aw-i-e-ur-ur-rup! Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! w-ak-e-u-u-u-up!
Filipino and Japanee; Porto Rican and Portugee; Korean, Kanaka, and Chinese; Everybody whoever you be On the whole plantation— Wake up! Wake up! Wake up! w-ak-e-u-u-u-up! Br-r-row-aw-i-e-ur-ur-rup!
Source: “The Five O’Clock Whistle,” Kohala Midget, April 27, 1910.
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