Why We Shouldn't Forget Uncle Remus

Chevdove · July 27, 2023

By Frederick S. Church and James H. Moser - [1] (Note: Original edition featuring

this illustration published in 1881; scan this is taken from may be a slightly later

printing (this is unclear), but the image itself is identical to that which appeared

in the original 1881 edition, thus has the same copyright status)., Public Domain,

https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=99770852

Cropped image from the title page of Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folk-Lore of the Old Plantation, by Joel Chandler Harris. Illustrations by Frederick S. Church and James H. Moser. New York: D. Appleton and Company, 1881.

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I did a brief research to refresh my mind about the historical aspect of the name ‘Remus’ and why whenever I think about this name, I always associate it to a common name for Black Slave men during chattel slavery time. This subject came up due to a recent comment on another discussion thread. I was reminded of my past research and shared my thoughts in the discussion to Pioneer. I believe in ancient Roman times, the Romans developed a type of script format in which many words and phrases were written in reverse script. However, they were not the first civilization to this but it goes way back in time to the Egyptians and the Bible contains a lot of this feature as the prophets coded prophecy in this format. By Roman times, it became known as Palindrome and it was extensive. This method of script has been used to retain hidden definitions and therefore, I believe that the name ‘Remus’ is one such name that has a hidden historical aspect. I believe that this name was given to many Black slave men based on an historical hidden aspect that goes all the way back to Roman times and is associated with the ancient Romans’ Founder legend about the two brothers, Remus and Romulus. Furthermore, I also believe that this ancient Roman Founder story includes these two names because it symbolizes a hidden message of how the Romans exploited ancient Black people that were indigenous to ancient Europe.

I believe that the two names represent two distinct ‘Black peoples’ that coexisted in Italy and the Romans targeted them with a ‘divide-and-conquer-method, and systematically created conflicts that rose between them which led to them attacking each other. This is a repeated practice of infiltration and then extinction attempts that ancient Romans used in many ancient Black civilizations. The fact that this ancient legend defines the two Black men as being ‘brothers’ is extremely significant because most of the Black civilizations always developed with Black men who set up on a ‘brotherhood system’ and although their cultures were distinct, however, due to their practice of marriage alliances, there was always a common brotherhood bond in early civilizations. For this reason, I believe that the name ‘Remus’ signifies a type of Sumerian people (Sumer-Remus) and ‘Romulus’ signifies a type of Etruscan peoples (Moor-Sulu) of whom migrated into Italy from Syria and Turkey Anatolia around the 1200s BC and intermixed with Lusitanians. Fast forward to modern times, I believe that the name of ‘Remus’ carries a certain meaning in association to Black people and this may be why the author of The Song of the South chose the name ‘Uncle Remus’ to describe an ex-slave Black man as the central character to his stories.

The author, Joel Chandler Harris, a White man, lived on a plantation in Georgia and developed his stories from listening to the Black people that lived on this planation. He became well acquainted with the kind of pidgin language spoken by the Black Americans on this plantation and strongly believed that it was very important to preserve this Black cultural aspect of spoken language. His books and his rendition became very popular, however, some Black Americans became offended. And so, eventually, the Uncle Remus stories became a controversy of which may still be so today. Presently, some people believe that these stories should still be made available to the public and the history should continue to be preserved. The ancient Roman historical aspect of what I believe exist as an underlying factor and that has been kept completely hidden, therefore, I wonder why bother keeping it in the forefront today. In addition to the Uncle Remus stories of our modern times and the Disney special that came from it, however, in Europe there was another author that wrote a story called, The Life and Times of Remusa, and the ethnic aspect that seems to connect this story to the complete overthrow of the mysterious Etruscans in Rome seems surreal. That story revolves around a Slavic people, the Kashubians, in Poland and one major aspect of the story revolves around the comedic fashion in how the character speaks.

Although Uncle Remus’s name has its ultimate origins

n Rome’s Romulus and Remus legend, its more immediate

antecedent was an elderly Black gardener Harris met in

Forsyth, Georgia, where Harris had served from 1867 to

1870 as an editor for the Monroe Advertiser.