John the Conqueror, more commonly known in African American folk literature as High John the Conqueror, is a folk hero largely revered for his ability to outwit his slave masters and his refusal to ever be tamed. Supposedly an African prince eventually sold into slavery, High John the Conqueror came to represent the trickster figure popularized in many forms of ethnic American literature from the oral traditions of the Native American peoples to the folktales of the African American slaves. Because of his ability to elude his master’s oppression, High John the Conqueror also came to represent an enduring spirit of freedom for the slaves. A time traveler and shape shifter, he would shelter the spirit of the slaves from the brutal beating of the lash, preventing the African American spirit from ever completely being broken by slavery. Thus a figure created within the collective black consciousness of the time, High John the Conqueror became a classic figure in black culture, appearing not only in the stories of the past but also in the blues music of artists such as Muddy Waters and Bessie Smith where his legacy has remained to this day.
In one particularly memorable story of this cherished folk hero, High John the Conqueror falls in love with the Devil’s daughter and is faced with a series of overwhelming challenges that he is asked to complete to win her hand. Charged with clearing sixty acres of land in half a day and then planting it with corn in the other, High John is faced with an impossible assignment similar to the unreasonable tasks that slaves faced toiling in the fields each day. As in the tale of Cupid and Psyche from Lucius Apuleius’s Latin text The Metamorphoses (also known as The Golden Ass), High John receives aid from his love, who gives him a magic axe and plow to complete her father’s arduous challenge. Facing the threat of imminent death, together High John and his beloved steal the Devil’s prized horses and use his shape-shifting powers to escape, thus solidifying his role in African American folk literature as not only a trickster but also a clever and courageous man—the bringer of hope and newfound possibilities in the face of seemingly insurmountable obstacles.
The character of High John the Conqueror was also heavily shaped by Zora Neale Hurston in a 1943 article published in the American Mercury and later reprinted in her 1981 posthumous text, The Sanctified Church. Here, Hurston tells the story of High John de Conqueror set back in the 1800s in the midst of slavery. From his creation representing a sense of undying hope and the promise of freedom, High John, in this tale, takes multiple forms, embodied in the laughter and song of the slaves. According to Hurston, High John de Conqueror set within the enslaved peoples an irresistible desire to laugh—an impulse so strong that it allowed the slaves to endure under the lash of the master and overseer. In her tale, Hurston suggests that the white slave owners were dumbfounded by this incessant laughter. Perhaps this undying spirit of laughter and song contributed, in part, to the stereotype of the contented slave popularized later in antebellum proslavery fiction.
Integral to the legend of High John the Conqueror, as Hurston reveals, is the fact that he was a veritable secret in the African American community. Slave owners and their families were not supposed to know about this trickster figure who sheltered the slaves from abuse. So while these white families and their children celebrated the laughable Brer Rabbit, Hurston suggests that it was merely High John de Conqueror in disguise, playing his usual tricks. In this way, High John afforded slaves the opportunity to triumph over slavery from within. While the body was battered and enslaved, through High John the Conqueror, the soul, the mind, and the spirit of the slave remained forever free, untainted by the cruel oppression of American chattel slavery. A source of courage as well as laughter for the larger black community, High John de Conqueror was a secret Hurston deemed worth sharing as a part of her mission to record the cultural stories of the African American past and a potential source of inspiration to white America. By featuring this tale of High John in her work, Hurston offered him as a necessary gift to the American people in the midst of the hardships of World War II.
Because of the similarities between tales, over time literary critics have suggested that the character of Brer Rabbit, heavily popularized through Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories, was ultimately patterned after the tales that slaves told of High John the Conqueror. Ever the cunning trickster, Brer Rabbit was similarly adapted from the cultural heroes of African folklore, using his clever tricks to outsmart the power of characters such as Brer Fox and Brer Wolf—direct parallels to the slave masters of the High John the Conqueror tales. Such cultural borrowing is significant as it reveals not only the similarities of folktales across cultures but also the similarities in how different groups of people understood the surrounding world. This also heavily relates to Native American folklore where the trickster and rabbit figures frequently appear as culture heroes too. The trickster figure has cemented his role in all different forms of American literature and culture, particularly the ethnic experience, with each culture offering a slightly different perspective.
High John the Conqueror is also associated, according to legend, with the John the Conqueror or John the Conqueroo root—part of the mojo bags of voodoo or African American folk magic. As depicted in the old folk tales, High John hid from the Devil in the form of this magical root, imparting many of his mythical powers within it. Because of this, the John the Conqueror root has become popular in hoodoo folk magic even today—a symbol of good luck for its wearers. In the past, however, this magical root was said to grant sexual prowess to men in addition to gambling luck. Combined with specific oils in a mojo bag, the John the Conqueror root would grant men sexual success with women and even had the power to attract. Together with its origination in the black folk tradition, High John the Conqueror therefore played a very significant role in African American culture in the past, coming to represent not only hope for those trapped within the throes of slavery but also the inherent joy of a people able to endure and outwit. Though just a myth in origination, High John the Conqueror in time came to represent something very real for the African American people: a unique, cultured, and utterly indestructible spirit.
Christopher Allen Varlack
See also Brer Rabbit; Great Hare; Hurston, Zora Neale; Superstitions; Trickster Rabbit; Tricksters, Native American; Uncle Remus; Voodoo
Further Reading
Hurston, Zora Neale. 1981. The Sanctified Church. New York: Marlowe.
Levine, Lawrence W. 2007. Black Culture and Black Consciousness: Afro-American Folk Thought from Slavery to Freedom. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Sanfield, Steve. 1989. The Adventures of High John the Conqueror. Little Rock, AR: August House.
John the Conqueror (High John the Conqueror)—Primary Document
Interview with a Voodoo Practitioner (1936)
In the late 1930s, the Franklin D. Roosevelt administration funded a program under the auspices of the Work Projects Administration (WPA) called the Federal Writers’ Project. One of its accomplishments is a collection of interviews of elderly former slaves. For three years, teams of interviewers fanned out across the South and documented the experiences of African Americans before it was too late to record them. In this interview, Carol Graham interviewed Marion Johnson of El Dorado, Arkansas, and learned about African American Voodoo beliefs and practices. The document is located in the WPA Slave Narrative Project, Arkansas Narratives, Volume 2, Part 4 in the Federal Writers’ Project, United States Work Projects Administration (USWPA), Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.
OCT 26 1936
Voodoo man
Uncle Marion Johnson, Ex-Slave.
“Yes young missey ah’ll sho tell you-all whit you wants ter know. Yes’m ole Uncle Marion sho kin. Mah price is fo’ bit fer one question. No’m, not fo’ bits fo th’ two uv yo but fo’ bits each. Yo say yo all ain’t got much money and yo all both wants ter know th’ same thing. Well ah reckon since yo all is been comin’ roun’ and tawkin’ to old Uncle Marion ah cud make hit answer th’ one question fuh both uv yo fuh fo’ bits ’tween yo. No’m ah caint bring hit out heah. Yo all will haft tuh come inside th’ house.”
(We went inside the house and Uncle Marion unwrapped his voodoo instrument which proved to be a small glass bottle about 2½ inches tall wrapped to the neck in pink washable adhesive tape and suspended from a dirty twine about six inches long. At the top of the twine was a slip knot and in a sly way Uncle Marion would twist the cord before asking the question. If the cord was twisted in one direction the bottle would swing in a certain direction and if the cord was twisted in the other direction the bottle would swing in the opposite direction. Uncle Marion thought that we did not observe this and of course we played dumb. By twisting the cord and slyly working the muscles of his arm Uncle Marion made his instrument answer his questions in the way that he wished them answered.)
“Now ifn the answer to huh question is yais swing towards huh and ifn taint be still. (The bottle slowly swung toward me.) Now missy see hit have done answered yo question and yo done seed hit say yes. Yes’m hit show em yes and yo’ jes wait and see ifn ole Uncle Marion aint right. Now yo jes answer the same question fuh tother young missy heah. Now ifn the answer is yais yo turn toward huh which am the opposite to which yo jes turn and ifn the answer is no sta’ still. (The bottle then slowly turned around and went in Mrs. Thompson’s direction.)
“Yo say whut do ah call did heah? Ah calls hit a “jack”. Yas’m hits a jack an’ hit sho will answer any question yo wants ter ask hit. No’m yo cuden ask hit yo-self. Ah would haft ter ask hit fer yo. An’ let me tell yo’ Uncle Marion sho kin help youall chillun. Ah kin help yo all ovah come the ruination uv yo home. Uncle Marion sho cain give yo a helping good luck hand. Ah cain help yo ovah come yo enemies.
“Now since ah knows yo young misses am in’erested an ah knows yo will sen’ othah fokes tuh me whut am in trouble ah am gointer tell yo all whut some uv mah magic remidies is so yo all kin tell fokes that ah have them yarbs (herbs) fuh sale. Yes’m ah has them yarbs right hea fuh sale and hit sho will work too.
“Now thar is High John the Conqueror Root. If’n yo totes one o’ them roots in yo pocket yo will nevah be widout money. No man. And you’ll always conquer yo troubles an yo enemies. An fokes can sho git them yarbs thru me. Efn Uncle Marion don’ have non on han’ he sho kin get em for em.
“Den dar is five finger grass, ah kin git dat fuh yo too. Ifn dat is hung up ovah th’ bedstid hit brings restful sleep and keeps off evil. Each one uv dem five fingahs stans for sumpin too. One stans fuh good luck, two fuh money, thee fuh wisdom, fo’ fuh power and five fuh love.
“Yas’m an ah kin buil’ a unseen wall aroun’ yo so as ter keep evil, jinx and enemies way fum yo and hit’ll bring heaps uv good luck too. The way ah does hit is this away: Ah takes High John the Conqueror Root and fixes apiece of red flannel so as ter make a sack and put hit in the sack along wid magnetic loadstone, five finger grass, van van oil, controllin’ powdah and drawin powdah and the seal uv powah. This heah mus be worn aroun the neck and sprinkle hit ever mornin fuh seven mornins wid three drops uv holy oil.
“Then theah is lucky han’ root. Hit looks jes like a human han’. If yo carries hit on yo person hit will shake yo jinx and make yo a winnah in all kinds o games and hit’ll help yo choose winnin numbers.”
Source: WPA Slave Narrative Project, Arkansas Narratives, Volume 2, Part 4 in the Federal Writers’ Project, United States Work Projects Administration (USWPA); Manuscript Division, Library of Congress.