90 - The Shores of Hispaniola

Words by © Nancy Kerr
Tune by © Nancy Kerr

In 1562, John Hawkins set out on a voyage that would mark the beginning of the English slave trade. He left Plymouth to capture Africans along the Guinea Coast and sell them in the West Indies as cheap labourers on sugar and tobacco plantations. Some enslaved Africans were also sent to England. Queen Elizabeth personally supported Hawkins by lending him her 700-ton vessel, Jesus of Lubeck, for his 1564 slaving voyage.

Nancy Kerr wrote this song as part of the 2014 project, The Elizabethan Session, supported by the English Folk Dance and Song Society and Folk by the Oak. It imagines the grief and rage of a woman grieving for the captured father of her children. Nancy has kindly given us permission to reproduce the lyrics here.

They came in the night and their ships were as black as the ocean.
It was Hawkins the dread privateer and all of his crew.
They had whips they had shackles and cannons to serve Gloriana,
And they’ve taken my love to the shores of Hispaniola.

My love he was strong and he looked to his land and his children.
Proud, unfettered and free, he walked in the sun.
Now he’s bound for the darkness of England to serve Gloriana,
Or to spill out his blood on the shores of Hispaniola.

Well, Albion’s sailors are nothing but thieves on the water!
They have riches and gold in great store, but it’s none of their own.
They have saffron and sumac and rubies to feed Gloriana,
As red as the blood of the slaves on Hispaniola.

A curse on the pious and holy of glorious England!
You masters and martyrs attending to Albion’s soul,
Your vestments and sacraments sanctioned by fair Gloriana,
They are washed in the blood of the slaves of Hispaniola.

And I pray that the poor and the lowly of glorious England,
Your Turks and your vagabonds, Gypsies and masterless men,
Will tear down the walls of the castles of fair Gloriana,
That are built from the bones of the slaves of Hispaniola!

They came in the night and their ships were as black as the ocean.
It was Hawkins the dread privateer and all of his crew.
They had whips they had shackles and cannons to serve Gloriana,
And they’ve taken my love to the shores of Hispaniola.