Between 1885 and 1894 The Montgomery Advertiser, The Birmingham-Age Herald, and The New Orleans Times Democrat featured a series of about 80 humorous black-dialect sketches by Robert Wilton Burton, a bookseller and writer from Auburn, Alabama. According to Burton, these tales were based on various characters in the black community of Auburn, and 36 of them were devoted exclusively to a character called "Marengo Jake." Probably originally from Virginia, Jake Mitchell was brought to the Drake Plantation in Marengo county as a boy in the 1850's. After the Civil War, the Drake family moved to Auburn and many former slaves followed, forming a fairly large expatriate Marengo County community. The theme of the stories, usually related by Jake, centers on the superiority of all things from Marengo County, especially over those in Lee County, in which Auburn is located.
IntroductionA Note on the TextsThe “Marengo Jake” StoriesM'rengerM'reener: How Uncle Jake Interviewed a “High-Drawin”' RamMarengo Mud: Old Jake's Story of the Bottomless SloughThree Little Boys and Three Little FishesMarengo Jake Plays Another Trick on the Three BoysSeismic Phenomena—Explained by a Marengo ScientistChristmas in MarengoJake and Miss EmmerTripping JakeThe Marengo PrestidigitatorMarengo Jake: A Romance of Four-and-Twenty BlackbirdsJake CorneredA True Story: How Marengo Jake Elected ClevelandMarengo Jake: He Tells About a Famous “Dry Drought”Marengo Jake: An Incident of the Wet Drouth in M'ringerA Marengo RunawayDick and the DevilA M'ringer Rat StoryOld Time ChristmasA Pig TaleAn Ass in a Lion's SkinBirmingham DirtLooking BackwardA Mule as Was a MuleAn Eating MatchJake's New HouseA Legend: How Clarke Played It on MarengoUnderground FarmingJake's SensesJake Heard FromA Lesson in Natural HistoryMiss Mary; or, The Value of EducationA Model SchoolMosquitoes of MarengoLightningAn Abridged Narrative
Kathryn M. Sport is a teacher in Pensacola, Florida. Bert Hitchcock is Professor of English at Auburn University.
