Stace England has written a collection of songs that describe various scenarios that could have and did happen in and around the Wabash Salines. As one of the songs describes, we're not talking about digging up rock salt here; this process involved the rendering of salt from underground liquid saline deposits. This involved fires of extreme heat, which in turn meant hue amounts of wood to be burnt. "Three chords of wood to a pound of salt" is how one verse describes the work.
I don't know if you can begin to understand the amount of firewood that needed to be cut to keep the fires burning on a continual basis. Or, what it would have been like to work around open fires that were hot enough to bring saline water to a boil and keep it there until the water dissolved? As these folk were slaves, we can safely figure that little or nothing was done for their safety. Probably the only thing that bothered Mr. Crenshaw about injuries was the loss of labor.
Aside from the working conditions, Stace also writes about some of the colorful characters that were reportedly around at the time. There was Uncle Bob who was supposedly kept as a "Stud" and whose only job was to sleep with all the female slaves who were able to become pregnant. Then there was the slave who finally had enough and attacked Crenshaw with an axe but only managed to cut off his leg. Crenshaw outlasted the slave by a number of years as the man was hung that night for his troubles.
There's one tune on the disc that was written during the time of the Salt Slaves called "Freedom's Star." It's a beautiful song, about escaping from slavery on the Underground Railroad. The title refers to the North Star, used by all the escapees as their navigational reference point. A note says the song was taken from The Anti-Slavery Harp: A Collection Of Songs For Anti-Slavery Meetings compiled by William W. Brown an escaped slave in 1848.
There are two songs on this disc that carry a message from America's history to the people of today. When does the cost of producing something outweigh the need for it? In the song, "Rationalize" Stace talks about how a government convinces itself and the country's people that something is essential for the economy and must be acquired at any cost. You can always rationalize any amount of violence through the simple expedient of national security.
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