Item #25662 Y Negro Du, a gyfansoddwyd gan Dai'r Cantwr pan oedd yn alltud [The Negro, composed in exile by David the Singer']. Australia, Convicts, Tasmania, David Davies, c.
Y Negro Du, a gyfansoddwyd gan Dai'r Cantwr pan oedd yn alltud [The Negro, composed in exile by David the Singer'].

Y Negro Du, a gyfansoddwyd gan Dai'r Cantwr pan oedd yn alltud [The Negro, composed in exile by David the Singer'].

Late 19th century. A printed Victorian street ballad by David Davies, was a Welsh poet known as Dai'r Cantwr (David the Singer), transported to Van Diemen's Land for his part in the Rebecca Riots in 1843, and transported to Van Diemen's Land on a twenty-year sentence the following year. He received his ticket of leave in 1854, and appears to have died, still in Tasmania, twenty years later. No copies of the ballad are recorded in Australia according to Trove.

"David Davies alias Dai Cantwr" is recorded in "Tasmania, Australia, Convict Court and Selected Records, 1800-1899 at Carmarthen, Special Assize. 22 Decr (1843), Ship London
Reference Number CON22-1-5.

The imagery of the 6th stanza describes his arrival in Tasmania, rather inelegantly translated-
Mi fum yn hir ar gesnfor
Yn teithio tua'r fan,
Pan own mewn golwg harbwr,
Gwyr duon ar y lan,
Yn barod oll I'n prynu
I bant I'r wlad yn llu,
I fod mewn trwm gaethiwed
Yn gwlad y Negro du.

I was long on a bank
Traveling to the van,
When own a harbor view,
Black men on the shore,
Already all bought
To the country of the host,
To be in heavy bondage
In the land of the black Negro

4pp, without either date or publication details. 16mo (15 x 9 cm). Paginated [1]-4. Bifolium. Poem of twelve eight-line stanzas. The title translates as 'The Negro, composed in exile by David the Singer'. OCLC: 669219659 lists only one copy, at the Roderic Bowen Library of the University of Wales, but the description appears to indicate a different printing. The National Library of Wales is likely to possess a copy among the several versions it holds. No copies held in Australia according to Trove, citing only a 2009 reprint "A Rebecca In Tasmania: the lamentations of David Davies, Welsh convict..." by Hugh Anderson.

A frail survival, heavily aged and worn. Item #25662

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