. . "Michael, Row The Boat Ashore" . "12"^^ . "2014-01-01"^^ . "150000.0"^^ . . "GBLGL1036209" . "170314"^^ . "Harry Belafonte songs" . "Trini Lopez songs" . "19th-century songs" . "76851" . "english" . "Michael Row The Boat Ashore" . . "American folk songs" . "c480b6d3-a77b-4969-a489-4d8ee724e89c" . "false"^^ . "Roud Folk Song Index songs" . . "false"^^ . "true"^^ . "1961 singles" . "Number-one singles in Norway" . "-0.0135392"^^ . . . "0.326021"^^ . "%22Michael, Row the Boat Ashore%22 (or %22Michael Rowed the Boat Ashore%22 or %22Michael, Row Your Boat Ashore%22 or %22Michael Row That Gospel Boat%22) is a negro spiritual. It was first noted during the American Civil War at St. Helena Island, one of the Sea Islands of South Carolina. It is cataloged as Roud Folk Song Index No. 11975.It was sung by former slaves whose owners had abandoned the island before the Union navy arrived to enforce a blockade. Charles Pickard Ware, an abolitionist and Harvard graduate who had come to supervise the plantations on St. Helena Island from 1862 to 1865, wrote the song down in music notation as he heard the freedmen sing it. Ware's cousin, William Francis Allen, reported in 1863 that while he rode in a boat across Station Creek, the former slaves sang the song as they rowed.The song was first published in Slave Songs of the United States, by Allen, Ware, and Lucy McKim Garrison, in 1867." . . . "2"^^ . "36973901" . . "Billboard Adult Contemporary number-one singles" . "5714dee725ac0d8aee537c9a" . "Billboard Hot 100 number-one singles" . "Pete Seeger songs" . "UK Singles Chart number-one singles" . .