Bunkley, herself an African American woman, researched the complex history of another African American woman and imaginatively recreated and reclaimed it. In the excerpt below from a longer article that first appeared in 1996, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill English Professor Trudier Harris explains that history. Broadening perceptions of how texts are created and the purposes to which they are put provide the context, during the course of this paper, from which I want to explore West’s story and take issue with the assigning of heroic motives to her adventure. Forego a bottle of soda and donate its cost to us for the information you just learned, and feel good about helping to make it available to everyone!

Do you find this information helpful? We cannot say, “the song about Emily’s value is like…” because there is no immediately comparable “like:” What we can say is that the separation, the pain this composer felt, led him to create a song about a beautiful woman, one who became the center of his existence as well as his creativity.

I like to read “The Yellow Rose of Texas” as presaging that strand of African-American folklore. She’s the sweetest rose of color Trudier Harris, ‘“The Yellow Rose of Texas’: A Different Cultural View” in Juneteenth Texas: Essays in African-American Folklore, ed. The fact that she was “yellow” (mulatto) was less important to him than the human longings that are the essence of love. Bounty hunters and the pressures of the fast-approaching war for independence from Mexico interrupted their sustaining relationship. No other darky [sic knows her] Her presence or not at The Battle of San Jacinto has engaged many lively minds….In being transformed into a state icon, West loses the individuality of a personal life, but not the individuality of a symbol. Bunkley’s novelistic representation of the events provide motive, emotion, sentiment, and introspection to flesh out the bare bones of the presented history. Her name, the song, and the circumstances of Texan triumph become emblems of the best the American frontier had to offer…. All donations are tax deductible. Beats the belles of Tennessee. African American History: Research Guides & Websites, Global African History: Research Guides & Websites, African Americans and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, The Alma Stephenson Dever Page on Afro-britons, With Pride: Uplifting LGBTQ History On Blackpast, Preserving Martin Luther King County’s African American History, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Envoys, Diplomatic Ministers, & Ambassadors, African American Newspapers, Magazines, and Journals.

While many Americans are familiar with the song, “The Yellow Rose of Texas,” few know the story of Emily West, the African American woman who was the inspiration for its creation. I like to think that the composer of the song so revered the woman he compared to a rose that his choice of expressing her beauty through nature elevated her to a position of value that has few comparative patterns. And if I ever find her These rituals suggest the black women to whom they were addressed were viewed as special females indeed…. Colonel James Morgan, on whose plantation she worked as an indentured servant, established the little settlement of New Washington (later Morgan’s Point). This darky every knew

What fascinates about the story beyond its legendary proportions is its centering of an African-American woman in a significant piece of American history. Emily D. West, a teenage orphaned free Negro woman in the northeastern United States, journeyed by boat to the wilderness of Texas in 1835. Following are the first verse and the chorus: There’s a yellow rose in Texas

Only much later, in the mid-20th century, would West (sometimes misidentified as Emily Morgan) be linked with the popular song “The Yellow Rose of … Ultimately, “The Yellow Rose of Texas” is a fascinating study in elision, erasure, and transformation. According to Bunkley, a twenty year old orphaned Emily D. West journeyed to Texas in the hope that its status as Mexican territory would help her to realize more freedom than she had experienced in the so called free environment of New York. Her eyes are bright as diamonds The forced separation of the lover from his loved one, with the events of the war as backdrop, led to the composition of the song. A search through African American folklore reveals that few black women have been painted as desirable and sexually healthy persons. [Chorus] She's the sweetest rose of color this darky ever knew, Her eyes are bright as diamonds,they sparkle like the dew; More specifically, they deny the brutal fact of rape, which West experienced not only from Santa Anna, but from a Texas soldier as well. The black woman, Santa Anna, the black male composer, April 21,1836, The Battle of San Jacinto, the song—these are the people, the time, the place, the incident, and the creation surrounding it that have merged history, legend, biography, and musical composition.



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