Sinners of Haw River

"What happens in Haw River is pretty dark but real. Shit like that happened and unfortunately still happens all the time in this country and around the world. The story is about fighting back, a girl standing up for her family, her sister and what is right."

(Chase Rice / facebook.com,  August 16, 2024)

When US Army Captain Richard Henry Pratt founded Carlile Indian Industrial School in the state of Pennsylvania in 1879, he actually wanted to end the racism of deporting Native Americans to reservations and instead integrate them into society. Assimilation instead of racial segregation.

But in a speech in Denver in 1892 he said how he intended to accomplish this: "A great general has said that the only good Indian is a dead one. In a sense, I agree with the sentiment, but only in this: that all the Indian there is in the race should be dead. Kill the Indian in him, and save the man."

This idea became the central theme of a nearly 100-year history of suffering caused by the Native American Boarding Schools run by missionaries and the government. Native American children were forced into these schools, where they were forbidden, under physical punishment, to speak their language, wear their clothes and practice their customs and traditions. Although there were also reportedly positive examples, these schools became places of intimidation, sexual abuse and outbreaks of diseases such as measles and tuberculosis. It was not until 1969 that the last official Native American Boarding School eventually closed down.

Chase Rice was actually born in Florida in 1985. But he grew up in Asheville, North Carolina. A state through which the Haw River flows. On the banks of it German immigrant Adam Trollinger built a first homestead in 1745. This was later to become the town of Haw River. And in neighboring Burlington the Battle of Alamance between Great Britain and rebels (the so-called Reguators) took place in 1771.

When Chase Rice released the song 'Haw River' on August 16, 2024 as a first upfront single to his current album "Go Down Singin'", it was created on some of these moments. Written together with Blake Pendergrass, Chase Rice describes the story of how the song came about: "We met a girl who said, 'I'm Kayla from Haw River,' and my ears just went up. Blake then said, 'We should make that a murder ballad…'." 

And on Instagram he added: "Christians tried to convert Native Americans to be Christians. They did that, that was a thing. And they were fucking ruthless about it!" Reason enough to make it the central theme for the song.

Before Alamance was Alamance, white man rolled in with the current.
He brought his guns, brought his God, and some brimstone-fire insurance.
He took 'em down by the river to pray,
but it wasn't their sins he'd take.

 

She said, "Come now, I'm your black-haired sinner
Come down, get your soul delivered".
Dropped that hammer when she squeezed that trigger,
sent his ass down that Haw River.

(Haw River / Blake Pendergrass, Chase Rice)