Inkle and Yarico. S. Hutchinson, 1793.INKLE AND YARICO [1]. AKA and see "Come Dance and Sing," "Come Let Us Dance and Sing," "Belle Catharine (1) (La)," "Muffin Man (The)," "Shrewsbury Quarry," "Sixteenth of October." English, Reel. C Major. Standard tuning (fiddle). AABB. Wikipedia:Inkle_and_Yarico is a comic opera staged in London, England, in August 1787, with music by Samuel Arnold and a libretto by George Colman the Younger. It tells the story, first mentioned in Richard Ligon's The True and Exact History of the island of Barbadoes (1657), of an Amerindian slave girl called Yarico, whom he met at Kendal Plantation. Yarico had saved the life of an English merchant who had been abandoned in her country by a shore party from his ship, following an attack by Amerindian warriors. She looked after him for some months and they fell in love. When another boat arrived he saw an opportunity to continue his journey to Barbados and persuaded Yarico to come with him. During the voyage he had a change of heart and on arrival in Bridgetown sold her as a slave. To quote Ligon "And so poor Yarico for love, lost her liberty". There is no indication from Ligon’s text if his account of Yarico is based on actual people or simply an allegory for how the English treated the native Carib people on Barbados. The play was the one of the rotating main pieces at the Haymarket Theatre, 1787-1789.
Additional notes
Printed sources : - Harding's All Round Collection, 1905; No. 110, p. 35.
