who wrote the rhyme baa baa black sheep
Baa, Baa, Black Sheep As with many nursery rhymes, attempts have been made to find origins and meanings for the rhyme, most which have no corroborating evidence.[1] Katherine Elwes Thomas in The Real Personages of Mother Goose (1930) suggested that the rhyme referred to resentment at the heavy taxation on wool.[5] This has particularly been taken to refer to the medieval English "Great" or "Old Custom" wool tax of 1275, which survived until the fifteenth century.[1] More recently the rhyme has been connected to the slave trade, particularly in the southern United States.[6] This explanation was advanced during debates over political correctness and the use and reform of nursery rhymes in the 1980s, but has no supporting historical evidence.[7] Rather than being negative, the wool of black sheep may have been prized as it could be made into dark cloth without dyeing.[6]