“I Cannot Be a Slave” is from the Saint Michael’s College 2020/2021 production “Mill Girls.” This traditional rendition was arranged by Tom Cleary. This video is featured in the exhibit "From Roses to Raises," section: "Mill Girls 'Turn Out' in Lowell (1834-1836)"
[Video description: A stage production during COVID with all actors wearing masks. They are also dressed in white long-sleeve blouses and brown skirts, with aprons covering the front of their blouses and skirts. One young woman faces the audience providing an introduction to the song. Five other women are in the background and join together in song. One scrubs the floor with a brush; a water bucket is beside her. The others create an assembly line passing bobbins from one to the other while they sing.]
"As I recall the resolutions of the paper the young man had handed me, began to awaken to the injustices us factory girls must endure and remembered a song that had come to me once in a dream. Our song of fun had been transformed into an anthem which all mill girls can sing.
[Singing] Now, isn't it a pity such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to a factory to find a way and die?
Oh I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave
For I'm so fond of liberty
I cannot be a slave,
Now, isn't it a pity such a pretty girl as I
Should be sent to a factory to find a way and die?
Oh I cannot be a slave, I will not be a slave
For I'm so fond of liberty
I cannot be a slave.”
[By the end of the song, the actors are in two rows facing the audience.]