Question: where did he come from cotton eye joe

title: Cotton-Eyed Joe
text: The origins of this song are unclear , although it pre-dates the 1861 -- 1865 American Civil War . American folklorist Dorothy Scarborough ( 1878 -- 1935 ) noted in her 1925 book On the Trail of Negro Folk - songs , that several people remember hearing the song before the war . Scarborough 's account of the song came from her sister , Mrs. George Scarborough , who learned the song from `` the Negroes on a plantation in Texas , and other parts from a man in Louisiana . '' The man in Louisiana knew the song from his earliest childhood and heard slaves singing it on plantations . Both the dance and the song had many variants . American publishing house Harper and Brothers published a version in 1882 , heard by author Louise Clarke Pyrnelle ( born 1850 ) on the Alabama plantation of her father when she was a child , that was later republished in 1910 :