[1] The manuscripts were added to the UNESCO Memory of the World international register, recognising documentary heritage of global importance, in 2017, nominated jointly by Barbados and the United Kingdom.

Dickson was a critic of the slave trade and published two books in 1789 and 1814 describing slave-owning society in the British West Indies.

[5][7] With Sharp's estate, the song sheet came into the possession of the Lloyd-Baker family, who donated it to the Gloucestershire Archives for safekeeping in 1977.

The researchers Rickford and Handler judged Dickson to be "a reliable recorder/interpreter of Black speech" based on his other transcriptions of oral texts.

[11] The Barbadian-born musician and musicologist Roger Gibbs saw an image of the manuscript in the exhibition and prompted its nomination to the UNESCO Memory of the World international register, which lists documentary heritage of global importance.

[4][2] According to the nomination, co-authored by Gibbs, the song "evokes tremendous pathos and suffering at the hands of a brutal colonial system and demonstrates the strength of spirit and resistance against overwhelming odds.

[6] In late 2024, the song inspired a series of public events in Gloucester examining the legacy of chattel slavery.

[3] The manuscript is part of the Hard Graft: Work, Health and Rights exhibition at the Wellcome Collection in London from September 2024 to April 2025.