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138-449: At the time of the novel's initial publication in 1851, Uncle Tom was a rejection of the existing stereotypes of minstrel shows ; Stowe's melodramatic story humanized the suffering of slavery for white audiences by portraying Tom as a young, strong Jesus-like figure who is ultimately martyred, beaten to death by a cruel master (Simon Legree) because he refuses to betray the whereabouts of two women who had escaped from slavery. Stowe reversed

276-423: A claimant 's sworn testimony of ownership. Habeas corpus was declared irrelevant. The Commissioner before whom the fugitive from slavery was brought for a hearing—no jury was permitted, and the alleged refugee from enslavement could not testify —was compensated $ 10 (equivalent to $ 370 in 2023) if he found that the individual was proven a fugitive and only $ 5 (equivalent to $ 180 in 2023) if he determined

414-574: A slave power conspiracy. It required that all escaped slaves, upon capture, be returned to the enslaver and that officials and citizens of free states had to cooperate. The Act contributed to the growing polarization of the country over the issue of slavery. It was one of the factors that led to the American Civil War . By 1843, several hundred enslaved people a year escaped to the North successfully, making slavery an unstable institution in

552-436: A " Tom show ," lampooned and distorted the portrayal of Uncle Tom with politically loaded overtones. American copyright law before 1856 did not give novel authors any control over derivative stage adaptations, so Stowe neither approved the adaptations nor profited from them. Minstrel show retellings in particular, usually performed by white men in blackface , tended to be derisive and pro-slavery , transforming Uncle Tom from

690-541: A Christian martyr to a fool or apologist for slavery. The performer and theatre manager George Kunkel was the first to adapt Stowe's novel into the minstrel show format; portraying the role of Uncle Tom in its first minstrel show adaptation in Charleston, South Carolina in 1861. Kunkel became the most prominent minstrel show performer in that part, performing it throughout the United States for decades and on

828-406: A balloon and wait for the world to rotate below. Highly musical and unable to sit still, they constantly contorted their bodies wildly while singing. Tambo and Bones's simple-mindedness and lack of sophistication were highlighted by pairing them with a straight man master of ceremonies called the interlocutor . This character, although usually in blackface, spoke in aristocratic English and used

966-462: A civic leader. Stowe read the first edition of Henson's narrative and later confirmed that she had incorporated elements from it into Uncle Tom's Cabin . Kentucky and New Orleans figure in both Henson's narrative and the novel's settings, and some other story elements are similar. In the public imagination, however, Henson became synonymous with Uncle Tom. After Stowe's death her son and grandson claimed she and Henson had met before Uncle Tom's Cabin

1104-716: A common target for male characters, although she usually proved capricious and elusive. After the Civil War, the wench emerged as the most important specialist role in the minstrel troupe; men could alternately be titillated and disgusted, while women could admire the illusion and high fashion. The role was most strongly associated with the song " Miss Lucy Long ", so the character many times bore that name. Actress Olive Logan commented that some actors were "marvelously well fitted by nature for it, having well-defined soprano voices, plump shoulders, beardless faces, and tiny hands and feet." Many of these actors were teen-aged boys. In contrast

1242-708: A concert at the New York Bowery Amphitheatre , calling themselves the Virginia Minstrels . The minstrel show as a complete evening's entertainment was born. The show had little structure. The four sat in a semicircle, played songs, and traded wisecracks. One gave a stump speech in dialect, and they ended with a lively plantation song. The term minstrel had previously been reserved for traveling white singing groups, but Emmett and company made it synonymous with blackface performance, and by using it, signalled that they were reaching out to

1380-603: A cruel and inhuman institution. However, in the 1850s, minstrelsy became more pro-slavery as political and satirical content was toned down or removed entirely. Most minstrels projected a greatly romanticized and exaggerated image of black life with cheerful, simple slaves always ready to sing and dance and to please their masters. (Less frequently, the masters cruelly split up black lovers or sexually assaulted black women.) The lyrics and dialogue were generally racist, satiric, and largely white in origin. Songs about slaves yearning to return to their masters were plentiful. Figures like

1518-440: A difficult profession. When playing Southern towns, performers had to stay in character off stage, dressed in ragged "slave clothes" and perpetually smiling. Troupes left town quickly after each performance, and some had so much trouble securing lodging that they hired whole trains or had custom sleeping cars built, complete with hidden compartments to hide in should things turn ugly. Even these were no haven, as whites sometimes used

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1656-719: A drunken black man in a 1769 staging of The Padlock . Later research by Cockrell and others disputes this claim. Eventually, similar performers appeared in entr'actes in New York City theaters and other venues such as taverns and circuses. As a result, the blackface " Sambo " character came to supplant the "tall-tale-telling Yankee " and "frontiersman" character-types in popularity, and white actors such as Charles Mathews , George Washington Dixon , and Edwin Forrest began to build reputations as blackface performers. Author Constance Rourke even claimed that Forrest's impression

1794-417: A graver ill than the treatment of black slaves—or by a less class-conscious rhetoric of "productive" versus "unproductive" elements of society. On the other hand, views on slavery were fairly evenly presented in minstrelsy, and some songs even suggested the creation of a coalition of working blacks and whites to end the institution. Among the appeals and racial stereotypes of early blackface performance were

1932-523: A jury trial before alleged fugitive slaves could be moved; others forbade the use of local jails or the assistance of state officials in arresting or returning alleged fugitive slaves. In some cases, juries refused to convict individuals who had been indicted under the Federal law. The Missouri Supreme Court routinely held, with the laws of neighboring free states, that enslaved people whom their enslavers had voluntarily transported into free states, with

2070-433: A law prohibiting county jails from being used to detain recaptured slaves, directing county prosecutors to defend recaptured slaves, and entitling recaptured slaves to habeas corpus and trial by jury . Other states to pass personal liberty laws include Connecticut , Massachusetts , Maine , New Hampshire , Ohio , Pennsylvania and Wisconsin . The Fugitive Slave Law brought the issue home to anti-slavery citizens in

2208-414: A mere three troupes dominated the scene. A key cause was rising salary costs, which for the leading companies had risen from $ 400 a week in the 1860s to $ 2500 a week in 1912, far too high to be profitable in most cases, especially with the rise of motion pictures, which could easily outcompete the touring minstrel shows on ticket prices. Small companies and amateurs carried the traditional minstrel show into

2346-426: A much larger vocabulary. The humor of these exchanges came from the misunderstandings on the part of the endmen when talking to the interlocutor: Tambo and Bones were favorites of the audience, and their repartee with the interlocutor was for many the best part of the show. There was an element of laughing with them for the audience, as they frequently made light of the interlocutor's grandiose ways. The interlocutor

2484-612: A new, middle-class audience. The Herald wrote that the production was "entirely exempt from the vulgarities and other objectionable features, which have hitherto characterized Negro extravaganzas." In 1845, the Ethiopian Serenaders purged their show of low humor and surpassed the Virginia Minstrels in popularity. Shortly thereafter, Edwin Pearce Christy founded Christy's Minstrels , combining

2622-401: A pattern that had been pioneered by Rice, minstrelsy united workers and "class superiors" against a common black enemy, symbolized especially by the character of the black dandy. In this same period, the class-conscious but racially inclusive rhetoric of " wage slavery " was largely supplanted by a racist one of "white slavery". This suggested that the abuses against northern factory workers were

2760-534: A putative freeman named Daniel Webster was arrested in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania , alleged to be Daniel Dangerfield, an escaped slave from Loudoun County, Virginia . At a hearing in Philadelphia, federal commissioner J. Cooke Longstreth ordered Webster's release, arguing the claimants had not proved that he was Dangerfield. Webster promptly left for Canada. One important consequence was that Canada, not

2898-443: A racial double standard in the idealization of Uncle Tom: Uncle Tom's character is sketched with great power and rare religious perception. It triumphantly exemplifies the nature, tendency, and results of Christian non-resistance. We are curious to know whether Mrs. Stowe is a believer in the duty of non-resistance for the white man, under all possible outrage and peril, as for the black man ... [For whites in parallel circumstances, it

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3036-534: A repertoire drawing heavily on Shakespeare. A rival theater company paid people to "riot" and cause disturbances at the theater, and it was shut down by the police when neighbors complained of the commotion. White, working-class Northerners could identify with the characters portrayed in early blackface performances. This coincided with the rise of groups struggling for workingman's nativism and pro-Southern causes, and faux black performances came to confirm pre-existing racist concepts and to establish new ones. Following

3174-474: A send-up of a popular play. Minstrel songs and sketches featured several stock characters, most popularly the slave and the dandy. These were further divided into sub-archetypes such as the mammy , her counterpart the old darky , the provocative mulatto wench, and the black soldier. Minstrels claimed that their songs and dances were authentically black, although the extent of the genuine black influence remains debated. Spirituals (known as jubilees ) entered

3312-498: A small part of the repertoire. This effect was amplified as minstrelsy featuring black performers took off in its own right and stressed its connection to the old plantations. The main target of criticism was the moral decay of the urbanized North. Cities were painted as corrupt, as homes to unjust poverty, and as dens of "city slickers" who lay in wait to prey upon new arrivals. Minstrels stressed traditional family life; stories told of reunification between mothers and sons thought dead in

3450-569: A state judicial process, parallel to the federal process, for people accused of being fugitive slaves. This law rendered the federal Fugitive Slave Act effectively unenforceable in Vermont and caused a storm of controversy nationally. It was considered a nullification of federal law, a concept popular among slave states that wanted to nullify other aspects of federal law, and was part of highly charged debates over slavery. Noted poet and abolitionist John Greenleaf Whittier had called for such laws, and

3588-514: A stir in variety shows, and Madame Rentz's Female Minstrels ran with the idea, first performing in 1870 in skimpy costumes and tights, the scantily clad women being the real attraction. Their success gave rise to at least 11 all-female troupes by 1871, one of which did away with blackface altogether. Ultimately, the girlie show emerged as a form in its own right. Mainstream minstrelsy continued to emphasize its propriety and "fun without vulgarity", but traditional troupes adopted some of these elements in

3726-529: A tour of England in 1883. His last performance of the part was in January 1885 less than a month before his death. Adapted theatrical performances of the novel, called Tom Shows , remained in continual production in the United States for at least 80 years beyond the 1850s (1930s). These representations had a lasting cultural impact and influenced the pejorative nature of the term Uncle Tom in later popular use. Although not every minstrel depiction of Uncle Tom

3864-516: A woman with "lips so large a lover could not kiss them all at once". They had huge feet and preferred "possum" and "coon" to more civilized fare. Minstrel characters were often described in animalistic terms, with "wool" instead of hair, "bleating" like sheep, and having "darky cubs" instead of children. Other claims were that blacks had to drink ink when they got sick "to restore their color" and that they had to file their hair rather than cut it. They were inherently musical, dancing and frolicking through

4002-591: Is a kind of stereotype that doesn't advance the interests of blacks. He reiterated this position at his talk at Northeastern." Bamboozled challenges notions of "Uncle Toming" or "acting white" as well as demonstrating the concept of double-consciousness coined by the notable sociologist W. E. B. Du Bois in his book The Souls of Black Folk (1903). Also see the Emmy Award -winning 1987 documentary film Ethnic Notions by Black gay filmmaker Marlon Riggs narrated by actor Esther Rolle . The documentary narrates

4140-434: Is often said] Talk not of overcoming evil with good – it is madness! Talk not of peacefully submitting to chains and stripes – it is base servility! Talk not of servants being obedient to their masters – let the blood of tyrants flow! How is this to be explained or reconciled? Is there one law of submission and non-resistance for the black man, and another of rebellion and conflict for

4278-618: The border states . The earlier Fugitive Slave Act of 1793 was a Federal law that was written with the intent to enforce Article 4, Section 2, Clause 3 of the United States Constitution , which required the return of escaped slaves. It sought to force the authorities in free states to return fugitives of enslavement to their enslavers. Many free states wanted to disregard the Fugitive Slave Act. Some jurisdictions passed personal liberty laws , mandating

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4416-529: The endmen or cornermen . The interlocutor acted as a master of ceremonies and as a dignified, if pompous, straight man. He had a somewhat aristocratic demeanor, a "codfish aristocrat", while the endmen exchanged jokes and performed a variety of humorous songs. Over time, the first act came to include maudlin numbers not always in dialect. One minstrel, usually a tenor , came to specialize in this part; such singers often became celebrities, especially with women. Initially, an upbeat plantation song and dance ended

4554-501: The 1820s, blackface performers called themselves "Ethiopian delineators"; from then into the early 1840s, unlike the later heyday of minstrelsy, they performed either solo or in small teams. Blackface soon found a home in the taverns of New York's less respectable precincts of Lower Broadway , the Bowery , and Chatham Street . It also appeared on more respectable stages, most often as an entr'acte . Upper class houses at first limited

4692-575: The 20th century the minstrel show enjoyed but a shadow of its former popularity, having been replaced for the most part by the Vaudeville style of theatre. The form survived as professional entertainment until about 1910; amateur performances continued until the 1960s in high schools and local theaters. The genre has had a lasting legacy and influence and was featured in the British television series The Black and White Minstrel Show as recently as

4830-475: The 20th century, now with an audience mostly in the rural South, while black-owned troupes continued traveling to more outlying areas like the West. These black troupes were one of minstrelsy's last bastions, as more white actors moved into vaudeville. (Community amateur blackface minstrel shows persisted in northern New York State into the 1960s. The University of Vermont banned the minstrel-like Kake Walk as part of

4968-689: The African American characters and for the risks Stowe assumed in taking a very public stand against slavery before abolitionism had become a socially acceptable cause, and others criticizing the very limited terms upon which those characters's humanity was affirmed and the artistic shortcomings of political melodrama. A specific impetus for the novel was the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 , which imposed heavy fines upon law enforcement personnel in Northern states if they refused to assist

5106-528: The Alabama Porchmonkeys . Lee's use of popular celebrities as satirical stock characters challenged long-held stereotypes of Black people in mainstream popular culture from novels to the screen. Casting hip-hop artists also allowed the filmmaker to allude to the role of negative stereotyping gangsta rap in the early aughts: "Spike Lee says in the DVD commentary [about Bamboozled ] that gangsta rap

5244-435: The Civil War and merged qualities of the slave and the dandy. He was acknowledged for playing some role in the war, but he was more frequently lampooned for bumbling through his drills or for thinking his uniform made him the equal of his white counterparts. He was usually better at retreating than fighting, and, like the dandy, he preferred partying to serious pursuits. Still, his introduction allowed for some return to themes of

5382-1233: The Civil War. New entertainments such as variety shows, musical comedies and vaudeville appeared in the North, backed by master promoters like P. T. Barnum who wooed audiences away. Blackface troupes responded by traveling farther and farther afield, with their primary base now in the South and Midwest. By 1883 there were no resident minstrel troupes in New York, only performances by travelling troupes. Those minstrels who stayed in New York and similar cities followed Barnum's lead by advertising relentlessly and emphasizing spectacle. Troupes ballooned; as many as 19 performers could be on stage at once, and J. H. Haverly 's United Mastodon Minstrels had over 100 members. Scenery grew lavish and expensive, and specialty acts such as strongmen, acrobats, or circus freaks sometimes appeared. These changes made minstrelsy unprofitable for smaller troupes. Minstrel troupes, which previously had tended to be owned by performers, now tended to be owned by professional managers such as Haverly. Other minstrel troupes tried to satisfy different, less socially acceptable tastes. Female acts had made

5520-558: The Confederacy. Lincoln allowed Butler to continue his policy but countermanded broader directives issued by other Union commanders that freed all enslaved people in places under their control. In August 1861, the U.S. Congress enacted the Confiscation Act of 1861 , which barred enslavers from re-enslaving captured fugitives who were forced to aid or abet the insurrection. The legislation, sponsored by Lyman Trumbull ,

5658-569: The Ethiopian Opera House and the like. Many amateur troupes performed only a few local shows before disbanding. Meanwhile, celebrities like Emmett continued to perform solo. The rise of the minstrel show coincided with the growth of the abolitionist movement. Many Northerners were concerned for the oppressed blacks of the South, but most had no idea how these slaves lived day-to-day. Blackface performance had been inconsistent on this subject; some slaves were happy, others victims of

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5796-552: The Fugitive Slave Law to use force to free them. Other famous examples include Shadrach Minkins in 1851 and Lucy Bagby in 1861, whose forcible return has been cited by historians as important and "allegorical". Pittsburgh abolitionists organized groups whose purpose was the seizure and release of any enslaved person passing through the city, as in the case of a free Black servant of the Slaymaker family, erroneously

5934-502: The North and the South than all the other causes put together. In response to the weakening of the original Fugitive Slave Act, Democratic Senator James M. Mason of Virginia drafted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which penalized officials who did not arrest someone allegedly escaping from slavery, and made them liable to a fine of $ 1,000 (equivalent to $ 36,620 in 2023). Law enforcement officials everywhere were required to arrest people suspected of escaping enslavement on as little as

6072-535: The North, as it made them and their institutions responsible for enforcing slavery. "Where before many in the North had little or no opinions or feelings on slavery, this law seemed to demand their direct assent to the practice of human bondage, and it galvanized Northern sentiments against slavery." Moderate abolitionists were faced with the immediate choice of defying what they believed to be an unjust law or breaking with their consciences and beliefs. Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852) in response to

6210-448: The Northern dandy and the homesick ex-slave reinforced the idea that blacks did not belong, nor did they want to belong, in Northern society. Adaptations of Uncle Tom's Cabin sprang up rapidly after its publication (all were unlicensed by Harriet Beecher Stowe, who refused to sell the theatrical rights for any sum). While all incorporated some elements of minstrelsy, their content varied significantly, from serious productions retaining

6348-556: The Northern free states, became the foremost destination for escaped slaves. The Black population of Canada increased from 40,000 to 60,000 between 1850 and 1860, and many reached freedom by the Underground Railroad . Notable Black publishers, such as Henry Bibb and Mary Ann Shadd , created publications encouraging emigration to Canada. By 1855, an estimated 3,500 people among Canada's Black population were fugitives from American slavery. In Pittsburgh, for example, during

6486-651: The Penitentiary on the hill; but if they did such a foolish thing as that I had friends enough in Onondaga County to level it to the ground before the next morning. Several years before, in the Jerry Rescue , Syracuse abolitionists freed by force a fugitive slave who was to be sent back to the South and successfully smuggled him to Canada. Thomas Sims and Anthony Burns were both captured fugitives who were part of unsuccessful attempts by opponents of

6624-463: The September following the passage of the law, organized groups of escaped slaves, armed and sworn to "die rather than be taken back into slavery", set out for Canada, with more than 200 men leaving by the end of the month. The Black population in New York City dropped by almost 2,000 from 1850 to 1855. On the other hand, many Northern businessmen supported the law due to their commercial ties with

6762-621: The Southern states. They founded the Union Safety Committee and raised thousands of dollars to promote their cause, which gained sway, particularly in New York City, and caused public opinion to shift somewhat towards supporting the law. In the early stages of the American Civil War , the Union had no established policy on people escaping from slavery. Many enslaved people left their plantations heading for Union lines. Still, in

6900-808: The Uncle Tom story demonstrate an impulse to correct the retellers's perceptions of its flaws" and of "the capacity of the novel to irritate and rankle, even a century and a half after its first publication." Spike Lee 's 2000 film Bamboozled was a dark modern satire or comedy drama that challenges this kind of negative stereotyping. The film featured popular Black actors such as Damon Wayans as Pierre "Peerless Dothan" Delacroix and Jada Pinkett Smith as Sloan Hopkins, comedians such as Tommy Davidson as Womack "Sleep 'n Eat" and Paul Mooney as Junebug, and hip hop artists such as Yasiin Bey formerly known as Mos Def as Julius "Big Blak Afrika" Hopkins and The Roots as

7038-588: The Whittier controversy heightened pro-slavery reactions to the Vermont law. Virginia governor John B. Floyd warned that nullification could push the South toward secession. At the same time, President Millard Fillmore threatened to use the army to enforce the Fugitive Slave Act in Vermont. No test events took place in Vermont, but the rhetoric of this flare-up echoed South Carolina's 1832 nullification crisis and Thomas Jefferson's 1798 Kentucky Resolutions . In February 1855, Michigan 's legislature also passed

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7176-546: The abolitionist serial and first book edition degenerated into a decrepit old man, and with that transformation the character lost the capacity for resistance that had originally given meaning to his choices. Stowe never meant Uncle Tom to be a derided name, but the term, as a pejorative, has developed based on how later versions of the character, stripped of his inherent strength, were depicted on stage. Claire Parfait, author of The Publishing History of Uncle Tom's Cabin, 1852–2002, opined that "the many alterations in retellings of

7314-578: The act; later it was more common for the first act to end with a walkaround , including dances in the style of a cakewalk . The second portion of the show, called the olio , was historically the last to evolve, as its real purpose was to allow for the setting of the stage for act three behind the curtain. It had more of a variety show structure. Performers danced, played instruments, did acrobatics, and demonstrated other amusing talents. Troupes offered parodies of European-style entertainments, and European troupes themselves sometimes performed. The highlight

7452-525: The audience, although the focus was usually on sending up unpopular issues and making fun of blacks' inability to make sense of them. Many troupes employed a stump specialist with a trademark style and material. The afterpiece rounded out the production. In the early days of the minstrel show, this was often a skit set on a Southern plantation that usually included song-and-dance numbers and featured Sambo- and Mammy-type characters in slapstick situations. The emphasis lay on an idealized plantation life and

7590-455: The banjo. The New Orleans Picayune wrote that a singing New Orleans street vendor called Old Corn Meal would bring "a fortune to any man who would start on a professional tour with him". Rice responded by adding a "Corn Meal" skit to his act. Meanwhile, there had been several attempts at legitimate black stage performance, the most ambitious probably being New York's African Grove theater, founded and operated by free blacks in 1821, with

7728-416: The book's antislavery message like that of George Aiken 's, to minstrel show parodies which generally excised characters such as the cruel master Simon Legree, retaining only the "plantation frolics", differing from earlier minstrel shows only in name, to outright condemnation of Stowe as uninterested in the suffering of the white working class. " Tom shows " continued into the 20th century, continuing to blend

7866-484: The breakup of the plantation family. Fugitive Slave Act of 1850 The Fugitive Slave Act or Fugitive Slave Law was a law passed by the 31st United States Congress on September 18, 1850, as part of the Compromise of 1850 between Southern interests in slavery and Northern Free-Soilers . The Act was one of the most controversial elements of the 1850 compromise and heightened Northern fears of

8004-411: The cars for target practice. Their salaries, though higher than those of most blacks of the period, failed to reach levels earned by white performers; even superstars like Kersands earned slightly less than featured white minstrels. Most black troupes did not last long. In content, early black minstrelsy differed little from its white counterpart. As the white troupes drifted from plantation subjects in

8142-478: The character of Othello being traditionally played by an actor in black makeup, the minstrel show as such has later origins. By the late 18th century, blackface characters began appearing on the American stage, usually as "servant" types whose roles did little more than provide some element of comic relief. Lewis Hallam is frequently cited as the first actor to perform in blackface based on an impression he did of

8280-519: The cheaper side of outdoor shows for the paying masses. Such traveling medicine shows also employed a Negro band and minstrels, including both men and women. Museums were set up to appeal to the low income audience, housing freak shows, wax sculptures, as well as exhibits of exoticism, mingled with magic, and necessarily live performance. African Americans were most often displayed as savages, cannibals, or natural freaks. Although white theatrical portrayals of black characters date back to as early as 1604,

8418-412: The comic aspects of minstrelsy with the more serious plot of the novel. Minstrelsy's racism (and sexism) could be vicious. There were comic songs in which blacks were "roasted, fished for, smoked like tobacco, peeled like potatoes, planted in the soil, or dried up and hung as advertisements", and there were multiple songs in which a black man accidentally put out a black woman's eyes. On the other hand,

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8556-623: The dandy, known frequently as Zip Coon, from the song Zip Coon . "First performed by George Dixon in 1834, Zip Coon made a mockery of free blacks. An arrogant, ostentatious figure, he dressed in high style and spoke in a series of malaprops and puns that undermined his attempts to appear dignified." The white actors who portrayed these characters spoke an exaggerated form of Black Vernacular English. The blackface makeup and illustrations on programs and sheet music depicted them with huge eyeballs, very wide noses, and thick-lipped mouths that hung open or grinned foolishly; one character expressed his love for

8694-431: The darkeys be" and they could not be "bought and sold". In plantation material, aged black characters were rarely reunited with long-lost masters like they were in white minstrelsy. African Americans formed a large part of the black minstrels' audience, especially for smaller troupes. In fact, their numbers were so great that many theater owners had to relax rules relegating black patrons to certain areas. The reasons for

8832-574: The early stages of the war, fugitives from slavery were often returned by Union forces to their enslavers. General Benjamin Butler and some other Union generals, however, refused to recapture fugitives under the law because the Union and the Confederacy were at war. He confiscated enslaved people as contraband of war and set them free, with the justification that the loss of labor would also damage

8970-468: The election of Abraham Lincoln , an opinion that is later echoed in the apocryphal story of Lincoln greeting Stowe with the quip, "So you're the little woman who wrote the book that made this great war !" Frederick Douglass praised the novel as "a flash to light a million camp fires in front of the embattled hosts of slavery." Despite Douglass's enthusiasm, an anonymous 1852 reviewer for William Lloyd Garrison 's publication, The Liberator , suspected

9108-492: The endmen and dressed themselves in lavish finery and powdered wigs. They decorated the stage with elaborate backdrops and performed no slapstick whatsoever. Their brand of minstrelsy differed from other entertainments only in name. Other troupes followed to varying extents, and pre-war style minstrelsy found itself confined to explicitly nostalgic "histories of minstrelsy" features. Social commentary continued to dominate most performances, with plantation material constituting only

9246-455: The faces of at least the endmen. One commentator described a mostly uncorked black troupe as "mulattoes of a medium shade except two, who were light. ... The end men were each rendered thoroughly black by burnt cork." The minstrels themselves promoted their performing abilities, quoting reviews that favorably compared them to popular white troupes. These black companies often featured female minstrels. One or two African-American troupes dominated

9384-559: The fact that the minstrel show broached the subjects of slavery and race at all is perhaps more significant than the racist manner in which it did so. Despite these pro-plantation attitudes, minstrelsy was banned in many Southern cities. Its association with the North was such that as secessionist attitudes grew stronger, minstrels on Southern tours became convenient targets of anti-Yankee sentiment. Non-race-related humor came from lampoons of other subjects, including aristocratic whites such as politicians, doctors, and lawyers. Women's rights

9522-401: The first act of the show with a military high-stepping , brass band burlesque, a practice adopted after Callender's Minstrels used it in 1875 or 1876. Although black minstrelsy lent credence to racist ideals of blackness, many African-American minstrels worked to subtly alter these stereotypes and to poke fun at white society. One jubilee described heaven as a place "where de white folks must let

9660-530: The first totally black-owned black vaudeville show, The Rabbit's Foot Company , which performed with an all-black cast that elevated the level of shows with sophisticated and fun comedy. It successfully toured mainly the Southwest and Southeast, as well as in New Jersey and New York City. The Christy Minstrels established the basic structure of the minstrel show in the 1840s. A crowd-gathering parade to

9798-432: The form of " Uncle Tom syndrome ", a term for the use of subservience, appeasement, and passivity to cope with intimidation and threats. The popular negative connotations of "Uncle Tom" have largely been attributed to the numerous derivative works inspired by Uncle Tom's Cabin in the decade after its release, rather than to the original novel itself, whose title character is a more positive figure. These works, often called

9936-438: The gender conventions of slave narratives by juxtaposing Uncle Tom's passivity against the daring of three African American women who escape from slavery. The novel was both influential and commercially successful, published as a serial from 1851 to 1852 and as a book from 1852 onward. An estimated 500,000 copies had sold worldwide by 1853, including unauthorized reprints. Senator Charles Sumner credited Uncle Tom's Cabin for

10074-412: The guidance of their Northern friends." White curiosity proved a powerful motivator, and the shows were patronized by people who wanted to see blacks acting "spontaneously" and "naturally." Promoters seized on this, one billing his troupe as "THE DARKY AS HE IS AT HOME, DARKY LIFE IN THE CORNFIELD, Canebrake , BARNYARD, AND ON THE LEVEE AND FLATBOAT." Keeping with convention, black minstrels still corked

10212-603: The guise of the female impersonator. A well-played prima donna character, as popularised by the performer Francis Leon, was considered to be critical to success in the postwar period. This new minstrelsy maintained an emphasis on refined music. Most troupes added jubilees, or spirituals , to their repertoire in the 1870s. These were fairly authentic religious slave songs borrowed from traveling black singing groups. Other troupes drifted further from minstrelsy's roots. When George Primrose and Billy West broke with Haverly's Mastodons in 1877, they did away with blackface for all but

10350-453: The happy slaves who lived there. Nevertheless, antislavery viewpoints sometimes surfaced in the guise of family members separated by slavery, runaways, or even slave uprisings. A few stories highlighted black trickster figures who managed to get the better of their masters. Beginning in the mid-1850s, performers did burlesque renditions of other plays; both Shakespeare and contemporary playwrights were common targets. The humor of these came from

10488-555: The history and legacy of the dehumanizing effects of African-American stereotypes and racializing caricatures from the "Loyal Uncle Tom" to grinning fools (see Stepin Fetchit) in cartoons, minstrel shows, advertisements, household artifacts, and even children's rhymes. Minstrel show The minstrel show , also called minstrelsy , was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for

10626-568: The inept black characters trying to perform some element of high white culture. Slapstick humor pervaded the afterpiece, including cream pies to the face, inflated bladders, and on-stage fireworks. Material from Uncle Tom's Cabin dominated beginning in 1853. The afterpiece allowed the minstrels to introduce new characters, some of whom became quite popular and spread from troupe to troupe. The earliest minstrel characters took as their base popular white stage archetypes—frontiersmen, fishermen, hunters, and riverboatsmen whose depictions drew heavily from

10764-417: The instruments they played: Brudder Tambo (or simply Tambo ) for the tambourine and Brudder Bones (or Bones ) for the bone castanets or bones . These endmen (for their position in the minstrel semicircle) were ignorant and poorly spoken, being conned, electrocuted, or run over in various sketches. They happily shared their stupidity; one slave character said that to get to China, one had only to go up in

10902-453: The intent of the enslavers' residing there permanently or indefinitely, gained their freedom as a result. The 1793 act dealt with enslaved people who escaped to free states without their enslavers' consent. The Supreme Court of the United States ruled, in Prigg v. Pennsylvania (1842), that states did not have to offer aid in the hunting or recapture of enslaved people, significantly weakening

11040-551: The juries convicted none of the men. Webster sought to enforce a law that was extremely unpopular in the Northern United States, and his Whig Party passed him over again when they chose a presidential nominee in 1852. In November 1850, the Vermont legislature passed the Habeas Corpus Law, requiring Vermont judicial and law enforcement officials to assist captured fugitive slaves. It also established

11178-556: The law of 1793. After 1840, the Black population of Cass County, Michigan proliferated as families were attracted by White defiance of discriminatory laws, by numerous highly supportive Quakers, and by low-priced land. Free and escaping Blacks found Cass County a haven. Their good fortune attracted the attention of Southern slavers. In 1847 and 1849, planters from Bourbon and Boone counties , Kentucky, led raids into Cass County to recapture people escaping slavery. The attacks failed, but

11316-478: The law. Many abolitionists openly defied the law. Reverend Luther Lee , pastor of the Wesleyan Methodist Church of Syracuse, New York , wrote in 1855: I never would obey it. I had assisted thirty slaves to escape to Canada during the last month. If the authorities wanted anything of me, my residence was at 39 Onondaga Street. I would admit that and they could take me and lock me up in

11454-451: The law. Secretary of State Daniel Webster was a key supporter of the law, as expressed in his famous "Seventh of March" speech. He wanted high-profile convictions. The jury nullifications ruined his presidential aspirations and his last-ditch efforts to find a compromise between North and South. Webster led the prosecution against men accused of rescuing Shadrach Minkins in 1851 from Boston officials who intended to return Minkins to slavery;

11592-408: The mid-1870s however, black troupes placed a new emphasis on it. The addition of jubilee singing gave black minstrelsy a popularity boost as the black troupes were rightly believed to be the most authentic performers of such material. Other significant differences were that the black minstrels added religious themes to their shows while whites shied from them, and that the black companies commonly ended

11730-426: The mid-1970s. Generally, as the civil rights movement progressed and gained acceptance, minstrelsy lost popularity. The typical minstrel performance followed a three-act structure. The troupe first danced onto stage then exchanged wisecracks and sang songs. The second part featured a variety of entertainments, including the pun-filled stump speech . The final act consisted of a slapstick musical plantation skit or

11868-460: The minstrel shows were extremely popular, being "consistently packed with families from all walks of life and every ethnic group", they were also controversial. Integrationists decried them as falsely showing happy slaves while at the same time making fun of them; segregationists thought such shows were "disrespectful" of social norms as they portrayed runaway slaves with sympathy and would undermine slavery. Minstrel shows were popular before slavery

12006-514: The mood of a bereaved nation. Troupes performed skits about dying soldiers and their weeping widows, and about mourning white mothers. " When This Cruel War Is Over " became the hit of the period, selling over a million copies of sheet music. To balance the somber mood, minstrels put on patriotic numbers like " The Star-Spangled Banner ", accompanied by depictions of scenes from American history that lionized figures like George Washington and Andrew Jackson. Social commentary grew increasingly important to

12144-496: The most popular black troupe in America, and the words Callender and Georgia came to be synonymous with the institution of black minstrelsy. J. H. Haverly, in turn, purchased Callender's troupe in 1878 and applied his strategy of enlarging troupe size and embellishing sets. When this company went to Europe, Gustave and Charles Frohman took the opportunity to promote their Callender's Consolidated Colored Minstrels. Their success

12282-485: The most popular song on this subject. Less frequently, the old darky might be cast out by a cruel master when he grew too old to work. After the Civil War, this character became the most common figure in plantation sketches. He frequently cried about the loss of his home during the war, only to meet up with someone from the past such as the child of his former master. In contrast, the trickster, often called Jasper Jack, appeared less frequently. Female characters ranged from

12420-497: The night with no need for sleep. Thomas "Daddy" Rice introduced the earliest slave archetype with his song " Jump Jim Crow " and its accompanying dance. He claimed to have learned the number by watching an old, limping black stable hand dancing and singing, "Wheel about and turn about and do jus' so/Eb'ry time I wheel about I jump Jim Crow." Other early minstrel performers quickly adopted Rice's character. Slave characters in general came to be low-comedy types with names that matched

12558-429: The novel was written, read, and debated as a political abolitionist tract. Stowe drew inspiration for the Uncle Tom character from several sources. The best-known of these was Josiah Henson , an ex-slave whose autobiography, The Life of Josiah Henson, Formerly a Slave, Now an Inhabitant of Canada, as Narrated by Himself , was originally published in 1849 and later republished in two extensively revised editions after

12696-485: The novel's reputation plummeted until feminist critics led by Jane Tompkins reassessed the tale's female characters. According to Debra J. Rosenthal, in an introduction to a collection of critical appraisals for the Routledge Literary Sourcebook on Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin" , overall reactions have been mixed, with some critics praising the novel for affirming the humanity of

12834-537: The number of such acts they would show, but beginning in 1841, blackface performers frequently took to the stage at even the classy Park Theatre , much to the dismay of some patrons. Theater was a participatory activity, and the lower classes came to dominate the playhouse. They threw things at actors or orchestras who performed unpopular material, and rowdy audiences eventually prevented the Bowery Theatre from staging high drama at all. Typical blackface acts of

12972-573: The period were short burlesques , often with mock Shakespearean titles like " Hamlet the Dainty ", " Bad Breath, the Crane of Chowder ", " Julius Sneezer " or " Dars-de-Money ". Meanwhile, at least some whites were interested in black song and dance by actual black performers. Nineteenth-century New York slaves shingle danced for spare change on their days off, and musicians played what they claimed to be "Negro music" on so-called black instruments like

13110-517: The pleasure of the grotesque and its infantilization of blacks. These allowed—by proxy, and without full identification—childish fun and other low pleasures in an industrializing world where workers were increasingly expected to abandon such things. With the Panic of 1837 , theater attendance suffered, and concerts were one of the few attractions that could still make money. In 1843, four blackface performers led by Dan Emmett combined to stage just such

13248-596: The popularity of this openly racist form of entertainment with black audiences have long been debated by historians. Perhaps they felt in on the joke, laughing at the over-the-top characters from a sense of "in-group recognition". Maybe they even implicitly endorsed the racist antics, or they felt some connection to elements of an African culture that had been suppressed but was visible, albeit in racist, exaggerated form, in minstrel personages. They certainly got many jokes that flew over whites' heads or registered as only quaint distractions. An undeniable draw for black audiences

13386-415: The proof to be insufficient. In addition, any person aiding a fugitive by providing food or shelter was subject to up to six months of imprisonment and up to $ 1,000 in fine. Officers who captured a fugitive from slavery were entitled to a bonus or promotion for their work. Enslavers needed only to supply an affidavit to a Federal marshal to capture a fugitive from slavery. Since a suspected enslaved person

13524-440: The publication of Uncle Tom's Cabin . Henson was enslaved at birth in 1789. He became a Christian at age eighteen and began preaching. Henson attempted to purchase his freedom for $ 450, but after selling his personal assets to raise $ 350 and signing a promissory note for the remainder, Henson's owner raised the price to $ 1000; Henson was unable to prove that the original agreement had been for a lesser amount. Shortly afterward Henson

13662-452: The purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. Blackface minstrelsy

13800-477: The refined singing of the Ethiopian Serenaders (epitomized by the work of Christy's composer Stephen Foster ) with the Virginia Minstrels' bawdy schtick. Christy's company established the three-act template into which minstrel shows would fall for the next few decades. This change to respectability prompted theater owners to enforce new rules to make playhouses calmer and quieter. Minstrels toured

13938-488: The repertoire in the 1870s, marking the first undeniably black music to be used in minstrelsy. During the 1830s and 1840s at the height of its popularity, it was at the epicenter of the American music industry. For several decades, it provided the means through which American whites viewed black people. On the one hand, it had strong racist aspects; on the other, it afforded white Americans more awareness, albeit distorted, of some aspects of black culture in America. Although

14076-441: The return of people who escaped from slavery. The new law also stripped African Americans of the right to request a jury trial or to testify on their own behalf, even if they were legally free, whenever a single claimant presented an affidavit of ownership. The same law authorized a $ 1000 (~$ 28,435 in 2023) fine and six months imprisonment for anyone who knowingly harbored or assisted a fugitive slave. These terms infuriated Stowe, so

14214-451: The same circuits as opera companies, circuses, and European itinerant entertainers, with venues ranging from lavish opera houses to makeshift tavern stages. Life on the road entailed an "endless series of one-nighters, travel on accident-prone railroads, in poor housing subject to fires, in empty rooms that they had to convert into theaters, arrest on trumped up charges, exposed to deadly diseases, and managers and agents who skipped out with all

14352-593: The same dreadful condition." In 1855, the Wisconsin Supreme Court became the only state high court to declare the Fugitive Slave Act unconstitutional as a result of a case involving fugitive slave Joshua Glover and Sherman Booth , who led efforts that thwarted Glover's recapture. In 1859 in Ableman v. Booth , the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the state court. Jury nullification occurred as local Northern juries acquitted men accused of violating

14490-533: The scene for much of the late 1860s and 1870s. The first of these was Brooker and Clayton's Georgia Minstrels , who played the Northeast around 1865. Sam Hague 's Slave Troupe of Georgia Minstrels formed shortly thereafter and toured England to great success beginning in 1866. In the 1870s, white entrepreneurs bought most of the successful black companies. Charles Callender obtained Sam Hague's troupe in 1872 and renamed it Callender's Georgia Minstrels. They became

14628-494: The service. James Mitchell Ashley proposed legislation to repeal the Fugitive Slave Act, but the bill did not make it out of committee in 1863. Although the Union policy of confiscation and military emancipation had effectively superseded the operation of the Fugitive Slave Act, the Fugitive Slave Act was only formally repealed in June 1864. The New York Tribune hailed the repeal, writing: "The blood-red stain that has blotted

14766-399: The sexually provocative to the laughable. These roles were almost always played by men in drag (most famously George Christy , Francis Leon and Barney Williams ), even though American theater outside minstrelsy was filled with actresses at this time. Mammy or the old auntie was the old darky's counterpart. She often went by the name of Aunt Dinah Roh after the song of that title. Mammy

14904-420: The show. Performers criticized Northern society and those they felt responsible for the breakup of the country, who opposed reunification, or who profited from a nation at war. Emancipation was either opposed through "happy plantation" material, or mildly supported with pieces that depicted slavery in a negative light. Eventually, direct criticism of the South became more biting. Minstrelsy lost popularity during

15042-523: The situation contributed to Southern demands in 1850 to pass a strengthened fugitive slave act. Southern politicians often exaggerated the number of people escaping enslavement, blaming the escapes on Northern abolitionists, whom they saw as stirring up their allegedly happy slaves, interfering with "Southern property rights". According to the Columbus [Georgia] Enquirer of 1850, The support from Northerners for fugitive slaves caused more ill will between

15180-462: The song popularized by George Washington Dixon, although others had pretentious names like Count Julius Caesar Mars Napoleon Sinclair Brown. Their clothing was a ludicrous parody of upper-class dress: coats with tails and padded shoulders, white gloves, monocles, fake mustaches, and gaudy watch chains. They spent their time primping and preening, going to parties, dancing and strutting, and wooing women. The black soldier became another stock type during

15318-439: The subject of a rescue by Black waiters in a hotel dining room. If fugitives from slavery were captured and put on trial, abolitionists worked to defend them in trial, and if by chance the recaptured person had their freedom put up for a price, abolitionists worked to pay to free them. Other opponents, such as African-American leader Harriet Tubman , treated the law as just another complication in their activities. In April 1859,

15456-493: The subversive layers of Stowe's original characterization by redefining Uncle Tom until he fitted within prevailing racist norms. Particularly after the Civil War, as the political thrust of the novel which had arguably helped to precipitate that war became obsolete to actual political discourse, popular depictions of the title character recast him within the apologetics of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy . The virile father of

15594-406: The tall tale—and added exaggerated blackface speech and makeup. These Jim Crows and Gumbo Chaffs fought and boasted that they could "wip [their] weight in wildcats" or "eat an alligator". As public opinion toward blacks changed, however, so did the minstrel stereotypes. Eventually, several stock characters emerged. Chief among these were the slave, who often maintained the earlier name Jim Crow, and

15732-414: The theater often preceded the performance. The show itself was divided into three major sections. During the first, the entire troupe danced onto stage singing a popular song. Upon the instruction of the interlocutor , a sort of host, they sat in a semicircle. Various stock characters always took the same positions: the genteel interlocutor in the middle, flanked by Mr Tambo and Mr Bones , who served as

15870-525: The troupe's money." The more popular groups stuck to the main circuit that ran through the Northeast; some even went to Europe, which allowed their competitors to establish themselves in their absence. By the late 1840s, a Southern tour had opened from Baltimore to New Orleans. Circuits through the Midwest and as far as California followed by the 1860s. As its popularity increased, theaters sprang up specifically for minstrel performance, often with names such as

16008-497: The war. Women's rights, disrespectful children, low church attendance, and sexual promiscuity became symptoms of decline in family values and of moral decay. Of course, Northern black characters carried these vices even further. African-American members of Congress were one example, pictured as pawns of the Radical Republicans . By the 1890s, minstrelsy formed only a small part of American entertainment, and, by 1919,

16146-501: The white man? When it is the whites who are trodden in the dust, does Christ justify them in taking up arms to vindicate their rights? And when it is the blacks who are thus treated, does Christ require them to be patient, harmless, long-suffering, and forgiving? Are there two Christs? James Weldon Johnson , a prominent figure of the Harlem Renaissance , expressed an antipathetic opinion in his autobiography: For my part, I

16284-455: The winter Carnival in 1969.) In the 1840s and '50s, William Henry Lane and Thomas Dilward became the first African Americans to perform on the minstrel stage. All-black troupes followed as early as 1855. These companies emphasized that their ethnicity made them the only true delineators of black song and dance, with one advertisement describing a troupe as "SEVEN SLAVES just from Alabama, who are EARNING THEIR FREEDOM by giving concerts under

16422-638: The years after 1850, it appears that "the 1850 Fugitive Slave Act increased prices in border states by 15% to 30% more than in states further south", illustrating how the Act altered the chance of successful escape. According to abolitionist John Brown , even in the supposedly safe refuge of Springfield, Massachusetts , "some of them are so alarmed that they tell me that they cannot sleep on account of either them or their wives and children. I can only say I think I have been enabled to do something to revive their broken spirits. I want all my family to imagine themselves in

16560-477: Was abolished, sufficiently so that Frederick Douglass described blackface performers as "...the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens." Circus sideshows included Negro performers, minstrels were exhibited in museums, Wild West shows , and in musical ensembles. Black people were also part of traveling medicine shows , which were on

16698-415: Was another serious subject that appeared with some regularity in antebellum minstrelsy, almost always to ridicule the notion. The women's rights lecture became common in stump speeches. When one character joked, "Jim, I tink de ladies oughter vote", another replied, "No, Mr. Johnson, ladies am supposed to care berry little about polytick, and yet de majority ob em am strongly tached to parties." Minstrel humor

16836-463: Was closer to a pamphleteer than a novelist and her artistic vision was fatally marred by polemics and racism that manifested especially in her handling of the title character. Stowe had stated that her sons had wept when she first read them the scene of Uncle Tom's death. But after Baldwin's essay, it ceased being respectable to accept the melodrama of the Uncle Tom story. Uncle Tom became what critic Linda Williams describes as "an epithet of servility" and

16974-402: Was highly musical and none-too-bright, but he had favorable aspects like his loving nature and the sentiments he raised regarding love for the aged, ideas of old friendships, and the cohesiveness of the family. His death and the pain it caused his master was a common theme in sentimental songs. Alternatively, the master could die, leaving the old darky to mourn. Stephen Foster's "Old Uncle Ned" was

17112-445: Was lovable to both blacks and whites, matronly, but hearkening to European peasant woman sensibilities. Her main role was to be the devoted mother figure in scenarios about the perfect plantation family. The wench , yaller gal or prima donna was a mulatto who combined the light skin and facial features of a white woman with the perceived sexual promiscuity and exoticism of a black woman. Her beauty and flirtatiousness made her

17250-508: Was negative, the dominant version developed into a character very different from Stowe's hero. Whereas Stowe's Uncle Tom was a young, muscular, and virile man who refused to obey his cruel master, Simon Legree, when Legree ordered him to beat other slaves, the stock character of the minstrel shows was degenerated into a shuffling, asexual individual, with a receding hairline and graying hair. For Jo-Ann Morgan, author of Uncle Tom's Cabin as Visual Culture, these shifting representations undermined

17388-524: Was never an admirer of Uncle Tom, nor of his type of goodness; but I believe that there were lots of old Negroes as foolishly good as he. In 1949, American writer James Baldwin rejected the emasculation of the title character "robbed of his humanity and divested of his sex" as the price of spiritual salvation for a dark-skinned man in a fiction whose African-American characters, in Baldwin's view, were invariably two-dimensional stereotypes. To Baldwin, Stowe

17526-503: Was not eligible for a trial, the law resulted in the kidnapping and conscription of free Blacks into slavery, as purported fugitive slaves had no rights in court and could not defend themselves against accusations. The Act adversely affected the prospects of escape from slavery, particularly in states close to the North. One study finds that while prices placed on enslaved people rose across the Southern United States in

17664-472: Was ordered on a trip south to New Orleans . When he learned that he was to be sold there, he obtained a weapon. He contemplated murdering his white companions with the weapon, but decided against violence because his Christian morals forbade it. A sudden illness in one of his companions forced their return to Kentucky , and shortly afterward Henson escaped north with his family, settling in Canada where he became

17802-628: Was passed on a near-unanimous vote and established military emancipation as official Union policy, but applied only to enslaved people used by rebel enslavers to support the Confederate cause, creating a limited exception to the Fugitive Slave Act. Union Army forces sometimes returned fugitives from slavery to enslavers until March 1862, when Congress enacted the Confiscation Act of 1862, Section 10 of which barred Union officers from returning slaves to their owners on pain of dismissal from

17940-439: Was responsible for beginning and ending each segment of the show. To this end, he had to be able to gauge the mood of the audience and know when it was time to move on. Accordingly, the actor who played the role was paid very well in comparison to other non-featured performers. There were many variants on the slave archetype. The old darky or old uncle formed the head of the idyllic black family. Like other slave characters, he

18078-449: Was simple and relied heavily on slapstick and wordplay. Performers told riddles: "The difference between a schoolmaster and an engineer is that one trains the mind and the other minds the train." With the advent of the American Civil War , minstrels remained mostly neutral and satirized both sides. However, as the war reached Northern soil, troupes turned their loyalties to the Union. Sad songs and sketches came to dominate in reflection of

18216-445: Was simply seeing fellow African Americans on stage; black minstrels were largely viewed as celebrities. Formally educated African Americans, on the other hand, either disregarded black minstrelsy or openly disdained it. Still, black minstrelsy was the first large-scale opportunity for African Americans to enter American show business. Black minstrels were therefore viewed as a success. Pat H. Chappelle capitalized on this and created

18354-500: Was so good he could fool blacks when he mingled with them in the streets. Thomas Dartmouth Rice 's successful song-and-dance number, " Jump Jim Crow ", brought blackface performance to a new level of prominence in the early 1830s. At the height of Rice's success, The Boston Post wrote, "The two most popular characters in the world at the present are [Queen] Victoria of the United Kingdom and Jump Jim Crow ." As early as

18492-535: Was such that the Frohmans bought Haverly's group and merged it with theirs, creating a virtual monopoly on the market. The company split in three to better canvas the nation and dominated black minstrelsy throughout the 1880s. Individual black performers like Billy Kersands , James A. Bland , Sam Lucas , Martin Francis and Wallace King grew as famous as any featured white performer. Racism made black minstrelsy

18630-517: Was the funny old gal , a slapstick role played by a large man in motley clothing and large, flapping shoes. The humor she invoked often turned on the male characters' desire for a woman whom the audience would perceive as unattractive. The counterpart to the slave was the dandy , a common character in the afterpiece. He was a Northern, urban black man trying to live above his station by mimicking white, upper-class speech and dress—usually to no good effect. Dandy characters often went by Zip Coon , after

18768-463: Was the first uniquely American form of theater, and for many minstrel shows emerged as brief burlesques and comic entr'actes in the early 1830s in the Northeastern states . They were developed into full-fledged art form in the next decade. By 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national artform, translating formal art such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. By the turn of

18906-563: Was when one actor, typically one of the endmen, delivered a faux-black-dialect stump speech , a long oration about anything from nonsense to science, society, or politics, during which the dim-witted character tried to speak eloquently, only to deliver countless malapropisms, jokes, and unintentional puns. All the while, the speaker moved about like a clown, standing on his head and almost always falling off his stump at some point. With blackface makeup serving as fool's mask, these stump speakers could deliver biting social criticism without offending

19044-523: Was written, but the chronology does not hold up to scrutiny and she probably drew material only from his published autobiography. The term "Uncle Tom" is used as an epithet for an excessively subservient person, particularly when that person perceives his or her own lower-class status based on race. It is similarly used to negatively describe people who betray their own group by participating in its oppression, whether willingly or not. The term has also, with more intended neutrality, been applied in psychology in

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