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Behind the stage the Compromise of 1850, Fugitive Slave Law of 1851, Kansas-Nebraska Act of 1854, and the Dred Scott Decision in 1857 occurred. The minstrel shows did not change its politics because of these events, although the brazenness of minstrelŐs support of expansionism may have quieted. But by the fall of 1860, the minstrel show narrowed its focus to only nationalism and the preservation of the Union. They hailed George Washington and Andrew Jackson as America's heroes - Jackson himself had just battled against secessionists 30 years before (Toll, 106). The most flag-waving Unionists of all, they reported only what could angry the blood against the Secesh and what would rally the audience behind the Union. Unlike Ken Burns the minstrel performers were huge fans of McClellan, and they even predicted U.S. Grant to be the next President. And if being nationalistic and pro-Union wasn't enough, they were anti-foreign to top it off. Comments about the English and French support of the South were not friendly such as "Away Goes Cuffee"'s
And "Abraham's Covenant" verse three reads:
The continued anti-elitist strain of minstrels was manifest in a song called "Grafted into the Army" which denounced the act allowing the rich to buy substitutes, a seething foreshadowing of the act which allowed free, black substitutes - the Emancipation Proclamation.
Before 1863, minstrels rarely insulted Southerners or the South; their focus of insult neither landed on the Secessionists. With hopes hitched insecurely to a speedy reunification, pointing fingers and placing blame was not a place of humor. Some of the few attacks on the South were directed mostly at Jefferson Davis, who was probably more of an enemy than a family member waiting to be "prodigalled." The tragedy of death was apparently more overwhelming than the happiness of victory for more sentimental songs were written than anything else. Sympathy swung between the broken families or unrequited love of the plantation slave and the anguish of the Northern white woman trapped waiting. "Mother" was the subject of at least thirty songs, and is often used to personify the Nation. The experience of both separated mother-son pairs were explored, that of the Southern slave and of the Northern soldier. The destruction of the family was indeed the most poignant theme of the mid-19th century. While the antebellum slave family was torn apart by the auction block or a cruel master, the wartime white family was severed by the fight to defend the Union. Fighting to free slaves was not associated with the sentimental song regarding white boys. Fathers were also absent from this picture of duty and tragedy; a reflection of boys having emotions but grown men clinging to masculinity.
Lincoln's signing of the Emancipation Proclamation marked the year 1863. Many people have represented this event differently. Often today, it has been romanticized and Lincoln has been made the Great Emancipator. An opposite perspective may see emancipation as a move to increase manpower for troops. Others still note it as Lincoln's move to recognize the reality fo the contraband culture that had escaped political permission. Perhaps he simply caved under considerable pressure from black men and white abolitionists. In any case, the minstrels seemed disillusioned as "the original reason for the war [was] corrupted, all possibility of compromise destroyed, and only the gloomy prospect of an interminable war ahead" (Toll, 112). Toll finds this an opportunity for minstrels to lash out all their torrent of anti-abolitionists rage that had been building up since the 1850's and repressed by nationalism. I would hesitate to call it anti-abolitionist rage, as so many of the minstrel performers came from abolitionist families and traditions. I would instead label the following deluge of strangely near "proslavery apologist" songs as the effect of a common Northern concern and discomfort regarding the invasion of the North by the breakdown of the South's 'peculiar institution.' His argument follows that this rage leads to a new common performance of the happy plantation slave. Moreover, I hesitate to ever create a homogenous "minstrel performer" when it comes to tracing the narrative of post-Emancipation minstrel songs. It is safer to simply read the texts.
First there's the character of the trickster slave who will play while the mouse is away...at war. The first is a happy-go-lucky song about love, Sally Come Up (1862) that begins with the line, "Massa gone, the news to hear, / And he has left de overseer / To look to all de Niggers hear, / While I make love to Sally". The second is 1862's "Oh! Massa's Gwine to Washington" and describes all the fun things he will do in his absence:
However, there are other songs that simply make light of the whole issue of freedom, contrabands, or even love between slaves. The song, "Contraband Schottisch" has two different sheet music covers. One features silly slaves trying to runaway, all fallen down in a burlesque way when the master finds them. The other is of a black woman dressed up in the clothes of the upper class with a parasol. This is the token Northern black, trying to be something she can never be, an upper class white. The "Plantation Dance Burlesque" has a drawing with two boys, nearly gleeful on the cover. However, other songs from the same period complicate this argument of the Happy Slave. "The Slaves Consolation, or I'll Neber Hoe De Cotton Any More" and "De Day Ob Liberty's Comin" both discuss the possibility of black freedom before the Emancipation Proclamation was signed.
Perhaps the discussion of slavery lessened for fear of making a public scene about such a loaded topic. The minstrels were only entertainers, and were there to please the audience. Whatever the reason, the Civil War hushed many of the minstrels complaints about the injustices of slavery. Moreover, this complication of ideals remind the modern day reader and historian that just as one can not soundbyte the opinion of all minstrel performers, and neither can one remember the North entirely abolitionist. The Civil War now is remembered as the War to End Slavery and the War to Protect States' Rights. Neither of these neat narratives leave room for the opinion of many of the minstrels: "Constitution as it is, Union as it was" (Toll, 105).
Like the South before 1863, Abe Lincoln stood strangely outside the line of minstrelsy's fire. Nationalism forced them to support the man who they felt kept the Union apart. This explains the minstrel song's frequent praise of McClellan, for hope of his rise to Presidency. Instead Horace Greeley became the scurrilous villain. A "nigger lover" and "the nearest thing to a nigger", he was portrayed as both (Toll, 114). Minstrelsy's egalitarianism did not stand for Northern businessmen profiting from the war. The purchasing of substitute soldiers was infuriating and probably the cause for many songs that focus on volunteering and the repeated number of"300,000 more" as $300 was all one needed for a substitute. Moreover, songs like "How Are You Green-Backs" seem to show a negative connotation with money and the focus on it would be the ruination of slave and white alike. Money is not important to the minstrels; in their world "Wall Street is but a small plantation."
In 1864 there was more death. Lincoln was re-elected. Toll argues that the minstrels felt the need to stand behind him again. In addition, the increasing Union victories cushioned their renewed vindictiveness against the South. "With blacks a secondary issue, and a conveniently distant one at that, minstrels could favor emancipation because it removed a blot against American ideals, rewarded Negro war allies, and punished the South" (Toll, 117). And it is easy for a white man to admit that blacks should earn their freedom by fighting for the Union. Once the freed blacks were fighting for the Union, the minstrels renewed their previous condemnation of slavery, for all the same reasons - severance of black families, rape of slave women, injustice of the institution itself, brutality and force. In short, the minstrels supported the enslavement of blacks, as long as it was for their Cause, the preservation of the Union. "Thus, whites who listened to minstrels could actually take pride in racial subordination as a fulfillment of the American Creed" (Toll, 119).
The use of freed slaves for Northern troops was an ideological battle. Many felt that would lead to equality of the races. Others felt that manpower was manpower. The minstrels, in their usual style, made fun of the possibility of a serious "colored" troop. Much like the portrayal of the Massachusetts 54th by everyone outside the infantry in Glory, the negroes can sign up, get dressed up, march around, but they won't get shoes and they'll never get guns. The minstrel's "Darkey Brigade" walks around like Glory's other black infantry, the ones with dialect, no brains, no training, stealing chickens and looting towns. A Negro Soldier was portrayed just like the Northern Dandy Darkey, stupid for even trying.
While I appreciate Toll's perspective, I feel that he has left out major songs that contradict his argument. I feel his narrative is simply, too simple. And many historians agree with me. "In the broadest political sense we might say that blackface artists all at once found themselves staging a sort of unintended play about the slavery crisis, a play that pointed up rather than papered over cracks in the historical bloc of midcentury America" (Lott, 106). A stock of songs, written by many different authors, celebrate Emancipation, some with reverence, some with less. But songs like "'63 is the Jubilee," "Emancipation: Dedicated to all Lovers of Freedom," "Wake Nicodemus," "De Lord He Make us Free," "Year of Jubilee or Kingdom has Come," "Old Abe Has gone & Did it, Boys," "Cross ober Jordan" seem to support Lincoln's Proclamation. Moreover, Toll tells the story of blackface minstrelsy during the war as if the Secession rubbed our minstrels white again. This is not so. When he says the black person was obscured in minstrelsy performance, he is correct. But I doubt that the performers had entirely forgotten their earlier romance and curiosity. In addition, I reject the notion of a single minstrel opinion on black troops. The songs written on the topic are far too many and complicated. Many depict the black man as a pawn for both sides, then the war becomes "freed black man against enslaved black man," replacing the white image of "brother pined against brother." This long list includes, "The Darkey's Rally," "De Darkey Brigade," "De Colored Brigade," "We Are Coming, Father Abra'am, 300,000 More," "We are Coming From the Cotton Fields,"
"Sambo's Got A Right To Be Kilt," "Dat's What's De Matter wid de Purps," "We'll Fight For Uncle Abe," "Invalid Corps," "Dey Said We Wouldn't Fight," "How are you Green-backs," "I'se On de way," and "Snolly-Goster Ebenezer."
There seems to be both a resistance to and acceptance of Reconstruction. Its resistance was evident most poignantly may be the "Unhappy Contraband," describing the newly freed slave missing the farm:
Certainly an urge for the freed slaves to get back to the South and not intimidate the Northern whites with their strangeness nor threaten their jobs. So, the slave "belonged" to the plantation but now the mean 'massa' became a warm-hearted father. Now, the black character was even more of a buffoon for thinking he could be happy without his master and happy plantation home. Exasperated Northern white women sang of the impossibility of teaching freed blacks. Also, songs like "I'm A Good Old Rebel Soldier" (1866) depict the angry Southerner refusing to be reconstructed. In other songs a peaceful reconstruction was still possible. Minstrels came to see the similarities in the North's and South's position. Both sides had given many sympathetic sons to the cause.
That blackface minstrelsy was an important and popular method of discussing race in the 19th century is no question. The problem before historians is how to read this cultural phenomenon and the artifacts of it. Each book of historical documentation reveals another layer of the past's complexity. From contemporary articles to the 1911 chronicle of Edward Rice to Eric Lott's 1993 race, class, and gender interpretation, historical perspective reveals the incongruities and complications of the Civil War in popular cultural. It is no surprise that the common culture used humor as a means of discussing the problems of racial inequality in America, problems that have not been resolved today. A close reading of any of these minstrel songs is only one far away perspective of the bloodiest argument in the United States, but what a perspective it was.
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