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I
n the early 1850s Samuel Cartwright, a Louisiana physician, wrote an essay
on diseases that were said to affl ict black slaves, including “drapetomia”
(running away) and “dysaesthesia aethiopica,” which caused sufferers to
“break, waste, and destroy everything they handle.” These words could suggest
that the writer was describing clever slaves who avoided work by convincing the
master they were too stupid or clumsy for the job. But Cartwright intended no
such irony. Proclaiming the theory of “polygenesis,” he argued that each race
was separate and distinct, rather than a variety of one species. In the southern
United States, some accepted that theory as a proof that Africans were biologi-
cally inferior to Caucasians, and that being slaves was their natural destiny.
It is obvious today that polygenesis was simply a bit of fake science concocted to
support racial prejudice. But the existence of this pseudo theory also points to deep
confl icts in the feelings Americans had about race. In the early and middle 1800s,
many white Americans were fascinated by the image of the African American slave.
And that fascination—a mixture of curiosity, fear, love, and loathing—formed a key
ingredient of blackface minstrelsy, the era’s most popular form of entertainment.
After a discussion of the minstrel show and its music, this chapter goes on to exam-
ine one facet of American music in which minstrelsy’s infl uence was felt: the mid-
nineteenth-century explosion of parlor songs intended for home music making.BLACK, WHITES, AND THE MINSTREL STAGE
Minstrelsy, which originated with white performers pretending onstage to be
black, has been called racist and exploitative entertainment. There is no question
that race was fundamental to the minstrel show. Taking for granted the supe-
riority of Euro-American culture, white minstrels relied on black- infl uenced
song, dance, and humor to give their performances vitality. And there is no
evidence that white minstrels shared profi ts with the black Americans whom
they imitated. Yet neither racism—the belief that one’s own ethnic stock is
superior—nor economic exploitation fully explains minstrelsy’s impact. ForCHAPTER
6
“THE ETHIOPIAN
BUSINESS”
Minstrelsy and Popular Song through
the Civil War
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