Blackface at Work and Play: Amateur Minstrel Groups in the Hunter Valley, 1840–1880

Abstract

Following the first performances of the Virginia Minstrels in 1843, the minstrel show and its music were adopted across the Anglophone world. The Virginia Minstrels toured England in the year of their US debut, generating numerous imitators. American and British minstrel groups toured to the Australian colonies from 1850. In their wake, amateur minstrelsy emerged in private and public spheres. Although the touring groups, their musical content, and their reception have been the subject of considerable research, much less study has been made of amateur minstrel activities, especially in the colonial context. This article seeks to redress this and examines three different minstrel groups active in the 1850s, 1860s, and 1870s in the Newcastle region of New South Wales. Within this study, attention is paid to the conundrum of coalminers with their coal-blackened faces taking on the role of blackface performer, in the context of historical vilification of miners in racial terms. The article thus contributes to an understanding of the colonial impact of an Imperial racist agenda in which dirt, pigment, and impurity were elided.