Race: Between Slavery and Emancipation
Uncle Tom’s Cabin and American blackface minstrelsy in
the Netherlands from the 1840s to the 1880s
Elisabeth Koning MA History, American Studies
5951852 University of Amsterdam
lisekoning@gmail.com Dr. George Blaustein
Contents
Introduction 1
1. The emergence of the tension 12
- The Ethiopian Serenaders in the Netherlands: an eccentric spectacle 12
- The British and American reception of blackface minstrelsy 17
- The broad appeal of The Ethiopian Serenaders 20
- “Americanness” 25
2. The numerous messages in Uncle Tom 28
- The nature and influence of the Dutch translation of Uncle Tom 28
- Inspired by Stowe: Dutch anti-slavery accounts 33
- Uncle Tom on stage: Dutch actors as American minstrels 35
- The “Dutch” Tom play: from sympathy to racial domination 39
- The American element in the Dutch play 45
- An African American performer in the Netherlands 50
- “Yankee’s Bluff:” American minstrelsy in the Dutch Colonies 56
3. Uncle Tom: from Surinamese to Javanese 65
- The Memory of Slavery 65
- What about the Javanese? 70
- Continuation of tension with an element of class 79
- The adaptability of Uncle Tom 86
Epilogue 93
Conclusion 96
Introduction
Within a time period of six years, two seemingly opposite forms of American culture arrived in the Netherlands. American blackface minstrelsy, the most popular form of American
entertainment in the nineteenth century, arrived in 1847. Six years later, arguably the most
influential novel in the American history was published in Dutch: Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin, or Life Among the Lowly. Whereas the first mainly ridiculed African American slaves and freemen, the latter aimed to evoke sympathy for the African American slaves. When these two forms of popular American culture were merged together in the so-called Tom play, the intention and message behind the blackface performance began to become less clear. This unclear message was especially evident in the Netherlands and its colonies, since both forms of American culture arrived at a time when Dutch abolitionism had taken off. Moreover, this ambiguous message allowed Dutch citizens to switch between the anti-slavery and the racial mockery component of the message. I will argue that American blackface minstrelsy and Uncle Tom became part of the Dutch anti-slavery and colonial discourse, revealing a tension between race and emancipation from the 1840s to the 1880s. In other words, the message Dutch citizens got from the American forms of popular entertainment paralleled the contemporary discourse on race and emancipation.
Before I can explain the meaning of the “tension between race and emancipation,” a short introduction about the nature of American blackface minstrelsy and the influence of Uncle Tom on the American society is necessary. In 1828, the white American actor Thomas D. Rice began to perform an act he accordingly learned by watching an old African American sing and dance. For his character, who became known as “Jim Crow,” Rice blackened his face and hands with burnt cork and dressed in rags, battered hat and torn shoes (figure 1). The blackening of one’s face in combination with exaggerated red lips is simply referred to as “blackface.” In the decade that followed, Rice and other blackface performers began to elaborate and consolidate acts similar to Rice’s. In doing this, blackface artist used, created, and disseminated African
American caricatures. The popularity of the performances was unmatched, and a new stage genre was born: the minstrel show. In short, “minstrel show entertainment included imitating black
Figure 1 - "Mr. T. Rice as Jim Crow"
Source: “Africans in America/Part 3/Jim Crow Close-up,” accessed May 28, 2013, http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part3/3h489b.html.
music and dance and speaking in a ‘plantation’ dialect.”1 Moreover, “the shows featured a variety of jokes, songs, dances and skits that were based on the ugliest stereotypes of [free]
African American[s, and] slaves.”2 The minstrel show became “one of the most popular genres,
if not the most popular genre, of stage entertainment in the nineteenth century” in the United States.3
During the heyday of American blackface minstrelsy, Stowe wrote her famous sentimental anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin (1852). The popularity of the novel was unparalleled: already three hundred thousand copies had been sold in the United States in the same year of its publication. Since Uncle Tom existed of a portrayal of African Americans’ life
under slavery, it did not take long for blackface minstrels to include Uncle Tom in their shows.4
Indeed, two popular stage versions of Uncle Tom, containing an opposing message, began to compete with each other. Whereas George L. Aiken’s version retained the antislavery content of
Stowe’s story, Henry J. Conway wrote a more “pro-Southern version” of Uncle Tom.5 Not
surprisingly, given their focus on African Americans, both blackface minstrelsy and Uncle Tom played an immense role in the American discourse on race and slavery. Similarly did both blackface minstrelsy and Uncle Tom fit into the Dutch discourse on race and emancipation.
What do I mean with “a tension between race and emancipation?” When the anti-slavery, or emancipation debate became more vocal in the Netherlands during the 1840s, the Dutch Empire existed of the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia), the Cape Colony, Dutch West Africa, Dutch Brazil, Suriname, and Netherlands Antilles. Five of these six Dutch colonies can be described as slave societies and in three of them the overwhelming majority of slaves were of
black descent.6 Not surprisingly, both in the United States and in the Netherlands, the debate
about abolition brought along the question what one should do with the freed slaves. In answering this question, “race” became one of the largest arguments for white men’s control
1 “Blackface! - The History of Racist Blackface Stereotypes,” accessed May 26, 2013, http://black-face.com/. 2 Ibid.
3 Popular Culture in American History, Blackwell Readers in American Social and Cultural History 1 (Malden,
Mass: Blackwell Publishers, 2001), 57.
4 Robert C. Toll, Blacking up. The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1974), 93.
5 Ibid., 90–91.
6 Allison Blakely, Blacks in the Dutch World. The Evolution of Racial Imagery in the Modern Society.
over freed slaves after slavery. In this research, race refers to “the idea that the human species is
divided into distinct groups on the basis of inherited physical and behavioral differences.”7
One of the American founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson, exemplified what happens if one includes race into the slavery discourse. According to Jefferson, “blacks and whites could never coexist in America because of the ‘real distinctions’ which ‘nature’ had made between the
two races.”8 Therefore, although Jefferson argued that slavery should be abolished, the freed
“blacks would have to be removed from American society.”9 A similar argument was made by
F.W. Hostmann, who lived in the Dutch colony of Suriname. He argued that the Netherlands was not ready to free their slaves in Suriname, unless a clear emancipation process was agreed
upon.10 In the context of this research, emancipation refers to the act of freeing someone from
“restraint, control, or the power of another.”11 However, as we will see, emancipation would not
become reality. Therefore, the tension between race and emancipation can be described as the realization that slavery should be abolished on the one hand, and the search for new forms of domination based on perceived racial differences on the other.
After the abolition of slavery in the Netherlands and the United States, new forms of racial dominations were quickly implemented. In the United States, for example, the notorious Black Codes were adopted by President Andrew Johnson two years after the abolition of
slavery.12 Some of these Black Codes established “systems of peonage or apprenticeship
resembling slavery.”13 Indeed, between 1876 and 1965, the so-called “Jim Crow laws” that
mandated racial segregation in most Southern States, followed the Black Codes. Not
surprisingly, the name of the laws refers to the blackface “Jim Crow” character.14 In the Dutch
7 “Race (human) -- Encyclopedia Britannica,” accessed June 7, 2013,
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/488030/race.
8 Ronald T Takaki, A Different Mirror: a History of Multicultural America (New York: Back Bay Books/Little,
Brown, and Co., 2008), 64.
9 Ibid., 63.
10 F.W. Hostmann, “Royal Tropical Institute — Over de Beschaving van Negers in Amerika, Door Kolonisatie Met
Europeanen, of Beschouwingen Omtrent de Maatschappelijke Vereeniging Der Negers in Afrika, Den Staat, Waarin Zij Door Den Zoogenaamden Slavenhandel Komen, En Later Door Abolitie En Emancipatie Overgaan 1850,” accessed June 7, 2013, http://62.41.28.253/cgi-bin/kit.exe?a=d&d=GBHFIF1850&cl=CL2.1850&e=-0---2en----10--1---IN-0.
11 “Emancipating - Definition and More from the Free Merriam-Webster Dictionary,” accessed June 7, 2013,
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/emancipating?show=0&t=1370593551.
12 It should be noted that I refer to the “Emancipation Proclamation” signed by President Abraham Lincoln in 1863,
although slavery was only officially abolished with the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865.
13 C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow, Commemorative ed (Oxford; New York: Oxford
University Press, 2002), 23.
colony of Suriname, a similar system of control was introduced. The so-called Emancipatiewet [Emancipation Law] of 1863 forced the freed slaves in Suriname to remain on the same
plantation for ten years.15
While the better part of the emancipation discourse addressed slavery in Suriname, critics of the nature of the colonial rule in the Dutch East Indies began to raise their voices more
frequently during the 1860s. Initially, the efforts of the critics seemed to have effect. However, the Dutch government began to strengthen their colonial rule in the East Indies around 1870, slowly moving toward the “Ethical Policy,” which became an official policy of the colonial government in the Dutch East Indies in 1901. This Ethical Policy is described as the Dutch equivalent of modern imperialism, in that it justified the Dutch rule in the East Indies to
“civilize” its people.16 In a sense, the World’s Fair in Amsterdam in 1883 already marked the
victory of “race” over “emancipation” evident in the ethos of imperialism. At this Fair, the Netherlands aimed to represent and legitimize the country’s colonial rule in the Dutch East Indies, and “served to enhance the Netherlands’s status” among the imperialistic countries of the world.17
Above all, the route visible in the Dutch colonies after the abolition of slavery and other forms of legal oppression mirrored the Dutch reactions on American blackface minstrelsy, Uncle Tom, and the Tom play. The tension between race and emancipation that became apparent in these reactions are interesting for several reasons. First and foremost, the Dutch receptions of the American blackface minstrelsy performances and the Tom play have not yet been discussed in great detail by historians. Although accounts as Jacques Klöters’ 100 jaar amusement in
Nederland (1987) and Cultuur en migratie in Nederland. Kunsten in beweging 1900-1980 (2003) edited by Maaike Meijer and Rosemarie Buikema dedicated a paragraph to the arrival of
blackface minstrelsy in the Netherlands, the accounts’ descriptions of the Dutch receptions of blackface minstrelsy do not move beyond the general first impression of the blackface
performance. For example, these accounts omit the fact that the American blackface troupes were British, not American. Nonetheless, this is not surprising, since blackface minstrelsy has been mainly associated with the United States.
15 Cynthia Mc Leod, Slavernij en de Memorie (Schoorl: Conserve, 2002), 68. 16 Geschiedenis van de Nederlanden, 4. uitg. (Baarn: HB Uitgevers, 2006), 339.
17 Marieke Bloembergen, Colonial Spectacles: The Netherlands and the Dutch East Indies at the World Exhibitions,
Until recently, studies about blackface minstrelsy have been predominantly written from an American perspective. Charles Wittke’s Tambo and Bones. A History of the American Minstrel Stage (1930), Robert C. Toll’s Blacking Up. The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America (1974), Eric Lott’s Love and Theft. Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (1995), Michael Rogin’s Blackface, White Noise: Jewish immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot (1996), W.T. Lhamon Jr.’s Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop (2000), and John Strausbaugh’s Black Like You. Blackface, Whiteface, Insult and Imitation in American Popular Culture (2006), are few of the many classic studies about blackface minstrelsy in an American context. These studies have explained the origins, purpose, and continuation of blackface minstrelsy in the contemporary society.
However, this research is mainly concerned about the form of American minstrelsy that arrived in the Netherlands in the late 1840s, since it were the minstrel characters that would evoke most Dutch reactions. Although most of the troupes that arrived in the Netherlands were British, some blackface troupes that arrived in the Dutch colonies were American. Therefore, it is important to shortly address the most popular minstrel types Americans made use of. During the 1850s, the American minstrel characters adapted to the American social context. Since the debate about slavery, fuelled by the publication of Uncle Tom, not only threatened the Union, but also threatened to allow millions of blacks to “challenge whites for land, jobs, and status (…) minstrels’ objections to slavery and their diverse black character types virtually disappeared,
leaving only contrasting caricatures of contented slaves and unhappy free Negroes.”18 The most
popular depiction of a contended, or rustic, slave was Rice’s character “Jim Crow,” mentioned earlier. The equally popular “unhappy free Negroes,” or urban dandies, were the characters “Zip Coon” and “Dandy Jim.” In short, Jim Crow made fun of slaves, while the urban dandies made fun of free dignified blacks. Both the first and latter characters in a sense proved that white domination over the black population was acceptable – if not necessary.
Given the fact that Britain had abolished slavery in 1833, British blackface minstrelsy mainly portrayed the American minstrel dandies, instead of the plantation characters. This choice of portrayal was only one of the many differences between American and British blackface minstrelsy. In Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain (2008), Michael Pickering enumerates the differences between Americans and British minstrelsy shows, and explains how British actors
altered the American form of blackface minstrelsy to their own taste of entertainment. For the purpose of this research, however, the reasons behind the British alternations are less interesting than the actual British performances. Before the Dutch Tom play, Dutch citizens were mainly acquainted with the British blackface portrayals of the American black dandies, not plantation characters. These blackface types that the British minstrels portrayed in the Netherlands revealed that one was not sure what free blacks should, or would, look like.
Nonetheless, Pickering notes two important differences between blackface minstrelsy in Britain and the United States that are important to mention. First of all, “the minstrel show was a major form of music and entertainment in Britain from the 1840s to the 1970s, rather longer than in the United States, where it was equally popular in the nineteenth century but by the
mid-twentieth century had largely faded away.”19 Although blackface minstrelsy never, neither in its
pure form nor in the Tom play, reached the same popularity in the Netherlands as it did in Britain and the United States, it should be noted that a famous Dutch blackface character called Zwarte Piet [Black Pete] acquired its current-day form in 1850 – just one year after the British American
blackface minstrels had left.20 Indeed, the Dutch historian John Helsloot mentioned that is was
possible that the creator of Zwarte Piet, Jan Schenkman, got his inspiration from his attendance
of an American minstrelsy show in Amsterdam.21 However, although this research will not be
concerned with the continuation of blackface – with the exception of blackface minstrelsy types in the Tom play until the turn of the twentieth century – it is interesting to note that blackface minstrelsy remained popular in Britain and in a different form in the Netherlands.
Secondly, Pickering argued that blackface minstrelsy’s appeal was felt among all the
social classes in the British society.22 This is important to emphasize, since American minstrelsy
especially appealed to young working-class males.23 In contrast, minstrelsy’s appeal in Britain
“was widespread and not confined in any direct way to the ‘common people’ in the usual sense
of this term as equivalent to the working class.”24 Before the 1870s, when Dutch laborers began
19 Michael Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, Ashgate Popular and Folk Music Series (Aldershot, England;
Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2008), xi.
20 Zwarte Piet is the sidekick of the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus, called Sinterklaas. To this day, Zwarte Piet and
Sinterklaas return to the Netherlands between the end of November until the beginning of December. Although protests against Zwarte Piet has erupted, Zwarte Piet is a highly valued character among a vast majority of the Dutch citizens.
21 De Kleine Olympus: Over Enkele Figuren Uit de Alledaagse Mythologie (Amsterdam: KNAW Press, 2008), 106. 22 Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, xi.
23 Ibid., 4. 24 Ibid., 2.
to organize and a more prominent distinction between the Dutch social classes began to emerge, blackface minstrelsy and the Tom play appealed to both the bourgeoisie and the folk in the
Netherlands.25 By the time the number of social classes had doubled around 1870, the racial
consciousness of the Dutch citizens gained momentum due to the perceived need to help the Dutch colonial subject acquire a certain level of civilization. As mentioned earlier, this long process of obtaining a racial consciousness was already apparent in the Tom play.
However, the American elements of British minstrelsy were most appealing to the Dutch audience. Indeed, the performances of the British minstrels introduced the Dutch audience with African Americans. The American historian Toll explains that even though “white men in blackface had portrayed Negro characters since well before the American Revolution,”
blackfaced characters became increasingly African American after the War of 1812.26 This had
everything to do with the “average” Americans’ quest for a “distinctly American culture.”27 As a
result of this quest, entertainment in the United States fragmented into “highbrow” (elitist) and “lowbrow” (popular). As a lowbrow form of entertainment, blackface minstrelsy became “the
first and most popular form of [Atlantic] mass culture in the nineteenth century United States.”28
Ironically, whereas it was the “American” element of blackface minstrelsy British entertainers aimed to distance themselves from, the Dutch audience seemed appealed toward the
“Americanness” of the performances.
The arrival of the popular African American actor Ira Aldridge, and the more or less unpopular Max Havelaar play, substantiates the latter argument. Eight years after the publication of Uncle Tom, the Dutch writer Multatuli (pseudonym for Eduard Douwes Dekker) published Max Havelaar: of de Koffiveilingen der Nederlandsche Handel-Maatschappy (1860) [Max Havelaar: Or the Coffee Auctions of the Dutch Trading Company]. This novel criticized the corrupt government system in Java (part of the Dutch East Indies) and the Dutch treatment of their colonial subjects. Max Havelaar never reached the same prestige as Uncle Tom, which indicate the appeal toward the “Americanness” of Uncle Tom. Three years after the Dutch publication of Uncle Tom, the African American Aldridge was received with a mixture of adoration and curiosity in the Netherlands. Aldridge’s arrival in the Netherlands emphasized the
25 Roel Kuiper, “Uittocht Uit de Standenmaatschappij,” Transparant 10.1, no. 4–7 (n.d.): 1999. 26 Toll, Blacking up. The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America, 26.
27 Ibid.
28 Michael Paul Rogin, Blackface, White Noise: Jewish Immigrants in the Hollywood Melting Pot (Berkeley:
appeal to the American element. I will argue that especially the American elements of the performances made the American cultural forms adaptable to the Dutch discourse on race and emancipation, since it provided for a “realistic” representation of Dutch slavery. However, for those Dutch citizens that were aware of the Dutch reality of slavery, and for those who aimed to retain control over colonial subjects, the American element became one of the main targets for criticism.
Aldridge’s arrival in the Netherlands was made possible by the distinct debate about slavery in the Netherlands. The debate about slavery in the Netherlands, likewise fuelled by the publication of Uncle Tom, did not directly threaten Dutch citizens with a prospect of free slaves in the Netherlands, which was the case in the United States. Indeed, most Dutch citizens
experienced slavery from afar, since almost all of the slaves were located in the Dutch colonies. However, the physical distance between the Dutch citizens and colonial subjects (slaves and Javanese) did not prevent Dutch citizens from arguing against slavery and/or colonial rule. In “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics, 1840-1880” (2013), Maartje Janse outstandingly demonstrates the emerging feeling of responsibility among Dutch citizens in the Netherlands to take care of “their” colonial subjects. Although the Dutch abolition movement was indeed smaller than the American and British equivalent, the visions and aims of the Dutch abolitionists are important for this research, since they are reflected in the Dutch reception of blackface minstrelsy and Uncle Tom. Indeed, Janse argued that the abolitionist debate already began to take shape in the early 1840s. This in turn, substantiates the argument that blackface minstrelsy and Uncle Tom in the Netherlands already revealed a tension between race and emancipation.
In short, this research will mainly be about the position of the American forms of culture in the Netherlands between the arrival of the blackface minstrel troupes until the World’s Fair. Although this research will shed some light on the discourse on race and emancipation in the Netherlands and the Dutch colonies, this discourse is not the center of this thesis. The Dutch discourse described in this thesis is only a small part of a larger, more global, discourse on race and slavery. Not surprisingly, the tension between race and emancipation is a simplified
representation of reality. Not only were race and emancipation solely in conflict with each other, the complex views on race and emancipation were not confined to a certain class or location of Dutch citizens.
It should be noted that Dutch scholars have begun to refocus on the historical rendition of slavery in the Dutch Empire in the previous decades. For example, G.J. Oostindie (2007) argued that the memory of slavery throughout the Dutch empire today has been strongly influenced by
American slavery based on the so-called “Black Atlantic,” and not, for instance, on slavery in the Caribbean. This lack of “local specificity (…) became only larger from the publication of Uncle Tom’s Cabin onwards.”29 In addition, since slavery did not have the same character in different
places of the Atlantic, “the history after slavery differed as well.”30 This different Dutch
historical context during the second half of the nineteenth century has not yet been fully explored by Dutch scholars. Nevertheless, “New Perspectives on Slavery and Colonialism in the
Caribbean” (2012) edited by Marten Schalkwijk and Stephen Small is one example of a recent historical account that revisited Dutch slavery from a Dutch perspective. Moreover, The Dutch Atlantic. Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation (2011) by Kwame Nimako and Glenn Willemsen proved to be a sufficient foundation to understand the Dutch socioeconomic situation in the nineteenth century.
Instead of the Dutch discourse on slavery, abolition and emancipation, this thesis is predominately concerned with the reception of the American blackface minstrelsy troupes and Uncle Tom. However, the Dutch context will explain why the Dutch Tom play differed from its American and British counterparts. In other words, the Dutch discourse on race and
emancipation is included to make sense of these receptions and manifestations of American popular culture in the Netherlands. Since little has been written about the Dutch Tom play and American blackface minstrelsy in the Netherlands, this research is founded on advertisements, articles, and reviews from newspapers in the Dutch East Indies and the Netherlands during the nineteenth century. These historical newspapers are available in an online archive from the Dutch Royal Library (KB). In addition, the Digital Library for Dutch Literature (DBNL) was useful as well, for it stores many important Dutch novels from the nineteenth century, and provides information on Dutch authors. Moreover, the online database Het Biografisch Portaal van Nederland provided some information on the Dutch actors that would perform in the Tom plays. Furthermore, Sarah Meer’s Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850s (2005) proved to be very beneficial in making sense of the early Tom play
29 Gerrit Jan Oostindie, “Slavernij, Canon En Trauma” (Universiteit Leiden, 2007), 13–14. 30 Ibid., 14.
performances. Last but not least, the website dedicated to Uncle Tom’s Cabin & American Culture directed by Stephen Railton from the University of Virginia contained a clear overview of the popularity of Uncle Tom and made the scripts of different versions of the American Tom play accessible for the public.
In order to reveal the continuing tension between race and emancipation visible in the Dutch reception of American blackface performances, Uncle Tom, and the Tom play, the first chapter will demonstrate the early presence of the tension between race and emancipation in the Dutch slavery discourse. In doing this, the Dutch receptions of the American blackface
minstrelsy will be discussed, followed by a comparison with the British and American receptions of blackface minstrelsy. Moreover, the appeal of American minstrelsy among all social classes in the Netherlands will be explained by looking at the “American” character of the performances. The second chapter will clarify how the popularity of Uncle Tom helped succeed Dutch
abolitionist to abolish slavery. Afterwards, the popularity of the Tom play in the Netherlands, partly due to its “Americanness” and its aspects of blackface minstrelsy, will unravel the Dutch discourse on slavery and emancipation. Moreover, Aldridge’s visit to the Netherlands and the different reception of American blackface minstrelsy in the Dutch colonies will be explained in this chapter as well. Chapter three demonstrates how the tension between race and emancipation continued after the abolition of slavery. Consequentially, while still focusing on the elements described in the previous chapters, this last chapter includes the discourse about the Dutch East Indies and a growing class dissent to reveal the shift toward racial domination that had begun to take shape during the 1840s. All in all, these American forms of popular culture proved to be adaptable to Dutch society.
1 - The emergence of the tension
This chapter reveals that the prospect of emancipation of slaves in the Dutch colonies was already a part of the Dutch discourse on slavery during the 1840s. The reviews about the visit of the British American blackface minstrelsy troupe at the end of the decade reveal that the tension between race and emancipation, which will remain evident throughout the next chapters, was already present in the 1840s. Furthermore, this chapter will accentuate that the nature of the fascination toward the minstrel troupe in the Netherlands differed from the American and British’s appeal toward minstrelsy.
The Ethiopian Serenaders in the Netherlands: an eccentric spectacle
In July 1847, the first “American” blackface troupe, by the name Neger Lantium Ethiopian Serenaders (figure 2), arrived in the Netherlands. The minstrels were described as “five persons pretending to come from the inland of Africa,” dressed to the latest fashion, “which creates an eccentric contrast with their black faces, especially when one adds, that some of them are
provided with an elegant watch, indeed one even carried a lorgnette.”31 This, in combination
with the “marvelous gestures” provided for a “most eccentric spectacle.”32 Moreover, now and
then, the minstrels jumped from their chair into the air, while playing music that was “fully
unknown” to the audience, yet caused “great enjoyment.”33 Needless to say, the above
description fits the American blackface minstrel dandy type (figure 3). They act silly, and their “refined” outfits make a strange combination with their black faces. In other words, black people dressed to the latest fashion were perceived as odd: the blacks portrayed by the minstrels did not concur with one’s image of blacks. What kind of image of blacks did one have?
The reference to “Ethiopians” in the name of the troupe suggests that the minstrels or advertisers aimed to portray people of the “African race.” Therefore, the review can be perceived in light of the so-called “science of race” that had begun to take shape during the eighteenth century. The German Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752-1840), for example, created a
31 Jacques Klöters, 100 Jaar Amusement in Nederland ( ’s-Gravenhage: Staatsuitgeverij, 1987), 35. 32 Ibid.
Figure 2 - Announcement performance of "Neger Lantium Ethiopian Serenaders"
Source: “Advertentie,” Utrechtsche provincial en stads-courant: algemeen advertentieblad, July 21, 1847.
Figure 3 - The blackface dandy type "Zip Coon"
Source: 460px-Zip_Coon,_1834.jpg (JPEG-afbeelding, 460x599 Pixels), accessed June 7, 2013,
classification of humanity in three groups: the Caucasians, the Ethiopians, and the Mongolians.34 According to Blumenbach, the Caucasians were the “most handsome and becoming,” while “his
description of Ethiopians reads like a caricature.”35 The “science of race” was also practiced in
the Netherlands. In making his classification, Blumenbach used the findings of the Dutch anatomist and zoologist Pieter Camper (1722-1789). Like some earlier scientist, Camper “found that quantification of the physical characteristics of different racial groups aided in their
classification.”36 By using a so-called “facial angle,” Camper measured the physical
characteristics from the general European to the monkey.37 This theory was famously advanced
by the American Samuel Morton in the mid-nineteenth century.38
Not surprisingly, the science of race resulted in an increasing interest in “blackness.” As the American historian John Strausbaugh mentions, “the practice of displaying Blackness for enjoyment and edification of the white viewers” existed centuries before the visit of The
Ethiopian Serenaders.39 One of the most famous examples of this fascination with Africans was
the display of the African Sarah Baartman, who first appeared in London in 1820. Interestingly, she was “owned” by the Dutch, who settled in the Cape of Good Hope where Baartman’s people
(the “Hottentot,” or Khoikhoi) lived.40 As early as 1803, “John Kickerer, Dutch member of the
London Missionary Society, went to Holland” to introduce three Hottentots who “made a deep
impression.”41 The Hottentots were especially fascinating because they were considered to be the
missing link between monkeys and humans.42 Similarly, according to Maaike Meijer and
Rosemarie Buikeman, The Ethiopian Serenaders left a certain impression behind of black
people: “Negroes dance silly, one thought, animal-like and without control.”43 This comparison
between monkeys – or animals in general – will remain an important element in both Uncle Tom and American blackface minstrelsy.
34 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black. Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture. (New Haven
and London: Yale University Press, 1992), 46.
35 Ibid.
36 Blakely, Blacks in the Dutch World. The Evolution of Racial Imagery in the Modern Society., 185. 37 Ibid.
38 Ibid., 186.
39 John Strausbaugh, Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult & Imitation in American Popular Culture (New
York: Jeremy P. Tarcher/Penguin, 2006), 36.
40 Ibid., 47.
41 Hans Werner Debrunner, Presence and Prestige: Africans in Europe. A History of Africans in Europe before 1918
(Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1979), 218.
42 Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black. Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture., 41.
43 Maaike Meijer and Rosemarie Buikeman, eds., Cultuur En Migratie in Nederland. Kunsten in Beweging
Both the reference to “Ethiopians” and the perceived odd combination of a black man dressed to the latest white men’s fashion reveal that the seeds for a tension between race and emancipation were already visible with the arrival of the Serenaders. This is important to note, since an anti-slavery sentiment among a large part of the Dutch public began to increase in the years prior to the Serenaders’ visit. Indeed, the Dutch historian Maartje Janse argued that the rise of the Dutch abolition debate, or moral activism, in the 1840s demonstrates the same sentiments that are
usually connected to the introduction of the Dutch Ethical Policy.44 It should be noted that before
the 1840s – over the preparation of the new Constitution by the National Assembly in 1797 – a
parliamentary debate on slavery in the Netherlands had begun to take shape.45 However, this
protest against slavery during the late eighteenth century was “mainly in the form of protests on paper – at that time no antislavery organizations were established, while at the same time in
Great-Britain a hitherto unknown wave of public protest swept the nation.”46
Nonetheless, according to Janse, in the period between 1840 and 1880, hundreds or thousands Dutch citizens became increasingly concerned with the lives of colonial subjects. This concern, partly sparked by the British and Foreign Antislavery Society (BFASS), resulted in the foundation of the first Dutch antislavery society in 1841, called the Nederlandsche Maatschappij ter Bevordering van der Afschaffing der Slavernij [Dutch Society for the Promotion of the
Abolition of Slavery].47 However, their effort to persuade the Dutch King to abolish slavery was
not successful.48 Indeed, the Dutch government forbade “them to ever publish or be active in the
colonies, and also implored the antislavery advocates to discontinue their activities in order to
give the government the opportunity to investigate the possibility of abolishing slavery.”49
Needless to say, the planters in Suriname strongly argued against the abolition of slavery. The “planters argued that emancipation would not only threaten the colonies but that, through the loss of colonial trade upon which everyone’s prosperity was based, the existence of the mother
44 Maartje Janse, “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial
Politics, 1840-1880,” BMGN: Low Countries Historical Review 128, no. 1 (2013): 79.
45 Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black. Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture., 59.
46 Janse, “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics,
1840-1880,” 63.
47 Ibid.
48 “Het Reveil in Nederland (1817-1854),” Historisch Nieuwsblad, accessed May 10, 2013,
http://www.historischnieuwsblad.nl/nl/artikel/25934/het-reveil-in-nederland-1817-1854.html.
49 Janse, “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics,
country itself would be gravely endangered.”50 Moreover, the plantation owners in the Dutch
West Indies (the Netherlands Antilles) delayed the abolition of slavery while demanding
compensation for the loss of their human property.51
The rather restricted freedom of movement of the established antislavery society did not stop individual Dutch citizens that were concerned about the situation in the colonies to pick up their pens. For instance, in 1842, Marten Douwes Teenstra wrote the anti-slavery account De negerslaven in de kolonie Suriname [The negro slaves in the colony of Suriname] in which he
discussed the harsh treatment of “negro slaves” in Suriname.52 Although Teenstra clearly
opposed slavery, he did not advocate his anti-slavery feelings directly to white slave owners in
Suriname.53 Yet his account did help stimulate the emergence of a larger protest movement,
which contested “the nature of colonial rule.”54 Indeed, the “moral indignation over colonial
issues shaped Dutch political life in an important formative stage.”55 The new constitution in
1848 had reinvented the role of Dutch citizens in the political process, which ignited “a sense of responsibility towards colonial subjects and consequentially” demanded “political change to
alleviate the suffering.”56 In other words, already at the end of the 1840s, the “moral sentiments
with regard to the colonies were increasingly translated in political statements.”57 Although the
“sense of moral responsibility” convinced Dutch citizens of the need to abolish slavery, the reviews about the Serenaders gave the impression that one was not sure what free slaves should look like. Did British and American receptions of blackface minstrelsy reveal a similar tension between slavery and emancipation? What kind of feelings did the minstrel performances evoke by American and British audiences?
50 Nederveen Pieterse, White on Black. Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture., 59.
51 Kwame Nimako and Glenn Frank Walter Willemsen, The Dutch Atlantic: Slavery, Abolition and Emancipation
(London; New York, NY: Pluto Press, 2011), 93.
52 DBNL, “Marten Douwes Teenstra, De negerslaven in de kolonie Suriname · dbnl,” accessed May 22, 2013,
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/teen002nege01_01/teen002nege01_01_0013.php#13.
53 J.S. Weerden, van, “Marten Douwes Teenstra in Suriname, 1828-1834. Een Groninger Pionier in de West.,”
KITLV/ Royal Netherlands Institute of Southeast Asian and Caribbean Studies (1968): 173,
www.kitlv-journals.nl/index.php/nwig/article/viewFile/5282/6049.
54 Janse, “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics,
1840-1880,” 57.
55 Ibid., 55. 56 Ibid. 57 Ibid., 56.
The British and American reception of blackface minstrelsy
The British and Dutch context in which the American minstrel troupes would arrive differed from the American context in one prominent way: slavery was more notable in the United States. The American historian Eric Lott explains blackface minstrelsy’s appeal toward the American working class by revealing the ambiguity of “blackness” in the minstrel shows, and the mixed political and racial feelings these performances aroused. According to Lott, during the 1830s, white American laborers in the North began to identify themselves with black slaves. However, when upper-class reformers began to refer to the laborers as so-called “wage slaves,” white laborers began to distance themselves from a possible coalition with free black laborers, and consequentially from abolitionism.
In the late 1840s, while the North and South were competing over their modes of
economic production, the white Northern laborers were conflicted over whether to oppose wage slavery – with that the Northern form of production – or chattel slavery – forcing the South to follow the Northern mode of production, yet force the laborers to remain victims of wage slavery. In the United States, “slavery, not antislavery, prevented the full-circle critique of
capitalism on behalf of all workers.”58 In other words, “capitalism was ultimately the enemy [of
the working-class], but racial feeling the immediate obstacle; energies directed against the state
apparatus might too easily join those focused on black people.”59 Indeed, “class straits may
energize interracial cooperation, but they are also often likely to close down the possibility of
interracial embrace.”60 The mixed feelings described above were especially apparent in the
popular blackface stage adaption of Uncle Tom in the United States. The blackface audience both felt connected to the African Americans minstrels portrayed, and felt like they belonged to the upper-class for mocking African Americans.
Blackface minstrelsy did not reveal the same struggle between loyalties of race and class in the Netherlands. The Dutch socioeconomic context differed significantly from the United States. First of all, by the time the industrialization in the Netherlands had begun between the 1860s and 1870s, and labor movements developed accordingly, slavery had been abolished in
58 Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, Race and American Culture
(New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 237.
59 Ibid. 60 Ibid.
both the Netherlands and the United States.61 This, and the lack of an enslaved black presence in the Netherlands, prevented the Dutch laborers from identifying themselves directly with slaves. Indeed, whenever someone did occasionally make a comparison between slaves and laborers, they normally emphasized the worse condition of the slaves. For example, in an article about the French pamphlet De l’esclavage moderne (1839) of Félicité Robert de Lamennais, the author
denied the presence of “contemporary slavery.”62 According to Lamennais, the lower classes of
the French society were fully dependent on the rich, “the capitalist.”63 According to the Dutch
reviewer, however, capitalism was not the cause of wage slavery. The real cause was the natural order God provided. Indeed, the author claims that the laborer is not even fully dependent on the
low wages of the capitalist: the laborer can find another job that provides a better salary.64
The Dutch appeal toward American blackface minstrelsy was, therefore, more in line with the reception of minstrelsy in Britain. According to the British historian Michael Pickering, the main reason for the long-enduring popularity of blackface minstrelsy in Britain was the distinctive character of British blackface performances. Although the development of British minstrelsy in some ways paralleled “its American counterpart,” Pickering argues that the British
“incarnation developed quite differently, as did the reasons for its long-enduring popularity.”65
Indeed, exactly the absence of American characteristics of blackface minstrelsy made the British
variant a continuing success that appealed to all social classes in Britain.66 For example, after the
mid-nineteenth century, the British minstrel troupes added an orchestra in their shows, and began to center the “comic elements on the caricature of the ‘nigger’ dandy,” moving away from the
poorly entertaining American “crude representation of real negro life.”67 In doing this, the link
with African American culture visible in the original American blackface minstrelsy became
“even more tenuous.”68
Nevertheless, neither the tenuous link with African American culture, nor the fact that the troupe that visited the Netherlands was British, makes the performances less “American.” As
61 H. de Vos, Geschiedenis van Het Socialisme in Nederland in Het Kader van Zijn Tijd (Baarn: Het Wereldvenster,
1976), 29.
62 “Over de hedendaagsche Slavernij,” Vlissingsche courant, February 11, 1840. 63 Ibid.
64 Ibid.
65 Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, xi. 66 Ibid., 21.
67 Ibid., 19–20 and 25. 68 Ibid., 20.
Pickering emphasized, the boundaries between American and British minstrelsy became blurry
because of the continuous trafficking between them.69 Moreover, it should be noted that the
authenticity of blackface imitations is not as important as the perception of the Dutch audience. In other words, whether the blackface minstrels truthfully depicted African Americans or not – if an authentic imitation is possible in the first place – the performances added to the Dutch
audience’s knowledge of African Americans. In fact, knowledge about African Americans prior to The Ethiopians Serenaders’ performance was small to non-existing, as will be discussed in greater detail later. In addition, in contrast to the United States, British troupes “had no direct
symbolic bearing on a substantial black population.”70 The relatively small amount of black
people residing in Britain “undoubtedly added to the novelty attraction of blackface musical
entertainments.”71
According to the American historian John G. Blair, direct knowledge of blacks were not a requirement to understand blackface performances: “Blackface minstrels were created in the USA to entertain white audiences with little or no direct knowledge of the blacks who were
being portrayed in the performance.”72 Indeed, characters like “Jim Crow” satisfied “white
Northerners’ growing curiosity about blacks and especially slaves at a time when slavery was
becoming a major national controversy.”73 Furthermore, characters as “Zip Coon” and “Dandy
Jim” revealed the white Northern anxieties about the growing black presence in the urban areas.
These characters caricatured “free Negroes as silly black buffoons.”74 In general, the “humor [of
blackface minstrelsy] works on its own terms and requires no knowledge of African American
behavior – and just as well, because most Europeans had none.”75 However, it has to be noted
that the success of American minstrelsy in Britain was partly due to their corresponding language. According to Blair, blackface minstrels “their dependence on audiences fluent in
English limited the extent to which minstrels could penetrate the Continent.”76
69 Ibid., 4. 70 Ibid., 74. 71 Ibid., 76.
72 John G. Blair, “Blackface Minstrels in Cross-Cultural Perspective,” American Studies International 28, no. 2,
Special Issue on the Impact of US Culture Abroad (October 1990): 60.
73 Toll, Blacking up. The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America, 34. 74 Ibid., 68.
75 Derek B. Scott, Sounds of the Metropolis: The Nineteenth-century Popular Music Revolution in London, New
York, Paris, and Vienna (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 146.
Despite the supposed language barrier, the “American” blackface troupe that visited the Netherlands was British. Even though there was an American minstrel troupe called The Ethiopian Serenaders (also known as Boston Minstrels) which “left for a successful English tour” in 1846, we can determine with certainty that The Ethiopian Serenaders that visited the
Netherlands were not American.77 Not only did the Dutch advertisements emphasize the troupe’s
popularity in London, where they were well received and enjoyed “general approval” for two years, the American troupe left Britain for the United States in 1847. Moreover, the American minstrels existed of G. Pelham, G. Harrington, W. White, G. Stanwood, and H.G. Sherman, while the Ethiopian Serenaders that visited the Netherlands were referred to as Dryce, Laurain,
Adwin, Morley and Steiner.78
Additionally, as became evident from the Dutch reviews about The Ethiopian Serenaders, the British Ethiopian Serenaders “wore white waist coasts and conventional tailcoats rather than
plantation costume, and offered entertainment ‘on a far higher plane than others’.”79 Indeed, The
Ethiopian Serenaders were one of the first “refined” British minstrel troupes in the mid-1840s, “which no longer ‘relied chiefly on the humorous element for their success’ but mixed this with
great variety, skillful harmonizing and more emphatic sentimentality.”80 As described earlier, in
focusing on the dandy type, the connection with African American slave culture visible in the original American blackface minstrelsy became tenuous. Therefore, the first portrayal of African Americans that the Dutch audience came into contact with was the dandy figure. Who made up “the Dutch audience,” and what aspect of the performance did they find especially appealing?
The broad appeal of The Ethiopian Serenaders
A dominant part of the Dutch appeal toward the British blackface minstrel troupe was based on pure curiosity. It was not a coincidence that the minstrels performed during the kermis – which
77 Toll, Blacking up. The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America, 37.
78 “New-York Daily Tribune. (New-York [N.Y.]) 1842-1866, September 08, 1843, Image 3,” September 8, 1843,
http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn83030213/1843-09-08/ed-1/seq-3/#date1=1836&index=10&rows=20&words=Ethiopian+ETHIOPIAN+SERENADERS+Serenaders&searchType= basic&sequence=0&state=&date2=1922&proxtext=%22ethiopian+serenaders%22&y=0&x=0&dateFilterType=year Range&page=1.
79 Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, 18. 80 Ibid.
often took place between September and November. The Dutch kermis of the nineteenth century
was more than a fair – it was a true folk festival.81 The kermis offered an interruption from the
usual life which mostly consisted of work:
By offering the opportunity of new experiences, impressions and news, one skillfully responded to the existing needs for knowledge, amazement, fear, and beauty. The
multiple forms of entertainment the kermis offered give a lively image of the culture of a folk – in its most essential and expressive form. (…) One learned about far countries and
regions from museums their (…) collection of ethnological.82
The blackface minstrel performance fits this description perfectly. As mentioned earlier, The Ethiopian Serenaders played music that was “fully unknown” to the audience. Interestingly, the audience learned about the supposedly Ethiopian race and/or culture by attending a show of The Ethiopian Serenaders. Indeed, the description about the Lanthum Ethiopian Serenaders in a nineteenth-century booklet of the exhibition about the kermis in Amsterdam reads: “This performance of white people blackened like negroes was the first acquaintance of the Dutch
public with the American negro-music.”83 This novelty aspect of the blackface performances
most likely caused the appeal toward this kermis attraction. This appeal, in turn, was strong. In 1848, for instance, kermis director R. Kinsbergen thanked the great turnout of people in an advertisement in the Algemeen Handelsblad on behalf of himself and the negro singers that
accompanied him.84 This begs the question: Who visited the kermis?
According to the Dutch historical sociologist G.H. Jansen, the kermis was loved by the
upper and lower class of the Dutch society during the eighteenth century.85 A similar audience
visited the kermis in the nineteenth century: “Amsterdam looked like one big theater during the kermis. People from all walks of life came in droves to the city theater at the Leidseplein.
Despite the poverty, everyone had money to spare for a few hours of entertainment.”86 Although
the minstrel shows were probably not the only curiosity that attracted the audience during the kermis, the presence of a relatively poor audience does concur with the observation of the
81 Maria Keyser, Paul Blom, and Jacques Klöters, “Komt Dat Zien. De Amsterdamse Kermis in de Negentiende
Eeuw” (Toneelmuseum Amsterdam, 1976), 2.
82 Ibid. 83 Ibid., 12.
84 “Advertentie,” Algemeen Handelsblad, September 9, 1848.
85 G.H. Jansen, Een Roes van Vrijheid. Kermis in Nederland (Amsterdam: Boom Meppel, 1987), 43. 86 Keyser, Blom, and Klöters, “Komt Dat Zien. De Amsterdamse Kermis in de Negentiende Eeuw,” 11.
American historian Jim Cullen, that in the United States “the most surprising growth” caused by
minstrelsy “occurred in the poor audience.”87 Moreover, according to Lott, the “minstrel show
brought [American] classes together through common racial hostility.”88 Although it is hard to
determine whether Dutch audiences shared a similar common racial hostility, they sure did share a common curiosity toward blacks.
Indeed, given the diverse locations where the Serenaders performed, all social classes were able to attend a show. For example, The Ethiopian Serenaders performed in Utrecht in a hall next to theater, in cafes like the Nieuw Koffijhuis in Rotterdam, the Locaal in Middelburg,
and in a venue called the Duizend Kolommen in Amsterdam.89 The latter hall was described as
bright, and the walls were vested with mirrors. In this venue, audiences who liked magicians,
ventriloquists and “other arts,” would probably “get its money’s worth.”90 In other words, these
venues seemed easily accessible to the lower class of the Dutch society. In contrast to these locations there were also royal theaters.
After the performances of The Ethiopian Serenaders in Utrecht and Amsterdam, the troupe began to be announced with the name Lantum Negerzangers van Amerika, or simply the Negerzangers van Amerika [Negro-singers from America]. With the latter name, the troupes began to perform in royals theaters as the Koninklijke Nederduitsche Schouwburg in ’s-Gravenhage (now The Hague) and the Koninklijke Zuid-Hollandsche Schouwburg in
Rotterdam.91 It is hard to determine why the troupe began to be announced as “American”
instead of “Ethiopian.” However, the alteration of the name reveals that the audience had begun to perceive blackface minstrelsy as distinctively “American.” Moreover, probably to lure a more bourgeois audience, which the British troupes initially had in mind in Britain, the advertisements emphasized that the British Queen and Dutch King had enjoyed the performances multiple
times.92
87 Popular Culture in American History, 63. 88 Lott, Love and Theft, 154.
89 Scott, Sounds of the Metropolis, 145 and “Advertentie,” Nieuw Rotterdamsche courant: staats-, handels-, nieuws-
en advertentieblad, March 8, 1849 and “Advertentie,” Middelburgsche courant, December 2, 1848, Klöters, 100 Jaar Amusement in Nederland, 34-5.
90 H.J. Scharp, “Koninklijk Oudheidkunde Genootschap Te Amsterdam, Jaarverslag in de Zeventigste Algemeene
Vergadering Op Maandag 21 Mei 1928” (1928): 43.
91 “Advertentie,” Rotterdamsche courant, August 14, 1847 and “Advertentie,” Nederlandsche staatscourant, August
10, 1847.
Despite the alteration of the troupe’s name, the performances were practically the same. Both the illustration of the Negerzangers van Amerika (figure 4) and the program indicate that the
performance was mostly concerned with the “dandy” minstrel type. Songs that were performed included De Elegante Neger op het Bal (probably related to “Nigger Ball,” or “The Colored
Fancy Ball”93) and O! Mijnheer Koen (which might refer to one of the many “coon songs” 94).
Other songs were Marie Blanck, Het Meisje van Baffalan and De Oude Tante Sally. These song names were most likely the translations of the popular minstrel songs “Mary Blane,” “Buffalo
Gals,” and “My Old Aunt Sally.”95 Remarkable is the inclusion of the anti-slavery song “Mary
Blane,” since the Dutch King was a proponent of slavery.96 Indeed, the Dutch King “considered
colonial rule to be his royal prerogative.”97 However, regardless of King Willem II’s feeling
towards slavery, the King appreciated how the negro singers sung negro songs and imitated
negro dances.98 Surely, this appreciation had much to do with the funny portrayal of dandies.
Indeed, although a possible language barrier mentioned earlier might have influenced the King’s understanding of the anti-slavery song, reviews about the performance reveal that the blackface minstrels were chiefly hailed for their comical appearance. In a review in the Nieuwe Rotterdamsche courant, the authors wrote that the show “truly surpassed our expectations.”99 One of the performers, Dryce, made them laugh over and over again due to “his droll postures
and grotesque body distortions.”100 Moreover, comical songs like “Buffalo Gals” were received
with laughter. The review ends with the advice that “those who love mirth” should pay a visit to
see “these darkies” perform.101 Since this positive review mostly comments on the funny
appearance of the minstrel performers, the language in which the minstrels performed might not have been the determinative factor for appreciating this form of American entertainment. Indeed, no mention is made about the lyrics of the music in any review.
93 Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, 11; Toll, Blacking up. The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century
America, 68.
94 Pickering, Blackface Minstrelsy in Britain, 43. 95 Ibid., 21.
96 Ibid., 58.
97 Janse, “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics,
1840-1880,” 64.
98 “Advertentie,” Rotterdamsche courant, August 14, 1847 and “Advertentie,” Nederlandse staatscourant, October
8, 1847.
99“De Lantum Negerzangers van Amerika,” Nieuwe Rotterdamsche courant, August 13, 1847. 100 Ibid.
Figure 4 - Announcement and program of the performance of "De Lantumnegerzangers van Amerika" Source: “Advertentie,” Nieuwe Rotterdamsche courant: staats-, handels, nieuws- en advertentieblad, August 13,
Therefore, language was probably not a perquisite for understanding the comical portrayal of dandies. Indeed, whereas the Dutch King most likely mastered the English language, the diverse locations of performance suggests American minstrelsy’s appeal among the bourgeoisie and folk within the Dutch society. As revealed earlier, the blackface troupe, albeit under a different stage name, performed in both prestigious theaters and smaller venues such as variety theaters.
Nevertheless, the Negerzangers van Amerika turned out be more appealing: the troupe performed in Amsterdam, Rotterdam, Arnhem, ‘s-Gravenhage, Middelburg, Leeuwarden, Leiden and other
cities between 1847 and 1849.102
“Americanness”
What made the British troupe, or advertisers, decide to alter their name? As mentioned earlier, the right answer is hard to determine. However, the American aspect of the blackface minstrelsy performances most likely triggered this alteration. As in Britain, the relatively small presence of
hundreds of blacks surely added to the appeal of minstrelsy in the Netherlands.103 However, the
relative absence of blacks in the Dutch society did not mean that the audience did not have an established image of blacks in their minds. Indeed, the fact that a connection between the blackface artists and blacks in Africa was made in a review suggests that the Dutch audience possessed a certain amount of knowledge about blacks and their supposed culture. This notion is reinforced by Allison Blakely’s Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society (1993). As the title suggests, the American historian Blakely explored the
depiction of blacks in Dutch paintings, architecture, and literature from the eighteenth to the twentieth century. However, the images discussed by Blakely until the mid-nineteenth century were primarily Dutch images based on blacks from the African continent, not the United States. Similarly, Teenstra’s anti-slavery account, which provided knowledge of slaves in Suriname, did not focus on the United States either.
102 “Advertentie,” Nederlandse Staatscourant, October 7, 1847; Middelburgsche courant, December 12, 1848;
Leeuwarder courant, June 5, 1849; Rotterdamsche courant, August 12, 1847; Algemeen Handelsblad, October 11,
1847 and Arnhemsche courant, October 6, 1847.
This did not mean that the Dutch society could not acquire knowledge about African Americans at all. In 1827, for example, the Dutch translation of the American novel The Spy (1821) from
James Fenimore Cooper was published in the Netherlands.104 According to American linguist
Catherina Juanita Starke, who explored stereotypical portrayals of African Americans in American literature, The Spy contained the “first full-length portrait of the contented slave”
called Caesar.105 According to Starke, the sole reason for an accommodative slave in a “novel is
to serve others and do what he is told to do,” while his function is also “to lighten tensions.”106
Indeed, Caesar’s name, personality and physical appearance provide for some comic relief
throughout the novel.107 For example, at one point, Cooper’s description of Caesar “rises in
comic intensity and becomes ludicrous caricature.”108
However, this small African American role in the novel did not catch a lot of attention in the Netherlands. Indeed, no mention was made of Caesar in Dutch reviews. Praises ranged from
a simple “plot and characterization in (…) The Spy are well done”109 to “The Spy – undoubtedly
one of his best novels” is “entertaining” and “important.”110 In another review, Cooper is praised
for his “kind of description, by which he enables the readers to participate in the action.”111
Additionally, although the Dutch translation of The Spy reveals that American images of African Americans were available to the Dutch public, we should take into account that not every Dutch citizen was able to read in the beginning of the nineteenth century. While the members of the elite and middle-class were able to read, illiteracy was not uncommon under the unemployed, the farmworkers and small farmers, and servants in the Netherlands. It was only in the course of the
nineteenth century that 75 percent of the Dutch population learned how to read.112
Nonetheless, it was not the “blackface” element alone that attracted the Dutch audiences. Centuries before the existence of the popular American blackface minstrelsy, blackface was
104 J.G. Riewals en J. Bakker, The Critical Reception of African American Literature in the Netherlands 1824-1900.
A Documentary Conspectus from Contemporary Periodicals. (Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V., 1982), 71.
105 Catherina Juanita Starke, Black Portraiture in American Fiction. Stock Characters, Archetypes, and Individuals.
(New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1971), 30.
106 Ibid., 34. 107 Ibid. 108 Ibid., 31.
109 Riewals and Bakker, The Critical Reception of American Literature in the Netherlands 1824-1900. A
Documentary Conspectus from Contemporary Periodicals., 76.
110 Ibid., 94. 111 Ibid., 97.
112 DBNL, “Marita Mathijsen, Het literaire leven in de negentiende eeuw · dbnl,” 7, accessed May 10, 2013,
already a familiar theatrical device in Europe.113 The blackfaced Moor –in Shakespeare’s Othello, the Moor of Venice – for example, was a popular figure on the stage in London and the
Netherlands in the late eighteenth century.114 Since Dutch audiences were already familiar with
both blackface performances and depictions of blacks in Dutch paintings, architecture, and literature, it seems likely that the enthusiasm of the Dutch reviewers was directed at the
American component of the performance.Moreover, the “fully unknown” music, “marvelous
gestures,” and “droll postures and grotesque body distortion” reveal the factors that make American blackface minstrelsy American. Indeed, American blackface minstrelsy required
music, dancing and minstrel types that were all supposedly modeled after African Americans.115
In addition, given the change in the troupe’s name, and in contrast to the British troupes’ aim to move away from the American element of blackface minstrelsy, its “Americanness” was precisely what seemed to appeal to Dutch public – as was the case in the United States.
According to Strausbaugh, minstrelsy’s “Americaness was a big part of its appeal” in the United
States from the late 1820s into the early 1840s.116
Whether or not the Dutch public added the “American” minstrels show to their
knowledge of black and white culture in America, the most popular “purely American form of
entertainment” had reached the Netherlands by 1847.117 The merely laudatory remarks about the
portrayal of the dandy already revealed an underlying tension of the emerging discourse on slavery. What does a freed slave look like? So far, the focus on the dandy figure instead of the African American slave did not fuel sympathy toward slaves. However, the publication of Stowe’s Uncle Tom five years later, “the first American novel with blacks as its central
characters,” would provide the Dutch audience with an opposing image of African Americans,
increasing the tension between abolition on the one hand, and emancipation on the other.118
113 Strausbaugh, Black Like You, 62.
114 Ibid., 63 and “Tooneelbericht,” Rotterdamsche courant, November 25, 1797.
115 Carl Frederick Wittke, Tambo and Bones: a History of the American Minstrel Stage (Westport, Conn.:
Greenwood Press, 1968), 1–9; Strausbaugh, Black Like You, 69.
116 Strausbaugh, Black Like You, 72. 117 Wittke, Tambo and Bones, vii.
2 – The numerous messages in Uncle Tom
Did thou read Uncle Tom’s Cabin? But what a question! Who did not read that book? Thou are responsible for the scenes that are depicted in the novel, and thou think about our colonies, especially about Suriname! But do not worry; the situation of the slaves there is, under a Dutch government, a lot more bearable and happy than their pitiable
peers in America.119
This excerpt fueled with sarcasm from an anti-slavery novel, written by the Dutch abolitionist Wolbert Robert van Hoëvell, clearly reveals the influence of the publication of the Dutch translation of Uncle Tom on the Dutch discourse on slavery. A sense of moral obligation to change the situation in the Dutch colonies becomes evident. As Janse explained, the publication of sentimental anti-slavery narratives, and especially the perceived helplessness of colonial
subjects, “triggered the urge to defend them.”120 Yet as this chapter will reveal, these helpless
victims were not fully ready for freedom. Indeed, the colonial subjects were not even equal to Dutch citizens.
The nature and influence of the Dutch translation of Uncle Tom
In comparison to Cooper’s The Spy in 1827, the now more or less literate Dutch public was able to gain more knowledge about African Americans by reading the Dutch translation of Stowe’s Uncle Tom that was published in 1853. The novel, which follows two slaves that are coping with the cruel institution of slavery, caused a lot of commotion in the United States. Not only was the novel written by a woman, she addressed a painful political issue: slavery. Stowe wrote Uncle Tom in reaction to the recently implemented Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, which authorized real Southerners to pursue real slave fugitives on Northern soil and forbade Northerners to provide
shelter to runaway slaves.121
Not surprisingly, as in the United States and the rest of Europe, Uncle Tom made a deep impression on contemporary Dutch readers. In line with the portrayal of “dandies” in the
119 DBNL, “W.R. van Hoëvell, Slaven en vrijen onder de Nederlandsche wet · dbnl,” 48, accessed May 5, 2013,
http://www.dbnl.org/tekst/hoev004slav01_01/hoev004slav01_01_0003.php?q=.
120 Janse, “Representing Distant Victims: The Emergence of an Ethical Movement in Dutch Colonial Politics,
1840-1880,” 74.
