Book contents
- Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America
- Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre
- Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Rebels and Refugees
- 2 The Lessons of Haiti
- 3 Virtuosity, Illegitimacy, and Haitian Royalty
- 4 Travesty and Transformation
- 5 Abolitionist Acts
- 6 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
4 - Travesty and Transformation
Haiti and Blackface Minstrelsy
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 November 2022
Book contents
- Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America
- Cambridge Studies in Modern Theatre
- Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century America
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- 1 Rebels and Refugees
- 2 The Lessons of Haiti
- 3 Virtuosity, Illegitimacy, and Haitian Royalty
- 4 Travesty and Transformation
- 5 Abolitionist Acts
- 6 Conclusion
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
This chapter examines the diverging ways that minstrelsy used Haiti as source material. Minstrelsy took direct and mocking aim at the aspirations of African Americans, even as its turn to Haiti implicitly acknowledged the transformative power of racial revolution. In popular transatlantic plays like M. M. Dowling’s Othello Travestie, minstrelsy used Haiti to reimagine the rising hopes and transgressive desires of the Black Atlantic. By the 1850s, minstrelsy used Haiti as an empty signifier, a marker of ludicrous and disruptive Blackness.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Staging Haiti in Nineteenth-Century AmericaRevolution, Race and Popular Performance, pp. 120 - 149Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022