Look Out for Scoundrels: Master Juba and the Georgia Champions
Minstrel shows developed in the early 19th century, the first uniquely American form of theater. They evolved out of brief burlesques between longer stage acts in theaters in the Northeastern states in the early 1830s, and consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The shows were performed by mostly white people wearing blackface make-up for the purpose of playing the role of Black people. Black-face minstrelsy was extremely popular, reflecting the era’s widespread acceptance of this offensive practice.
The first fully-fledged minstrel show was performed in 1843 and was an immediate hit, spawning many imitators and initiating what was to be the most popular of popular entertainments for the next forty years or more. The Georgia Champions was one of the many troupes that appeared around that time. They organized and opened in Providence, RI, in July 1845— their troupe included Jake Hunter (performed by a Mr. Ryder), on banjo; Tom Fluter on tambourine; Pierce on “bones”, or castanets; Russell playing the accordion, and Master Juba, then in “his best trim”, according to the New York Clipper in 1912.
Image courtesy of Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror
Master Juba was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group. William Henry Lane has been suggested as his birth name, but no conclusive evidence has yet been found. He was also known as “Boz’s Juba” following Dickens’s graphic description of him in American Notes, a travelogue detailing his trip to North America from January to June 1842. As a teenager, he began his career in the rough saloons and dance halls of Manhattan’s Five Points neighborhood; frequently challenged and defeated the best white dancers, including the period favorite, John Diamond. Juba’s style likely incorporated both European folk steps, such as the Irish jig, and African-derived steps, and was highly influential in the development American dance styles like tap, jazz, and step dancing.
Juba toured New England with the Georgia Champions beginning in 1845, billed as “The Wonder of the World Juba, Acknowledged to be the Greatest Dancer in the World!” On July 19 of that year, Juba and the Champions made their first appearance on Nantucket, performing in the Great Hall of the Nantucket Atheneum, with “Messrs. Ryder and Fluter” on banjos, Master Rose on tambourine, and Master Juba playing the “Castinetts”. Master Ryder was billed as the best “Ethiopian Delineator” then on the stage, and Master Juba’s triumph over John Diamond in a dancing contest was touted as well in that day’s advertising in the Nantucket Weekly Mirror. Tickets were 25 cents.
The troupe returned to the island in August 1845, but an ad in the Inquirer and Mirror on August 23 hinted at low attendance, announcing that prices had been reduced to 12½ cents for that night’s performance. On August 27, an entry appeared in that day’s edition of the Inquirer and Mirror”: “This second visit of the Georgia Champions to our island, fairly turned against them, and we could not bear to note them, except in ironical terms.” The author claimed that “Juba & Co. didn’t make enough while here to pay for the Hall and door-keepers.” Another, longer article in the next day’s paper revealed the consequences of their failure to fill the seats that night.
Image courtesy of Nantucket Inquirer & Mirror
“GEORGIA CHAMPIONS! LOOK OUT FOR SCOUNDRELS!” roared the headline in the August 28 edition of the Inquirer and Mirror. The article claimed that after their initial appearance on Nantucket they spent allegedly spent a month “in idleness and debauchery” in New Bedford, and that their financial reserves “had become so much exhausted that they were obliged to get trusted on board the steamer for their passage hither”—that is, they promised payment after the planned shows on Nantucket.
“After giving three concerts, and finding that our good people were not much in want for the services of such a gang of blackguards, they resorted to a lying humbug, and advertised that a ‘gentleman of this town’ was to dance with Juba on Friday evening, for a wager of $50”, perhaps similar to the challenge dancing that brought Master Juba to prominence at the start of his fame. According to the paper, “nearly all that saw the notice were convinced it was a gross humbug”, but curiosity got the better of the enough people that the Atheneum Hall was filled the next night, but in the end many left feeling that they had been “outrageously shaved. The villains…succeeded in their plans, which were only to get a full house and run away with the profits.
“On Saturday morning (August 23) their advertisements and handbills again appeared, giving notice that their last concert would take place on that evening. But during the forenoon, Pierce, the treasurer of the company, took passage in the sloop Portugal for New Bedford, carrying with him the whole amount of money that they had taken at their four concerts, and to leave the others to fulfill their engagements for the evening, which was done by opening and closing the Hall, without an attempt at a performance, or a dozen persons to patronize one.
“They have all left the island, we believe, some by one conveyance and some by another, owing more than one hundred dollars for Hall, board, printing, borrowed money, constable’s, door-keeper’s, and town crier’s fees steamboat passages, &c., &c., which has been swindled out of our citizens, we think principally through the instrumentality of Mr. William Pierce, late of Providence, RI; although the other members of the company are far, we think, from being innocent in the frauds that they have now, and also previously practiced.” The author of the article defended the paper from the charge that they have “given a high color” to the story, due to being one of the defrauded parties, pointing to an alleged incident the previous winter, when they “were put in Jail at St. Johns, N.B.” (New Brunswick) for “being unable to run away from that place on account of the snow, after swindling that community out of a considerable sum of money.”
As for the “gentleman of this town” who was supposed to dance with Master Juba—the August 30 edition of the Nantucket Weekly Mirror claimed that “the gentleman (who is not a citizen of Nantucket) likewise gave our friend of the Gosnold House the slip, without paying his board.” The author intended to close the notice with a mention that “Mr. Wright is on their trail, and we hope he will nab them”, but events transpired faster than the print type could be set:
“Since the above was in type, Mr. Wright has returned from his exploring expedition, having tree’d Pierce, the manager of the Champions, in New Bedford, after scouring that town in the pursuit. With much labor, he forced him to pay his demand, and then left him to the tender mercy of several persons whom he had swindled in New Bedford, and who subsequently placed him in jail for safekeeping. With the gentleman who danced with Juba he was not so fortunate, for although he found him, and held to him for several hours, the scamp finally gave him the slip. Mr. W. went to Providence, but could not catch the loafer. He ascertained that his reputation was not by any means enviable.”
Image courtesy of Wikipedia (public domain)
What happened to the Georgia Champions after that is a mystery as they faded from the historical record, but it’s possible that the performers simply moved on to other acts once the Champions became too notorious to continue as a group. For example, Master Juba went on to travel to London in 1848 with the Ethiopian Serenaders, an otherwise white minstrel troupe, where he achieved his greatest fame yet. Eventually he found himself back in the United States, but American critics were not as kind as their English counterparts. Juba performed a solo act in working-class music halls, concert saloons, and entr’actes in nondescript theaters in New York: he had gone from obscurity to the limelight and back again. The record suggests that Juba worked day and night for 11 years—from 1839 to 1850. Such a demanding schedule, coupled with poor food and little sleep, likely doomed Juba to an early death, some time in 1853-4. He was only twenty-eight years old.
Sources:
The New York Clipper (April 1912)
The Era, Provincial Theatricals, 30 July 1848
Early Minstrel Show Music, 1843-1852, Robert B. Winans
A History of the Musical: Minstrel Shows, John Kenrick
Monarchs of minstrelsy, from “Daddy” Rice to date, by Rice, Edward Le Roy, 1911
Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture, William J. Mahar, 1998