Fin-de-siècle Black Minstrelsy, Itinerancy, and the Anglophone Imperial Circuit

Following the end of the US American Civil War, African American performers established themselves as popular rivals to leading white companies of blackface minstrelsy. Yet, the circuits of Black minstrelsy were not limited to the United States but rather traced itinerant routes throughout the British Empire. This Anglophone imperial circuit encompassed not only Britain but also the British colonies in southern Africa, South Asia, Australia, and New Zealand. For instance, in 1899, two Black minstrel troupes competed for audiences in Sydney, Australia: Ernest Hogan’s American Negro Minstrels and Orpheus McAdoo’s Georgia Minstrels. Their overlapping itineraries trace the forgotten global routes of Black minstrelsy, the complex racial politics of late nineteenth-century transnational Black performance, and the integral role played by African American performers in the earliest waves of theatrical globalization.