By Pamilpreet Brar, Josiah McColeman, and Faryn Smith
In 1996, the Fergus Brass Band performed a blackface minstrel show at the Fergus High School. While it may seem like blackface and minstrelsy are forms of entertainment of a different time, the minstrel show, the donning of blackface, and its residual effects continue to remain pervasive in society today.
Minstrelsy, What is it?
Minstrelsy is the comic enactment of Black stereotypes usually performed in blackface. The minstrel show was derived from the character commonly known as “Jim Crow,” which is closely tied to American system of laws of racial segregation. He was created in 1828 by Thomas D. Rice, the son of English immigrants, who lived in the lower east side of Manhattan (“The Origins of the Black Minstrel show” 45). Rice was the first person to go on stage with black cork smeared on his face and go by the name of “Jim Crow.” Previously, other actors had appeared in blackface portraying the stereotypical role under names like “Black Sambo,” but Rice’s “Jim Crow” was an African-American trickster masquerading in the guise of an escaped slave. The audience for his sarcasm and wit was working-class whites, who faced a different form of hardship (45).
While minstrel shows began in the United States, this practice of Black “recreation” was evident in Canadian society. While Canada is often perceived as a “racism-free space,” a haven for fugitive slaves who escaped North via the Underground Railroad, Canada is more similar to its neighbours in the south than it would like to admit. American minstrel companies first came to Canada in the 1840s, but its peak years were between the 1860s and 1910s (Thompson 100). One of the first cultural events of the Northwest Mounted Police was a minstrel show. The minstrel production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin was one of the most popular shows that toured across Canada. The degradation and dehumanization of Black lives, evident in minstrel advertisements, was the cultural reality or dominant perspective of blackness in Canada at the time (Thompson 99-103).
Troubling Guelph and Canada’s “Racism-Free” Identity
Evidence of the minstrel tradition in the Wellington County Museum, Guelph Civic Museum, and the University of Guelph Library document a long history of a white community’s engagement with racist tropes and caricatures of Black people and culture. The following examples of local manifestations of bigotry and ignorance figure blackface minstrelsy as an important aspect of white culture in Guelph and surrounding areas. This archive of blackface and minstrelsy depict a century of white engagement with and enjoyment of racist representations of minoritized people. These photographs trouble the concept of Guelph, and Canada more generally, as a “racism-free space.”
The first image shows the Guelph Jazz Band on the steps of Guelph City Hall in 1921. This image is disturbing due to its placement of the photo. By being taken in the steps of City Hall it associated people of political power in Guelph with this racist engagement.
Guelph Minstrel Jazz Band on the Steps of City Hall
The second image is from 1925 and shows the Ladies of Chalmers Choir at Castle Theatre engaging in a minstrel play for the entertainment of a white audience. Despite being a marginalized group themselves, these women put forth a minstrel production meant to degrade Black people.
Ladies Minstrel Show
The third image is from 1950 and shows community members from Belwood United Church dressed in blackface for an amateur production. Being associated with a church, this play connects religion and racism during the 20th century in Canada and the church’s role in promoting the degradation of Black people and culture in the Guelph area.
The fourth image is a 1961 advertisement form the minstrel show performed by the Guelph Kiwanis Club, their 10th annual minstrel production. By the Kiwanis Club being able to produce and find profit in ten consecutive years of amateur minstrel productions show that the citizens of Guelph accepted and enjoyed this racist production of the characterization of Black people.
Minstrel Show Advertisment
Finally, the opening image in this blog post is from a 1996 minstrel production by the Fergus Brass Band performed at the Fergus High School and demonstrates the continued presence of blackface in Wellington County. Over the 140 years of its existence, the Fergus Brand Band performed in racial costumes; black and white photographs of the band, in the Wellington County Museum and Archive, show members dressed in “Chinese costume” (1950), “First Nations costumes” (1955), and “Arab costumes” (1970).
Why does this Matter Today?
By remembering minstrel shows, we can assess how this popular form of entertainment fuelled anti-Black sentiment in Canada. As early as July 1840, forty-five Black people from Toronto asked for the banning of Blackface performances. They did this because they saw its purpose was to “make the Coloured man appear ridiculous and contemptible in the eyes of their audience” (Frost). This early opposition emphasizes the erasure of Blackness, it must be noted while Blackface is remembered, the protests against it are overlooked. Another method of contesting this racist theatre was through the creation of whiteface. Bob Cole, a Black performer, challenged societal norms by creating the white character of Willie Wayside; as the red-headed Wayside, Cole intended to highlight the versatility of Black actors in comedy (McAllister 3). This method of critiquing racial hierarchies did not stop the practice, but challenged it nonetheless. To truly understand the “absent-presence” of Blacks in Canada, there must be an examination of the ways cultural representations of blackness have shaped the ways we understand and limit the meaning and significance of Black people in Canada and beyond.