ABSTRACT
In the eighteenth century curiosity was occasionally shown in the culture of African slaves working on colonial plantations. The 'Irish Italian Song' is in Dibdin's Table Entertainment The Wags, which also includes 'The Negro and His Banjer', a song demonstrating an early appreciation of the importance of the banjo to black culture. The melody of 'Dandy Jim' is typical of early minstrelsy in owing much, if not everything, to Afro-American music-making. The 'call and response', common in the black religious rituals of the South, also finds its way into minstrel song. The two biggest British troupes, both based in London, were the Moore and Burgess Minstrels and the Mohawk Minstrels. The former were formed in 1857, the year that E. P. Christy's Minstrels visited London, and they also named themselves 'Christy Minstrels'. The minstrel show and the Civil War gave the two biggest boosts to American music publishing in the nineteenth century.
