ABSTRACT
Blackface minstrelsy was hugely popular in the nineteenth century and the Australian colonies embraced the new genre as consumers and imitators. Yet, the supposed ‘re-creation’ of plantation life, with its songs and dances, was not one of the familiar and comforting musical pursuits favoured in the colonies that also conferred cultural capital. Rather, it was a kind of popular music that could be considered as a craze – the first such to be taken up globally. The minstrel show provided a ready-made template for an entertainment that could be populated by ‘plantation’ and sentimental songs interspersed with ‘negro’ witticisms. It was quickly adopted as an amateur entertainment, including in Maitland and Newcastle. However, this was ironic when performed by miners who were vilified in Britain and the colonies as primitive, even degenerate, with their coal-stained hands and faces seen as symbolic of their difference. This chapter investigates this contradiction, asking how minstrelsy contributed to the communities’ world-building projects, if at all. In doing so, it discusses the rise of amateur minstrelsy in the region, its performers and audience.
