Overview

Canada and the Blackface Atlantic traces the origins of theatre, dance, and concert singing in Canada and their connection to British and American song and dance traditions. When theatrical acts first appeared in the late eighteenth century, chattel slavery had transformed into mass entertainment on minstrel stages across the Atlantic world. As railroads and theatres were built, local blackface troupes emerged alongside touring British and American acts. By the 1850s, blackface theatre could be found in remote Western outposts to stages in Central and Maritime Canada. This is one of the first books to connect the rise of Canadian blackface minstrelsy with the emergence of Black singers, and choral groups. It describes how Black performers who assumed minstrelsy’s mask remapped plantation slavery on Canadian stages. It begins with the conflicts that shaped North America – the American Revolutionary War, and the War of 1812. Next, it connects these origins with eighteenth-century British immigration, which brought folk dances and masking traditions to North America. From there, it unmasks when and how “Jim Crow” became an Atlantic world sensation, which set the stage for blackface to expand. Finally, it considers how Black acts reimagined the parameters of their own freedom.

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9781771126540

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Reviews

In this much anticipated book, Cheryl Thompson has provided us a creative, comprehensive, and nuanced study of blackface minstrelsy. Drawing upon several critical perspectives and a rich interdisciplinary literature, Thompson has produced a crucial analysis of an important Canadian story. The history of blackface in the U.S. is extensive and well known, but less so in this country. Thompson's work will fundamentally change this, shedding light on how blackface was embedded in the national, cultural, and geopolitical landscapes of modern Canada. - Barrington Walker, McMaster University

Author Information

Cheryl Thompson ?is Canada Research Chair in Black Expressive Culture and Creativity??? at ??Toronto Metropolitan University and director of Mapping Ontario’s Black Archives (MOBA). She is the author of?Uncle: Race, Nostalgia, and the Politics of Loyalty?(2021) and?Beauty in a Box: Detangling the Roots of Canada’s Black Beauty Culture?(2019).

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