Civil War Humor

Chapter Four: THE AFRICAN AMERICAN IN CIVIL WAR HUMOR

[ 115 ] ChapterFour THE AFRICAN AMERICAN IN CIVIL WAR HUMOR Before the Civil War, in both the North and South, blackface minstrelsy —and not only theater performances but also the playbills, songsters, sheet music, and broadsides that they generated—had fixed in the popular imagination the conventions for how the African American (almost exclusively male) would be delineated in humor by and for whites during the war itself. Physically, he looked comically grotesque, with large lips and teeth, woolly hair, a wide nose, and big feet with an elongated heel. The most clearly identifying aspect of the caricature, on stage and in print, was a way of speaking that included comic malapropisms, odd speech mannerisms of various kinds, and above all a dialect, a simplistic inventory of bad grammar and peculiar pronunciations. Cartoons, sheet music covers, pictorial envelopes, and lithographs illustrated the stereotyped physical features, but the most popular forms were songs, speeches, and sermons in which the caricature spoke in the distinctive blackface dialect that made the character “authentic” to whites and, therefore, made what he said appear as a legitimately black perspective on a variety of issues. The African American appeared less often in Confederate humor and usually with none of the coarse, unabashed racism often found in the Union. In the South, after all, slavery was a benevolent institution ; slaves were happy there, and even those who had “runned away” were used as comic foils that made the satiric case against wrongheaded, hypocritical Northerners. In Union humor, the figure [ 116 ] tHe AfRICAN AmeRICAN IN CIvIl WAR HumoR appeared prominently, as it had before the war (because there, race as race was contentious), in response to new issues that the war raised. For example, few in the Union advocated abolition—and they did not do so humorously—but during the war the slave caricature could be turned into a good laugh at an enemy painted broadly, and inaccurately , as slave masters. Victory, therefore, would mean the end of slavery. For Peace Democrats, on the other hand, the black caricature provided a comically ironic voice against the war and those who supported it, painted broadly, and inaccurately, as abolitionists. All of this had much to do with either war-mongering propaganda or political posturing (or both) and very little to do with “real” black Americans. In the course of the war, though, two events forced a serious rethinking of their place in the political, economic, and social life of the North— in the ultimately “united states,” which was, after all, the Union cause for taking up arms. The first event, in 1861, was the official designation of blacks as “contrabands,” slaves who crossed Union lines; the second was that section of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 authorizing the recruitment of black soldiers. ◊ ◊ ◊ While few in the North had high-minded convictions about emancipation , the slave caricature was ideally suited for twitting the Confederate enemy in a variety of comic ways. “The Rebellion’s Support” in the Comic Monthly (January 1862) did it with a full-page cartoon. Literally , the diminutive, belligerent Confederate and the slave culture he defends are in the palm of Pompey’s hand. On the other hand, figuratively , the slave who dominates the cartoon does so comically with his stereotypical, Negroid appearance and is not to be taken seriously as a person who should be free. The exaggerations of caricature do make the slave’s triumph over his master all the more satiric. Dialect alone could do that. A mock advertisement in Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper (11 January 1862) from one Sambo Rhett of Beaufort , South Carolina, for his runaway owner parodies the announcements for escaped slaves that regularly appeared in newspapers before the war. $500 Reward.—Rund away from me on de 7th of dis month [November 1861], my massa Julan Rhett. Massa Rhett am five feet ’leven inches high, big shoulders, brack har, curly shaggy whiskers, “the Rebellion’s support.”Courtesy of the library Company of Philadelphia. [ 118 ] tHe AfRICAN AmeRICAN IN CIvIl WAR HumoR low forehead and dark face. He make big fuss when he go ’mong de gemmen, he talk ver big, and use de name of de Lord all ob de time. Calls heself “Suddern gemmen,” but I suppose will try now to pass heself off as a brack man or mulatter. Massa Rhett has a deep scar on his shoulder from a fight, scratch ’cross de left eye, made...