Speaking Black,1824: Charles Mathews’s Trip to America Revisited

Abstract

Actor and comedian Charles Mathews sought information and inspiration to portray African American characters previously unrepresented on the London stage. During his visit in 1822-23 to major cities in the northeastern United States he encountered ‘literary blackface’, nonsensical dialogue that ridiculed the intelligence and citizenship rights of African Americans. He transcribed two stanzas from the most recent ‘bobalition’ broadside. Although he did not include these ‘scraps of songs and malaprops’ directly into his Trip performance, they formed part of his informal rehearsals on tour, and his cultural memory: ‘literary blackface’ influenced the style, rather than the content, of his London show. His friend, the actor and singer Thomas Philipps, whom he met again in New York, arranged the song ‘Possum up a gum tree’. David Claypoole Johnston, who performed on stage with Mathews in Philadelphia in early 1823, produced four prints of Mathews and also parodied African American speech in his illustrations.