tury American vernacular entertainment, featuring white performers mimicking blacks, it reinforced negative stereotypes of African Americans, yet also preserved aspects of black humor and performance style. During the Middle Ages, minstrels were servant-performers who entertained their patrons by playing music, singing, telling stories, juggling, or performing comic antics and buffoonery. In the antebellum United States, the term referred to comic performers, almost always white, who wore blackface makeup - generally burnt cork - and mimicked African Americans. The most popular entertainment of that century, minstrel shows had a powerful impact on American culture; in particular, they served to "codify the public image of blacks as the prototypical Fool or SamboDuring the decades before the Civil War, minstrel companies found great success in Great Britain, Australia, and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. Minstrelsy helped to create misleading 'and highly demeaning' stereotypes of African Americans. Yet it also captured something of the distinctive qualities of African American humor and song, especially during the late nineteenth century, when a number of African American minstrel troupes appeared. Although black minstrel companies were largely trapped by the stereotypes of white minstrelsy, they nonetheless provided an important showcase for black performing talent and served as a springboard for black participation in the twentieth-century entertainment industry.In an atmosphere marked by political acrimony and social tension, minstrelsy had a vital unifying function for white Americans. By constructing an image of happy-go-lucky plantation slaves and irresponsible free black dandies, minstrel shows made light of slavery and emancipation as political issues and denied the human suffering that the institution exacted daily. In addition - much like their medieval counterparts - antebellum minstrels and their absurd antics served...
