Christian Schultz, Jr., Travels on an Inland Voyage Through the States, Volume II (New York, 1810), 197.

Item

Title

Christian Schultz, Jr., Travels on an Inland Voyage Through the States, Volume II (New York, 1810), 197.

Includes music itself or text of song

no

Identity of singers; solo/group

free?
group

Voice/instrument

instruments
drums

Space/room

unclear "in the rear of town"

activity

dancing

Geographical location

New Orleans, Louisiana

Notable adjectives

"wretched", "savage"

Excerpt

In the afternoon, a walk in the rear of the town will still more astonish their bewildered imaginations with the sight of twenty different dancing groups of the wretched Africans, collected together to perform their worship after the manner of their country. They have their own national music, consisting for the most part of a long kind of barrow drum of various sizes, from two to eight feet in length, three or four of which make a band. The principal dancers or leaders are dressed in a variety of wild and savage fashions, always ornamented with a number of the tails of the smaller wild beasts, and those who appeared most horrible always attracted to the largest circle of company. These amusements continue until sunset, when one or two of the city patrole show themselves with their cutlasses, and the crowds immediately disperse.

Context

Schultz describes his walk through the town and his encounter with free Black Americans dancing.

Bias of author

Bias presented in this text is about average for nineteenth-century sources written by learned, traveling white men.

Item sets