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.