Master Juba () was an African-American dancer active in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States to play onstage for white audiences and the only one of the era to tour with a white minstrel group. His real name was believed to be William Henry Lane, and he was also known as "Boz's Juba" following Charles Dickens's graphic description of him in his 1842 travelogue American Notes.The Era, Provincial Theatricals, July 30, 1848 By affecting blackface performance, Juba was highly influential in the development of such American dance styles as tap, jazz, and step dancing.
As a teenager, he began his career in the rough saloons and dance halls of New York's Five Points neighborhood, moving on to minstrel shows in the mid-1840s. "Master Juba" frequently challenged and defeated the best white dancers, including the period favorite, John Diamond. At the height of his American career, Juba's act featured a sequence in which he imitated a series of famous dancers of the day and closed by performing in his style. Being a black man, he appeared with minstrel troupes in which he imitated white minstrel dancers caricaturing black dance, obscuring his underlying ethnic identity with blackface. Even with his success in America, his greatest success came in England.
In 1848 "Boz's Juba" traveled to London with the Ethiopian Serenaders, an otherwise white minstrel troupe. Boz's Juba became a sensation in Britain for his dance style. He was a critical favorite and the most written-about performer of the 1848 season. Nevertheless, an element of exploitation followed him through the British Isles, with writers treating him as an exhibit on display. Records place Juba in both Britain and America in the early 1850s. His American critics were less kind, and Juba faded from the limelight. He died some time after 1851, most likely in 1854, likely from overworkThe Times, Tuesday, August 22, 1848; p. 5; Issue 19948; col F: "VAUXHALL GARDENS—The gardens were attended last night by a more than usual number of persons, and amongst them were many of the nobility and people of fashion. In addition to the usual amusements...the still more astonishing performances of 'Juba,' the protege of the original 'Bones,' Mr. Pell, in the character of Lucy Long, attracted a great attendance. The performances of this young man are far above the common performances of the mountebanks who give imitations of American and negro characters, there is an ideality in what he does that makes his efforts at once dramatic and poetical, without losing sight of the reality of representation. He was loudly applauded, and compelled to repeat his efforts three times." Juba was advertised as appearing nightly, six nights a week during his long engagement at Vauzhall Gardens. and malnutrition. He was largely forgotten by historians until a 1947 article by Marian Hannah Winter resurrected his story.
Existing documents offer confused accounts of Juba's dancing style, but certain themes emerge: it was percussive, expressive, varied in tempo, and at times lightning-fast. The dance likely incorporated both European folk steps, such as the Irish jig, and African-derived steps used by plantation slaves, such as the walkaround. Before Juba's career, the dance of blackface performance was more faithful to black culture than its other aspects, but as blackfaced clowns and minstrels adopted elements of his style, Juba further enhanced this authenticity.
Early life and career
Little is known about Juba's life.Southern, Music of Black Americans, 94. Scant details appear in primary sources, and secondary sources—most dating to years after his death—are of dubious validity.Johnson, "Juba's Dance". Dance historian Marian Hannah Winter proposed that Juba was born to free parents in 1825 or later.Winter 226. Showman Michael B. Leavitt wrote in 1912 that Juba came from Providence, Rhode Island,Leavitt, Michael B. (1912). Fifty Years in Theatrical Management. New York: Broadway Publishing Co., 33–34. Quoted in Stearns and Stearns 44. and theater historian T. Allston Brown gives his real name as William Henry Lane. According to an item in the August 11, 1895, edition of the New York Herald, Juba lived in New York's Five Points District. This was a slum where Irish immigrants and free black people lived amidst brothels, dance houses, and saloons where black people regularly danced.Stearns and Stearns 44. The Irish and black populations intermingled and borrowed elements of folk culture from each other. One area of exchange was dance, and the Irish jig blended with black folk steps.Stearns and Stearns 45. In this environment, Juba learned to dance from his peers, including "Uncle" Jim Lowe, a black jig and reel dancer who performed in low-brow establishments. Juba was dancing for food and tossed coins by the early 1840s.Winter 231.Knowles 88 says that "At age ten, Lane attracted attention with his dancing". Watkins 107 gives the date as the early 1840s.Sanjek 169. Winter speculated that by about age 15, Juba had no family.
Primary sources show that Juba performed in dance competitions, minstrel shows, and variety theaters in the Northeastern United States beginning in the mid-1840s. The stage name Juba probably derives from the juba dance, itself named for the central or west African term giouba.Winter 224.Lawal 46. "Jube" and "Juba" were common names for slaves in this period, especially those rumored to have dancing or musical talent. Documentation is confusing, as at least two black dancers were using the name Juba at this time.Cockrell 187, note 109. For example, in 1840 a man named Lewis Davis was using the name "Master Juber" and making his living "travelling through the states, dancing negro extravaganzas, breakdowns, &c".September 14, 1840, New York Daily Express, quoted in Cockrell 88. He was arrested for theft in New York City.Cockrell 88.
An anonymous letter from 1841 or early 1842 in the tabloid newspaper the Sunday Flash states that Juba was working for showman P. T. Barnum. The writer stated that Barnum had managed the dancer since 1840 when he had disguised the boy as a white minstrel performer—by making him up in blackface—and put him on at the New York Vauxhall Gardens. In 1841, the letter alleges, Barnum went so far as to present his charge as the Irish-American performer John Diamond, the most celebrated dancer of the day. The letter further accuses Barnum of entering Juba-as-Diamond in rigged dance competitions against other performers:
The boy is fifteen or sixteen years of age; his name is "Juba;" and to do him justice, he is a very fair dancer. He is of harmless and inoffensive disposition and is not, I sincerely believe, aware of the meanness and audacity of the swindler to which he is presently a party. As to the wagers which the bills daily blazon forth, they are like the rest of his business—all a cheat. Not one dollar is ever bet or staked, and the pretended judges who aid in the farce, are mere blowers.Anonymous letter to the Sunday Flash, 1841 or 1842. Quoted in Cook IV.
Writer Thomas Low Nichols supported parts of the story in an 1864 book of social history. He states that in 1841 Diamond quit his work as a dancer in the employ of Barnum and was replaced by "a genuine negro",Nichols 370. whom Barnum billed as "the champion nigger-dancer of the world". The black dancer would have debuted in the spring of 1841.Southern, "Black Musicians and Early Ethiopian Minstrelsy", 48. Nichols never identified the dancer as Juba, but later writers concluded that the boy was that performer.Southern, "Black Musicians and Early Ethiopian Minstrelsy", 49. Historian Eric Lott has identified the irony of this arrangement: a black man imitating a white man imitating a black man.Lott 113.
Beginning in the early 1840s, Juba began a series of dance competitions known as challenge dances. He faced white rival John Diamond, who advertised that he "delineate[d] the Ethiopian character superior to any other white person".Playbill of the New Theatre, February 24, 1841, quoted in Nathan 61. Sources disagree about the date of their first contest; it may have occurred while Diamond was still working for Barnum or a year or two later.Cockrell 138 gives the date as 1843; Winter 228 says the first challenge dance occurred at John Tryon's Amphitheatre in 1844. Gerteis 99–100 says that the competition occurred at Pete Williams's dance house one night after Diamond's show for Barnum, which would be 1841 or earlier. This advertisement from the July 8, 1844, New York Herald is typical of the publicity the matches generated:
GREAT PUBLIC CONTEST
Between the two most renowned dancers in the world, the Original JOHN DIAMOND and the colored boy JUBA, for a Wager of $200, on MONDAY EVENING July 8 at the BOWERY AMPHITHEATRE, which building has been expressly hired from the Proprietor, Mr. Smith, for this night only, as its accommodations will afford all a fair view of each step of these wonderful Dancers. The fame of these two Celebrated Breakdown Dancers has already spread over the Union, and the numerous friends of each claim the Championship for their favorite, and who have anxiously wished for a Public Trial between them and thus known which is to bear the Title of the Champion Dancer of the World. The time to decide that has come, as the friends of Juba have challenged the world to produce his superior in the art for $100. That Challenge has been accepted by the friends of Diamond, and on Monday Evening they meet and Dance three Jigs, Two Reels, and the Camptown Hornpipe. Five Judges have been selected for their ability and knowledge of the Art so that a fair decision will be made.
Rule—Each Dancer will select his Violin and the victory will be decided by the best time and the greatest number of steps.Quoted in Southern, "Black Musicians and Early Ethiopian Minstrelsy", 49. Another announcement from January 28, 1843, New York Sporting Whip, quoted in Cockrell 138 and Knowles 89–90, reads, We have not had a real, scientific, out-and-out trial of skill since between Dick Pelham and John Diamond at the Chatham; but it appears we are soon to have another of these refined and elevating exhibitions. A match has been made between John Diamond and a little negro called "Juba," by some of the sporting community, and is to come off in the course of a few weeks. The stake is large, and an unparalleled display will be the result.
Historian James W. Cook has suggested that Juba and Diamond may have staged their first competition as a form of mutual publicity. Claims of black superiority over an acclaimed white rival were otherwise unheard of in the climate of racial segregation and white supremacy that permeated New York City and the country at large in the mid-1840s.