Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

In the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries African and pseudo-African performers were displayed as curiosities throughout Europe and America. Appearing in circuses, ethnographic exhibitions, and traveling shows, these individuals and troupes drew large crowds. As Bernth Lindfors shows, the showmen, impresarios, and even scientists who brought supposedly representative inhabitants of the ""Dark Continent"" to a gaping public often selected the performers for their sensational impact. Spotlighting and exaggerating physical, mental, or cultural differences, the resulting displays reinforced pernicious racial stereotypes and left a disturbing legacy. Using period illustrations and texts, Early African Entertainments Abroad illuminates the mindset of the era's largely white audiences as they viewed wax models of Africans with tails and watched athletic competitions showcasing hungry cannibals. White spectators were thus assured of their racial superiority. And blacks were made to appear less than fully human precisely at the time when abolitionists were fighting to end slavery and establish equality.

Africans --- Blacks in popular culture --- Racism in popular culture --- Sideshows --- Africains --- Noirs dans la culture populaire --- Racisme dans la culture populaire --- Attractions (Spectacles) --- Public opinion --- History --- Opinion publique --- Histoire --- Africa --- Afrique dans la culture populaire --- In popular culture. --- Sideshows. --- Side shows --- Amusements --- Popular culture --- Ethnology --- History. --- Black people in popular culture

Choose an application

• Reference Manager
• EndNote
• RefWorks (Direct export to RefWorks)

The astounding saga of an American sea captain and the New Guinean nobleman who became his stunned captive, then ally, and eventual friend Sailing in uncharted waters of the Pacific in 1830, Captain Benjamin Morrell of Connecticut became the first outsider to encounter the inhabitants of a small island off New Guinea. The contact quickly turned violent, fatal cannons were fired, and Morrell abducted young Dako, a hostage so shocked by the white complexions of his kidnappers that he believed he had been captured by the dead. This gripping book unveils for the first time the strange odyssey the two men shared in ensuing years. The account is uniquely told, as much from the captive's perspective as from the American's. Upon returning to New York, Morrell exhibited Dako as a "cannibal" in wildly popular shows performed on Broadway and along the east coast. The proceeds helped fund a return voyage to the South Pacific-the captain hoping to establish trade with Dako's assistance, and Dako seizing his chance to return home with the only person who knew where his island was. Supported by rich, newly found archives, this wide-ranging volume traces the voyage to its extraordinary ends and en route decrypts Morrell's ambiguous character, the mythic qualities of Dako's life, and the two men's infusion into American literature-as Melville's Queequeg, for example, and in Poe's Pym. The encounters confound indigenous peoples and Americans alike as both puzzle over what it is to be truly human and alive.

First contact of aboriginal peoples with Westerners --- Indigenous peoples --- Kidnapping --- Ship captains --- Sideshows --- BIOGRAPHY & AUTOBIOGRAPHY / Historical. --- Side shows --- Amusements --- Captains of ships --- Masters of ships --- Sea captains --- Shipmasters --- Ships --- Ships' captains --- Merchant marine --- Abduction of children --- Child abduction --- Child snatching --- Kidnaping --- Offenses against the person --- Aboriginal peoples --- Aborigines --- Adivasis --- Indigenous populations --- Native peoples --- Native races --- Ethnology --- Aboriginal peoples' first contact with Westerners --- Contact, First, of aboriginal peoples with Westerners --- Westerners, First contact of aboriginal peoples with --- Discoveries in geography --- History --- Officers --- Morrell, Benjamin, --- Dako. --- Morrell, --- Travel --- Papua New Guinea --- Giniyah ha-Ḥadashah --- Independen Stet bilong Papua Niugini --- Independent State of Papua New Guinea --- Papouasie-Nouvelle-Guinée --- Papua-Neuguinea --- Papua Niu Gini --- Papua Niugini --- Papua Nova Gvineja --- Papua Nugini --- Papua Nuova Guinea --- Papua Nya Guinea --- Papua Nyū Ginia --- Papua-Uusi-Guinea --- Papuʼah Giniyah ha-Ḥadashah --- PNG (Papua New Guinea) --- Territory of Papua and New Guinea --- パプアニューギニア --- New Guinea (Territory) --- Papua --- Description and travel. --- Discovery and exploration. --- Anthropology --- Contact, First (Anthropology) --- Cultural contact --- Interethnic contact --- First contact (Anthropology)