"Virginia hoe-down" [graphic] / Dallas del. African American men -- Caricatures & cartoons. African American dance Steamboats -- Mississippi River. Aboard a steamer on the Mississippi River, a black deck-hand and a fiddler hold their own "Virginia hoe-down." The engraving accompanies T.B. Thorpe's "Remembrances of the Mississippi," and corresponds with a passage in which he describes the festive, light-hearted, and "happy" nature of "the negroes of the Mississippi." "With professional boat-men," Thorpe wrote," they are always favorites, and at night, when the 'old ark' is tied up, their acme of human felicity is a game of 'old sledge,' enlivened by a fiddle. On such ocassions the master of the instrument will touch off the 'Arkansas traveler,' and then gradually sliding into a 'Virginia hoe-down,' he will be accompanied by a genuine darkie keeping time, on the light and fantastic heel-and-toe tap." (p. 37) As the deck-hand dances and the fiddler plays, two boatmen play cards and a third looks on. Illustration in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 12, no. 67 (December 1855), p. 38. Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life. [New York: Harper & Brothers] NY. New York. 1855 Dallas. [December 1855] Wood engravings -- 1850-1860. Periodical illustrations -- 1850-1860. 1 print: wood engraving; image 10 x 12 cm. (4 x 4.75 in) Islandora:2868 Library Company of Philadelphia Rare Per H 9 62992.O v 12 n 67 December 1855 p 38 62992.O Part of Harper's new monthly magazine. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855.