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Title: The tango
Description: Engraving accompanies the lead article "The Carib Settlements." According to the unnamed author, it is set in the house of the "King of the Cannibal Islands" in Tulian, Honduras. In the center of the scene, a small group dances to the sound of the musicians' drums (right). As the author explained, "Our arrival was the signal for the commencement of the festivities. Such another exhibition of the Terpsichorean art I never had the pleasure of witnessing. Their instruments consisted of a couple of drums made of hollow logs with hide stretched over one end, and a Boston tin cracker-box, on which instruments a sort of running accompaniment was beaten with their hands. Wild songs were chanted during the progress of the dance, one of which, more moderate than the rest, and in English, was shouted for our benefit." In the next paragraph, he continued, "I am told their dancing is a perfect counterpart of similar proceedings on the western coast of Africa, from whence they originally came. They place the music in the centre of the room, and arranged themselves around it, and commenced a series of movements of the body, throwing in frequent twists and jerks by way of embellishment." (p. 149), Illustration in Harper's New Monthly Magazine, vol. 15, no. 86 (July 1857), p. 149., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
Date: July 1857
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per H 9 62992.O v 15 n 86 July 1857 p 149, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2874

Title: The bridal dance
Description: Engraving depicts a fictional episode from Chapter IV, "Christmas." The scene takes place on Fairfax Plantation on Christmas day. The newly married couple, Jim and July, dance merrily to the music of fiddles, banjos, and tamborines, while other slaves look on. The pair are still dressed in their wedding attire: July is described as "resplendent in a white dress, white cotton gloves, a string of mock-pearls about her neck, and a wreath of silver flowers about her head," while Jim wears "a gorgeous waistcoat, had a sprig of flowers in the button-hole of his coat, and also sported white cotton gloves." According to the text, a bonfire provided the illumination for these festivities, which grew gayer as evening turned into night., Illustration in Metta Victoria Fuller Victor's Maum Guinea, and her plantation "children" (London: Beadle and Company,44 Paternoster Row; New York: Beadle and Company, 141 William Street, 1861), p. 46., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: N. Orr & Co., engraver
Date: [1861]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1861 Victo 70421.O p 46, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2808

Title: Religious dancing of the Blacks, termed "shouting"
Description: Illustration accompanies Chapter XXXIII, "The Religion of the Blacks, with Anecdotes Illustrating the Same." It is set in a Baptist church, and shows a type of dance called "shouting." According to Stearns, shouting usually took place just before a congregation broke up, when "the spirit [was] upon them." He included a lengthy description of shouting, which reads as follows: "A ring of singers is formed in an open space in the room, and they, without holding on to each others' hands, walk slowly around and around in a circle, the back of the foremost one coming close to the front side of the succeeding brother or sister. They then utter a kind of melodious chant, which gradually increases in strength, and in noise, until it fairly shakes the house, and it can be heard for a long distance. . . . The dancers usually bend their bodies into an angle of about forty-five degrees, and thus bent, march around, accompanying their steps, every second or so, with a quick, jerking motion, or jump, which I can compare to nothing else than the brisk jumping of a frog, . . . The performers also accompany the jerking of their bodies with a corresponding clapping of their hands, and motion of their arms. . . . Occasionally, one of the most zealous of the sisters, throws herself up so as to nearly touch the ceiling over their heads, and then falls down helplessly into the eager arms of some stout brother, who springs forward with alacrity to receive her." (p. 371-72), Plate in Charles Stearns's The Black Man of the South, and the Rebels: or, the Characteristics of the Former, and the Recent Outrages of the Latter (New York: For sale by American News Co., 1872), p. 370., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Daily Life.
Creator: Bricher & Conant, engraver
Date: [1872]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Am 1872 Stearns 19952.D p 370, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2820

Title: "Virginia hoe-down"
Description: 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.
Date: [December 1855]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare Per H 9 62992.O v 12 n 67 December 1855 p 38, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2868

Title: The holiday dance
Description: Set on a plantation, this merry scene portrays a harvest dance. A man and a woman dance bare-foot to the music of a fiddler, who is perched high upon a stool. Others look on. A young man kneels in the foreground, his straw hat and hoe lying on the ground. In the background, two stocky, resolute-looking white women observe the festivities. Both wear kerchiefs, the ties of which, in one case, resemble devil's horns., Plate at the front of Charles Peterson's The Cabin and Parlor: or, Slaves and Masters (Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson. Stereotyped by George Charles. Printed by King & Baird, c1852), np., Fels Afro-Americana Image Project, Scenes from Slave Life.
Creator: Beeler, Charles H., engraver
Date: [1878]
Location: Library Company of Philadelphia | Books & Other Texts | Rare 2 Wright 1878a 10231.D np, https://digital.librarycompany.org/islandora/object/Islandora%3A2654

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