http://debianws.lexgopc.com/wiki143/index.php?action=history&feed=atom&title=Gumbo_ChaffGumbo Chaff - Revision history2026-05-06T16:53:31ZRevision history for this page on the wikiMediaWiki 1.43.1http://debianws.lexgopc.com/wiki143/index.php?title=Gumbo_Chaff&diff=2264973&oldid=prev2603:8001:5900:1E2E:CCD6:C16C:9351:4416 at 02:13, 19 November 20242024-11-19T02:13:28Z<p></p>
<p><b>New page</b></p><div>{{short description|American song}}<br />
[[Image:Gumbo Chaff.jpg|thumb|right|225px|"Gumbo Chaff" sheet music cover, Firth & Pond, New York]]<br />
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"'''Gumbo Chaff'''", also spelled "'''Gombo Chaff'''", is an [[American popular music|American]] [[song]], first performed in the early 1830s. It was part of the repertoire of early [[blackface]] performers, including [[Thomas D. Rice]] and [[George Washington Dixon]]. <br />
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The title character was one of the earliest blackface characters in the United States. He was based largely on the [[tall tale|tall-tale]] [[riverboat]]smen and [[frontiersmen]] characters that were popular in fiction during the [[Jacksonian Era]]. "Gumbo Chaff" merged these frontier elements with [[stereotype]]s of black [[slavery in the United States|slaves]], creating a new character who lives "On de [[Ohio River|Ohio]] bluff in de state of [[Indiana]]" and who "jump into [his] kiff / And . . . down de river driff, / And . . . cotch as many [[catfish|cat fish]] as ever nigger liff."<ref name=Nathan173>Nathan 173.</ref> Due to this song's popularity, the black riverboatsman (usually named "Gumbo Chaff") became a popular character in minstrelsy for a time. Blackface singers would often perform "Gumbo Chaff" with a mock [[flatboat]] on stage.<br />
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The song's [[melody]] seems to be at least partially based on an older [[English art song|English]] song called "[[Bow Wow Wow (song)|Bow Wow Wow]]".<ref name=Nathan173 /> "[[De Wild Goose-Nation]]", a blackface song written by [[Dan Emmett]] in 1844, adapted the tune to "Gumbo Chaff", possibly with [[parody|parodic]] intent.<br />
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==Notes==<br />
{{reflist}}<br />
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==References==<br />
*Gura, Philip F. (1999). ''America's Instrument: The Banjo in the Nineteenth-century''. The University of North Carolina Press.<br />
*Hutton, Lawrence (1891). ''Curiosities of the American Stage''. New York: Harber & Brothers.<br />
*Mahar, William J. (1999). ''Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture''. University of Illinois Press.<br />
* {{cite book | first=Hans | last=Nathan | year=1962 | title=Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy | url=https://archive.org/details/danemmettriseofe0000nath | url-access=registration | location=Norman, Oklahoma | publisher=University of Oklahoma Press}}<br />
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[[Category:Blackface minstrel characters]]<br />
[[Category:Blackface minstrel songs]]<br />
[[Category:1830s songs]]<br />
[[Category:Songs with unknown songwriters]]<br />
[[Category:Songs of the American Civil War]]</div>2603:8001:5900:1E2E:CCD6:C16C:9351:4416