Introduction

Summary

Ira Aldridge pretended to be an African. I became intrigued by this, wondering what advantage that gave him as an actor in Europe in the middle of the nineteenth century, when Africans commonly were thought to be among the most uncivilized beings on earth—mere brutes whose full membership in the human family was at times questioned. Certainly Aldridge's ethnic charade had novelty value, but was that enough to sustain him in a career that lasted more than four decades and took him to nearly every corner of the British Isles and to most of the major cities and towns on the Continent? He must have had other unusual attributes as well that made him such a fascinating attraction. What accounted for his popularity on so many foreign stages?

Such questions occurred to me in 1982–83 while I was in London researching audience reactions to sub-Saharan Africans who were exhibited or who performed in Britain during the nineteenth century. How did “ordinary” people of the time respond to the extraordinary “specimens” paraded before them, some of whom were physiologically peculiar (for example, the steatopygous Hottentot Venus, the diminutive San Bosjesmans and Earthmen, the tailed Niam-Niams) and others culturally exotic (Amazons, Zulu warriors). Did spectators feel any kinship with these individuals and groups, or did they view them as strange, barbarous creatures from outer colonial space? Did ethnological show business of this sort change or reinforce prevailing stereotypes?

At first I resisted including Aldridge in this study because I knew he was a pseudo-African performing on the legitimate stage, not in an exhibition hall or fairground sideshow. Gradually, however, I began to realize that he was projecting a significant image of African realities too, one that ran counter to what was being offered elsewhere in the public arena. Moreover, through his art he was deliberately challenging conventional ideas about black people generally, not just Africans. At the outset of his career he was identifi ed as an African American and was appraised as such; but then it didn't take long for him to morph into an African—a “native of Senegal” no less—so as to make even greater demands on the intelligence of his audience. That is, he was forcing them to reconsider their ingrained racial assumptions.