A Murder among Minstrels: Show Business, Blackface, and Violence in Post-Civil War New York

Abstract This article focuses on a December 1867 altercation between three blackface minstrel managers – Sam Sharpley, Edwin Kelly, and Francis Leon. The conflict, which escalated from a fistfight to a shooting match, resulted in the death of Sharpley’s brother. The incident was a murder among blackface minstrels, but, more than this, it was a murder about minstrelsy. The blackface minstrel show – a deeply racist but wildly popular form of entertainment – was big business in post-Civil War New York City. Throughout 1867, Sharpley’s troupe was locked in a heated rivalry with Kelly and Leon’s company. When Kelly and Leon signed three of Sharpley’s performers and allegedly began spreading rumors about his financial well-being, Sharpley responded violently. As it examines the December confrontation, the events that preceded it, and the first-degree murder trial that followed, this article situates the incident in the larger history of blackface minstrelsy. It also suggests that popular performance culture must be understood with reference to contemporary shifts in post-Civil War American capitalism.