Over the next decade ensembles, rather than solo performers, began to dominate this industry. In 1843 one of the first minstrel show troupes, the Virginia Minstrels (which included DanEmmett), formed in New York City, the birthplace and then hub of the minstrel show productions.
The blackface minstrel stands alongside the Yankee (indepen-dent, patriotic, and honest) and the backwoodsman (such as the uneducated and robust Davy Crockett) as early expressions of American identity, in defiance of European aristocracy. In literature or on stage, these stock characters undermined pretentious and immoral elites with their comedy. Significantly, the minstrel show was the first form of American commercial entertainment to draw on black culture, although scholars admit that it is difficult to sort out this complex history of racial exchange.
White male performers put on blackface to offer comic commentary on a variety of topics (including women's rights and slavery); undermine many experts and authority figures; and make fun of immigrants, Indians, and African Americans. The burlesque of Shake-speare's major plays—with exuberant physical comedy and transvestite heroines—was a regular feature of minstrelsy. Although the minstrel show underwent many transformations in the nineteenth century, the basic structure included three distinct parts. In the first section of the show a pompous interlocutor was situated in the center of a semi-circle of performers made-up in blackface (burnt cork or greasepaint), with two unruly endmen, named Brudder Tambo and Brudder Bones (their names referred to the instruments they played).These comedians were usually the stars of the show.
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