Primary sources show that Juba performed in dance competitions, minstrel shows, and variety theaters in the Northeastern United States beginning in the mid-1840s. The stage name Juba probably derives from the juba dance, itself named for the central or west African term giouba. “Jube” and “Juba” were common names for slaves in this period, especially those rumored to have dancing or musical talent. Documentation is confusing, as there were at least two black dancers using the name Juba at this time. For example, in 1840 a man named Lewis Davis was using the name “Master Juber” and making his living “travelling through the states, dancing negro extravaganzas, breakdowns, &c”. He was arrested for theft in New York City.
An anonymous letter from 1841 or early 1842 in the tabloid newspaper the Sunday Flash states that Juba was working for showman P. T. Barnum. The writer stated that Barnum had managed the dancer since 1840, when he had disguised the boy as a white minstrel performer—by making him up in blackface—and put him on at the New York Vauxhall Gardens. In 1841, the letter alleges, Barnum went so far as to present his charge as the Irish-American performer John Diamond, the most celebrated dancer of the day.
Minstrel shows began in the US in the 1830s, when working class white men (usually Irish) blackened their faces with burnt cork and dressed up as plantation slaves while imitating black music and dance and speaking in a “plantation” dialect. The shows featured a variety of jokes, songs, dances and skits that were based on the ugliest stereotypes of African American slaves. From 1840 to 1890, minstrel shows were the most popular form of entertainment in America and they only died out completely in the 1950s with the advance of civil rights.
Only white actors were allowed to perform in minstrel shows until 1838, when Lane began performing minstrel acts, but even he was required to wear blackface makeup. It seems absurd now to think of a black man being forced to wear makeup so he can look like a white man made up to look black, but that was the only way he was allowed to perform. In the early years of minstrel shows, white audiences simply would not tolerate an actual black man on stage, but Juba’s enormous talent made him so popular that he was soon able to perform in his own skin.
Beginning in the early 1840s, Juba began a series of dance competitions known as challenge dances. He faced white rival John Diamond, who advertised that he “delineate[d] the Ethiopian character superior to any other white person”. Sources disagree about the date of their first contest; it may have occurred while Diamond was still working for Barnum or a year or two later.
Challenge dances usually employed three judges. One sat on the stage and counted time, another sat in or near the orchestra pit and judged style, and the third went under the stage and observed the dancer’s execution to listen for “missing taps, defective rolls and heel work, the lagging in the breaks”. After the dance, they compared notes and chose the winner. Audience members and friends of the competitors bet on the outcome and could name the victor by popular acclaim in the case the judges could not come to a decision. According to an undated reference by Leavitt, Juba lost one challenge, at the Boylston Gardens in Boston, but records show that he beat Diamond in all other competitions. An undated clipping from the Harvard Theatre Collection, written by a fan of minstrelsy, describes the single dance competition that Diamond managed to win: “One of the fiddlers played a reel for him [Juba], and he shuffled, and twisted, and walked around, and danced on for one hour and fifteen minutes by the watch.” Then Juba made a loud strike with his left foot as the crowd cheered and he got a drink from the bar. Diamond was next and tried to act cool but resolute. He knew that he would displease Barnum by losing and he had his race at stake: “There was another thing about this match-dance that made Diamond want to win. You see it was not only a case of Barnum’s Museum against Pete Williams’s dance-house, but it was a case of white against black. So Jack Diamond went at his dancin’ with double energy—first, for his place, next, for his color.” He beat Juba’s time and “gave a hop, skip and a jump, a yell and a bow”. A black man shouted out, “He’s a white man, sure … but he’s got a nigger in his heel.” The two had their most famous matchup in New York City in 1844, where Juba beat Diamond for $500. Juba then traveled to Boston, billing himself as the “King of All the Dancers”, and played for two weeks, with competitions versus Frank Diamond (no relation to John). In 1845, Juba began touring with the Ethiopian Minstrels. The troupe gave him top billing over its four white members, unprecedented for a black performer.
In 1848, a dancer billed as “Boz’s Juba” performed in London, England. He was a member of the Ethiopian Serenaders, a blackface minstrel troupe under the leadership of Gilbert W. Pell (or Pelham). The company had performed in England two years prior, when they had made minstrelsy palatable to middle-class British audiences by adopting refinements such as formal wear. With Boz’s Juba as its newest member, the company toured middle-class theaters and lecture halls in the British Isles for the next 18 months.
The identity of Boz’s Juba is open to doubt. “Boz” was a pen name used by Dickens. The Ethiopian Serenaders quoted from Dickens’s American Notes in their press releases, and The Illustrated London News considered the black dancer to be the same person Dickens had seen in New York in 1842. Dickens never refuted the claims. Nevertheless, the Serenaders’ assertions were promotional, and Dickens may not have remembered the exact look or characteristics of the dancer he had seen in the Five Points. Writers from the period and later have generally identified Boz’s Juba as the same person Dickens had seen during his visit to New York and who had danced against Diamond.
Boz’s Juba seems to have been a full member of Pell’s troupe. He wore blackface makeup and played the endman, Mr. Tambo (a tambourine player) opposite Pell’s Mr. Bones (on the bone castanets). He sang standard minstrel songs, such as “Juliana Johnson]” and “Come Back, Steben”, and he performed in sketches and “conundrum” contests. Despite this apparent level of integration into the act, advertisements for the troupe set Juba’s name apart from the other members. The Serenaders continued through Britain and played establishments such as the Vauxhall Gardens. The tour ended in 1850. Its run of 18 months was the longest uninterrupted minstrel tour in Britain at that time. Juba and Pell then joined the troupe headed by Pell’s brother, Richard Pelham. The company was renamed G. W. Pell’s Serenaders.
Juba was the most written about performer in London for the summer 1848 season, no easy feat considering the large number of competitors. He proved a critical favorite, with commentators doting on him praise normally accorded to popular ballet dancers. That August, the Theatrical Times wrote, “The performances of this young man are far above the common performances of the mountebanks who give imitations of American and Negro character; there is an ideality in what he does that makes his efforts at once grotesque and poetical, without losing sight of the reality of representation
Documents next show Juba back in the United States, performing a solo act in working-class music halls, concert saloons, and entr’actes in nondescript theaters in New York: he had gone from obscurity to the limelight and back again. The American critics were not as kind as their English counterparts. A reviewer for the Era wrote on August 4, 1850, that “[Juba is] jumping very fast at the Colosseum, but too fast is worse than too slow, and we advise [Juba] to be wise in time. It is easier to jump down than to jump up”; and on August 11, 1850, “Juba has jumped away—by the way of an earnest yet friendly caution, let us hope that he will not throw himself away. Be wise in time is a wholesome motto”. The Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser on November 30, 1850, wrote, “The performances of Boz’s Juba have created quite a sensation in the gallery, who greeted his marvellous feats of dancing with thunders of applause and a standing encore. In all the rougher and less refined departments of his art, Juba is a perfect master.”
The last known record of Juba places him at the City Tavern in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1851: “Boz’s Juba appears here nightly and is well received”. A performer known as Jumbo is reported as having died two weeks later in Dublin. Dance historian Marian Hannah Winter said that Juba died in 1852 in London. More than 30 years later, theater historian T. Allston Brown wrote that Juba “married too late (and a white woman besides), and died early and miserably. In a note addressed to Charley White, Juba informed him that, when next he should be seen by him [White], he would be riding in his own carriage. It has been said that in 1852 his skeleton, without the carriage, was on exhibition at the Surrey Music Hall, Sheffield, England.” Mahar has given the date as 1853. He would have been in his late 20s.
The cause of Juba’s death is a matter of speculation. Winter cited his “almost superhuman schedule” and the “[burning] up his energies and health” as the culprits. Assuming all of the Jubas are the same person, the record suggests that Juba worked day and night for 11 years—from 1839 to 1850. Especially in his early days, Juba worked for food, and would have been served the typical tavern meal of the time, fried eels and ale. Such a demanding schedule, coupled with poor food and little sleep, likely doomed Juba to his early death.