He is the Goods

Rev. Andrew Tribble (1741-1822) was a Baptist preacher who was so revered by our family that at least six individuals in my tree were likely named in his honor. A cousin and fellow researcher recently informed me that history also records an African American performer by the same name.

My mother has long held that skill sets pretty much overlap: any good sermonizer probably had to make a career decision on whether to go into acting instead.

'Tribble' is an interesting appellation. What I find startling is that, although their lifespans did not overlap, both Andrew Tribbles lived in Madison County, Kentucky. The African American Andrew Tribble (1879-1935) was born there to Alice (likely Scutter or Scudder, b c1855), who was widowed by 1880 when she and sons Amos and Andrew were boarding in the village of Union. (Amos and Andrew, we'll return to that.)

There's high likelihood of a relationship between the two Andrew Tribbles. Tantalizingly, at the bottom of the 1880 Madison County census page is listed the unmarried (white) Columbus N. Tribble (b c1812), grandson of 'my' Rev. Andrew. He's farming beside (black) Jacob Tribble (b c1836), Jacob's wife, and nine juveniles (all described as 'servants' ... even to the one-year-old). Tribbles (and Scudders) are in close proximity. Online family trees peter out, failing to name the black Andrew Tribble's father. Knowing what I do about Jeremiah Turner, I realize it's quite likely I'm cousins with this 'new' Andrew Tribble.

Evocative of Ball's The Sweet Hell Inside, I learn that, as a child, Andrew Tribble performed in the 'The Original Pickaninny Band,' who found success with a composition In Old Kentucky. He was married, singing and dancing in Chicago when, aged 25, his career as a funnyman took off. Soon he was appearing in drag costume and was cast in The Shoo-Fly Regiment, one of the first all-black musicals to hit Broadway (1908). In his 1988 book, The Ghost Walks, Henry Sampson quotes a contemporary reviewer as saying Tribble's spinster character, 'Ophelia Snow from Baltimo', "was exceedingly well done. All must give it to Tribble, he is the goods."

1931

In short order, Tribble was touring Europe as 'Babe Johnson' in Captain Rufus. He's credited with dozens of roles in his 40-year career. In 1931, Tim Moore (who played 'The Kingfish' in Amos ’n Andy) "and his vaudeville straight man, Andrew Tribble, performed one of their funniest routines in Oscar Micheaux's first talking picture, The Darktown Revue," reported George Tyler in his column 'Harlem Rambles,' in Baltimore's Afro American.

And we are back to Amos and Andy, a duo that - in 1928 - was one of the first comedy series heard on radio. The black sitcom had nothing to do with Amos and Andrew Tribble. Written and voiced by Charles Correll and Freeman Gosden, the duo lured a huge and sustaining audience by pretending to be a pair of hapless Georgia farmworkers, transplanted to Harlem. The lead characters of this tremendously successful broadcast were all African American. Correll voiced Andy while Gosden voiced both Amos and The Kingfish, according to Wikipedia.

Did you know Amos 'n Andy were originally white?

After failing to find a film audience by appearing in black makeup, Gosden and Correll hired black talent when they began televising the program. See the clip here.

Instead of wading into debate about whether Amos 'n Andy were derisively stereotypical, a conversation in vogue since Bishop W. J. Walls began a full-fledged crusade against the characters in 1930, we will return to the cross-dressing Tribble. In the 2001 anthology, African-American Performance and Theater History, Annemarie Bain takes serious the comedian, calling Tribble's work, "a determined break from constraints imposed by gender roles in society."

In 2003, professors Hill and Hatch, in their Oxford-published History of African American Theatre, cited Sylvester Russell, whom they termed 'easily the most severe black critic of the era.' Russell wrote for the African American newspaper Freeman, at Indianapolis: “Mr. Andrew Tribble [is] the greatest protean artist his race has ever produced … Watermelon Time was a perfect fit of a song, in which Mr. Tribble wore salmon silk, something wonderful in quality, that outshone anything in the female contingent."

Critics took the genre seriously, often earnestly detailing vapid story-lines. R. W. Thompson’s 1910 Freeman review declared “Andrew Tribble, a Washington favorite, plays ‘Babe Johnson’ … with a naturalness that stamps him as the best impersonator of female comedy roles in the business, and the house was in a con-stant roar all the time he was on the stage. His costumes were up to date, and his ‘hobble skirt’ was a wonder to behold. Mr. Tribble was given a big ‘hand’ nightly."

Bain spends several pages on Tribble: "In his female impersonations, Tribble seems to have relied on the comedic elements solely. He was not presenting the prima donna character of white minstrelsy, whose allure was in the convincing portrayal of her realness." "Gender impersonators such as Tribble were primarily comic in purpose and did not in any way thrive on the ambivalence of whether or not Tribble was truly a man or a woman."

Tribble's work arose from historical traditions of white, ante-bellum 'minstrelsy.' Adding African syncopation to European melodies like highland reels and Irish jigs, lyrics parodied African American vernacular. Think of the songs Dixie,* and Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny,** as well as the titles All Coons Look Alike To Me, and She's Gettin' Mo' Like The White Folks Every Day. White mintrelsy became wildly popular, and was given its place in legitimate theater. Reublin and Maine, at The Parlor Song Academy describe how white men singing 'coon songs' "exploited every conceivable black characteristic, real or imagined, for its comic possibilities. African-American aspirations to a place in society, food preferences, the imagined inclination for crime, and gambling all were exploited." Minstrelsy continued all through the reconstruction period.

Later, in the same era when Tribble was performing, my gregarious maternal grandfather went to town and - smearing burnt cork on his face - sang, danced and (as has been passed down to me) engaged in slapstick comedy with other local talent before fellow Methodists or Masons. Minstrel shows were originally performed by white males in 'blackface.' These performances relied on black culture for inspiration, yet fiercely denigrated people of color.

To recap: we have white men pretending to be black fools. Then we have a black man, also in parody, pretending to be a woman. Both talent pools conspired to satirize women. Bain says - as women sought the vote - Tribble's impersonations were one way of dealing with women's changing social roles. Hill and Hatch observed a new, burgeoning population escaping their misery in minstrel laughter, music and mockery: "In the flush of this stimulant, the immigrant’s status was lightened by the knowledge that he was ‘free, white, and twenty-one.” To that congregation we might add 'male.'

It's a strange milieu. In Ragged But Right: Black Traveling Shows, Coon Songs, and the Dark Pathway to Blues and Jazz (2009), Abbott and Seroff caution readers: "Minstrelsy has become another ‘forbidden’ subject, lately reduced to a metaphor for historical racism in popular culture. But do not confuse the African American minstrel companies of the ragtime and blues era with their nineteenth century white predecessors. Black minstrel companies stole the audience away from the pale imitators, thus opening a pathway of employment for hundreds of musicians, performers, and entrepreneurs." They dip into the Freeman to cite a black critic who called Bob Cole and Billy Johnson (African American producers who ushered Tribble to national prominence) “a credit to the race,” declaring, “It has always been the motive of Messrs. Cole and Johnson to elevate the Negro on the stage, by laying aside the stereotype style of Negro performances and opening up a new field for the more ambitious Negro on the stage." At times if not always, Cole and Johnson's touring troupe were all black. "Minstrels managed to broadcast the latest trends in racial music, dance and humor throughout the South," where they were sometimes banned.

Said Will Marion Cook, African American violinist turned composer and musical director of the turn-of-the-century hit Clorindy: “Negroes were at last on Broadway, and there to stay. Gone was the uff-dah of the minstrel! Gone the Massa Linkum stuff! We were artists and … nothing could stop us.”

I've found one quote directly attributed to Andrew Tribble (The New York Age, 24 Dec 1908). From that:

"I never go on the stage unless I try to do my best. That, somehow, has always been my motto, and I have been well paid for sticking to it."

Tribble was playing 'Miss Lilly White' in Cole and Johnson's The Red Moon at the time. I cannot discern from the image (above, right) whether a black man was portraying a white woman in this role. But my mind boggles as I gather from several sources that black minstrelsy followed at least one custom established by whites: Tribble was known to perform in blackface.

So, let me see if I have this right. At the dawn of the Jazz Age, African Americans were highly compensated for going into blackface and mocking white actors who had been pretending to be black. Tribble, in blackface, pretended to be Lilly White.

"According to legend, Tribble died while performing on stage in Baltimore in 1935" wrote humorist Travalanche in 2019. See more at Drag Star of Darktown.

Communally-expressed humor can take public dialogue to subjects it otherwise might not entertain. Ministers and minstrels both seek to alleviate suffering. Sometimes they offer relief that is a detriment to others.

1894 - The Original Pickanniny Band, likely featuring Andrew Tribble.

*Dixie became an anthem of Confederate succession prior to the Civil War. White minstrel composer Daniel Decatur Emmett received royalties for this popular hymn ... as an Ohioan in New York City. Talk about cultural appropriation, Lincoln ordered Dixie played the day following Lee's surrender, saying, “Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insist that we fairly captured it.” Hill and Hatch offer the possibility that not only was Dixie written by a Yankee, but that credit might go to Emmett's African American neighbors, Ben and Lew Snowden. Their Ohio tombstone reads, "They taught Dixie to Dan Emmett."

**Carry Me Back to Ole Virginny was written in 1878, about the time of Tribble's birth. It is credited to James Bland, an African American minstrel born in New York. In 1940 this work, with its romanticized view of slavery, became Virginia's State Song. In 1994 the Virginia Senate proposed amending some lyrics, replacing 'darkeys' with "dreamers" and "Massa" with "my loved ones." The bill failed. In 1997 Governor George Allen signed legislation making this minstrel ode the 'State Song Emeritus.'

TOP

UPDATE:
From an Andrew Tribble researcher:

These Negroes Reveal A Curious Superiority

I'm coming to grips with the idea that my 3x-great-grandfather, Thomas Turner (1764-1847) or his son Squire Turner (1793-1871) fathered children by his slaves. I've been encouraged in becoming reconciled to this possibility by the caring relationship I've developed with a great-granddaughter of that union. I like my new cousin.

I've begun to wonder whether her ancestor looked like our shared ancestors. I wonder to what degree others in my family regarded Jeremiah Turner (1840-1917) as unmistakable kin. In an earlier post, I found modern acknowledgement that larger numbers of mixed-race children were appearing among the property of rich, white, Madison County, Kentuckians than were recorded by family units holding only one or two slaves in captive servitude.

I suspect his musings were far from politically correct even in his own time, but the following account expresses cultural effects that might have resulted when 'well bred' white men had offspring by African American women.

~

From a collection of writings by Baltimore critic H. L. Mencken titled Prejudices, c 1920. In this tract, Mencken decries the absence of arts & culture in the south.
Page 77 of The Sahara of the Bozart - [A desert of the Beaux Arts - RDH]

“… in the south, the men of the upper classes sought their mistresses among the blacks, and after a few generations there was so much white blood in the black women that they were considerably more attractive than the unhealthy and bedraggled women of the poor whites. This preference continues into our own time. A southerner of good family once told me in all seriousness that he had reached his majority before it ever occurred to him that a white woman might make quite as agreeable a mistress as the octoroons of his jejune fancy. If the thing has changed as late, it is not the fault of the southern white man, but of the southern mulatto woman. The more slightly yellow girls of the region, with improving economic opportunities, have gained self-respect, and so they are no longer as willing to enter into concubinage as their grand-dams were.

As a result of this preference of the southern gentry for mulatto mistresses there was created a series of mixed strains containing the best white blood of the south, and perhaps of the whole country. As another result the poor whites went unfertilized from above, and so missed the improvement that so constantly shows itself in the peasant stocks of other countries. It is a commonplace that nearly all negroes who rise above the general are of mixed blood, usually with the white predominating. I know a great many negroes, and it would be hard for me to think of an exception. What is too often forgotten is that this white blood is not the blood of the poor whites but that of the old gentry. The mulatto girls of the early days despised the poor whites, creatures distinctly inferior to negroes, and it was thus almost unheard of for such a girl to enter into relations with a man of that submerged class. This aversion was based on sound instinct. The southern mulatto of today (1920) is proof of it. Like all other half-breeds he is an unhappy man, with disquieting tendencies toward anti-social habits of thought, but he is intrinsically a better animal than the pure-blooded descendant of the old poor whites, and he not infrequently demonstrates it. It is not by accident that negroes of the south are making faster progress, economically and culturally, than the masses of the whites. It is not by accident that the only visible æsthetic activity in the south is wholly in their hands. No southern composer has ever written music so good as that of half a dozen white-black composers who might be named. Even in politics, the negro reveals a curious superiority. Despite the fact that the race question has been the main political concern of the southern whites for two generations, to the practical exclusion of anything else, they have contributed nothing to its discussion that has impressed the rest of the world so deeply and so favorably as three or four books by southern negroes.”

These are themes that Edward Ball addresses in his 2001 book, The Sweet Hell Inside: The Rise of an Elite Black Family in the South.  He too met a cousin descended from his people's slaves. Ball describes distinctions (and economic advantages) allocated by skin color and class, even among people of color. Harleston children, though deprived of the inheritance left by their upper-crust, slave-owning father, held higher rank than darker blacks after the Civil War in Charleston, SC. Perhaps Mencken (above) in his accolades, is crediting Harleston offspring; such as the talented black photographer Teddy Harleston, or childrens' choirs his sister Ella (Harleston) Jenkins made popular as America entered the Jazz Age.

Half-white Slaves of Aristocratic Masters

This blog began, initially, to describe a search for descendants of 'Uncle' Monk, slave name Estill, the man who saved the life of my 4x-great-grandfather in 1782 and subsequently became the first slave freed in what is now Kentucky. I want to know more about the brave fellow who carried James Berry (1752-1822) 25 miles to safety, following the Battle of Small Mountain, or Estill's Defeat.

During my investigation, I came upon a family history researcher who had valuable data on a half-brother of Berry's grandson and namesake, James Berry Turner (c1820-1867, my 2x-great-grandfather). I was stunned to discover my new correspondent is African American by appearance and identification. Born where I was born; nearly my age, my new source is trying to prove she descends from a union between the half-brother (Major Squire Turner, 1793-1871) and one of his slaves.

From Madison County: 200 Years in Retrospect, by William Elliott Ellis, H. E. Everman & Richard D. Sears; Madison County Historical Society, 1985, page 216:

“We can only speculate about the white families of most of these people [former slaves graduating from Berea schools], but there is a great deal of evidence that many blacks of Madison County, including those who attended Berea, were descendants of very distinguished white families.”

The corresponding footnote reports:

“In 1860 Madison County had a population of 6,118 slaves, 980 of whom were mulattoes (16%). The Slave Census listed 881 slaveholders – 357 of whom owned sets of slaves including at least one mulatto (but sometimes as many as ten): about 40 percent of slave sets were ‘mixed’ (so that partly-white slaves were very widespread without being particularly numerous). But of the 110 elite slaveholders in Madison County (those owning 15 slaves or more), 70 owned at least one mulatto (most owned many more, of course …). The large-scale slaveholders, the wealthy and prosperous, were much more apt to have mulattoes among their slaves then [sic] were their poorer neighbors. Whether or not the half-white slaves of aristocratic masters were also their children is, of course, another (and usually unanswerable) question.”

The 1860 Slave Schedule for Madison County, Kentucky, (below) reports Squire Turner in possession of 27 souls. Seven are listed as Mulatto: nearly one in four. An 18-year-old male qualifies to be Jeremiah Turner (c1840-1917) my new cousin's direct ancestor. If our suspicions are correct; we both descend from 'Trading Tom' Turner (1764-1847), father of both Squire and James Berry Turner.

Puzzling over the realization that I share DNA with folks who look so obviously different, it was suggested I investigate a fellowship (Coming to the Table), where descendants of slaves are in dialogue about race with descendants of slave-owners. I have traveled to meet my new cousin and my harvest includes the fruits of warm companionship and a shared appreciation for researching family history.

It has proved difficult to describe the almost unfathomable relationship between between the white supremacist, pro-slavery, strict constitutionalist, Squire Turner and an enslaved woman who may have born his child. The Madison County text employs terms such as 'slavewife' and  'slavefamily.'  Edward Ball, in The Sweet Hell Inside, uses 'concubine,' once a long-term relationship has been established. Referring to today's standards, I initially referred to offspring of a 'slave rape.'

Descendants of slaves, shrugging off the idea that a single drop of Negro blood put one in the race of African Americans, are identifying themselves as Irish, or Scots, or whatever they discover in their family history. I explore coming to grips with pigmentation here.

Squire Turner may have wanted to contribute accurately to slave schedules; the record documents him as in the propertied the elite of a county in which the lawyer had grown wealthy. The nameless records, however, are far from definitive. The only earlier slave schedule (1850) lists a mulatto boy of 9, which may be a younger Jeremiah. I've found no record of Turner's human possessions, circa 1840, but 2 women in 1850 (ages 38 & 35) qualify. Unless she has become 60 years old, ten years later, neither candidate for Jeremiah's mother remain in the record as Turner's property.

What's in a Slave Name?

Through my family history research I've come to know (virtually) my cousin Ardis. We met when I found someone online researching Squire Turner (1793-1871). I'm keen to know as much as I can about this gr-gr-grand uncle who worked so hard to defeat emancipationists as Kentucky gathered for a Constitutional Convention in 1850. It surprised the heck out of me to discover an African American woman was looking into this character.

Ardis is likely descended from a rape by Turner of one of his many slaves. Ardis and I have chosen to be 'related by slavery.' We likely both descend from 'Trading Tom Turner (1764-1847).

It's a difficult thing to prove.

What I did not appreciate, as I busied myself with collecting, sorting through and making sense of data pulled from court records, published family histories, and actual historical texts in some cases, is how easy I have it. Sure, I'm working with tiny and frustratingly incomplete data sets, but I'd never really considered how sparse slave records are.

Some of you might have seen Ron Allen's piece, Priscilla's Story, on NBC. (It includes an interview with Edward Ball, author of Slaves in the Family.) Allen claims Priscilla's is the only story documenting lineage from a free child stolen from her people in Africa ... all the way to contemporary, living Americans.

Could such documented history really be so rare? Given the psychic scars left among torn-apart families, a compelling desire to know and to heal must have produced a body of complete and extensive accounts.

Consider how difficult it is to research slave ancestry. Family units were fractured by slave auctions of individual family members as well as capricious, unreported murder or (like Martha Custis Washington) a complete unwillingness to acknowledge a person's own kin ... living in squalor a hundred yards away on Slave Row. Whether a mother was worked to death, died of disease, or was sold off; her children may never have realized they did not descend from the woman who raised them.

I felt compelled to blog about this when I read a well-intentioned white man, chiding fellow genealogists for using secondary sources in their research; implying that their labor was less significant for their failure to cite more of the official record. I found myself writing:

"Our whole endeavor is speculative: I don't for a moment think that, just because a government put it in a document, a fact has more veracity than if it came from a lyric in a folksong - especially if the dominant culture has a vested interest in deceiving its populace."

And I got to thinking about the deep desires among our cousins, to know as much of their Africa-to-America history as they can, and of the tremendous odds of having that curiosity fully quenched. What an ache.

Whether it was through arrogance or shame or simple neglect, my ancestors did little to record the lives of slaves they'd forbidden to become literate. I suspect my people were breeding some of their slave stock for brute strength, docility and low intelligence. I assume they contemplated no future where free men and women would one day be curious about their lineage. While they were keen to document the lineage of the finest mules they bred, my ancestors did less to publicize the name of a child's father, brought in from a neighboring farm to serve as a stud. How difficult is genealogy for descendants of children who were kept from ever touching their parents?

Genealogy angel Dr. William L. Smith drew my attention to a 4-page tool, The Historical Biographer's Guide to the Research Process. Mill's Identity Triangulation Model encourages even certified smart people believe identity is more than a name on a federal form.

"It is every known detail of a human life. Identity is determined by triangulating three things: persona, relationships, and origin."

Whether you and I are busy mining databases running on huge computer farms or thumbing through musty leaves stored in granite courthouses, we benefit from men and women who taxed themselves to build vaults and employ archivists over intervening generations. Great social endeavor went into preserving many of the records I have discovered.

Was it more than benign neglect that kept the record of millions of slaves so sparse?

If we are to live soundly in the present, we would do well to acknowledge the reality of our past. We may owe a debt of gratitude to people like my cousin Ardis, who labor under tremendous disadvantages when re-creating ancestors' identity. Brothers and sisters, calling for reparations after the inter-generational horrors of slavery, have sensitised me to appreciate how emotionally difficult this search must be.

My cousins know with certainty that identity is more than a name. The surname they bear could have been imposed by men who treated their ancestors as property. A slave name burns in a way that simulates the branding iron my ancestors likely employed as a right of ownership, as a means of establishing identity.