Minstrel Songs

Various notable songs used during minstrel shows. The songs are “Bonny Eloise,” “Virginia Rosebus,” “Bonny Jean,” and “Lilly Dear.” These songs were meant to represent blacks as inferior or unintelligent. However, Benjamin Hanby’s Nelly Gray, was written from the perspective of an African-American male slave in Kentucky. His lover was taken away by slave owners, and he is devastated because she had been sold to Georgia. He eventually died and joined her in heaven. The song lyrics summarized one way slavery is cruel and inhumane.