@article {Koning:2018:0040-7518:551,
title = "Zwarte Piet, een blackfacepersonage",
journal = "Tijdschrift voor geschiedenis",
parent_itemid = "infobike://aup/tg",
publishercode ="aup",
year = "2018",
volume = "131",
number = "4",
publication date ="2018-12-01T00:00:00",
pages = "551-575",
itemtype = "ARTICLE",
issn = "0040-7518",
eissn = "2352-1163",
url = "https://www.ingentaconnect.com/content/aup/tg/2018/00000131/00000004/art00001",
doi = "doi:10.5117/TVGESCH2018.4.001.KONI",
keyword = "Bengali, dandy, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, Black Pete, blackface minstrelsy",
author = "Koning, Elisabeth",
abstract = "
Abstract
Black Pete, a blackface character: a century of blackface amusement in the Netherlands
In 1847 the Ethiopian Serenaders successfully introduced American blackface minstrelsy to a Dutch public. A few years later the publication of the Dutch
translation of Harriet Beecher Stowes Uncle Toms Cabin (1853) and the subsequent Tom-play led white Dutch actors to perform in blackface. Blackface performances functioned not merely as entertainment, but perpetuated a stereotypical white image of black people.
During that same period the \-Amsterdam-based teacher Jan Schenkman published a childrens book including a black servant (St. Nikolaas en zijn knecht, 1850). The servant was known as Black Pete and became established in the Saint Nicolas tradition. In the years to come, Black
Pete, generally a white person wearing a blackface mask, leaned heavily on the same elements that made the blackface minstrel dandy type a success: edified clothing, a blackface mask, and anti-\-emancipation humour.",
}