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William Henry Lane, a.k.a. "Master Juba" from The Illustrated London News, 5 August 1848

Master Juba was the stage name of William Henry Lane (1825–1852), who danced in minstrel shows in the 1840s. He was one of the first black performers in the United States. He began his career in the saloons and dance halls of the Five Points neighborhood of Manhattan in or near 1840, moving on to minstrel shows throughout the decade. Dance historians Marshall and Jean Stearns assert that Juba soon went beyond the routines of the day, standing out from his peers by combining Irish and Afro-American folk steps into lightning-fast and entirely new dances.

The English author Charles Dickens toured Five Points in 1842 and chanced upon what is believed to have been a performance by Juba. First mentioning him as "a lively young negro" (Lane would have been about 17 at the time), he wrote:

Playbill for Pell's Serenaders, with whom "Boz's Juba" was playing in 1848

The corpulent black fiddler, and his friend who plays the tambourine, stamp upon the boarding of the small raised orchestra in which they sit, and play a lively measure. Five or six couples come upon the floor, marshalled by a lively young negro, who is the wit of the assembly, and the greatest dancer known. He never leaves off making queer faces, and is the delight of all the rest, who grin from ear to ear incessantly…

…the dance commences. Every gentleman sets as long as he likes to the opposite lady, and the opposite lady to him, and all are so long about it that the sport begins to languish, when suddenly the lively hero dashes in to the rescue. Instantly the fiddler grins, and goes at it tooth and nail; there is new energy in the tambourine; new laughter in the dancers; new smiles in the landlady; new confidence in the landlord; new brightness in the very candles.

Single shuffle, double shuffle, cut and cross-cut; snapping his fingers, rolling his eyes, turning in his knees, presenting the backs of his legs in front, spinning about on his toes and heels like nothing but the man's fingers on the tambourine; dancing with two left legs, two right legs, two wooden legs, two wire legs, two spring legs—all sorts of legs and no legs—what is this to him? And in what walk of life, or dance of life, does man ever get such stimulating applause as thunders about him, when, having danced his partner off her feet, and himself too, he finishes by leaping gloriously on the bar-counter, and calling for something to drink, with the chuckle of a million of counterfeit Jim Crows, in one inimitable sound!

William Henry was a professional and well known dancer by the age of 17. That's when he became known as Master Juba. Master Juba frequently challenged other dancers to contests and beat even the best white dancers, including the period favorite, John Diamond. An advertisement for the event in a city newspaper read:

GREAT PUBLIC CONTEST Between the two most renowned Dancers in the world, the Original JOHN DIAMOND, and the Colored Boy JUBA, for a Wager of $300 . . . at the BOWERY AMPHITHEATER, which building has been expressly hired from the Proprietor . . . The fame of these Two Celebrated Breakdown Dancers has already spread over the Union, and the numerous friends of each claim the Championship for their favorite, and . . . have seriously wished for a Public Trial between them . . . [to] know which is to bear the Title of the Champion Dancer of the World. The time to decide that has come, and the friends of Juba have challenged the world to produce his superior in this Art . . . That challenge has been accepted by the friends of Diamond, and on Monday Evening they meet, and [will] Dance Three Jigs, Two Reels, and the Camptown Hornpipe.

At the height of his career, Juba's act featured a sequence in which he imitated many of the famous dancers of the day, and closed by "imitating himself". (Lott, 1993, 115)

Lane traveled to London with an otherwise all-white minstrel troupe; he founded a school there; and he died there at the age of 27. (Allen)

Lane in Charles Dickens's American Notes, 1842

According to the Dance History Archives on StreetSwing.com, the name Juba appears to derive from an African dance called Djouba, which became a dance among the slaves, known as Giouba, "featuring hand clapping and foot stomping, referred to as 'patting the Juba.'"

• Allen, Zita, "From Minstrel Show to Concert Stage", background essay for Free to Dance on the PBS site.
• Dickens, Charles, American Notes, Chapter 6 - New York. American Notes, available at Project Gutenberg.
• Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0-19-507832-2. p. 52.
• Stearns, Marshall and Jean, Jazz Dance: The Story of American Vernacular Dance, Da Capo Press, 1994, ISBN 0-306-80553-7.
• Master Juba on StreetSwing.com's Dance History Archives.

• The Juba Project