Negotiating Race in the Winter Quarters: Indians, African Americans, and Circus Towns in the Nineteenth-Century Midwest

In the late nineteenth century, two racially-integrated towns formed in the Midwest around the winter quarters of traveling circuses. American Indians, African Americans, and whites of diverse ethnic backgrounds hailing from all over the country lived and worked together to maintain the circus operations year-round. They built and shared churches, schools, homes, and other institutions during a time that the Midwest, and the nation, was increasing social and economic oppression against blacks and Indians.   

These two circus towns provide unexpected glimpses into one intersection of African American and Native American community life in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.  By the end of the nineteenth century, the absence of Indians was taken for granted due to federal removal.  Anti-black racism in the Midwest after Reconstruction also posed challenges to blacks and the livelihood of their communities. Striving black communities often faced racist violence and destruction.  However, circus winter quarters attracted African Americans due to their location on major railroad lines, proximity to historic Underground Railroad stops, and due to local economic and social opportunities.  Indians found adequate employment to maintain their families and homes in the regions of their choice.  In this context, American Indians and African Americans came into contact with each other and with other blacks and Indians from outside of the Midwest.  The institutions they built contradicted national paradigms of racial uplift and “civilization” and revealed patterns of racial permeability and changeability on individual, community, and federal levels.