Isham’s The Octoroons, opened in August 1895 at New York’s Olympic Theatre. The musical numbers and dance sketches in the first half were “laid in the heart of the Tenderloin.” The imperial involvement of the United States in Cuba and Southeast Asia also provided grounds for black farce. The second act was “made up of talk about the war and preparation for the same” and took place at a fictional training camp on Long Island called Camp Black, a segregated unit where a troop of African American men were billeted. These men were eager to join Rooosevelt’s Rough Riders in Cuba and the conquest of Spain in the Phillippines. Songs included ‘My Filipino Babe’ and ‘Hu-La Boolah,’ both by Bob Cole and sung by Stella Wiley with Walter Smart and George Williams. Following the “Tenderloin Cakewalk Jubilee,” Wiley “assists” Smart and Williams in a comedy sketch, which revolved around Smart’s need of a horse in order to join the troops fighting so gallantly for freedom.

Images from any of the shows are scarce but one photograph remains of Wiley, Smart, and Williams. In this comedy number Wiley stands in the center, offering a small toy horse to Smart (Dewey Olympus) to her right. Smart is dressed in a snappy cream-colored suit, while Williams (Mark Hanna) to her left, is sporting a black suit covered in dollar signs. No book or transcription remains of this sketch.

‘Babylon Girls: Black Women Performers and the Shaping of the Modern’ by Jayna Brown