The Octoroon

For the films, see The Octoroon (1909 film) and The Octoroon (1912 film).

The Octoroon, Act IV, 1859 (print held by Special Collections, Templeman Library, University of Kent)[1]

The Octoroon is a play by Dion Boucicault that opened in 1859 at The Winter Garden Theatre, New York City. Extremely popular, the play was kept running continuously for years by seven road companies.[2] Among antebellum melodramas, it was considered second in popularity only to Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Both were anti-slavery works.[3]

Boucicault adapted the play from the novel Quadroon (1856) by Thomas Mayne Reid . It explores the lives of free whites, and enslaved mixed-race and black Americans resident at a Louisiana plantation called Terrebonne. It sparked debates about the abolition of slavery and the role of theatre in politics. It contains elements of Romanticism and melodrama.

The word octoroon signifies a person of one-eighth African ancestry and typically seven-eighths white. In comparison, a quadroon would have one quarter African ancestry and a mulatto for the most part has historically implied half African ancestry.

The Oxford English Dictionary cites The Octoroon with the earliest record of the word "mashup" with the quote: "He don't understand; he speaks a mash up of Indian, French, and Mexican." Boucicault's manuscript actually reads "Indian, French and 'Merican." The last word, an important colloquialism, was misread by the typesetter of the play.

  1. ^ Photo from first edition of The Octoroon, Act IV, by Dion Boucicault; compliments of Special Collections, Templeman Library, University of Kent.
  2. ^ "The McVay Farewell". Pacific Commercial Advertiser. June 20, 1899. p. 3. Retrieved May 11, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.
  3. ^ "McVay in The Octoroon". Honolulu Evening Bulletin. June 20, 1899. p. 1. Retrieved May 11, 2021 – via Newspapers.com.