Stick dance (African-American)

[1] To add to the dance element of the practise, other slaves would gather around the competitive fighters.

They would clap in rhythm, and sing in a call-and-response style, while one caller led the rest of the crowd.

An early depiction of slaves performing a stick dance is an 18th-century watercolour painting called The Old Plantation, which is in the collections of The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Folk Art Museum in Williamsburg, Virginia.

It shows a dozen African-Americans gather in front of two slave cabins, with one stick dancer, and two women dancing with scarves to music of a drummer and a banjoist.

[2] The stick dance became a standard part of the minstrel shows performed by African-Americans during the late 19th century.