Master Juba - Later Life and Career

Later Life and Career

Documents next show Juba back in the United States, performing a solo act in working-class music halls, concert saloons, and entr'actes in nondescript theaters in New York: he had gone from obscurity to the limelight and back again. The American critics were not as kind as their English counterparts. A reviewer for the Era wrote on August 4, 1850, that " jumping very fast at the Colosseum, but too fast is worse than too slow, and we advise to be wise in time. It is easier to jump down than to jump up"; and on August 11, 1850, "Juba has jumped away—by the way of an earnest yet friendly caution, let us hope that he will not throw himself away. Be wise in time is a wholesome motto". The Huddersfield Chronicle and West Yorkshire Advertiser on November 30, 1850, wrote, "The performances of Boz's Juba have created quite a sensation in the gallery, who greeted his marvellous feats of dancing with thunders of applause and a standing encore. In all the rougher and less refined departments of his art, Juba is a perfect master."

The last known record of Juba places him at the City Tavern in Dublin, Ireland, in September 1851: "Boz's Juba appears here nightly and is well received". A performer known as Jumbo is reported as having died two weeks later in Dublin. Dance historian Marian Hannah Winter said that Juba died in 1852 in London. More than 30 years later, theater historian T. Allston Brown wrote that Juba "married too late (and a white woman besides), and died early and miserably. In a note addressed to Charley White, Juba informed him that, when next he should be seen by him, he would be riding in his own carriage. It has been said that in 1852 his skeleton, without the carriage, was on exhibition at the Surrey Music Hall, Sheffield, England." Mahar has given the date as 1853. He would have been in his late 20s.

The cause of Juba's death is a matter of speculation. Winter cited his "almost superhuman schedule" and the " up his energies and health" as the culprits. Assuming all of the Jubas are the same person, the record suggests that Juba worked day and night for 11 years—from 1839 to 1850. Especially in his early days, Juba worked for food, and would have been served the typical tavern meal of the time, fried eels and ale. Such a demanding schedule, coupled with poor food and little sleep, likely doomed Juba to his early death.