Jingle Bells and the Legacy of Minstrelsy

By Burju Perez

To millions of listeners, "Jingle Bells" is the quintessential anthem of innocent winter wonder, a song evoking pristine snow, sleigh rides, and holiday cheer. However, the song's origins are far removed from the wholesome Christmas canon it now inhabits. Historical and musicological research reveals that James Lord Pierpont’s 1857 composition, originally titled "The One Horse Open Sleigh," was not written for a church choir or a family gathering, but for the blackface minstrel stage. Beneath its catchy melody lies a complex history of racial caricature, where the lyric "laughing all the way" served not as an expression of pure joy, but likely as a performative cue for the racist "laughing darkie" or "dandy" tropes central to 19th-century minstrelsy

To understand the song’s original intent, one must look to its debut. Research by theater historian Kyna Hamill confirms that the song was first performed on September 15, 1857, at Ordway Hall in Boston. This venue was a well known center for blackface minstrelsy (a form of entertainment where white performers darkened their faces with burnt cork to enact derogatory stereotypes of African Americans). The song was introduced by Johnny Pell, a blackface performer with Ordway’s Aeolians. In this context, the song was not a neutral folk tune; it was a "plantation melody" or "sleighing song" designed to mimic and mock the speech and supposed behaviors of Black Americans for white amusement.

The lyrics of the song, when viewed through the lens of 1857 minstrelsy, reveal a narrative of reckless behavior and slapstick comedy associated with the "black dandy" archetype. The "dandy" was a stock minstrel character: a figure who dressed in aspiring finery but was depicted as physically clumsy, pretentious, and prone to mishap. The narrator of "Jingle Bells" is not taking a serene ride; he is drag-racing ("the horse was lean and lank"), picking up women ("Miss Fanny Bright"), and crashing ("we got upsot"). In the minstrel tradition, scenes of Black characters struggling with horses, sleighs, or technology were common comedic fodder, intended to reinforce the racist notion that Black people were incompetent or dangerously carefree.

This brings us to the specific refrain: "laughing all the way." In the modern context, this is read as innocent delight. However, in the codified language of the minstrel show, laughter was a specific, weaponized tool. The "laughing darkie" was a pervasive racist trope that depicted Black people as perpetually happy, simple-minded, and intellectually void, a caricature used to justify slavery by suggesting that the enslaved were content with their lot. On stage, the "laughing" routine involved exaggerated, gaping mouths and loud, buffoonish guffaws. When Johnny Pell performed this line in blackface, "laughing all the way", it was likely a stage direction for physical comedy, a moment for the performer to engage in the grotesque, exaggerated laughter that defined the genre. The laughter was not with the character, but at the character.

The author of the song, James Lord Pierpont, was deeply embedded in the racial politics of his time. Despite being the son of a fierce abolitionist, Pierpont himself was a supporter of the Confederacy, eventually writing battle hymns for the South such as "Strike for the South" and "We Conquer or Die." His willingness to participate in and profit from the minstrel industry, which relied entirely on the dehumanization of Black people, aligns with his broader political sympathies. The song was a commercial product of a racist industry, written by a man who actively opposed the liberation of the very people his music caricatured.

Over the decades, "Jingle Bells" underwent a process of cultural whitewashing. As the popularity of minstrel shows waned and the song was adopted by college choirs and parlor singers in the late 19th century, its racialized context was stripped away. The blackface origins were forgotten, the dialect (if originally present in performance) was standardized, and the "dandy's" reckless drag race was reimagined as a wholesome family sleigh ride. The laughter that once signaled a racist caricature became interpreted as the joy of the holiday season.

Acknowledging the minstrel origins of "Jingle Bells" does not require banning the music, but it does demand a confrontation with history. The song was written within a specific framework of American racism, where "laughing all the way" was part of a routine designed to mock Black humanity. By ignoring this past, we participate in the erasure of the history of minstrelsy and its lasting impact on American culture. Recognizing the song's roots allows us to see how deeply the legacy of racial performance is woven into even the most seemingly benign traditions.

Written by Tamara Rose

Sources:

“The Story I Must Tell: 'Jingle Bells' in the Minstrel Repertoire." Theatre Survey, vol. 58, no. 3, 2017, by Kyna Hamill

Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, by Eric Lott

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IYr3k8KkFAQ - The History of Jingle Bells- From Blackface to White Christmas and beyond