A review from an 1897 mainstream daily paper provides a summarial description of 1890s plantation minstrelsy through description of the show: “In Darkest America” as presented... by Mr. John Vogel’s large and in every way meritorious company, was perhaps the best presentation of scenes intended to be depicted, taking the performance in all its details, that could be exhibited. The actors are in the main colored people, and from the fidelity which the scenes of the plantation in slavery times are produced, one would be justified in imagining that they had all served at least a liberal apprenticeship among the slaves of the past.”.