In Dahomey of gold, devise a plan to move to Africa to colonize Dahomey (present-day Benin) with a group of poor American blacks. Having undergone bad luck, the conmen, Shylock Homestead (played by Bert Williams) and Rareback Punkerton (George Walker) are sent to Florida to con Cicero Lightfoot (Pete Hampton), the president of a colonization society. To his surprise, Punkerton discovers Homestead to be rich, and proceeds to become his trustee to gain access to Homestead's wealth. Once having gained access to Homestead's wealth, Punkerton struts around, acting as a dandy, or a refined figure in black society. Upon realizing Punkerton's schemes,
In Dahomey One "New York Times" report responded to the show by construing it as the initiation of a potential race war, signifying the level of anxiety possessed around the mobility of blacks during the era. "In Dahomey" captures much of the perspective of early 20th-century Broadway. Many songs heavily feature classic vaudevillian extractability and dramatic flexibility. Fewer than a half-dozen songs were topically linear to "In Dahomey"s driving narrative. Only two songs, "My Dahomian Queen" and "On Broadway in Dahomey Bye and Bye", reference location and plot integration. Many songs, such as "Brown-Skin Baby Mine", "My Castle on the Nile", "Evah