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 a synopsis in February, 1903 generally concurs with the scenes depicted in extant scripts. The recovered synopsis reads: "In Dahomey" marked an important milestone in the evolution of the American musical comedy. Its composer Will Marion Cook combined the "high operetta style" he had studied with the relatively new form of ragtime in the finale "The Czar of Dixie." According to John Graziano, author of "Black Theatre USA", it was "the first African American show. The score made use of the "high operetta style" that synthesized successfully the various genres of American musical theatre popular at the beginning of the