Excerpted from the linked post:
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"Cynthia Sue" was a song sung by Christy's Minstrels. Mahar (_Behind the Burnt Cork Mask_, 1999) dates it to 1844.

Here's a link to one version of lyrics, as they appeared in _Christy's Nigga Songster_ (1850). It begins,

Long 'fore dis time, dis nigger dwell
In a place called Tuscanoe;
I loved a gal with tarry [tawny?] skin—
Her name was Cynthia Sue.

Oh, Cynthia, my darlin' honey,
Oh, Cynthia, I lub you more den money!
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Steve, by pre-minstrel do you mean the solo blackface performers like TD Rice ("Coal Black Rose") and Joel Sweeney ("Jenny Get Your Hoecake Done") -- in other words, before the minstrel groups i.e. 1843, Virginia Minstrels?

I was drafting a chapter on minstrelsy when I was working on a book about chanty history, before getting sidetracked. Looks like I haven't touched the file since 2014... I remember a specific 1830s reference to some sailors going ashore and attending a performance by Rice of "Coal Black Rose."

As an aside, I love this rendition of "Hoecake."
Home Front's rendition
Surely the basis of "Whoop Jamboree."
Not to say we can be sure Home Front's is a completely accurate reconstruction, but it gives a glimpse of what might have been heard as a pretty exciting "new" sound (parallel to the phenomenal success of Lil Nas X's 2019 blockbuster, "Old Town Road".
Kids and adults alike reacted to it automatically, it was so familiar to the flavor of everything in American music.

I have the pleasure of owning one of James Hartel's reconstructions of the Sweeney banjo... though I haven't much learned to play it yet! It's a great teaching tool though.