Jon,

Based on my non-rigorous, reader, that sounds plausible to me as something that happened at times. The send up of all kinds of "upper class" stuff, through ironic juxtaposition, was part of the humor in minstrel shows.

In the same non-rigorous way, however, I would not imagine that was the case with Sweeney, i.e. one of the early performers.

People may be familiar with Chris Smith's book "The Creolization of American Culture." His thesis (I hope I'm summarizing correctly) was that what came to be performed on stage was already extant, more or less, as a musical genre among working class people in certain multiethnic spaces of labor -- on America's frontiers, on rivers, in ports. The quick success of the music on stage is explained by the theory that it was already so familiar to the target audience (such as those types who patronized the Bowery Theatre in New York). There was an excitement of seeing "their" ("Creole," "American") music on stage for the first time.

I personally analogize this audience to the hepcats, Teddy Boys, Mods, Skinheads, and other working class youth subcultures who, predominately (but not exclusively) "White," forged their distinctive identities in part through synthesis with "other cultures'" styles of dress, speech, values, and music. (In California these days, such subcultures are dominated by the majority "nationality" of working class background, Mexican-Americans.) For that crowd, I don't think making fun was as much of a priority, then.

There is a shift when the music goes even more "mainstream" and broader audiences, of a different composition, demand more of what they seek from the performances. In any case, I image the conflict between performers' intentions and audience expectations was always something to be negotiated. We can imagine when blackface performers toured to England. How might those audiences have viewed the performance without (presumably) an understanding of American life?