Klopse In 1862 the Alabama, a Confederate war ship, came into port in Cape Town. This ship patroled the South Atlantic during the Civil War in America. This is where the song "Daar kom die Alibama" comes from. African-Americans dressed in their minstrel outfits gave impromptu musical recitals at the dockside where the Alabama was docked. When the local population inquired the whites responded by saying "These are just our Coons!" South Africans had their next contact with African-Americans and African-American music on June 19, 1890, when the minstrel troupe of Orpheus Myron McAdoo's Virginia Jubilee Singers from Hampton, Virginia presented a series of concerts in Cape Town. This forms the basis of the Klopse as we know it.  ¶ 11/21/2006 08:57:00 AM