WARNING: This is a blackface minstrel song, a genre that features demeaning caricatures rooted in racism and white supremacy.

“De Camptown Races” was entered for copyright deposit on February 19, 1850, by F. D. Benteen of Baltimore. The earliest copies state on the title page “as sung by the Christy and Campbell Minstrels and New Orleans Serenaders.” Later copies only listed the Christy Minstrels at Edwin P. Christy’s request. 

According to Evelyn Foster Mornweck’s The Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family: 

Camptown race track was real or existed only in his imagination. The name may have remained in his mind since the old Athens school days, for there is a little place named Camptown a few miles east of Towanda. Stephen possessed that true humor that recognizes appropriate appellations and apt phrases. Camptown is as surely the name for a colored man’s town, as Corktown is Irish. “De Camptown Races,” or “Gwine to Run  All Night” is an action song if ever there was one. It fairly “scorches” along!

She adds an interesting piece of information about the pronunciation of “doo-dah” in the songs refrain: “The second syllable of the little refrain, ‘Doo-dah!’ is pronounced dah as in dandy, not daw as in dark. At least, that is the way Morrison sang it.” Regarding relinquishing the song’s future earnings, she writes:

Although Stephen was receiving a fair return on his songs, he had not been living within his means, and in the winter of 1857, found himself overdrawn at his publishers and with several pressing debts. He raised the money by selling out to Firth, Pond & Company, for the sum of $1872.28, all his future rights in the songs Firth, Pond had already published. Stephen also sold out completely his rights in sixteen songs published by F. D. Benteen (including “De Camptown Races”) for $200.

Later, when discussing the song’s popularity, she writes:

“Camptown Races” soon followed, and was also very popular; so much so, it had the effect (perhaps not complimentary to the song) of compelling the good people of Camptown, New Jersey, to change the name of their place. We suppose every new acquaintance to whom they were introduced, involuntarily ejaculated, "Du-dah!"