First Week's blog

 As Joseph E. Holloway states in the opening sentence of his essay "The Origins of African American Culture,"The history of the New World is a story of cultural interaction, integration, and assimilation. Upon first reading this statement, I was at a loss as to how respond to the questions raised by these 3 terms, but after considering the suffix "cultural," Holloway's meaning became more clear. I will tackle them in order, one at a time.

interaction

Holloway writes that in the early years of the slave trade, that "Africans were imported to South Carolina predominantly from 'Guinea,'" and that the largest single group among these West Africans were the Wolofs. Holloway state that the Wolofs "were mostly house servants who had extensive and close contact with European Americans." (22) This interaction of cultures led to assimilation, which I will discuss below.

By way of contrast to the experience of the Wolofs, Central Africans imported to South Carolina were largely field workers, and kept isolated from European Americans. Holloway illustrates that during one 5 year period, between 1735-40, "70 percent of all incoming Africans were Bantu from the Angolan region. This forced migration coupled with the relative homogeneity of language spoken and relative isolation demonstrates the effect of the absence of interaction. According to Holloway, "Bantus were able to maintain a strong sense of unity and to retain a cultural vitality that laid the foundation for the development of African American culture." (24, 27)

One direct symptom of the interaction between cultures is indicated by the prejudices and preferences of the planters that purchased slaves. Slave owners were intimately acquainted with different peoples from varying regions of Africa. In South Carolina, for example, slave-purchasers did not want to purchase Angolans after a rebellion. Holloway shows that, after the Angolan revolt, importation of slaves from the region fell from 70 percent to 40 percent of slaves imported. Other peoples were prized for being "less rebellious," and for certain skill sets specific to their culture. (26, 32)

integration

Much of the cultural integration of various African slaves appears to be due to languages, both those that brought slaves together and those that held them apart. Holloway posits that in the case of the Bantu, "they were able to retain much of their cultural identity," because of enforced isolation as field workers. Holloway notes that Africanisms as varied as religion, philosophy, culture, folk tales, naming practices and home economics were retained in America by Central African slaves bound together by a common language. He goes on to write that these Africanisms and more were eventually "shared and adopted by the various African ethic groups of the field slave community, and they gradually developed into African American cooking, music, language, religion philosophy, customs, and arts. (36, 37)

Before the large Bantu immigration of the 1730s, the Senegambians of West Africa were the the most numerous of African slaves. Holloway makes note of the importance of bilingualism as pertaining to this era as well, describing the example of a specific slave named Rajmam Ibrahim (who was a prince in the kingdom of Tambo in Gambia) who spoke Arabic,Wolof, and Mande, which were the most prevalent languages spoken in Senegambia. This, he puts forth, "suggests that Wolof was the lingua fraca of the plantations before the 1730s. (36)

The European American slave-owners integrated a great many African techniques into their day-to-day operations. An example of this is the case of animal husbandry. Holloway writes that "while settlers felt uneasy about open grazing at first, numerous Africans coming into South carolina had witnessed and understood the success of this practice from their African experience. This became standard practice in the American animal husbandry industry. (34) Many other technologies were imported to the Americas by African slaves, such as netcasting and farming techniques.

assimilation

Holloway states that "because the Wolofs were predominantly house servants and artisans, having extensive contact with European Americans, they were the first Africans to have elements of their language and culture retained within the developing culture of America." Many Wolof words have been assimilated into the contemporary American lexicon, such as Ok, bogus, googie woogie, bug, phoney, yam, and many more. It is telling that Holloway refers to these "linguistic retentions" as "Americanisms," rather than "Africanisms," signifying the depth of assimilation into the general culture these words represent.

The Wolof also brought with them many folk tales that "are common in black folklore in the United States," and several that are common tales in the United States in general. Among them are Brer Rabbit, Brer Wolf, Brer fox (all of which were in picture books on the shelf in my kindergarten home-room), Sis Nanny Goat, and others. Holloway writes that "the Anansi (spider) stories were Akan in origin and remained completely intact in the New World." (36) Indeed, these stories have been assimilated to such a degree that Anansi is a character in the novel "American Gods," and the protagonist of the sequel, "Anansi Boys," both written by the British author Neil Gaiman.

According to Holloway, "a Swiss newcomer, Samuel dyssli, observed in 1737 that Carolina 'looks more like a negro country than a country settled by white people.'" Although Holloway states that the Wolof "were, perhaps, the first Africans whose cultural elements ad language were assimilated by and retained witin the developing culture of America," he also writes that because of the large scale importation of Senegambians, the fact that the majority of West Africans were house slaves, as opposed to the majority who were field slaves, and the heterogeneity of their culture, they were "at a disadvantage in influencing African American culture." (22, 24) The more culturally homogeneous and numerous Bantu speaking peoples of Central Africa laid the foundations for the African American traditions of soul food, jazz, blues, spirituals, and gospels.

What Africans Have Given America

Joseph Holloway writes in "What Africa Has Given America" that "Africans, and their descendents, contributed to the richness and fullness of American culture from its beginnings." He goes on to describe the marginalization of these contributions and the varied nature of them. One of the most striking passages in this essay occurs in the third paragraph: Holloway writes that "enslaved Africans, not free to openly transport kinship, courts, religion, and material cultures were forced to disguise or abandon them during the middle passage." However, he goes on to describe something remarkable: "they dematerialized African culture on their arrival in the New World. Africans arrived in the New World capable of using Old World knowledge to create New World realities."

Holloway describes the process by which Brer Rabbit, a traditional character in Wolof folklore may have become Bug Bunny. More certain is the source of Chicken Little and Walt Disney's "Song of the South." African folktales not only survived the Middle Passage and centuries of slavery, but became integral parts of American Culture as a whole. These stories and characters that entertain and enlighten us today have roots in Africa, and our American life would be emptier without them. (50)

A medical advance brought to America by African slaves that is crucial to our way of life today is inoculation. Anthropologist R.S. Rattray is quoted as saying that this practice was in use "since time immemorial by the Akan of Ghana." (53). This and other cures (among them, snakebite antidotes) were introduced by African slaves who were occasionally given their freedom and a cash stipend by local colonial governments. Imagining an America that had never benefitted from these techniques is to imagine a place where many of us were never born. (54)

Influences on American language are many. The example that is most pervasive in my opinion is the word "O.K.," which is a Wolof/Mande word that is not only used in the United States, but across the entire world. Words as diverse as dig, guy, hippie, and yam all have African Origins. In addition, as noted by Holloway, "white Southerners have adopted and assimilated African speech patterns and have retained Africanisms such as baton twirling, cheerleading, and expressions and words that were once Africanisms but are now Americanism." (59) This is significant: that what was African has become American.

The Turner-Herskovits Connection

Turner and Herskovits shared an interest that drew them together, and inspired them to both indulge their intellectual curiosity and to realize new areas they should be curious about. This in itself is inspiring, as is their sharing of information and correspondence. As early researchers of Africanisms, they often seemed to be acting on hunches, especially in the beginning of their journey. Reading the excerpts of their correspondence provided in the paper by Maragaret Wade-Lewis gives the reader a feeling of anticipation and excitement; these two men were on the brink of a wonderful education in what it truly means to be an American.

That so much of American culture springs from African culture is illuminating, in that despite the horrors of slavery and its effects on those enslaved, Africa itself, and its negative impacts on America, imported African slaves managed to give a wonderful gift to future generations of all ethnic back rounds in the form of culture. This is instructive, as it makes me wonder, not for the first time, but with more conviction: Why did I have to wait to get to college to learn any of this? It seems that at least some of this should be a core inclusion for any 3rd grade history textbook.