places of cultural memory conference proceedings

National Park Service

National Park Foundation

The Georgia Trust

Georgia Department of Natural Resources

The Georgia African American Historic PreservationNetwork

National Conference of State Historic Preservation Officers

Smithsonian Institution

U.S. Committee, International Council on Monuments and Sites

The Slave Route Project of UNESCO

Southeast Regional African American Preservation Alliance

Morris Brown College

Clark Atlanta University

American Institute for the Conservation of Historic andArtistic Works

Conference Sponsors

1

2Places of Cultural Memory:African Reflections on the American Landscape

Introduction 00

Memorializing Places of Diaspora 00

Freedom’s Trail: The Florida Cuba Connection 00

Ralph B. Johnson

Africanisms Upon the Land: A Study of African Influenced 00Place Names in the USA

Annette I. Kashif

Autobio-graphic Space: Reconciling African American Identity 00with the (In)visible Past

coleman a. jordan (ebo)

Agricultural Lifeways and Technologies 00

Rice, Slaves, and Landscapes of Cultural Memory 00

Judith Carney

The Memory of Iron: African Technologies 00in the Americas

Candice Goucher

Bounded Yards and Fluid Borders: Landscapes of Slavery 00at Poplar Forest

Barbara J. Heath

Black Cultural Landscapes and Institutions 00

Africanisms on the ‘Old Ship of Zion’: 00What Are These Forms and Why Do They Persist?

Audrey Brown

Interwoven Traditions: The Conjurer’s Cabin and 00African American Cemetery at the Jordan Plantation and Frogmore Plantations

Kenneth L. Brown

Some Evidence of African Cultural Traditions among the 00Residents of Black Church Centered Farming Communities in North Central Louisiana

Joe Lewis Caldwell

Table of Contents

3

(Table of Contents, continued)

Legacies of Urban Realms and Rural Communities 00

Traditional African Architecture and Its Impact 00on Place Making: Case Studies from African and African American Communities

Abimbola O. Asojo

Gardening, Yard Decoration, and Agriculture Among 00Peoples of African Descent in the Rural South and inthe Cayman Islands

Richard Westmacott

Por La Encendida Calle Antillana: African Influences on 00Puerto Rican Architecture

Arleen Pabón

African Burial Ground: Discovery, Preservation, 00

and MemorializationNew York’s African Burial Ground Mortuary Complex in 00Diasporic Perspective

Warren R. Perry, Jean Howson, and Ruth Mathis

Places of Cultural Memory:African Reflections on the American Landscape4

The 13 essays that appear in this compilation wereprepared for the conference, “Places of CulturalMemory: African Reflections on the American

Landscape.” This conference was held May 9–12, 2001,in Atlanta, Georgia.

The conference developed from an idea posed by Falona Heidelberg, now theExecutive Director of the African American Experience Fund at the National ParkFoundation. While her initial interest was in the African Burial Ground in New YorkCity, she believed that there was much about African cultural heritage in the UnitedStates that was little known and under-appreciated. Together with Katherine H.Stevenson, Associate Director, Cultural Resource Stewardship & Partnerships ofthe National Park Service, Ms. Heidelberg began a series of meetings to discussthe possibility of convening a conference on the tangible aspects of AfricanAmerican history.

As the conference program evolved, three consultants from the scholarly com-munity were engaged to advise on the major conference themes and prospectivespeakers. The conference sponsors appreciate the major input of Joseph E. Harrisof Howard University, LaVerne Wells-Bowie of Clemson University, and John Vlachof George Washington University. Their interest in and support of this conferenceclarified the program content.

Antoinette Lee of the NPS National Center for Cultural Resources was assignedto organize and implement the conference and provide editorial direction for theconference papers. Scott Whipple, now of the Maryland Historical Trust, assistedher in the early phases of the conference planning. Later, Brian Joyner was hiredto coordinate the details of the conference and to provide editorial support for thiscompilation of papers. Marcia Axtmann Smith prepared the design for this compila-tion, based in part on the artwork for the printed conference announcement thatLaVerne Wells-Bowie provided.

The topic of the influence of African cultural heritage on the American landscapeis introduced in this compilation of conference papers. Readers will note that thistopic is a potentially vast one—one that deserves additional attention if the historicpreservation programs of the nation are to adequately reflect the contributions ofAfricans to the development of the United States.

CONFERENCEPAPERS

May 9–12, 2001Atlanta, Georgia

PLACES OF CULTURAL MEMORY:

AFRICAN REFLECTIONS ON THE AMERICAN LANDSCAPE

Introduction

5

7

Session One:

MEMORIALIZING PLACES OF DIASPORA

For centuries, Africans have been dispersed through-out the world and have established “communities”outside of Africa. These scattered communities

retain their African identities within the culture of the hostcommunities. The Diaspora involves places of departure,arrival, resistance, liberation, linkages, emigration, migra-tion, escape, and other places where movement of humanpopulations took place.

Freedom’s Trail: The Florida Cuba Connection

Ralph B. Johnson

Africanisms Upon the Land: A Study of African Influenced Place Names of the USA

Annette I. Kashif

Autobio-graphic Space: Reconciling African American Identity with the (In)Visible Past


9

Session One:

MemorializingPlaces ofDiaspora

Freedom’s Trail:The Florida Cuba Connection

Ralph B. Johnson

Before emancipation and duringReconstruction in the UnitedStates free Africans found them-

selves in a very precarious position,being neither slave nor free. Achievingfreedom was a major accomplishment,but one that could not be taken forgranted. Even after leaving slaverysome people had to struggle to claimtheir civil rights and retrieve them ifthey were abrogated for some reason.They found solace in their own commu-nities. These were self-contained com-munities where every member of thecommunity contributed to the whole.Many were skilled carpenters, masons,and agriculturists. Together they clearedthe land, planted new fields, builthomes, built the church, and the fortifi-cations to protect their community.

In their new communities, once again the Africans,now free, found it necessary to sacrifice theirbeliefs in order to fit within the host culture. Theylearned a new language, converted to a new reli-gion, risked their lives as many had to escapebondage on this southern “trail to freedom,” andacquired loyalty to foreign governments, often bymilitary services. Such was the case in “La Florida,”a province of the Spanish crown, and now thesoutheast region of the United States of America.

In 1762 the English were finally successful incapturing Havana, Cuba a stronghold of theSpanish Empire in the Caribbean. However, in theTreaty of Paris Spain ceded La Florida and GraciaReal Santa Teresa de Mose to England, inexchange for Havana and Puerto Rico. The follow-ing year the residents of her Florida communities

were evacuated and moved to Cuba, even thoughHis “Britannic Majesty” agreed to allow remaininginhabitants of in 1763 the “liberty of the Catholicreligion.” No more than eight Catholics and laymencould be found anywhere on the peninsula. Thusended nearly a century of safe haven for run-awayslaves from the British Carolina and Georgia low-country plantation system. This was most timelygiven the fact that the peak of the colonial importtrade in slaves was probably reached between1764 and 1773, the period that overlaps nine of the21 years of British occupation of Florida.

Slavery in Spain and HerColonies

The institution of slavery in Spain was different thanother European nations. Slaves had a moral andjuridical personality, and Spanish legislation specifi-cally granted them rights and protections in additionto obligations. Spanish slave codes were derivedfrom the Justinian Code, and had been incorpor-ated into Castilian law in the thirteenth century byKing Alfonso X. As African slaves reached Spain inthe fifteenth century, they were ruled by this legisla-tion, known as the Siete Partidas del Rey DonAlfonso El Sabio. The Siete Partidas also governedslavery in the New World. The Siete Partidas, andits adaptations, formed a body of law that held thatslavery was against natural law, for God had creat-ed man free. This philosophy was held in the con-text of a country steeped in religious righteousness.

The “Catholic Monarchs,” as King Ferdinandand Queen Isabelle were affectionately called, werevery concerned about the souls of their subjects.This applied most importantly to the Indies andSpanish Florida. Slaves, Native Americans, andfree men were brothers in Christ and it was theresponsibility of masters and the Church to teachthem the rudiments of the faith so that they mightbe admitted into the Church and enjoy all its sacra-

ments. These included marriage. Thesanctity of the family was protected byrequirements not to separate membersof the family. Brotherhood in the Churchsometimes served to tie masters toslaves in fictive kinship arrangements,when owners served as godparents andmarriage sponsors for their slaves.

Slavery was considered as an acci-dent of fate, and an aberration in nature,rather than a perpetual or preordainedcondition. These circumstances, theemphasis on a slave’s humanity andrights, and the lenient attitude towardmanumission embodied in Spanishslave codes and social practice made itpossible for a significant free black classto exist in the Spanish world. Aside fromthis attitude, blacks were not free ofracial prejudice.

Embroiled in a social and religiousreconquest of its own at home, Spainwas nevertheless preoccupied withracial purity and blacks that ruled Iberiafor several centuries up to this periodwere assigned to the bottom of thesocial hierarchy. But the Spanish recog-nized early on the useful contributionsblacks might make in their colonialempire. Their services were welcomedparticularly in the area of defense.Florida was an important and strategiclocation for the safe passage of Spanishtreasure fleets and later, as a bufferagainst French and English colonization.For some time blacks were drafted intothe militia. As early as the sixteenth century, militia companies in SantoDomingo, Cuba, Mexico, Cartagena,and Puerto Rico included black regi-ments. In Florida a company of blackand mulatto militia was formed as earlyas 1683, and there may have been earlier ones.

Blacks were incorporated into servic-es in another respect. Pedro Menedezde Aviles, established the first success-ful Spanish settlement in Florida,

assisted by black laborers and artisansimported from Havana. They worked onearly fortifications, sawed timber, andbuilt several structures, including achurch, a blacksmith shop, and anartillery platform. They also cleared landfor planting and harvested the crops.Florida was a part of Spain’s strategy tosubstantiate its claim to the Americas,denied of course by its rivals, Franceand England. It was important thereforeto effectively occupy and populate therespective territories.

By papal donation the lands of theso-called New World belonged to theCatholic Monarchs of Spain. TheSpanish Crown hoped to populate theselands with Christian pobladores or popu-lation, much as they had done in theareas Spain re-conquered from theMoors. They hoped to build ordered andjust communities in the Americas, mod-eled after those of Spain. Although earli-er municipal legislation existed, the reg-ulations of Charles V are notable for thedetail with which they prescribe the ritu-als for town foundation, the establish-ment of municipal governments andparishes, the proper division of lands,and the actual physical organization ofideal towns. The Crown, through its localrepresentatives (the governors or munic-ipal officers) could allocate Crown landto deserving or needy subjects, andtown building was considered a noble,and indeed, a necessary objective of theSpanish administration.

In October 1687, the first known fugitive slaves from Carolina arrived inSt. Augustine, the Spanish colony in LaFlorida. Governor Diego de Quirogadutifully reported to Spain that eightmales, two females, and a three-year-old nursing child had made good theirescape in a boat. Six of the men wereput to work in the Castillo, but two others were assigned to work with theblacksmith, a possible indication that

they already had skills in that area. Thewomen became domestics in the houseof the governor. All were paid for theirlabor. When an English official arrivedthe next fall to claim them, GovernorQuiroga refused to release them, on thegrounds that they had received religiousinstruction and been converted toCatholicism, had married, and were use-fully employed. Moreover, they claimedto fear for their lives. Thus a fugitiveslave policy began to evolve whichwould have serious diplomatic and mili-tary consequences for Spain.(1) KingCharles II, on November 7, 1693, issuedthe first official position on the runaways,“giving liberty to all…the men as well asthe women…so that by their exampleand by my liberality others will do thesame.”

Gracia Real De SantaTeresa De Mose

By 1736, records show that a total of630 Spaniards and 143 slaves and freeAfricans were confirmed in the newchurch of St. Augustine, Nuestra Senorade la Leche. And, by 1738 the settle-ment of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa deMose or Fort Mose as it was commonlyknown, was established by African-bornrun away slaves from the EnglishCarolina and Georgia plantations. It waslocated approximately two miles north ofSt. Augustine. Fort Mose was strategi-cally situated to protect both land andwater routes to St. Augustine; and, theAfrican homesteaders vowed to “spilltheir last drop of blood in defense of theGreat Crown of Spain and the HolyFaith, and to be the most cruel enemiesof the English.” They cleared the landsthey received from the governor, plantedcrops to sustain their families, and builta settlement that included a small fortcomplex. It included associated structures such as a church and


sacristy, and a number of houses thatseem to have been scattered among theplanted fields.

In many ways, the settlement at FortMose resembled those of the NativeAmerican villages also on St.Augustine’s periphery. The structures atFort Mose were said to be thatchedbohios, “such as the Indians have.”Archeological investigations at the sitealso prove the diet of Africans andIndians to had been heavily dependentupon riverine resources and non-domesticated animals hunted or trappedin the surrounding forests. Historicalrecords indicate that an AfricanMandingo leader named FranciscoMenendez governed the community.This Mandingo warrior also commandedthe Fort Mose militia for almost thirtyyears.

The Free Black Militia Company ofGracia Real de Santa Teresa de Moseconsisted of the following:

Commander Don Geronimo de Hita ySalazar; Cura Beneficiado, DonAgustin Geronimo de Resio; CaptainFrancisco Menendez, LieutenantAntonio Joseph Eligio, SecondLieutenant Francisco Escobedo,Sergeant Pedro Graxales, AntonioGallardo, Thomas Chrisostomo,Pedro de Leon, Pedro de Fuentes,Francisco Rosa, Juan Fernandez,Juan de la Torre, Francisco JosephMenendez, Joseph Escobedo,Francisco Graxales, Antonio Blanco,Francisco Diaz, Joseph Bentura,Manuel Rivera, Joseph de Pena,Nicolas Briones, Francisco Suni,Joseph Fernando, Santiago Solis,Francisco de Torres, Juan Lamberto,Antonio Garcia, Julian Bulero, PedroMartines, Nicolas de Cesar, IgnacioRoso, Juan Chrisostomo, JuanThomas de Castilla.(2)

After the British General JamesOglethorpe destroyed the first settlementof Fort Mose during the 1740 invasion,

Menendez and his “subjects” built a second settlement in 1752. Historicaland archeological research at the second Fort Mose has produced a richpicture of the Afro-Hispanic colonial lifeon the Spanish frontier. Fort Mose with-stood repeated Indian attacks, and thedeprivation associated with an embattledfrontier until the 1763 mass evacuationof La Florida colonists to Cuba. There,they established a new frontier home-stead, San Agustin de la Nueva Floridain the province of Matanzas.

San Augustin De LeNueva Florida, Cuba:Ceiba Mocha

The Seven Year War, known in Americaas the French and Indian War, culmin-ated with English forces capturing theport of Havana. In the First Treaty ofParis, La Florida was chosen overPuerto Rico by King Charles III of Spainto be the more easily expendable prop-erty. The transfer of sovereignty toEngland was formally done, and the firstSpanish Period of Florida came to anend.

By March 1764, eight transportsarrived in Havana with 3,104 people.Florida’s governor, Melchor Feliu, over-saw the evacuation of the Spanishcolony, organizing a flotilla of ships tocarry its citizens to Cuba. The exilesincluded Spaniards, Canary Islanders,Catalans, Indians from the mission vil-lages of Nuestra Senora de Guadalupede Tolomato and Nuestra Senora de laLeche, and African residents of GraciaReal de Santa Teresa de Mose.

Initially the Floridians were housed inHavana, and in the outlying towns ofGuanabacoa and Regla. Within monthsof their arrival in Cuba, however, thegovernment arranged the transfer of 73Floridian families or a total of 331 per-sons to a new settlement in the provinceof Matanzas, to be called San Agustin de

la Nueva Florida. It was also popularlyknown as Ceiba Mocha. (The word“Ceiba” is the Spanish name of a treealso called the Cottonwood tree that inAfrica possesses a sacred significance.)

The group included 13 Spanish fami-lies, 43 Canary Island families; fourEnglish families (called Germans on thereports), four free pardo or mulatto fami-lies (members of the free disciplinedmilitia of Havana posted in St.Augustine); and nine free moreno orblack families (from the free militia ofMose). The following year, 11 more serv-ice families from Florida joined them.

A wealthy rancher, Don GeronimoContreras, donated the land to establishthe new town and the Crown gave eachhousehold head a caballeria (approxi-mately) of uncultivated land, a stipend ofsixty pesos, tools, and a slave newlyimported from Africa to assist in thelabor of homesteading. The Mose militia-men received the following plots of land:

Lot # 40 Francisco Menedez

Lot # 45 Juan Chrisostomo Gonzalez

Lot # 60 Juan Fernandez

Lot # 61 Francisco Diaz

Lot # 65 Antonio Gallardo

Lot # 67 Joseph Ricardo

Lot # 68 Lieutenant Joseph AntonioElixio

Lot # 91 Captain FranciscoMenendez

Lot # 92 Domingo de Jesus Parilla

Lot # 93 Thomas Chrisostomo

The free pardo militiamen from Havanaposted in St. Augustine received the fol-lowing plots of land:

Lot # 83 Captain Manuel de Soto (ofHavana militia)

Lot # 94 Joseph Orozco

Lot # 98 Juan Fermin de Quixas

11Freedom’s Trail: The Florida Cuba Connection

Government officials also provided thenew colonists with food until they couldharvest crops. After nine years, thehomesteaders were obligated to repaythe cost of the slave (150 pesos) andthe subsidy (60 pesos) or a total of 210pesos to the royal treasury.

Conditions at the new settlementwere difficult. The homesteaders strug-gled to clear the land, plant fields, andbuild new structures in an untamedwilderness. Smallpox swept among theslaves, killing many. Several slavesrevolted and killed their owners. TheFloridians pleaded for more assistancefrom Havana. They reported, “We havenot been supplied with (shelter) to pro-tect our bodies from the punishments ofthe weather, and consequently, withouthousing or sustenance find ourselvesobliged to sleep under doorwaysexposed to inclement conditions.”

Another report from 1766 stated thatall the conditions at Ceiba Mocha suf-fered the same defect—there was nowater to drink, it was difficult to drill wellsin the land, and the closest water wasthe river which was one-half to two-thirds leagues distant.

The report added that the only rea-son 16 families stayed there was thatthey were too poor to move. Although atotal of 200 solares, or town lots, hadbeen donated for the Floridians, therewas some delay in allotting the property.The people lived in huts scatteredaround the countryside among theirfields. These “sad shacks” weredescribed as being constructed ofyagua, which is the impermeable andpliable material that joins a palm frond tothe trunk of the palm.

Because the homesteaders lackedoxen with which to plow and could notafford to buy any, all the land had to becultivated with a hoe. The only cropsthat the people had been able to growwere maize, yucca, some beans,

boniatos, and squashes. The settlershad no bread or meat, and even cassa-va was scarce. The report continued,saying the woods were so thick that theydid not have wherewithal to clear muchland for planting, and the people werereduced to misery.

The settlement of Ceiba Mocha hadno doctor, no barber, no pharmacist, nopriest, and people died without the ben-efits of the sacraments. The closestchurch was in the city of Matanzas, 24leagues distant. For the reasons given,only 16 of the total 84 families actuallyremained on the lands allotted for thenew town of San Agustin de la NuevaFlorida. Others rented outlying farm-lands or moved to Matanzas andHavana. Those that left sold their allot-ted lands to the remaining families,allowing the latter to consolidate andenlarge their holdings.

The free pardos and morenos of theoriginal Fort Mose community were scat-tered by the evacuation to Cuba.Antonio Joseph de Elixio, his wife, andfive children remained on the lands ofSan Agustine de la Nueva Florida, orCeiba Mocha, as did Captain Manuel deSoto of the pardo militia of Havana, andhis wife, Gertrudis Contrera, and child.Thomas Chisostomo, his wife FranciscaRodriguez, and their three children rent-ed land in the countryside outside ofCeiba Mocha. Thomas appears in theburial registers of Ceiba Mocha. He diedon February 23, 1798, by which time hiswife Francisca had already died.

Antonio Gallardo, his wife, and twochildren; Domingo de Jesus Parrilla, hiswife, and seven children; JosephRicardo and his wife; and JuanFernandez and his wife, Flora de laTorre; all of these families moved to thecity of Matanzas, where they supportedthemselves by working for daily wages.The pardo (actually Indian) militiamanfrom Havana, Joachim de Orozco, with

his wife, and four children; Pedro deLeon, his wife, and three children; andFrancisco Diaz, his wife, and two chil-dren, all returned to live in the vicinity ofHavana where they subsisted onlimosnas, or government subsidies.Each of these families received one andone-half reales daily (eighty realesequals a peso). The pardo militiamenfrom Havana, Juan Fermin Quixas, hiswife Maria de Soto, their child, andMarcelo de Cordova, and his wife didlikewise.

The Floridian immigrants to Cubacontinued over the years to petition theCrown and Havana officials for somerelief, and finally, in 1770, the Crownestablished a pension for wives andorphaned daughters of men exiled formFlorida. Several of these pension lists,dating as late as 1805, have been locat-ed, and they show that only whiteFloridians were recipients. Documentsfrom the Archive of the Indies in Seville,Spain, show that Maria Gertrudis Rozo,widow of Ignacio Rozo, a free militiamanfrom Mose, tried for nine years to winthe same pension for herself and herorphaned daughter, but despite theirproofs of legitimate marriage and gov-ernment service, they were repeatedlydenied on the basis of their color.

Nineteenth CenturyCeiba Mocha TownPlan and Layout

The development and growth of coloniesthroughout the Spanish Empire wereprescribed by the Ordinances for NewTowns or Laws of the Indies. Producedby Seville administrators for the King,the Ordinances determined exactly howthe new towns of the New World wouldbe physically organized. The layout usedin San Agustin de la Nueva Florida wasthe simplest example of SpanishAmerican town planning.


As was common in Spain the plazawas the main urban organizing element.Around the plaza of Ceiba Mocha therewere no civic buildings usually associat-ed with the Laws of the Indies guide-lines, rather simple houses that line thenarrow dirt streets. The church was theonly architectural element that identifiedthis site as a public space. It served asthe place of worship as well as an offi-cial point of reference and record keep-ing. The church was a dominant force inthe lives of the early settlers. Its pres-ence then, as it does today, providedorder for the town layout of CeibaMocha.

The African militiamen that settled inCeiba Mocha were skilled carpenters,ironsmiths, and masons and were famil-iar with the classical style of nineteenthcentury Europe. They built all their ownstructures at both the first and secondsettlements at Fort Mose. They built thedefense line and the stockade outposton the Sebastian River and in therepairs of fortifications at the Castillo deSan Marcos. Most importantly, they hadalso assisted in the carpentry on thechurch of St. Augustine.

The Church of Nuestra Senora de laCandelaria was built in 1792, almost 30years after the town’s founding, as aresult of the town’s growth and a senseof permanence brought about by bettereconomic conditions. The church is asmall, but significant structure. It isapproached from the north end of theplaza and accessed through a façadethat is simple, but classically attractive indesign. The upper part of the façade ter-minates in a classic pediment thatreflects its pitched roof. Simple pilasterswith bases and Tuscan capitols framethe façade and flank the main entrance.

As with most of the churches of thisperiod, the church in Ceiba Mocha hasan open rectangular plan. The interiorspace or nave is proportioned approxi-

mately three-to-one, length versus width.The height of the ceiling is slightly morethan the width. The nave has no visiblestructural elements, other than a columnthat supports an interior balcony. In itspresent form, the balcony is too smalland low for much practical use, and isnot an original element of the church.Although it has been there for manydecades, it is believed that there wasoriginally an area for a choir. There arethree niches in the interior wall of thenave, one of which holds a statue of theAfrican, St. Augustine, an Early ChristianBishop. A classical neo-Gothic woodenaltar was located in the sanctuary.

The bell tower is attached to themain building and to one side. It consistsof three vertical sections, each separat-ed by flat horizontal bands. The towerterminates with a cupola with four arch-es from which the bells are hung. Thereare also four pinnacles, one on eachcorner, and the cross that symbolicallyconnects the building to the sky. Thewalls of the church were constructed ofmamposteria, a technique that utilizes amixture of materials including irregularfragments of stone, clay tile, or brickwith soil and sand. The walls are verythick and require the placement ofsquare stones at the corners, and atintermediate locations along the walls forreinforcement.

Housing

Most of the buildings in Ceiba Mochawere houses built in the nineteenth cen-tury that gave form to the public spacesof the town. They were built to conformto their respective sites and reflect thesimple domestic life style associatedwith this community. There were twobasic types, row houses and detachedhomes. The predominant building mate-rials were stone, red clay, sand, andlime mortar utilizing the mamposteria

technique. The houses built in the mam-posteria fashion utilized unfinished stoneinstead of the more polished and regu-larly shaped stone or canteria found inmore important buildings in the largertowns. Clay bricks were bonded togetherwith mortar joints from a mixture of limeand sand. The older structures havethicker joints with a narrower brick. Thebuilders reinforced the structure with tim-ber studs placed every two or threemeters.

In several examples, houses werealso built of wood. In these cases, onecan easily distinguish between earlierexamples of the nineteenth century andthose more recently constructed. Theolder structures were constructed withplanks of a wider width. The more recenta structure is, the narrower the planks.

Perhaps the most striking featureabout the houses found in Ceiba Mochawas the use of clay barrel tile roofs.Houses have flat as well as slightlypitched roofs. In every case, however, aporch was typical. In the older buildings,signs of structural members are evident.The beams are larger and located closertogether that those built in the secondhalf of the nineteenth century.

The floor plan of the house revealsanother characteristic found to be typicalin this region and unlike those found inMatanzas and the larger towns. Theperimeter of the houses are normallyrectangular, as opposed to different configurations, such as “L,” “T,” “U,” or“J” layouts. Ceiba Mocha houses includ-ed a patio that stretches across theentire back. Normally only one room indepth, the Ceiba Mocha houses haveexcellent cross ventilation. This condi-tion is enhanced by the fact that theinterior partitions dividing the house intothree major spaces do not extend up tothe ceiling. Instead, there is adequatespace to allow hot air to rise, creating acomfortable living space below.

13Freedom’s Trail: The Florida Cuba Connection

Conclusion

Although there is no physical evidenceof the first architectural elements devel-oped in Ceiba Mocha, we can observeexisting configurations and spatialorganizations that help explain how thedomestic space was organized. The rep-etition of spaces, the relationship of thehouse with the street and the clarity ofits interiors indicate the original way inwhich people interacted with each otherand with the environment. The dwellingsshow that the builders had learned howto fit their structures to the climate. Thehouse, with its personal openings, repre-sented privacy within the collective. And,its façade announced the quality of itsinhabitants, and their function in thecommunity of Ceiba Mocha.

The flight to freedom for the Africanwas “against all odds”. They were chal-lenged on all fronts. However, by thereliance upon skills learned or inherentskills they brought with them from Africaand cultural identities they were able tosurvive even within the culture of theirhost countries.

Notes

1. Jane Landers, Against the Odds:Free Blacks in the Slaves Societies ofthe Americas (London and Portland, OR:Frank Cass, 1996), 6.

2. Taken from Pie de Lista, January22, 1764, in AGI, Santo Domingo 2595.

Bibliography

Manuscript Collections

Archivo de la Catedral Matanzas (ACM),Matanzas, Cuba; Black Baptisms,Black Marriages, Black Burials.

Archivo General de Indias (AGI), Seville,Spain, Section Five, Audiencia deSanto Domingo, Legajo 2595, 1598,1882.

Archivo Historico de Matanzas (AHM),Matanzas, Cuba, Actas de Cabildo.

Archivo Nacional (AN), Havana, Cuba,Las Floridas, Legajo 6, 10, 12,Mapas de Planos.

Libros de Parroquia (LP) Ceiba Mocha,Cuba, Black Baptisms, BlackMarriages, Black Burials.

Books, Articles, Dissertations, and Papers

Gannon, Michael V. The Cross in theLand. The Early Catholic Church inFlorida 1513-1870. Gainesville:University of Florida Press, 1967.

Gold, Robert L. Borderland Empires inTransition: The Triple-Nation Transferof Florida. Carbondale and Edwards-ville: Southern Illinois UniversityPress, 1969.

Holloway, Joseph E., ed. Africanisms inAmerican Culture. Bloomington andIndianapolis: Indiana UniversityPress, 1991.

Landers, Jane. “Historical Report onGarcia Real de Santa Teresa deMose.” Submitted to the FloridaMuseum of Natural History,Gainesville, Florida, 1987.

———. Against The Odds, Free Blacksin the Slave Societies of theAmericas. London and Portland, OR:Frank Cass, 1996.

Manucy, Albert. The Houses of St.Augustine, 1565-1821. Gainesville:University of Florida Press, 1962.

McAlister, Lyle. Spain and Portugal inthe New World, 1492-1700.Minneapolis: University of MinnesotaPress, 1984.


T he vitality and trans-ethnic influence of African Americanlanguage continues to be a

widely acknowledged phenomenonwithin the American populace.(1) Sincethe mid 1900s, there have been severalsystematic studies which demonstratethat that vitality is in some ways a func-tion of African influences in AfricanAmerican language varieties.(2) TheAfrican stratum preserves remnants ofthe various predecessor African lan-guages in complex, though uneven andinteresting ways. As more evidence isuncovered which delineates African-isms in the Diaspora, the once widelyheld belief that African culture wasextinguished under the devastation ofslavery will be more firmly overturned.

For a complete picture to emerge, American placenames research needs to be included in the effortto discover linguistic Africanisms. It is important tounderstand that a “unique source of informationabout a society’s history, beliefs, and values is inthe names people give to their surroundings.”(3)This sources is referred to as place names, ortoponyms, a part of onomastics.(4) One languagestudy could be found on the subject, and it focusedon only Bantu (Central African) linguistic influencesin the place names of nine formerly confederatestates. Of course, African descendants in theUnited States have a heritage of African admixtureextending from Central Africa, to at least, the north-western belt of the continent.

In its explanation that numerous aspects of acountry’s development achieve linguistic recogni-tion in its place names, The CambridgeEncyclopedia of Language states that the “various”

steps in the exploration of America…can be seenreflected in the layers of Spanish, French, Dutch,Indian, and English names introduced by differentgroups of explorers.”(5) Though it is a major refer-ence work found in many public and academiclibraries, there is no mention of any African impacton America’s development, which may be seenthrough its toponyms. Seeking to put an end tosuch oversights, this study delineates a broaderand more varied African impact on Americantoponyms.

A curious off-hand comment turned the writer’sattention, in the 1970s, to the impact AfricanAmericans may have had on American placenames. A female acquaintance rushed into a near-by dormitory bedroom, excitedly recounting to herfriend a harrowing experience she had undergonebefore dawn with another college classmate. Thegist of the narrative went thusly: returning them totown after a home visit, the bus driver had droppedhis passengers off at the closed bus station. It wasalready after midnight, so they were unable tocatch a cab. Though they returned without incident,she exclaimed that she was terribly frightenedbecause they ended up having to walk through“Colored Town” to get back to campus. The writer,having never heard such a reference before, wassurprised and unsettled. The acquaintance turnedin surprise to see the writer, then apologeticallyexplained that no harm was intended; it was just aterm that whites in her Florida hometown used torefer to the “black section of town.”

Further, when the researcher worked as a campcounselor the following summer in a rural settlementnear Palakta, Flordia, she was surprised to comeupon a street name, “Colored School Road” embla-zoned on an old, wooden-plank street marker.

Those encounters led to wondering, “Were thereor had there been autonomous towns or settle-ments established by black people in the U.S.?

Session One:


Africanisms Upon the Land:A Study of African Influenced Place Names of the USA

Annette I. Kashif

15

Given the opportunity, would AfricanAmericans assign racially self-referentnames to their town and street names?”Or, “Was the racially referent, ‘ColoredTown’ just derisive slur?” Subsequent tothose experiences, it was found thatAfrican Americans had exercised ono-mastic agency in bestowing the alternatenames, e.g., “Chocolate City,” an alter-native name for two different types ofpredominantly black habitats—one,Washington, DC, the nation’s capitol;and, the other a long-standing housingproject in Orlando.(6) These are essen-tially questions about the language ofgroup agency, identity, and autonomyupon the American landscape.

The African enthusiasm for namingand naming ritual has been widelyobserved and document. From Djdehutyof the Ancients in Egypt, to Nommo ofthe Dogon in Mali, this enthusiasm istied to African spiritual philosophy.Obenga says, “we see throughout Africathe creative and powerful force of theword. To name is to beget, that is, to callup a genealogy and an evolution.”(7)Further, from this African worldview, theone who names has the power to struc-ture or re-structure reality.(8) We cometo understand then the connectionsbetween naming, power, and domin-ion.(9) African descendants desired tostructure a reality of self-determination,and freedom from racist oppression andexploitation, by securing plots of landover which they could exercise powerand dominion.

Linguistic Status of Names

Place names, or toponyms, are propernames, and proper names are wordsthat serve a particularizing and referen-tial function.(10) However, propernames have varying degrees of trans-parent meaning, or semantic content,

sometimes no more than that the refer-ent is so-called.(11) Accordingly, theCambridge Encyclopedia’s place namesentry explains that “many thousands ofnames have an unclear or unknown ety-mology, and this fact provides a continu-ing motivation for toponym study.” Whileplace names may be “fanciful and idio-syncratic” sometimes, a “small set ofcreative processes” will account for the“vast majority” around the world. Thosecreative processes result in categories,such as geographic features; religiousimport; royal or lofty status; explorersand other famous people; memorable oroutstanding events; state of affairs; animals; and other places.(12)

African Onomastics

Though African personal names arecharacteristically drawn from commonnouns, descriptive phrases, and evenwhole sentences which provide trans-parent meaning, it is not necessarily soand one may easily find a meaningknown only narrowly to bearer (e.g., arevered ancestor name with opaquemeaning in the contemporary languagecommunity).(13)

To some onlookers beholding Africanonomastica,

[t]he African continent offers a bewil-dering array of names: names of dis-tinctive populations and their subdivi-sions, their languages and dialect;names of countries, geographicalplaces, and archaeological sites;names of empires, kingdoms, chief-doms, and villages; terms for territori-al and administrative divisions; andnames of kinship groups, cults, andassociations. This terminological pro-fusion permeates all aspects of life,from personal name giving to…artis-tic and technical taxonomies.(14)

Considering the deep antiquity of Africanpeoples, cultures, and civilizations, oneshould not be surprised at this

onomastic profusion. It is a basis for theexpectation that, being so deeply andbroadly ingrained, onomastic African-isms would survive within the AfricanDiaspora.

Migrating African peoples, upon thefounding of settlements, usually namedthem after their founders.(15) Yai alsofound that in Yorubaland (Togo, Benin,and Nigeria), for example, the place-name also designates the language andethnicity of the inhabitants.(16) Andfrom oral traditions (e.g., oriki recita-tions), one could discover informationabout certain lineages that make upmost of the Yoruba ethnic groups.Interestingly, he also found some lan-guage mixture among the toponymswhere Yoruba have been in contact situ-ations with different ethnic groups inother localities. First, there are hybrid-ized forms, e.g., where emigrant Yorubahave assimilated into the Mahi popula-tion of Benin, one may find the toponym,Nagokome, resulting from the agglutina-tion of Nago (Yoruba people) + kome(district, a determinative in Mahi). Thisexample serves as historical evidence ofthe persistence of ethnic reference inAfrican toponyms. Second, Yai foundtoponymic calques, wherein a word fromone language is translated into the lan-guage of the surrounding population. Ina predominantly Fon district in Benin, forexample, one will find that the toponym,Idaaasa Iqbo, or “underwood,” inYoruba, > sasa zume, or “Dasa in theforest,” in Fon.(17)

Names and LanguageContact

African influences in African Americanonomastics is to be understood in thecontext of language contact whenspeakers of disparate languages andsocial (and/or ethnic) statuses come intocontact within the same geo- and


socio-political environment. Linguisticoutcomes may be of three generaltypes: maintenance, mixture, or shift.Language mixture includes the develop-ment of creole languages.(18) Whenfeatures of a supplanted ancestral lan-guage persist after language shift, andexert influence within the successor lan-guage, these features constitute a stratum in the successor language. Thelanguage forms in the stratum are vari-ously referred to as continuity, retention,or survivals. Moreover, social and emo-tional (i.e., non-linguistic) elementswhich influence linguistic ones must beconsidered in analyses of contact-induced language mixture.

Beside the fact that names reflectcultural, historical, and social change,there are other attributes of names thatfurther justify their importance in thestudy of language mixture induced by acontact situation, as is represented bythe African American experience:

1. Because they are lexical items,names are among the easiest lin-guistic items to transfer into a suc-cessor or second language.(19)

2. It is not uncommon that a toponymis the only record of a historicalevent, or of a person’s existence.(20)

African AmericanOnomastics inHistorical Context

A historical overview of the NorthAmerican language contact situation intowhich Africans were initially plummetedshould be considered basically in threeeras: Colonial/Enslavement;Emancipation-Reconstruction; and,Outward Migrations. The literature indi-cates that the language of Africandescendants began shifting first, from anAfrican polyglot status in the first gener-ations of arrival, to a period of bilingual-ism between a pidgin and each person’s

African mother tongue.(21) Then, subsequent generations incorporatedelaborated and restructured features intothe pidgin, forming deep and more sta-ble regional creoles; they were charac-terized by mixture of English-Irish, andWest African grammatical structures andvocabulary. These creoles lastedthroughout the centuries of enslave-ment. All the while, of course, a smallernumber of African descendants wouldhave common access to non-Africanspeakers, which afforded them opportu-nities to learn other languages. This isnot only true for those more frequently incontact with prestige dialects of English,but also those affiliating with NativeAmericans. Also, the continuous arrivalof continent-born Africans right up untilthe Civil War reinforced persistence ofAfricanisms.

Colonial and Slavery Era

Africans were brought here mostly inchains from the 1500s to the beginningof the Civil War in 1861, an era that last-ed longer than any other in AfricanAmerican history to date. SpanningAfrica’s central region, out to its north-western bulge, they were kidnappedfrom places named Abomey, Calabar,Congo, Djenne, Gizzi, Gola, Kanem,Mande, Mina, Ngola, Oyo, Segu,Whydah, and hundreds more.(22) Theyhad been the skilled and unskilled, liter-ate and illiterate, peasant and artisan,bureaucrats and soldiers, royalty andsubjects, aristocrats and commoners,and et cetera. Their back-breaking toiland know-how were at the foundation ofthe development of the “new” Americas.Hall found, for example, that in colonialtimes, the survival of French Louisianawas due not only to African labor, butalso to African technology in rice cultiva-tion, indigoterie, medicine, and

surgery.(23) In addition, Africans did the“metal work, shipbuilding and river trans-port.”(24) It was clear that “Africans and their descendants were competent,desperately needed, and far from powerless.”(25)

The records indicate that they did notsimply wait idly by for deliverance fromtheir brutal servitude. Constantly on thelook-out for available opportunities, theywere agents on their own behalf. Thatagency included violent and non-violentresistance to slavery. And, that shouldcome as no surprise when one consid-ers the wide range of culture complexesand civilizations, from which they wereso hatefully uprooted. Throughout all ofAmerican history, there were numerouscourageous, desperate, and determinedacts of agency by African descendantsin their quest for freedom and self-determination. Prior to the abolition ofslavery, the record is replete with newsof African resistance, including mutinies,runaways, conspiracies, revolts, andmaroonage (settlements of runaways inthe wilderness). These acts of daringwere committed in the face of whiteretaliation, including torture, imprison-ment, mutilations, and executions.Runaways, with opportunity, giving rea-sons for having done so, “almost invari-ably cited unjustified and excessive pun-ishment, overwork, and inadequatefood.”(26)

Beginning in the early 1500s, manymaroon settlements were successfullyestablished throughout the antebellumera. Their members carried arms, andsometimes waged guerilla raids andwarfare against the slave planta-tions.(27) With a few exceptions, the literature does not identify maroon set-tlements of North America by name, perhaps one indication of their precari-ous status. Aptheker reported in 1939that the “mountainous, forested, orswampy regions of South Carolina,

17Africanisms Upon the Land: A Study of African Influenced Place Names of the USA

North Carolina, Virginia, Louisiana,Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, andAlabama were the favorite haunts ofthese black Robin Hoods.”(28)According to Creel, a careful examina-tion of the existing sources shows that aspirit of rebellion, and strong will to free-dom were prevalent among SouthCarolina slaves.(29) About escapeesalong its Gullah coastal regions, Creelfound that, while African-born personswere more likely to escape singly, amixed group of American and African-born were more likely to make up aband of maroons.(30) But even amongthe mixed groups, the predominant iden-tity was that of “African.” However, it wassometimes true that whites and Indiansjoined with the maroon bands.

“Maroonage” around colonial FrenchNew Orleans was characterized by moreinterracial amalgamation and perma-nence of its settlements. Rather than awidely diverse grouping, the Africanswere found to have been taken frommostly Wolof and Bambara speakingregions of the continent. Among theswamps around New Orleans, a networkof maroon villages were established,and are identified by name on a 1768map of the region.(31) The daring JuanMalo, was the singular warrior-governorover this network. One of the villageswas apparently named after him, BayouSt. Malo, and another possibly, BayouMarron, as well. Apropos for his exploits,Malo’s surname is from the Mandekangroup, perhaps Bambara. As theysought to survive and avoid recapture,these valiant fugitives also forged anautonomous culture from various ethnicbackgrounds, to create cohesive com-munities, a process taking place con-comitantly within the woeful confines of“Slave Row,” to use Lerone Bennett,Jr.’s, terminology.(32) These communi-ties foreshadowed the cultural syncretism and creolization which would

become characteristic of the AfricanAmerican population in the post-slaveryeras.

An important element in the maroonmix was Native Americans, who werebeing killed and cruelly driven from theirancestral lands by the colonial settlersand militias. The fleeing indigenousbands and African escapees establishedclose relations for mutual benefit, andsometimes intermarried. But, they gen-erally maintained separate identities. InFlorida, their settlements acquirednames that reflect this admixture.Although not so identified in the litera-ture, their towns—bearing names suchas Wahoo Swamp, King Cudjoe’s Town,and Minatti—indicate African linguisticagency in place-naming. Both “racial”groups were understood to constitutethe Seminoles, but those of Africandescent are most frequently termedBlack Seminoles, or a similar variant. Onthe lushly thicketed Florida frontier,Black Seminoles built housing com-pounds distinct from the indigenous peo-ples. Their compounds might be withinthe same village as their NativeAmerican affiliates, or situated in a net-work nearby, or even more remote vil-lages. By the late 1700s across Flordia,Black Seminoles numbered more than100,000, a testament to their more than100-year alliance with indigenous peo-ples in Spanish Florida.(33) One of theSeminole initiatives which precipitatedthe Second Seminole War (1835-1842)was the “Dade Massacre” in SumterCounty, and its attendant liberation ofenslaved Africans from plantations to itsnorth and east.(34) This initiative hasbeen posed as possibly the largest slaverevolt in U. S. history.(35) So prominentwas African influence in their alliancethat, during, General Jesup wrote that,in reality, it was not an Indian, but “anegro war.”(36)

Though most maroon camps andsetlements in the U. S. were eventuallycrushed before the Civil War, that wasnot always true. The Dismal SwampMaroons persisted from the colonial eraup to the War.(37) Their villages stoodin the swamplands bordering Virginiaand North Carolina. Reaching from theRoanoke are to the Albermarle water-ways, the Dismal Swamp shelteredabout 2000 fugitives.(38) Similar to thepermanent marooners of Louisiana andFlorida, they carried on “regular” tradewith ordinary citizens. They even assist-ed the Union Army, as independent contractors, in its triumph over theConfederate militia in their region, duringthe latter part of the Civil War.

Laeming’s cultural analysis of theDismal Swamp Maroons also revealedsome maintenance of distinct Africanidentity in the presence of intimatealliances with fugitive whites, and indige-nous peoples.(39) Pondering the possi-blilty that there may have been Africansin sufficient enough numbers to formethnically disticnt villages within the net-work, he noted that there “was a Congovillage, as well as, individual maroons ofother specific west African cultural orreligious emphases,” reflected in theirleaders’ names, e.g., “Osman (Islamic)and Gamby Gholar and his spiritualassociates, who he identified as Yoruba-Dahomean.”

Though maroonage was one avenuethrough which African descendantsimprinted their language upon theAmerican landscape in the antebellumcenturies, it was not the only way. Infact, marooners were often morecampers than settlers, needing to aban-don areas quickly to avoid recapture andslaughter. Aptheker posits that thosemaroon towns and settlements in theU.S., which experienced unusuallongevity, probably had done sobecause they traded in desired goods,


and avoided clashes with white plantersand settlers. Furthermore, because thelarge majority of maroon communitieswre destroyed, and the inhabitants cap-tured and/or killed, it could be that themajority of the toponyms they bestowedare lost to history.

In his Names on the Land, Stewartexpressed no doubt that “many hun-dreds of small streams and swamps,”whose meanings he could not distin-guish, “were named by Negroes.”(40)He further recognized that “Pinder Townin South Carolina preserved the KongoMpinda (peanut).” But, he added that“white men probably did the namingafter the word had become current inlocal speech.” His understanding thatblack people did, in fact, assign placenames is correct thinking, but his atti-tude is somewhat problematic. First, heseems unable to conceive of Africanshaving left their distinct liguistic imprinton large geographical masses; and, second, that when African namesappeared as a whole town name, that iswas not by direct African Americanagency.

One attestation concerning personalnames is illustrative of the probability ofa more than insignificant and indirectAfrican American toponyimc agency. Theson of a Mississippi slaveholder recol-lected the exasperation of white plantersover the attributive names insistentlygiven to them by the Africans they heldcaptive on “Slave Row”:

The redesignation would take place inspite of all [resistance], and so thor-oughly that often friends and acquain-tancs of the family never knew thereal name of the child. [Eventually] theparents themselves at last fell into theuse of the…strange grotesque…appli-cations of Ripper, Snorter, Coon,Possum, Boots, Horse…and manyothers like them…Few could get rid of

them…barnacle-like they clung totheir owners through the whole voyage of life.(41)

When one considers that it was over-whelmingly African labor and skill thatcleared and worked the land, it is farfrom inconceivable that direct AfricanAmerican agency is partly responsiblefor the African linguistic impact onAmerican toponyms. That is not to say itis easy to unmask. Vass provides a con-vincing example of an African nameupon a massive, as well as famousgeoscape: Suwanee River < nsub’wanyi,“my house” in Kongo, Mbundu, etc.(42)Other examples may be expected.

Africans escaping slavery did some-times, indeed, establish settlements andtowns in the North and West. TheAbolition Movement, particularly throughthe Underground Railroad, was instru-mental in helping Africans to escape tofree states. They were not always wel-comed, and met with white hostilityand/or “white flight.” So they, as agroup, moved into or evolved into one-race towns, respectively. In 1840, Illinoissaw the first of the all-black townsbecome established in the North.Originally named Lovejoy, after thearea’s most vocal abolitionist.(43) It wasre-named Brooklyn later, and incorporat-ed in 1910 with a black majority in politi-cal control. It survives to-date. One earlysettlement founded by runaways inMaine is Malaga Island. Established in1847, its “early settlers are known tohave maintained their ancestral lan-guages and lived in caves” to avoidrecapture.(44) As typical of many east-ern island communities, they weresquatters. In 1912, however, the inhabi-tants were dealt with in a ruthless anddevastating manner. Forced wholesaleby the state into the Maine School forthe Feeble-Minded, the inhabitantswere, along with their houses and

gravesites, wiped from view.(45) Anexample of the effect of white hostility“out West” may be seen in the fortunesof Kentucky Ridge, established byAfrican Americans in 1851. Establishedin the quartz mining regions, white vigi-lantes attacked the settlement, and by1853, the inhabitants, with theirfounders, all moved to larger settlementsnearby.(46)

From BlackReconstruction to theGreat Depression

After a bloody and bitter upheavalacross the southern U. S., the Civil Warfinally brought the 300-plus years old“peculiar institution” to a halt by 1865.Unfortunately, the African descendants’ecstatic Jubilees over their liberty, and“Black Reconstruction” lasted briefly.Bennett explains that it would be among“the first of many illusions and decep-tions,” as the parasitic exploitation of,and brutality against African Americanswould be re-instituted in other guises;one of the first avenues for this reinstitu-tion would be the infamous Black Codesof 1865-1866, to be followed by thenotorious Compromise of 1877.(47)

By the opening of the BlackReconstruction period, most Africandescendants were speaking a set ofregional, stable Anglo-African creoles.As they began to take on the status of“citizens,” African Americans’ languagebegan decreolizing some toward Euro-American English. Decreolization pro-ceeded more quickly among those wholeft the isolated rural south for metropoli-tan areas, received formal education,and lived among other in-group mem-bers who were “mainstream” speak-ers.(48) As was always true in the preceding era, they had acquired arepertoire of language varieties and reg-isters to be used to their advantage.(49)


Because disparities in power and oppor-tunity continued, code-switching continued to be practiced. One varietywould maintain in-group solidarity, whilea different variety would be used in interactions with out-group whites.African language use, per se, becameeven more restricted among the numberof users, and in functional domains (e.g.,storytelling) because, with the cessationof illegal African arrivals, there were noancestral language reinforcements.Deep Anglo-African creoles continued topredominate in isolated enclaves (e.g.,Gullah in South Carolina, and Gombo inLouisiana). Additionally, distinctiveAfrican American forms became morediffused into the language of Euro-Americans, as levels of intergroup con-tact increased.

Convinced early on of the non-repentant proclivities of whites, sometens of thousands migrated to Liberia.Although many migrated northward orwestward also, the large majority ofAfrican Americans stayed in the ruralsouth. Pointing to songs, tales, andother lore of “Slave Row” culture, V. P.Franklin concludes that, with freedomhaving been considered the ultimategoal of their individual and collectivestruggles under slavery, it was logicalthat “self determination and socialadvancement” would become definingvalues among African Americans.Whenever amenable, they became vast-ly more involved in government, school-ing, and accumulation of land and prop-erty. But, with the spirit of the late 1800sand early 1900s settling on widespreadracial hostility toward them, AfricanAmericans placed increasingly moreemphasis on self-help, mutual aid, racialsolidarity, emigration, separatism, andattempts to create all-black communi-ties.(50) These efforts were established

within and beyond the confederatestates, and in all-black towns or blackenclaves of other towns.

The Homestead Act of 1866 broughtmany of the freedmen into areas moresparsely settled prior to the Civil War;and black towns were created within theformer confederacy and without. Landacquisition through the Freedmen’sBureau was woefully insufficient, somost African Americans who managedto acquire land had given up the wait for “40 acres and a mule,” and someresolved to make their own land purchases.

Even with 40 acres awarded, orlands collectively purchased, there wasno guarantee African Americans wouldbe able to keep it. A wide array of obsta-cles could be faced, including whiteopposition. Such was the case thatspawned Belle Ville in McIntosh County,GA. As an outcome of General WilliamSherman’s Special Field Order #15, twobrothers were awarded land on St.Catherine’s Island. Their colony wasbroken up during the backlash, whichreturned the properties to the formerslaving planters.(51) But, so determinedwas the group that they pooled theirmeager monies, formed themselves intothe Belle Ville Farmers Association, andleased this acreage, when it was still aplantation. Soon after, they bought it,and their town was incorporated onMarch 4, 1867.(52)

In December 1875, a national blackconvention was held in New Orleans.Learning how widespread were racistdepredations, the delegates formed“Colonization councils” that helped col-lect names of African Americans in theirrepresentative areas who were interest-ed in leaving. Henry Adams, one of thedelegates from what is now Shreveport,LA, wrote, in a letter to the U. S.Attorney General in late 1878:

“I trust God that the United Stateswill give us some Territory to ourselves—and let us leave theseSlaveholders to work their own land,for they are killing our race by thehundreds every day and night.”

But the “violence, intimidation, fraud andterrorism continued…and by April 1879the Colonization Council had collectedmore than 98,000 names of people will-ing to migrate to the North or West, aswell as to emigrate to Liberia.”(53)

In the late 1870s, when Benjamin“Pap” Singleton, and other promoters ofwestward migration, needed names ofwilling persons, the Council was one ofthe groups providing them leads.Estimates are “that during the springand summer 1879 and 1880, nearly60,000 blacks left Northern Louisiana,North Carolina, Texas, Mississippi, andAlabama for Kansas and Indiana to takeadvantage of the federal government’soffer of land for homesteading.(54)Morris Turner calls this period, ending in1881, the “Black Exodus.”(55)

The Black Exoduster towns came tohave names such as Abila, Blackdom,Tullahassee, and Three Creeks. Thoughscant, some literature about this eraaddressed onomastic Africanism.Personal names, rather than placenames was the subject, though in maystill be found instructive for the study ofthe place names of these post-Civil Warblack towns. Some African descendantsconsciously maintained their African-ness. Cudjo Lewis, for example, becamea leader of ex-slaves captured formTogo. He also retained his African fore-name, Cudjo < koJo, ‘male born onMonday.’(56)

An ironic, but interesting phenome-non served to erode the corpus of sur-face forms of African names while main-taining African deep structure onomas-tics simultaneously. Persons reportedthat in order to inculcate the status of


free citizen, they must discard their slav-ery time name in favor of a free citizenname, in effect, an Euro-Americanname. Thusly, they practiced the Africanpostulate of marking life’s significantevents through bestowal of additionalnames. African influence was not alwaysmasked by this process, because someacquired new names that are Englishwords based on common semanticand/or syntactic categories common inAfrican names; an example found was acalque-phrase name, Try and See.(57)

Having not experienced “a markedimprovement in their status from the endof Reconstruction to the onset WorldWar I,” black workers were enticednorthward, Bennett explains, by “hardpressed” industrialists. Previously, thesenorthern industrialists had severelyrestricted blacks’ employment, preferringwhite European immigrants, who werenow detoured by the war. To take advan-tage of increased job opportunities, mas-sive numbers of African Americansmoved in two “Great Migrations,” 1915-1920, and 1920-1924. By 1930, theynumbered “more than two million.”Marking the first major shift in their over-riding status as servants, laborers, andpeasants since the 1600s, more thanone-third of black workers wereemployed in industrial occupations.Cohesive black communities developedin these industrial centers; and a north-ern black professional classemerged.(58) V. P. Franklin describedthe “complex social networks” developedby African Americans of the GreatMigrations, who shared the values ofself-determination and freedom with theearlier black-town pioneers:

With the influx of large numbers ofrural blacks into northern and south-ern urban centers during the last twodecades of the nineteenth century,Black churches, separate schools,fraternal institutions, voluntary asso-

ciations and advancement groupssprouted up to meet their social andcultural needs. The expanding populations of African Americansfound that they could become a partof a wide array of organizations inwhich blacks exercised completecontrol. As long as these institutionsfunctioned, there was little need ofthe discrimination practiced in white-dominated public and private[ones].(59)

This became the overriding mode untilthe Great Depression in the 1930s,which forced thousands of self-helporganizations to disband. Afterward,African Americans seemed to havethought it was best to pursue integration“into white-dominated programs andinstitutions, especially those programsoffered by the New Deal.”(60)

Turner collected copious linguisticdata in the 1930s and 1940s fromGullah speakers (a.k.a. Geechees),African descendants who had notmigrated, but remained continuouslyover all the centuries on largely isolated(island) enclaves along the southeasternAtlantic coasts of Georgia and SouthCarolina. His data analyses culminatedin the seminal work, Africanisms in theGullah Dialect. It showed decisively therichness of African onomastics in thisdeep creole language variety. Gullahs/Geechees have an official name, plusan alternate, or “basket” name that waskept secret. The basket names werefound nearly always to be African homo-phones. But, there were also somecalques which related to weather, physi-cal or emotional state, life situation, ortime of birth.(61)

Even though his informants did notremember the meanings of their names,most of which were also personalnames in West African languages, theycontinued to use them, because theirolder relatives and friends had. Curious

about those whose forenames and sur-names were both African, it wasexplained to Turner, by informants whowere ex-slaves that “[a]fter slavery,many of them refused to use any longerthe name of their former enslavers.”(62)In those words, one finds the evidenceof a self-determining identity expressedin language. Turner took only slight noteof Gullah/Geechee agency in bestowalsof place-name Africanisms.(63) His nineexamples include Peedee, Tybee, andWassaw. A native observer of EdistoIsland (a Gullah enclave) reportedly saidthat “the Sea Island Negro is most fertilein naming everything, giving particularnames even to the narrow saltwaterdrains or gutters interlacing the marsheswhen they are dry at low tide.”(64)

From the PostDepression to thePresent

Appearing to be fewer in number thanthose founded by previous black pio-neers and exodusters of the post-Reconstruction period, thousands ofAfrican Americans settled “suburban”towns for themselves prior to the1960s.(65) Most of these were estab-lished in subsequent migrations from theurban town centers, which were not onlywhite controlled, but also becoming“havens of overcrowding, unemploy-ment, and crime.” Weise interprets thisblack out-migration as having been partof the “national trend toward urbanexpansion and suburban decentraliza-tion,” except that they retained a south-ern rural flavor in the years before WorldWar II.(66) Real estate prices and homeownership were significantly less expen-sive than in the big cities, and mostwere blue-collar workers. Their placenames include Lincoln Heights, Glen-arden, and Kinloch. The professional


class African Americans, not proscribedto slums, overwhelmingly preferred thecentral city.

Numbering more than 3,500,000people across this country, AfricanAmerican migration to the suburbs from1960 to 1980 was “unprecedented.”(67)On the heels of civil rights legislation,many opted for integration into moreaffluent, white suburbs. They generallyshunned the older black suburban townswith rural flavor. However, some did, anddo, move into a few of the older sub-urbs, which have managed to thrive andup-grade housing-stocks (e.g.,Glenarden, Maryland). During this inter-val, the migrations were concentrated inand around 12 cities, with the concentra-tions of greatest magnitude in Washing-ton, DC, Los Angeles, and Atlanta. So,from the close of Reconstruction to thecontemporary era, it is clear that through“the act of migration, …families andentire communities moved [in order] tocontrol their own destinies and to givegreater meaning and substance to thecultural value of black freedom.”(68)

Throughout the post-Depression era,intergroup tensions have persisted, duein large part to continued Euro-Americanresistance to full freedom, justice, andequality for African Americans. The ten-sion is posed against some highly visibleeasements in racial discrimination, in theaftermath of the Civil Rights movement.Bennett locates the progress of this peri-od in the “middle of the economy.” Wefind the eradication of overt Jim Crowlaws, return of blacks to elective offices,diversification of career opportunities,and non-proscription of mobility andinter-ethnic personal relations. He callsthis state of affairs a “central paradox” ofAmerican life; that is,

[E]verything has changed in BlackAmerica, and yet nothing haschanged. This means, among otherthings, that we have not yet gotten to

the bottom line: the integration of themoney and the power and theresources. The great movement ofthe [1960s] …did not and could notat that time destroy the invisible insti-tutional manifestations of racism.(69)

This bi-polarity (and escalating ethnicduality) increases social identity ambiva-lence that is mirrored in AfricanAmerican language. On the one hand,more African American speakers haveshifted closer to Euro-American vari-eties, (e.g., employing increaseddenasalization). On the other hand,heightened ethnic distinctiveness hasemerged in certain syntactic forms andspeech events (e.g., specific subject/verb co-occurrences and rap/rhymerespectively). The in-group vernacular,most popularly referred to as Ebonics orBlack English, enhances group solidari-ty, identity, and/or esteem.(70)Depending on socio-familial background,African American variation along thecontinuum between “talkin’ black” and“talkin’ white” is probably more of a con-scious choice than in previous eras. Andagain, it is seen that some distinctiveAfrican American forms have becomeinfused into “mainstream” vernaculars.So salient is “black talk” as an Americanpop culture resource (like jazz or blues),it seems much more likely that some ofthe most stable African American speechmarkers (e.g., habitual aspect “be”) willcross racial boundaries rather thanbecome extinct.

The advocacy for reclamation ofAfrican identity and esteem in this erahas definitely impacted personal names.In her study of African American person-al names, Kashif found that onomasticAfricanisms occur not only as Africanhomophones, but also in the form ofcalques and hybrids. These hybridshave never been discussed in theresearch literature.

a. African Homophones, e.g., Keisha< kishia, jealousy in Hausa, also anickname given to the second wifewho is always seen as a rival of thefirst;

b. African Calques (semantic contenttransfer), e.g., Prince < Eze, Igbo,‘prince’ name for one whose grand-parent is a hereditary ruler in easternNigeria; the informant for this nameattests that he uses the Englishequivalent word to while in the U.S.,but reverts to Eze when travelingback home;(71) and,

c. African Hybrids, e.g., Kawanda <Ka + wanda < Ka-, an Ovimbunduprefix used very frequently to formfemale names from common nouns;wanda, a Hausa pluralizer for ‘who’or which; or, e.g., ShaKiethia < Sha + Kieth + a < ‘Sho, Yoruba for ‘seeror wizard’, a male for female nameprefix for this major cultural class ofnames (e.g., Shoyinka); Kieth, themale, Euro-American name; -(y)a,Arabic, feminizer.

There is also some evidence, in the con-temporary era, for conscious revivals ofAfrican influenced place names; forexample, Oyotunji Village became thename of a black cultural hamlet, foundedin the late 1970s, in South Carolina; andthe historic town of Prichard, Alabamaofficially reclaimed one of its formernames, Africatown.

So, it is shown that, across the cen-turies of African American history, non-linguistic factors have interacted with lin-guistic ones in the evolution African lan-guage. The western and central Africanpolyglot of the antebellum era, underinfluence mostly from English and Scot-Irish dialects, was largely replaced by aset of creolized speech varieties amongAfrican descendants. The historical evidence is that African descendantsexercised the prerogative of naming set-tlements, land masses, and other geo-


graphical features in their environs,beginning even during the era in whichthey were held in bondage, denied thestatus of free citizens, or landowners.Following Emancipation, AfricanAmerican creoles shifted closer, over thecenturies, toward Euro-American codes.But, due to the psychosocial distinctive-ness of African descendants, and theinternal vitality of African American lan-guage, now more than 500 years old,enough features of the supplantedancestral African language elementshave survived to form an African stra-tum. Intermittently, various linguisticAfricanisms have been revived, con-sciously and unconsciously. Under theinfluence of a bi-polar psychosocial con-tinuum from assimilationists to sepa-ratists, African Americans code-mix andcode-switching along the linguistic con-tinuum, ranging from deep creoles (e.g.,Gullah and Gombo) to mesolects (e.g.,Ebonics or Black Vernacular) toarcolects (e.g., Standard Black English[SBE] or Standard English).(72)

Purpose of Study

The purpose of this study is to expandthe identifications of America’s Africaninfluenced toponyms, especially in termsof their varied manifestations. Propelledby the persisting Black Studies move-ment, and influenced greatly by the workof Lorenzo Dow Turner’s Africanisms inthe Gullah Dialect, there is a noticeableincrease in the number of contemporaryresearchers seriously addressing thesubject of Africanisms. These studiesaddress African influence within, andbeyond the African American collective.Few of these discuss onomastics, butwhen one considers the literature on theresponse of names to extended lan-guage contact, and the history of Africa’sdescendants in America, there should bea greater body of such studies. Those

that do focus on African American ono-mastics, deal with personal namesalmost exclusively.

Vass is the one researcher who hasmade place names one of the focalpoints of her efforts to identifyAfricanisms in American language. Herchapter in a 1993 work she co-edited,“Bantu Place Names in Nine SouthernStates,” expands an earlier publication,which, itself, was an outgrowth of hermaster’s thesis in mass communica-tions. The Bantu branch of African lan-guages covers almost all of central andsouthern Africa. The Bantu languages ofparticular import for African Americansinclude Fang, Kongo, Luba, andMbundu. Arguing for a predominance ofBantu language influence over all otherAfrican language branches, Vass soughtto identify retentions from the latter two,predominant in Angola and Zaire/Congo.She was raised in Zaire, the child ofCaucasian missionaries. A glance atTurner’s small collection of toponyms,taken from the Gullah/Geechee region,and only in South Carolina and Georgia,alerts one very quickly that much is leftto discern.

Using the corpus of all the townnames in each of nine confederatestates, she compared their pronuncia-tions to words and phrases in the Bantulanguages. She expanded the corpus toinclude names of rivers/streams, moun-tains, locales, and populations; the work-ing definitions of the latter two terms arenot provided. To build her case for anAfricanism, Vass included elaborationson meanings or emotional characterdenoted by the proposed Bantu sourcewords. She notes that in Zaire, placenames commonly denote “significanthuman experience, emotion, oraction.”(73) Too often, she conjecturesor sets forth imagined scenarios that theAfrican descendants may have beenengaged in or encountered, then

proceeds to extrapolate upon the con-jectures as if they were attested facts.This was especially problematic whenthere were more than a few sound differ-ences between the toponym and herproposed Bantu source. She was muchless careful than Turner; in order for anAfrican form to be posed as a source byTurner, it had to be “phonetically identi-cal with or strikingly similar to” theGullah name, emphasizing thereby a“strong probability that the [selectedGullah] names are African words.”(74)

However, many of the toponymsVass proposed as Africanisms are con-vincing when based on close sound sim-ilarities coupled with transparent, ratherthan conjectured, meanings, and/orwhen a locality’s historian admits thatthe toponym has an unknown origin ormeaning. Another puzzle is that Vass’sfindings from a random sample of Zairetoponym denotations do not comportwith the findings of Cheikh Anta Diop, anAfrican toponym expert of internationalrepute. He found that an Africantoponym is most typically the personalname of the founder of the town or set-tlement. Perhaps the difference isexplained by whether or not inhabitantsmigrated to a site; or a pattern shift mayhave occurred on the Continent with thecessation of the antebellum slave trade.

TheoreticalPerspective onResearch Needs

As was done in the writer’s discoveriesof patterns of Africanisms in generationsof African American personal names, themethodology employed within amountsto card stacking, i.e., using as many lin-guistic and non-linguistic facts availablewhich are relevant to African provenancefor each selected place-nameAfricanism.(75) Using racial/ethnic his-tory and make-up of a region is one of


the most convincing card-stackingstrategies. Turner targeted Gullah SeaIsland habitats and Vass widened thetarget areas to nine confederate states.So the geopolitical history serves asindirect attestation of African linguisticprovenance. The argument for Africaninfluence is also more convincing whenhistorians of a locale have found the etymology of its toponym unsure orobscure; it is common in place-nametexts to express no consideration what-soever of African language sources. Theanalyses within

1. Avoids some of Vass’s weakness-es shown in positing a U. S. placename as a Bantu Africanism orBantuism; she

• often did not identify the specificBantu language(s) of a positedsource, thereby leaving one toassume that she means perhaps allBantu languages;

• provided no explanation of guide-lines for deciding the extent of pho-netic similarity necessary between aplace-name and its posited Bantusource; this resulted in positedAfrican sources that seem counterintuitive, and therefore unconvincing.

2. Moves beyond “Bantu” languagesources so that place names derivedfrom the other African languages,including converging source words,may be identified.

3. Moves beyond African homo-phones to include other types ofAfricanisms, as described above.

4. Identifies toponym Africanismsbeyond the South, analyzing“autonomous” black towns and settle-ments across the U. S., from as earlyas the era of maroonage.

Methodology

Toponym, or place-name Africanisms,were addressed in terms of language

mixture resulting from language contactphenomena. These are issues of con-cern in sociology, anthropology, linguis-tics, history, and social psychology,among others. The identification of atoponym as African influenced is basedon its linguistic similarities to, and modi-fication of, African forms and structures.A purposive sample of African Americantoponyms was collected from historical,geographical, journalistic and linguisticsurveys. The study began with a centralfocus on Florida, because it is found tohave the longest history of Africanagency and struggle of any state in thenow United States. 164 place names oftowns identified in the available literatureas having been established and/orfounded by African American were collected.

The researcher identified and classi-fied into transfer types all of the AfricanAmerican toponyms which (in their mor-phological, phonological and semanticcharacteristics) correspond to or appearmodeled upon African names, words,morphological processes, and toponymmotifs. Several types of changes inAfrican words toward American Englishphonology were predictable, e.g., (a)deletion of tones, or (b) simplification ofco-articulated stops (ng-, kp- > g, p or n,k, respectively).

The selected African Americantoponyms were divided into Africanismtypes: African homophone, Africanhybrid, and African semantic transfer.They are to be understood as follows:

1. African homophone, the toponym’sphone or sound sequence matchesthat of (an) African source(s); amatch means that the sound seg-ments of the African Americantoponym have undergone no morethan two changes that are unexplain-able by common American Englishphonological processes (as thosenoted above).

2. African hybrid, the toponym con-joins (a) two or more African sourcewords or word-parts or (b) an Africansource word or word-part and non-African one.

3. African semantic transfer, thetoponym is a calque or word(s) inEnglish that shows transfer of anAfrican motif or semantic content ofthe following type:

(a) town or settlement founder orinspirer,

(b) ethnic/ linguistic group reference,

(c) duplication of another toponym, or

(d) commentary on human state-of-affairs.

The four subcategories typify, but arenot exclusive to, African place-nameonomastics. However it is firmly estab-lished in the language contact literaturethat ancestral language retentions occurin these “translated” forms. One waythat convergence with a non-African lan-guage may be unmasked is throughcomparison of the preponderance ofeach name type among the non-Africanlanguage speakers in the contact environment.

Findings andInterpretations

Entry Guide

Below, an alphabetically arranged rosterwith toponym glosses is provided foreach toponym identified as anAfricanism. Symbols are to be interpret-ed as follows:

< is a form of or has its source in

> changed to

[ ] approximate pronunciation isindicated within the brackets (Note:An informal pronunciation guide ofbroadly represented sounds)


Abbreviations

Sources from the Reference list

Ath, Athearn

Br, Brown

Dp, Diop, 1978

Lmg, Laeming

Ln, Landers

Mc, McCarthy

MTr, Turner 1998

Od, Oduyoye

Rv, Rivers, 2000

Tr, Turner, 1949

Sources from personal communication

Al, Albury, A., 7/00

Ay, Ayittey, G,10/90

CBr, Brown, C., 11/00

Ctr, Carter, W., 1/88

Nj, Njokunma, A., 4/00

Languages

Ak, Akan (Ewe, Fante, Twi)

Egy, Egyptiam or Khemetic

B, Bambara

Bb, Bobangi

Bml, Bamilike

Bn, Bantu (Fang, Kongo, Luba andMbundu)

Dj, Djerma

K, Kongo

Mdg, Manding(k)o(a)

T, Twi

Yor, Yoruba

Alafia River, FL < alafia Yor ‘ health,peace’, a common greeting (Tr, 49, Al).By the 1880’s economic decline “many

ex-slaves stayed in the [Tampa, FL] areato farm and homestead the land. Agroup of them established the communi-ty of Bealsville, near the Alafia River(Mc, 306).

Angola, FL - same name as that of thecentral African country. So-called byCuban fisherman making a land claim inthe area in 1821, referring to a “Negromaroon settlement on the ManateeRiver, across the Sarasota Bay (CBr).Population consisted of hundreds ofblack men, women and children (CB, 8-9); one of the last refuges for black war-riors, having served with Britain in theWar of 1812. Also contained escapedslaves from Mobile, AL; Pensacola, FL;St. Augustine, FL; and, Georgia (see Ln,230-237); disrupted by 1821 Creek raid(Rv, 195).

Boley, OK < [bolee] B ‘a fetish’; ‘to run’;‘to desert’ (Tr, 66). Established in 1903,one of the largest all-black exodustertowns. The city is reportedly named afterone of the white founders of the town,but Boley is not found in American sur-name books, suggesting that thefounder referred to may not have been.

Booker, TX < [bokaw] E ‘a diviner,priest’ (Tr, 67); [boh-oka] K ‘to heal (Tr,68). One of the all-black exodustertowns (MTr, 142).

Bucker Woman’s Town, FL < see“Bucker” above. One of the importantmaroon settlements of free blacks incentral Florida, 1814-1840s; akaBuckra…, lead by the sister to the deadSeminole chiefs, Kings Payne andBowlegs, and mother of Billy Bowlegs.By 1923, transferred her cattle opera-tions and black vassals to creek flowingwestward into Peace River, 15 milesbelow Minatti (Ln, 236, Rv, 195-97) inthe Big Hammock, between today’sHernando and Pasco counties.

Coffeyville, KS < Kofi, Ak; personalname, male, when born on Friday. AnExoduster colony that lasted only oneyear (Ath, 78).

Congo Village, NC < same as name ofthe country and language in centralAfrica. One of the settlements in theDismal Swamp, NC, its leader, CongoJonah, was called King Jonah by thoseof other settlements. He probably wasfrom a noble family of the Congo region(Lmg, 289).

Coosaw, Island/River, SC < [kusaw] Dj‘dusty’ (Tr, f.n. 7, 307). Located on theGullah/Geechee sea islands.

Cudjoe Key, FL < [ko-joe], [kawjoe],[kwajoe] Ak, personal name, male, for‘one born on Monday’ ‘(Tr, 115 & 119).An isolated key out from Key West; ety-mology of name unknown in Floridaplace name texts.(76) During the eigh-teenth and nineteenth centuries, theKeys were a major destination of slaveships, and the site of the infamous 1701shipwreck of the slaver, Henrietta Marie.The Keys were well known for workingthousands of enslaved Africans harshly,and prosecuting a zealous abolitionistwho tried to secure their escapees wellas notoriety over the efforts of a (Mc,146-153).

Ellaville, FL < [eh-la] Yor ‘one of the rootsources of life in Yoruba cosmology’;ela, K ‘catch, throw, or pour out’.(77) Asettlement along the Suwanee River inFlorida, the land was given to an Africanwoman, formerly a favored servant tothe landowner, a Florida governmentofficial. The town was wiped out by KuKlux Klan hordes when the residentslobbied to get a school.

Hayti, NC < [ay-yi-ti] Ga ‘name for thefirst-born son of Ayi, ‘a person whobrings fulfillment’(Ay); [ati] Twi, name ofa deity (Tr, 54); Ity Egy ‘sovereign, con-


querer’.(78) An African American settle-ment near Durham, since at least 1877(MTtr, 121).

[kawkaw], SC < K, ‘to judge unjustly’. Aplace-name on Gullah/Geechee coast(Tr, 113 and f.n. 6,307). KaoKao, animportant, ancient ethnic group thatmigrated to Senegal from the Nile Valley(Dp, 92).

Kush, MS - same as that of the ancientNile civilization. So named by theRepublic of New Afrika, this is a districtconsisting of 25 black counties along theMississippi River from Memphis toLouisiana (Ctr).

LaVilla, FL < [luh-VEE-la] K, ‘relation-ship, family, clan’ (Tr, 126). A freed-men’s town (1866-1887)that was pres-sured into annexation by the larger, predominantly white city of Jacksonville.It was begun through the protection andassistance of a Freedmen’s Bureau unitstationed in the area, and is now desig-nated a historic district.(79)

Little Coney Colony, LA < [koh-nee] T,personal name, ‘speechless, absolutelystill’. Exoduster town incorporated in1881. Led by A. Fairfax, who had beenelected to the LA Congress but forced toflee by mob of protesting Democrats(MTr, 85).

Bayou Malo, LA < malo B, ‘shame; rea-son’; Mdn personal name, ‘hippopota-mus’ (Tr, 128) the name is given to aleader who defies the status quo to ben-efit society through the use of specialpowers. One of a network of maroonsettlements led by Malo in LA during thelate 1700s.(80)

Black Mingo Pocosin < [MING-go]Bml, a surname, in French speakingCameroon; mingo Bb ‘they’. A swamp inborder areas of NC and VA, nearRoanoke; “living here were ‘black indi-ans’ (Lmg, 286).”(81)

Minatti, FL < referring to the huge “sea-cow”; first recording of the term inEuropean texts occurred in 1555;Moloney’s West African Fisheries is oneof the OED citation sources. CoastalWest Africans were reported to havehigh appreciation for its flesh.(82) Amaroon settlement located northeast ofTampa Bay’s Negro Point maroon settle-ment north of Bartow in present-dayPolk county (Br,39-40); “housed CreekChief Oponay’s slaves and later some ofAngola’s refugees (Rv, 195).”

Fort Mose [moh-say], FL< [maw-say]Vai personal, name, male (Tr, 133); cf.,[moosah] Mndn ‘name of the prophet’personal name, male, (Tr,134). A fortifiedtown established in 1728 by Spanishabout two miles north of present-day St.Augustine in territory they held inFlorida. “[T]he old Indian place-name”according to Landers, but no languageor ethnic group source given (Ln 294).Complete form of the name, Gracia Realde Santa Theresa de Mose (Ln, 29).

New Eufala, FL < [ya-law-fa] Yor, ‘toobtain as a pawn (Tr, 184); deemed tohave unknown meaning.(83) Seminolemaroon plantation established in westcentral Florida by 1821. Near presentday Brooksville, it was led bySimaka.(84)

Ocala (from Ocali, the name of an olderSeminole nation encompassing all ofMarion County), FL < [awkala-kala], E.Igbo, the judge over land disputes; ‘Thecase is settled!’ (Nj); [oko-ah-lay] Yor ‘anafternoon’s farm work’ (Tr, 143).(85)Meaning reported to be obscure thoughmany meanings suggested (Mc,208).(86)

Okatee River, SC < [okati] Umbundu,‘middle, interior’. A river in Gullah/Geechee sea islands area (Tr, f.n.,307).

Oyotunji Village, SC- Yor ‘return of theancient Oyo kingdom’ (Al). settlement

near Beaufort, established by AfricanAmericans for traditional Yoruba culturalpractices.

Peedee River,SC < [mpeedee] K, inAngola, ‘a species of viper’(Tr, 307).Name for two rivers in Gullah/Geecheeregion.

Suwannee Old Town, FL < Suwane, >Mndg, personal name; [suu-waa-naa]Hausa ‘which one’s’ (Tr, 163); Bn, nsub wanyi; ‘my house, home’.(87) Oneof the Seminole-African refugee settle-ment along this great river, wiped out in1818 by Andrew Jackson’ forces in theopening of the first Seminole War (Rv,195).(88)

[teetee], SC — Gulla/Geechee place-name (Tr, f.n. 7, 307).

Tybee Island/Creek,SC < /tai bi; Hausa‘an especially fertile, low-lying farmland’(3Tr, f.n. 7,07). An island and a creek inthe Gullah/Geechee region.

Wahoo Island/River, SC < /wa-hu/ Yor‘to trill the voice’ (Tr, 307). Located in theGeechee/Gullah region.

Wahoo Swamp, FL < see above. Site ofSeminole maroon settlements and bat-tles in the 1800s. It lies 80 miles north-east of Tampa, in present-day SumterCounty, above the bend in the Withla-coochee River.(89)

Wando River, SC < Kwando River, K, ariver running from Angola, throughBotswanna and Zambia, also name of alarge city in Angola (Bk, 292); Hausa,[wan-doh] ‘trousers’. A river in theGullah/Geechee region (Tr, 307).

Wassaw Island/Sound, SC < [wassaw]Twi, a district, tribe, and dialect of theGold Coast. Located in the Gullah/Geechee region (Tr, 307).


African Homophones

Of the 172 toponyms in the corpus, 31were found to be African homophones.Multiple or additional African sourceswere posited for some of them. Thisstrengthens the argument for each pro-posed Africanism, especially when itssemantic field content is opaque, i.e., nolonger transparent. Identified in earlierworks of Vass and Turner, SuwaneeRiver and Wando, respectively, are twoof the Africanisms for which theresearcher was able to posit additionalAfrican sources. Concerning Suwannee,Vass had derived it from nsub’wanyi, Bn,‘my house, home’. Though its semanticfield content is a powerful argument initself, the Mandingo, Suwane, argues fora more powerful influence for two reasons. Suwane [suh-wah-nee?] (1)requires no or fewer sound changes vs.nsub’wanyi; (2) is an African personalname; and, (3) is nearly the same as theattested name, Suwanna, found amongGullah/Geechee females when Turnerwas collecting their names in the late1930s. Since a town founder’s name isthe most typical toponym of migratingAfricans, Suwane could easily havebeen, like the legendary Malo of colonialLouisiana, the maroon founder andleader of the earlier swampy settlementsalong the famous river. The Hausa [suu-waa-naa]‘which one’s?’ does not havethe force of the other two sources, butevokes a picture of Suwane’s followersasking which sites along the river shouldbe settled.

Turner derives Wando from theHausa [wan-doh] ‘trousers’. Even thoughit shares an apparent one-to-one soundcorrespondence with the Africanism,[wan-doh] is easily subordinated in favorof Kwando as the predominant Africansource; Kwando not only has a strongsound correspondence with Wando, butshares one-to-one semantic correspon-

dence in its designation of the geo-graphical feature, ‘river’. Though not theonly one, combined sound-meaning cor-respondence is always the stronger one.For this reason, some of the homophonetoponyms were posited without refer-ence to multiple language sources. Thismay apply whether the semantic contentof the African source (1) has persisted insemantic field content in the Africanism;or, (2) conveys canonical African princi-ples of place naming.

Florida’s Wahoo Swamp andLaVilla, are illustrative. Wahoo hasmaintained the semantic field of creationof marked sounds from its Yorubasource. It is through consideration of thehistorical context that the case is sealed.The historical reality is that fleeing andwarring bands of Seminole-Africanmaroons had to set up and hide in diffi-cult to access areas, as are swamps;and a war band would have a designeewhose role was to give out a specialwhoop to signal attack. The Seminolesoldier, Jumper was documented tohave done such in the DadeMassacre.(90) Perhaps the same-named river and island in SouthCarolina were sites of maroon activity orthe founder of the Wahoo Swamp was afugitive who escaped from SouthCarolina. Also, Wahoo is very likey theroot word for yahoo and yehaw.

LaVilla (pronounced luh-VIh-luh)shows only a few sound changes in theKongo source word, [lu-Vee- la]. As istypical, the vowels have been reduced inthis homophone Africanism; but themeaning of the Kongo source word,‘relationship, family, clan’, shares thesemantic field content, ‘an ethnic group’with the African principle, thereby stack-ing the cards more heavily in favor ofthe homophone’s selection.(91) As Yaiexplained, an African place name isoften the same as one’s ethnic groupand language name.

LaVilla is also interesting because itexemplifies convergence or masking,another expected phenomenon in cultur-al retention in a contact situation. Itsorthography suggests a romance lan-guage word. Even the fact of a non-Latinpronunciation would just barely attractattention. Its pronunciation has probablybeen thought of as simply interferencefrom the English sound system. But thehistory of LaVilla as an all-black towncoupled with the salient sound-meaningcorrespondences unmasks theAfricanism.

African Hybrids

From this corpus, only one hybrid form,Black Mingo Pocosin, was found tooccur. It is analyzed as Black + MingoPocosin; the racial/color reference blackis a toponym Africanism that has beentranslated into a semantically transpar-ent English “equivalent” and conjoined toAfrican forms that are retained opaquehomophones. It is expected that, with acompleted analysis of pocosin, it may befound that the toponym is an independ-ent clause or sentence, “They are theblack buffaloes.” This recalls that Africanmen, serving in America’s western cav-alries were called “Buffalo Soldiers.”These Dismal Swamp maroons suc-cessfully resisted destruction, and werenot assimilated into the American polityuntil the end of the Civil War. If theselection of pocosin (with the gloss “buf-falo”) becomes solidified, it would be aneven more powerful Africanism,announcing ethnic identity and dominionover a geographic space in a completesentence.

There were no admixtures within anindivisible homophone such as thatwhich can be found in African Americanpersonal names (as shown above).However, nineteen of the African homo-phones do co-occur with European



Ethnic/Color Reference

African Bar, CAAfricky Town, ALArkansas Colored, OKBayou Marron, LABlackdom,NMBlack Star,CTBlackville,* ARBrownlee, NACanadian Colored*, OKDarky Spring, NDFreemanville, FLFreedmantown, TXNegro Bar, CANegro Point, FLNegro Slide, CANigger Heaven, CANorth Fork Colored, Tullahassee, OKYemassee, FL

State of Affairs-(emo-tions,experiences, actions,attitudes)

Belle Ville, GABullet Town, NCDearfield, COFreedom Hill*, NCFree Haven, NJ*Liberty, OKLittle Hell, DELost Creek, IN Mystery Hill, CO New Discovery, DEParting Ways, MAPeace, ARScuffle Town, KSSouthern Improvement,AL

Duplicate Place Name

Africa,* FLKentucky Ridge, CAKush, MS*Little Africa, NYMississippi Town, KSNew Africa, MSRusk, OKTennessee Town, KS

Founders or MemorableAfricans

Abraham’s Town,FLAdderleyTown, FLAllensworth CABeckwourth, CABelltown, DEBobtown, LA**Bookertee, OKCeasar’s Creek, FLCoit Mountain, NHDaniel Votaw Colony, KSDempsey, ALDouglas City, OKEldridge, MIEstill’s Station, KYFergusonHaney, OKHarry’s Bay, FLHoggstown, KSJames City, NCKing Heijah Town, FLLangston, OKLovejoy*, ILMontgomery, NDMulattoe Girl’s Town, FLMulatto King’s Town*, FLNero’s Town, FL*Nicodemus, KSPayne’s Town, FLPenneytown, MIPrinceville, NCRhodes Creek, IDSingleton Colony, KS*St. Maurice Colony, LA*Wild Cat, OKWinstonville, MS *Indicates that the name was reported to have been eventually changed.

Toponyms by Motif or Semantic Content

words, affixes, and modifiers that mostlysignal a collective of persons under asystem of governance (e.g., town,colony or -ville). Because these arehighly transportable and unmarked, andplace names are not “required” to havetransparent meanings, their co-occur-rence with the Africanism has an effectof leveling it toward American English.

African SemanticTransfers

The toponyms which fit into the fourAfrican semantic fields are listed by cat-egory in the table opposite.

With 39 towns and settlements havingbeen named after African Americantown/settlement founders, Diop’s charac-terization of the typical African place-name is also true for African Americans.Therefore, this propensity among AfricanAmericans is an Africanism. Of the 39though, three were illustrious figuresadmired by the founders: Nicodemus,Bookertee, and St. Maurice. Because allthree are African, they may just as easilyhave fit into the ethnic/racial category byindirection. The list of town foundersactually exceeds 39 because there werewhite and Native American ones, e.g.,Eatonville, FL, or Payne’s Town, FL.There were 11 in the corpus. “Lincoln”far outnumbers them all (e.g., LincolnCity, OK, Lincoln Heights, OH, Lincoln-ville, FL). Washington and Jefferson domake an impression, though. The listingfirmly suggests African Americans’desire to exercise self-determination.

Further, Diop and Yai both arguedethnic designating toponyms are also tobe commonly found among Africa’stoponyms.(92) There were 17 AfricanAmerican toponyms that correspondedwith this semantic content. In could evenbe argued that toponyms such as Kushand Africa, in the context of Americanrace relations, are indirect ethnic/racial

self-references, though here they aregrouped under “duplicated place-name”category above. This tendency towardethnic self reference is an Africanismthat predicts such contemporary appella-tions as “Chocolate City.” With atoponyms using the “N-word” and“Darky” we are witnessing, no doubt,that words may elevate or deteriorate intheir connotations. Evidently, they werenot always slur words among Africandescendants, like the personal nameAfricanisms Sambo or Bimbo. An inter-esting finding was that native Americanethnic group names occurred. Thisoccurrence confirms the development ofan authentic “Black Indian” identity inAmerica. Both the Tullahassee andYamassee were known to have integrat-ed and sometimes assimilated withAfricans who were exceptional and piv-otal as warriors. It is most likely thatthese towns were so-named becausethe town founders and some of itsinhabitants had been closely affiliatedbefore forced removal to the west.

The same number (17) of toponymsreferred to natural environmental fea-tures, but the researcher is not yet pre-pared to list such occurrences asAfricanisms. Such names includedCedar Lake, Mud Town and ThreeCreeks.(93) Yai did provide an exampleof natural feature toponyms for Fonsmigrating to Yoruba districts, but he didnot suggest they were just as numerousas ethnic references, but ethnic refer-ences, in these names, are naturallydesignators of Africanness. A methodol-ogy to show a propensity for such assig-nations when compared to other ethnic/racial groups needs to be investigated.

With 13 toponyms falling into the cat-egory, state-of-affairs commentary,Vass’s position was lent some support.Names in this category, like Bullet Townor Parting Ways do evoke a picture ofthe inhabitants’ attitudes and experi-

ences, but contrary to Vass’s predictionthat the type would predominate was notsupported. Diop, with his assertion abouttown founders’ had found the most pow-erful explanation. However, Vass’sexplanation that toponym Africanismswere marked by the absence of animalreference was firmly supported. Onlytwo occurred on the entire list, CowCreek and Hare Valley.

The phenomenon wherein AfricanAmerican towns and settlements under-go a series of name changes seems toconfirm that toponyms may parallel thestages of creolization evident in otherlevels of African American language(e.g., syntax). These changes seem tofit along the creole continuum (see alsoabove). The case of Sandy Ground, NYis illustrative.(94) Sandy Ground wassettled in 1833 by African American oys-termen who chose self-determinationand freedom from industry restrictions inMaryland. These settlers first namedtheir town, Harrisville, after one of thefounders, and became “the first freeblack community in New York.” Theirdistrict is reported to have run a stationon the Underground Railroad. Later,they changed the town’s name to “LittleAfrica”. Eventually, the town changed toits current name to reflect the “poorquality of soil in the area.” Turning to thecreole continuun, we may place the orig-inal name at the first stage, the Basilect.At this stage the toponym, Harrisvilleresults from the canonical African princi-ple that a town is named after itsfounder. Since it is a creole, its namebecomes mixed by the conjoining of the“Americanism”, -ville. The name changeto “Little Africa” is at a mid-stage, theMesolect. The name changes to a characteristic that is common, but notpredominant in African place-naming,i.e., ethnic and/or duplication of anotherplace-name; it is also mixed through theco-occurrence of the English word,


“Little.” Then it shifts to the last stage—the Acrolect, decreolizing to “SandyGround.” The name refers to naturalenvironmental features, not a definingcharacteristic of African toponyms. Witha movement toward ethnolinguistic dis-tinctiveness, as that being sustained inthe current era. It is expected thatAfrican revivalist toponyms will emerge.Oyotunji Village (‘return of the Oyo king-dom’) is clearly such a revival.

Overall, it was found that Africaninfluence is identifiable in AfricanAmerican toponyms or place names ofthe United States, not only in the form ofAfrican homophones, but also in theform of hybrids and semantic transfers.Further, a range of Kwa and Bantu lan-guages have contributed over the cen-turies to African retention. This is sobecause the overwhelming majority ofthe ancestors of America’s Africandescendents were brought, so woefullyover the centuries, from cultural zonecomplexes of west and central Africa.Interestingly enough, Cheikh Anta Diop’slong standing argument of a fundamen-tal cultural unity of Africans is substanti-ated by the fact that several widely dispersed African languages providedsource words for a single place name.When debates about African Americanlanguage variety erupt, and considera-tion is given to Gullah, or Ebonics, orStandard Black Vernacular, the body ofAfrican American toponyms belong inthose exchanges. The results from thisstudy of African American place namesconfirm the importance of onomastics inthe effort to identify and describeAmerica’s African heritage.

Notes

1. The public firestorm over “Ebonics”in the late 1990s is a recent testamentto that popular interest.

2. Lorenzo Dow Turner, Africanismsin the Gullah Dialect (Chicago:University of Chicago, 1949); AnnetteKashif, “Generations of AfricanInfluenced Names Among AfricanAmericans: Forms and Meanings” (Ph.Ddissertation, Howard University, 1991);J. Holloway and W. Vass, eds. TheAfrican Heritage of American English(Bloomington: Indiana University Press);S. Mufwene, ed., Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties (Athens:University of Georgia Press, 1993).

3. D. Crystal, The Cambridge Ency-clopedia of Language and Linguistics(Cambridge and New York: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1991), 114-115.

4. The study of the etymology anduse of proper names. See Crystal,Cambridge Encyclopedia, 426.

5. Ibid, 114.

6. Annette Kashif, personal communi-cation with Dorothy Shabazz, January2000.

7. T. Obenga, “Who Am I?”, in AfricanWorld History Project, J. Carruthers andL. Harris, eds., 31-44 (Los Angeles:ASCAC, 1997), 43.

8. N. Akbar, “The Mummy is Out ofthe Tomb,” lecture given in Washington,DC, 1989.

9. A. N. Wilson, The Falsification ofAfrikan Consciousness (New York:Afrikan World InfoSystems, 1993), 22.

10. S. Mufwene, “Dictionaries andProper Names,” in International Journalof Lexicography 13(3)(1988): 268-283.

11. T. Alegeo, On Defining the ProperName (Ganiesville: Uniersity of FloridaPress, 1973), 83.

12. Crystal, CambridgeEncyclopedia, 114.

13. See B. Blount, “Luo PersonalNames: Reference and Meaning,” Paperpresented at the annual meeting of theAfrican Studies Association, Atlanta, GA, 1989

14. D. Biebuyck, S. Kelliher, and L.McRae, African Ethnonyms: Index to Art-Producing Peoples of Africa (New York:G. K. Hall, 1996), xiii.

15. C. A. Diop, “A Methodology forthe Study of Migrations,” in AfricanEthnonyms and Toponyms, 86-109(Paris: United Nations Educational,Scientific and Cultural Organization,1984), 105.

16. O. Yai, “African Ethnonymy andToponomy: Reflections onDecolonization,” in African Ethnonymsand Toponyms, 39-50 (Pairs: UnitedNations Educational, Scientific, andCultural Organization, 1984), 41.

17. Ibid, 41-42.

18. A “creole” language means, with-in a mixed language, crystallized at astage intermediate between an ancestorlanguage, and a targeted successor lan-guage that has a second or later gener-ation of speakers.

19. R. Jeffers and I. Lehiste,Principles and Methods for HistoricalLinguistics (Cambridge, MA: MITPress), 52.

20. Crystal, CambridgeEncyclopedia, 114.

21. A “pidgin” is a language with areduced range of structure and use,characterized in the first stages of lan-guage shift. Ibid, 428.


22. Diop, “A Methodology for theStudy of Migrations,” 15; J. Harris,Africans and Their History (New York:Penguin Group, 1998), 50.

23. G. Hall, Africans in ColonialLouisiana (Baton Rouge: LouisianaState University, 1992), 121.

24. Hall, Africans in ColonialLouisiana, 133.

25. Ibid, 155.

26. Ibid, 142.

27. K. Bilby and D. B. N’diaye,“Creativity and Resistance: MaroonCulture in the Americas,” in Festival ofAmerican Folklife, P. Seitel, ed.(Washington, DC: Smithsonian, 1992),54-58.

28. H. Aptheker, “Maroons Within thePresent Limits of the United States,” inMaroons Societies: Rebel SlaveCommunities in the Americas, R. Price,ed., 151-167 (Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1979), 152.

29. Margaret W. Creel, A PeculiarPeople: Slave Religion and Community-Culture Among the Gullahs (New York:New York University Press, 1988), 114.

30. Ibid, 116.

31. Hall, Africans in ColonialLouisiana, 212.

32. Ibid, 145-166.

33. Kevin McCarthy, The HippocreneU.S.A. Guide to Black Florida (NewYork: Hippocrene Books, 1995), 44.

34. McCarthy, Guide to Black Florida,42-44.

35. L. Rivers, Slavery in Florida:Territorial Days to Emancipation(Gainesville: University of Florida Press,2000), 203.

36. Rivers, Slavery in Florida, 204.

37. H. Laemming, Hidden Americans:Maroons of Virginia and North Carolina(New York: Garland, 1995).

38. Aptheker, “Maroons Within thePresent Limits of the United States,”152.

39. Laemming, Hidden Americans,286-293.

40. George Stewart, Names on theLand (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967),329.

41. William Stewart, “AcculturativeProcesses and the Language of theAmerican Negro,” in Language in itsSocial Setting, W. Gage, ed., 1-46(Washington, DC: The AnthropologicalSociety, 1974), 20.

42. Holloway and Vass, AfricanHeritage of American English, 134.

43. Ibid, 367.

44. Morris Turner, America’s BlackTowns and Settlements: V.1 (RohnertPark, CA: Missing Pages Productions,1998), 92.

45. Ibid, 94.

46. Ibid, 41-42.

47. L. Bennett, Jr., The Shaping ofBlack America (New York: PenguinGroup, 1993) 170, 252; V. P. Franklin,Black Self-Determination: A CulturalHistory of the Faith of the Fathers(Westport, CT: Lawerence Hill, Co.,1984), 111-112.

48. Kashif, “Generations of AfricanInfluenced Names,” 20.

49. One language which is modifiedfrom formal to informal based on thesocial context of communication.

50. M. Berry and J. Blassingame,Long Memory: The Black Experience inAmerica (Oxford and New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1982), 403.

51. See Bennett, The Shaping ofBlack America, 187-191.

52. P. Cimbala, Under theGuardianship of the Nation (Athens:University of Georgia Press, 1997), 288,footnote 35.

53. Franklin, Black Self-Determination, 127-142.

54. Ibid, 132.

55. Turner, America’s Black Towns,12.

56. Kashif, “Generations of AfricanInfluenced Names,” 21.

57. Ibid, 22.

58. Bennett, The Shaping of BlackAmerica, 267-269.

59. Franklin, Black Self-Determination, 143.

60. Ibid, 144.

61. Turner, Africanisms in the GullahDialect, 40.

62. Ibid.

63. Ibid, 307, footnote 8.

64. Holloway and Vass, AfricanHeritage of American English, 108.

65. A. Weise, “Places of Our Own:Suburban Black Towns Before 1960,” inJournal of Urban History 19(3)(1993): 50.

66. Weise, “Places of Our Own,” 31.

67. Ibid, 30.

68. Franklin, Black Self-Determination, 126.

69. Bennett, The Shaping of BlackAmerica, 341.

70. M. R. Hoover, “CommunityAttitudes Toward Black English,” inLanguage In Society 1(1978): 65-87.


71. It must be remembered thatthose of royal lineage were not sparedthe Middle Passage during the devasta-tion of slavery, and are most probably,the original sources of the popularity ofthis name as an official one amongAfrican Americans.

72. Mesolect is a theorized “mid-point” between a deep creole and dis-parate prestige-dialect target. SBE,Standard Black English, is defined bythe use of codified standard English syntax, but with the maintenance of distinctive phonological features and stylistic devices.

73. Holloway and Vass, The AfricanHeritage of American English, 108.

74. Ibid, 42.

75. Kashif, “Generations of AfricanInfluenced Names.”

76. A. Morris, Florida Place Names(Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press), 61.


78. An analysis for “Pocosin” has notyet finalized; the Kongo word, mpakasa,is a strong possibility.

79. P. Kenney, “LaVilla, Florida,1866-1887: Reconstruction Dreams andthe Formation of a Black Community,” inThe African American Heritage ofFlorida, D. Colburn and J. Landers, eds.(Gainesville: University of Florida Press),185.

80. Hall, Africans in ColonialLouisiana, 214-16.

81. Wimby, R., Roberts, R., andCarruthers, J., Mdt rn Kmt: KemeticName Book (Chicago: The KemeticInstitute, 1987), 8.

82. Sir Alfred Cornelius Moloney,West African Fisheries, (London: W.Clowes and Sons, Ltd., 1883).


84. J. Covington, The Seminoles ofFlorida (Gainesville: University of FloridaPress, 1993), 15-48.

85. T. Tamuno, “Traditional Police inNigeria,” in Traditional Religion in WestAfrica, in A. Adegbola, ed. (Ibadan,Nigeria: Daystar Press, 1983), 181.

86. F. Abate, ed., American PlacesDictionary (Detroit: Omnigraphics, 1974),151.


88. D. Littlefield, Africans and Creeks(Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1979),76.

89. Covington, The Seminoles ofFlorida, 80-89,98-99.

90. Ibid, 79.

91. Kashif, Generations of AfricanInfluenced Names, 60.

92. Diop, “A Methodology for theStudy of Migrations,” 92.

93. Toponyms referring to naturalfeatures: Beech Bottoms, NC;Cedarlake, AL; Fairmount Heights;Greenwood Village, AL; Highland Beach,MD; Lakeview, AR; Lawncrest, NJ;Mound Bayou, MS; Mud Town, KS;Plateau, AL; Sandy Ground, NY; StarHill, DE; Three Creeks, MI; Urbancrest,OH; Cow Creek, MI; Hare Valley, VA;Clearview, OK; Small Farms, AL.

94. M. Turner, America’s BlackTowns, 116.

Bibliography

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Aptheker, H. “Maroons within thePresent Limits of the United States.”In Maroon Societies: Rebel SlaveCommunities in the Americas, R.Price, ed. Baltimore: Johns HopkinsUniversity Press, 1979.

Athearn, R. In Search of Canaan: BlackMigration to Kansas 1879-1880.Lawrence, KS: Regents Press, 1978.

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Blount, B. “Luo Personal Names:Reference and Meaning.” Paper pre-sented at the annual meeting of theAfrican Studies Association. Atlanta,GA, 1989.


Brown, C. Florida’s Peace RiverFrontier. Gainesville: University ofFlorida Press, 1991.

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Diop, C. A. “A Methodology for the Studyof Migrations.” In African Ethnonymsand Toponyms. Paris: United NationsEducational, Scientific and CulturalOrganization, 1984.

Franklin, V. P. Black Self-Determination:A Cultural History of the Faith of theFathers. Westport, CT: Lawrence Hill& Co., 1984.

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Harris, J. Africans and Their History.New York: Penguin Group, 1998.

Holloway, J. Africanisms in AmericanCulture. Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1991.

Holloway, J and Vass, W. eds. TheAfrican Heritage of American English.Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1993.

Hoover, M. R. “Community AttitudesToward Black English.” Language InSociety 1(1978), 65-87.

Jeffers, R and Lehiste, I. Principles andMethods for Historical Linguistics.Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1982.

Kashif, Annette. “Generations of AfricanInfluenced Names Among AfricanAmericans: Forms and Meanings.”(Ph.D. dissertation, HowardUniversity, 1991).

Kenney, P. “LaVilla, Florida, 1866-87:Reconstruction Dreams and theFormation of a Black Community.” InThe African American Heritage ofFlorida, D. Colburn and J. Landers,eds. Gainesville: University of FloridaPress, 1995.

Laemming, H. Hidden Americans:Maroons of Virginia and NorthCarolina. New York: Garland, 1995.

Landers, J. Black Society in SpanishFlorida. Urbana: University of IllinoisPress, 1999.

Littlefield, Jr., D. Africans and Creeks.Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,1979.

McCarthy, Kevin. The HippocreneU.S.A. Guide to Black Florida. NewYork: Hippocrene Books, 1995.

Moloney, Sir Cornelius, A. West AfricanFisheries. London: W. Clowes andSons, Ltd., 1883.

Morris, A. Florida Place Names.Sarasota, FL: Pineapple Press, 1995.

Mufwene, S., ed. Africanisms in Afro-American Language Varieties.Athens: University of Georgia Press,1993.

Mufwene, S. “Dictionaries and ProperNames.” In International Jounral ofLexicography, 1(3)(1988): 268-283.

Obenga, T. “Who Am I?” In AfricanWorld History Project: ThePreliminary Challenge, J. Carruthers,and L. Harris, eds. Los Angeles:ASCAC, 1997.

Oduyoye, M. Yoruba Names: TheirStructure and Meanings. London:Karnak House, 1987.

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Space, like language, is sociallyconstructed; and like the syntaxof language, the spatial arrange-

ments of our buildings and communi-ties reflect and reinforce the nature ofgender, race, and class relations insociety. The uses of both language andspace contribute to the power of somegroups over others and the mainte-nance of human inequality.(1)

In this project, I explore what I call “Autobio-graphicArchitecture,” and the ways in which it can facilitatea reconciliation of African American identity todaywith its (In)Visible Past. The social construction ofspace and language, pointed out by Leslie KarnesWeisman, is crucial to understanding the role ofautobiography in recovering and designing (re)presentations of African American architecture.Thus, our stories and identities need to be recov-ered and told—both through language, and spatialconstructs. While emphasizing that we should learnfrom the past in order to embrace our present identities, I will argue for designing structures thatconstruct American identity as “reconciling” with,and reflecting inclusive and egalitarian spaces for adiverse and multivalent society. The journey I pres-ent here is an autobiographical account of mysearch for an architecture that expresses and con-structs identity beyond the stereotypes of “race”and hegemonic “culture,” while also celebratingwhat LaVerne Wells-Bowie calls “rooted[ness] inactual cultural experience and racial memory.”(2)

As William L. Andrews stated in his introductionto African American Autobiography: A Collection ofCritical Essays, “autobiography holds a position ofpriority, indeed many would say preeminence,among the narrative traditions of black America.”Indeed, “ours is an extraordinarily self-reflexive tradition.”(3) As I want to argue, this self-reflectivity

ought to become an important feature of the “edu-cation of an architect.” If we are ever to go beyondhegemonic pedagogues and professional practicesthat replicates them, we must learn how to engagein what bell hooks terms “recall[ing] yourself.”(4)Such a shift in how we view architecture implies adecisive revision of how we define our whole disci-pline, and our roles and identities in it. In Wells-Bowie’s words, we should “want…[our] relationshipto space to evoke architecture as it is informed bythe humanities, not architecture simply as a techni-cal art.”(5)

While employing Toni Morrison’s creed that “thepast is more infinite than the future,” I argue, then,that architecture, like literature, writes its own narra-tives, which reflect specific constructions of identity.For example, Toni Morrison and Ralph Ellison, consciously wanted “space” to find themselves inAmerican literary tradition, in which they were invis-ible. Like architects, like masters of language, theyhad to construct it for themselves. Ellison’s novel,Invisible Man, and Morrison’s Playing in the Dark:Whiteness and the Literary Imagination, show thatit is possible to reconcile past and present. Theseworks—a novel and a series of literary criticalessays—can be read as African American autobio-graphic proofs that we can heal the wounds causedby the legacy of slavery, and construct a spacewhere an all-inclusive American identity can berecalled. In these writers, such a reconciliationinvolves an autobiographical examination of theways in which knowledge that has been passed onto us can, as Toni Morrison says, “[be] transformedfrom invasion and conquest to revelation andchoice.”(6) Again, such unlearning, or decoloniza-tion of one’s mind, is a desired goal for the “educa-tion of the architect/designer."

Like Morrison, who wrote her books becauseshe wanted to read about people like herself, I findmyself in search of a similar “space,” revelation,

Session One:


Autobio-graphic Space:Reconciling African American Identity with the (In)Visible Past


35


Figure 1. View from the African slaveauction hall at Elimna Castle inElimna, Ghana

Figure 2. “Door of no return.” Entry to themale slave dungeon

Figure 3. The first Anglican Chapel inGhana above and the entry to themale slave dungeon below.

Images courtesy of coleman a. jordan.

2

1

3

and choice that can house and expressAfrican American identity today. Throughmy autobiographical architectural con-structs, I want to reach into the past toreconstruct the present, and createspaces and details in which there are no“invisible” people. A solid foundationreinforces the sustainability of moststructures. To blacks in America, thatfoundation has been obstructed, ascab(7), by the social constructions of“race” and racialized definition ofAmerican identity. The following state-ment qualifies this paradox of AfricanAmerican identity:

Think of how much a black personhas to sell of himself/ (herself) to tryto get race not to matter… You haveto ignore the insults. You have toignore the natural loyalties. You haveto ignore your past. In a sense, youhave to just about deny yourself.(8)

Such denial means erasure of one’sidentity, and thus, of one’s roots in thepast, not to mention one’s cultural her-itage in the present. This should beunacceptable, not only to blacks, but toall Americans. In effect, “race mat-ters,”(9) is the corner stone of my workthat spans the continents of NorthAmerica and Africa. By looking into thenarratives inscribed into African slavestructures, I attempt to construct archi-tecture of African American identity. Asbell hooks says, “It is the telling of ourhistory that enables political [and archi-tectural] self-recovery.”(10) My autobio-graphical narrative today recovers CapeCoast Castle in Ghana, West Africa, asa space for reconciliation between thepast and present constructs, and thenew awareness of African American andAmerican identity.

"Sankofa,” a Call tothe “Motherland.”(11)

This project employs the results of myresearch in Ghana, while I participatedin a preservation program sponsored byUS/ICOMOS (United States/InternationalCommittee on Monuments and Sites),and my recent work in both Charleston,SC and Liverpool, England. As multina-tional slave trade centers, the Africanslave castles provided meeting spacesand “contact zones,” as Mary LouisePratt would call it, for the cultures ofNorth and South Americas, andEurope.(12) This coming together ofdiverse European and “American,”traders in “African gold/human flesh”inspired my inquiry into the specificnational and ethnic cultures, whose his-tories were inscribed into the castles.These cultures were subsumed underall-encompassing geographic, and thus,in a sense, spatial generalizations—i.e.,American, African, European.

My research of the slave structuresfocuses on the ways in which they rep-resent more specific cultural identitiesand power relations. More important, Iexamine the stories of survival of theoppressed, and the power/arrogance ofthe oppressors that were imprinted onthe slave castles. My scholarly, andautobiographical, project in Ghana isclosely linked to my study of repressedand “invisible” identities encoded inAmerican structures, and the practiceand teaching of architecture. I hope toshow that the architectural legacy of theAfrican Diaspora should provide a con-text for reading structures that representdominant American identity. By examin-ing the conspicuous erasures andabsences of the Africanist presence fromlegacies such as Thomas Jefferson, anarchitect in his own right who Americahas structurally memorialized:

For all this the enforcers of whitesupremacy claimed, and with justice,a mandate in Thomas Jefferson’swell-known doctrine that there wasno place for free blacks in Americansociety. If blacks were emancipatedand yet remained in America and inthe South, then they had to bebrought under restraint.(13)

e. g., the Jefferson Memorial, we canbegin to reconstruct American identity, to“recall” its true cultural heritage.

Although I was in Ghana to researchthe preservation efforts concerningnumerous castles and forts that servedthe African slave trade along Ghana’sWest Coast, I could not resist the call ofmy ancestors from whence they came.And “come” is not exactly the verb thatreflects the historical facts of theirremoval.

My focus, Cape Coast Castle, one ofthree appellation castles, was first con-structed by the Swedes in 1653. (Figure 1) It was later occupied by theBritish and the Dutch, due to a changeof hands following battles for trade posi-tioning. From this castle trade expandedto the Caribbean, England, and theUnited States. The castle site wasstrategically planned, with its foundationupon a rock bed pier on the water’sedge of Cape Coast City, the formercapital of Ghana during the colonial peri-od when it was governed byEngland.(14) The dominant scale of thecastle is overwhelming, compared toother nearby structures. However, thosenear-by structures tend to face inland, oraway from the castle, as if to deny itspresence. The castle’s appearance,though imposing in scale, is oftenignored by the inhabitants of the area.The form seems to be left alone, deso-late, and meaningless. But humbled it isnot, as it still stands proud, as a painfulreminder of the past but also a “space”where reunion and return are now

37Autobio-graphic Space: Reconciling African American Identity with the (In)Visible Past

possible. As a space that embodies andrequires autobio-graphic architecturalrevisions, it can teach us much aboutthe painful and guilt-ridden origins ofwhat we today call African Americanidentity as well as American identity.

“White-washed history” is a term thathas been used by those activists oppos-ing the preservation efforts to describethe renovated facades as having suf-fered an erasure of their characteristichistoric texture and authenticity. Thisargument stems from good evidence, asvisitors often question, “is this a newbuilding?” when referring to the castlesand forts that have been preserved orrenovated like that. Cape Coast Castlewas no exception, and I, too, was takenby the “white-washed” vibrant nuance ofthe facade. Just as the erasure and ero-sion of these structures were setting in,the erasure of education about the histo-ry they represented was also undergoinga process of “white-washing.”Astonishingly enough, because of theircolonized education in the past, manyGhanaians in the present have notlearned the stories of the castles thatdominate their coastal landscape.

The authenticity of Cape CoastCastle’s facade—the stone and brickfrom the eighteenth century—has beenpainted over and, in some cases, partshave been replaced without any accounthaving been left of the old texture. Thecontrast of images “before preservation”and “after” may, in effect, be indicatingthat these monuments, that carry muchhistorical depth, seem to have been van-dalized. After all, these castles containthe history of many cultures, not to men-tion that they sustained many Europeanand American economies for centuries.For example, Charleston, SouthCarolina, where two thirds of America’sAfrican slave population landed, suc-ceeded to break free of recession due toproductivity of African slaves tending to

its numerous fields and plantations. LikeSouth Carolina plantations, the castlesand forts in Ghana are now seen astourist attractions. They are controlled byorganizations like GMMB (Ghana’sMonuments and Museum Board) andindividual European investors that seemto capitalize on their painful history.Even worse, these exploiters of historicspaces often eagerly erase their charac-ter under the guise of preservation,which is often conducted without muchsympathy for those to whom thesespaces embody their sacred past.

For example, there were proposals toconvert the slave castles into hotels andrestaurants, which were abandoned onlyafter heavy protest from Ghana’s AfricanAmerican community and Africanistsfrom the West Indies. Thanks to theseprotests, many of the structures willbecome historical museums that areneeded to educate both the inhabitantsof the areas around them, and thetourists who will come to visit them.Looking at historic slave structures aspossibilities for capitalist investmentsonly proves that their original oppressivefunctions still prevail. Thus the painfulhistory of the “other” is overlooked and,in some cases, identities that are rootedin them irrevocably lost. As JohnMichael Vlach argues for his research ofsuch structures, it is important to “recov-er the dimensions of southern architec-tural history that have…been too longoverlooked and unreported.”(15) Onlywhen more Americans realize the criticalnature of knowing their inter-connectedroles in history, will identity politicsbecome an issue of the past. Americamust become accountable for and faceits own identity.

Such coming face to face with theiridentity means, among other things, thatAmericans preserve not only the past ofslavery at home but also “go back toAfrica” to study the structures there.

Thus, while keeping in mind that weneed to inquire, as Vlach says, “[in] backof the big house,” let us leap from theAmerican South back to Cape CoastCastle in Ghana.(16) The plan of thisform, outside of the defensive post alongthe ridge of the castle, is introverted indesign as to focus all attention on theinside courtyard, where slaves were rou-tinely brought in, and where the traderscame to make their purchases.Designed as early shopping malls, thecastles became markets for boomingtrade in weapons and gold/human flesh.Their functions dictated their design—ithad to help separate and sort thehumans for sale, and to communicatethe power and might that defended theirprecious contents.

The Governor’s Quarters, the mas-ter-controller’s space of power and indolence was situated overlooking thecourtyard on the central axis in line ofthe entry gate and the exit into the sea.He was positioned in order to alwaysknow who entered and who exited. Theinhabitants in charge of these structureswere governors and officers, as well astheir soldiers or crewmen sent fromEuropean countries to purchase, sell,and protect their merchandise. Forexample, the Danish castle, Christian-borg Castle, which is located in Accra,Ghana, documents its officers as, “out-cast at home, convicts released fromCopenhagen jails, bankrupts, or plainrejects from a Danish society eager toget rid of them.”

In their “castles” overseas, such“masters,” then, “could lead a life ofindolence, with little or no restraint.There they might indulge nearly everyhuman passion with utter freedom,whether it be confirmed drunkenness, orunrestrained intercourse with Negrogirls. They knew that the deadly climate


was likely to claim them, so it was a‘short life and a merry one’ for many ofthese outcasts.” (17)

As mentioned before, overlooking thecourtyard and on axis to it, as if to man-age or maintain order within the castle,was the governor’s quarters. Its centrallocation allowed a view all around with aconstant breeze to cool the inhabitants.Cape Coast Castle saw many Gov-ernors of different European nationali-ties. The setting was elaborate com-pared to settings for the rest of the cas-tle population, enabling them to lay incomfort of both conscience and greed,far from the scenes of pain and torture.

The Store Room often revealed asecret passageway to the women’s dun-geon. The secret and dark spaces, “pas-sages” and pleasures of hidden powerare suggested here. Apart from housewines and objects of personal value, thegovernor’s store room thus also had instore a raw passageway to the women’sdungeon, where the master couldchoose to go for personal pleasure.Female slaves were routinely selectedfor such “inspection of goods.” In thesespaces, the governor could play out hisdual role of master-leader and rapist.

Palaver Hall, the auction hall, waswhere merchants/shippers came to pur-chase their goods. The stillness of thisroom was as if suspended in time. Theghostly presence of the past howledthrough this empty room with gaping,arched windows positioned along theside for ventilation and light. Ventilationwas provided for the buyers, so that theycould breathe easily as they chose theirpurchases; there was light so that theycould see the best of the human stock.Then there is “the wall” that, like thewhole room, seems suspended in time,the wall which used to be the backdropagainst which the enslaved were sold. Astage of sorts, it celebrated dehumaniza-tion; it is a platform, where the slaves

appeared with no name, no identity, nolife, where they were paraded as mereobjects. I grew curious about the effectsand emotions of tourists who were in theroom with me—both the descendants ofthe Diaspora as well as the descendantsof the oppressors. After all, our “common,”painful heritage was all around us….

“On Being Brought from Africa to America”(18)

‘Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,

Taught my benighted soul to understandThat there’s a God,

there’s a Saviour too;Once I redemption neither

sought nor knew.Some view our sable race

with scornful eye,“Their colour is a diabolic die.”

Remember, Christians, Negroes,black as Cain (19),

May be refin’d, and join th’ angelic train.

The Chapel, the first Anglican church inGhana, was located in Cape CoastCastle. Christianity was the “white” religion that saved only a chosen few.Might the presence of the chapel signify,though, that maybe there was a con-science to be found in the traders afterall? Upon closer examination a paradoxis revealed. The chapel is founded/sup-ported by the walls of the male slavedungeons. The entry’s greedy “mouth” isdirectly below the floor of the chapel.The chapel’s windows seem to be“eyes” placed above a mouth whichresembles, in yet another architecturalinter-text, the famous entry and portal ofPalazzetto Zuccari in Rome. Rasmussencalls Zuccari’s portal the “gaping jaws ofa giant.”(20) A similar association canbe made with the dungeon entrance atCape Coast Castle, windows-eyes peer-ing atop the gaping mouth-entry as if towatch those entering with a “scornfuleye.” We may want to ask, after Phyllis

Wheatley’s poem, on whose shoulders,sweat and blood are the church founda-tions constructed and who receives theburden of redemption?

In the Dungeons…A charnel stench,

effluvium of living deathspreads outward from the hold,where the living and the dead,

the horribly dying,lie interlocked,

lie foul with blood and excrement.(21)

Suffocation, suffocation from lack of airand suffocation from lack of life (or dowe dare say “identity”?). The odor, theodorous presence of flesh, stale blood,pain, and death. The excrement anddecayed bones that have lain unsettledfor centuries are there to this day, theyare the floor we walked on. Imaginethousands of slaves packed in over-crowded spaces with no light, no ventila-tion, no contact with the outside. Thedungeons and the structure itself seemto preserve the imprint of their presence.As we know, many had been raped, tor-tured; some women bore the children oftheir rapists there, never to see themagain after they had been separatedfrom the mothers on the auction block.Millions died in the dungeons from poi-sonous sewage, tropical diseases, trau-ma, fear, claustrophobia, and suffoca-tion.

If this feels like a journey, it isbecause it was one for me.(22)

Like a conclusion or climax, the cold-ness of the gate at the end of the castlewas poignant. I felt this doorway, this“doorway of no return”, stared at me, fol-lowed me around as if to draw me to it.In this sense it clearly provided a frameand an end to the narrative of our pas-sage. Indeed it is referred to as the“doorway of no return”—the final exit for a slave before she or he reached the destiny in a new land or died at


sea. (Figure 2) As I was told about thisfinal exit by a tour guide during my firstvisit, I heard that this passage was theexit through which my ancestors werenever to return to this place. I immedi-ately looked him the eye and stated,“well, I guess I’ve returned.”

Sankofa! That bird is wise,

Look. Its beak, back turned, picksFor the present, what is best

from ancient eyes,Then steps forward, on ahead

To meet the future, undeterred.(23)

Like stories from the past, the monu-ments, buildings, and sites inscribe notonly (his)story but also (our)story as thedescendants of Africans in Diaspora.Just as structures are supported onfoundations, our origins still inform thepresent. They are silently whispering thetruth about both “his” story and “ours” inwhite-dominated, patriarchal America.Once the space and detail are created,or corrupted, in the structure, the era-sure or distortion of stories and peopleare etched within the walls.

The entry into the male dungeon atCape Coast Castle, an entry into ourpast, is a symbolic construct of awomb/wound of the “motherland” whowas raped, deprived of her identity, andwho has never healed. This dungeon-”mouth” expelled and devoured manyAfrican lives.(Figure 3) It is a spacewhere both death and survival coexisted,much like they do in other sites that wit-nessed martyrology and genocide.(24)

The stories of the present, are theeffects of what was erected and erasedin the past. More inclusive educationand the communication age haveallowed the “other” to see through thedeceptions and contradictions that arestill often called “tradition.” Today we arethus, the descendants of those whosehistories sketched and drafted “us,”

wrote us into who we are. But our pres-ent identity still raises questions and cre-ates a need to unlearn and reconstructtraditional knowledge about origins andfunctions of identity.

In embracing the past we can atleast try to come to terms with who weare and how we have been represented.The healing must begin with the desireto know and learn about each other. Forexample, Nana Cofu Robinson, anAfrican American, lives in-sync with thepeople of Ghana by embracing their cul-ture and understanding his own.

In “our” stories to come, the future,we attempt to construct an ideal identityby mapping and transforming into posi-tive material the past pain, cruelty, andredemption. In my work, I have realizedthat I am also retracing a profoundDiasporic journey. However, this journeyis not simply “back to Africa.” My narra-tive is located between Ghana and theUnited States and maps one of manyroutes of self-study that can help bothAfrican Americans and all Americansalike to reconcile a difficult past with anuneasy present in a multiethnic culture.It is a look at autobiographical readingsof space as erected by and erectingAmerican identity.

I was inspired by the Nsibidi symbolsof African origins about which you canread in Robert Farris Thompson’s, Flashof the Spirit: African and Afro-AmericanArt and Philosophy. This symbol is ametaphorical representation of strengththat I have derived from my journey thusfar. The original symbol means “all thecountry belongs to me.” It was one ofthe many symbols used to communicateby Africans in Diaspora. I now (re)inter-pret it as my logo to mean, his land be-longs to me—and—us. It’s all inclusive!

bell hooks emphasizes that “overall,we have to think deeply about the cultur-al legacies that can sustain us, that canprotect us against the cultural genocide

that is daily destroying our past. Weneed to document the existence of livingtraditions, both past and present, thatcan heal our wounds and offer us aspace of opportunity where our lives canbe transformed.”(25)

The appearance of the slave castlesas such spaces for transformation ofidentity can be very deceiving, as thepreservation efforts are unclear in theirgoals. These castles relate differentmeanings to different people and thereactions to them vary widely. Yet thequestion remains—why is this part ofworld history unknown and unclear to somany? It was W. E. B. DuBois who said,“millions of Black men (and women) inAfrica, America and the Islands of theSea…are bound to have great influenceupon the world in the future.” That futureis now, but I want to stress that we mustcontinue “mapping” the past so that wecan live together in the more honest andegalitarian present.

As I have shown, the Diasporic rootsof many American blacks are architec-turally represented by slave castles inWest Africa. In my discussion, I havefocused on the preservation efforts inGhana, West Africa, that have enabledmany black Americans like myself tovisit the slave castles as tourists whoseek structures that symbolize their pastand cultural roots. While emphasizingthat we should learn from the past inorder to embrace our present identities, Ithus hope to design structures that con-struct American identity as “reconciling”with and reflecting inclusive and egalitar-ian spaces for a diverse and multivalentsociety. Thus the journey I have present-ed here is an autobiographical accountof a search for my architecture, one thatexpresses and constructs identitybeyond the stereotypes of “race” andhegemonic “culture.”


Notes1. Leslie Kanes Weisman, Discrim-

ination by Design: A Feminist Critique ofthe Man-Made Environment (Urbanaand Chicago: University of Illinois Press,Illini Books edition, 1994), 2.

2. Wells-Bowie’s quote comes fromthe chapter “Talking Black Space,” inbell hooks, Art On My Mind: VisualPolitics (New York: The New Press,1995), 153.

3. William L. Andrews, AfricanAmerican Autobiography: A Collection ofCritical Essays (Englewood Cliffs, NewJersey: Prentice-Hall, Inc. 1993), 1.Henry Louis Gates, Jr., quoted afterAndrews, p.1.

4. hooks, Art On My Mind, 1535. Wells-Bowie quoted in hooks, Art

On My Mind, 154.6. Toni Morrison, Playing in the Dark:

Whiteness and the Literary Imagination(New York: The New Press, 1995), 8.

7. Lebbeus Woods, “War andArchitecture,” in Pamphlet Architecture15, (Princeton Architectural Press,1993), 24.

8. Mark Whitaker, “White and BlackLies.” Newsweek, 15 November, (1993).

9. Cornell West, Race Matters(Boston: Beacon Press, 1993).

10. bell hooks, Black Looks: Raceand Representation (Boston: South EndPress, 1992), 176.

11. This term is used in the descrip-tion of a Ghanaian Adinkra (a past kingof Gyaman, now Ivory Coast) symbolwhich means, “It is no taboo to returnand fetch it when you forget.”

12. Mary Louis Pratt, “Acts of theContact Zone” in Profession 91 (1991):34.

13. Morrison, Playing in the Dark.14. Albert van Datzig, Forts and

Castles of Ghana (Accra, Ghana: SedcoPublishing Limited, 1980).

15. John Michael Vlach, Back of theBig House: The Architecture of

Plantation Slavery (Chapel Hill: TheUniversity of North Carolina Press,1993), xii.

16. Vlach, Back of the Big House.17. Isodor Paiewonsky, Eyewitness

Accounts of Slavery in the Danish WestIndies: Also Graphic Tales of OtherSlave Happenings on Ships and Plan-tations (New York: Fordham UniversityPress, 1989), 15-16.

18. Phyllis Wheatley, “On BeingBrought from Africa to America” in TheNorton Anthology: African AmericanLiterature (New York and London: W.W.Norton and Company, 1997), 170.

19. Cain is said to have been“marked” by God. Some readers of theBible thought that Cain thereby becamethe first black man.

20. Steen Eiler Rasmussen,Experiencing Architecture (Cambridge:The MIT Press, 1993), 38.

21. Robert Hayden, “MiddlePassage,” in The Norton Anthology:African American Literature, 104-107thverse (New York and London: W.W.Norton and Company, 1997), 1504.

22. A term originally used by NanaCofu Robinson and Queen MotherRobinson to describe the final departuregate for African slaves from the castlesand forts.

23. Albert W. Kayper-Mensah,Sankofa: Adinkra Poems (Tema: TheGhana Publishing Corporation, 1976), 4.

24. Although not included in thispaper, I have begun to make compara-tive studies to architectural structures ofmartyrology, such as Auschwitz, andAfrican slave entry ports in Liverpool,England.

25. hooks, Art On My Mind, 162.

Bibliography

Andrews, William L. African AmericanAutobiography: A Collection ofCritical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ:Prentice-Hall, Inc., 1993.

Hayden, Robert. “Middle Passage.” TheNorton Anthology: African AmericanLiterature. New York and London:W.W. Norton and Company, 1997.

hooks, bell. Art On My Mind: VisualPolitics. New York: The New Press,1995.

hooks, bell. Black Looks: Race andRepresentation. Boston: South EndPress, 1992.

Kayper-Mensah, Albert W. Sankofa:Adinkra Poems. Tema, Ghana: TheGhana Publishing Corporation, 1976.

Morrison, Toni. Playing in the Dark:Whiteness and the LiteraryImagination. New York: The NewPress, 1995.

Paiewonsky, Isodor. EyewitnessAccounts of Slavery in the DanishWest Indies: Also Graphic Tales ofOther Slave Happenings on Shipsand Plantations. New York: FordhamUniversity Press, 1989.

Pratt, Mary Louis. “Acts of the ContactZone.” Profession 91(1991).

Rasmussen, Steen Eiler. ExperiencingArchitecture. Cambridge: The MITPress, 1993.

van Datzig, Albert, Forts and Castles ofGhana. Accra, Ghana: SedcoPublishing Limited, 1980.

Vlach, John Michael. Back of the BigHouse: The Architecture of PlantationSlavery. Chapel Hill: The Universityof North Carolina Press, 1993.


Weisman, Leslie Kanes. Discriminationby Design: A Feminist Critique of theMan-Made Environment. Urbana andChicago: University of Illinois Press,Illini Books edition, 1994.

West, Cornell. Race Matters. Boston:Beacon Press, 1993.

Wheatley, Phillis, “On Being Broughtfrom Africa to America.” The NortonAnthology: African AmericanLiterature. New York and London:W.W. Norton and Company, 1997.

Whitaker, Mark. “White and Black Lies.”Newsweek, 15 November, (1993).

Woods, Lebbeus. “War andArchitecture.” Pamphlet Architecture15 (1993). Princeton ArchitecturalPress.


Session Two:

AGRICULTURAL LIFEWAYSAND TECHNOLOGIES

43

African traditions helped develop agricultural methodsthat enriched the Americas. These traditions or lifeways shaped the tenor of rural life during periods

of slavery, sharecropping, and black-owned farms. Africansimplanted their technological �know-how� and cultural traditions on the rural landscape and agricultural industry.

Rice, Slaves, and Landscapes of Cultural Memory

Judith Carney

The Memory of Iron: African Technologies in the Americas

Candice L. Goucher

Bounded Yards and Fluid Borders: Landscapes of Slavery at Poplar Forest

Barbara J. Heath

Session Two:

AgriculturalLifeways andTechnologies

Rice, Slaves, and Landscapes of Cultural Memory

Judith Carney

45

By 1860 rice cultivation in theU.S. South extended over100,000 acres along the coastal

plain from North Carolina�s Cape FearRiver to the St. Johns River inFlorida.(1) (Figure 1) Large landholdingsand a sizeable labor force characterizedthe ante-bellum rice economy, withplantations concentrated in the handsof some 550 planters and worked by125,000 slaves.(2) On the eve of theCivil War, Georgia, representing lessthan one-third of the total land in rice(30,000 acres), accounted for 28% (52.5million pounds) of the region�s totaloutput: 187.2 million pounds.(3)

The rice plantation economy of South Carolina andGeorgia has received considerable historical andgeographical attention for its role in the regionaleconomic development of the antebellum South. Anostalgic view of the rice economy persisted longpast the cessation of planting in the 1920s due tonumerous commentaries that documented the life-ways of planters, their achievements as well as theiringenuity in shaping a profitable landscape frommalarial swamps.(4) In these accounts, slaves arepresented as having contributed little but unskilledlabor to the creation of the rice economy. In 1974this planter-based view changed dramatically withthe research of historian, Peter Wood, who carefullyexamined the role of slaves in the Carolina planta-tion system during the colonial period. His scholar-ship recast the prevalent view of slaves as merefield hands, to one which showed that they con-tributed agronomic expertise as well as skilled laborto the emergent plantation economy.

Wood�s argument rested upon several threadsof archival evidence, namely: the presence of

slaves in South Carolina from the onset of settle-ment in 1670, early colonial references suggestingthat bondsmen produced their own subsistencecrops, the lack of prior knowledge of rice farming bythe English and French Huguenot planters, but itsfamiliarity to many of the colony�s African-bornslaves.(5) Further support for Wood�s pathbreakingresearch occurred in 1981 when another historian,Daniel Littlefield, drew attention to the antiquity ofAfrican rice farming practices as well as the demo-graphic basis for South Carolina�s slaves during theearly colonial period. Littlefield showed that 40% ofthe slaves entering the state during the initialdecades of rice experimentation and developmentoriginated in the area of West Africa where the crop�scultivation predates the arrival of Europeans.(6)

While this scholarship has resulted in a revisedview of the rice plantation economy as one of bothEuropean and African influences, the role of Africanslaves in its evolution is still debated. Currentscholarship questions whether planters recruitedslaves from West Africa�s rice coast to help themdevelop a crop whose potential they independentlydiscovered, or whether African-born slaves initiatedrice planting in South Carolina by teaching plantersto grow a preferred food crop. Further understand-ing is hampered by the absence of archival materi-als that document a tutorial role for African slaves.But the silence of the historical record on a criticalrole for slaves in teaching planters rice cultivationis, perhaps, unsurprising given the paucity of mate-rials available in general for the early colonial period as well as the fact that accounts of slaves�lives were placed in the hands of white society whojustified slavery by denying the intellectual capacityof its victims.

This paper adds a geographical perspective tothe historical research initiated by Wood, in order toexamine the likely contributions of African-bornslaves to the colonial rice economy. Attention

focuses on the principal environmentsplanted to rice on both sides of theAtlantic, and the techniques developedfor soil and water management.Emphasis is placed on the initial centuryof rice development in South Carolina,1670-1770, from the colony�s initial set-tlement by planters and slaves to thecrop�s expansion into Georgia.

The paper begins by identifying theprimary lowland environments where

rice was planted on each side of theAtlantic, which are presented in a classi-fication system based on the principalwater regime regulating cultivation. Thediscussion next shifts to the historicalevidence for the presence of such systems in West Africa from the earliestcontact with Europeans, and the exis-tence of key principles of soil and watermanagement that were to resurface laterin Carolina rice systems. In the third


Figure 1. Map of Coastal South Carolinatidal rice cultivation.

1

section, the discussion shifts to SouthCarolina and Georgia where the riceeconomy unfolded over time from rain-fed to inland swamp production, and culminated in the tidewater system.

Rice CultivationSystems in theAtlantic Basin

When the Portuguese arrived along theWest African coast in the mid-fifteenthcentury, they encountered rice cultiva-tion over a broad area from Senegal toLiberia.(Figure 2) Rice (Oryza glaberri-ma) is an ancient West African cultivarthat was domesticated independently ofAsian rice (Oryza sativa) some two thou-sand years ago along the floodplain andinland delta of the Upper Niger River inMali.(7) The Atlantic slave trade led tothe introduction of some Asian O. sativavarieties to Africa�s west coast, but theirdiffusion remained limited untilEuropeans promoted them during thetwentieth century with colonialism.(8)

Rainfall in the West African rice zoneaverages between 800-2000 millimeters,encompassing a wider range than thatfound in the cultivated area of coastalSouth Carolina and Georgia (1100-1600mm).(9) Within the West African riceregion precipitation increases steadily

from north to south, with slightly higheraverages along the coast. African culti-vation is not, however, limited by rainfallconstraints. Over the past two millenniafarmers carefully adapted rice planting toother forms of water availability by grow-ing the crop in moisture-holding soils,depressions fed by subterranean watersources, and floodplains inundated bytidal flow. Consequently, rice plantingoccurs in a variety of environments,which include mangrove estuaries, allu-vial floodplains, low-lying depressions,grassland savannas, and upland forests.

Three major water regimes are usedfor rice cultivation: rainfall; artesiansprings, perched water tables, or catch-ment run-off that keep inland swampswet; and, river tides that flow over flood-plains and coastal estuaries.(10) By the1730s each of these systems and theirsub-types had also emerged in SouthCarolina.

As the form of water availability forrice planting is a response to the crop-ping system�s location along a land-scape, West African cultivation can bevisualized as occurring along a lowlandto upland gradient of changing ecologicalconditions. Planting takes place simulta-neously in distinct environments�a

practice that enables farmers to manipu-late one or more moisture regimes forcrop production.(11)(Figure 3)

The longstanding practice of growingrice in distinct environments fromplateau, slope, and valley bottom tofloodplain confers several advantages.By taking advantage of multiple waterregimes, farmers extend rice growingbeyond the limits of the precipitationcycle. In so doing, they reduce potentiallabor bottlenecks since croppingdemands (field preparation, weeding,and harvesting) in each environmentoccur at different periods during the agri-cultural season. Reliance on severalforms of water availability, moreover,enhances subsistence security by mini-mizing the risk of crop failure in anygiven year.

Of the three forms of rice cultivation,rainfed rice depends solely on rainfall forcropping. It is planted at the top of thelandscape gradient, hence its frequentdesignation, upland rice. West Africanfarmers commonly cultivate the crop onsoils supporting mixed woodland vegeta-tion that is partly cleared and burned ofsurface debris. Cattle form a critical partof the rainfed rice system, as the ani-mals are seasonally herded into the fieldto graze the stubble after the harvest,

47Rice, Slaves, and Landscapes of Cultural Memory

Figure 2. West African rice productionzone. Adapted from P. Richards,�Upland and Swamp Rice FarmingSystems in Sierra Leone: AnEvolutionary Transition?� inComparative Farming Systems, eds.B.L. Turner and S. Brush (New York,1987), p. 157.

2


Figure 3. Rice cultivation along a land-scape gradient in central Gambia.

Figure 4. Earthen embankment protectsricefields from tidal action.

Figure 5. Use of bamboo for Sluices inrice field, Guinea-Bissau. Photo: J.Carney.

Upland Inland swamp Tidal

mangrove

areas not planted

rice paddy

3

4

5

their manure fertilizing the soil. Whenthe cropping cycle ends, the field�s landuse shifts to cattle pasture.

Rice planted in inland swamps, thesecond system, enables the capture ofgroundwater from artesian springs,perched water tables, or catchment run-off. Plots are often enclosed with smallearthen embankments to trap rainwateror stream run-off for soil saturation dur-ing drier cycles of the cropping season.Water level within the field can be low-ered by piercing the plot bunds.

The remaining major African produc-tion system occurs in areas of tidal flow,on floodplains of rivers and estuaries.Dependent upon tides to flood and/ordrain the fields, tidal cultivation involvesa range of techniques from those requir-ing little or no environmental manipula-tion (planting on freshwater floodplains)to ones demanding considerable land-scape modification (mangrove rice cultivation along coastal estuaries). Thecomplex water and soil managementprinciples embodied in tidal productionare critical for examining the plausibilityof African agency in the transfer of ricecultivation to the Americas.

Tidal rice cultivation occurs in threedistinct floodplain environments: i) fresh-water rivers, ii) seasonally saline rivers,and iii) coastal estuaries or the lowerreaches of rivers affected by permanentmarine water conditions. The first twoinvolve similar methods of production�letting river tides flow over the floodplainrice fields�while the third system com-bines principles of each major rice sys-tem for planting under more challengingsoil and water conditions. The floodplainis composed of two distinct micro-environments: the one adjoining the riverand irrigated by daily tides, and anotherlocated at the inner margin, where thelandscape gradient begins its rise and isreached only during high tides.(Figure 3)Rice cultivation, moreover, occurs in

floodplains influenced by seasonal orpermanent river salinity. In the first,planting occurs after the rains push thesaltwater interface downstream for atleast the three months needed to complete a cycle of cultivation.

In tidal areas of permanent salinity(known as mangrove rice), the mostsophisticated West African productiontechniques are in evidence. This systemhas received insufficient attention by his-torians of rice development, who havelooked to West Africa for potential influences in South Carolina andGeorgia.(12) Comparisons between ricesystems on both sides of the AtlanticBasin have understandably focused ontidal freshwater rivers, like those plantedto rice in South Carolina and Georgia.But by separating out one floodplainsystem for comparison from the totalityof those planted, the full range and complexity of agronomic knowledge thatinforms West African rice cultivation ismissed.

Unaware of the complex principlesAfricans have long deployed to plant different types of floodplains, historiansof rice origins in the South have mini-mized the real contribution of slaveknowledge to the development of thetidewater system because the similarproduction environment along WestAfrican freshwater rivers involves verylittle landscape transformation.(13) Theemergence of the sophisticated tide-water system that led to Carolina andGeorgia�s economic prominenceremains unchallenged as the product ofEuropean technological mastery andingenuity. Yet, a careful consideration ofthe mangrove rice system along coastestuaries in West Africa illuminates theagency of Africans in developing principles later deployed in the tidewatersystem.

West African rice production in tidalestuaries occurs south of the Gambia

River in areas of permanently salinewater conditions where rainfall generallyaverages 1500 mm annually. These areenvironments mantled by extensivestretches of mangroves, whose aerialroots trap alluvium carried by marinetides. The deposited organic mattermakes these soils among the most fer-tile of the West African rice zone, butthey require careful management to pre-vent oxidation and their transformationinto a toxic acid-sulfate condition. Bymanipulating several water regimes anddeveloping extensive drainage systemsfor its control, the mangrove rice systemreveals the complex assemblage ofknowledge that would transfer to thetidewater rice fields of the South.

Rice established in coastal estuariesdepends upon enclosing the site chosenfor cultivation with an earthen embank-ment, which acts as a barrier against theflow of marine tides.(Figure 4) Carefulattention to landscape guides the loca-tion of the principal drainage canals,which are used to capture rainfall for irrigation. The perimeter is divided intoindividual rice fields by forming a seriesof lower embankments or berms perpen-dicular to the main one, again to assistin water control. Seedlings are estab-lished upon the furrows of individualplots.

The mangrove rice system combinesthe two principles of water control thatlater emerged in Southern tidewater production. Rainfall is captured by layingout a system of canals for irrigation aswell as controlled flooding to drownunwanted weeds. Sluices built into theberms and main embankment enablecontrol over water flow for field submer-sion as well as drainage. Fitted withvalves made from hollow tree trunks andplugged with palm thatch, sluices in theindividual plots drain into the principalone built into the embankment.(Figure 5)


Impounding rainwater, which is evacuated into the estuary at low tide,floods the field. Several years of rainfallare required before the field is initiallydesalinated, with the process at timeshastened by directing the flow of sea-sonal freshwater springs into the perime-ter to leach out salt residues.(14)Cultivation commences once desalina-tion is completed although farmersdepend annually on the rains to rinseaccumulated dry season salt residues.

Each year soil fertility is renewedduring the dry season by periodicallyopening the sluices at high tide toenable the entry of marine water. Thisaction results in the deposition of organic matter, albeit of saline origin, butimportantly, prevents the oxidation thatleads to acid-sulfate soil formation. Inthe month or so prior to the onset of therainy season, the sluices are once againclosed to bar the entry of saltwater. Anew cycle of production ensues by layering the ridges with accumulateddeposits of swamp mud. Considerableeffort is devoted annually to maintainingthe system�s earthworks, but yieldsexceeding two tons per hectare makethe mangrove system among the mostproductive traditional African rice systemever developed.(15)

The complex soil and water manage-ment embodied in growing rice in multi-ple micro-environments, along a land-scape continuum, formed the basis for asophisticated knowledge system thatwas in place long before the Atlanticslave trade. The adroit manipulation ofnumerous landscapes that characterizedWest African rice cultivation revealsnumerous affinities with the process oftechnology development in tidal rice, theantebellum era�s quintessential produc-tion system.

Historical andGeographicalContinuities Acrossthe Atlantic

When Islamic scholars followed pre-existing overland trade routes to theMalian Empire in the fourteenth century,they arrived in the heart of West Africanrice domestication where food surpluseshad sustained empire formation from theninth century.(16) These earliest com-mentaries on the crop�s cultivation noteits abundant harvests and the sale ofsurpluses regionally.(17) More detaileddescriptions of West African rice sys-tems came later, with the arrival ofPortuguese vessels along the AtlanticCoast from 1453. Portuguese vesselsestablished the pattern of rice purchasesthat would later increase demand forAfrican surpluses for provisioning slaveships across the Middle Passage.(18)

The proximity of the mangrove ricesystem to Portuguese navigation routeselicited considerable attention from anearly date. When a prolonged cycle ofdrought disrupted mangrove rice cultivation in the Sine-Saloum estuarynorth of the Gambia River in the fifteenthcentury, land use shifted to collecting theaccumulated salt deposits. DiogoGomes, the first Portuguese captain toenter the estuaries of the Geba (Guinea-Bissau) and Gambia Rivers in 1456,observed that the regional trade in a redsalt originated on such abandoned ricefields.(19) De Almada, in 1594, provideda more detailed description of the man-grove rice system that characterizes riceplanting in coastal estuaries south of theGambia River to this day. He noted theuse of embankments and canals toimpound rainwater for seedling submer-sion and desalination as well as ridgingto improve soil aeration.(20) Thus, longbefore the permanent settlement ofSouth Carolina, De Almada�s description

reveals the existence of the principles ofirrigated, or mangrove, rice cultivationfrom the earliest period of contact withEuropeans. The eighteenth centuryslave captain, Samuel Gamble, so mar-veled at the complex system that he pro-vided a diagram of field layout to accom-pany his description of water manage-ment techniques.(21)(Figure 6)

Discussion of the rainfed and inlandswamp cultivation systems away fromcoastal and riverine access routes isdocumented, ca. 1640, in a manuscriptpublished by an Amsterdam geographer,Olfert Dapper. Relying upon informationsupplied by Dutch traders operating inthe region currently known as SierraLeone and Liberia, Dapper reported ricecultivation along a lowland to uplandlandscape gradient in low-lying swampsas well as with rainfall.(22) Direct obser-vation of these systems, however, onlycame later in the mid-eighteenth centurywhen Europeans financed overlandexpeditions for exploration, trade, andscience.(23)

The growing dispersal of Europeansinto the West African interior during thenineteenth century brought moredetailed commentaries on the burning offorests for rainfed rice, the field�s subse-quent rotation for cattle grazing, as wellas the use of earthen reservoirs ininland swamps for water impoundmentagainst drought.(24) This form of irriga-tion drew the interest of the Frenchexplorer, Caillié, who in 1830, noted:

�As the country is flat, they take careto form channels to drain off thewater. When the inundation is verygreat, they take advantage of it andfill their little reservoirs, that they mayprovide against the drought and sup-ply the rice with the moisture itrequires.�( 25)


Rice Cultivation inSouth Carolina

Slaves accompanied the first settlers toSouth Carolina in 1670; within two yearsthey formed one fourth of the colony�spopulation, their numbers surpassingwhites as early as 1708.(26) By 1690,one plantation manager discussedexperiments with sowing the cereal in 22 different locations in SouthCarolina.(27) The first rice exports arerecorded in 1695 with one and one-fourth barrels shipped to Jamaica.(28)The economy was being increasingly

oriented to rice, and in 1699 exportsreached 330 tons; by the 1720s, ricehad emerged the leading staple.(29)

What is significant about this earlyperiod of rice development is the docu-mented presence in South Carolina bythe 1730s of the three principal WestAfrican systems: rainfed, inland swamp,and tidal. But unlike West Africa, wherethese systems of production frequentlyoccur simultaneously, their unfolding incolonial South Carolina represented adistinct stage in the evolution of its plan-tation economy. The initial emphasis onthe rainfed system shifted in the earlyeighteenth century to the inland swamps

and from the 1730s, increasingly to tidal(tidewater) cultivation.(30) The unfoldingof rice cultivation in South Carolina andGeorgia as an export crop for Europeanand Caribbean markets embodied a dif-ferent rationale than that in West Africa.Food security no longer required theplanting of rice in distinct micro-environ-ments. Instead, mercantile objectivesrested on selecting a specific productionenvironment for emphasis at differentpoints in time.

The first production environmentused for growing rice in South Carolinawas the rainfed system which, as inWest Africa, formed part of a land usesystem based on agriculture and cattle


Figure 6. Baga rice cultivation. Courtesy:National Maritime Museum,Greenwich, England.

6

grazing. Slaves cleared the forests,extracting the marketable pitch, tar, andresins from pines, and then planted sub-sistence crops, like rice, as a rotationwith cattle, whose manure maintainedsoil fertility.(31) These activities resultedin the export of salted beef, deerskins,and naval stores which, in turn, generat-ed the capital for additional slaveimports. With the dramatic increase inthe slave population from 3,000 (1703)to nearly 12,000 (1720) and 40,000(1745) rice cultivation became the princi-pal occupation of slave labor.(32)

During these decades of escalatingslave imports, the land use systembased on forest products and rainfedrice in rotation with cattle grazing, hadshifted to cultivation in inlandswamps.(33) The focus on inlandswamp cultivation represented the firstattempt to control water for irrigation inSouth Carolina rice fields, but increasedthe demand for slave labor to construct

the berms, ridges, and sluices critical forwater control. Like its counterpart inWest Africa, inland swamp cultivationdepended upon impounding water fromrainfall, springs, high water tables, orcatchment run-off. Small earthenembankments enabled water capture forirrigation or field flooding to depress thegrowth of opportunistic weeds, therebyreducing the onerous labor demand ofweeding.

Field flooding for irrigation and weedcontrol occurred in a variety of inlandswamp environments. For instance,swamps located within reach of streamsand springs had dikes placed at the highand low ends. The lower dike orembankment kept floodwaters on thefield while the upper one enabled thepassage of stream or creek water. Eachdike was equipped with a sluice, thelower one used for draining the field asdesired, the upper one allowing water toflow onto the field when needed.(34)

Rice planting could also occur ininland swamps formed on salt marsh-es.(35) Under special circumstances,such as the location of the saline swampnear the terminus of a freshwaterstream, the plot could be desalinatedand then planted to rice. In such cases,the embankment at the lower end of theswamp permanently blocked the entry ofsalt water, while a sluice in the upperembankment delivered stream water tothe plot initially for desalination andthen, for irrigation and weed control.This system functioned along the lowerreaches of the Cooper River �nearlywithin sight of the ocean.�( 36)

The variation in these inland swampsystems embodied a range of principlesthat reappeared with the later shift totidewater cultivation. Controlled floodingwas perfected by constructing a sepa-rate reservoir and dam to receive fresh-water flows from adjacent creeks andstreams.(Figure 7) Reservoir water


Figure 7. Inland and Tidewater ricesystem, South Carolina. Location:Western branch of the Cooper River.Courtesy: Richard Porcher.

7

reached the rice field through a canalthat operated by gravity flow.(37) Thiswater delivery system consequentlyenabled water storage for irrigation andweed control and its delivery on demandto rice fields positioned outside tidalflow. But the inland swamp system couldfail in years of high river levels or lowrainfall. The shift to tidewater cultivationwould eventually represent but a finetuning of the underlying principles of thisinland swamp system.(38)

By the 1720s, the key methods ofwater and soil management, found inthe rice growing systems of West Africa,were evident in the inland swamp sys-tems of South Carolina. The nextdecade represented an extension andadjustment of these principles to thespecific topographic and hydrologicalconditions of tidal rivers. By the mid-eighteenth century, rice production wassteadily shifting to tidal river floodplainsin South Carolina and into Georgia, justprior to repeal of the anti-slavery law in1750.(39) A notice of a land sale byWilliam Swinton of Winyah Bay, SouthCarolina provides one of the earliest ref-erences to the growing emphasis ontidewater production: ��that each [field]contains as much River Swamp, as willmake two Fields for 20 Negroes, whichis overflow�d with fresh Water, everyhigh Tide, and of Consequence not sub-ject to the Droughts.�(40) By 1752 richCarolina planters were converting inlandswamps and tidal marshes alongGeorgia�s Savannah and OgeecheeRivers to rice fields.(41) The shift to tide-water production accelerated after theAmerican Revolution and remained thebasis of the region�s economic promi-nence until the demise of cultivation inthe 1920s.(42)

The environment favored for tidewater cultivation was the floodplainadjacent to an estuary where the diurnalvariation in sea level resulted in flooding

or draining a rice field.(43) Three factorsdetermined where tidewater fields couldbe constructed: tidal amplitude, salt-water encroachment, and estuary sizeand shape. A location too near theocean faced saltwater incursion, whileone too far upstream removed a planta-tion from tidal influence. As in the WestAfrican mangrove rice system, a rising


Figure 8. Tidal swamp conversion,South Carolina.

Figure 9. Floodgates on a Carolina tidalplantation, c. 1920. Courtesy: TheCharleston Museum.

8

9

tide flooded the fields while a falling tidewas used for drainage. Tidal pitch variedbetween one to three feet�conditionsusually found along riverine stretchesten to 35 miles upstream from the river�smouth.(44)

Estuary size and shape also provedimportant for the location of tidewaterplantations for their effect on water mixing and thus salinity. For example,the downstream extension of tidal ricecultivation reflected differences in fresh-water dynamics between rivers drainingthe uplands and those flowing inlandfrom the sea. Since rivers of piedmontorigin deliver freshwater within miles ofthe coast, tidal cultivation could occurwithin a short distance from theocean.(see Figure 1) But other tidalrivers are arms of the sea and must

reach further inland for freshwater sup-plies. Along such rivers the freshwaterstream flow forms a pronounced layeron top of the heavier saltwater, enablingthe former to be tapped for tidal irriga-tion.(45) The sites suitable for tidal culti-vation consequently required skilledmanipulation of tidal flows and saline-freshwater interactions to attain high lev-els of productivity. West African tidal ricefarmers had already perfected suchpractices.

Preparation of a tidal floodplain forrice cultivation followed principlesremarkably similar to the West Africanmangrove rice system (compare Figures4 and 8). Placed next to a river, the ricefield was embanked at sufficient heightto prevent tidal spillover. The earthremoved in the process resulted in an

adjacent canal to irrigate and drain theswamp. Slaves subsequently clearedthe dense vegetation for cultivation. Thenext step involved dividing the area intoquarter sections (ten to 30 acres) thatwere fed by secondary ditches. Sluicesbuilt into the embankment and field sec-tions operated as valves for water entryand evacuation much as they do inAfrica�s mangrove rice system.(Figure 8)

The shift to tidewater cultivationrequired considerable landscape modifi-cation and ever greater numbers oflaborers. The near doubling of slaveimports into South Carolina from 39,000to 75,000 between 1750 and 1770 facili-tated the transition from inland swampcultivation.(46) The labor in transformingtidal swamps to rice fields was stagger-ing as historical archaeologist, Leland


10 11

Ferguson, vividly captures for SouthCarolina: ��these fields are surroundedby more than a mile of earthen dikes or�banks� as they were called. Built byslaves, these banks�were taller than aperson and up to 15 feet wide. By theturn of the eighteenth century, ricebanks on the 12 1/2 mile stretch of theEast Branch of Cooper River measuredmore than 55 miles long and containedmore than 6.4 million cubic feet ofearth�This means that�working in thewater and muck with no more than shovels, hoes, and baskets�by 1850Carolina slaves�on [tidal] plantationslike Middleburg throughout the ricegrowing district had built a system ofbanks and canals�nearly three timesthe volume of Cheops, the world�slargest pyramid.�(47)

The tidewater plantation continued tomake considerable demands on slavelabor for maintaining the earthen infra-structure even if it reduced the labordemands for weeding. With full watercontrol from an adjacent tidal river, therice field could be flooded on demandfor irrigation and weeding, and renewedannually by alluvial deposits. The hist-orian, Lewis Gray, underscored the sig-nificance of tidal flow for irrigation, aswell as weeding, in explaining the shiftfrom rudimentary inland swamp systemsto tidewater cultivation: �Only two flow-ings were employed as contrasted withthe later period when systematic flow-ings came to be largely employed fordestroying weeds, a process which issaid to have doubled the average areacultivated per laborer�The later intro-

duction of water culture [tidal] consistedin the development of methods makingpossible a greater degree of reliancethan formerly on systematic raising andlowering of the water.�( 48) A slave wasconsequently able to manage five acresinstead of the two typically assigned withinland rice cultivation.(49)

The systematic lifting and lowering ofwater was achieved by the sluices,located in the field�s embankment andsecondary dikes.(Figure 9) Sluiceseventually assumed the form of hangingfloodgates, but retained the nomencla-ture, �trunk�, by Carolina planters. Thecontinued use of the term through theantebellum period suggests that thetechnological expertise of Africansindeed proved crucial for establishingrice cultivation in an earlier era. During


Figure 10. Women milling subsistencerice, Sapelo Island, Georgia, c.1915. Courtesy: Georgia Departmentof Archives and History

Figure 11. Rice winnowing with fannerbasket, South Carolina, c. 1935.Courtesy: the Charleston Museum.

Figure 12. Mandinka girl with rice win-nowing basket, the Gambia. Photo:J. Carney.

12

the antebellum period trunks hadbecome large floodgates that wereburied in the embankment at a levelabove the usual low tide mark. Doors(gates) were positioned at both ends,which by pulling up or loosening wouldbe allowed to swing. The inner doorswould open in response to river pres-sure as it flowed through the raisedouter door, and then close with recedingwaters. Field draining reversed thearrangement with the inner door raisedand the outer door allowed to swingwhile water pressure in the field forcedthe door open at low tide.(50)

Curiosity over the origin of the term,trunk, for sluices or floodgates led oneplanter descendant, David Doar, to inad-vertently stumble upon likely technologytransfer from West Africa:

For years the origin of this namebothered me. I asked every oldplanter I knew, but no one couldenlighten me. One day a friend ofmine who planted on one of the low-est places�said to me with a smilingface: �I have solved that little trunkquestion. In putting down anotherone, I unearthed the granddaddy ofplug trunks made long before I wasborn.� It was simply a hollow cypresslog with a large hole from top to bot-tom. When it was to be stopped up alarge plug was put in tightly and itacted on the same principle as awooden spigot to a beer key.( 51)

The earliest sluice system in South Car-olina looked and functioned exactly likeits African Counterpart.(see Figure 5)

African antecedents to Carolina riceculture are also evident in the use of theAfrican mortar and pestle for huskingand polishing the grain, which wasaccomplished by hand until it was mech-anized on the eve of the AmericanRevolution. The mortar and pestle usedfor milling rice continued among freedblacks for subsistence needs into the

twentieth century.(Figure 10) DaleRosengarten�s historical research onbasket origins in the lowcountry, more-over, indicates the prototypical oneemployed for winnowing derives fromthe Senegambian area of West Africa,where oval coiled baskets are still usedto accomplish the task.(52) Figures 11and 12 illustrate these winnowing bas-kets respectively in South Carolina dur-ing the 1930s and in contemporaryGambia. From cultivation to processing,the historical reconstruction of rice culture in South Carolina and Georgiaresonates with linkages to Africa.

Conclusion

While the view of Africans as contribut-ing little more than labor to the rice plan-tation system of South Carolina andGeorgia has given way to recognizingtheir pre-existing skills and expertise incultivation, debate still rages over therole of slaves in technology transfer. Thecross-cultural and spatial perspectivepresented in this paper suggests thatAfrican-born slaves indeed provided critical expertise and technologicalknow-how in the evolution of the ricecultivation system of South Carolina andGeorgia. Evidence from the first 50years of settlement in South Carolinasuggests that technological developmentand innovation in the rice economy wasthe product of both African andEuropean knowledge systems. Theseknowledge systems and their respectivetechnological and agronomic heritagescombined in new ways to shape rice cultivation along the Atlantic seaboard.The African contribution to rice develop-ment in South Carolina and Georgiashould be featured as part of interpretivematerials to educate the general publicwho visit historical parks created from former rice plantations.

Notes

1. Albert Virgil House, PlanterManagement and Capitalism in Ante-Bellum Georgia (New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1954); James Clifton,�Golden Grains of White: Rice Plantingon the Lower Cape Fear,� in The NorthCarolina Historical Review 50(1973):365-393; Pat Morgan, �A Study of TideLands and Impoundments within aThree River Delta System�The SouthEdisto, Ashepoo, and Cumbahee Riversof South Carolina,� (masters thesis,University of South Carolina, 1974);Charles Gresham and Donal D. Hook,�Rice Fields of South Carolina: AResource Inventory and ManagementPolicy Evaluation,� in Coastal ZoneManagement Journal 9(1982): 183-203;Julia Floyd Smith, Slavery andPlantation Growth in Antebellum Florida1821-1860 (Gainesville: University ofFlorida Press, 1973); idem, Slavery andRice Culture in Low Country Georgia1750-1860 (Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 1985); Betty Wood,Slavery in Colonial Georgia (Athens:University of Georgia Press, 1984).

2. James Clifton, Life and Labor onArgyle Island (Savannah, GA: BeehivePress, 1978).

3. House, Planter Management andCapitalism, 23; Douglas C. Wilms, �TheDevelopment of Rice Culture in 18thCentury Georgia,� in SoutheasternGeographer 12(1972): 45-57; UnitedStates Census Office, Agriculture of theU. S. 1860. 8th Census (Washington,D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1864).

4. Urlich B. Phillips, American NegroSlavery (New York: D. Appleton and Co.,1918); A. S. Salley, �The Introduction ofRice Culture into South Carolina,� inBulletin of the Historical Commission ofSouth Carolina 6 (Columbia, SC: StateCompany, 1919); Ralph Betts Flanders,


Plantation Slavery in Georgia (ChapelHill: University of North Carolina Press,1933); David Doar, Rice and RicePlanting in the South Carolina LowCountry (Charleston, SC: CharlestonMuseum, 1970[1936]; Duncan Heyward,Seed from Madagascar (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press,1927); Norman Hawley, �The OldPlantation in and Around the SanteeExperimental Forest,� in AgriculturalHistory 23(1949): 86-91.

5. Peter Wood, Black Majority (NewYork: Norton, 1974).

6. Wood, in Slavery in ColonialGeorgia, 103, also indicates a similartrend for Georgia, noting that three-fourths of the slaves shipped there dur-ing the critical period of tidewater riceexpansion (1766-1771) originated fromWest Africa�s rice coast. Also see DanielLittlefield, Rice and Slaves (BatonRouge: Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1981).

7. Roland Portères, �Primary Cradlesof Agriculture in the African Continent,�in Papers in African Prehistory, J. D.Fage and R. A. Oliver, eds. (Cambridgeand New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1970), 43-58; R. J. McIntosh andS. K. McIntosh, �The Inland Niger Deltabefore the Empire of Mali: Evidencefrom Jenne-jeno,� in Journal of AfricanHistory 22(1981): 1-22; Jack Harlan, J.De Wet, and A. Stemler, Origins ofAfrican Plant Domestication (Chicago:Aldine, 1976); R. Charbolin, �Rice inWest Africa,� in Food Crops of theLowland Tropics, eds. C. L. A. Leakeyand J. B. Wills (Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press, 1977), 7-25.

8. Portères, �Primary Cradles ofAgriculture�; Harlan, et al, Origins ofAfrican Plant Domestication.

9. Charles Kovacik and JohnWinberry, South Carolina. The Making ofa Landscape (Boulder, CO: Westview,1987); Timothy Silver, A New Face onthe Countryside (Cambridge and NewYork: Cambridge University Press,1990).

10. F. R. Moorman and N. VanBreeman, Rice: Soil, Water, Land (LosBanos, Philippines: International RiceResearch Institute, 1978); West AfricanRice Development Association, �Typesof Rice Cultivation in West Africa,� inOccasional Paper No. 2(1980),Monrovia, Liberia.

11. Paul Richards, Coping withHunger (London: Allen and Unwin,1986); W. Andriesse and L. O. Fresco,�A Characterization of Rice-GrowingEnvironments in West Africa,� inAgriculture, Ecosystems andEnvironment 33(1991): 377-395.

12. Littlefield, Rice and Slaves; JoyceChaplin, Anxious Pursuit. AgriculturalInnovation and Modernity in the LowerSouth, 1730-1815 (Chapel Hill: Univ-ersity of North Carolina Press, 1993).

13. Littlefield, Rice and Slaves.

14. Olga Linares, �From Tidal Swampto Inland Valley: On the Social Organ-ization of Wet Rice Cultivation amongthe Diola of Senegal,� in Africa 5(1981):557-594; idem, Power, Prayer andProduction (Cambridge and New York:Cambridge University Press, 1992).

15. The West African tidal rice yieldsare about the same as that recorded inSouth Carolina and Georgia during theante-bellum period: about 1.7-2.2 tonsper hectare. Doar, Rice and RicePlanting, 18.

16. H. A. R. Gibb, Ibn Battuta.Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354(London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,

1969); Graham Connah, AfricanCivilizations: Precolonial Cities andStates in Tropical Africa � AnArchaeological Perspective (Cambridgeand New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1987).

17. Tadeusz Lewicki, West AfricanFood in the Middle Ages (Cambridgeand New York: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1974).

18. Gomes Ennes de Azurara, TheChronicle of the Discovery andConquest of Guinea, Vol. II (London:Hakluyt, 1899); G. R. Crone, TheVoyages of Cadamosto (London:Hakluyt, 1937); Paul Pélissier, LesPaysans du Sénégal: Les CivilisationsAgraires du Cayor a la Casamance (St.Yrieix: Imprimerie Fabreque, 1966); A.Donelha, An Account of Sierra Leoneand the Rivers of Guinea and CapeVerde (Lisbon: Junta de InvestigacoesCienticados, 1977).

19. The Gomes observation appearsin Th. Monod, R. Mauny, and G. Duval,�De la Première Découverte de laGuinée,� in Récit par Diogo Gomes (FinXV siècle). (Bissau, Guinea-Bissau:Centro de Estudos da GuinéPortuguesa, 1959), 42, 66. On the aridconditions over the period c. 1100 to c.1500 in West Africa, see GeorgeBrooks, Landlords and Strangers:Ecology, Society, and Trade in WesternAfrica, 1000-1630. (Boulder, CO.:Westview Press, 1993), 7.

20. Valentim Fernandes, Descriptionde la Côte Accidentale d�Afrique (Bissau:Centro de Estudos de Guiné Portuguêsa1951; Pélissier, Les Paysans duSénégal; Walter Rodney, A History ofthe Upper Guinea Coast, 1545-1800(New York: Monthly Review Press,1970).


21. Note at the bottom of Figure 6the drawing of an individual using thekayendo shovel for field preparation.This is still the principal implement uti-lized in mangrove rice cultivation.

22. Dapper noted: �Those who arehard-working can cultivate three rice-fields in one summer: they sow the firstrice on low ground, the second a littlehigher and the third�on the highground, each a month after the previousone, in order not to have all the rice ripeat the same time. This is the commonest[sic] practice throughout thecountry�The first or early rice, sown inlow and damp areas�the second, sownon somewhat higher ground�the third,sown on the high ground�.� Excerptdrawn from Paul Richards, �Culture &Community Values in the Selection &Maintenance of African Rice,� inIndigenous People and IntellectualProperty Rights, B. L. Turner and S.Brush, eds. (Washington, D.C.: IslandPress, 1996), 213, based on a transla-tion from the Dutch of Olfert Dapper�smanuscript, New Description of Africa.

23. M. Adanson, A Voyage toSenegal, the Isle of Goree and the RiverGambia (London: Nourse, 1759);Francis Moore, Travels into the InlandParts of Africa (London: Edward Cave,1738); G. Mollien, Travels in Africa(Londone: Sir Richard Phillips & Co.,1820); Mungo Park, Travels into theInterior of Africa (London: Eland,1954[1799]); Pélissier, Les Paysans duSénégal.

24. Rodney, History of the UpperGuinea Coast; Thomas Winterbottom,An Account of the Native Africans in theNeighbourhood of Sierra Leone(London: C. Whittingham, 1803); ReneCaillié, Travels through Central Africa toTimbuctoo, and across the Great Desert,

to Morocco, Performed in the Years1824-1828 (London: Colburn & Bentley,1830).

25. Caillié, Travels through CentralAfrica, 162.

26. Wood, Black Majority, 25-26,143.

27. Ibid, 25,57-58.

28. James Clifton, �The Rice Industryin Colonial America,� in AgriculturalHistory 55(1981); 266-283.

29. Wood, Black Majority, 26;Converse Clowse, Economic Beginningsin Colonial South Carolina (Columbia:University of South Carolina Press,1981), 57-58; Clifton, �The Rice Industryin Colonial America,� 274.

30. Doar, Rice and Rice Planting;Kovacik and Winberry, South Carolina.The Making of a Landscape; JudithCarney and Richard Porcher,�Geographies of the Past: Rice, Slavesand Technological Transfer in SouthCarolina,� in Southeastern Geographer33(1993): 127-147; Judith Carney, BlackRice: The African Origins of RiceCultivation in the Americas. Cambridge,MA: Harvard University Press, Spring2001.

31. John S. Otto, The SouthernFrontiers, 1607-1860 (New York:Greenwood, 1989); Wood, BlackMajority, 162.

32. Wood, Black Majority, 55.

33. Thomas Nairne, �A Letter fromSouth Carolina,� in Selling a New World:Two Colonial South CarolinaPromotional Pamphlets, ed. JackGreene (Columbia: University of SouthCarolina Press, 1989[1710], 33-73;Clifton, Life and Labor on Argyle Island;Clarence Ver Steeg, Origins of aSouthern Mosaic (Athens: University ofGeorgia Press, 1984).

34. Clifton, �The Rice Industry,� 275.

35. Hawley, �The Old Plantations."

36. John B. Irving, A Day on theCooper River (Charleston, SC: R. K.Bryan Co., 1969),154.

37. Heyward, Seeds fromMadagascar; Sam B. Hilliard,�Antebellum Tidewater Rice Culture inSouth Carolina and Georgia,� inEuropean Settlement and Developmentin North America: Essays onGeographical Change in Honour andMemory to Andrew Hill Clark, ed. JamesGibson (Toronto: University of Toronto,1978), 91-115; Richard Porcher, �RiceCulture in South Carolina: A BriefHistory, The Role of the Huguenots, andPreservation of Its Legacy,� inTransactions of the Huguenot Society ofSouth Carolina 92(1987): 11-22; DavidWhitten, �American Rice cultivation,1680-1980: A Tercentenary Critique,� inSouthern Studies 21(1982): 5-26.

38. Heyward, Seeds fromMadagascar; also, Hilliard, �AntebellumTidewater Culture,� 99, makes the pointthat during much of the eighteenth cen-tury both inland swamp fields with reser-voirs and tidewater rice existed simulta-neously and that freshwater reservoirswere common even on plantations situ-ated within or near the tidal zone: �Inmany cases there must have been ablending of the two types of irrigation, forSolon Robinson observed a tidewaterplanter on the Cooper River who had��ponds of fresh water covering 100acres of upland, which are held inreserve to water the rice fields when theriver is too salt�.�

39. Wilms, �The Development of RiceCulture,� 49.


40. �Advertisement for Tidal LandSale,� January 19, 1738, South CarolinaGazette (Charleston: South CarolinaHistorical Society, n. d.); Clifton, �TheRice Industry,� 275-276.

41. Wilms, �The Development of RiceCulture,� 49.

42. Clifton, �The Rice Industry,� 276.

43. Hilliard, �Antebellum TidewaterRice Culture,� 100.

44. John Drayton, A View of SouthCarolina, as Respects her Natural andCivil Conerns (Spartanburg, SC: TheReprint Co., 1970[1802]), 36; Chaplin,An Anxious Pursuit, 231.

45. Hilliard, �Antebellum TidewaterRice Culture.�

46. Otto, The Southern Frontiers,1607-1860, 41.

47. Leland Ferguson, UncommonGround. Archaeology and Early AfricanAmerica, 1650-1800 (Washington, D.C.:Smithsonian Institution, 1992), xxiv-xxv,footnote 3, 147.

48. Lewis Gray, History of Agriculturein the Southern U. S. to 1860, 2 vols.(Gloucester, MA: Peter Smith, 1958),281.

49. R. F. W. Allston, �Essay on SeaCoast Crops.� In De Bow�s Review16(1854); John Glen, �A Description ofSouth Carolina: Containing ManyCurious and Interesting ParticularsRelating to the Civil, Natural andCommercial History of That Colony,� inColonial South Carolina: TwoContemporary Descriptions, ed.Chapman J. Milling (Columbia: Univer-sity of South Carolina Press,1951[1761]), 15: Clifton, �The RiceIndustry in Colonial America,� 275;Whitten, �American Rice Cultivation,� 9-15.

50. House, Planter Management, 25.

51. Doar, Rice and Rice Planting, 12.

52. Dale Rosengarten, �SocialOrigins of the African-AmericanLowcountry Basket� (Ph.D. dissertation,Harvard University, 1997).

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In the spring of 1798, ThomasJefferson�s son-in-law informed himthat several slaves had planted tobac-

co on his Albemarle County propertywithout his permission. Randolph�srefusal to let them raise it, and insis-tence that they grow something sanc-tioned by Jefferson in its place indicatesthat this tobacco was being cultivatedon their allotted grounds, in their owntime, and for their own profit.Jefferson�s response to this entrepre-neurial spirit was unambiguous.

�I thank you for putting an end to the cultiva-tion of tobacco as the peculium of the negroes. I have ever found it necessary to confine themto such articles as are not raised on the farm.There is no other way of drawing a line betweenwhat is theirs & mine�.(1)

This exchange hints at the �after hours� activities ofenslaved people living on plantations throughoutVirginia and the limits placed upon them by slave-holders. While assigned tasks were often explicitlydescribed in the historic record, activities thatslaves organized and undertook for their own benefit and in their own time are often difficult totrace. Nevertheless hunting and gathering attest toan intimate understanding of the natural landscape,while through gardening people consciously shapedthe land for ends that stood outside of an owner�scontrol. Market gardening and poultry raising, per-haps more directly tied to the dominant plantationregimen, reveal how slaves used agriculture fortheir own purposes, and how they organized theirlabor to do so. Together, these economic actions,coupled with kinship networks and the mandatoryrequirements of servitude, combined to extend theirworld far beyond the plantation boundaries.

The consideration of a variety of evidence�archaeological traces of houses and yards, pre-served fragments of seeds, artifacts, slave census-es, runaway advertisements, store accounts, andletters�-is essential in reconstructing how onegroup of enslaved African Americans shaped thelandscapes they inhabited.

By the time Thomas Jefferson was 31 years old,he held 187 men, women, and children in bondage.Although the population fluctuated over time withbirths, deaths, sales, and purchases, he remainedone of the largest slave owners in central Virginiathroughout his life. The number of individuals livingat his Poplar Forest plantation ranged from a low of27 in 1774 to a high of 94 in 1819. During this time,they created a community of extended, multi-gener-ational families, tied by bonds of blood and friend-ship to the Monticello enslaved community and to abroader community spread across the region.(2)

African Americans living at Poplar Forest were,for the most part, two or more generations removedfrom the Old World. Clearly the social upheaval ofthe Middle Passage, institutionalized slavery, andthe Anglo-American culture of the slaveholdingclass were important factors in the development ofa creole culture. Equally important was the physicalreality of the place. As Americans, they experiencedclimate, topography, and environmental factorsquite different from those of their African ancestors.Together, these cultural and natural factors influ-enced the ways in which people reacted to andshaped the landscape around them.

Here, the term landscape is used in two ways.First, it refers to the physical result of the continuinginteraction between people and nature. Second,landscape describes the real and perceived bound-aries that limited one�s experience of the world.Institutionalized slavery provided the overarchingframework for these boundaries, but the network of

Session Two:

AgriculturalLifeways andTechnologies

Bounded Yards and Fluid Boundaries:Landscapes of Slavery at Poplar Forest

Barbara J. Heath

69

social and economic connections thatindividuals created could stretch or tight-en these limits.

West Africans in Virginia

In discussing the identity of PoplarForest slaves, it is important to outlinethe assumptions used concerning theorigins of Africans brought to Virginia asslaves. The fragmentary and inexactnature of the source material has ledscholars to disagree about the ethnici-ties and absolute numbers of individualstransported. However, most scholarsbelieve that the majority of slavesimported into Virginia during the colonialperiod came from West Africa, with thelargest numbers dominated by the Igbocultural group from the region surround-ing the Bight of Biafra. Akan-speakersfrom the Gold Coast made up the nextlargest proportion of transportedAfricans, followed by Senegambians.(3)

Clues about the origins of Jefferson�sslaves survive in legal documents and innaming practices carried out within theircommunity. Jefferson inherited themajority of his bondspeople from hisfather-in-law John Wayles, a largeplanter and entrepreneur who engagedin the transatlantic slave trade. Theextent of Wayles�s participation isunclear; however debts he incurred con-tinued to plague his son-in-law nearly 25years after his death.(4) It is possiblethat some of the men and women heheld in bondage, and who Jeffersonsubsequently inherited, were transportedby Wayles.

Slaves from 11 quarter farms, includ-ing �Guinea� and �Angola,� made up theWayles� legacy. Oral histories, therecorded ages of a few individuals andnaming practices suggest direct ties toAfrica. Akan day names survive along-side others suggestive of Fanti or Igbo

origins in the slave censuses Jeffersonkept. Many men and women had namessuggestive of origins in the Spanish orPortuguese-speaking world.(5) Furtheranalysis of family connections and nam-ing practices is needed to determine theextent to which West African orCaribbean naming practices persistedwithin families through time.

Agricultural Traditions

Enslaved West Africans and theirdescendants formed the backbone ofthe tobacco and wheat-based plantationeconomies of colonial and antebellumVirginia. They came from regions witheconomies based on the cultivation ofgrains like millet and sorghum, rootcrops of yams and cocoyams, andstarchy fruits like bananas and plantains.Agriculturists from Senegal to the Bightalso commonly grew legumes, fruits,and bulbs. Maize, cassava, and tobaccofrom the New World reached West Africabeginning in the late fifteenth centuryand became important crops throughoutthe region.(6) Farmers made crop choic-es based primarily on the amount anddependability of rainfall. Grains thatcould be planted and harvested in fairlydry conditions predominated in thenorthern interior regions, while rootcrops were the staple foodstuffs of thesouth. Although some groups engagedin irrigated farming for rice, tree farming,and shifting cultivation in the region,West African farmers principally prac-ticed rotational bush fallow in both thesavanna and forest.(7)

In some societies, the care of individ-ual crops was divided along genderlines, while in others work was dividedby task rather than product, with meninvolved in clearing and tilling virginland, and women employed in planting,tending and harvesting.(8) Farmersplanted fields for periods ranging from

three to six years, employing a variety ofstrategies to stretch fertility and yield.They planted multiple crops within thesame plot, a strategy that served thedual function of discouraging weedgrowth and erosion and protecting theirharvest if one crop should fail. Whererainfall allowed, farmers planted crops insuccession to ensure a constant supplyof food. Finally, they rotated plantingswithin each plot to slow down the deple-tion of nutrients in the soil. After severalyears of heavy cultivation, land wasallowed to lie fallow and regenerate forfour to ten years before plantingresumed. In some areas, farmers plant-ed fallow fields with carefully selectedcover crops; in others they allowed fieldsto regenerate naturally, only interveningto prevent the regrowth of trees.(9)

Rotational bush fallow shared someimportant characteristics with Virginialand-use patterns of the late eighteenthand early nineteenth centuries. Cycles of land clearance, use, and abandon-ment characterized tobacco cultivationfor much of the Chesapeake, with Indiancorn or wheat often replacing tobaccobefore fields were completely exhaust-ed.(10) By the late eighteenth century,Jefferson and many of his contempo-raries used strategies such as crop rota-tion, selected cover crops for soil regen-eration, and intercropping to boostyields.(11) While the context of thesepractices may have differed betweenlandowners and enslaved workers, thepractices themselves would certainlyhave been familiar to West African farmers.

West Africans and Virginians alsoshared elements of farming technology.Hoes were an important tool on bothsides of the Atlantic, and Africans mostlikely found the transition from diggingsticks and machetes to dibbles and cut-toes an easy one.(12) Thus, whileenslaved farmers in Virginia did not nec-


essarily introduce new agricultural meth-ods to North America, their familiaritywith the technology, crops, and land usepatterns current in colonial Virginiamade the transition from Old World toNew an efficient one from the perspec-tive of their owners.(13)

The Poplar ForestLandscape

The Poplar Forest landscape from the1770s through the 1820s consisted of achanging mosaic of woodlands, farmfields, meadows, and waste groundsdivided into quarter farms and punctuat-ed by dispersed settlements. Networksof roads and footpaths connected thesesettlements, defined by an overseer�shouse, slave quarters, barns, and otheroutbuildings. Shared resources such asa blacksmith�s shop, a tobacco prizingbarn, and a grain threshing barn stoodroughly equidistant to living quarters andconvenient to public roads. Tobacco dry-ing barns, cowsheds, and other farmstructures adjoined fields and pastureswithin each quarter farm.(14)

Enslaved African Americans shapedfields and forests at Poplar Forest duringtheir working hours to fulfill a variety oftasks. In their private time, they contin-ued to alter this landscape to meet theirown needs. Archaeological investiga-tions of two sites�the North Hill and theQuarter�provide some important cluesabout after hours activities. Both slavequarters were associated with the �oldplantation� complex nestled between thebranches of the Tomahawk Creek nearthe center of the Poplar Forest tract.There, men constructed houses on themargins of eroded fields, a strategy per-haps mandated by overseers to ensurethat the most productive land remainedin cultivation.

Archaeologists discovered theremains of a subfloor pit at the North

Hill. Such features are rectangular com-partments set beneath cabin floors thatslaves used for storing foodstuffs andother belongings. Artifacts found in thefill of the pit indicate that this dwellingwas abandoned sometime before themid-1780s. An erosion gully cut acrossthe hillside southwest of the cabin, andresidents filled it with trash in the finalquarter of the eighteenth century. The fillof the gully was cut by the line of a pal-isade fence that formed a substantialenclosure. It is probably associated withanother cabin located outside of theexcavation area and dating to a slightlylater period.

The Quarter was occupied between1790 and 1812. Members of at leastthree households lived at the site. Theirlog houses aligned roughly southwest tonortheast, but did not form part of arigidly defined slave row. The cabinswere bounded on the south by a possi-ble garden enclosure, and on the northby work yards. One yard was enclosedand shared by the occupants of two ofthe dwellings.(15) The most intensivelyused areas of the site appear to be thenorthern yards that were sheltered fromthe surveillance of the overseer, whosehouse was located behind the cabins onthe crest of the hill.(16)

Floral and faunal data from both sitesprovide important insights into the waysthat residents exploited the surroundinglandscape. Seeds and bones preserveevidence of foraging and possible gar-dening activities as well as hunting, trap-ping, and fishing, pointing to the devel-opment of distinctly African-Americanfoodways.(17)

Some carbonized remains, such ascorn kernels or sunflower seeds, repre-sent food that was directly consumed.Others represent what slaves discardedafter they used the leaves, stems, orroots of the plant. Evidence of at least35 species was recovered at the North

Hill. These included seven fruits, eightvegetables and grains, two to three nuts,nine edible herbs, four weeds, threegrasses, one ornamental and one condi-ment.(18) Of these, nearly three-quar-ters represent domesticates. These mayhave arrived at the quarter in the form ofprovisions, or slaves may have raisedthem in kitchen gardens or allotted plots.Slightly more than one quarter of theplant remains represent native fruits,nuts and edible and medicinal herbs�species that clearly fell outside of theplantation provisioning system.

The subfloor pit in the North Hillcabin was particularly rich in carbonizedfloral remains, yielding nearly all of thegrains and edible weeds, and just underhalf of the fruits. The erosion gully con-tained small quantities of grains and edi-ble weeds, and half of the fruit seedsand pits.(19)

The variety of identified floral typesrecovered at the Quarter Site was lessrich, consisting of only 15 species.These included six fruits, four vegeta-bles and grains, two nuts, and three edi-ble herbs. Most plant remains wereassociated with the fill of a single sub-floor pit in one of the cabins.(20)

While the majority of plant remainsidentified at the Quarter Site to date rep-resent domesticated species, just over20% are gathered, native plants, includ-ing nuts, edible herbs, and native wildspecies. The proportion of domesticatesto wild species is somewhat lower thanthat of the North Hill, but it nonethelessindicates the continuing importance offoraging.

How did slaves know which plantswere valuable to gather? In discussingthe transfer of African knowledge to theCaribbean landscape, anthropologistMerrick Posnansky has noted that plantsfrom the same families were used insimilar ways on both sides of theAtlantic.

71Bounded Yards and Fluid Boundaries:Landscapes of Slavery at Poplar Forest

This does not mean that WestAfricans were necessarily the first toutilize such plants in the Caribbean,but it does mean that they were ableto assimilate the knowledge of theirIndian predecessors rapidly, graspthe potentialities of the plants on ornear the plantation, and integrate thisnew information with their own con-siderable knowledge of plants andthe pharmacopoeia of the obeahmen and women.(21)

The similarities of usage between somenative herbs on Jamaica and in theAmerican South suggests such a trans-fer occurred in Virginia as well.(22)

All of these native plants grew inareas readily accessible to enslaved residents foraging within the plantationlandscape. Many grew in open fields,disturbed grounds, and the edge zoneseparating forest from field. Others, likeacorns and hickory nuts, could be col-lected in forested areas. Black walnutwas a species valued by Jefferson, andmost likely remained easily accessibleas a garden tree after 1806 when hebegan landscaping the grounds aroundhis house. Slaves may have encouragedthe growth of fruit and nut trees neartheir quarters, a practice in keeping withthe cultivation of fruit and nut-bearingtrees in the Caribbean and WestAfrica.(23)

The native plants represented by car-bonized remains served a variety ofnutritional uses. Most could be directlyconsumed as greens, cooked aspotherbs, or harvested for their seeds,which could be parched for cereal orground for flour.(24) African Americansin the South used violets to make soup,and the plant became known as �wildokra."(25) Fruits could be distilled intoalcohol or dried for later use.(26)

African Americans also used theseplants, as well as domesticated species,to combat sickness. While Jefferson

employed a neighboring physician totend to the ill or injured, slaves chose totreat themselves or, in cases beyondtheir skill, to consult a local �negro doc-tor."(27) Leaves, roots, bark, and evenpits held curative properties for a host ofmaladies.(28) While the use of nativefruits and herbs was widespread amongboth blacks and whites in the South, thecombination of plant use with WestAfrican beliefs about the causes andcures of sickness and disease formed adistinctly African-American approach tohealing. Archaeologists working on othersites occupied by enslaved families andtheir descendants have discovered simi-lar assemblages of wild plants, suggest-ing that strategies for approaching ill-ness that developed under slavery continued in the post-Emancipationsouth.(29)

Enslaved gardeners may have alsocultivated several of these plants aroundtheir cabins for their aesthetic quali-ties.(30) While archaeologists haveinvestigated the retention of African tra-ditions of yard sweeping, and scholarshave discussed the appearance of yard-art in post-Emancipation settings, little iscurrently known about the extent towhich enslaved peoples modified thelandscape for beauty alone.(31) In theend, plants fulfilled multiple functions,and probably were valued for all of theirproperties.

While it is likely that slaves gatheredthe edible herbs, medicinal plants, andmany of the native fruits in their owntime, their source for domesticatedplants is less clear. Corn and wheatwere staples within the provisioning system. Jefferson�s records of provi-sions, however, indicate that he custom-arily allotted these grains as flour ratherthan raw ears and sheaves.(32) It isunclear to what extent slaves gatheredcorn, wheat, oats, and rye from

plantation fields for their own use, and towhat extent they raised these grains intheir own plots.

Perhaps more intriguing is the pres-ence of sorghum in the fill of the sub-floor pit associated with the North Hill. Astaple of the West African diet, the grainwas unfamiliar to Jefferson, who called it�guinea corn� when he received a parcelof seeds from his friend James Madisonin 1791.(33) Its association with theNorth Hill indicates that sorghum was inuse at least six years prior to hisacquaintance with it. This contradictionin evidence suggests that enslaved men and women were cultivating thecrop for themselves without Jefferson�sknowledge.

Jefferson made no direct referencesto providing slaves with land for theirown gardening efforts at PoplarForest.(34) However, he recorded pur-chases of garden produce and poultry,as well as grass seed, hay, and fodderfrom enslaved men and women living onhis own and neighboring plantations.(35)These activities were widespreadthroughout the Southeast and theCaribbean. Men tended to provide themajority of garden produce, animalskins, grasses, and fodder, while womenprovided the bulk of the eggs.(36)

Archaeologists recovered relativelysmall numbers of animal bones at eachsite that provide additional clues aboutresidents� diets and their after-hoursengagement in hunting, trapping, andfishing.(37) Pigs provided the staplemeat diet at both quarter sites. The pre-dominance of foot, cranial, and longbone fragments indicates that slavesreceived less meaty portions of the animals that were distributed as part oftheir pork provisions.(38) Bones fromother domesticated species, such ascows and chickens, were found in rela-tively small numbers.(39)


Faunal analyst Susan Andrews hasnoted that the highly fragmented mam-mal bones recovered at the North Hillmay be attributed to the theory of the�one-pot meal,� which is a method ofcooking that is based on African tradi-tions. This would presumably involve thebreaking of bones into pieces smallenough to fit into a cooking crock so thatstews or dishes such as hoppin� johncould be prepared.(40)

Wild species made up an additionalportion of the slaves� meat diet. Theyconsumed white tailed deer, eastern cottontail rabbits, eastern gray squirrels,opossums, a woodchuck, a raccoon,and a fresh water bass or sunfish.(41)While all of these species are edible,some of the small mammals may alsohave been hunted for their skins. Thesecould be used at home or sold, traded,or bartered for goods.(42)

No significant variability wasobserved between the sites, althoughthe North Hill appears to have had morediversity in wild species. Because of thepoor preservation of the bones at bothsites, it is impossible to establishwhether the decline of diversity points toan increased reliance on provisions overtime, or whether it simply reflects tapho-nomic biases.(43)

Archaeologists found lead shot ofvarious weights and gunflints at bothsites and a musket frizzen at the NorthHill. Together with the variety of wild ani-mals remains present, these artifactsindicate that some enslaved individualshad access to firearms and used themfor hunting. Fishing, hunting, and trap-ping most likely took place during theevenings or on Sundays when slaveswere dismissed from plantation labor.While all of the bones found representanimals that likely inhabited the PoplarForest fields and woodlands, slavesmight have had occasion to go furtherafield to find food.

Poplar Forest Slavesand the BroaderLandscape

What do we know about the movementof enslaved men and women at PoplarForest? While travel was legally restrict-ed to those with permission to do so,boundaries appear to have been lessrigid than the law implied. From a rela-tively early age, Jefferson�s slaves knewof and experienced a landscape thatextended far beyond the borders of theirhome plantation. Through a variety ofmandatory assignments and voluntarychoices, they left the plantation andexperienced this wider community. Tiesof kinship, economic activities, workassignments, and acts of rebellion, sep-arately or in combination, influenced thefrequency and distance of their travel.

Some men and women were sepa-rated from family members by �abroadmarriages� or sales, and made travel aregular part of their weekly routine tovisit spouses, children, and relations.Others left the plantation to pursue economic activities in local shops ormarkets, or to attend church servic-es.(44) For many Poplar Forest slaves,travel was a part of their assigned workload. Wagoners carried goods to andfrom Lynchburg and area mills; messen-gers ran errands throughout the neigh-borhood.(45) These trips strengthenedties not only between landowners, butalso between enslaved workers, whodoubtlessly used such opportunities torenew acquaintances with their neighbors.

Because of the close ties betweenthe two plantations, many Poplar Forestslaves traveled to Monticello, extendingtheir knowledge of central Virginia farbeyond the bounds of Lynchburg. Asassigned by Jefferson and his over-seers, they transported goods and livestock, provided labor at key pointsin the harvest cycle, and served

apprenticeships.(46) People also volun-tarily traveled between the two planta-tions to visit family members.(47)

The route, whether followed bywagon or on foot, wound throughBuckingham County, fording the JamesRiver at Warren before enteringAlbemarle County for the final push toMonticello. Depending on the roadstaken, the journey was between 93 and116 miles, and could last as long aseight days.(48)

Through these trips, and the stopsthey entailed, enslaved travelers extend-ed their social and economic networks inimportant ways. Acquaintances in neigh-boring counties shared a meal,exchanged news, goods, and services;and created new bonds that might pro-vide shelter for a tired wagon driver oraid a runaway in negotiating hostile territory.

On those occasions when slavestraveled to escape bondage, family tiesclearly figured in to where they fled.Runaway advertisements throughout theSouth are full of comments indicatingthat husbands sought out wives andsons returned to the plantations of theirmothers. As families were broken up bysales, they nevertheless found ways ofmaintaining connections.(49)

For a small group of enslaved men,and a smaller number of women, thelandscape beyond Monticello was alsofamiliar. Watermen, transporting goodsfrom the plantation to market inRichmond, were afforded an uncommondegree of free movement and associa-tion. These men likely played vital rolesin maintaining family connections andsharing cultural knowledge across theregion. Their familiarity with largestretches of territory, and the people thatdwelled along the rivers, made themimportant sources of information for run-aways and aided in running away them-selves. One Poplar Forest slave, Jame


Hubbard, was �carried upriver� by awaterman. He remained free for a yearbefore being captured in what is nowWest Virginia.(50)

A few Monticello-based slaves trav-eled beyond Virginia, serving Jeffersonduring his residence in Philadelphia,Washington, D.C., and Paris. Whilethese places were far removed from therealities of daily life at Poplar Forest,they nevertheless played some part inthe perception of the wider world sharedby the men and women that lived there.Hannah, Jefferson�s enslaved cook, wasa literate woman. The only letter in herhand that survives is signed �Adieu.�Exactly how she learned French willnever be known, but it is interesting tospeculate about the extent to whichJefferson�s travels, and those of a fewmembers of the enslaved community,affected the worldview of those whostayed behind.

Conclusions

Drawing on traditions from West Africaand conditions endured in the NewWorld, enslaved men and womenformed the backbone of agriculturallabor in colonial and antebellum Virginia.While slaveholders ordered plantationlandscapes for the production of cashcrops, slaves modified and exploitedthem through foraging, gardening, poul-try raising, hunting, and fishing. Thelandscape that African Americans inhab-ited at Poplar Forest shaped therhythms of their working and privatelives and formed a starting point forexploring the broader communities ofLynchburg, Bedford County, andbeyond. Movement between neighboringplantations, shops, warehouses, andplaces of worship provided men andwomen with opportunities to shareideas, foster friendships and family ties,and plan for the future.

Slaves� familiarity with and relianceon the resources of the immediate land-scape structured choices of foods andmethods of preparing them, guided heal-ing practices, influenced aesthetic pref-erences, and touched on many otheraspects of daily life. These choices,made individually on thousands of plan-tations throughout the region, wereshared and refined by the formal andinformal exchanges of travelers. Beyondthe boundaries of the plantation lay aworld of possibilities: for finding aspouse, earning some money, sharingfaith, or finding freedom. Through myriadcontacts with the broader world, menand women received, developed, main-tained and spread a regional African-American culture.

Notes

1. Edwin Morris Betts, ThomasJefferson�s Farm Book, (Charlottesville:The University Press of Virginia, 1987),268-269.

2. Dumas Malone, Jefferson theVirginian, (Boston: Little, Brown andCompany, 1948), 21, 31-32; Betts,Jefferson�s Farm Book, 5-18; Barbara J.Heath, Hidden Lives, The Archaeologyof Slave Life at Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest, (Charlottesville: UniversityPress of Virginia, 1999), 10-13.

3. Donnan puts Angolans ahead ofSenegambians, in Philip D. Curtin, TheAtlantic Slave Trade, A Census,(Madison: The University of WisconsinPress, 1970), 157; Mechal Sobel, TheWorld They Made Together, Black andWhite Values in Eighteenth-CenturyVirginia, (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1987) 6, 244-245; Michael Mullin,Africa in America, Slave Acculturationand Resistance in the American Southand the British Caribbean 1736-1831,(Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1994), 24; Michael Gomez, Exchanging

Our Country Marks, The Transformationof African Identities in the Colonial andAntebellum South, (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press1998), 150.

4. Wayles was a factor for a group ofBristol merchants whose ship, the�Prince of Wales,� sailed for the coast ofAfrica in 1772 and delivered a cargo of280 slaves to Virginia. Julian P. Boyd,editor, The Papers of Thomas Jefferson,Volume 15, March 1789-November1789, (Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1958), 676-677; James A. Bearand Lucia C. Stanton, editors,�Jefferson�s Memorandum Books,Accounts, with Legal Records andMiscellany, 1767-1826,� in The Papersof Thomas Jefferson, Second Series,volumes 1 and 2, (Princeton: PrincetonUniversity Press, 1997), 752.

5. As recalled by her grandsonMadison, Betty Hemings was the daugh-ter of an African woman and a whiteship�s captain. She resided with her sixchildren and grandson at Wayles�sGuinea quarter before Jefferson becameher owner and moved her family toMonticello in 1774. Betts, Jefferson�sFarm Book, 9; Annette Gordon Reed,Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings,An American Controversy(Charlottesville: University Press ofVirginia, 1997), 23. The connection toAfrica of others owned by Jeffersonremains less clear. It is most likely thatSquire, Judy and Goliah, all bornbetween 1727 and 1731, were the chil-dren or grandchildren of survivors of theMiddle Passage, or experienced it them-selves.

Cuffey probably was derived fromKofi, Friday. Phoebe and Quash mayhave come from Efua (Friday), andKwesi (Sunday), names that were latercreolized. There can be no doubt that�black Sall�s� son Quomina, who fled


with his mother and siblings to theBritish during the American Revolution,carried the Akan day name for Saturday(Kwamena). Other names are sugges-tive of Fanti or Igbo ethnicities: Beckmay be derived from �Beke,� Anthonyfrom the tribal name �Andoni,� and Jennyfrom �Ginneh.� Laurie A. Wilkie,�Continuities in African Naming PracticesAmong the Slaves of Wade�s GreenPlantation, North Caicos.� Journal ofBahamas Historical Society 15(1)(1993),33-34. Anglicized names like Jack, Joe,and Abby, all common amongJefferson�s slaves, may also be deriva-tive of Akan day names. Ibid, 33.

Sanco, Luna, Isabel, Bella, Lucinda,Belinda, and Emanuel bore Hispanicnames. The name Dilcy, given to twogirls born in the 1760s (one at Shadwelland the other at Poplar Forest), mayhave been derived from the Spanishword dulce, meaning sweet. Later gen-erations of men and women owned byJefferson carried on these names,adding Flora, Amanda, Lucinda, Sophia,Melinda, Lania, Maria, Lovila, and Lovilofor children born into the community.

6. A.G. Hopkins, An EconomicHistory of West Africa (New York:Columbia University Press, 1973), 30.

7. Hopkins, An Economic History, 33-34.

8. S. O. Babalola and CarolyneDennis, �Returns to Women�s Labour inCash Crops in Nigeria,� in Agriculture,Women and Land, The AfricanExperience, edited by Jean Davidson(London: Westview Press, 1988), 82; IfiAmadiume, Male Daughters, FemaleHusbands, Gender and Sex in anAfrican Society (London: Zed Books,1987), 29, 34; E. Francis White,�Women in West and West-CentralAfrica,� in Women in Sub-SaharanAfrica, edited by Iris Berger and E.

Francis White, (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1999), 65; see alsoMiriam Goheen, �Land and theHousehold Economy: Women Farmersof the Grassfields Today,� in Agriculture,Women, and Land, the AfricanExperience, 90-105.

9. Hopkins, An Economic History,33-34.

10. Rhys Isaac, The Transformationof Virginia 1740-1790, (Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press,1982), 22-24.

11. At both Poplar Forest andMonticello, corn and peas, and corn andpotatoes shared the same fields. EdwinMorris Betts, Thomas Jefferson�sGarden Book, (Philadelphia: TheAmerican Philosophical Society, 1944),192-194, 517-518; Betts, Jefferson�sFarm Book, 88, 312-317; Joel Yancey toJefferson, February 7, 1820, MHi.

12. Hopkins, An Economic History, 36.

13. See Hopkins, 36-37, for discus-sion on why plows were not used inWest Africa.

14. Barbara J. Heath, �Rediscoveringan Historic Landscape: Archaeology,Documents and GIS at Poplar Forest�(paper presented at the annual meetingof the Society for Historical ArchaeologyConference on Historical andUnderwater Archaeology, Salt Lake City,UT, 1999).

15. Heath, Hidden Lives, 27-46;Barbara J. Heath and Amber Bennett,��The little Spots allow�d them�: TheArchaeological Study of African-American Yards,� in HistoricalArchaeology 34(2)(2000), 46-47.

16. Heath, Hidden Lives, 44. Thethree cabins excavated at the Quarterare designated Structures 1,2,and 3 in

the analysis. Structure 1 measured 15 ft.x 25 ft., was divided into two rooms,contained three subfloor pits, and wasraised off the ground on wooden andstone piers. Structure 2 measured 13 ft.square, contained no pits, and had anearthen floor. Structure 3 was badly pre-served. It probably measured 18.5 ft.sq., and was raised off the ground onstone piers. It did not contain any sub-floor pits, but had an extensive middenbeneath it.

17. Leslie Raymer, �MacroplantRemains from the Jefferson�s PoplarForest Slave Quarter: A Study in AfricanAmerican Subsistence Practices,� NewSouth Associates Technical Report#402(1996), Stone Mountain, GA; idem,�Draft data from the Poplar Forest NorthHill,� (manuscript on file, ThomasJefferson�s Poplar Forest, Virginia,2000); Heath, Hidden Lives, 59-60;Heath and Bennett, HistoricalArcheology, 46-48.

18. Plant remains from the siteinclude blackberry, elderberry, grape,peach, persimmon, strawberry andsumac (fruits); common bean, maize,oats, rye, sorghum, sunflower, andwheat (vegetables and grains); acorn,hickory and hickory/walnut (nuts); bed-straw, carpetweed, dock, goosefoot,knotweed, pigweed, purslane, smart-weed, and vervain (edible herbs); cop-perleaf, nightshade, prickly mallow, andragweed (weeds); agropyrn, goose-grass, and an unidentified grass family(grasses); viola (ornamental/edible) andpoppy (condiment). Raymer, �Draftdata."

19. Raymer, �Draft data.� The databreak down as follows: 90% of the grain,46% of the fruit, and 89% of the edibleweed assemblages were recovered fromthe fill of the subfloor pit; 8% of thegrain, 50% of the fruit, and 8% of the


edible weed assemblages came fromthe fill layers in the erosion gully thatcorrespond with the occupation dates ofthe cabin. The remainder of the car-bonized floral materials recovered fromthe site came from a small pit locatedjust outside of the cabin (less than 2%overall) and the upper layers of gully fill(7%) and small isolated features (lessthan 2% overall).

20. The data in the following discus-sion of the Quarter site reflect floralremains from Structures 1 and 2 only.Analysis of Structure 3 is not yet com-plete, but a preliminary examination indi-cates no new species present. Floralremains include cherry, grape, huckle-berry, peach, persimmon, and raspberry(fruits); common bean, maize, sunflower,and wheat (vegetables and grains); hick-ory and walnuts (nuts); and bedstraw,goosefoot, and smartweed (edibleherbs). Distributions are consistent withthe North Hill findings if peaches areexcluded from the count. Nearly 73% offruits, vegetables, and edible and medic-inal herbs were recovered from the mostintact subfloor pit in Structure 1, whilethe other two pits contained less than1% of the assemblage. These featureswere extremely shallow, however, and itis likely that most of their contents weredisplaced by plowing. The floor ofStructure 2 contained 25% of the edibleassemblage excluding peach pits, whichmade up 79% of the total assemblagefrom this feature. See Raymer, NewSouth Technical Report #402.

21. Merrick Posnansky, �WestAfricanist Reflections on African-American Archaeology,� in I, Too, AmAmerica: Archaeological Studies ofAfrican-American Life, edited byTheresa Singleton, (Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia, 1999), 32.

22. U. P. Hedrick, editor, Sturtevant�sEdible Plants of the World, (New York:Dover Publications, Inc., 1972), 43.

23. Heath and Bennett, HistoricalArchaeology, 39-41. Remains of car-bonized wood were systematicallyrecovered from the fill of the subfloor pitin the North Hill cabin and the associat-ed erosion gully fill. These were ana-lyzed by Leslie Raymer of New SouthAssociates. In all, 17 identifiable speciesof trees are represented in the woodcharcoal assemblage. The ubiquity(expressed as a percentage of the totalnumber of proveniences in which agiven species is present) of such as wal-nut, sycamore, hophornbeam, elm/hack-berry, dogwood, black locust, beech,basswood, ash, hickory, oak, and pineindicates that at this time, much of theland surrounding the cabin site was cov-ered in hardwood forest, and had notbeen cleared for cultivation. Carbonizedoak made up nearly 40% of all the char-coal recovered at the site, followed byhickory (7%), and beech (4%), suggest-ing that site residents preferred thesewoods with oak the clear favorite.

Charcoal samples recovered fromthe Quarter site indicate that by the firstdecade of the nineteenth century, thelandscape around the �old plantation�had changed dramatically. The numberof identifiable species recovered fromfeatures associated with two of the cab-ins shrank to three (hickory, oak, pine),with pine predominating. These are con-sistent with the regeneration of second-ary growth in abandoned fields.

24. The young leaves of goosefoot,dock, nightshade, pigweed, andpurslane were eaten as greens orcooked as potherbs, comparable in tasteto spinach and asparagus. Dock, goose-foot, pigweed, purslane, and smartweedseeds provided flour or cereal. Hedrick,Sturtevant�s, 43-44, 450-451, 512-514,

544; Leslie Raymer, �MacroplantRemains from Six Nineteenth-CenturyCabins at the Hermitage, Tennessee: AStudy of Antebellum and Early Emanci-pation Era African American SubsistencePatterns,� in New South AssociatesTechnical Report #376 (1997), StoneMountain GA, 39-40, 42-44.

25. Hedrick, Sturtevant�s, 598.

26. Ibid, 244, 522. Jefferson reportedon the abundance of the peach harvestsat Poplar Forest, noting that enslavedwomen dried and processed the fruits ina variety of ways. Peaches, persim-mons, blackberries, grapes, and elder-berries could be distilled for wine, beer,or spirits. See also Betts, Jefferson�sGarden Book, 517-518; Joel Yancey toJefferson, November 19, 1819, MHi.

27. Joel Yancey to Jefferson, April10, 1819, MHi; Joel Yancey to Jefferson,July 1, 1819, MHi; see also Thomas M.Randolph to Jefferson, April 25, 1800,ViU.

28. Sumac cured worms, sores,yaws, and burns. See Pamela Foreyand Ruth Lindsay, An Instant Guide toMedicinal Plants (New York: GramercyBooks, 1991), 101; Kay K. Moss,Southern Folk Medicine 1750-1820(Columbia: University of South Carolina,1999), 77, 101, 104, 110, 132, 207.Raspberries, strawberries, blackberries,and persimmons served for kidney orbladder complaints, �looseness of thebelly,� and sores. Persimmon fruit wasvalued for its astringent qualities, andused to clean wounds. Virtually all partsof the peach served some curative pur-pose: the leaves and flowers acted as apurgative or, made into a poultice, dimin-ished swelling; the stones aided sorethroat and pain in the side. Flowers,roots, leaves, and bark of elderberrytrees eased swelling, snakebite,toothache, burns, and the symptoms of


a skin irritation known as scald head.Taken internally, they could be used as apurgative, diuretic or emetic. See Moss,Southern Folk Medicine, 173, 182, 198,199, 207.

Edible herbs also possessed medici-nal qualities. Infusions of knotweed,smartweed, or pigweed stopped bleed-ing from ulcers, sores, piles, andrelieved menstrual pain. See Forey andLindsay, Instant Guide to MedicinalPlants, 23; Raymer, New SouthTechnical Report #376, 40, 43; see alsoBetts, Jefferson�s Garden Book, 644.Knotweed tea dispelled kidney stones,while bedstraw relieved throat and chestinflammations, and disorders of the kid-neys. Moss, Southern Folk Medicine, 58,94. Purslane was also known to haveastringent properties, while the value ofdock was in its ability to treat skin condi-tions, leprosy, venereal disease, andtumors. It also served as a laxative andblood purifier. See Raymer, New SouthTechnical Report #376, 44; see alsoMoss, Southern Folk Medicine, 181.

The presence of jimsonweed at theNorth Hill hints at the possibility of itsuse medicinally. While all parts of theplant are poisonous, the seeds areespecially toxic. Nevertheless, eigh-teenth and nineteenth century healersput it in salves and poultices to treat avariety of skin conditions. Its mostimportant use, however, was in treatingspasmodic coughing associated withasthma. The plant was burned and thesmoke inhaled to relieve symptoms. SeeRaymer, New South Technical Report#376, 47; see also Betts, Jefferson�sGarden Book, 644.

Jefferson also included malvaceae inhis listing of medicinal plants native toVirginia (sida rhombifolia and sida abu-tilon), and a prickly mallow was recov-ered at the North Hill (sida spinosa).Raymer, �Draft data."

29. Charles B. Purdue, Jr., ThomasE. Barden and Robert K. Phillips, edi-tors, Weevils in the Wheat, Interviewswith Virginia Ex-Slaves (Charlottesville,University Press of Virginia, 1976), 73,221-222, 263, 310; Ywone D. Edwards-Ingram, �An Inter-Disciplinary Approachto African-American Medicinal andHealth Practices in Colonial America,� inThe Watermark 20(1997), 71; Raymer,New South Technical Report #376.

30. Poppies, violets, pigweed, andjimsonweed were commonly used asornamentals by white gardeners of theperiod. Betts, Jefferson�s Garden Book,24, 644; Raymer, New South TechnicalReport #376, 40, 46-47.

31. Heath and Bennett, HistoricalArchaeology, 41-45.

32. Betts, Jefferson�s Farm Book, 50,52, 77, 163.

33. Idem, Jefferson�s Garden Book, 166.

34. Subsequent owners of the estatemade reference to provision grounds.Hutter Farm Journal, 1844-1854, (manu-script on file, Thomas Jefferson�s PoplarForest).

35. Barbara J. Heath, �EngenderingChoice: Slavery and Consumerism inCentral Virginia� (paper presented at theannual meeting of the Society forHistorical Archaeology Conference onHistorical and Underwater Archaeology,Atlanta, GA, 1998); see also Bear andStanton, Jefferson�s MemorandumBooks.

36. Heath and Bennett, HistoricalArchaeology, 39-42; Heath,�Engendering Choice."

37. Because of the natural acidity ofthe Poplar Forest soils, bone preserva-tion was relatively poor. Those bonesthat did survive represent the more

durable ones (i.e. teeth or long bones)or fragments preserved in featureswhose soil chemistry had been alteredhistorically by the addition of ash orother materials that neutralized the soil.Additionally, many bones sufferedweathering, burning, butchering, gnaw-ing, and other modifications, both inten-tional and natural, that made it impossi-ble to identify them beyond broad cate-gories such as �unidentified bird� or�unidentified mammal.� Consequently,the following discussion provides a fairlysketchy assessment of the importanceand variety of meat in the diets ofenslaved residents of each site.

38. Susan Trevarthen Andrews,�Faunal Analysis of Slave Quarter Site atPoplar Forest� (manuscript on file,Thomas Jefferson�s Poplar Forest,Virginia, 1993); Betts, Jefferson�sGarden Book, 467; idem, Jefferson�sFarm Book, 48.

39. Archaeologists did collect quanti-ties of eggshells at both sites, suggest-ing the dietary importance of eggs, butraising questions about the low frequen-cy of chicken bones.

40. Susan Trevarthen Andrews,�Faunal Analysis of North Hill Features,Poplar Forest,� (manuscript on file,Thomas Jefferson�s Poplar Forest,Virginia, 1999), 19.

41. Bones from eastern cottontailrabbits, eastern gray squirrels, opos-sums, a woodchuck, a raccoon, and afresh water bass or sunfish were recov-ered at the North Hill; white tailed deer,opossum, rabbits, and gray squirrelswere found at the Quarter. Andrews,�Faunal Analysis� 1993; idem, �FaunalAnalysis for Poplar Forest Feature 1206�(manuscript on file, Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest, Virginia, 1995); idem,�Poplar Forest Quarter Site FaunalAnalysis� (manuscript on file, Thomas


Jefferson�s Poplar Forest, Virginia,1996); idem, �Faunal Analysis of NorthHill, Poplar Forest� (manuscript on file,Thomas Jefferson�s Poplar Forest,Virginia, 1998); idem, �Faunal Analysisof North Hill Features� 1999.

42. Bear and Stanton, Jefferson�sMemorandum Book, 500. Jefferson pur-chased squirrel skins from JameHubbard, an enslaved waterman in1780. Heath notes in �Slavery andConsumerism: A Case Study fromCentral Virginia,� in African-AmericanArchaeology Newsletter 19 (1)(1997), 6,that a merchant who operated a storenear Poplar Forest recorded purchasingraccoon skins from one of his enslavedcustomers.

43. Betts, Jefferson�s Garden Book,517-518; idem, Jefferson�s Farm Book,48, 58, 149, 417; Jefferson to JeremiahGoodman, February 3, 1814, ViU;Jefferson to Patrick Gibson, November3, 1814, NHi. In addition to corn, wheat,herring, and pork, Poplar Forest slavesreceived milk, salt, and whiskey.

44. Heath, African-AmericanArchaeology Newsletter; Heath,�Engendering Choice.� Will kept shopaccounts in New London andLynchburg. Joel Yancey to Jefferson,October 14, 1819, MHi. Others frequent-ed the Lynchburg Sunday markets asbuyers and sellers. When a Sunday coldsnap threatened the tobacco crop in1819, overseer Joel Yancey discovered�every man except Armstead at B. Creekhad gone off and 2 of the women toLynchburg, and 2 men and 2 womenfrom Tomahawk�.� See also John Early,�Diary of John Early, Bishop of theMethodist Episcopal Church, South,� inVirginia Magazine of History andBiography 35 (1927), 7, on the AfricanMeeting House in the Forest area.

45. Jefferson to James Lyle, April 5,1811, MHi; Jefferson to JeremiahGoodman, August 9, 1812, DLC; JamesA. Bear, editor, Jefferson at Monticello(Charlottesville: University Press ofVirginia, 1967), 67-68. Jefferson�s socialand economic relationships within thelocal community necessitated the regu-lar movement of slaves passing through-out the neighborhood conducting hisbusiness. Wagoners carried flour to localmills, tobacco to market, and suppliesfrom the waterfront in Lynchburg back tothe plantation.

Jefferson to Charles Clay, December18, 1811, MHi; Jefferson to CharlesClay, December 14, 1812, DLC;Jefferson to Charles Clay, May 5, 1813,MHi, Charles Clay to Jefferson,September 5, 1810, MHi; Charles Clayto Jefferson, May 1, 1813, MHi.Messenger service seems to have beenthe task of teenage boys and girls. Overthe course of three years, they deliverednotes, surveying equipment, gardenseeds, and a copy of Tacitus toJefferson�s friend, Charles Clay, wholived at nearby Ivy Hill. In return, Claysent his own slaves to Poplar Forestcarrying rye seeds, a basket of aspara-gus, and a variety of notes.

William Steptoe to Jefferson, July 24,1819, MHi; Ellen Randolph to MarthaRandolph, August 24, 1819, ViU. WhenJefferson sent a messenger to physicianWilliam Steptoe, asking leave to borrowhis syringe, Steptoe replied that thedesired object was �so often lent andsent about the neighborhood that I amsorry to say I do not know who had itlast. However I will dispatch a boy afterit.� Two enslaved maids belonging toMrs. Walker, whose property boundedPoplar Forest to the west, made weeklydeliveries of fruits, vegetables, sweet-meats, and lamb to Jefferson�s grand-daughters during the summer of 1819.

BCOB 1781, 333-334; BCSB1:351;BCSB2:166. Unsanctioned travel withinthe environs of Poplar Forest alsooccurred. In 1781, Jack and Will joinedPeter, the slave of John Thompson, Sr.,in breaking into the mill and stillhouseowned by Thompson�s son. The threewere caught, tried, and punished fortheir actions. Peter probably lived onThompson�s tract of land adjoiningPoplar Forest to the east.

46. Jefferson to Jeremiah Goodman,December 31, 1811, ViU; Jefferson toJeremiah Goodman, January 6, 1815,ViU; Jefferson to Joel Yancey, March 6,1817, MHi; Jefferson to Joel Yancey,January 11, 1818, MHi; Joel Yancey toJefferson, January 9, 1819, MHi; JoelYancey to Jefferson, December 31,1819, MHi; Jefferson to John WaylesEppes, October 22, 1820, MHi; Betts,Jefferson�s Farm Book, 42-44. In theyears following Jefferson�s retirement,wagoners made frequent journeysbetween the two properties, carrying furnishings, farm equipment and foodfrom one plantation to another.

Jefferson to Edmund Bacon,December 5, 1811, DLC; Jefferson toJeremiah Goodman, December 13, 1812,ViU; Jefferson to Jeremiah Goodman,January 8, 1813, ViU; Jefferson toJeremiah Goodman, January 6, 1815,ViU; Betts Jefferson�s Garden Book, 534-535. Workers moved between the twoplaces when Jefferson needed extrahands at harvest or planting time. He alsosent teenage boys and girls to Monticelloto learn a trade in his nailery or textilefactory. Enslaved men, as well asteenage boys drove cattle, hogs, andsheep from Bedford to Albemarle in theearly winter for slaughter.

47. Heath, Hidden Lives, 16, 69, note12. To create productive farms,Jefferson split most of the families thathe owned between his two properties.


He granted family members to visit theirkinspeople from time to time. Such visitsusually took place at Christmas, andoften individuals accompanied wagonsbearing supplies to Poplar Forest, oraided in the driving of livestock on thereturn journey.

48. Jefferson to Martha Randolph,November 10, 1816, MHi; Joel Yanceyto Jefferson January 9, 1819, MHi;Jefferson to Joel Yancey, January 17,1819, MHi. While Johnny and Randallmade the reverse trip in about threedays, other slaves accompanying thewagon and herds of recalcitrant livestocknorthward might be on the road for eightdays or longer.

Joel Yancey for Nace, March 12,1812, MHi; Jeremiah Goodman toJefferson, December 30, 1814, ViU;Jefferson to Jeremiah Goodman,January 6, 1815, ViU; Joel Yancey toJefferson, October 14, 1819, MHi. It tookNace two days to traverse the thirty-seven miles from Poplar Forest to HenryFlood�s tavern in Buckingham Countywhen he traveled to Monticello on anearly spring trip in 1821. Phil Hubbardmade shorter work of the journey fromBedford to Albemarle, taking only twodays to traverse the one hundred milesbetween the two plantations. His was anunauthorized trek, triggered by angerabout an overseer�s refusal to recognizehis marriage. At Monticello, he sought,and gained Jefferson�s support. Fiveyears later, his nephew, William, ran toMonticello, this time to contest beingasked to work on a Sunday.

Joel Yancey to Jefferson, December24, 1818, MHi. Whether others appre-hended between the two plantations hadlarger plans for freedom is unclear. In1813, Hercules was detained inBuckingham jail and returned to PoplarForest. Two other young Monticello men,Dick and Moses, arrived a Poplar Forest

on stolen horses, and without a pass, atChristmas in 1818. When the owners ofone horse arrived, Dick claimed that hehad found the horse, and that they hadcome to Bedford to visit family. He waswhipped for the offense. Moses declinedto make excuses, escaping before hecould be punished.

49. Lynchburg Virginian, August 31,1824, 4. Bob, a young man who hadbeen raised by Jefferson at Monticello,and subsequently sold, was employedby his fourth owner as a waterman. Hisowner, in drafting the advertisement forhis return, recognized the importance ofkinship, stating that �he has relations atMonticello, at Mr. Jefferson�s plantationnear Lynchburg, in Richmond�and atWilton below Richmond.� He added thatit was most likely that Bob was makinghis way to Monticello or Poplar Forest.Whether he succeeded, or was capturedand returned, is not known.

50. Reuben Perry to Jefferson,March 29, 1811, ViW; Jefferson toReuben Perry, April 16, 1812, ViW;Daniel Meaders, Advertisements forRunway Slaves in Virginia 1801-1820(New York: Garland Publishing Inc.,1997), 161. In the spring of 1811, whileJefferson was visiting Poplar Forest,Jame Hubbard fled Monticello by boatwith Harry, a waterman who belonged toJefferson�s son-in-law. In a previousflight, he had �attempted to get out ofthe state Northwardly� and had beenapprehended. This time he made hisway to Lexington, where he lived fornearly a year before he was discovered.He eluded capture, getting as far asPendleton County, in what is now WestVirginia, before he was arrested.

Bibliography

Manuscript Sources

Bedford County Court Records. OrderBook (BCOB).

Bedford County Court Records. SurveyBook (BCSB).

College of William and Mary,Williamsburg (ViW).

Jefferson Papers.

Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.(DLC). Jefferson Papers.

Massachusetts Historical Society,Boston (MHi). Jefferson Papers.

New York Historical Society, New York(NHi). Jefferson Papers.

University of Virginia Library,Charlottesville (ViU). JeffersonPapers.

Thomas Jefferson�s Poplar Forest.Hutter Farm Journal 1844-1854.

Books, Articles, and Papers

Amadiume, Ifi. Male Daughters, FemaleHusbands, Gender and Sex in anAfrican Society. London: Zed Books, 1987.

Andrews, Susan Trevarthen. FaunalAnalysis of Slave Quarter Site atPoplar Forest. Manuscript. Forest,Virginia: Thomas Jefferson�s PoplarForest, 1993.

��. Faunal Analysis for PoplarForest Feature 1206. Manuscript.Forest, Virginia: Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest, 1995.

��. Poplar Forest Quarter SiteFaunal Analysis. Manuscript. Forest,Virginia: Thomas Jefferson�s PoplarForest, 1996.


��. Faunal Analysis of North Hill,Poplar Forest. Manuscript. Forest,Virginia: Thomas Jefferson�s PoplarForest, 1998.

��. Faunal Analysis of North HillFeatures, Poplar Forest. Manuscript.Forest, Virginia: Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest, 1999.

Babalola, S.O. and Carolyne Dennis.�Returns to Women�s Labour in CashCrops in Nigeria.� In Agriculture,Women and Land, The AfricanExperience, edited by Jean Davison,79-89. London: Westview Press,1987.

Bear, James A., editor. Jefferson atMonticello. Charlottesville: UniversityPress of Virginia, 1967.

Bear, James A. and Lucia C. Stanton,editors. �Jefferson�s MemorandumBooks, Accounts, with Legal Recordsand Miscellany, 1767-1826.� ThePapers of Thomas Jefferson, SecondSeries, volumes 1 and 2. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1997.

Berger, Iris and E. Frances White.Women in Sub-Saharan Africa.Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1999.

Betts, Edwin Morris. Thomas Jefferson�sGarden Book. Philadelphia: TheAmerican Philosophical Society,1944.

��. Thomas Jefferson�s Farm Book.Charlottesville: The University Pressof Virginia, 1987.

Boyd, Julian P., editor. The Papers ofThomas Jefferson, Volume 15, March1789-November 1789. Princeton:Princeton University Press, 1958.

Chambers, Jr., S. Allen. Poplar Forestand Thomas Jefferson. LittleCompton, RI: Fort ChurchPublishers, Inc, 1993.

Curtin, Philip D. The Atlantic SlaveTrade, A Census. Madison: TheUniversity of Wisconsin Press, 1970.

Davison, Jean, editor. Agriculture,Women and Land, The AfricanExperience. London: WestviewPress, 1987.

Early, John �Diary of John Early, Bishopof the Methodist Episcopal Church,South.� Virginia Magazine of Historyand Biography 35 (1927): 7-8.

Edwards-Ingram, Ywone D. �An Inter-Disciplinary Approach to African-American Medicinal and HealthPractices in Colonial America.� TheWatermark 20 (3)(1997): 67-73.

Forey, Pamela and Ruth Lindsay. AnInstant Guide to Medicinal Plants.New York: Gramercy Books, 1991.

Goheen, Miriam. �Land and theHousehold Economy: WomenFarmers of the Grassfields Today.� InAgriculture, Women and Land, TheAfrican Experience, edited by JeanDavison, 90-105. London: WestviewPress, 1987.

Gomez, Michael A. Exchanging ourCountry Marks, The Transformationof African Identities in the Colonialand Antebellum South. Chapel Hill:The University of North CarolinaPress, 1998.

Gordon Reed, Annette. ThomasJefferson and Sally Hemings, AnAmerican Controversy.Charlottesville: University Press ofVirginia, 1997.

Heath, Barbara J. �Slavery andConsumerism: A Case Study fromCentral Virginia.� African-AmericanArchaeology Newsletter 19(1)(1997): 1-8.

��. �Engendering Choice: Slaveryand Consumerism in CentralVirginia.� Paper presented at theannual meeting of the Society forHistorical Archaeology Conferenceon Historical and UnderwaterArchaeology, Atlanta, GA, 1998.

��. �African Americans andConsumerism: Historical andArchaeological Sources on MaterialCulture.� Paper presented at the 20thannual Conference of the NationalCouncil of Public History, Austin, TX 1998.

��. Hidden Lives, The Archaeologyof Slave Life at Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest. Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia, 1999.

��. �Rediscovering a HistoricLandscape: Archaeology, Documentsand GIS at Poplar Forest.� Paperpresented at the annual meeting ofthe Society for Historical ArchaeologyConference on Historical andUnderwater Archaeology, Salt LakeCity, UT, 1999.

Heath, Barbara J. and Amber Bennett.��The little Spots allow�d them�: TheArchaeological Study of African-American Yards.� HistoricalArchaeology 34(2)(2000):38-55.

Hedrick, U. P., editor. Sturtevant�s EdiblePlants of the World. New York: DoverPublications, Inc, 1972.

Hopkins, A.G. An Economic History ofWest Africa. New York: ColumbiaUniversity Press, 1973.


Isaac, Rhys. The Transformation ofVirginia 1740-1790. Chapel Hill:University of North Carolina Press,1982.

McNeill, William H. �American FoodCrops in the Old World.� In Seeds ofChange, edited by Herman J. Violaand Carolyn Margolis, 43-59.Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianInstitution Press, 1991.

Malone, Dumas. Jefferson the Virginian.Boston: Little, Brown and Company,1948.

Martin, Ann Smart. Buying into the Worldof Goods: Eighteenth-CenturyConsumerism and the Retail Tradeform London to the Virginia Frontier.Ann Arbor, MI: University MicrofilmsInternational, 1993.

Meaders, Daniel. Advertisements forRunaway Slaves in Virginia 1801-1820, New York: Garland PublishingInc, 1997.

Moss, Kay K. Southern Folk Medicine1750-1820. Columbia: University ofSouth Carolina Press, 1999.

Mullin, Michael. Africa in America, SlaveAcculturation and Resistance in theAmerican South and the BritishCaribbean 1736-1831. Urbana:University of Illinois Press, 1994.

Purdue, Charles L. Jr., Barden, ThomasE., and Phillips, Robert K. Weevils inthe Wheat, Interviews with VirginiaEx-Slaves. Charlottesville: UniversityPress of Virginia, 1976.

Posnansky, Merrick. �West AfricanistReflections on African-AmericanArchaeology.� In �I, Too, Am America:�Archaeological Studies of African-American Life, edited by TheresaSingleton, 21-37. Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia, 1999.

Raymer, Leslie. �Macroplant Remainsfrom the Jefferson�s Poplar ForestSlave Quarter: A Study in AfricanAmerican Subsistence Practices.�New South Associates TechnicalReport #402(1996). Stone Mountain,GA.

��. �Macroplant Remains from SixNineteenth-Century Cabins at theHermitage, Tennessee: A Study ofAntebellum and Early EmancipationEra African American SubsistencePatterns.� New South AssociatesTechnical Report #376(1997). StoneMountain, GA.

��. �Draft data from the PoplarForest North Hill.� Manuscript.Forest, Virginia: Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest, 2000.

��. Personal communication, 1992.

Singleton, Theresa, editor. �I, Too, AmAmerica": Archaeological Studies ofAfrican-American Life. Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia, 1999.

Sobel, Mechal. The World They MadeTogether, Black and White Values inEighteenth-Century Virginia.Princeton: Princeton UniversityPress, 1987.

Viola, Herman J. and Margolis, Carolyn,editors. Seeds of Change.Washington, D.C.: SmithsonianInstitution Press, 1991.

White, E. Francis. �Women in West andWest-Central Africa.� In Women inSub-Saharan Africa, edited by IrisBerger and E. Francis White, 63-130.Bloomington: Indiana UniversityPress, 1999.

Wilkie, Laurie A. �Continuities in AfricanNaming Practices Among the Slavesof Wade�s Green Plantation, NorthCaicos.� Journal of BahamasHistorical Society 15(1)(1993): 32-37.


Session Three:

BLACK CULTURAL LANDSCAPES AND INSTITUTIONS

83

Although many were enslaved well into the nine-teenth century, people of African descent infusedtheir African cultural traditions in domestic spaces,

public and secret routes, the education of their young, bur-ial practices, and other aspects of their physical andsocial environments. Related historic places include, butare not limited to, schools, churches, gardens, cemeteries,settlement patterns, places of spirituality and worship,houses, transportation routes, and places of assembly andsocial interaction.

Africanisms in the �Old Ship of Zion�:What Are Their Forms and Why Do They Persist?

Audrey Brown

Interwoven Traditions:Archaeology at The Conjurer�s Cabins and AfricanAmerican Cemetery at the Jordan and FrogmorePlantations

Kenneth Brown

Some Evidence of African Cultural Traditions Among the Residents of Black Church Centered Farming Communities in North Central Louisiana

Joe Lewis Caldwell

Session Three:

Black CulturalLandscapes and Institutions

Africanisms in the �Old Ship of Zion�:What Are These Forms and Why Do They Persist?

Audrey Brown

85

In 1980 my husband and I went to livewith his mother's people in ruralnorth central Florida. We left

Interstate 75 at Ocala and headed weston SR 40 for about eight to ten miles.There, just off the road as it turned fromasphalt to dirt, we found New ZionBaptist Church. We were in the heart ofZion, where African Americans havelived for at least 178 years, first asmaroons, then as slaves, and then asfree pioneers. Where they once home-steaded, now a few members of thosefamilies continue as a community, in aplace of cultural memory, an AfricanAmerican ethnographic cultural land-scape called Zion (pseudonym).(1)

The landscape concept derives from the art worldwhere beginning in the sixteenth century paintersdepicted rural scenery as an idealized or imaginedplace where people lived divorced from the realitiesof the everyday real world.(2) Anthropologists usethe concept of an ethnographic landscape as aframing convention, as they try to distinguishbetween the "objective" outsider's view of placeand the insider's or "native's point of view." Wedescribe the objective and interrogate how, asSetha Low put it, "place becomes space made culturally meaningful."(3) In this paper I aim touncover how, in Zion, African Americans createdand sustained such a place for generations. I arguethat some of the "Africanisms" I found in Zionhelped sustain this community for more than a cen-tury. The paper is based on primary source ethno-graphic and archival data I collected between 1980and 1994 in Florida and other parts of the south

and the Caribbean, along with comparative dataderived from the literature on African Americanarcheology.

Precinct 4

The place that people who live here call Zion, U.S.Census Population schedules call Precinct 4. Oralhistory, historical documents, tombstones, mapsand references to the population from 1828 through1875 suggests that most Zionites are descendantsof maroons, freed slaves, and Seminole Indians.(4)

In 1828 J. C. Ley, a Methodist circuit rider wastraveling through Florida preaching to settlers, theirslaves, maroons and Seminoles. In his diary Leysays he heard about a group of blacks living withthe Indians a few miles west of Camp King, thegeneral location of present day Zion.(5) He set outto find them hoping they would translate his mes-sage to the Indians. Ley tells of finding the Indiansand about 50 blacks who came out of the woodsled by Pompey, the "father and grandfather andleader of them all."(6)

Early maps of Florida mark "Negro Town" at themouth of the Withlachochee River, and Negrotowns along the Suwanee River. Modern day Zionis geographically located between theWithlachochee and Oklawaha Rivers. Comparisonof the 1860 and 1870 census schedules forPrecinct 4 show a dramatic increase in the blackpopulation. This finding supports historical accountsthat after the Afro-Seminole Wars some maroonswent into hiding only to reemerge after the CivilWar. It also supports oral history and written histori-cal accounts of slaves leaving South Carolina andGeorgia plantations during the final days of the CivilWar, traveling by boat along the Georgia coastalwaters down the St. John and Oklawaha Rivers tofreedom in the isolated thickets of CentralFlorida.(7) Zion is an ethnographic cultural land-scape full of structures, sites and places of memory


1

2

3 4

to descendants of seven AfricanAmerican families enumerated there inthe U.S. Census of 1870 and the FloridaState Census of 1875.(8)

Around 1863, my husband's great-grandparents, Abraham Lincoln andMelinda Johnson, run-a-way slaves fromSouth Carolina, first camped in thewoods of present day Zion. By 1870 onefinds the Staggers, Mobleys, Austins,Robinsons, Carters, and Jacobs livednearby. In the 1880s these seven fami-lies and their descendants, formallyhomesteaded the lands on which theysettled. [Figure 1] The Lewis brothersjoined them and married their daughters.The Wilson brothers and JoeMaeweathers did the same thing tenyears later. One hundred years later, Irecorded accounts of life in Zion as thechildren and grandchildren of theseAfrican American pioneers rememberedit or as their elders recalled it to them.(9)

Between 1870 and 1880, "Uncle"Oliver Lewis, an ex-slave Baptist deaconfrom Virginia and "Aunt" Suzie Staggers,the community midwife, began to holdBaptist church meetings in Zion "peopleshomes," then in "bush harbors." "Aunt"Suzie was the first Mother of the Church.The people built a log cabin church onland donated by Huldy Austin, who later

became the second Mother of theChurch. Huldy Austin was also a com-munity midwife. Around 1885-1890"Aunt" Suzie's son Reverend HenryStaggers was called to pastor thechurch. He continued to pastor thereuntil his death in the 1940s. His daugh-ter, "Cousin" Rea, the Mother of theChurch when I lived in Zion, remem-bered her father holding services in aone-room frame church, before he built"Old Zion" around 1900. [Figure 2]"New" Zion church followed a half centu-ry later.[Figure 3] Zion settlement wasnamed after the church. Zion church likeother rural churches was originally afamily church, with no outside member-ship. To keep it that way, one persontold me the community men built anoth-er little church for "them boys who comedown here to work in the turpentine stillsand quarries."(10) [Figure 4]

Old Zion church like the other Baptistchurches that mushroomed across therural south after the Civil War, was thecenter of community life. From Old Zionand the other churches sprang schools,benevolent and mutual aid societies,social institutions that sustained commu-nity life. Between 1869 and 1889 Zionchurchwomen were among the Afro-Baptist women who formed 28 women'ssocieties in Florida to help ex-slaves.(11)

Over the first 40 years of the twenti-eth century the hamlet was at its zenith.During this time about 300 Zion peoplefarmed over 1,700 acres of homesteadland. They were mostly subsistence andsmall cash crop farmers of cowpeas,corn, and rice. The community grew aswomen birthed families of five to tenchildren. Taking their small babies withthem, women worked the fields alongside of the men.[Figure 5] Some taskswere the sole province of women suchas delivering babies, caring for the eld-erly and children, and treating commonillnesses with herbal remedies.(12)

Even in the 1980s there were somewomen who still farmed and all women,regardless of education and occupation,were responsible for providing and cook-ing vegetables and other staple foodsfor the family, and caring for the elderlyand the young.(13)

My husband and I first lived in one ofthree houses still found on his great-grandfather's homestead. It was a tin-roofed, cement-block house that hadbeen built in 1959. The rooms ranged insize from eight feet by eight feet to 12feet squared. The cabin behind it in thenortheast was about a 12-feet squaredroom with another smaller room behind,and a little eight feet by eight feet roombuilt out in front on one side of theporch. [Figure 6] It had wooden windowsand an open hearth for cooking andwarmth.(14) There was frame shotgunhouse behind our house on the south-west, back about 50 yards. [Figure 7]The rooms in the frame house weresmall, no larger than ten feet by ten feet.Like most houses in Zion, all three ofthese houses had porches.

The Staggers home about a half-mileeast of where we lived was a modifiedshotgun house. There were two roomsbuilt parallel to the basic two room, shedkitchen model seen in Figure 12. In1980 it was still heated by an openhearth. Two of Suzie Stagger's grand-daughters lived there along with theirextended families. None of the rooms inthis house exceed ten feet by ten feet.Nearby there were ruins of a building ofthe same design that had been home toanother one of their sisters. About 50feet away, a third building, that hadhoused their youngest brother had beentorn down and replaced by a trailer.

The Mobley land began just beyondthe Staggers�. When we first came toZion there were seven Mobley homesites, four houses, one ruin, and twotrailers. Malachi, whose mother was a

87Africanisms in the "Old Ship of Zion�: What Are These Forms and Why Do They Persist?

Figure 1. Homestead Deed of AbrahamLincoln Johnson. Courtesy of the per-sonal papers of James Brown, Jr.

Figure 2. Old Zion Church built circa1900. Photo courtesy of JamesBrown, Jr. Figure 3. New Zion BaptistChurch, Zion, FL, built circa 1950.Courtesy of Audrey L. Brown.

Figure 3. New Zion Baptist Church, Zion,Florida built circa 1950.

Figure 4. Friendship Church in Martel,Florida built circa 1900-1915 by peo-ple of Zion for migrant AfricanAmerican workers in lime quarries,on roads and railroads. Photo cour-tesy of Audrey L. Brown, �Tis the OldShip of Zion; Rituals and OralTraditions of Afro-Baptist Churches inFlorida, 1983-1986. Ocala, FL: n.p.,1986.

Figure 5. Women worked in the Fields.Photo courtesy of Dorothea Lange,America from the Great Depressionto World War II: Black-and-WhitePhotographs from the FSA-OWI,Division of Prints and Photographs,Library of Congress.

5


Figure 6. Side view of cabin onhomestead of Abraham LincolnJohnson, a founder of Zion, FL.Photo courtesy of Audrey L.Brown, 1984, Gimme that ol' timereligion: Oral history Tapes.Audiotapes and slides. Ocala FL:n.p., 1983-1984.

Figure 7. Home of Turpentine workernear Cordele, AL. FSA- OWI,Division of Prints andPhotographs, Library ofCongress.

Figure 8. Malachi Green's MothersHouse, circa 1930s, Zion, FL.Photo courtesy of Audrey L.Brown, 1984, Gimme that ol' timereligion: Oral history Tapes.Audiotapes and slides. Ocala FL:n.p., 1983-1984.

Figure 9. Mud and log construction inold house originally built in thelate 18th or early 19th century byfree people of color, descendantsof Marie Therese Coincoin, afreed slave who establishedYucca Plantation, Natchitoches,LA. Courtesy of Prints andPhotographs Division, Library ofCongress.

Figure 10. Frame house on posts,former slave dwelling, WrayPlantation, Greene County, GA.Photo courtesy of Prints andPhotographs Division, Library ofCongress.

6

7

8


9

11

10

12

Figure 11. Shotgun quarters at Laurel Valley Sugar Plantation, Thibodaux,Lafourche Parish, LA. Drawings courtesy of Historic American BuildingsSurvey/Historic American Engineering Collection, Prints & PhotographsDivision, Library of Congress.

Figure 12. Shotgun quarters at Laurel Valley Sugar Plantation, Thibodaux,Lafourche Parish, LA. Photo courtesy of Jet Lowe, Historic AmericanBuildings Survey/Historic American Engineering Collection, Prints &Photographs Division, Library of Congress.

Mobley, preserved his mother's homeafter her death. He lived next to it in atrailer about 25 feet away. Three otherbuildings on Mobley land were home toan elder Mobley man and his cousins,two elderly sisters. These homes, builtabout 25-30 feet apart, were the samedesign as Malachi's mother's house andabout the same size. [Figure 8] Theyhad small rooms about ten to 11 feetsquared. After the elder Mobley's diedthe houses were torn down and fourtrailers erected. Although the trailers hadlarger rooms and they were located onseveral acres of land, the close settle-ment patterns persisted.

Younger people, like Pauline aschool teacher and her husband, aretired military person, built their homewith seven rooms and a porch, none ofwhich exceed the 12 feet by 12 feetdimensions that we shall see was char-acteristic of colonial African Americandomiciles. In 1986, J.B.'s cousinGeorgie, a retired postal worker, builther mother a "new" house. The rooms inthe new home, built by a local AfricanAmerican contractor, are about 12 feetby 12 feet or less. I asked myself whatdoes it mean that Zion people with themeans to build spacious houses recre-ate rooms the same size as the housesbuilt by their foreparents? What are theorigins of the architectural styles andsettlement patterns found in Zion? Toanswer that question I turned to thearcheological record of colonial AfricanAmerican sites in Low Country SouthCarolina, the place of origins of almostall the people who settled Zion.(15)

ArcheologicalEvidence

Yaughan and Curriboo plantations oper-ated in an isolated area of SouthCarolina low country from 1740 throughthe 1820s. During the 1700s the ratio of

Africans to Europeans was 15:1 andpopulation increases resulted from freshinfusions of Africans. Natural increaseresulted in the 27:1 ratio found after theRevolutionary War. During this periodslave families were kept together evenwhen estates were settled, a factor pro-moting stable family life. Left largely ontheir own under these conditions,Africans and their descendants had cul-tural autonomy that was reflected in theirmaterial culture.(16) They establishedand maintained a society that Berlinargues was based on an African model.The fact that Mintz and Price argued fora Caribbean model, Wheaton andGarrow comment, "does not change thefact, however, that the slaves whoinhabited Yaughan and Curriboo main-tained a material culture that was dis-tinct from that extracted from Euro-American sites."(17)

House Architecture

Three distinct slave quarters were exca-vated, early Yaughan (1750-1780), laterYaughan (1780s-1820s), and one slavequarter at Curriboo occupied from the1740s until shortly after 1800. The archi-tectural features of these structurespresent a clear picture of change frommud-walled huts, evidenced by walltrenches with cob-wall construction inthe earliest structures to frame housesconstructed on posts after theRevolutionary War.[Figures 9,10] TheEarly Yaughan structures had no chim-neys. Evidence of an open hearth direct-ly on the earthen floor was found in onehouse along with the bottom of anotherhearth outside the houses.(18)

The dimensions of the Yaughan andCurriboo houses varied in size betweenperiods: the earlier structures hadranged from 12.5 feet by 11 feet to 13.5feet by 20 feet, three of the later struc-

tures were 14.5 feet by 9.8 feet to 15.5by 10 feet in dimension. Most were rec-tangular and housed one family. (19)

Settlement Patterns

In the early slave quarter, one set ofYaughan houses are located approxi-mately 25 -50 feet apart in a circle. Thehouses in a second set are adjacent toeach other and approximately 25 feetapart. A third set of structures show asimilar pattern. At Curriboo, houses are50 feet or less apart. Wheaton andGarrow concluded that settlement pat-terns and architectural form of the build-ings on Yaughan and Curriboo planta-tions appeared to have antecedents inWest Africa, and "probably represents aWest African architectural form."(20)

Other scholars commenting on archi-tectural form and settlement patterns ofeighteenth and early nineteenth centuryAfrican Americans, both slave and free,agree that the patterns seen reflectWest African origins. Vlach commentingon architectural form and settlement pat-terns on enslaved African American con-structions noted the twelve-foot squaredunit, the presence of porches and closesettlement patterns resonates with hous-es constructed in Haiti and WestAfrica.(21) Deetz made similar com-ments about the closeness of settlementpatterns in an excavation of houses builtby free African Americans inMassachusetts. He concludes that theclose settlement patterns at the site dif-fered significantly from their Yankee con-temporaries and that they "reflect amore corporate spirit than four Anglo-Americans might show under similar cir-cumstances."(22)

By the late nineteenth and earlytwentieth century African Americanarchitecture featured the shotgun house,one room wide, two or three room deephouse with a forward-facing gable and


porch. [Figures 11, 12] A modified shot-gun house was built with two room addi-tions along the side of the basic floorplan. The second Florida house we livedin followed this pattern with room sizesranging from 10 to the 12 foot-squareddimension. It was located in a familyclearing along with two trailers. Oneauthor comments that the close settle-ment patterns are African ways ofexpressing kinship and corporate close-ness through physical nearness.(23)The persistence of small room size inAfrican American architecture might alsoexpress the same kinds of African values.

Zion people still live in "micro-" settle-ments of extended families, their homesbuilt close together. The older housesand some new ones replicate the archi-tectural characteristics of their forepar-ents. History shows there were closeconnections between post-emancipationland use and familial and kin beliefs offreed men and women. Of particularconcern to freed slaves were their "oldand infirm Mothers and Fathers and ourchildren."(24)

During the Great Migration peopleleft Zion and over the years much of theland was sold to "outsiders," bothAfrican Americans and Whites. Today,relatively few Zionites actually live in thecircumscribed area around the churchbuilding. Those that do are mostly mid-dle age and elderly people. Yet Zioncommunity and New Zion BaptistChurch persist as a culturally meaningfulplace to Zionites across the state andthe nation, connected by modern trans-portation and communication networks.Wherever they live people return periodi-cally for church services. Some comeannually for Homecoming Sunday inJuly. Others come only for Home-GoingCelebrations when people die. Theturnout for the Mother of the Church,

Cousin Rea, in 1993 was one of thelargest in recent years. Mothers Dayservices draw the largest congregations.

Kinship, community, and funeral cele-brations are all significant aspects ofWest African culture. Along with thehousing and settlement patterns, itseems to me there are also reflectionsof West African influences in the matrifo-cality I observed in Zion family andchurch life.

Matrifocality in theSocial Organization ofZion

Zion family and church social organiza-tion are matrilocal, matrilfocal, and matri-lineal. [Table 1] When asked, people saythey live near their mother's people eventhough their father's people also live inthe community. They attend their moth-er's church. Men who marry into thecommunity attend their wife's mother'schurch. People venerate their mothersand motherhood. If women do not bearchildren they adopt them. Elderly moth-ers have the greatest prestige in Zion.Adult children will visit their mothers fre-quently and elderly mothers are visiteddaily. Women and men will providephysical care for their mothers as need-ed. When a daughter or granddaughterare unavailable to give care, otherwomen, cousins, nieces, and daughter-in-laws help. If no one else is available ason will live with his or mother and takecare of her. People reckon descentthrough their mothers, again even whentheir father's people live in the community.

The New Zion Baptist Church socialorganization is also characteristicallymatrilocal, matrifocal, and matrilineal.People attend their mother's church.Men who marry into the communityattend their wife's mother's church. If aman from the community marries a

woman from another church, at leastone of his children, usually a daughter,will attend his mother's church, but therest of the children attend their mother'schurch. A man or woman who marriesinto the community may be "funeralized"at New Zion but they are buried in thecemetery of their mother's church.Prestige in the church is determined bygender, age, descent, and religious com-mitment. Elderly women, who never leftthe church, called church mothers, havegreater prestige than even the deacons.The church social organization is illus-trated by the way Zion elders arrangedthemselves for photographs. [Figure 13]The oldest women are in front with thosedescended from the original families inthe middle. Their younger sisters andcousins are on the second row. CousinRea, 93 years old, Mother of the Churchand granddaughter of the first Mother,sits in the center in a white hat. "Aunt"Sister, the granddaughter of HuldyAustin, sits next to her dressed in white.The women on the ends of the front roware an "incomer" on the right and an"outsider," on the left. The men arrangedthemselves behind the women by age,then by family descent of their wives ormothers.

The most prestigious woman's role isMother of the Church. Theoretically sheis elected from among all the churchmothers. However, a pattern of whatseems to be matrilineal succession isevident among all the women who havebeen elected. [Figure 14](25)

"Africanisms" inAmerican Culture:Women's ChurchRoles along theContinuum

Locating the presence of this AfricanAmerican cultural landscape was rela-tively straightforward. Linking house



Family

People live near their mother�s people

Veneration of motherhoodand mothers.

Expressed in biological of fictive motherhood.

Expressed in physical carefor elderly mothers.

People reckon descentthrough their mother�s family

Church

People attend their mother�s church

Elderly women are called�church mothers.�

Highest prestige accordedelected �Mother of theChurch�

Mother of the ChurchOffice only held by femaledescendents of first andsecond Mothers of theChurch (circa 1880-2001)

Social Organization

Matrilocal

Matrifocal

Matrilineal

Family and Church Social Organization

Table 1. Comparison of Family and Church Social Organization

13

Figure 13. New Zion Elders, 1985. FrontRow: Left to Right, Sister Tot Bellamy;Sister Josephine MaeweathersTindall; Deaconess Annie StaggersJacobs ("Cousin" Rea, Mother of theChurch); Deaconess Harriet JacobsLewis ("Aunt" Sister, Acting Mother ofthe Church); Mrs. Rosabelle LewisSimms ("Cousin' Rosabelle); Mrs.Cecelia Carter; Mrs. Mary Mobley("Miss" Mary). Second Row: Mrs.Hattie Staggers Butler (PresentMother of the Church); Mrs. CoraMaeweathers Beasley; Mrs. CrozellaMobley Jacobs (Presently on MothersBoard and Mother of the current pas-tor); Mrs. Victoria Bell (FormerPastor's Widow). Back Row:Chairman of Deacon Board, DeaconEdgar Simms; Reverend Henry Lewis;Deacon Prince "Doc" Brooks; DeaconSebron Bellamy ; Deacon IrvingLewis; Mr. Isom Mobley. Photo cour-tesy of Audrey L. Brown, 1986, �Tisthe Old Ship of Zion; Rituals and OralTraditions of Afro-Baptist Churches inFlorida, 1983-1986. Audio and video-tapes. Ocala, FL: n.p.

Figure 14. Mother of Church, ZionBaptist Church, 1880-2001. Chartcourtesy of Audrey L. Brown.

architecture and settlement patterns toWest African customs and material cul-ture can be supported or refuted byobservation. However, making the argu-ment that matrifocality in Zion family andchurch social organization are"Africanisms" is more problematic.Social scientists question, if there are"Africanisms" in African American culture, how does one identify them andexplain the persistence of some Africancultural traditions and not others?Herskovits held that what he called"Survivalisms" are likely to be found inreligious cultural forms and that onecould best identify African patterns bycomparing the intensity with which theypresent themselves along a continuumbeginning in the Caribbean and endingin urban areas of North America. If theform was of African origin, he theorized,it would be most recognizable andintense in the Caribbean and least evi-dent in the northern urban milieu.(26)Following his model I searched for thepresence or absence of a woman withthe title, role and functions like the"Mother of the Church." I looked atJamaica Revivalists and SpiritualBaptists of Barbados,(27) two religiouscommunities with ethnohistorical link-ages to North American Afro Baptistsdating back to the late 18th century.(28)I also searched for evidence of anemphasis on "Mother" in New FerryfieldBaptist Church on John�s Island, SouthCarolina; Salem Baptist Church inWashington, DC and Kaighn AvenueBaptist Church in Camden, New Jersey.

I found the title of "Mother" used indifferent variations for elderly women ofprestige was more or less emphasizedin all of the religious communities exceptin New Jersey. Just as Herskovits pre-dicted, the northern most, urban churchdemonstrated least evidence of the cul-

tural form. Kaighn Avenue Baptistchurch, established in 1854, is

one of the oldest Afro-Baptist congrega-tions in New Jersey. In a 1986 interviewthe present pastor who told me therewas no one with the title of Mother of theChurch. At Salem Baptist Church, estab-lished in 1874 in Washington, DC, theMother of the Church was the oldest liv-ing church member. She held the titlebut with no role-functions. At FerryfieldBaptist church, established in 1885, thePastor's wife's mother was the Mother ofthe Church.

There were multiple "Mother" rolesamong the churchwomen in bothJamaica and Barbados. The Mother withthe most Status in the Jamaica grouphad similar role-functions as those of theFlorida Mother of the Church. [Figure15] Much as Herskovits theorized, Ifound this social form had greatestintensity among the Spiritual Baptists inBarbados. There were greater numbersof Mother roles among them and proba-bly most telling, the highest women'srole was the Arch Mother. [Figure 16]The Arch Mother blesses the sea andsanctifies the beach where baptismtakes place. The Arch Mother is also thesister of the group's leader evidence ofmatrilineal social organization.(29)

Matrifocality is clearly a West Africancultural form. It was evident in the pre-contact social organization of ALL of theSub-Saharan West African societies thatwere the provenance of the majority ofthe slaves coming to Barbados,Jamaica, the northern colonies andSouth Carolina between 1650 and 1806.The Mande, Akan, and the Kongo cul-tures were matrilineal. Even though Oyo,Benin and Dahomean social structurewas patrilineal, females were central fig-ures in their religious pantheons.Women held prestigious roles of reli-gious ritual authority with the title ofMother, for example the Ilyorishas, orMother of the Orishas [gods] among theYoruba. Women were equal partners in

the Ogboni and other secret societiesthat served as super-ordinate institutionsfor social control and whose membershad great prestige.(30) In fact, matrifocalsocial forms within the context of reli-gion, are among what Turner called "thesame ideas, analogies and modes ofassociation [which] underlie symbol for-mation and manipulation from theSenegal River to the Cape of GoodHope. They are symbols which remainextraordinarily viable," he noted, "andthe themes they represent and embodyare tenaciously rooted."(31) Herskovitssuggested the tenacity of cultural pat-terns was related to the compellingnature of their cultural significance.

The Africanisms found in Zion arealso expressed in a myriad of ways byAfrican Americans in general. The cultur-al landscape I describe here is onewhere closeness and cooperation withinand between families are as necessarynow as they were 150 years ago. Itseems to me that the social forms andmaterial cultural Africanisms that contin-ue to have salience in Zion are preciselythose needed to sustain the communityover time. Matrifocality in the family andthe church expressed in roles andresponsibilities of the Mother of theChurch are, as Clifford Geertz put it, atonce models for and of social reality, inthis case what women had to do tomaintain family and community integrityboth physically and spiritually.(32) TheWest African architectural and settle-ment patterns promote living accommo-dations that seem to buttress the cen-trality of family. The primacy of familyrelationships and the closeness of familyties are forged in the intimacy of smallsize rooms, while the settlement patterns emphasize the necessity ofcloseness and cooperation betweenfamily groups.

The Africanisms in Zion are a micro-cosm of Africanisms in African America.


14

One has only to observe the variousaward shows to be struck by the fre-quency with which Blacks receiving vari-ous awards, first give thanks to God andthen to their family particularly theirmothers. African American literature andethnographies repeat themes anddescriptions of settlement patterns inurban and rural settings that reinforcecloseness and cooperation.(33) It seemsto me that these discernable Africanismsin the cultural landscape of Zion repre-sent values and belief systems that wereand are necessary to sustain this partic-ular community and African Americancommunities in general. New ZionBaptist Church is still the central socialinstitution in Zion as the church is stillthe central African American social insti-tution. In Zion, Atlanta, and Harlem thefamily is in the church and families arethe church.

When our politic representativesspeak they use the idiom of the matrifo-cal family; a notable example is thereferral to Rosa Parks as the "Mother "of the Civil Rights Movement. In thefamily and church, the emphasis onwomen as "mothers" in the church'ssocial organization and their churchroles of prestige, are African-derived cul-tural values and social forms which arematerially significant to day-to-day familylife that have sustained Zion over time,as a cultural landscape. A place of cul-tural memory, an imagined place wherepeople can find respite from the realitiesof the everyday real world as well as notyet forgotten, if not always adhered to,principles to live by.


14

13

Figure 15. Episcopate Mother of a Revivalist Band Church, Kingston, Jamaica. Photocourtesy of Audrey L. Brown. 1988, REVIVAL! Kapo's Last Pentecost: Rituals andOral Traditions of St. Michael's Tabernacle, a Jamaica Revivalist Band[Audiotapes, Slides and Videotapes] n.s., n.d.

Figure 16. Reverend Mother of Spiritual Baptist church, Ealings Grove, Barbados.Photo courtesy of Audrey L. Brown, 1989, Another Ark: Rituals and Oral Traditionsof the Spiritual Baptists of Barbados 1988-1989, n.s., n.d.

Endnotes

1. The paper is based on primary sourceethnographic and archival data I collectedbetween 1980 and 1994 in Florida, in otherparts of the south, and the Caribbean, alongwith comparative data derived from the litera-ture on African American archaeologicalsites. The research reported in this paperwas funded by: National Endowment of theHumanities, Summer Seminar for CollegeTeachers, Atlanta University, 1984; Universityof Florida Minority Graduate StudentFellowship, 1983-1984; National Institute ofHealth, NRSA, post-doctoral Advanced Research Training Grant,NU05738-01, 02, and 03, Department ofAnthropology, University of Florida, 1984-1987; Fulbright Senior Research Fellowship,University of the West Indies, Cave Hill,1988-1989; Thanks be to Grandma WinifredFoundation, 1993-1995; American UniversityGraduate Student Fellowship, 1994-1996.

2. Eric Hirsh, "Introduction," in TheAnthropology of Landscape Perspectives inTime and Space, eds., Eric Hirsh and MichaelO�Hanlon, (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995),1-3.

3. Setha M. Low, "Cultural Conservationof Place," in Conserving Culture: A NewDiscourse on Heritage, ed., Mary Hufford(Chicago: University of Illinois, 1994), 66-67.

4. General D. L. Clinch, "Letterbook,1834-1835, Fort King, FL," DLC; U.S.Territorial Census, 1840, "Alachua County,FL, Photo-reproduction of manuscript sched-ules. Tri-County Regional Library, Ocala FL.;U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1850. U.S.Census, Marion County FL. Microfilm ofmanuscript schedules, Tri-County RegionalLibrary, Ocala FL; U.S. Bureau of theCensus. 1860. U.S. Census, Marion CountyFL. Microfilm of manuscript schedules, Tri-County Regional Library, Ocala FL; U.S.Bureau of the Census. 1870. U.S. Census,Marion County FL. FL Photo-reproduction ofmanuscript schedules. Tri-County RegionalLibrary, Ocala, FL; J. R. Giddings, Exiles inFlorida (Columbus OH: n.p., 1858); FloridaBureau of Census. 1865. Florida StateCensus. Manuscript schedules. Tri-CountyRegional Library, Ocala FL; Florida Bureau ofCensus. 1885. Florida State Census.Manuscript schedules. Tri-County RegionalLibrary, Ocala FL; J. C. Ley, 52 Years inFlorida (Nashville TN, Dallas TX: Publishing

House of the M. E. Church South, Barbeeand Smith, 1879); Kenneth Porter, "FloridaSlaves and Free Negroes in the SeminoleWar, in Journal of Negro History 28(4)(1943):390-421. Audrey L.Brown, "Gimme that Ol'Time Religion: Oral History Tapes, 1983-1984," Audiotapes and slides. (MarionCounty, Florida, n.s., n.d.)

5. Camp King came to be known as FortKing during the Afro-Seminole Wars. It wassubsequently developed into the city ofOcala.

6. Ley, 52 Years in Florida, 39-42.

7. Clinch, "Letterbook, 1834-1835," DLC;M. M. Cohen, Notices of Florida and theCampaigns. Florida State Museum Library(Gainesville: University of Florida Press,1964[1863]).

8. US Bureau of the Census. 1870 USCensus, marion County, FL, photo reproduc-tion of manuscripts schedules. TricountyRegional Library, Ocala, FL; Florida StateCensus, 1875, manuscript schedules. Tri-county Regional Library, Ocala, FL; FloridaBureau of the Census.

9. U.S. Bureau of the Census. 1870.U.S. Census, Marion County FL. Photo-reproduction of manuscript schedules. Tri-County Regional Library, Ocala FL Personaldocuments of the Abraham Lincoln JohnsonFamily 1883-1937; audiotapes of MalachiGreen, Cora Maewathers Beasly, MaryMobley, Willie Bostick, Harriet Jacob Lewis,Rosabelle Lewis Simms from Brown,"Gimme that Ol' Time Religion."

10. Audrey L. Brown, personal communi-cation with "Doc" Prince Brooks.

11. George P. McKinney and Richard I.McKinney, History of the Black Baptists ofFlorida 1850-1985 (Miami, FL: FloridaMemorial College Press, 1987).

12. Brown, "Gimme that Ol� TimeReligion."

13. According to oral history, the menwere responsible for providing meats andfish in the past. Interestingly, in the 1980sthey still were responsible for doing so justas they were when they hunted and fishedfor them.

14. Even though a nearby "horse farm,"steadily encroaches upon these lands, buy-ing up acreage whenever land came on the

market to settle estates, much of the originalhamlet is still evident in these old housesstanding after new houses are built.

15. Brown, "Gimme that Ol� TimeReligion"; and Census data

16. Amy Friedlander, "EstablishingHistorical Probabilities for ArcheologicalInterpretations: Slave Demography of TwoPlantations in the South Carolina LowCountry, 1740-1820," in The Archaeology ofSlavery and Plantation Life, ed. Theresa A.Singleton, 215-238 (Orlando, FL: AcademicPress, 1985)

17. Thomas R. Wheaton and Patrick H.Garrow, "Acculturation and theArchaeological Record in the Carolina LowCountry," in The Archaeology of Slavery andPlantation Life, ed. Theresa A. Singleton,242, (Orlando, FL: Academic Press, 1985).

18. Wheaton and Garrow, "Acculturationand the Archaeological Record," 243-257.

19. Ibid, 243-247.

20. Ibid, 257.

21. S. Fiske Kelso, Kingsmill Plantations,1619-1800 (New York: Academic Press,1984); John M. Vlach, By the Work of TheirHands: Studies in Afro-American Folk Life(Ann Arbor, MI and London: UMI ResearchPress, 1991), 225.

22. James H. Deetz, In Small ThingsForgotten: The Archaeology of EarlyAmerican Life (New York: Doubleday, 1977).

23. Susan Denyer, African TraditionalArchitecture: An Historical and GeographicPerspective (New York: Africana PublishingCo., 1978) 18.

24. Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Familyin Slavery and Freedom 1750-1925 NewYork: Vintage Books, 1976), 209-210.

25. In 1993, after Cousin Rea died, thechurch conference elected Cousin CrozellaMobley Jacobs, a descendant of AbrahamLincoln Johnson through her father's mother.Cousin Crozella is also the mother of the cur-rent pastor. However she declined passingthe title instead to Cousin Hattie Butler thegranddaughter of Suzie Staggers.

26. Melville Herskovits, "Problems ofMethod and Theory in Afro-AmericanStudies," in The New World Negro, ed.,Frances Herskovits (Bloomington: IndianaUniversity Press, 1966[1945]), 565-57.


27. The Revivalists evolved out of theNative Baptists, who were established byGeorge Liele and Moses Baker, two ex-slaveAfro-Baptist preachers from Georgia. Liele,who was born into slavery in Virginia in 1752,was converted and baptized by MatthewMoore, an ordained Baptist minister, becom-ing the first Black Baptist in Georgia. Afterbeing licensed to preach, between 1773-1775, he and his converts formed an Afro-Baptist church, on a plantation in Silver Bluff,South Carolina. In 1788, another of Liele�sconverts established the Bryan Street AfricanBaptist Church in Savannah that was reor-ganized in 1794 as the First African BaptistChurch.

Liele, freed in his master�s will, traveledto Jamaica and Trinidad preaching to slavesand freedmen. Military companies of formerslaves who fought for the Loyalists in theWar of 1812 were freed in Trinidad. Lieletraveled to Trinidad to preach to them andAfricans still enslaved. The soldiers formedso called Company towns in Trinidad, wherethey practiced a more "Africanized" form ofBaptist religion. They shared these communi-ties with Yoruba peoples, who had also beenfreed by the British. The Spiritual Baptist reli-gion evolved out of the syncretism betweenYoruba orisha worship, called Shango inTrinidad, and the African American soldiers�spirited "African" form of the Baptist religion.See, Asram L. Stapelton, "The Birth andGrowth of the Baptist Church in Trinidad andTobago, and the Caribbean," (for theInternational Spiritual Baptist MinisterialCouncil, West Indies Pamphlet, West IndianCollection, U.W.I., Cave Hill, Barbados,1982).

28. In 1988 I spent a week interviewingand videotaping at St. Michael's RevivalistTabernacle, Kingston, Jamaica. I conductedparticipant observation in Barbados fromOctober 1988 through May 1989 as an initi-ate of the Spiritual Baptist religious community.

29. Reverend Neverson of the St. VincentSpiritual Baptist told me that MotherReverend is the title of the highest woman'srole in their religious community and she toois the church leader's sister.

30. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans inColonial Louisiana: Development of Afro-Creole Culture in the Eighteenth Century(Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1992). Hall summarizes Germaine

Dieterlen, Essai sur la Religion Bambara(Bruxelles, Belgique: Editions de l'Universitéde Bruxelles, 1988); Adu Boahen, with J.F.Ade Ajayi, and Michael Tidy, Topics in WestAfrican History, 2 nd ed (Edinburgh Gate,Harlow, Essex, England: Longman Group,1986); Wyatt McGaffey, Religion and Societyin Central Africa: the Bakongo of Lower Zaire(Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986);Pascal Imperato, Buffoons, Queens, andWooden Horsemen; the Dyo and GouanSocieties of the Bambara of Mali (New York:Kilima House, 1983); John M. Janzen,Lemba, 1650-1930: a Drum of Affliction inAfrica and the New World (New York:Garland Publishing, 1982); Albert J.Raboteau, Slave Religion : The "invisibleinstitution" in the Antebellum South (Oxfordand New York: Oxford University Press,1978); W. T. Harris, and Harry Sawyer. TheSprings of Mende Belief and Conduct(Freetown, Sierra Leone University Press[Distributed by the Oxford University Press,New York], 1968); E. Bolaji Idowu,Olódùmarè; God in Yoruba Belief (New York:Praeger, 1963); Karl Edvard Laman,. TheKongo, volume 4 (Upsala: StudiaEthnographica Upsaliensia, 1953-1968);Melville J. Herskovits, Dahomey, an AncientWest African Kingdom (New York: J.J.Augustin, 1938).

31. Victor W. Turner, "Symbols in AfricanRitual," in Science 179(1973): 1100-1105.

32. Clifford Geertz, "Religion as aCultural System," in the Interpretation ofCultures (New York: Basic Books,1973[1966]). For further discussion read:Audrey L. Brown, "Women & Ritual Authorityin Afro-American Baptist churches ofFlorida," in How Sweet the Sound: The Spiritof African American History, Nancy E. Fitch,ed. (New York: Harcourt Brace Publishers,2000); Idem, "Women & Ritual Authority inAfro-American Baptist Churches of Florida,"in Anthropology & Humanism Quarterly13(1)(1988): 2-10.

33. Zora Neal Hurston, Dust Tracks on aRoad: An Autobiography, 2nd ed. (Urbana:University of Illinois Press 1984[1970]); CarolB. Stack, All our Kin: Strategies for Survivalin a Black Community (New York, Harper &Row, 1974); Carol B. Stack, Call to Home:African Americans Reclaim the Rural South,(New York: Basic Books, 1996); Alice Walker,The Color Purple: A Novel. (New York:

Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1982); Melvin D.Williams, On the Street Where I Lived (New

York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1981).

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Manuscript Sources: Books, Articles,Papers, Audio and Video Tapes

Boahen, Adu, with J. F. Ade Ajayi, andMichael Tidy. Topics in West AfricanHistory. 2 nd ed. Edinburgh Gate,Harlow, Essex, England: LongmanGroup, 1986.

Brooks, "Doc" Prince. Personal commu-nication with author.

Brown, Audrey L. "Women & RitualAuthority in Afro-American BaptistChurches of Florida." In How Sweetthe Sound: The Spirit of AfricanAmerican History, Nancy E. Fitch, ed.New York: Harcourt BracePublishers, 2000.

---. "Women & Ritual Authority in Afro-American Baptist Churches ofFlorida. In Anthropology & HumanismQuarterly 13(1)(1988): 2-10.

---. "Gimme" that Ol' Time Religion: OralHistory Tapes, 1983-1984, Zion[pseudonym]." Marion County,Florida, n.s., n.d.

Cohen, M. M. Notices of Florida and theCampaigns. Florida State MuseumLibrary. Gainesville: University ofFlorida Press, 1964 [1863].

Deetz, James H. In Small ThingsForgotten: The Archaeology of EarlyAmerican Life. New York: Doubleday,1977.

Denyer, Susan. African TraditionalArchitecture: An Historical andGeographic Perspective. New York:Africana Publishing Co., 1978.


Dieterlen, Germaine. Essai sur laReligion Bambara. Bruxelles,Belgique: Editions de l'Université deBruxelles, 1988.

Friedlander, Amy. "Establishing HistoricalProbabilities for ArcheologicalInterpretations: Slave Demography ofTwo Plantations in the SouthCarolina Low Country, 1740-1820."In The Archaeology of Slavery andPlantation Life, ed. Theresa A.Singleton, 215-238. Orlando, FL:Academic Press, 1985.

Geertz, Clifford. "Religion as a CulturalSystem." In The Interpretation ofCultures. New York: Basic Books,1973 [1966].

Giddings, J. R. Exiles in Florida.Columbus, OH: n.p., 1858.

Gutman, Herbert G. The Black Family inSlavery and Freedom 1750-1925.New York: Vintage Books, 1976.

Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo. Africans inColonial Louisiana: Development ofAfro-Creole Culture in the EighteenthCentury. Baton Rouge: LouisianaState University Press, 1992.

Harris, W. T., and Harry Sawyer. TheSprings of Mende Belief andConduct. Freetown, Sierra LeoneUniversity Press. Distributed by theOxford University Press, New York,1968.

Herskovits, Melville. "Problems ofMethod and Theory in Afro-AmericanStudies." In The New World Negro,ed. Frances Herskovits. Bloomington:Indiana University Press, 1966[1945].

---. Dahomey, An Ancient West AfricanKingdom. New York: J.J. Augustin,1938.

Hirsch, Eric "Introduction." In TheAnthropology of LandscapePerspectives in Time and Space,Eds., Eric Hirsch and MichaelO'Hanlon, 1-3. Oxford: ClarendonPress, 1995.

Hurston, Zora Neal. Dust Tracks on aRoad : An Autobiography. 2nd ed.Urbana: University of Illinois Press,1984[1970].

Idowu, E. Bolaji. Olódùmarè; God inYoruba Belief. New York: Praeger,1963.

Imperato, Pascal. Buffoons, Queens,and Wooden Horsemen; the Dyo andGouan Societies of the Bambara ofMali. New York: Kilima House, 1983.

Janzen, John M. Lemba, 1650-1930: ADrum of Affliction in Africa and theNew World. New York: GarlandPublishing, 1982.

Laman, Karl Edvard. The Kongo. 4 vols.Upsala: Studia EthnographicaUpsaliensia, 1968;

Ley, J. C. 52 Years in Florida. NashvilleTN, Dallas TX: Publishing House ofthe M. E. Church South, Barbee andSmith, 1879.

Low, Setha M. "Cultural Conservation ofPlace." In Conserving Culture: A NewDiscourse on Heritage, ed., MaryHufford, 66-67. Chicago: Universityof Illinois, 1994.

Kelso, S. Fiske. Kingsmill Plantations,1619-1800. New York: AcademicPress, 1984.

McGaffey, Wyatt. Religion and Society inCentral Africa: The Bakongo of LowerZaire. Chicago: Chicago UniversityPress, 1986.

McKinney, George P., and Richard I.McKinney. History of the BlackBaptists of Florida, 1850-1985.Miami, FL: Florida Memorial CollegePress, 1987.

Porter, Kenneth. "Florida Slaves andFree Negroes in the Seminole War."Journal of Negro History 28(4)(1943):390-421.

Raboteau, Albert J. Slave Religion : The"invisible institution" in theAntebellum South. New York: OxfordUniversity Press, 1978.

Stack, Carol B. Call to Home: AfricanAmericans Reclaim the Rural South.New York: Basic Books, 1996.

---. All our Kin: Strategies for Survival ina Black Community. New York:Harper & Row, 1974.

Stapelton, Asram L. "The Birth andGrowth of the Baptist Church inTrinidad and Tobago, and theCaribbean." For the InternationalSpiritual Baptist Ministerial Council.West Indies Pamphlet. West IndianCollection. U.W.I., Cave Hill,Barbados, 1982.

Turner, Victor W. "Symbols in AfricanRitual." In Science 179(1973).

Vlach, John M. By the Work of TheirHands: Studies in Afro-American FolkLife. Ann Arbor, MI and London: UMIResearch Press, 1991.

Walker, Alice. The Color Purple: A Novel.New York: Harcourt BraceJovanovich, 1982.


Wheaton, Thomas R., and Patrick H.Garrow. "Acculturation and theArchaeological Record in theCarolina Low Country." In TheArchaeology of Slavery andPlantation Life, ed. Theresa A.Singleton. Orlando, FL: AcademicPress, 1985.

Williams, Melvin D. On the Street WhereI Lived. New York: Holt, Rinehart andWinston, 1981.


Within the past two decades amajor focus of historicalarchaeology in North America

has become the study of �people with-out history.�(1) That is, historicalarchaeologists have begun to systemat-ically investigate the lives, beliefs, andbehaviors of people who left relativelyfew primary, readable written accountsdespite their living within a �literatesociety.� Thus, a written record of these�people without history� may exist.However, what is significant is thatauthors outside of the actual communityunder study produced that writtenrecord. For example, many writtenrecords describing the beliefs andbehaviors, e.g., the culture, of enslavedAfricans and African Americans exist,some even written and/or transcribedfrom the testimony of enslaved persons.However, the extant records discuss lit-tle to nothing concerning the details ofthe use and meaning conferred on thematerial culture or the landscape byenslaved and/or emancipated people ofAfrican descent. While oral testimonymay add to our knowledge of this aspectof African American culture, detailedsocial archaeological investigation alsohas the potential to expand our knowl-edge well beyond the confines of peo-ple�s inherited memories.

Unfortunately, much of the historical archaeologicalinvestigation of people of African descent in theNew World has focused on questions related to thematerial items utilized by the enslaved. Includedwithin these studies, one finds research focusedupon the African origins of individual items fromhouses, tobacco pipes, the production of low-firedearthenware ceramics, the meaning of blue glassbeads, and even the symbols placed on a numberof these items.(2) Many of these studies were conducted with the explicit attempt to link Africancultures with enslaved peoples in North Americaand/or the Caribbean. However, in a majority ofthese studies the actual meaning of these itemsand the symbols for peoples of African descent inthe New World has been directly inferred from theOld World.(3) Only in very rare instances have thearchaeological contexts for these objects been assystematically investigated. That is, what useand/or meaning did such objects have for people ofAfrican descent in North America, and this determi-nation must be based upon the other directly asso-ciated artifacts. The question that needs to beaddressed here relates to the construction of theculture of African Americans within the systems ofenslavement and, later, freedom.

This paper represents an attempt to demon-strate the utility of archaeological research in defin-ing use and meaning of objects recovered fromsites occupied by both enslaved and free AfricanAmericans. This will also begin to define some ofthe use of space in, and, importantly, under thelandscape of the sites. Within this paper, aspects ofthe archaeological record from two Quarters siteswill be examined: The Levi Jordan Plantation,Brazoria County, Texas; and the Frogmore ManorPlantation, St. Helena Island, Beaufort County,South Carolina.

Session Three:

Black CulturalLandscapes and Institutions

Interwoven Traditions:Archaeology of the Conjurer's Cabins andthe African American Cemetery at theJordan and Frogmore Manor Plantations

Kenneth L. Brown

99

History andArchaeology of theLevi Jordan PlantationQuarters

Archaeological excavations, directed bythe author, have been conducted withinthe slave and tenant quarters of the LeviJordan Plantation, Brazoria County,Texas.(4) The Jordan PlantationQuarters Community was founded in thislocation in 1848. During the period from1848 through the early 1870s, the plan-tation produced sugar and cotton ascash crops, along with wheat, corn,potatoes, and other subsistence foods.The work of the plantation was organ-ized through the use of the gang laborregime. Jordan purchased the Texasland as the last in a series of plantationshe bought, occupied, and sold stretchingacross the South, beginning in westernSouth Carolina and continuing throughAlabama, Louisiana, and Arkansas. Atits pre-1865 height, the Jordan planta-tion had a resident enslaved populationexceeding 140. After emancipation untilthe late 1880s, approximately 100 peo-ple resided within the tenant communityoccupying the old slave quarters. All ofthese individuals participated in agricul-tural activities as wage laborers, renters,and/or sharecroppers. A number of themembers of the community practicedspecialized occupations in addition totheir farming activities, e.g., conjurer/mid-wife, carver, hunter, seamstress,blacksmith, and carpenter.

By the mid-1870s, sugar had beenabandoned as a cash crop. However,cotton continued to be raised by tenants,sharecroppers, and wage laborers resid-ing on, and around, the plantationthrough the late 1880s. Historicalarchaeological investigation of the plan-tation has focused on the recovery ofdetailed contextual information to permitthe interpretation of the life of the

enslaved people as well as the tenantswho resided within the community.Historical research has demonstratedthat the vast majority of the residents ofthe community during the post-emanci-pation period had previously beenenslaved on the plantation.(5)

The Jordan Plantation investigationhas been referred to as �the best knownexample� of an archaeological approachthat has ��attempted to identify archae-ological contexts and assemblages thatrepresent religious behavior on the partof enslaved African Americans.�(6)However, this research has developedevidence related to a much wider varietyof behavioral patterns than is implied bythe quote above. Economic, political,and social behaviors have been definedfrom the archaeological and historicalresearch thus far conducted. The histori-cal data concerning the continuity ofpopulation when combined with thearchaeological evidence strongly sup-ports the pre-emancipation nature of thebehavioral patterns defined. Thus, thisdata, and its interpretation, has beenemployed to define a number of theadaptive responses made by membersof the community to the conditions ofboth enslavement and freedom. While anumber of historical archaeological stud-ies have included the interpretation ofAfrican American ritual activities, theJordan Community investigations (andrecently concluded research at theFrogmore Manor Plantation on St.Helena Island, South Carolina) haveidentified a variety of archaeologicalcontexts that aid in the definition of ritualactivities and symbols for AfricanAmerican populations.(7) Several ofthese contexts at Jordan demonstratethe community-based nature of thesereligious, social, and economic behav-ioral patterns.

The research design for the JordanPlantation slave and tenant quarters

included a variety of activities. The stan-dard excavation unit measured five feetby five feet. The stratigraphy of the sitedemonstrates that three broad levelswere present within the artifact bearingdeposit, each with its own depositionalhistory and formation processes. Theupper level included the modern topsoiland the brick rubble from the collapse ofthe walls of the structures over the past110 years. The second level included awide variety of artifacts, some whole, orthat had entered the archaeologicalrecord whole and been broken after theywere deposited. Further, within this level,a number of artifact types that wouldnormally be employed together in anactivity were found together in theground. The third level contained smallartifacts distributed in a somewhat morerandom fashion.

The artifacts contained in level twosuggested that an intentional abandon-ment of the quarters had taken place atsome point in the past. This abandon-ment was not known from any historicalrecords we were (and are) aware of, nordid any members of the descendantfamilies (black or white) have any infor-mation concerning such an event.However, the discovery of this artifactand context-rich zone forced an alter-ation of the excavation strategy.

Continuing with units that disturbed25 square feet in this artifact and contextrich zone did not appear to be an appro-priate methodology. As the excavationgrid had been imposed over the site,and several excavation units completed,the standard excavation unit remainedfive-feet by five-feet. However, immedi-ately before excavating through the brickrubble layer, each of these units wasdivided into 25 one-foot by one-foot subunits. Further, unless the stratigraphynoted within a unit dictated otherwise,the standard level depth was 1/10th of afoot once the unit was placed into


subunits. The subunits and the leveldepth were maintained throughout theexcavation of both the second and thirdartifact bearing zones. This methodologypermitted the recording of highly specificprovenience information, including actualmaps, of the distribution of artifacts with-in zone two (the so-called �abandonmentzone�) and zone three (the so-called�sub-floor zone�).

Archaeological investigation alsoincluded research within the AfricanAmerican cemetery on the originalJordan Plantation.(8) This researchincluded the mapping and recording ofsurface features along with limited,though systematic, excavation. Initialsurface survey involved establishing agrid over the cemetery area and mapping in the location of all apparentcultural features. The cultural featuresincluded on the map consisted of gravesand other depressions, tomb markings,and plant types. This mapping projectprovided information on approximately140 graves. The excavation was limitedto testing ten percent of the unmarkedgrave shafts to determine if we werecorrect in our definition of these depres-sions as grave shafts. This investigationconsisted of the excavation of one footwide by five feet long units across theshort axis of the depression. These unitswere excavated only as deep as wasnecessary to determine the presence orabsence of a grave shaft. Any artifactsencountered in these excavation unitswere noted and left in place. No artifactswere collected or moved during thisresearch. In all approximately 140graves were recorded and mapped dur-ing this investigation. The data collectedfrom the tombstones, oral history, andhistoric documents has permitted theidentification of forty-eight of the individ-uals buried within this cemetery.

Throughout this project, historicaland oral historical information has been

collected related to the occupants of theplantation.(9) Black and white descen-dants have visited the site, viewed thedata, were presented interpretation ofstructures and activities, and had theirinformation recorded and incorporatedinto the interpretations. Federal census,county tax, and genealogical recordshave been investigated and analyzed inorder to determine the families whooccupied the plantation, and their roleswithin the community. The purpose ofthis portion of the investigation was toprovide an active data source that couldbe employed to test, as well as interpret,the archaeological record. This activeuse of a number of legal records andfamily oral histories provided the appar-ent cause for the abandonment of thequarters between 1886 and 1888.(10)

Finally, the project�s research designincluded the continual collection ofethnographic data from among the blackand white descendants.(11) Additionalethnographic data has been obtainedfrom reports of investigations conductedin Africa, the Caribbean, South America,and North America.(12) The ethnograph-ic information has been utilized alongwith the historical data to interpret andtest the artifacts and contexts recordedwithin the archaeological record of theJordan Plantation�s African Americancommunity.

The result of this approach has beendata that can be utilized to define behav-ior and beliefs practiced and maintainedby members of the Jordan Plantationcommunity. Only those interpretationsdealing with one occupational special-ization, e.g., the Conjurer/Midwife, thedetermination of community member-ship, and spirituality practiced within theslave/tenant community will be summa-rized and discussed within this paper.However, a very brief description ofsome of the physical aspects of theQuarters area will be presented prior to

this discussion. This description will pro-vide some of the spatial organization ofthe residential portion of the community.

A Description of theJordan Quarters

The Jordan Community was physicallylocated approximately 350 feet north ofthe �Main House� area of the plantation.The area of the Jordan Plantation occu-pied by the community�s cabins meas-ures approximately 300 feet by 150 feet.The community members were housedin four blocks of paired �barracks-like�buildings. That is, each block consistedof two brick buildings set facing oneanother along a central hallway, with anin-ground cistern at the northern end ofthis hallway. Three (Blocks I, III, and IV)to four (Block II) individual cabins werecontained in each of the buildings withinthe blocks. Thus, Blocks III, IV eachcontained six actual cabins, and I whileBlock II consisted of eight cabins. Theexterior of the walls of each building wasmade of dry-laid bricks, while the interiordivisions within and between the cabinswere made of wood. Evidence suggeststhat a single, continuous roof coveredeach block. During the pre-1865 period,an additional �block� of three cabins wasbuilt near the Main House. The enslavedhousehold staff occupied this set of cabins. After 1865, the occupants of thisblock who remained on the plantationtook up residence within the 26 cabinsof the Quarters.

Archaeology within the Quarters hassuggested that within I, III, IV, and theMain House Block each cabin appearsto have consisted of two rooms. Themain room�s floor space measuredapproximately 15 feet by 16 feet, andcontained the hearth. The second roommeasured approximately six feet by 16feet, and, in at least two cases theserooms function for both sleeping and

101Interwoven Traditions:Archaeology of the Conjurer's Cabins and the African AmericanCemetery at the Jordan and Frogmore Manor Plantations

craft activities. Each hearth had its ownchimney. In Block II, each of the eightcabins consisted of a single room meas-uring approximately 16 feet by 16 feet.While each cabin had its own hearth, thehearths in adjacent cabins in the samebuilding shared a single chimney. Theonly �cabin� to vary from this pattern wascabin I-A-1, the Praise House discussedbelow. The reason for the different archi-tecture of Block II may be that it was thefirst to be constructed, and may havebeen built prior to the Jordan�s actuallytaking up residence on the plantation.

The Conjurer/Midwife�s Cabin(Cabin II-B-1)

The Conjurer/Midwife�s residence is thenortheast cabin in Block II of the slaveand tenant quarters. This residence hasbeen discussed in two previous publica-tions, and appears to be best known asa result of the discovery of the so-called�Conjurer�s Kit� located in the southeast-ern corner of the cabin.(13) The con-tents of this kit included a wide variety ofartifacts including among other itemsfive cast iron kettle bases, chalk, at leastone sealed tube made of brass bulletcasings, medicine bottles, and a ther-mometer. Adjacent to this deposit werewater worn pebbles, mirror fragments,many square nails and spikes, severalfake metal knife blades, a small doll, aconcave metal disc, several oceanshells, and a number of blue glassbeads. These artifacts have been inter-preted as representing both the actualcuring kit as well as the remains of anNkisi similar to those found among theBiKongo peoples of West Africa. TheNkisi was employed as an integral partof the curing ritual among West Africangroups, but this represents its first inter-preted presence in North America.Taken together, this full set of materials

was utilized in the manipulation of thesupernatural world for the benefit of thehealth of members of the community.

However, within this cabin there areat least four other ritual deposits, threeof which, when combined with the con-jurer�s kit, form a cosmogram. Thenorthern most of the three deposits con-sists of a set of seven silver coins. Thisset includes four quarters, two dimes,and a perforated half-dime. The coinshad been deposited tightly wrappedtogether by cloth. Little of the clothremained, but what was left appears tobe coarsely woven cotton. The coinsmay have been ordered in a particularway within the cloth before being placedinto a small hole, dug into the soil belowthe floor of the cabin. The set of coinswas placed into the ground so that thecoins were �standing� nearly vertically ontheir sides. They were oriented on anorth-south axis. The perforated half-dime (dated 1853) was on the outsidefacing south, then came three quarters(two dated 1853 and one dated 1858),then the two dimes (one dated 1853 andthe other 1858), followed by the lastquarter (dated 1858). Thus, only twoyears were represented among thedates of these seven coins.

On the west side of the cabin wasanother interesting type of Nkisi deposit.The artifacts of this feature had beenintentionally placed in a small pit duginto the soil adjacent to the brick founda-tion and under what appears to havebeen the doorway into the cabin. Thisset of materials included a wide varietyof artifacts, nearly all of which weremade of cast iron. The primary focus ofthis feature was two cast iron kettlesplaced upright, one inside the other. Athird, smaller kettle had been brokenand the pieces of the walls had beenplaced on top of the other two kettles.The bottom of this kettle was foundapproximately five feet to the northeast.

Before the two kettles were placed oneinside the other, the bottom kettle hadash placed into it. This ash lens was thesealed by the upper kettle. The upperkettle contained a few objects of metal,ocean shells, glass, small bone frag-ments, and soil. Indeed, the kettle mayhave been filled simply by the accumula-tion of items falling through cracks in thefloorboards. These kettles were wrappedaround their circumference by a heavychain.

Two �lines� of artifacts radiated outfrom these kettles. Toward the northeastwere Confederate military buttons, largebone fragments, unperforated cock-leshells, more chain, and a completebayonet. Toward the southeast a num-ber of large metal objects were placedalong with two additional Confederatemilitary buttons, a quartz crystal, perfo-rated cockleshells. The large metalobjects included a hinge, several spikes,a bolt, and a fragment of a plow. Thisfeature likely formed a Nkisi that aided inritually securing the protection of thecabin, its occupants, and the activitiesconducted inside from harm that mightbe caused by powerful elements fromthe outside world. However, this set ofartifacts may not solely symbolize thistransition. These artifacts may also rep-resent an amula to Ogun, a Yorubadeity, similar to those noted from Cuba.

Another deposit was discovered afterthe previous three, and as a direct resultof an archaeological test to discover apossible meaning for the others. That is,taken together, the previous threedeposits could be interpreted as havingrepresented the eastern, northern, andwestern points of a cosmogram, theBiKongo symbol for the cycle of life aswell as an important curing symbol. Theeastern point of the cosmogram is repre-sented by the Conjurer�s kit, whichwould be employed in helping to giveand maintain life. The northern point on


a cosmogram represents the height ofone�s power in this world, and maleness.To the north the set of coins was locat-ed. The western point on the cosmo-gram represents the point of passagefrom this world to the next�the processof moving from life to death. The pres-ence of the ash and the distribution ofperforated and unperforated shells maysupport a symbolic view of this transi-tion. Thus, it was felt that one possibletest of the cosmogram hypothesis wouldbe the discovery of an artifact featureforming the southern point which, on thecosmogram, represents the height ofone�s power in the spirit world, andone�s femaleness.

During the excavation of the livingarea of the cabin around the hearth, nosuch feature was encountered.However, excavation within the heartharea did produce a deposit of artifactsthat forms the southern point as predict-ed by the cosmogram model. Basedupon the presence of a lens of soil andbrick over this feature, this deposit wasplaced into the hearth sometime aftercompletion of the fireplace. The featureitself consisted of a hole dug into the soilsupporting the base of the hearth andchimney. Ash, burned ocean shell, andburned square nails and spikes wereplaced on the floor of this hole. The holewas then filled with soil and brick rubbleand the hearth floor reconstructed. Thisrepresents the only feature placed into ahearth yet discovered within theQuarters area of the plantation. At therisk of being considered �politically incor-rect,� in light of the traditional femaleassociation for the southern point on thecosmogram, it is interesting that it wasplaced within the hearth of the cabin.Certainly, however, placement within thehearth may have been the result of theshape of the cabin and the need tomaintain cardinal directions while

placing the points of the cosmogram.The importance of hearth and householdwill be noted later in yet another context.

Each of these four features within theConjurer/Midwife�s Cabin support theinterpretation of an African Americanbehavioral and belief system�one thatserves to control the outside worldthrough the manipulation of the super-natural world. The full set of artifacts andcontexts suggest that many of the basicideas and rituals were of African origins.Very importantly, however, they show aninteresting mix of materials from at leasttwo West African cultural groups�BiKongo and Yoruba. However, thepatent medicine bottles and the ther-mometer demonstrate some adaptationof non-African ideas as well. That is, allof these elements support the hypothe-sis that the conjurer/midwife had sancti-fied the floor space of the cabin for itsuse within the ritual performance of curing, conjuring, and, possibly givingbirth. In the truest sense of the word,these features, along with the artifactspresent, represent an example of thecreolization process in operation.

Praise House/PraysHouse (Cabin I-A-1)

Cabin I-A-1, the northwest �cabin� withinBlock I has been identified as a�Community Building.�(14) Given theartifacts excavated from this cabin, andBarnes� analysis of this material, it islikely that the model of a �PraiseHouse/Prays House� more clearlydefines its uses.(15) Excavations werebegun here as the final test for thearrangement of the Quarters area at thetime of its abandonment. At the time, itwas decided that the testing of this cabinwould provide information on the appar-ent �two-room� nature the tenant/share-cropper cabins. Further, the excavationof this cabin had the potential to provide

information on the earliest slave quarterson the plantation along with the brickmanufacturing area that had been locat-ed below this Block of cabins. The firsttwo units excavated into the cabin yield-ed a surprisingly low frequency of arti-facts. However, not only was the amountof material lower than expected, even inso-called �non-abandoned cabins,� butthere was less variability in the artifacttypes present. Therefore, additionalunits were excavated in an attempt tomore completely determine the nature ofthe deposits within this cabin.

These units revealed additional dif-ferences between the sub-floor depositsin this cabin and all of the other 16 cab-ins tested. These differences include:the reduction in artifact frequency andvariability, the movement of the hearth,an increase in the size of the cabin, andseveral sub-floor features not previouslyobserved in other cabins. As a result ofthe continued excavation of this cabin,artifact counts and distributions have notbeen completed. However, a few tenta-tive and general comments can bemade. First, total artifact counts per unitwithin this cabin appear to be from one-quarter to one-third of the counts forother cabins. Second, this representsthe only cabin in which the buildingmaterial artifact class is, by far, thelargest. Indeed, one artifact type�square nails�makes up close to 25% ofthe artifacts recovered. Third, artifacttypes that generally appear in high fre-quencies in other cabins, such asceramics, cooking, and eating utensils,bottle glass, bone, buttons, various per-sonal items, and shell, are in very lowfrequency within this cabin. Thus, theartifact classes indicative of residentialactivities are the ones that exhibit thelow frequency of occurrence. Other thana badly broken pocketknife, no toolswere found within this cabin. Again, thisis atypical of the artifact inventories of


the other 16 cabins tested, in that it isthe only cabin that lacked tools. On thisevidence, it is possible to conclude thatthis cabin, unlike all of the others tested,may not have served as a residence.Although, it may have had a residentialfunction for only a short period of time.

On the other hand, certain artifacttypes appear at a somewhat higher fre-quency in this cabin than in others. This�higher frequency� is likely the result ofthe low overall artifact density, thus making rare artifact types appear inhigher frequency. However, the types ofartifacts involved are interesting. Theartifact types noted in higher than nor-mal frequencies include: buttons, coins/metal tokens, fragments of slate boards,and slate pencils. The frequency of jew-elry is approximately the same, or veryslightly higher, in I-A-1 than for the othercabins tested.

One item of jewelry appears to beextremely significant in the determina-tion of the function and meaning of this�cabin.� This item is a small brass crossset with five cut red glass pieces andsuspended on a small brass chain. Thecross and chain were found to havebeen placed approximately in the geo-graphic center of the cabin. When dis-covered, the cross was oriented north tosouth, with the actual cross located tothe south of the closed-clasp chain. Thechain and cross appear to have beendeliberately placed below the floor,rather than having been �dropped.�Indeed, the appearance was almost as ifit was �on display� in a very shallow holescooped out of the soil below the floor.Equally important, in terms of its deposi-tion, the clasp on the chain was closed.This last point may represent a furtherindication that the cross and its chainmay not have simply become lost belowthe floorboards. Certainly it could havebeen lost after being removed by theperson wearing it, and then dropped

through the floor boards of the cabinbefore it was known to have been lost,the closed clasp and the slight depres-sion in the ground surface, at least sup-ports the possibility of its having beenintentionally placed. This positioningwithin the cabin, the location of thecross, vis-à-vis the chain, and the closedclasp all aid in making this item poten-tially very important in the determinationof the function and meaning of thecabin. That is, the cross might supportthe hypothesis that the meaning andfunction of the cabin was within theChristian religious views held by mem-bers of the community: the �cabin� wasthe location of the �Prays House.�

This hypothesis is further supportedby the presence of two coins locatednear the cross. One of these coins, an1858 half-dollar piece, was found twofeet north of the cross. The second coinis an 1858 half dime found 3.5 feet westof the cross. The coins appeared to belocated roughly on the lines that wouldbe created if one were to continue out-ward from the cross along two of itsaxis�s (e.g., north and west from thecross). Also, it should be noted that bothof these silver coins date to the sameyear as at least six of the seven coins inthe cosmogram placed beneath the floorof the Conjurer/Midwife�s Cabin. Again,both the location of the coins, and theirdate, supports the hypothesis that theyare related to the cross, and functionedwithin the same sub-system as the crossand chain. While more excavation isrequired to determine if coins, or otheritems, radiate out from the cross on theeast and south, the cross/chain andcoins may represent a cosmogram withthe cross in the center. This might sug-gest either another example of the cre-olization process, or a statement of completing views of the organization ofthe way the world operates.

Another point of support for thePrays House function of the �cabin� isthat at some point early in the history ofits use, the hearth was moved outside ofthe main room, and its size was slightlyincreased. Early Prays Houses in theGullah area of the Lowcountry were builtwithout hearths. Excavation along thewest wall demonstrated that the originalhearth was located near the northwestcorner of the cabin, as defined by thepresence of the wall trench for a hearthin this area. At some point this hearthwas moved approximately 12 to 13 feetsouthward along the west wall. It is herethat the remains of the brick walls of thehearth were found. Excavation of thewest side of the rebuilt hearth wallsdemonstrated that they met, but werenot integrated into, the western brickwall of the cabin block. This is the onlyset of hearth walls not integrated into acabin block wall in the ten cabins exca-vated where this could be investigated.

Further, no other hearth was foundwithin the main room of the cabin. Thus,the movement of the hearth also had theimpact of increasing the size of the�cabin� nearly seven feet toward thesouth. That is, the newly reconfigured�cabin� would have measured 16 feet by28-29 feet. Robert Harris�s analysis ofcabin I-B-3, the �Carver�s Cabin,� thestandard cabin size in Block I was 16feet by 22 feet, and cabins appeared tohave had two rooms within this space.Thus, the extension of cabin I-A-1 wouldhave increased its size; while at thesame time reduced the size of cabin I-A-2 by almost exactly the amount ofthe narrow interior room defined byHarris.

The heaviest distribution of artifactsthat appear to be indicative of residen-tial-type activities was located within thisextended area of the cabin. In general,the dating of the bulk of the materialsdeposited here, supports the view that


this extension to the cabin was utilizedvery late in the use-history of the cabin(post 1880). Thus, it is likely that thismaterial was deposited sometime afterthe extension of the cabin and themovement of the hearth, but exactlywhen cannot be determined. However,cabin I-A-1 was reconfigured into a larg-er two-room cabin (with one of therooms measuring 16 feet by 22 feet andthe second measuring 16 feet by 6 feet)much earlier during its use. This wouldhave made it the largest cabin in thequarters. In this light, the lack of artifactsindicative of a domestic function is allthe more interesting and important.

In this context, two unique sub-floordeposits were discovered within thiscabin. The first extended around theeastern and northern sides of the recon-structed hearth. This was a thick inten-tionally placed deposit of ash and char-coal. Mixed into the ashy matrix of thisfeature were bones (some very large),small ceramic shards, small glassshards, broken buttons, burned shell,and square nails. This material wasplaced into a shallow hole, approximate-ly four to six inches in depth, dug out toa distance of approximately one foot outfrom the eastern and northern walls ofthe hearth. Clearly, ash and charcoaltend to increase in frequency on the sur-face of the ground as one approachesthe hearth walls in each of the cabinsthus far investigated. However, the situa-tion in the so-called Prays House repre-sents the only time that a special holewas dug around the hearth to hold thismaterial. Further, this is the only timethat charcoal, ash, and small householdartifacts appear to have been deposited,as opposed to their having accumulated,around the hearth.

The second deposit was found alongthe eastern wall of the cabin. The fea-ture consists of a shallow pit dug intothe soil likely near the area of the

entrance to the cabin. Lime-based plas-ter was employed to produce a raiseddesign on the floor of the hole. Thematrix filling the hole and surroundingthe �sculpture� consisted soil containingmany tiny pieces of the same white,lime-based plaster and very few brickfragments. The soil matrix into which thehole was dug contained a very high den-sity of brick fragments, thus suggestingthe hole was not refilled with the soiloriginally dug out of it. The hole hadbeen capped by two layers of firmlypacked, finely crushed brick separatedby a thin lens of tightly packed soil.Unfortunately, we have not been able tofully determine what the intended designmight originally have been. Tree rootsand ground water have destroyed alarge portion of the design that was orig-inally present. As with the feature con-nected with the hearth, this is the onlysealed deposit of plaster yet discoveredon the site.

Initially, this cabin appears typical ofthe others in Block I in terms of size andfunction�it was a residence. However,early in its use, the cabin was physicallyaltered and its function changed. Inattempting to interpret the reconstructedcabin�s function, the archaeologicaldeposit was tested against MargaretCreels� ethnographic description of aGullah Praise House (or PraysHouse).(16) Unfortunately, she does notinclude any discussion of the materialitems and artifact contexts associatedwith such a structure. However, a num-ber of test implications that might bedeveloped from her model are met bythis structure. For example, she statesthat the Praise House was the first cabinin the quarters, often originally the resi-dence of an important person within theenslaved community. This is confirmedby the data from cabin I-A-1.

The presence of the cross, the coins,and the ash feature around the hearth

all suggest a community ritual nature forthe reconstructed cabin. Both Creel(17)and Patricia Guthrie(18) have demon-strated that, among the Gullah, thePraise House functioned as the centerof community religious and politicalactivities. In their data, households andresidences on a plantation define com-munities, and households are defined bythe presence of hearths. Thus, it is not agreat leap to attempt to interpret theash, charcoal, and burned householdartifact deposit around the reconstructedhearth as having been intentionallyplaced to demonstrate community mem-bership, and helping to secure PraiseHouse membership. Limited historicalinformation further suggests the pres-ence of a religious structure for the blackcommunity on the Jordan Plantationprior to 1870.

The African AmericanCemetery

David Bruner conducted research withinthe plantation�s African American ceme-tery during 1994-96.(19) This investiga-tion was primarily oriented toward themapping of the cultural features withinthe cemetery. Initially, the cemetery waslocated and its boundaries defined byoral testimony. That is, the currantlandowner, a descendant of Levi andSarah Jordan, as well as an individualwith several ancestors buried within thecemetery, provided information on itslocation and extent. In order to insurethat the complete cemetery was includ-ed within out research, the initial map-ping project extended outside the �tradi-tionally� defined boundaries. A grid wassuperimposed over the area, and allmapping was done from the grid points.A total of 140 probable graves wererecorded in this mapping operation. Ofthese potential grave shafts, 37 weremarked in some fashion at the surface.


However, only twelve were marked inthe traditional European American fash-ion with head- and/or foot-stones. Theothers were marked with a variety offorms of markers�e.g., pipes, railroadrails driven into the ground, and otherforms of metal �objects.� No signs ofwooden markers remained on the sur-face at the time of the investigation. Thevast majority of potential graves, there-fore, lacked surface monuments. Inorder to determine the actual number ofgraves present, it was decided that twoadditional operations would be undertak-en to aid in the definition of graves: theuse of a metal detector, and highly controlled and limited excavation.

A metal detector was employed in aneffort to determine whether or not a pat-tern of metal artifacts was present withinthe area of an unmarked potential gravedepression that might indicate the pres-ence of a coffin within the depression.This operation was successful in deter-mining the apparent location of coffinsbelow the surface of the ground withinthe several of the depressions defined.Also significant was the observation thatno �coffin [p]atterns� were defined unlessthere was a depression present.However, not all depressions revealedthe presence of a coffin through thisoperation. The metal detector also dis-covered a number of objects that appearto mark graves, in an African Americanfashion�e.g., metal �pipes.� A numberof these pipes were no longer observ-able from the surface. However, basedupon the information from markedgraves, pipes had been placed standingupright near the western end of graveswithin this cemetery. Therefore, the infor-mation from the metal detector portion ofthe survey suggested that such pipescould be employed as grave markers,even if the original intent was not for this

purpose. Metal pipes were employed to�connect� many of the dead buried with-in the cemetery with the surface.

Further, shallow excavation unitswere placed within the cemetery focus-ing solely on the confirmation of graveshafts and, in a very limited fashion, toaid in the illustration of the surface treat-ment of the graves. That is, units onefoot wide and up to five feet long wereexcavated across a randomly selectedten percent sample of the unmarked,potential grave depressions. Excavationin these units was continued until it wasdetermined whether or not an actualgrave shaft was present. No bodieswere disturbed, and no artifacts werecollected during this operation. Whenartifacts were discovered in these units,they were left in place, and excavationcontinued down around them. Bottles,ceramics, knives, plow parts, car parts,and tractor parts were identified as having been placed on top of or withinthe graves. All of the depressions testedwere determined to have straight-walledshafts that were interpreted as graves.

Based upon this archaeologicalinvestigation, the cemetery appears tobe the resting place for the physicalremains of approximately 140 individu-als. Research into a variety of records(both written and oral) was employed inan effort to determine the names of theactual individuals present. Study of theinformation derived from the headstones, combined with genealogicaldata, death certificates, oral historicalknowledge, and other information, hasrevealed the identities of approximatelyone-third of the individuals believed tohave been interred within the cemetery.In turn, this evidence has led to an inter-esting hypothesis concerning the deci-sion-making pattern for burial within thiscemetery. With one exception, only peo-ple known to have spent their childhoodon the plantation were buried in this

cemetery during the 125 years of itsactive use. Spouses of those buried inthe cemetery and who did not grow upon the plantation are buried elsewhere.

The single known exception is that ofa week old child who died in 1973. Thischild was, however, born into a familythat had continued to live on land thatwas part of the original Jordan Planta-tion. Indeed, the child was buried in theportion of the cemetery employed by thefamily through the 1970s. The scope ofthis project did not include the investiga-tion of other plantation cemeteries in anattempt to determine if it was possible toidentify whether or not they also demon-strate this pattern. However, this patternappears to be similar to that defined forthe Gullah by Guthrie.(20)

Another of the important discoveriesmade during this survey was the pres-ence of a metal object placed in theground between the edge of the sloughand a set of ten graves. For a variety ofreasons, it appears likely that thesegraves were the earliest ones placedwithin the cemetery, and may representthe graves of enslaved individuals. Thisobject consisted of a metal half-circlewelded onto a railroad rail. Bruner notedthat this marker resembles the lower halfof a cosmogram�the half which signi-fies that portion of the life cycle relatedto death and one�s life in the spiritworld.(21) This marker does not appearto have been placed on or near a grave.It is, on the other hand, likely that thismarker (along with the yucca plants thatflank it on either side) identifies theentrance to the cemetery from theslough. If this was, indeed, the case,then a link can be made between thesymbolism employed within the commu-nity�s cemetery and beliefs expressed ina number of contexts within the commu-nity itself.


Excavations atFrogmore ManorPlantation

Historical archaeological investigation atthe Frogmore Manor Plantation Quarterswas begun during March, 1998, underthe direction of the author. At therequest of the landowner, excavationshad to be concluded in August, 2000. Inthis case, excavation was undertakensolely within the area of the Quarters,although the main house and at leastone of the eighteenth century plantationbuildings are still in use. Historicalrecords indicate that the Quarters werefirst built and occupied by enslavedAfricans and African Americans ownedby William Bull sometime after 1770. Bythe time of his death in 1791, WilliamBull operated a sea island cotton planta-tion covering over 3,300 acres with atleast two Quarters areas: the one exca-vated during our project, and a secondone inhabited by enslaved peopleowned by Bull�s overseer, a Mr. Robert-son, and located on the northern end ofthe original plantation, near the moderntown of Frogmore.

The earliest written documentationrelated to the Frogmore Manor Quartersconsists of a 1791 map showing thelocation of the Quarters and several ofthe plantations other structures. At thattime, the Quarters consisted of 18 hous-es with an enslaved population of lessthan 100 people. Under the ownershipof Colonel John Stapleton and, later,William Grayson, the enslaved popula-tion had increased to over 170. Notincluding the Federal Census lists, aseries of four �slave lists� exist for theplantation spanning the period from1791 (Bull�s probate record) through1852 (Grayson�s sale of enslaved peo-ple). Each of these lists is in familygroups and includes such information asgender, age, occupation, and, in three

cases, continent of origin. Thus, theactual written documentation for theenslaved population that occupied theFrogmore Manor Quarters is much morecomplete than that for Jordan. However,for the purposes of this paper, twoaspects of the record are critical: one,that the populations of enslaved peoplewere relatively �the same,� and two, thatone of the occupations listed atFrogmore Manor was that of �midwife.�

The excavation methodology fol-lowed at Frogmore Manor was essential-ly identical to that employed at LeviJordan. The major exception being thatthe size of the unit was changed fromfive by five to three by three. This alter-ation of the initial unit size was deemednecessary as a result of the sand soilmatrix encountered on St. HelenaIsland. However, these units were alsodivided into subunits after the first levelremoved the forest leaf litter. The contin-uation of the use of subunits throughoutthis excavation was maintained for tworeasons: one, the aid in recordingdetailed archaeological context, and two,to aid in identifying the two primaryhouse types (based upon their founda-tion) for enslaved people known fromthe Carolina Lowcountry, if the typesexisted within this community.

Prior to discussing the results of ourexcavation into one of the FrogmoreManor Quarters residences, it is neces-sary to point out that our investigationsat Frogmore Manor, while terminated,are not complete. Therefore, some ofthe results are tentative at this time.After originally agreeing to four field sea-sons of excavation, during the third fieldseason it was requested that we notreturn. The current landowners werereceiving a great deal of pressure fromother members of their large extendedfamily to have the excavations halted.According to the owners, the rest of thefamily is certain that we could somehow

steal their land as a result of the pres-ence of an important archaeological site.While the owners were assured thatsuch an event could not happen, andwere given copies of existing SouthCarolina and Federal Laws to that effect,nothing would alter their opinion. Thus,excavations were terminated before theplanned completion date, leaving impor-tant information unavailable.

That having been said, we were ableto recover information on at least elevencabins (five from the early Quarters andsix from the later Quarters) and a possi-ble lime and/or ceramic kiln. Of thesecabins, two were extensively excavated,both from the later Quarters. The resultsof one of the excavations of one ofthese cabins will be presented here asthey relate to the Conjurer/Midwife�scabin at Jordan.

The PossibleConjurer/Midwife�sHouse

The house was located in the easternportion of the Quarters as defined by ourtesting. Approximately 50% of the origi-nal cabins floor area was investigatedduring our excavations. Of importancehere was the discovery of four sub-floorfeatures centered on each of the fourwalls of the cabin. Two of these depositsconsisted of the intentional burial ofarticulated animals, one a storage pit,and the other a deposit of ash andburned shell and metal. These fourdeposits appear to form a cosmogrambelow the floor of the cabin. Unlike theJordan cosmogram, however, this cos-mogram was oriented to the walls of thecabin, and not to cardinal directions.

The first deposit was discovered dur-ing the Summer 1999 field season. Thedeposit consists of a fully articulatedchicken placed in a small hole facingeast with its wings slightly extended to


either side. The chicken had beenplaced below a broken base of a greenglass wine bottle. As yet, we have beenunable to determine how the bird waskilled. It was the discovery of thisdeposit that led to the decision to exca-vate a number of additional units in thearea in an attempt to determine the rea-son for the burial of this animal. Thislater excavation has demonstrated thatthe chicken had been placed along thewestern wall of the cabin.

The second deposit was discoveredduring the Summer 2000 field season.The deposit consisted of an almost fullyarticulated young cow. Upon completeexcavation, it was determined that thecow was missing its tail. Like the chick-en, the cow had been placed into a holewith its legs and head facing to the east.One major difference between the posi-tioning of the cow and the chicken wasthat the cow was placed lying on its sideand the chicken had been placed stand-ing up. The cow was placed below botha green glass wine bottle base and acomplete wine bottle. As with the chick-en these glass objects had been placedupside down. A large portion of acolonoware vessel was also recoveredfrom above the cow in the fill of the pit.The cow was placed to the northeast ofthe chicken, and along the northern wallof the cabin.

The third deposit was also discov-ered during the Summer 2000 field sea-son. Indeed, both the third and forthdeposits were found as a direct result ofa test that the cow and chicken formedtwo of the four deposits of a cosmo-gram. The third deposit consisted of ashallow, rectangular pit placed below theground surface immediately in front ofthe cabin�s fireplace. At the time of itsexcavation, the pit contained a greatdeal of shell (possibly from the disinte-gration of the fireplace base), a com-plete green glass wine bottle, the

fragments of another wine bottle missingits base, a long cast iron �needle,� alarge blue glass bead, several mirrorfragments, a number of smoothed bonefragments, and several colonowaresherds. Samples of the soil were collect-ed for possible botanical analysis. Thisdeposit may have been a �hidey-hole,�and unrelated to the other deposits,except for three factors: the wine bottles,the association of artifacts the help tocomprise the conjurer�s kit at Jordan andin the ethnographic examples recordedby Bascom, and the fact that no otherhouses for which hearths have beenidentified (four) had these pits.(22) Thisdeposit was located northeast of thecow, but it would have been placedalone the eastern wall of the cabin.

The forth deposit was also discov-ered during the Summer 2000 field sea-son. This deposit was the mostephemeral of the four. It consisted of afine, lime ash, with very small fragmentsof burned shell and metal (including anumber of small nails). This deposit wasplaced in a very shallow hole scoopedinto the sand. The texture of the sandlined the bottom of the pit suggestedthat the materials might have beenburned in situ. However, later deposi-tional factors have had the effect of soft-ening this burned lens, and making it difficult to determine if the materialswere actually burned there. The artifactsrecovered from within this deposit areidentical to those of the southern depositin the cosmogram interpreted from theJordan Quarters, and like that one, theone at Frogmore was located on thesouthern wall of the cabin.

Taken together, these four depositsdirectly mirror the cosmogram depositsrecovered from the Jordan Quarters,and the ethnographically defined mean-ings of the four points of a cosmogramfound in West African contexts. The onlymajor difference between the two

cosmograms is the use of animals atFrogmore Manor, rather than theEuropean American technologyemployed in the Jordan cosmogram.However, the meanings of the depositsappear to have been identical. Indeed,the Frogmore Manor deposits have amuch more �African� appearance. Cattleoften symbolize wealth in many WestAfrican cultures, while protection fromspirits can be obtained from chickens. Inboth Frogmore Manor and Jordan,chickens were sacrificed and then buriedfully articulated, though in the case ofJordan this may have been done at thedeath of the Conjurer/Midwife�s two children and husband during the 1870s.

Summary andConclusions

There can be no question that Africancultural traditions became actively incor-porated into African American culturethrough the interactions and adaptationsmade by Africans, Europeans, andNative Americans who operated withinthe system of enslavement practiced inthe American South. For Africans andAfrican Americans, however, a numberof these traditions had to be maintainedthrough their being hidden from thewider, dominant society. Thus, the tradi-tions had to continued but in an �under-ground� and/or altered expression fromthose originally practiced in Africa. Somecould be hidden within the traditions andbeliefs of the dominant culture, as in theChristianity of the Prays House.(23)Sometimes they were hidden, as Brunerstated, in �plain view� within the land-scape they created.(24) In other cases,the symbolic representatives of thebeliefs and behaviors had to literally behidden from the view of individuals bothwithin and outside the community. Thus,for African Americans the placement ofobjects below ground was far more


important than had been the case inAfrica. Given the power of the inhabi-tants of the spirit world, placement out ofview, below cabin floors or other loca-tions below ground, even on their bod-ies, had no impact on the efficacy of thedeposits thus �hidden�/placed out ofview.

The detailed contextual historicalarchaeological research of the AfricanAmerican communities of the Jordanand Frogmore Manor Plantations haverevealed a number of patterns of behav-ior along with symbolic representationsthat appear to have antecedents inAfrica: the conjurer, the cosomograms,and other symbolically charged objects,along with a number of beliefs and ritu-als connected with the burial of thedead. Further, the information discov-ered during both the Jordan andFrogmore Manor Quarters excavationshave also revealed another patternfound within the African Americanexpression of this symbolic culture. Thatis, for the most part, these displays arehidden from the view of individuals with-in this world, especially those of thedominant culture, unlike in West Africawhere they could be placed into theabove ground landscape defined by theinhabitants.

However, what is important in thistransition from plain view to hidden isthat the elements were still �visible� toinhabitants of the supernatural world.These elements still functioned to aid inthe manipulation and maintenance of thesupernatural world�a world still heavilydefined by the beliefs of peoples ofAfrican descent. Such patterns appearsimilar to historically and ethnographical-ly defined practices from the Caribbean,South America, North America, and,most importantly, the Gullah of the SeaIslands where Frogmore Manor is located.(25)

Clearly, over time the materialobjects that have symbolic importancewithin African American systems of beliefand behavior were changed from theirAfrican counterparts. As people ofAfrican descent became increasinglyconfronted with European Americantechnology they gave it meaning andvalue within their own cultural contexts.In this they had little choice. Stores andmerchants in the New World spent littleeffort importing the goods from Africanecessary for African belief and behav-ioral practices to continue with the samematerials that might have beenemployed in Africa. Further, the patternof cultural repression practiced byEuropean Americans noted above, liter-ally drove people of African descent to aredefinition of meaning and beliefs con-nected with European American technol-ogy and definition of the landscapearound them. Thus some of the behav-ioral and belief patterns noted by histori-ans and historical archaeologists appearto represent adaptations to life under theconditions of enslavement.(26) Thesepatterns would include: determination ofcommunity membership, treatment afterdeath, Prays House, and internal com-munity craft production.

The two cosmograms defined fromFrogmore Manor and Jordan representthis change from more �African� materialculture to European American itemsbeing assigned identical meanings.Unfortunately, it is this change towardEuropean American material culture thathas caused historical archaeologists�trouble� in defining African and AfricanAmerican impacts on the landscape ofAmerican culture. We have spent toomuch time looking for African materialculture, rather than African meaning andvalue assigned to European Americanmaterial items. Historians and historicalarchaeologists have conceived ofAfrican practices/material expressions

as �retentions� rather than as what theyare�elements of a new culture con-structed to permit survival within theoppressive systems of enslavement andtenancy/sharecropping. We have takenthe view that the dominant culture �pro-vided� the beliefs and behaviors thatAfrican and people of African descenthad to follow. Phillip Morgan evenassigns the role of the labor system asthe determining character for �AfricanAmerican cultural retentions.�(27) In thisview, people of African descent aremerely vessels that slowly are filled withEuropean American culture. Clearly, thematerial presented above suggests thisview is totally inadequate. Peoples ofAfrican descent played the major role intheir cultural development. They simplyplaced it in contexts �hidden from view.�

Notes

1. Charles E. Orser and Brian M.Fagan, Historical Archeology (New York:Harper Collins College Publishing,1996); Leland Ferguson, UncommonGround: Archaeology and Early AfricanAmerica, 1650-1800 (Washington:Smithsonian Institution Press, 1992);Kenneth L. Brown, �Material Culture andCommunity Structure: The Slave andTenant Community at Levi Jordan�sPlantation, 1848-1892,� in WorkingToward Freedom, Larry E. Hudson, Jr.,editor, (Rochester: University ofRochester Press, 1994), 95-118.

2. Thomas Wheaton, AmyFriedlander, and Patrick H. Garrow,Yaughan and Curriboo Plantations:Studies in Afro-American Archaeology(Atlanta: Soil Systems, 1983); MatthewC. Emerson, �African Inspirations in aNew World Art and Artifact: DecoratedPipes from the Chesapeake,� in �I, Too,Am America�: Archaeological Studies ofAfrican-American Life, ed. Theresa A.Singleton, (Charlottesville: University


Press of Virginia, 1999), 47-82;Ferguson, Uncommon Ground; LelandFerguson, �This Cross is a Magic Sign:Marks on Eighteenth-Century Bowlsfrom South Carolina,� in �I, Too, AmAmerica�: Archaeological Studies ofAfrican-American Life, ed. Theresa A.Singleton, (Charlottesville: UniversityPress of Virginia, 1999), 116-131;William H. Adams, editor, �HistoricalArchaeology of Plantations at Kings Bay,Camden County, Georgia,� inDepartment of Anthropology, Universityof Florida, Reports of Investigation(1987), Gainesville, FL; Ferguson, �ThisCross is a Magic Sign.�

3. Ferguson, �This Cross is a MagicSign�; Aaron E. Russell, �MaterialCulture and African American Spiritualityat the Hermitage,� in HistoricalArchaeology 31 no. 2(1997): 63-80;Emerson, �African Inspirations.�

4. Kenneth L. Brown and DoreenCooper, �Structural Continuity in anAfrican American Slave and TenantCommunity,� in Historical Archaeology24, no. 4(1990): 7-19; Brown, �MaterialCulture and Community Structure,�1994; Doreen Cooper, �The Archaeologyof Abandonment at the Levi JordanPlantation� (masters thesis, University ofHouston, 1989); David E. Bruner,�Hidden Power: Burial Practices from aAfrican American Slave and TenantCommunity� (masters thesis, Universityof Houston, 1996); Jorge GarciaHererros, �A Munitions Maker�s Cabin:An Archaeological Investigation at theLevi Jordan Plantation, Brazoria County,Texas� (masters thesis, University ofHouston, 1998); Mary K. Barnes,�Church and Community: An Archaeol-ogical Investigation at the Levi JordanPlantation, Brazoria County, Texas�(masters thesis, University of Houston,1999).

5. Brown, �Material Culture andCommunity Structure,� 1994.

6. Russell, �African AmericanSpirituality,� 1997, 63.

7. Charles H. Fairbanks, �TheKingsley Slave Cabin in Duval County,Florida, 1968,� in The Conference onHistoric Site Archaeology Papers, 1972,7(1974): 62-93; Jerome S. Handler andFrederick W. Lange, Plantation Slaveryin Barbados: An Archaeological andHistorical Investigation (Cambridge MA:Harvard University Press, 1978);Wheaton, et al, Yaughan and CurribooPlantations; John S. Otto, Cannon�sPoint Plantation, 1794-1860: LivingConditions and Status Patterns in theOld South (New York: Academic Press,1984); Douglas V. Armstrong, The OldVillage and the Great House: AnArchaeological and Historical Examina-tion of Drax Hall Plantation, St. Ann�sBay, Jamaica (Urbana: University ofIllinois Press, 1990); Ferguson,Uncommon Ground; idem, �This Crossis a Magic Sign�; Theresa A. Singleton,�The Archaeology of Afro-AmericanSlavery in Coastal Georgia: A RegionalPerception of Slave Household andCommunity Patterns� (Ph.D. disserta-tion, University of Florida, 1980);Theresa A. Singleton, �ArchaeologicalImplications for Changing LaborConditions,� in the Archaeology ofSlavery and Plantation Life, edited byTheresa Singleton (New York: AcademicPress, 1985), 291-308; idem, �TheArchaeology of Slave Life,� in BeforeFreedom Came: African-American Life inthe Antebellum South, eds. J. D. C.Campbell and K. S. Rice (Charlottesville:University Press of Virginia, 1991), idem,�The Archaeology of Slavery in NorthAmerica,� in Annual Review of Anthro-pology 24 (1995): 119-140; Charles E.Orser, The Material Basis of the Post-bellum Tenant Plantation: Historical

Archaeology in the Piedmont of SouthCarolina (Athens: University of GeorgiaPress, 1988); idem, �The ArchaeologicalAnalysis of Plantation Society:Replacing Status and Caste WithEconomics and Power,� in AmericanAntiquity 53(4)(1988): 735-751; idem,�The Archaeology of African-AmericanSlave Religion in the Antebellum South,�in Cambridge Archaeological Journal4(1)(1994):33-45; idem, �Beneath theMaterial Surface of Things: Commod-ities, Artifacts, and Slave Plantations,� inContemporary Archaeology In Theory: AReader, edited by Robert W. Preuceland Ian Hodder, (Oxford and Cam-bridge: Blackwell Publishers, 1996)189-201; Laura Wilke, �Magic and Empower-ment on the Plantation: An Archaeologi-cal consideration of African-AmericanWorld View,� in SoutheasternArchaeology 14(2)(1995): 136-148;idem, �Secret and Sacred: Contextuali-zing the Artifacts of African-AmericanMagic and Religion,� in HistoricalArchaeology 31(4)(1997):81-106;Theodore R. Rhinhart, ed., TheArchaeology of Shirley Plantation(Charlottesville: The University Press ofVirginia, 1984); Linda France Stine,Melanie A. Cabak, and Mark Groover,�Blue Beads as African-AmericanCultural Symbols,� HistoricalArchaeology 30(3)(1996):46-75; Anne E.Yentsch, A Chesapeake Family andTheir Slaves: A Study in HistoricalArchaeology (Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press, 1994); Amy Young,�Risk Management Strategies AmongAfrican-American Slaves at LocustGrove Plantation,� in InternationalJournal of Historical Archaeology1(1)(1997): 5-38; Drake M. Patton,�Mankala and Minkisi: PossibleEvidence for African-American FolkBeliefs and Practices,� in Newsletter forAfrican American Archaeology,6(1992):5-7; James L. Michie, Richmond


Hill Plantation 1810-1868: The Discoveryof Antebellum Life on a Waccamaw RicePlantation (New York: The ReprintCompany, 1990); Russell, �AfricanAmerican Spirituality.�

8. Bruner, �Hidden Power.�

9. Cheryl Wright, �Heard it Throughthe Grapevine� (masters thesis,University of Houston, 1994); Mary L.Hill, �The Discipline of Social Corsets:Negotiation of the Gender Typification ofthe Southern Lady by Female Descend-ants of Levi and Sarah Stone Jordan�(masters thesis, University of Houston,1997); Carol McDavid, �The Levi JordanPlantation: From ArchaeologicalInterpretation to Public Interpretation�(masters thesis, University of Houston,1996); idem, �Descendants, Decisions,and Power: The Public Interpretation ofthe Archaeology of the Levi JordanPlantation,� in Historical Archaeology31(3)(1997):114-131.

10. Mary K. Barnes, �Everything ThatThey Owned� (paper presented at theAnnual Meeting of the Society ofHistorical Archaeology, Atlanta,GA,1998).

11. Wright, �Heard it Through theGrapevine�; Hill, �The Discipline ofSocial Corsets.�

12. Brown and Cooper, �StructuralContinuity�; Brown, �Material Culture.�

13. Brown and Cooper, �StructuralContinuity�; Brown, �Material Culture.�

14. Barnes, �Church andCommunity.�

15. Margaret W. Creel, �A PeculiarPeople�: Slave Religion and Community-culture Among the Gullahs (New York:New York University Press, 1988).

16. Creel, �A Peculiar People,� 1988.

17. Ibid; �Gullah Attitudes Toward Lifeand Death,� in Africanisms in AmericanCulture, ed. Joseph E. Holloway(Bloomington, Indiana University Press,1991), 69-97.

18. Patricia Guthrie, Catching Sense:African American Communities on aSouth Carolona Sea Island (Westportand London: Bergin and Garvey, 1996).


20. Guthrie, Catching Sense.


22. William Bascom, �Two Forms ofAfro-Cuban Divination,� in Acculturationin the Americas, Proceedings andSelected Papers of the XXIXthInternational Congress of Americanists,Sol Tax, ed., 1 (Chicago: University ofChicago, 1952), 63-69.

23. Creel, A Peculiar People.


25. Robert F. Thompson, Flash of theSpirit: African and Afro-American Art andPhilosophy (New York: Random House,1983); Bascom, �Two Forms of Afro-Cuban Divination�; Sidney Mintz andRichard Price, in The Birth of African-American Culture: An AnthropologicalPerspective (Boston: Beacon Press,1992); Melville J. Herskovits, The Mythof the Negro Past (Boston: BeaconPress, 1941); Roger D. Abrahams,Singing for the Master: The Emergenceof African-American Culture in thePlantation South (New York: PenguinBooks, 1992); Michael Mullin, Africa inAmerica: Slave Acculturation andResistance in the American South andthe British Caribbean 1736-1831(Urbana and Chicago: University ofIllinois Press, 1994); Sandra T. Barnes,editor, Africa�s Ogun: Old World andNew (Bloomington and Indianapolis:Indiana University Press, 1989); Gladys-

Marie Fry, Stitched from the Soul: SlaveQuilts from the Ante-Bellum South (NewYork: Dutton Studio Books, 1990);Herbert G. Gutman, The Black Family inSlavery and Freedom, 1750-1925 (NewYork: Vintage Books, 1976); T. J.Woofter, Black Yeomanry: Life on St.Helena Island (New York: OctagonBooks, 1978); Guthrie, Catching Sense,George P. Rawick, From Sundown toSunup: The Making of the BlackCommunity (Westport: GreenwoodPublishing Company, 1972); JohnBlassingame, The Slave Community:Plantation Life in the Antebellum South(New York and Oxford: Oxford Press,1979); Sterling Stuckey, Slave Culture:Nationalist Theory and the Foundation ofBlack America (New York and Oxford:Oxford University, 1987); Eugene D.Genovese, Roll, Jordan, Roll (New York:Vintage Books, 1976); Creel, A PeculiarPeople, idem, �Gullah Attitudes TowardLife and Death.�

26. Creel, A Peculiar People; idem,�Gullah Attitudes Toward Life andDeath,� Guthrie, Catching Sense, EricFoner, Nothing But Freedom:Emancipation and Its Legacy (BatonRouge: Louisiana State UniversityPress, 1983); and Phillip D. Morgan,Slave Counterpoint: Black Culture in theEighteenth-Century Chesapeake andLowcountry (Chapel Hill: University ofNorth Carolina Press, 1998).

27. Morgan, Slave Counterpoint.


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Session Four:

LEGACIES OF URBAN REALMSAND RURAL COMMUNITIES

127

As people of African descent arrived in or moved tothe burgeoning cities, they established uniquelyurban cultures. In rural areas, many black towns

were established during Reconstruction, where blacksexpressed their environmental and commercial values andtraditions. Historic and continuing influences of Africanorigins are evident on both the urban and rural landscape.

Traditional African Architecture and Its Impact on Place Making: Case Studies From African and African American Communities

Abimbola O. Asojo

Gardening, Yard Decoration, and AgricultureAmong People of African Descent in the Rural South and the Cayman Islands

Richard Westmacott

Por La Encendida Calle Antillana:African Influences on Puerto Rican Architecture

Arleen Pabón

Session Four:

Legacies ofUrban Realmsand RuralCommunities

Traditional African Architecture and Its Impact on Place Making:Case Studies from African and African-American Communities

Abimbola O. Asojo

129

Since the era of independencefrom colonial rule in Africannations and the civil rights

movements in the United States,Africans and African-Americans haveengaged in developing new identitiesthrough the integration of culture in thedesign of contemporary societies. Thispaper examines the impact of cultural,historical, and traditional African architecture on historical and contem-porary design practices. Traditionalarchitectural forms from Africa are presented to illustrate significant elements of the style, its applications,and implications on contemporarydesign practices in African and African-American communities.

Traditional AfricanArchitecture

Traditional African architecture varies from simplerectangular dwellings in clay, to round houses,tents, sophisticated tombs, obelisks, palaces, pyramids, and monumental structures built by peo-ples of varying cultures all over Africa. A diversity ofbuilding forms existed in traditional African soci-eties, and most of them built highly ornamentedstructures. The Tassili cave paintings illustrate earlyforms of human communities in the Sahara desertin Africa. These cave paintings convey informationabout life in the Sahara region before the rivers andlakes of the desert began to dry, forcing people tomove closer to the Nile. Some contemporary histo-rians have stressed the influences of Saharan artand engravings on ancient Egyptian art. Some ofthese scholars believe ancient Egyptian art bor-rowed heavily from Saharan art, which preceded,

then ran parallel to the Egyptian form. Cave paint-ings were not restricted only to this area. Somehave been found in South Africa, predating those inthe Sahara.(1)

Early Innovations ofAfrican Craftsmanship

An early innovative example of African craftsman-ship is the Ethiopian Monarchy�s Obelisk at Aksum(B. C. 300�A. D. 300), which highlights techniquesof building freestanding masonry structures. TheObelisk at Aksum was 108 feet tall, with falsedoors, windows, columns, and wall treatments thathad horizontal timber reinforcements and outwardprojecting wooden stumps. Today, an obelisk stillstands in Rome, approximately 25 meters high, thesecond largest built by the ancient Akumites. It waslooted on the orders of Mussolini, and taken to Italyin 1937.(2) In addition, the Meroetic pyramids(North Cemetery at Meroe, B. C. 250�A. D. 350) inSudan show early craftsmanship in building royaltombs and structures.

Other early illustrations of innovative buildingtechniques are the grand castles and great stonemonuments of Zimbabwe. Timbuktu, Mali, andBenin were some medieval empires of West Africathat built exorbitant structures. Denyer noted �theancient city of Benin, the capital of the BeninEmpire was an urban center when the Portuguesearrived in Benin around 1500.�(3) Historians havestated they found a city that was a nautical milelong from gate to gate; the inhabitants were pros-perous and experienced in metalworking.(4) Theempire was later burned down and looted by theBritish invaders. Today, the looted artifacts fromthese nations can be found in museums throughoutthe western world.(5) Despite these precedents,many historical surveys in architecture stop primarily at Egyptian civilization, ignoring the civilizations south of the Sahara.

Traditional AfricanArchitectural Styles

Some authors have classified traditionalAfrican architecture as tents; Sudanesestyle; Impluvium style; Hill style;Beehive; Ghorfas; Kasbahs; and, under-ground structures.(6) Hunters, gatherers,and pastoralists who needed structuresthat could be dismantled and transport-ed usually used tent structures. TheTuaregs in West Africa utilized thesestructures during the trans-Saharantrade. They were based on a frameworkof hoops covered by mats. The averagefamily could pack its house and theirentire belongings on the back of a camelor a donkey. The Masai were pastoral-ists living in northern Tanzania andsouthern Kenya, their houses were semiportable, and made out of woodenframes which were often transported onthe back of animals. The Fulanis, whoare distributed throughout West Africa,took their cattle around over large dis-tances, moving from one settlement toanother, and utilizing materials availableon the site to construct their tents.

Sudanese style was generally a vari-ety of rectangular adobe buildings withcourtyards, found mostly in West Africain areas where Islam was dominant. Thestyle has often been attributed to Islamicinfluence. However, excavation atNteresso in Northern Ghana reveal theremains of rectangular planning, and thefact that Fulanis, Nupes, andKhassonkes�other convertees toIslam�did not build in Sudanese stylealso suggested the style predated Islam.Several characteristics of the style arecourtyard plans, flat or dome-shapedvaulted roofs, parapets pierced with gutter pipes or channels. Walls wereconstructed of mud bricks set in mortarand mud roofs supported by palm frondjoist.

Impluvium style was houses with fourbuildings facing one another in a court-yard, with gabled roofs. Examples arefound among the Benin, Yoruba, Asante,and Ibo peoples of West Africa. Yorubapalaces for kings were larger versions ofthe Impluvium style. The Yorubas had amonarchy system that considered theKing�s Palace as sacred. The Palaceconsisted of hundreds of courtyards,with several buildings facing each otherin the courtyards. In the palaces, elabo-rately carved columns supported gabledroofs along the courtyard perimeters.Dwelling units were also built on a court-yard plan, with four rectangular unitsfacing each other in a courtyard.

The largest palace in the Oyo Empirewas twice the size of a sports field. Eachof the courtyards was reserved for special functions. The largest used forpublic assemblies or dancing at festi-vals, while smaller ones were used forthe King�s private activities. Some of thecourtyards were paved with quartz pebbles and potsherds.(7) Today, thelargest palace is in Owo, SouthwesternNigeria and covers 44 hectares (4,400acres).

Archaeological and ethnographicalstudies indicate that traditional Yorubatowns comprised several compounds,and each compound consisted of hous-es built around a series of open court-yards of different sizes, which usuallycontained pots to collect water fromrooftop. Yoruba cities were roughly circu-lar in shape, and surrounded by somekind of defensive wall. The afin (King�spalace) was an intricate labyrinth ofrooms and courtyards, often decoratedwith sculpted doors, walls, and columns.Andah noted �family and compound con-tinue as it were from all sides of thepalace and merge into one another.�(8)

This feature of continuity is reflectedin the opening lines of the poems in theYoruba divinatory system of Ifa. One

such poem reads: �build a housearound you Ifa, so you can build ahouse around me, so you can let chil-dren surround me, so you let money surround me.� The architectural forms ofthe city are interlocked within a well-defined concentric town plan. Yorubaarchitecture is an organization of dis-parate units into an interlocking whole.The compound design expresses anarchitecture of intimacy and encouragesthe success of the extended family.

The Asantes, found in present-dayGhana, constructed their buildingsbased on a courtyard system, with acentral courtyard usually joining fourbuildings; the fourth one was usuallyclosed off. The courtyard was used as ameeting space, children�s play area, anda place for food preparation. Windowsornamented in gold, silver inlay, andapplied finish demonstrated the wealthof the Asantes. The Asantes were gov-erned by a monarchy system, and his-torical surveys found the King�s Palacelocated in the center of the town over-looking a central playground for children.

The palace consisted of severalbuildings surrounding a number of court-yards, typical in many West Africanpalaces. The walls were well decoratedwith symbolic ornamentation, and themain entrance of the palace led to acourt 200 yards long. The roof structuresof the palace buildings itself were primarily of gabled form. The Asantesalso built royal mausoleums for theirkings that contained several rooms thathoused their remains. The link betweenthe living and the dead made thesemausoleums uniquely celebrated buildings.

Hill style houses were usually foundin hilly settlements around Africa, andtheir main features were stone terracingand round buildings, with diameters lessthan their heights.


Beehive styles were built of steppedthatch, houses were usually round planand often dome shaped. Pliable materiallike reeds, grass, leaves, woven mats,and animal skins were often used.

Ghorfas were multi-story, barrel-vaulted stone storage chambers, con-structed with stone, sun baked brick, orfurnaced baked bricks.

Kasbahs were ten or more storieshigh structures built out of packed clayand air-dried bricks. They were usuallybuilt to house families of one ancestralorigin. They evolved out of defensivenecessities, and have often beenreferred to as forts built in indigenousMoroccan styles.

Underground structures were com-monly rectangular or circular in plan withroof structures supported by branchesand rafters covered by earth.

Traditional African architecture can-not be examined without examiningAfrican decorative arts since both areclosely related in African societies.Some of the decorative arts of Africainclude symbols, patterns, motifs, dress,fabrics, hairstyles, body decoration,metal work, carving, pottery, basketry,beadwork, wall decoration, etc. OlaBalogun noted �African artistic geniuswas strongly asserted in the decorativeembellishment of the built environment.Varying decorative patterns could befound sculpted or painted on walls andwooden doors, which ranged from figurative designs to complex abstractpatterns which revealed an exquisitebalance of form, color, and shading.Painting was carried out as an extensionof architecture than an independentmedium.�(9)

Calvin Douglas of the BrooklynMuseum of Arts noted �Artistic expres-sion is not the luxury to African peoplesthat is has become to the west. It is con-sidered a natural and necessary way ofgiving meaning to phases of a person�s

life and enhancing his work. This tradi-tion continues in independent Africancountries today, where cultural dancesand attires are used in political festivals.In addition, if the vitality of a culture canbe measured in terms of its ability toproduce art and enlarge its conceptionof human life, it is not difficult to under-stand why so many black people in theU[nited] S[tates] today look to Africa astheir cultural source�.(10)

Traditional AfricanForms and DecorativeArts in Seventeenth &Eighteenth CenturyAmerica

The contribution of African-Americans inhistoric America has often gone unac-knowledged. Vlach noted �[T]he materialachievements of blacks are generallyassumed to have been negligible, if notnon-existent. Yet, now and again, dili-gent scholarship brings to light an Afro-American tradition in basketry, ironwork,pottery and other crafts. The mortar andpestle, dug out canoes of Chesapeakeregion and banjo are African influencesin American landscape.�(11) The African-American shotgun house has beennoted to have its roots in African archi-tecture. New Orleans is considered thecenter of shotgun housing developmentin the United States. Shotgun housesare usually one room wide and severalrooms long with a gable roof facing the main street. Towns of south-ern Haiti have houses similar to theshotgun houses in Louisiana. The hous-es were also one room wide and onestory high with their gables facing themain road. Historians have linked theoccurrence of shotgun houses in Haitiand Louisiana to trade links and immigration.

Vlach noted the �architectural linksbetween Port-au-Prince and New

Orleans cannot be denied. All thenonessential details that are associatedwith the shotgun in Haiti are also associ-ated with the shotgun in Louisiana,although not always to same degree. Itis evident that the concept of Shotgunhouses was imported from Haiti.�(12)The Haitian shotgun had its roots inYoruba, West Africa. Vlach noted that�Yoruba and Yoruba related peopleswere brought to Haiti in the first days ofslavery in sufficient numbers to preservemany traits of their African culture�.(13)The basic Yoruba house form consists ofa two-room linear building, the first roomis the parlor/kitchen and the second abedroom. Impluvium style houses, men-tioned earlier, are a multiplication of thisbasic unit, and the roofs were also gablein form.

Post-Colonial AfricanSpaces

Since the era of independence fromcolonial rule in the 1960s, there hasbeen a cultural revival in many Africannations. Current design practices incor-porate elements from traditional Africa incontemporary spaces. ContemporaryAfrican architecture is deeply rooted inMazuri�s �triple heritage,� which presentsAfrican history as comprised of threeprincipal influences: indigenous, west-ern, and Islamic. Western influencesbegan with the Greeks in B. C. 333,continuing through Roman settlement inB. C. 146, and Europeans in mid four-teenth century. Portuguese constructedmedieval fortress architecture, theEnglish built gothic forts, Victorian stylehouses, and English cottages. TheDutch erected Victorian style houses,and Brazilian style houses were built byfree men and women, returned to Africaafter the abolition of slave trade.International styles buildings weredesigned by African who went abroad to

131Traditional African Architecture and Its Impact on Place Making:Case Studies from African and African-American Communities

study, and expatriate architects whopracticed in many African nations, afterindependence from colonial rule.(14)

Islamic influences were more pre-dominant in North Africa, because of itsstrategic location (Egypt fell to Arabs inA. D. 641). Trade contact with peopleeast of the Indian Ocean, from Chinaand Arabia, facilitated Islamic influencesin this area. The West African Trans-Saharan trade gave Islam a route toWest Africa. Structures were made outof coral limestone, flat roofs, domes,gables, and vaults. Many West Africanmosques had West African features. The

Djenne Mosque in Mali is an example ofa mosque built out of adobe inSudanese style architecture.

Today, several architects are strivingto recapture elements from traditionalAfrican architecture lost since colonialrule. Nigerian architect Demas Nwoko�sCatholic Church in Ibadan, Nigeria,designed in the late seventies, is oneexample. The church was designed forthe Dominican Order in the CatholicChurch, which takes a vow of simplicity.(Figure 1) African forms are integrated inthe design, through the use of naturalmaterials; the concrete masonry unitwall is left plain and unfinished, thesteeple on the roof is roughly fashioned,and the walkway around the perimeterof the church is finished in cobbledstone. A pond around the perimeter ofthe church relates to the Yoruba�s appre-ciation of natural forms. The building ismodeled on the traditional West Africanhut style, and the sanctuary radiatesaround the altar, serving as a centralfocus, similar to palaces and shrines intraditional African societies.

Another of Nwoko�s designs the cul-tural center in Ibadan, Nigeria sits on ahilly site in Ibadan, serving as a culturallandmark.(Figure 2) Natural materialsare utilized to recall traditional architec-tural forms, the relationship with nature,and the Yoruba�s appreciation for naturalforms. The articulated exterior wallsappear to be telling a story similar toforms utilized in traditional societies.

Another example is the Oduduwahall, at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.(Figure 3) This amphithe-ater was designed by Sharon andSharon, from 1969-1972. Ile-Ife isregarded in Yoruba mythology as thecradle of civilization. The building formmimics the bronze heads carved in tradi-tional African societies. Landscaping thebase plane is used to express the impor-


Figure 1. Dominican Catholic Church,Ibadan, Nigeria.

Figure 2. Cultural Center, Ibadan,Nigeria.

Figure 3. Oduduwa Hall, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Figure 4. Saint Mary's, Houston, Texas.

Figure 5. Saint Benedict the African,Chicago, IL

Figure 6. Entertainment Space: LarryLevy.

1

2

3

4

5

6

tance of nature, and the murals on thebuilding walls are elements from tradi-tional Yoruba geometry, which appear tobe telling a story similar to traditionalenvironments.

Twentieth CenturyAfrican AmericanSpaces

African-American communities areengaged in cultural revival throughspaces, which integrate culture-basedissues. Saint Mary�s Catholic Church,Houston, Texas, designed by theAfrican-American firm of Archi-technics/3approaches culture-based issuesthrough form, materials, and artifacts.(Figure 4) The final design incorporatesa �parti,� based on interlocking circles. Agathering space with a baptismal font inform of the Goree Island provides a tran-sition from the outside to inside, whichthe priest interprets as being synony-mous with the passage from slavery tofreedom.

Another example, Saint Benedict theAfrican, was built in a Chicago neighbor-hood of African Americans in 1990.(Figure 5) The building committee andarchitects, Belli & Belli, while concernedabout representing the community�s her-itage were also concerned with creatinga place that would uplift the spirit. Aconcept of interlocking circles, basedupon traditional West African compounddwellings, was represented by multiplesof circular forms interlocking each other.African form is again reinforced throughthe materials of the sanctuary ceiling ofwood decking, semi-circular seatingplan, and trees planted below gradealong the interior walls.

Other renowned examples areRobert Mills� winning entry for theWashington Monument Competition,which is modeled after the AfricanObelisk from Ethiopia (15); William

Stanley�s Ebenezer Baptist Church inAtlanta, which uses African forms (16);and Jack Travis in his cultural interpreta-tion for Wesley Snipes.(17)

Summary

The impacts of traditional African archi-tecture on African and African-Americanspaces are numerous. The most recur-ring elements today include buildingforms based on the traditional Africanhut, gathering spaces, natural forms,courtyards, carved doors and columns,ironmongery, interlocking forms, andrectilinear planning. Developing anAfrocentric architecture that recallsAfrican traditional architecture is not aneasy task; the process requires not onlya consideration of building form but cul-tural meaning, and a design processthat empowers the community throughbuilding communities. Other prominentconcepts begin with the building formsinspired by styles deeply rooted inAfrican culture and materials. Surfacearticulation and space delineation aresome other design elements. The majorchallenges today lie in integrating pre-colonial and post-colonial Africaspaces to create a unique Afrocentricarchitectural style.

Notes

1. Macleod, �The Nile�s OtherKingdom, Nubia: Nubia, not Egypt, MayHave Been the First True AfricanCivilization,� in Time Magazine:Commemorative Issue (1997): 102-106.

2. Nnamdi Elleh, African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation (NewYork: McGraw Hill, 1997).

3. Susan Denyer, African TraditionalArchitecture (New York: AfricanaPublishing Company, 1978).

4. Denyer, African TraditionalArchitecture.

5. Elleh, African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation.

6. Denyer, African TraditionalArchitecture, Richard Hull, African Citiesand Towns Before the EuropeanConquest (New York: W. W. Norton andCo., 1976); Herbert Porthon,Architectural Styles (New York: Facts onFile Publication, 1982); Labelle Prussin,Islamic Design in West Africa (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1986); Elleh, African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation.


8. Bassey Andah, Nigeria�sIndigenous Technology, (Nigeria: IbadanUniversity Press, 1992).

9. Ola Balogun, �Form and expres-sion in African arts,� in Introduction toAfrican Culture: General Aspects, 69:1979, Paris: UNESCO.

10. Douglas quote found in Louise E.Jefferson, The Decorative Arts of Africa(New York: Viking Press, 1970).

11. John M. Vlach, �By the Works ofTheir Hands. Studies in Afro-AmericanFolk Life,� in American Material Cultureand Folklife (London: UMI ResearchPress, 1976).

12. Vlach, �By the Works of TheirHands�.

13. Ibid.


15. Brad Grant, �Cultural Politics andPedagogy,� in Voices in AritecturalEducation (New York: Bergin andGarvey, 1991); Elleh, African Architec-ture Evolution and Transformation.


16. J. Moline, �MLK�s Congregationin Atlanta Gets a Striking NewSanctuary,� in Architectural Record 5(1999): 104.

17. N. A. Diop, �Jack Travis CulturalVanguard. Persistence Continuing in aCourse in the Face of Difficulties,� inBlacklines 1(1999): 10-13.

Bibliography

Andah, Bassey. Nigeria�s IndigenousTechnology. Nigeria: IbadanUniversity Press, 1992.

Antoniades, Anthony C. Poetics ofArchitecture: Theory of Design. NewYork: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Asante, Kete, Mofeti. Afrocentricity. NewJersey: Africa World Press, Inc.,1996.

Balogun, Ola. �Form and Expression inAfrican Arts.� In Introduction toAfrican Culture: General Aspects,69(1979). Paris: UNESCO.

Barrie Thomas. �The Context of SacredArchitecture.� In Journal on Religion,Art & Architecture 3(1997): 9.

Boyer, E. L. and Mitgang, L. BuildingCommunity, A New Future forArchitecture Education and Practice.Princeton, New Jersey: The CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement ofTeaching, 1996.

Denyer, Susan. African TraditionalArchitecture. New York: AfricanaPublishing Company, 1978.

Diop, Cheika Anta Diop. The AfricanOrigin of Civilization Myth or Reality.New York: Lawrence Hill & Company,1974.

Diop, N. A. �Jack Travis CulturalVanguard. Persistence Continuing ina Course in the Face of Difficulties.�In Blacklines 1(1999): 10-13.

Elleh, Nnamdi. African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation. NewYork: McGraw Hill, 1997.

Grant, Brad. �Cultural Politics andPedagogy.� Voices in ArchitecturalEducation. New York: Bergin andGarvey, 1991.

Guidoni, Enrico. Primitive Architecture,(trans.) R. E. Wolf. New York: HarryN. Abrams, 1978.

Hull, Richard. African Cities and TownsBefore the European Conquest. NewYork: W.W. Norton & Co., 1976.

Jefferson, Louise E. In the DecorativeArts of Africa. New York: VikingPress, 1970.

King, Neol. African Cosmos, AnIntroduction to Religion in Africa.California: Wadsworth Inc., 1986.

Macleod, S. �The Nile�s Other KingdomNubia: Nubia, not Egypt May HaveBeen the First True African Civiliza-tion.� In Time Magazine: Commem-orative Issue (1997): 102-106.

Moline, J. �MLK�S Congregation inAtlanta Gets a Striking NewSanctuary.� In ArchitecturalRecord(5)(1999): 104

Parrinder, Geoffrey. African TraditionalReligion. London: S.P.C.K., 1962.

Porthon, Herbert. Architectural Styles.New York: Facts on File Publication,1982.

Prussin, Labelle. Islamic Design in WestAfrica. Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 1986.

Rapport, Amos. �Vernacular Architectureand the Cultural Determinants ofForm.� In Buildings and Society, 281-305. London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 1980.

Rodney, W. How EuropeUnderdeveloped Africa. WashingtonD.C.: Howard University Press, 1982.

Vlach, John M. �By the Works of TheirHands. Studies in Afro-AmericanFolklife.� In American MaterialCulture and Folklife. London: UMIResearch Press, 1976.

Source Notes about Photos

Figure 1. Dominican Catholic Church.Source: Photo by author.

Figure 2. Cultural Center. Source: Photoby author.

Figure 3. Oduduwa Hall. Source: Photoby author.

Figure 4. Saint Mary's. Source: St.Mary�s Building Committee.

Figure 5. Saint Benedict the African.Source: St. Benedict�s BuildingCommittee.

Figure 6. Entertainment Space. Source:Studio project by Larry Levy.


Session Four:

LEGACIES OF URBAN REALMSAND RURAL COMMUNITIES

127

As people of African descent arrived in or moved tothe burgeoning cities, they established uniquelyurban cultures. In rural areas, many black towns

were established during Reconstruction, where blacksexpressed their environmental and commercial values andtraditions. Historic and continuing influences of Africanorigins are evident on both the urban and rural landscape.

Traditional African Architecture and Its Impact on Place Making: Case Studies From African and African American Communities

Abimbola O. Asojo

Gardening, Yard Decoration, and AgricultureAmong People of African Descent in the Rural South and the Cayman Islands

Richard Westmacott

Por La Encendida Calle Antillana:African Influences on Puerto Rican Architecture

Arleen Pabón

Session Four:


Traditional African Architecture and Its Impact on Place Making:Case Studies from African and African-American Communities

Abimbola O. Asojo

129

Since the era of independencefrom colonial rule in Africannations and the civil rights

movements in the United States,Africans and African-Americans haveengaged in developing new identitiesthrough the integration of culture in thedesign of contemporary societies. Thispaper examines the impact of cultural,historical, and traditional African architecture on historical and contem-porary design practices. Traditionalarchitectural forms from Africa are presented to illustrate significant elements of the style, its applications,and implications on contemporarydesign practices in African and African-American communities.

Traditional AfricanArchitecture

Traditional African architecture varies from simplerectangular dwellings in clay, to round houses,tents, sophisticated tombs, obelisks, palaces, pyramids, and monumental structures built by peo-ples of varying cultures all over Africa. A diversity ofbuilding forms existed in traditional African soci-eties, and most of them built highly ornamentedstructures. The Tassili cave paintings illustrate earlyforms of human communities in the Sahara desertin Africa. These cave paintings convey informationabout life in the Sahara region before the rivers andlakes of the desert began to dry, forcing people tomove closer to the Nile. Some contemporary histo-rians have stressed the influences of Saharan artand engravings on ancient Egyptian art. Some ofthese scholars believe ancient Egyptian art bor-rowed heavily from Saharan art, which preceded,

then ran parallel to the Egyptian form. Cave paint-ings were not restricted only to this area. Somehave been found in South Africa, predating those inthe Sahara.(1)

Early Innovations ofAfrican Craftsmanship

An early innovative example of African craftsman-ship is the Ethiopian Monarchy�s Obelisk at Aksum(B. C. 300�A. D. 300), which highlights techniquesof building freestanding masonry structures. TheObelisk at Aksum was 108 feet tall, with falsedoors, windows, columns, and wall treatments thathad horizontal timber reinforcements and outwardprojecting wooden stumps. Today, an obelisk stillstands in Rome, approximately 25 meters high, thesecond largest built by the ancient Akumites. It waslooted on the orders of Mussolini, and taken to Italyin 1937.(2) In addition, the Meroetic pyramids(North Cemetery at Meroe, B. C. 250�A. D. 350) inSudan show early craftsmanship in building royaltombs and structures.

Other early illustrations of innovative buildingtechniques are the grand castles and great stonemonuments of Zimbabwe. Timbuktu, Mali, andBenin were some medieval empires of West Africathat built exorbitant structures. Denyer noted �theancient city of Benin, the capital of the BeninEmpire was an urban center when the Portuguesearrived in Benin around 1500.�(3) Historians havestated they found a city that was a nautical milelong from gate to gate; the inhabitants were pros-perous and experienced in metalworking.(4) Theempire was later burned down and looted by theBritish invaders. Today, the looted artifacts fromthese nations can be found in museums throughoutthe western world.(5) Despite these precedents,many historical surveys in architecture stop primarily at Egyptian civilization, ignoring the civilizations south of the Sahara.

Traditional AfricanArchitectural Styles

Some authors have classified traditionalAfrican architecture as tents; Sudanesestyle; Impluvium style; Hill style;Beehive; Ghorfas; Kasbahs; and, under-ground structures.(6) Hunters, gatherers,and pastoralists who needed structuresthat could be dismantled and transport-ed usually used tent structures. TheTuaregs in West Africa utilized thesestructures during the trans-Saharantrade. They were based on a frameworkof hoops covered by mats. The averagefamily could pack its house and theirentire belongings on the back of a camelor a donkey. The Masai were pastoral-ists living in northern Tanzania andsouthern Kenya, their houses were semiportable, and made out of woodenframes which were often transported onthe back of animals. The Fulanis, whoare distributed throughout West Africa,took their cattle around over large dis-tances, moving from one settlement toanother, and utilizing materials availableon the site to construct their tents.

Sudanese style was generally a vari-ety of rectangular adobe buildings withcourtyards, found mostly in West Africain areas where Islam was dominant. Thestyle has often been attributed to Islamicinfluence. However, excavation atNteresso in Northern Ghana reveal theremains of rectangular planning, and thefact that Fulanis, Nupes, andKhassonkes�other convertees toIslam�did not build in Sudanese stylealso suggested the style predated Islam.Several characteristics of the style arecourtyard plans, flat or dome-shapedvaulted roofs, parapets pierced with gutter pipes or channels. Walls wereconstructed of mud bricks set in mortarand mud roofs supported by palm frondjoist.

Impluvium style was houses with fourbuildings facing one another in a court-yard, with gabled roofs. Examples arefound among the Benin, Yoruba, Asante,and Ibo peoples of West Africa. Yorubapalaces for kings were larger versions ofthe Impluvium style. The Yorubas had amonarchy system that considered theKing�s Palace as sacred. The Palaceconsisted of hundreds of courtyards,with several buildings facing each otherin the courtyards. In the palaces, elabo-rately carved columns supported gabledroofs along the courtyard perimeters.Dwelling units were also built on a court-yard plan, with four rectangular unitsfacing each other in a courtyard.

The largest palace in the Oyo Empirewas twice the size of a sports field. Eachof the courtyards was reserved for special functions. The largest used forpublic assemblies or dancing at festi-vals, while smaller ones were used forthe King�s private activities. Some of thecourtyards were paved with quartz pebbles and potsherds.(7) Today, thelargest palace is in Owo, SouthwesternNigeria and covers 44 hectares (4,400acres).

Archaeological and ethnographicalstudies indicate that traditional Yorubatowns comprised several compounds,and each compound consisted of hous-es built around a series of open court-yards of different sizes, which usuallycontained pots to collect water fromrooftop. Yoruba cities were roughly circu-lar in shape, and surrounded by somekind of defensive wall. The afin (King�spalace) was an intricate labyrinth ofrooms and courtyards, often decoratedwith sculpted doors, walls, and columns.Andah noted �family and compound con-tinue as it were from all sides of thepalace and merge into one another.�(8)

This feature of continuity is reflectedin the opening lines of the poems in theYoruba divinatory system of Ifa. One

such poem reads: �build a housearound you Ifa, so you can build ahouse around me, so you can let chil-dren surround me, so you let money surround me.� The architectural forms ofthe city are interlocked within a well-defined concentric town plan. Yorubaarchitecture is an organization of dis-parate units into an interlocking whole.The compound design expresses anarchitecture of intimacy and encouragesthe success of the extended family.

The Asantes, found in present-dayGhana, constructed their buildingsbased on a courtyard system, with acentral courtyard usually joining fourbuildings; the fourth one was usuallyclosed off. The courtyard was used as ameeting space, children�s play area, anda place for food preparation. Windowsornamented in gold, silver inlay, andapplied finish demonstrated the wealthof the Asantes. The Asantes were gov-erned by a monarchy system, and his-torical surveys found the King�s Palacelocated in the center of the town over-looking a central playground for children.

The palace consisted of severalbuildings surrounding a number of court-yards, typical in many West Africanpalaces. The walls were well decoratedwith symbolic ornamentation, and themain entrance of the palace led to acourt 200 yards long. The roof structuresof the palace buildings itself were primarily of gabled form. The Asantesalso built royal mausoleums for theirkings that contained several rooms thathoused their remains. The link betweenthe living and the dead made thesemausoleums uniquely celebrated buildings.

Hill style houses were usually foundin hilly settlements around Africa, andtheir main features were stone terracingand round buildings, with diameters lessthan their heights.


Beehive styles were built of steppedthatch, houses were usually round planand often dome shaped. Pliable materiallike reeds, grass, leaves, woven mats,and animal skins were often used.

Ghorfas were multi-story, barrel-vaulted stone storage chambers, con-structed with stone, sun baked brick, orfurnaced baked bricks.

Kasbahs were ten or more storieshigh structures built out of packed clayand air-dried bricks. They were usuallybuilt to house families of one ancestralorigin. They evolved out of defensivenecessities, and have often beenreferred to as forts built in indigenousMoroccan styles.

Underground structures were com-monly rectangular or circular in plan withroof structures supported by branchesand rafters covered by earth.

Traditional African architecture can-not be examined without examiningAfrican decorative arts since both areclosely related in African societies.Some of the decorative arts of Africainclude symbols, patterns, motifs, dress,fabrics, hairstyles, body decoration,metal work, carving, pottery, basketry,beadwork, wall decoration, etc. OlaBalogun noted �African artistic geniuswas strongly asserted in the decorativeembellishment of the built environment.Varying decorative patterns could befound sculpted or painted on walls andwooden doors, which ranged from figurative designs to complex abstractpatterns which revealed an exquisitebalance of form, color, and shading.Painting was carried out as an extensionof architecture than an independentmedium.�(9)

Calvin Douglas of the BrooklynMuseum of Arts noted �Artistic expres-sion is not the luxury to African peoplesthat is has become to the west. It is con-sidered a natural and necessary way ofgiving meaning to phases of a person�s

life and enhancing his work. This tradi-tion continues in independent Africancountries today, where cultural dancesand attires are used in political festivals.In addition, if the vitality of a culture canbe measured in terms of its ability toproduce art and enlarge its conceptionof human life, it is not difficult to under-stand why so many black people in theU[nited] S[tates] today look to Africa astheir cultural source�.(10)

Traditional AfricanForms and DecorativeArts in Seventeenth &Eighteenth CenturyAmerica

The contribution of African-Americans inhistoric America has often gone unac-knowledged. Vlach noted �[T]he materialachievements of blacks are generallyassumed to have been negligible, if notnon-existent. Yet, now and again, dili-gent scholarship brings to light an Afro-American tradition in basketry, ironwork,pottery and other crafts. The mortar andpestle, dug out canoes of Chesapeakeregion and banjo are African influencesin American landscape.�(11) The African-American shotgun house has beennoted to have its roots in African archi-tecture. New Orleans is considered thecenter of shotgun housing developmentin the United States. Shotgun housesare usually one room wide and severalrooms long with a gable roof facing the main street. Towns of south-ern Haiti have houses similar to theshotgun houses in Louisiana. The hous-es were also one room wide and onestory high with their gables facing themain road. Historians have linked theoccurrence of shotgun houses in Haitiand Louisiana to trade links and immigration.

Vlach noted the �architectural linksbetween Port-au-Prince and New

Orleans cannot be denied. All thenonessential details that are associatedwith the shotgun in Haiti are also associ-ated with the shotgun in Louisiana,although not always to same degree. Itis evident that the concept of Shotgunhouses was imported from Haiti.�(12)The Haitian shotgun had its roots inYoruba, West Africa. Vlach noted that�Yoruba and Yoruba related peopleswere brought to Haiti in the first days ofslavery in sufficient numbers to preservemany traits of their African culture�.(13)The basic Yoruba house form consists ofa two-room linear building, the first roomis the parlor/kitchen and the second abedroom. Impluvium style houses, men-tioned earlier, are a multiplication of thisbasic unit, and the roofs were also gablein form.

Post-Colonial AfricanSpaces

Since the era of independence fromcolonial rule in the 1960s, there hasbeen a cultural revival in many Africannations. Current design practices incor-porate elements from traditional Africa incontemporary spaces. ContemporaryAfrican architecture is deeply rooted inMazuri�s �triple heritage,� which presentsAfrican history as comprised of threeprincipal influences: indigenous, west-ern, and Islamic. Western influencesbegan with the Greeks in B. C. 333,continuing through Roman settlement inB. C. 146, and Europeans in mid four-teenth century. Portuguese constructedmedieval fortress architecture, theEnglish built gothic forts, Victorian stylehouses, and English cottages. TheDutch erected Victorian style houses,and Brazilian style houses were built byfree men and women, returned to Africaafter the abolition of slave trade.International styles buildings weredesigned by African who went abroad to


study, and expatriate architects whopracticed in many African nations, afterindependence from colonial rule.(14)

Islamic influences were more pre-dominant in North Africa, because of itsstrategic location (Egypt fell to Arabs inA. D. 641). Trade contact with peopleeast of the Indian Ocean, from Chinaand Arabia, facilitated Islamic influencesin this area. The West African Trans-Saharan trade gave Islam a route toWest Africa. Structures were made outof coral limestone, flat roofs, domes,gables, and vaults. Many West Africanmosques had West African features. The

Djenne Mosque in Mali is an example ofa mosque built out of adobe inSudanese style architecture.

Today, several architects are strivingto recapture elements from traditionalAfrican architecture lost since colonialrule. Nigerian architect Demas Nwoko�sCatholic Church in Ibadan, Nigeria,designed in the late seventies, is oneexample. The church was designed forthe Dominican Order in the CatholicChurch, which takes a vow of simplicity.(Figure 1) African forms are integrated inthe design, through the use of naturalmaterials; the concrete masonry unitwall is left plain and unfinished, thesteeple on the roof is roughly fashioned,and the walkway around the perimeterof the church is finished in cobbledstone. A pond around the perimeter ofthe church relates to the Yoruba�s appre-ciation of natural forms. The building ismodeled on the traditional West Africanhut style, and the sanctuary radiatesaround the altar, serving as a centralfocus, similar to palaces and shrines intraditional African societies.

Another of Nwoko�s designs the cul-tural center in Ibadan, Nigeria sits on ahilly site in Ibadan, serving as a culturallandmark.(Figure 2) Natural materialsare utilized to recall traditional architec-tural forms, the relationship with nature,and the Yoruba�s appreciation for naturalforms. The articulated exterior wallsappear to be telling a story similar toforms utilized in traditional societies.

Another example is the Oduduwahall, at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.(Figure 3) This amphithe-ater was designed by Sharon andSharon, from 1969-1972. Ile-Ife isregarded in Yoruba mythology as thecradle of civilization. The building formmimics the bronze heads carved in tradi-tional African societies. Landscaping thebase plane is used to express the impor-


Figure 1. Dominican Catholic Church,Ibadan, Nigeria.

Figure 2. Cultural Center, Ibadan,Nigeria.

Figure 3. Oduduwa Hall, Ile-Ife, Nigeria.

Figure 4. Saint Mary's, Houston, Texas.

Figure 5. Saint Benedict the African,Chicago, IL

Figure 6. Entertainment Space: LarryLevy.

1

2

3

4

5

6

tance of nature, and the murals on thebuilding walls are elements from tradi-tional Yoruba geometry, which appear tobe telling a story similar to traditionalenvironments.

Twentieth CenturyAfrican AmericanSpaces

African-American communities areengaged in cultural revival throughspaces, which integrate culture-basedissues. Saint Mary�s Catholic Church,Houston, Texas, designed by theAfrican-American firm of Archi-technics/3approaches culture-based issuesthrough form, materials, and artifacts.(Figure 4) The final design incorporatesa �parti,� based on interlocking circles. Agathering space with a baptismal font inform of the Goree Island provides a tran-sition from the outside to inside, whichthe priest interprets as being synony-mous with the passage from slavery tofreedom.

Another example, Saint Benedict theAfrican, was built in a Chicago neighbor-hood of African Americans in 1990.(Figure 5) The building committee andarchitects, Belli & Belli, while concernedabout representing the community�s her-itage were also concerned with creatinga place that would uplift the spirit. Aconcept of interlocking circles, basedupon traditional West African compounddwellings, was represented by multiplesof circular forms interlocking each other.African form is again reinforced throughthe materials of the sanctuary ceiling ofwood decking, semi-circular seatingplan, and trees planted below gradealong the interior walls.

Other renowned examples areRobert Mills� winning entry for theWashington Monument Competition,which is modeled after the AfricanObelisk from Ethiopia (15); William

Stanley�s Ebenezer Baptist Church inAtlanta, which uses African forms (16);and Jack Travis in his cultural interpreta-tion for Wesley Snipes.(17)

Summary

The impacts of traditional African archi-tecture on African and African-Americanspaces are numerous. The most recur-ring elements today include buildingforms based on the traditional Africanhut, gathering spaces, natural forms,courtyards, carved doors and columns,ironmongery, interlocking forms, andrectilinear planning. Developing anAfrocentric architecture that recallsAfrican traditional architecture is not aneasy task; the process requires not onlya consideration of building form but cul-tural meaning, and a design processthat empowers the community throughbuilding communities. Other prominentconcepts begin with the building formsinspired by styles deeply rooted inAfrican culture and materials. Surfacearticulation and space delineation aresome other design elements. The majorchallenges today lie in integrating pre-colonial and post-colonial Africaspaces to create a unique Afrocentricarchitectural style.

Notes

1. Macleod, �The Nile�s OtherKingdom, Nubia: Nubia, not Egypt, MayHave Been the First True AfricanCivilization,� in Time Magazine:Commemorative Issue (1997): 102-106.

2. Nnamdi Elleh, African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation (NewYork: McGraw Hill, 1997).

3. Susan Denyer, African TraditionalArchitecture (New York: AfricanaPublishing Company, 1978).



6. Denyer, African TraditionalArchitecture, Richard Hull, African Citiesand Towns Before the EuropeanConquest (New York: W. W. Norton andCo., 1976); Herbert Porthon,Architectural Styles (New York: Facts onFile Publication, 1982); Labelle Prussin,Islamic Design in West Africa (Berkeleyand Los Angeles: University of CaliforniaPress, 1986); Elleh, African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation.


8. Bassey Andah, Nigeria�sIndigenous Technology, (Nigeria: IbadanUniversity Press, 1992).

9. Ola Balogun, �Form and expres-sion in African arts,� in Introduction toAfrican Culture: General Aspects, 69:1979, Paris: UNESCO.

10. Douglas quote found in Louise E.Jefferson, The Decorative Arts of Africa(New York: Viking Press, 1970).

11. John M. Vlach, �By the Works ofTheir Hands. Studies in Afro-AmericanFolk Life,� in American Material Cultureand Folklife (London: UMI ResearchPress, 1976).

12. Vlach, �By the Works of TheirHands�.

13. Ibid.


15. Brad Grant, �Cultural Politics andPedagogy,� in Voices in AritecturalEducation (New York: Bergin andGarvey, 1991); Elleh, African Architec-ture Evolution and Transformation.


16. J. Moline, �MLK�s Congregationin Atlanta Gets a Striking NewSanctuary,� in Architectural Record 5(1999): 104.

17. N. A. Diop, �Jack Travis CulturalVanguard. Persistence Continuing in aCourse in the Face of Difficulties,� inBlacklines 1(1999): 10-13.

Bibliography

Andah, Bassey. Nigeria�s IndigenousTechnology. Nigeria: IbadanUniversity Press, 1992.

Antoniades, Anthony C. Poetics ofArchitecture: Theory of Design. NewYork: Van Nostrand Reinhold, 1990.

Asante, Kete, Mofeti. Afrocentricity. NewJersey: Africa World Press, Inc.,1996.

Balogun, Ola. �Form and Expression inAfrican Arts.� In Introduction toAfrican Culture: General Aspects,69(1979). Paris: UNESCO.

Barrie Thomas. �The Context of SacredArchitecture.� In Journal on Religion,Art & Architecture 3(1997): 9.

Boyer, E. L. and Mitgang, L. BuildingCommunity, A New Future forArchitecture Education and Practice.Princeton, New Jersey: The CarnegieFoundation for the Advancement ofTeaching, 1996.

Denyer, Susan. African TraditionalArchitecture. New York: AfricanaPublishing Company, 1978.

Diop, Cheika Anta Diop. The AfricanOrigin of Civilization Myth or Reality.New York: Lawrence Hill & Company,1974.

Diop, N. A. �Jack Travis CulturalVanguard. Persistence Continuing ina Course in the Face of Difficulties.�In Blacklines 1(1999): 10-13.

Elleh, Nnamdi. African ArchitectureEvolution and Transformation. NewYork: McGraw Hill, 1997.

Grant, Brad. �Cultural Politics andPedagogy.� Voices in ArchitecturalEducation. New York: Bergin andGarvey, 1991.

Guidoni, Enrico. Primitive Architecture,(trans.) R. E. Wolf. New York: HarryN. Abrams, 1978.

Hull, Richard. African Cities and TownsBefore the European Conquest. NewYork: W.W. Norton & Co., 1976.

Jefferson, Louise E. In the DecorativeArts of Africa. New York: VikingPress, 1970.

King, Neol. African Cosmos, AnIntroduction to Religion in Africa.California: Wadsworth Inc., 1986.

Macleod, S. �The Nile�s Other KingdomNubia: Nubia, not Egypt May HaveBeen the First True African Civiliza-tion.� In Time Magazine: Commem-orative Issue (1997): 102-106.

Moline, J. �MLK�S Congregation inAtlanta Gets a Striking NewSanctuary.� In ArchitecturalRecord(5)(1999): 104

Parrinder, Geoffrey. African TraditionalReligion. London: S.P.C.K., 1962.

Porthon, Herbert. Architectural Styles.New York: Facts on File Publication,1982.

Prussin, Labelle. Islamic Design in WestAfrica. Berkeley and Los Angeles:University of California Press, 1986.

Rapport, Amos. �Vernacular Architectureand the Cultural Determinants ofForm.� In Buildings and Society, 281-305. London: Routledge and KeganPaul, 1980.

Rodney, W. How EuropeUnderdeveloped Africa. WashingtonD.C.: Howard University Press, 1982.

Vlach, John M. �By the Works of TheirHands. Studies in Afro-AmericanFolklife.� In American MaterialCulture and Folklife. London: UMIResearch Press, 1976.

Source Notes about Photos

Figure 1. Dominican Catholic Church.Source: Photo by author.

Figure 2. Cultural Center. Source: Photoby author.

Figure 3. Oduduwa Hall. Source: Photoby author.

Figure 4. Saint Mary's. Source: St.Mary�s Building Committee.

Figure 5. Saint Benedict the African.Source: St. Benedict�s BuildingCommittee.

Figure 6. Entertainment Space. Source:Studio project by Larry Levy.


In this paper, I pose two questionsconcerning African American culturallandscapes. The first is one of origin.

Does the use of ornamental plantsaround dwellings have Africanantecedents? I have found none,although the use of flowers and otherornamental plants by AfricanAmericans in the United States and inthe Caribbean has evolved very distinc-tive characteristics. The second ques-tion concerns the survival of Africanfarming practices. Why are Africanmethods of farming practiced in someareas of the Americas but not others?In the Cayman Islands for instance, Ifound slash and burn agriculture thatappeared to be little changed from tra-ditional farming practices in WestAfrica.(1)

First, a few caveats. I interpret �AmericanLandscape� as landscapes of the Americas, North,Central, South, and the Caribbean. Therefore Iinclude as African Americans, people of Africandescent in all the Americas as well as the UnitedStates. Second, most of my work has been in ruralareas. African American society until quite recentlyhad been predominately rural throughout theAmericas. My work in the United States hasfocused on the rural piedmont in Georgia, Alabama,and the low country of South Carolina. Thirdly, myfirst hand knowledge of the Caribbean is limited tothe Cayman Islands and the Lesser Antilles. Myknowledge of agricultural practices and gardeningon other Caribbean Islands is mostly derived fromLydia Pulsipher�s work.(2) Fourthly, my knowledgeof African cultures is rather superficial.

A striking feature of the yards of people ofAfrican descent in the Americas is that they areoften highly decorated with both plants and otherornaments. When working on my book, AfricanAmerican Gardens and Yards in the Rural South, Isearched of many of the earliest photographic col-lections from West Africa in the CommonwealthOffice Library in London. But I found no examplesof the use of plants for ornament. Nor did I find ref-erence to plants being grown for ornament in thedescriptions of early travelers in West Africa.

Shade trees were frequent, but I concluded thatthe use of plants for decoration was not common inAfrica and, in the Americas, had resulted fromacculturation during colonialization and slavery. YetI felt that I might be �denying rather than investigat-ing� Africanisms as Melville Herskovits suggestedresearchers had been inclined to do in the past.However, the publication in 1993, of Jack Goody�sThe Culture of Flowers, reassured me that I wasnot alone in my conclusion. The title of the firstchapter of Goody�s book poses the question, �Noflowers in Africa?� He described his observations inWest Africa thus:

I had attended many ceremonies and had seenfood, the raw and the cooked, offered at innu-merable shrines�but never flowers�Islam cer-tainly has its culture of flowers, at least in Asia,the Mediterranean, and to some extent in EastAfrica.(3)

However, although there may have been no orna-mental plants grown in African yards, the spacesaround dwellings were kept bare by hoeing andsweeping them regularly, and this practice wasadopted in the Americas. The �swept yard� becamea feature that was once ubiquitous at all levels ofsociety in the Southern United States, and in theislands of the Caribbean. The sweeping was done

Session Four:


Gardening, Yard Decoration, and Agriculture Among Peoples ofAfrican Descent in the Rural South and in the Cayman Islands

Richard Westmacott

135

not only to keep the yard tidy, but thepattern and texture of the sandy surfacebecame very important.

In the Cayman Islands, the �sandyard� has become highly stylized withmeticulously raked sand between theplants. The routine involved alsobecame a ritual on the Islands. On amoonlit night shortly before Christmas,the whole family would go down to thebeach where they would collect sand inlarge baskets that were normally usedfor carrying produce (locally known as�backing�) from provision grounds to thehome.(4) The sand would be piled inthe yard, spread, and then carefullyraked smooth. Alan Ebanks described itto me.

It was a family occasion to gettogether and back sand. The moon-light made it easy to see�. If you�veever seen clean, fresh sand spreadin the moonlight, you realize howbeautiful it is. It�s very much prettierthan in the day and in the sun.

Yards are swept with brooms that aremade of an appropriate local plant mate-rial. In the Cayman Islands, branches ofa shrub, known locally as rosemary(Croton linearis), are bound together tomake yard brooms. House brooms aremade of thatch palm (Coccothrinax proc-torii). In the southern Piedmont region ofthe United States, dogwood (Cornusflorida) is almost always used for yardbrooms, but gallberry (Ilex coriacea), ordog fennel (Eupatorium capillifolium) ismore commonly used in coastal areas.In the southern United States, memoriesof sweeping the yard are still vivid in theminds of many older people, both blackand white.

Although the plants are different,their arrangement in yards in the Southwas strikingly similar to the arrangementof plants in the yards in the CaymanIslands. Plants are spaced individually

and are appreciated as individuals. Veryrarely are they grouped or massed andare generally are not used for purposessuch as ground cover, as an edging, orto provide a screen. They are not usedas �structural� elements in the composi-tion, to enclose a lawn, to provide abackground, or to screen the founda-tions of a building. Probably for this rea-son, evergreen shrubs, grown mostly fortheir foliage, are not common in AfricanAmerican yards in the South. Nor is itusual to group several of the same planttogether. Rather, they are set apart fromadjacent plants so that they can beclearly distinguished.

Color is the most important criterionfor choosing plants. In the tropics, thereare many highly colored foliage plants,the croton (Codiaeum variegatum), in allits variations, being the most popular.Among the flowers, old favorites such ashibiscus (Hibiscus rosa-sinensis and H.schizopetalus), oleander (Nerium olean-der), and bougainvillea (Bougainvilleaspectabilis) are all spectacularly colorful.In more temperate areas however, thereare few hardy colorful foliage plants, andflowers predominate. But I discoveredno recurring patterns in the use of col-ors. I found no cases of deliberatelyarranging colors to clash, as has beennoted by Robert Farris Thompson inAfrican American quilt design. He wrote�Black quilters usually enliven cloth withwhat might be called �attack coloration�(i.e. even outpouring of high decibel,often clashing hues).�(5)

In my research in the southern statesof the United States, I found little evi-dence of agricultural practices that couldbe attributed to Africa. Littlefield hasargued convincingly that plantation own-ers on the South Carolina coast soughtout slaves with expertise in growing rice,but the multicropping systems typical ofmuch of equatorial West Africa appearsto have had no equivalents in the United

States. Recently, I was studying subsis-tence agricultural practices and garden-ing traditions on the Cayman Islands.(6)I was astonished to find not only com-plex multicropping, but also slash andburn land rotation typical of West Africa.The Cayman Islands were not inhabitedwhen the British first colonized theislands and it is doubtful if Amerindianpractices had any influence on agricul-ture on the islands.

The rotation takes place, in theinstance described here, over a seven-year period.(7) The land is first clearedand burned. The slash is piled morethickly on tree stumps to increase theeffectiveness of the burn. The soil isthen cultivated with a hoe or a machete.Several crops were planted in a typicallycomplex arrangement, with pumpkins,sweet potatoes, yams, cassava, plan-tains, papaya, and even mango trees,although from appearances they wereprobably survivors of an earlier rotation.After about five years, productivity willhave fallen, and an area is fenced inpreparation for conversion to a grasspasture, known locally as a grass�piece.� Pasturing livestock on the plotcan restore the fertility in a much shorterperiod than a forest rotation. Animalswere not used in slash and burn rota-tions in equatorial Africa and, in theCayman Islands, probably resulted fromEuropean influence.

Multi-cropping has distinct advan-tages in wet tropical climates for subsis-tence farming. There are no seasons,and crops can be harvested as-and-when needed. Consequently, land is notexposed to erosion and leaching formuch of the year, as it is in seasonalseed agriculture. Harvesting as-neededalso eliminates the problem of storage.The complex of plant types, annual andperennial herbaceous plants, root crops,vines, shrubs, and trees gives excellentsoil protection and uses sunlight most


efficiently. Multicropping is not suited toproducing large surpluses of produce forsale, an important goal of plantationagriculture. But, as subsistence was thegoal of most Caymanians (cash cropswere palm rope and turtles), there wasno great pressure for change. However,in the United States, perennial multicrop-ping is impractical due to the seasonalclimate. Many slaves were not permittedto have their own gardens, and for thosethat were, there was strong pressure toadopt the practices of the plantation.

The soil on the Caymans is so rockythat row cropping and mechanical culti-vation are impossible. As a result, aplantation agricultural economy neverdeveloped as it did on most otherCaribbean islands. Slaves were brought,mostly from Jamaica, to cut themahogany, which covered much of theinterior of the islands. But after all themahogany had been cut, most slaveswere returned to Jamaica. Very fewAfricans were brought to the Caymansas field hands. They were brought ashouse slaves, to work on the wharves,and in shipbuilding. These slaves wouldhave acquired a much wider range ofskills than field hands.

When slavery on the Caymans wasended in 1835, there were considerableareas in the interior of the islands thatwere not used or occupied. Althoughmost of the land had actually beengranted to individuals in large tractsbetween 1734 and 1742, the valuabletimber has been cut. The land was of lit-tle value to its owners, and it was notdifficult for ex-slaves to find land to culti-vate and occupy without being evicted.Thus, a measure of independence andeven land proprietorship came muchearlier to the Cayman Islanders than toAfricans on other Caribbean islands orin the Southern United States. The cata-log of the Jamaican Exhibition of 1891

noted that the Caymans were remark-able for peasant ownership of theland.(8)

Most Cayman Islanders used to liveclose to the sea, just behind the dunes,and their provision grounds were in theinterior of the islands. The house was athatched, frame structure of ironwood(Chionanthus caymanensis), protectedby dense thickets of sea grape(Coccoloba uvifera), sea almond(Terminalia catappa), Australian pine(Casuarina equisetifolia), and coconuts(Cocos nucifera). In sheltered areas,adjacent to the house, islanders grew awide range of different fruits includingavocados (Persea americana), akee(Blighia sapida), breadfruit (Artocarpusatilis), various citrus fruits (Citrus spp.),soursop (Annona muricata), sweetsop(Annona squamosa), star fruit or caram-bola (Averrhoa carambola), and nase-berry (Manilkara zapota). Some fruitssuch as plantains (Musa paradisiaca)and papaya (Carica papaya) were toosensitive to the salt spray and tended tobe grown on the provision grounds wellaway from the shore. These provisiongrounds were sometimes quite distantfrom the dwelling and often a hut wouldbe built to allow the owner to stayovernight.

Pulsipher noted that on the island ofMontserrat, slaves cultivated provisiongrounds far from the plantations, but thishad to be done surreptitiously for fear ofthe plantation owner finding out. In con-trast, Cayman Islanders had readyaccess to land both for agriculture andfruit growing. They were not subject topressures to adopt methods of row-cropagriculture, and traditional multicroppingslash and burn techniques were moreadaptable to local soil conditions.

Notes

1. In this paper, I use the term �gar-den� to refer only to the place wherevegetables are grown. The �yard�includes other places around thedwelling including those used for pleas-ure and ornament.

2. Lydia M. Pulsipher, �They HaveSaturdays and Sundays to FeedThemselves: Slave Gardens in theCaribbean,� Knoxville: University ofTennessee, 1898; reprint, in Expedition2(2)(1990): 24-33.

3. Jack Goody, The Culture ofFlowers (Cambridge and New York:Cambridge University Press, 1993), 11.

4. Provision grounds are plots ofland, usually in the interior of the islandsand often distant from the home whereproduce is grown.

5. Robert Farris Thompson, Flash ofthe Spirit: African and Afro-American Artand Philosophy (New York: RandomHouse, 1983), 13.

6. Richard Westmacott, Gardens,Yards, Pieces, and Grounds: TheDomestic Places and Spaces ofCaymanians (George Town: NationalMuseum of the Cayman Islands, 1999).

7. The area Hutland, Grand Cayman,was named for the huts that were builton the provision grounds that were oftenso distant from homes that the ownersbuilt places to stay overnight.

8. Neville Williams, A History of theCayman Islands (Grand Cayman: TheGovernment of the Cayman Islands,1970), 65.

137Gardening, Yard Decoration, and Agriculture Among Peoples of AfricanDescent in the Rural South and in the Cayman Islands

Bibliography

Goody, Jack. The Culture of Flowers.Cambridge and New York:Cambridge University Press, 1993.

Pulsipher, Lydia M. �They HaveSaturdays and Sundays to FeedThemselves: Slave Gardens in theCaribbean.� Knoxville: University ofTennessee, 1898. Reprint, inExpedition 2(2)(1990): 24-33.

Pulsipher, Lydia M. �The Landscapesand Ideational Roles of CaribbeanSlave Gardens.� In The Archeologyof Garden and Field, Naomi F. Millerand Katheryn L. Gleason, eds.Philadelphia: University ofPennsylvania Press, 1994.

Williams, Neville. A History of theCayman Islands. Grand Cayman:The Government of the CaymanIslands, 1970.

Westmacott, Richard. African AmericanGardens and Yards in the RuralSouth. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 1992.

Westmacott, Richard. Gardens, Yards,Pieces, and Grounds: The DomesticPlaces and Spaces of the CaymanIslands. George Town, GrandCayman: Cayman Islands NationalMuseum, 1999.


When premier Puerto Ricanpoet Palés Matos wrote thewell-known lines of his

Black Majesty poem:

Por la encendida calle antillana va Tembandumba de la Quimbamba�

he was trying to capture the Temban-dumba�s impact as she walked downthe Antillean street. His artistry withwords allows us to picture her elusiveprogress and the lasting impact herbeauty and African heritage had on thepopulation. Palés� poem, like this paper,deals with intangibles. One of PuertoRico�s most powerful cultural compo-nents is embodied by our African her-itage. However, just as Tembandumbalives only by means of a poem, the sub-ject of this paper�African impact onthe island�s domestic architecture�exists only in the interpretation of somerapidly disappearing ruins and a fewold photographs.(1)

This work is about things that are no more. It dealswith absence and tries to dislodge two of West-erners most cherished attitudes. First, the ideathat�-to use Pevsner's grand metaphor�onlycathedrals and not bicycle sheds deserve academicscrutiny and, second, that cultural significance isexclusively embodied in physically identifiablearchitectural artifacts. Many, many years ago, whenI first tried to understand why historic preservation(or architectural history for that matter) seldomdealt with aspects present in herstory (as opposedto history), I realized that Western thought is, atbest, seriously biased. Take as an example

Caribbean domestic architecture, its historical andcultural development. Seldom, if ever, is the topicacademically explored; seldom, if ever, is it ana-lyzed as a significant part of our cultural heritage.

While a few Caribbean dwellings, almost alwaysexamples of the big house type, are presented astransplanted examples of grand European architec-ture, the topic is rarely analyzed in holistic fashion.As a result, society fails to understand how, forexample, the slave hut bred as many, if not more,important and relevant domestic types as the bighouse. More significantly, we fail to consider therole women, Puerto Ricans of African decent, andother subordinate groups played in the creation ofour architectural heritage. African influence inPuerto Rican architecture is non-subject in partbecause the following questions have not beenaddressed. How can a subordinate group con-tribute to a culture�s architectural development?Even if possible, are huts and similar humble struc-tures culturally significant? Most importantly andassuming there was an influence, where are theartifacts that prove it? For many decades, onlysilence answered these questions. Unfortunately,the void in knowledge was construed as non-participation by the African group. This work tries toshed light upon these topics.

The Caribbean Hut

When Columbus first came into contact with nativePuerto Rican or Taíno architecture he wrote: �There[he is referring to Puerto Rico] I saw very goodhouses that would compare favorably with those inValencia.� It soon became obvious that he wasfudging the truth: the Caribbean Natives did notconstruct following European ideas. In a fascinatingand ironic historic twist, the native�s paradigmaticbuilding�the bohío�was similar to the Vitruvianhut: a makeshift affair, open to nature although usually round. As expected, the bohío had much in

Session Four:


Por La Encendida Calle Antillana:African Impact on Puerto Rican Domestic Architecture

Arleen Pabón

139

common with many African types,enshrined in the memories of those thatsuffered the slave Diaspora.

When the tragic trade first started,slaves in the island were not providedwith or allowed to have their own individ-ual homes. Usually, they lived in barracas or barracones where theyexperienced a total and degrading lackof privacy. However, as time went on,some were allowed to have their ownhuts. In spite of their humble ethos, thisbuilding�-a condensation of native andAfrican ideas�is iconic of a momentouscultural transformation. The hut providedsomething the barracones did not: yourvery own dwelling artifact, a place whereyou could plant your very own roots. It isknown that Caribbean islanders followed(they still do) specific rites as they builtthese houses, known as huts, ranchitosor bohíos. From Guadeloupe�s ceremo-ny of marking the cutting down of themaster post of the hut (2) and the oldPuerto Rican phrase: plantar hol-cones,(3) to the Cuban religious cere-mony that took place at the constructionsite, they all showcase the importanceassociated to this rite of passage (hav-ing your own dwelling). There is dignityassociated to being able to constructyour very own hut for, even the simplestof them, represented the transcription ofmany hopes and dreams. It is fascinat-ing that so much immutable feelingcould go into such an architecturallymutable form.

The African descendants trans-formed that native typology and madepossible a new organization, both spatialand urban. Instead of the round floorplan common to the natives, the squareor rectangle was preferred, as in manyAfrican locales. The makeshift, nomadicnative ethos was also transformed: thebohío acquired more substance both interms of its materials and structuralcomponents. Probably, the most

interesting transformation was that itbecame a closed and enclosed space.In most cases it sported no windows andonly a small door to the interior.

This lack of windows needs to beexplored, for one would think that open-ing interiors unto the outdoors is a mustin a tropical milieu. However, for theenslaved population (and you wereenslaved whether you were a slave orfreed slave) the bright outdoor spacewas not their space, but rather a cruelstage, a vivid reminder of the unfortu-nate situation they experienced. A dark,closed interior created a sense of intima-cy that protected�-to paraphrasedBachelard�the user�s immense intima-cy from prying eyes. It is recorded thatall over the Caribbean, in the few caseswhere windows do appear, blind shuttersclosed them, as per African tradition andin marked contrast to the fancy Euro-pean shutters. When inside, you wantedto shut out the exterior, not to bring it in.This characteristic became an intrinsicpart of the Puerto Rican house. To thisday, most windows, when shut, allow forno light to come in.

In most cases, the interior spaceserved as living-cum-sleeping place(called a pieza or aposento) that sporteda dirt floor. The dirt floor had a uniquesymbolism and, in keeping with its sig-nificance, had its own special name: thesoberao, a word of unknown origin.Some years ago, when visiting one ofthese abodes, the lady of the housekept excusing herself regarding heruntidy soberao.(4) As I knew, she insist-ed, her husband was a carpenter andthere was no way she could keep itclean all the time. At first, I was non-plussed with her extreme preoccupation.I now understand that the soberaoproves you have a place of your own(even if you an arrimao and the landbelongs to another person), that youpossess your very own dwelling locus.

For the old lady, her soberao was evi-dence not only that she had a house butalso that she was the lady of that house.I have read that in the United States,slaves at times insisted on this type offloor finish as an act of appropriation.(5)The feel and texture of the dirt againstbare feet, the smell of packed earth, andthe darkness enveloping these sensa-tions was probably a reminder of theirlong-gone African past.

In the island, cooking was consid-ered a communal affair and, once again,the African influence transformed thenative experience: the Taíno bateybecame a common area shared by thebohíos that help organize it. Contrary toEuropean plaza standards for suchareas, this iconic space did not followany particular geometric layout. It wasan informal place to work, chat, cook,play, and, on occasions, dance. It isinteresting to note that balconies, theparadigmatic European architecturaldomestic artifact, are not present in theAfrican-Puerto Rican hut. In the island,Europeans used balconies as visualinstruments of order. While in the coun-tryside, they acted as tribunes fromwhere the activities of the farm could beinspected in the city, they maintained thefeminine purdah system, being the onlyoutside place a woman could venture onher own. In both cases, they represent-ed something foreign, seldom experi-enced by the group under study: a placeto spend time at ease. The communalbatey was the equivalent of theEuropean balcony: it was both signifierand a signified.

The lack of interest in formalarrangement evidenced in the batey isparallel to the way the group related tothe city. Even in the tightly restricted SanJuan urban area, the free African-PuertoRican population chose to expressthemselves in a different manner. It isinteresting to note that the barrio where


most lived was distinguished by its own,if unfortunate, name. If we analyze an1880 copy of a 1771 plan of the area,we detect that the individual houses inthe barrio do not follow the rigid urbangrid layout that defines the rest of theurban enclave. As the orthogonalscheme reaches the area and as can beseen even today, the houses decon-struct the grid. In fact, some houses inthe area still sport a small garden in thefront, something unheard of in the rest ofthe city.

A bohío was more than just a shelter;it was a womb-like milieu that providedcomfort by means of privacy. The typeexperimented with minimalist architectur-al ideas and its unique personality wasthe result of importing the African archi-tectural experience into the domain ofthe native house. At a later stage, otherAfrican elements were introduced, suchas the emphasis on the long axis andspecial decorations on the main façade.When these traditions fused with otherideas (such as the Anglo-Americangrille), the unique Puerto Rican housecame to be. Most examples of the huttype are long gone but their architecturalinfluence is still with us in every solidlyclosed window and in every housingsubdivision street used as a batey bychildren and grownups alike.

On Things Unseen

Not all things are visible; there arethings unseen regarding African impactto architectural culture. Because theyare absent, we lack traditional physicalevidence. Contemporary Deconstruc-tivist ideas point out that society is guid-ed by phonocentrism. This attitude isextremely partial to physical things. As aresult, we believe that physicality repre-sents truth and reality. As we grapplewith this idea we construct binaries,such as: male/female, Black/White,

being/not being, presence/absence,among others. As Derrida has masterful-ly explained, these binary oppositionsfavor the �groundly� term, the one thatsupposedly articulates the fundamentals.Hence, woman is everything a man is not.

Unfortunately, phonocentrism alsoaffects historic preservation stances. Forexample, we usually ascribe cultural sig-nificance to things we can see or, at themost intangible, to places directly relatedto events we define as significant; inother words, sites that physically repre-sent the historic happenings. If we dosome soul searching, we realize that weare really in the business of preservingtangibles. Yet tangibles are a trap thatcauses us to believe that only �realthings� matter. This is particularly thecase regarding architecture. We all fallinto this trap. I for one, on many occa-sions, define architecture to my studentsusing Heidegger�s dwelling concept that,naturally, requires presence. However, iscultural significance exclusively tied tothe presence of an object or a sign?

Unfortunately, most of the time, ouranswer to this question is yes. That isthe reason why the UndergroundRailroad does not qualify as a culturalresource: we do not have a string of�things� we can see that relate to it.Curiously, because of our architecturalphonocentrism, even when we can see,we might not understand. Ruins such asthese have a paradigmatic presence inmost Puerto Rican haciendas. Whiletheir name: barracas, barracones orbeneficiados should alert us, most spe-cialists miss the point regarding the cul-tural significance of these structures.These places are more than just ruins ofstorage areas. They are also domesticartifacts, for slaves lived here. Theabsence of traditional domestic architec-tural personality clouds our understand-ing. More importantly, understood as

mere storage areas and not as slaves�dwellings, there seems to be no urgentneed to preserve the half dozen that stillremain.

We interpret presence as substanceand existence. To further complicate theissue, presence sets the followingclaims: first, that truth lies behind allappearances; second, that architecturalartifacts represent the spirit of an age;and third, that individual artistic emotionis palpably present in each constructedbuilding. Interpreted in this fashion,these architectural artifacts are under-stood as symbols of commercials ven-tures, as examples of specific construc-tion techniques�as everything exceptedas the homes of slaves.

Architecture is a physical artifact, likespeech, yet it is also a symbol of a men-tal experience. Architectural �reality� isconstructed of more than just stonesand bricks. There exist supplementalcomponents, like the genus loci, to men-tion just one. As preservationists workingwith the past for the future, we have acultural exigency: we must question tra-ditional thinking, dislodge its certitudes,and disrupt its quest for an undividedpoint of view. How can we do this? Let�saccept Derrida�s recommendation andprivilege feelings over physicality, notbeing over being, absence over pres-ence. If not we might be in danger of for-getting the importance some artifactshave in themselves and, most important-ly, one of our culture�s most fascinatingand elusive histories: the relationshipbetween the object we call a house andPuerto Ricans of African descent.

Conclusion

Buildings are a necessity of the meta-physics of presence. Hence their histori-cal significance for they carry full pres-ence. However, our human cultural heritage is formed not only of thoughts

141Por La Encendida Calle Antillana:African Impact on Puerto Rican Domestic Architecture

expressed physically but also of emo-tions. Regarding African influence andPuerto Rican architecture I believe inprivileging absence over presence.Some structures are more than just barracones sitting in planted fields.

Whenever I see places like this, Ithink of battlefields. We preserve battle-fields because for several hours some-thing considered important happenedthere. These ruins are landmarks justlike battlefields. In these places, in everycotton, coffee or sugar row, a battle wasfought every hour of every day, everyweek, every year, for several centuries.The battle was for something sacred:individual dignity and freedom. They aretruly battlefields of honor where bothblood and sweat were spent. Because ofthis, they are a paradigmatic place ofsociety�s cultural memory.

Por la encendida calle antillanava Tembandumba de la Quimbamba

Flor de Tortóla, rosa de Uganda,por ti crepitan bombas y bámbulas; por ti en calendas desenfrenadasquema la Antilla su sangre ñáñiga.

Haití te ofrece sus calabazas; fogoses rones te da Jamaica;

Cuba te dice: dale mulata!y Puerto Rico: melao, melamba!

Majestad Negra-Luis Palés Matos

Notes

1. I would like to thank ProfessorsLaVerne Wells-Bowie and Andrew Chin,as well as Ms. Toni Lee and Mr. BrianJoyner for their help and interest in thispaper.

2. The post is called Pied-bois d�ail.Jack Berthelot and Martine Gaumé, KazAntiyé Jan Moun Rété (Paris: EditionsCaribéennes, 1982), 85.

3. The phrase literally translates into�planting� the wooden structural posts.

4. My friend Arch Gloria M. Ortiz,State Architect for the Puerto Rico StateHistoric Preservation Office, once toldme of a similar experience when visitingthe house of an artisan or santero.

5. John Michael Vlach, Back of theBig House: The Architecture ofPlantation Slavery (Chapel Hill: TheUniversity of North Carolina Press,1993), 165.

Bibliography

Selected Sources

Abbad y Lasierra, Iñigo Fray. HistoriaGeográfica, Civil y Natural de la Islade San Juan de Puerto Rico. RíoPiedras, Puerto Rico: EditorialUniversitaria, 1959.

Bachelard, Gaston. The Poetics ofSpace The Classic Look at How WeExperience Intimate Places. Boston:Beacon Press, 1994.

Berthelot, Jack and Gaumé, Martine.Kaz Antiyé Jan Moun Rété. Paris:Editions Caribéennes, 1982.

Bryan, William S. Our Islands and TheirPeople, As Seen with Camera andPencil, 2 vols. St. Louis, Missouri:Thompson Publishing Company,1899.

Crespo, Rafael A and Pabón Charneco,Arleen. Arquitectura, Historia yPatrimonio. San Juan de PuertoRico: State Historic PreservationOffice, 1995.

De Córdova, Pedro Tomás. MemoriasGeográficas, Históricas, Económicasy Estadísticas de la Isla de PuertoRico. San Juan de Puerto Rico:Editorial Coquí, 1968.

de Hostos, Adolfo. Historia de San JuanCiudad Murada. San Juan de PuertoRico: Instituto de CulturaPuertorriqueña, 1979.

Díaz Soler, Luis M. Historia de la esclav-itud negra en Puerto Rico. San Juande Puerto Rico: Editorial de laUniversidad de Puerto Rico, 2000.

Dinwiddie, William. Puerto Rico ItsConditions and Possibilities. NewYork: Harper & Brothers Publishers,1899.

Dripps, R. D. The First House Myth,Paradigm, and the Task ofArchitecture. Cambridge, MA: TheMIT Press, 1999.

Fernández Méndez, Eugenio. Crónicasde Puerto Rico Desde la ConquistaHasta Nuestros Días (1493-1955).Río Piedras, Puerto Rico: EditorialUniversidad de Puerto Rico, 1976.

��. The Book of Porto Rico. SanJuan de Puerto Rico: El Libro AzulPublishing, 1923.

Lang, Jon. Creating ArchitecturalHistory: The Role of BehavioralSciences in Environmental Design.New York: Van Nostrand ReinholdCompany, 1987.

Leach, Neil (ed). Rethinking ArchitectureA Reader in Cultural Theory. NewYork: Routledge, 1999.

Ledrú, André Pierre. Viaje a la Isla dePuerto Rico en El Año 1797. SanJuan de Puerto Rico: Imprenta Militarde J. González, 1863.

Lowenthal, David. The Heritage Crusadeand the Spoils of History. PenguinBooks, Ltd., 1977.

��. The Past is a Foreign Country.Cambridge: Press Syndicate of theUniversity of Cambridge, 1985.


Morales Carrión, Arturo. Puerto Rico, A Political and Cultural History. NewYork: W.W. Norton & Company, Inc,1983.

Pabón Charneco, Arleen. Una PromesaInconclusa: Apuntes Arquitectónicosy Culturales en torno al Hospital deNuestra Señora de la Concepción el Grande. San Juan de Puerto Rico:State Historic Preservation Office,1999.

��. �The Conquest of Suburbia:Interpreting 20th Century PuertoRican Architecture Trans-Culturization Patterns.� Tallahassee,FL: MSS, 2000.

��. �Urbis-suburbia Displacement:Deconstruction of a Traditional BinaryRelationship.� Tallahassee, Florida:MSS, 2000.

��. �A cada familia una casa�ThePuerto Rican UrbanizaciónExperience An Interpretative Analysisof Fort Buchanan�s Urbanizaciones.�San Juan de Puerto Rico: MSS,1999.

Pabón Charneco, Arleen and Eduardo A.Regis. Guánica: El Origen de suMemoria. San Juan de Puerto Rico:State Historic Preservation Office,1996.

Picó, Fernando. Historia General dePuerto Rico. República Dominicana:Ediciones Huracán, Inc, 1986.

Puerto Rico ReconstructionAdministration. Puerto Rico A Guideto the Island of Boriquen. New York:The University Society, Inc, 1940.

Quiñones, José Marcial. Un poco de his-toria colonial (Incluye de 1850-1890).Barcelona: I.G. Pareja, 1978.

Robinson, Albert Gardner. The PuertoRico of Today Pen Pictures of thePeople and the Country. New York:Charles Scribner�s Sons, 1899.

Tuan, Yi-Fu. Escapism. Baltimore, MD:The John Hopkins University Press,1998.

Ubedo y Delgado, Manuel. Isla dePuerto Rico Estudio Histórico,Geográfico y Estadístico de laMisma. San Juan de Puerto Rico,1878.

Vlach, John Michael. Back of the BigHouse The Architecture of PlantationSlavery. Chapel Hill: The Universityof North Carolina Press, 1993.

143Por La Encendida Calle Antillana:African Impact on Puerto Rican Domestic Architecture

New York�s African Burial Ground Complex in Diasporic Perspective

Warren R. Perry, et al

Session Five:

AFRICAN BURIAL GROUND PANEL:

DISCOVERY, PRESERVATION,AND MEMORIALIZATION

145

The purpose of this paper is todescribe this mortuary complexand to place it in a Diasporic

perspective. This means integratingfindings from the skeletal research,demography, ethnographic, historical,and archaeological research to posequestions about the eighteenth centuryAfrican community in New York.

The African Burial Ground needs to be placed inboth global and local contexts. Globally, the trade inAfrican captives involves a variety of African andEuropean people of different social, ethnic, and cul-tural backgrounds and areas, no doubt with diversenotions of socio-cultural roles and proper burialpractices. Locally, New York City was always apolyglot town, with the Dutch, English, Huguenot,Native, and African peoples most prominent, butincluding numerous other minorities as well. Thus,the mortuary complex at the African Burial Groundis the product of mortuary rituals and burial cere-monies that had symbolic and social significance totheir African funeral traditions as well as traditionsof other cultural groups in contact with theseAfrican communities.

We assume that the material culture found incolonial contexts acquire meaning only in a particu-lar socio-cultural contexts. Indeed, most categoriesof material culture involving a similar range ofobjects, were used by Europeans, Africans, andNative Americans, though often in quite differentways. We refer to this condition as multivalency.Multivalency exists when an object or set of objectstakes on very different meanings for different socialgroups, with dominating groups often totally igno-rant of the meaning system of subordinated groups.The multivalent function of these objects is sug-gested by their archaeological context. The daunt-ing task of analyzing and interpreting the

archaeological materials from the African BurialGround is to capture these meanings and theirsocial relations, and to discover alternative under-standings and practices associated with them.

Historic Background of the African Burial Ground

We suspect that the cemetery was in use during atleast part of the seventeenth century, although thefirst document mentioning the African Burial Grounddates to 1712. This early reference is a letter writ-ten by Chaplain John Sharpe in which he com-plains about �the Heathenish rites performed at thegrave.� Later, Europeans living on the northernboundaries of the city complained about the loudnighttime ceremonial drumming and chanting thatwas taking place at the cemetery. Thus, it seemsthat New York�s African Burial Ground communitydid to some degree control their own rituals andsymbolism around their mortuary activities.

The Location of theCemetery

Few Africans in colonial New York lived in housesof their own. Almost all enslaved Africans lived with-in the domicile of Europeans. Thus, Caribbean typecourtyard burials or African-type house floor burialswere impossible. The spatial and social placementof the cemetery on the landscape of colonial NewYork afforded a relatively private setting for the per-formance of mortuary rites, and sacred space out-side the town. This is consistent with mortuarypractices in some societies in western and centralAfrica.

In early New York, community-formation amongAfricans from diverse backgrounds required gettingtogether away from their households, in a separateplace from Europeans. The occasion of the funeraland the location of the cemetery, therefore, wouldhave been particularly important in providing space

Session Five:

African BurialGround Panel

New York's African Burial Ground MortuaryComplex in Diasporic Perspective

Warren R. Perry, Jean Howson, and Ruth Mathis

147

for creating, expressing, and reproduc-ing a creolized African identity, whichemerged within a context of colonialcaptivity.

The Collect Pond area, located northof the city�s main residential areathroughout the seventeenth and much ofthe eighteenth centuries, was no doubtfamiliar to Africans who labored in thenoxious industries there and on farms inthe northern part of the island.Furthermore, the cemetery was locatednear the farms granted to Africans bythe Dutch West India Company duringthe 1640s.

Mortuary Patterns atthe African BurialGround

The program of spatial analysis of theAfrican Burial Ground is concerned withestablishing �archaeological context.�Key to understanding the spatial rela-tionships at the Burial Ground is ourstratigraphic analysis. We are trying toestablish temporal sequences of burialsby looking at their relationships in verti-cal and horizontal space, to see whatkinds of differences correspond to earlierand later burials. These differences maybe reflected in changes in health pat-terns, quality of life, places of origin,demography, or mortuary practices.

One of the most important analysesthat we have begun is of coffin style.94% of the peopled buried in the exca-vated portion of the African BurialGround were in coffins, a total of 401,while 26 individuals were interred with-out coffins. With this large a number ofcoffin burials, it will be possible to devel-op a typology. Variability in coffinsshould be related to several factors:changes in coffin style and constructiontechniques over time, differences amongcolonial New York�s artisans (whetherAfrican or European) who built the

coffins, differences in cost, and differ-ences in beliefs about what was properfor burial.

We will be inventorying the coffinhardware, and at the same time we willcontinue using the field records anddrawings to determine shapes andsizes, and sometimes constructiondetails. The development of a usefultypology is still ahead, but promises tobe an important means for both describ-ing the Burial Ground and interpreting itsvariability.

So far we have distinguished threebasic coffin shapes: hexagonal, tapered,and rectangular. There are 34% of thetotal burial population whose coffinshapes remain indeterminate. Of the254 coffins with discernable shapes,10% are tapered, 13% are rectangular,and 77% are hexagonal.

Although individuals of all ages andboth sexes are distributed throughoutthe Burial Ground, those individuals notinterred in coffins appear to be genderand age specific and not randomly dis-tributed. For instance, children andinfants appear to, rarely if ever, beburied under adults. Because strati-graphic analysis is very problematic, wemust emphasize that our discussionsare very preliminary as to numbers andthese numbers may change as researchcontinues.

The scanty documentation indicatesthat various kinds of coffin decorationwere available. Though we know therange of prices that Africans would havehad to pay to have coffins built at oneshop, African artisans may have pricedtheir wares differently for specifickingroups, fraternal organization mem-bers or secret burial societies. It is likelythat some Africans would have donatedtheir labor in preparing coffins for family,community members, or the familywould have collected from mourners.

Coffin hardware is the most commonartifact category found at the BurialGround. Decorative coffin hardware wasrare for any ethnic group before 1830 inNorth America and represented �highstatus� mortuary adornment. At theAfrican Burial Ground there are a total ofseven burials with decorative coffinhardware.

One such burial with tacks on theinside of the coffin is Burial 176 a 22-25year-old man buried in a tapered coffinwith six secure distinct inverted bail cof-fin handles (1720-50) that could havebeen used to carry the coffin. Each han-dle had a wrought iron escutcheon platescrewed to the coffin and had uniquechevrons or backed arrow motifs. Similarmotifs have been found on coffin hard-ware from eighteenth century Englishcoffins. There were two on each side-board, and one each at the headboardand footboard. Research into the hard-ware used in the manufacture and deco-ration of coffins is in the early stages ofanalysis.

Burial in coffins, then, may representan Akan practice which became wide-spread in colonial New York�s broaderAfrican community; or a belief that thoseburied here were ultimately going to betaken home and therefore were notplaced directly in the ground; or activeresistance on the part of New York�senslaved Africans, who insisted theirenslavers pay for (but not attend or par-ticipate in) decent funerals.

Most interments without coffins (23)are males and are found north of aseries of postholes aligned along aneast-west axis in the central part of theexcavated portion of the burial ground.These coffin-less burials appear to beoriented to one another in a series ofthree to four north-south columns.

Of the African Burial Ground burialswithout coffins, it appears that variationsin the grave cut exist. Five male burials


are cut with an oblong boundary. Theremaining burials with no coffins havegrave cuts that are rectangular orsquare in shape. This may be the resultof excavation methods, but we cannotrule out the possibility of these beingintentional grave cuts made during interment.

Multiple Burials

The analysis of sequential relationshipswithin and among groups of graves isunderway. Although most of the graveshafts contained a single coffin or indi-vidual, we do have a number of cases ofmultiple burials. By multiple burials wemean more than one individual buried inthe same grave cut, or as in the case ofsome women and children, in the samecoffin.

Unlike the coffin-less burials none ofthese burials, however, is separatedfrom the general burial population. Mostare women interred with men or eitherchildren. However, we have one case ofa child wearing a necklace of beads, isinterred within the same grave shaft as a30 year-old man but in separate coffins.

This may be indicative of a father-child, or uncle, nephew, bond, a socialrelationship often ignored by Europeaninvestigators, but culturally significantamong Africans. Too often, we as west-ern scholars ignore the relationships ofAfrican and African-American men tochildren, and often impose matrifocalmodels of kinship onto data pertaining toAfrican Americans. Here, it is importantto bear in mind that gender is as muchabout men as it is about women.

In African Diasporic cemeteries thevariation in burial orientation seems tobe minimal. At the African Burial Groundthere appears to have been a standardform of internment. All burials areextended in the supine (face up) positionand most, 98%, are oriented east-west

with heads lying west and feet east.There are also a number of individualswhose heads are facing east as well asa small number of individuals whosebodies are oriented north south. Thegreat majority have the orientation, with possible seasonal shifting with the sunset.

Although supine, head lying west andfeet facing east, orientation is typical ofChristian burials and traditional AfricanAmerican burials these positions and orientations are also common in Africanmortuary practices. These patterns mayalso reflect Muslim burials.

A few grave markers were recordedat the site, but only in the far westernarea, where excavation revealed the for-mer ground surface. Since that surfacewas not encountered over most of theexcavated burial ground, we do notknow what sorts of markers or gravegoods were placed on most graves. Atotal of seven grave markers wererecovered at the African Burial Ground.Four are stone grave markers (like thatshown in the slide) that seem to bemade of local Manhattan schist.

There are others like these arches ofriver cobbles in which individual graveswere outlined. This was very rare at thesite, where in most cases the gravesoverlapped each other.

There is associated with one 35year-old man, a cedar grave board/marker with five nails attaching it to thecoffin. Wooden grave or head boardsare found on eighteenth through twenti-eth century African descendent and EuroAmerican cemeteries throughout theUnited States.

Placement of items at grave sites oron coffins at the time of interment is atleast suggested by the presence of pottery on at least one coffin and shellson some others.

Funerary Practices

Preparation of the dead for intermentwould not have involved outsiders (the�layers out of the dead� as in the nine-teenth century). Perhaps family orhouseholds members? Perhaps thework of women in particular. Childrenwere wrapped in winding sheets ordressed in shrouds, fastened with pins.

Many adults were also wrapped orshrouded, but some, men in particular,were dressed in clothing.

Buttons, including matched andunmatched sets, were found on a fewindividuals and are apparently associat-ed exclusively with adult males. Buttons,like beads, can be strung as pendants,or used in charms, and we need to con-sider all possibilities. A total of six metalbuttons were recovered from Burial Six,an adult male, two of which have navalmotifs. Without precise information onthe location of the buttons we cannotsay for certain that the buttons repre-sented a jacket. Thus, these buttonswere most likely salvaged from reusedclothing and do not appear to representan individual buried in uniform. In addi-tion to rigorously examining every objectassociated with each burial we alsohave to examine the exact placement ofbuttons within the coffin. For instance,some of the buttons recovered appear tohave been used as amulets in necklacesor in strings of beads.

Shroud pins do not need to be identi-fied; they need to be recorded as to theirexact location if at all possible, since thiscan tell us about which individuals werewrapped, and how. Different ways oftreating the dead, including details abouthow they wrapped or shrouded, mayreflect ethnic or religious differences (forinstance, culture-specific views aboutthe destination of spirits of children who

149New York's African Burial Ground Mortuary Complex in Diasporic Perspective

die), or such differences may reflectchange over time, or other factors suchas relative poverty and the like.

So far, there are a total of 271 indi-viduals, representing of the total popula-tion, that have been examined for evi-dence of shroud pins and/or textiles. Ofthese individuals believed to be wearingshrouds 70 representing are children orinfants, 22 representing are women and19 are men. There are another ten per-sons representing .04% whose sex areindeterminate. Six individuals, of thesampled burial population have shroudpins and/or shroud cloth and buttons. Ofthese individuals, only one is a woman,while five are men. This suggests that atleast some people (mostly men) wereburied with both shrouds and clothing.

Conclusions

The African Burial Ground mortuarycomplex argues for a distinct suite ofpractices that can be separated fromEuropean norms. We are looking forpatterns of behavior that, on the onehand, can be differentiated fromEuropean behavior and suggest a dis-tinct conception of the cosmos. On theother hand, to point to aspects of thesepatterns that suggest African influence�or alternatively the genesis of new anddistinct African American worldviews. Ata rudimentary level, there are simplecomparisons between specific artifacts,traits, or characteristics found in NewYork and in west and central Africa.While such continuities are important todemonstrate, the real significance lies inthe occurrence of suites of characteris-tics, beginning with the distinctive features of the Burial Ground as a wholeand with the combination of featuresfound in individual burials, such asBurial 340.

The exciting thing is that at theAfrican Burial Ground we are starting to

put together such a mosaic of features.At least in some instances, there aresuites of artifacts and attributes�a viewthat appears different from that repre-sented in European burials. This is farmore exciting than whether or not a par-ticular pipe, bead, or practice originatedin Africa. It also avoids these tangentialdebates as to whether or not this or thatfeature is �African�. Research will contin-ue to explore the various west and cen-tral African mortuary practices and funer-al customs as well as Native American,and European mortuary practices inorder to explain the mortuary complexwitnessed at the African Burial Ground.


Abimbola O. Asojo is an associate professor inthe College of Architecture at the University ofOklahoma. She earned a M.S. in Architecture:Computing and Design, from University of EastLondon, and a M.S. in Architecture from ObafemiAwolowo University, Nigeria. Professor Asojo haspresented and written articles on architecture andcultural heritage, including �A Design AlgorithmAfter Le Corbusier,� for the Association ofCollegiate Schools of Architecture Technology con-ference, and �A Spiritual Celebration of CulturalHeritage,� (with Katharine Leigh) in TraditionalDwellings and Settlements Review.

Audrey Brown, an Ethnographer for theArchaeology & Ethnography Program, NationalPark Service, earned a Ph.D. in Anthropology fromAmerican University, and a Ph.D. in Education inNursing, from Columbia University. Among her pub-lications, Dr. Brown has contributed a chapter,�Women & Ritual Authority in Afro-American Baptistchurches of Florida,� to How Sweet the Sound: TheSpirit of African American History (New York:Harcourt Brace Publishers, 2000).

Kenneth L. Brown is a professor of Anthropologyat the University of Houston. He received his Ph.D.and Master�s degree in Anthropology, fromPennsylvania State University. Dr. Brown has pub-lished extensively on African American archaeologi-cal and anthropological matters, including�Structural Continuity in an African-American Slaveand Tenant Community,� in Historical Archaeology,and �Historical Archaeology and the Public: SomeThoughts on the Archaeologist�s Responsibility,� inThe Proceedings of the American GenealogicalSociety.

Joe Lewis Caldwell is an associate professor andDepartment Chair of History at the University ofNew Orleans. He received his Master�s in Historyfrom Atlanta University and his Ph.D. from TulaneUniversity. Dr. Caldwell�s work has focused onAfrican Americans in Louisiana, presenting �TheDevelopment of Black Secondary Education inLouisiana Beyond the Corporate Limits of NewOrleans, 1896-1954,� at the Louisiana HistoricalAssociation Meeting in Alexandria; and contributingto A Historical Dictionary of Civil Rights on theUnited States, Charles D. Lowery and John F.Marszlek, eds. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,1992).

Judith Carney is a professor in the Department ofGeography at UCLA. She completed her Master�sand Ph.D. studies at the University of California,Berkeley. Professor Carney�s publications includeseveral articles and a forthcoming book, BlackRice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in theAmericas (Cambridge, MA: Harvard UniversityPress, 2001).

Candice Goucher is the coordinator of Liberal Arts,as well as a professor of History, at WashingtonState University, Vancouver. She has a Ph.D. inAfrican History from UCLA, and a Master�s degreein African Art History and Archaeology fromColumbia University. Dr. Goucher�s publicationsinclude In the Balance: A Thematic Global History(with L. Walton and C. LeGuin), New York: McGrawHill, 1997; and �Gender and Technology in AfricanIronmaking,� in The Culture of African IronProduction (Gainesville: University of Florida Press,1996).

PresentersPlaces of Cultural Memory:African Reflectionson the AmericanLandscape

Biographies

151

Barbara J. Heath serves as the Directorof Archaeology for Thomas Jefferson�sPoplar Forest in Forest, Virginia. Shehas a Ph.D. from the University ofPennsylvania in American Civilizationand a B.A. in Anthropology and Spanishfrom the College of William and Mary.Dr. Heath is author of Hidden Lives: TheArchaeology of Slave Life at ThomasJefferson�s Poplar Forest (Charlottes-ville: University Press of Virginia, 1999).

Ralph B. Johnson, professor ofArchitecture and Director of the Centerfor the Conservation of Architectural andCultural Heritage, has been affiliatedwith Florida Atlantic University since1980, with appointments at theUniversity of Miami and the University ofFlorida. He has Master�s degrees inArchitecture and City Planning fromYale, and serves on the Fort LauderdaleHistoric Preservation Board.

coleman a. jordan is an assistant pro-fessor of Architecture at the University ofMichigan in Ann Arbor. He has aMaster�s degree in Architecture fromClemson University, and has studiedand worked extensively, both domesti-cally and abroad, most notably inGhana. His publications include, �FreeYour Mind: Constructing the process ofReconciling Irreconcilable Differences� inLegacy + Aspirations: Considering theFuture of Architectural Education,Proceedings of the 87th Annual Meetingand Technology Conference of theACSA.

Annette I. Kashif is an adjunct profes-sor of African Literature at FloridaSouthern College. She earned her Ph.D.in Linguistics from Howard University,M.A. in Reading from Atlanta University,and B. A. in Language Arts from theUniversity of Florida. She has presentednumerous scholarly papers, including�Classical African Language StructuresThroughout Africa and the Diaspora,��Female Register in African Cinema,�and �A Socio-onomastic Study of By-Name Africanisms in Three AfricanAmerican In-Groups.�

Arleen Pabón splits her time as a pro-fessor of Architecture at Florida A&MUniversity and the University of PuertoRico. Dr. Pabón has a Ph. D. fromNorthwestern University and a J. D. fromthe University of Puerto Rico. She hasworked extensively in both the publicand private sectors, and served as StateHistorical Preservation Officer of PuertoRico.

Warren Perry is an associate professorof Archaeology at Central ConnecticutState University and serves as AssociateDirector for Archaeology, the AfricanBurial Ground Project.

Richard Westmacott has been a pro-fessor in the School of EnvironmentalDesign at the University of Georgiasince 1977. He has a Master�s inLandscape Architecture from Universityof Pennsylvania, and has publishedextensively on gardens and rural land-scapes. His writings include �TheGarden of Welcome: The AfricanAmerican Influence,� in The SouthernHeirloom Garden (Taylor Publishing,Co., 1995).
