Grade 10-Handout-on African Cultural Forms up to 1837

Theme 2: Caribbean Economy and Slavery
Subtopic: African Cultural Forms up to 1838

Instruction: Use the handouts to complete the objectives in your notebooks and come
prepared for the discussion and activities for class.
Also read the textbook Amerindians to Africans pages 147-150 (To help in completing the
objectives and have a better understanding of the content).
Learning Objectives:
1. Describe five African cultural forms that were retained in the Caribbean before and after
1838:
a) Religion
b) Language
c) Dress
d) Music
e) Food and medicine
2. Assess four reasons it was so difficult for Africans to preserve their culture during the
time of slavery.
3. Analyze four ways in which slaves resisted planters and retained their culture.
4. Evaluate four ways in which slaves were not able to keep their culture.
African Cultural Forms in the Caribbean up to 1838

Religion
Though the planters tried to stifle the indigenous religion, much cultural retention occurred. The
slaves held on to their beliefs and practices as much as and where possible. Here are some of
them:
● Life after death.
● The spirit world: duppies or ghosts.
● The forces of good and evil and the constant struggle between the two.
● That the dead is still a part of the community.
● Two types of magic: Obeah- used to inflict hurt or harm and Myalism- used to promote
life, love, health, and success. Both involved the use of herbs, oils, potions, etc.
● A lot of music and dance in their expressions of worship.
● Ancestral spirits and that one can actually make contact with them and that they are
constantly watching over us.
● Chanting of songs.
1
● Gods of nature- rain, thunder, lightning and fertility.
● Highest respect for Mother earth.
Food:
The slaves had to prepare their own meals. They did it the way they were taught back home in
Africa. Also, the fact that they were allowed to grow their own provisions meant that they were
able to choose what to grow- example, yam, coco, dasheen, etc. They continued their culinary
skills. Trinidadian slaves had the luxury of beans and palm oils as they would have had in Africa.
Dress:
● They were given either two suits of clothing per year or the equivalent yards of osnaburg.
This is a type of rough khaki also called guinea blue or Dutch stripes.
● The women would wrap themselves with the cloth the way they would have in Africa to
form dress or skirts. And of course, they did not forget their ‘’tie head’’.
Language:
The slaves came from different areas and ethnic groups in West Africa and so spoke different
languages. This forced them to create a new tongue we now know as patois. But several African
words survived.
Music and Dance:

They had all sorts of songs, work or digging songs as we have learnt, love songs, songs of
sorrow, and songs of joy and so on. In fact, it seems as if they had a song for every occasion just
as they had a proverb to fit every situation. Their music had a lot of rhythm and beat. It involved
the use of instruments such as: Tambourines, Banjos, Flutes, Rattles, and Xylophones.
Their dance had a lot of movement and passion, involving gyration of the hip and pelvic areas
and the shaking of the rear. This was seen as vulgar by many of the whites, though secretly they
were aroused by it, no wonder they understood its sexual importance and described it as
debauchery. Types of dance included: Dinkie, Minnie, Kumina, and Brukins.
Medicine:
Traditional African Medicine is a holistic discipline involving extensive use of indigenous
herbalism combined with aspects of African spirituality. The Africans fiercely resisted the
medicinal practices of the Europeans and preferred to use their indigenous methods of healing.
2
The Africans used a lot of herbs and plants to treat ailments. They also believed that not only the
physical body should be free from illness but the spirit as well. African healers not only used
plants and herbs to cure ailments but also charms, incantations, and the casting as spells. The
individual should be both physically and spiritually sound.
Reasons it was difficult for slaves to retain their Culture:

1. The opposition which they faced from the planters who instituted laws to suppress
aspects of the culture, like drumming and obeah.
2. Planters discouraged the slaves from practicing their dances, which some mistakenly
described as devil worship.
3. Slaves were not encouraged to practice their tribal religions but, instead, were sometimes
baptized into the Euro-Christian churches so as to try to destroy their link with their
native religion, since they worked for most of the daylight hours.
4. During the ‘’seasoning’’ period, definite attempts were made to “deculturize” the slaves
as they were taught the language of the master and forbidden to use their own tribal
languages.
5. The planters tried to ensure that their slaves were from different ethnic groups so that
they would not unite around common customs.
6. Marriages and families were never encouraged in the British colonies.
7. In some cases, planters deliberately separated family members so as to deprive the male
of any other object of his loyalty other than the planter himself.
8. Slaves were robbed of their African names that would allow them to identify with their
African origin, and given European names.
9. The slaves’ fear of the severe punishment that could result from disobeying anti-African
cultural laws and regulations.
10. Their need for survival, which was guaranteed only by loyalty to, and cooperation with,
the whites, meant that some of them were extremely cautious about continued
participation in traditional cultural activities which planters frowned upon.
Ways in which slaves resisted planters and retained some aspects of their Culture:
1. The slaves congregated late at nights and in secret which was against the law.
2. Some plantation owners used obeah men as supplements to doctors. This was intended to
be a cost effective measure but provided the slaves with the opportunity to pass down
herbal secrets and practices of their forefathers.
3. Others used or allow the obeah men to continue his practice as a means of driving fear in
the slaves.
4. The slaves conducted their own funeral services and so the tradition and practices were
preserved with each successive funeral that they performed. Of course, the planter did not
3
attach any significance to these ceremonies so he did not attend them. His absence gave
the slaves the opportunity to do their own thing and so preserve their heritage.
5. The slaves used their own language when communicating. This includes the language of
the drums and other musical instruments. As more slaves were bought and brought to the
estates, the languages revived.
6. They kept their dances and songs, and the planters, at times, believed that when they
danced and sang, it was a sign of their contentment, and so left them alone.
7. They held on to the rhythm of African music and revelry.
8. The slaves were given some amount of leniency at Christmas time in particular. They
managed to mix and hide their religion within the established faith. For example,
Pocomania is a mixture of the Roman Catholic faith and the African religion.
Reasons slaves were able to keep aspects of their Culture:

1. Firstly, mortality rate was very high on the estates. This meant that the planters had to
constantly buy new slaves. Though he tried to buy slaves from different areas, the reality
was that most planters liked to buy slaves from a particular area of the West African coast
because they were known for their hard work and industrial skills.
2. The slaves had a strong determination to continue to practice their culture.
3. They practiced some aspects like drumming and obeah secretly because any evidence of
these cold have dire consequences including death for the adherents.
4. The large number of slaves helped to keep the culture alive as they were able to
strengthen the will and the memory of one another, so that what some were afraid to do,
others would dare to do, and what some forgot, others would remind them of.
5. Many of the slaves who came were young, and they had a strong recollection of their
cultural practices and so, although they were robbed of the material aspects when they
were taken from Africa, they could use what was available locally to recreate what they
had lost.
6. The planters’ ignorance of the significance of some aspects of the culture caused them to
encourage or ignore some and outlaw others and so, even though the John Canoe dance,
for example, was fraught with rebellious overtones, the planters did not understand that,
and so they allowed the slaves to practice it freely.
7. They were able to pass on aspects of their culture to succeeding generations through their
strong oral tradition, which was encouraged by the quasicommunal lifestyle, which they
maintained.
8. Their obeahmen were responsible for the survival of the culture as they provided bold
leadership and defied the odds in order to maintain their practices.

Grade 10-Handout-on African Cultural Forms up to 1837

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Grade 10-Handout-on African Cultural Forms up to 1837

Uploaded by

Document Information

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Grade 10-Handout-on African Cultural Forms up to 1837

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Theme 2: Caribbean Economy and Slavery

Subtopic: African Cultural Forms up to 1838

African Cultural Forms in the Caribbean up to 1838

Music and Dance:

Reasons it was difficult for slaves to retain their Culture:

Reasons slaves were able to keep aspects of their Culture:

You might also like