Historians of the African diaspora have long
debated whether African slaves in the Americas retained or lost their African
identity upon arrival to the New World. Many Anthropologists and scholars cite
language and naming practices, planting techniques, cuisine and religion as
evidence that slaves who survived the Middle Passage preserved fragments of
their former societies in Africa when transported to the Caribbean and North
America. Conversely, other scholars questioned how the heinous environment of
slavery could allow African men and women to maintain their homeland culture
and traditions. After reading Africanisms
in American Culture, it is clear to me that African slaves in the New World
retained many of their African cultural facets, including aspects of language
and religion. However, these retentions were impacted by the conditions of
slavery, resulting in an entirely new cultural phenomenon, which is what we
currently understand as purely African American. In a nutshell, African customs
did not survive, they transformed. This
transformed, newly labeled “African American culture” in turn then transformed
white American heritage, culture, and linguistics. This treatise seeks to
examine how retentions of African language and religion were impacted and
transformed by the oppression of slavery, and how these newly transformed
retentions created common facets of American culture.
In his essay The African Heritage of White America, John Edward Philips argued
that the main triumph of the text Africanisms
in American Culture was that it caused increasing acceptance of the idea
that much of white American culture comes directly from Africa [1](Philips
372). One path to understanding or accepting this claim by Philips is to ask if
one is seeking to find what makes black Americans different from white Americans or what makes black and white
Americans alike? What, then, makes
Americans both black and white uniquely American? To discover these truths, do we
seek to find African retentions amongst African Americans and white European
influences amongst African Americans, or do we seek to find African or African
American influences amongst American whites? It comes as no surprise to me that
the answer to this last question is a resounding “all of the above.” Philips
stated: “scholars trained in European studies have tended to regard many
aspects of African American culture as of European origin, while scholars
trained in African studies have considered the same traits to be of African
origin. Those trained only as Americanists seem to have accepted uncritically
whatever they read, or whatever fit their prejudices…{therefore} a scholar
wishing to write a definitive history of African cultural survivals must
acquire a triple expertise: as an Americanist, an Africanist, and a
Europeanist”[2](Philips
391).
Upon trying to grasp this theory, I
attempted to conjure metaphors for the newly transplanted African, the
oppression of slavery, and the impact of these on white America. Let us say then, the Africans upon arrival to
the New World were beautiful, pure, and perfect pieces of unadulterated Carbon.
White America itself was then the rock (environment) in which this Carbon was
relocated to. The oppressive, unjust, and cruel hardship of slavery then bore down
upon the Carbon, exuding heat and pressure. The Carbon, which had slowly formed
into its current state over a history of three billion years, was then
transformed into a diamond, something that looked entirely different, yet was
elementally the same. (Please note this is NOT to imply that the oppression of
slavery turned the Africans into something better
than what they were before. That is not my intent at all. This metaphor is meant to illustrate the change that occurred to the carbon, all
while maintaining some of its sameness. Please assume both the carbon and the
diamond are of equal beauty and value.) The impact of this change from carbon
to diamond directly changed the surrounding rock and landscape forever. Part of the carbon and the heat from the
magma was released into the surrounding rocks, making them elementally the
same, yet different in shape, form and structure. All involved in the process were forever
changed: the carbon, the diamond, the surrounding rock and environment, and
even the heat that caused the transformation. They were elementally the same,
but now forever intertwined due to the experience. The diamond had to adjust to
its new appearance and it’s new environment, the heat was lost in the
transformation process, and the surrounding rock and environment took on the
emitting carbon and became something new and different. None involved would be the same if not for
the direct influence of the other. Let us then examine some of the African
retentions that transformed into a part of African American culture, as well as
the conditions in which this occurred.
It
goes without saying that living and working conditions of the African American slaves
were deplorable, especially in the Southern states, where slavery thrived after
the American Revolution as a result of the booming cotton industry. Prior to
the revolution, most slaves in both the Northern and Southern United States
were indentured, meaning that after an agreed-upon period of usually three-four
years, the slave could freely go, having “paid-off” their passage to the New
World. Indentured servants were both
black and white, and were treated with at least a moderate level of decency.
This is a stark contrast to “chattel slavery” which was the predominant system
in the South after the Revolution. In the Chattel system, the slave, (men and
women and their descendants) were “owned” by their masters for life. Key to the
chattel system was the belief that slaves were to be black and masters were to
be white. In this system of slavery, (by far the worse of the two), slaves were
subjected to terrible living conditions, poor nutrition, and psychological
maltreatment. Men were beaten to instill fear, and deter rebellion and escape.
Women were frequently raped and forced to bear children in order to increase
the slave population. Children were oftentimes traded to other plantations,
separating them from their mothers care.
Gatherings were prohibited, for fear of mass revolt. The slaves were treated as merely working
animals, rather than the human beings that they were. Clearly, by any definition, slavery in
eighteenth century America was a mass violation of what now is commonly
accepted as base- level human rights, and a shameful part of America’s past.
It
is easy, then, to at least consider the argument of E. Franklin Frazier in
regards to African retentions. How could
Africans possibly retain any of their culture, heritage or tradition among the
devastating conditions of American slavery? The answer to this is question is now
clear (as mentioned above.). It was by the African American slave’s ability to
adapt or transform important, key
elements of their African culture and tradition into new cultures and traditions that were a mixture of the past and the
present, all while under intense scrutiny and oppression. The resulting
cultures and traditions reflected a little of the old, a little of the new, and
a little of something entirely different. The clearest example of this exists
in the linguistic patterns of African Americans, referred to in the twenty
first century as Ebonics. In this
newly formed language, it is possible to see a lexicon and verb conjugation pattern
that is consistent with African language, a lexicon framework that is based on
the Standard English of the white Americans, and intonations and inflections
that are of completely unknown origin, that is, they are new and unique to this
demographic.
In
his essay African Elements in African
American English, Molefi Kete Asante made a very plausible argument in
defense of the retention of African linguistics in the linguistic behaviors of
African Americans. The primary strength of his argument existed in the flow he
created documenting the West African languages of Niger-Congo, to
Pidginization, to Creolization, to Englishizatioin, (or Ebonics.) Asante exemplified how Ebonics contains
structural remnants of certain African languages while maintaining an
overwhelmingly English vocabulary. These
structural elements are particularly noticeable in the use of aspect rather that tense in many verb conjugations and constructions. One example of
this is the Niger-Congo tense-aspect of present (he go), near past (he gone),
remote past (he been gone), future (he going to go), aspect of progress (he going), aspect of completion (he done gone), and past aspect of
repetition (he been going.) This pattern of West African verb conjugation
is obvious in American Ebonics. The
relationship between the verbs within a given construction is also of great
importance and a major difference between American Ebonics and English. Asante
explained: “In some sentences Ebonics speakers use several verbs, whereas
Standard English has available a single verb to express the completed action”[3](Asante
75). Examples of this include “Turn loose
and drap down from dar” (Come down from there), “I hear
tell you went home” (I hear that you went home), “Go home and see about those children” (go home and attend to those
children) and “he picked up and went to
town” (he went to town) [4] (Asante
76). Asante pointed out that giving every action a verb and using verb tenses
that are grammatically incorrect in Standard English is a common practice by
African Americans. In the sentences “He
clumb de tree to shake de simmons down whilst I be pickin em up” and “Fore I knowed it I done fell slap to sleep”,
examples of African origin in the sentences include “he clumb”, “I be pickin em up”,
“de”, and “I knowed it.” In the very same sentence, white European Standard
English origins are notable in “whilst”.
An entirely new and previously unknown (at that time) linguistic pattern which
became a mainstay in current Ebonics is seen in these sentences in the
insertion of new words, meant to shorten the existing Standard English lexicon,
such as “simmons” (for persimmons),
and “slap” (for straight).
The theory of cultural retention of
African linguistics is more controversial in the twenty-first century than
ever. In 2009, the 11th
annual Harlem Book Fair hosted a panel discussion entitled "We Be You Are They Is: Black English, Language, and Culture”,
which was filmed and now available for viewing.
The panelists discussed whether a nonstandard language such as
"Black English" should be deemed inferior, and the problems of
transferring between languages. The discussion highlighted three main features
of language: the concept that language provides a sense of identity and defines
ones sense of placement within society and time; the difference between they
style of language we use in personal and intimate relationships vs. the
language used in more formal academic or workplace environments; and the great
variety of English spoken across this country and this world, of which Ebonics
is but one.
The major points of
this panel presentation were very consistent with the writings and theories of
Asante, in that the panelists agreed in the importance of the connection that
Ebonics provides to blacks, both with their African past, and with each
other. Speakers of African English,
according to the panelists, are no different than any other American who speaks
English as a second language. The
strongest argument that was made by the panel was the need for black children
to learn when to use Ebonics or what
they referred to as “rap culture English” and when to use Standard English. Exemplified in the discussion were
the differences between home language and culture, and school language and
culture, as well as the media and the lack of respect for Africa, and African
American people in this country.
Upon critically
examining why the slaves of the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries and black Americans today accept and
frequently adopt a different linguistic pattern, similarities of circumstance arise. First, we must not dismiss tradition. The
African American slaves desperately needed to hold on to some semblance of
their past, and language provided for them a connection to something familiar
in a very unfriendly and unfamiliar new world.
Likewise, African Americans today, who like all Americans are adjusting
to new a social structure which places families at great distances from one
another, can find a connection with their personal pasts through language
shared with other blacks, albeit not family members. Second, The African slaves
needed a way to communicate with each other in a way that white slave owners
would not understand, thereby protecting themselves from potential harm in
precarious circumstances. Some African
Americans today also feel the need to be able to communicate in a manner in
which surrounding whites will not understand.
As a white female, I can only speculate as to why this is necessary. Possible reasons include protecting each
other in situations where they are threatened by racist acts of violence or
discrimination, or to make light, or find humor in the differences between
blacks and whites. Lastly, and what I
believe to be most importantly, African Slaves felt the need to connect with
others who were like them and find solace and comfort in the fact that they
were not alone, but were suffering together as a group. The same can be said for African Americans today. One merely needs to look at some of the bleak
statistics of life as a twenty-first century African American to understand why
solace and comfort are needed. High incarnation rates, low education levels,
widespread poverty, and large numbers of children abandoned to the foster care
system illustrate a black America that is suffering. To the African American, it could seem as
though the world is against them.
Sharing the bond of language, then, provides unity and a show of
resilience against all hardships.
In
addition to retaining some of their African culture, (as the aforementioned
example of linguistics illustrates), African Americans also adapted some of
their African retentions as a process, or technique for survival. This is most clearly exemplified in the
religious practices of the slaves of the Sea Islands of coastal Georgia and
South Carolina. Known as the Gullah, the African Americans of the Sea
Islands retained the primary cosmological and ontological theologies
known to them in their religious and spiritual life in Africa. These core concepts, which when combined
formed the basis of the Gullah religious experience, included recognition of
the creator of the universe (known as the Supreme Being), recognition and
acceptance of the Spirits (both of evil and of ancestors), the respect and
value of human life, the use of plants and animals (in the creation of
talismans and as recognized members of the universe), and in the phenomena of
special powers (associated with non-living things.) The Gullah religious
worldview was rooted in African spirituality. In reading Margaret Washington’s
essay Gullah Attitudes towards Life and
Death, one comes to the conclusion that the Gullah were a people who were
totally immersed in their religion. In
fact, life and religion could not be separated.
One could not “be” without the other.
To be detached from the religion of ones family, as Washington writes,
“is to be severed from his roots, his foundation, his context of security, his
kinships, and the entire group of those who made him aware of his
existence. To be without one of these
elements in life is to be without the whole picture…African peoples do not know
how to exist without religion”[5](Washington
152)
Known as mysticism
within the realm of spirituality, the concept of the Supreme God within all
created a connectedness between humans and all living things. This is pointed out in Washington’s essay, as
she explained how humans really consisted of two entities: the outer and the
inner being. Known as the outer being,
the body was just a shell, which was created to eventually rot and decay. The
inner being was divided into two parts: one’s personal life, and more
significant to this discussion, the Kivuumuni,
which was the agent of life and breath.
Neither death, nor evil spirits nor hoodoo amulets or charms could
destroy it. This Kivuumuni was the very essence of life itself, and was the mystical
notion of the experience of the Supreme Being, or the Ngewo within. It was this
connection that allowed Africans of several geographic areas to acculturate
with each other before they acculturated with the native whites thereby
providing a sense of connectedness and hope in what seemed like a hopeless
situation. Although from different
regions of Africa, the slaves shared amongst them the same creator, and breath
of life. As time passed, and as the Methodist, Episcopal and Baptist
missionaries worked hard to convert the Sea Islands, the concept of the Supreme
Being became the “Jesus” of the Christians. While the religion of voodoo and
it’s hoodoo practices thrived and melded with the Roman Catholic base in
amongst the Africans of New Orleans, the Gullah adapted their religion and
their concept of the Supreme Being with the more Pentecostal Baptist,
Methodist, and later the Episcopalians.
This sometimes created conflict and disconnect amongst the older Gullah
and the younger more acculturated Gullah. The film Daughters of the Dust, directed and produced by Julie Dash,
illustrates this conflict in one of its scenes. The women of the family were
gathered and lamenting over the “old ways” of Nana Peazant. The outspoken daughter –in-law Haagar objects
that Nana “doesn’t even pray to Jesus~,
she still believes in the magic of her old tin can”. The daughters and granddaughters of Nana stay
silent on this, as they seem to understand that Nana’s God is the same God as
this Jesus, or at least is experienced in the same way, which at the end of the
day is what really is important.
Another way in
which the Gullah adapted their religious traditions in order to survive was the
African ritual of using water in religious ceremonies. Holloway wrote about this in his essay The Sacred World of the Gullah, comparing
the use of water in baptism amongst the missionaries to the water spirit cults of
Ibibio, Calabar, Ijaw, Yoruba, and Grebo of Liberia, who all visited the
river to immerse in the water in order to purify themselves (rid themselves of
any spirit possession)[6](Holloway
207). The spirit possession rituals of
the Gullah involved shouting, dancing, and entering trance-like states. This
was picked-up by the missionaries and became a popular theme amongst Southern
Pentecostals, where even today dancing and speaking in tongues can be a part of
the worship experience. Several of the
characters in Daughters of the Dust make
reference to the spirits of ancestors, or their own future spirit
afterlife. Specifically, we see Nana
Peazant showing the family the treasured hair of her mother, and presenting to
them the hair, wrapped in herbs and twined to a Bible, for the family to take
with them to the mainland. Nana tells
the family this hair is the presence of her mother in their life, (their
“history”) and when she (Nana) passes on, her spirit will be with that of her
mothers in the amulet she created. In this example, we see retentions of the
African religious experience, providing hope and encouragement and
connectedness from one soul to another, thereby emphasizing survival.
The importance
placed on the family and the strong sense of kinship exhibited by the Gullah
illustrates their understanding and appreciation for a human life worth living in alliance with
each other. Holloway wrote, “The patrilocal extended family consisted of a
patriarchal head, his wife or wives, his unmarried children, his married sons,
and their wives and children”[7]
(Holloway 189). Another common family
unit was much more matrifocal family, as the matriarchal traditions of Africa
were reinforced by the forced separation of men and women by the slave owners. Because
of this forced separation, African American families were able to adopt others
outside of the immediate family, and embrace them in the same way one would a
sister or brother. Daughters of the Dust clearly illustrates the strong bonds between
extended family, as the families are portrayed as living together, and
celebrating the return of a cousin (Cousin Mary) who had moved to the
mainland. We also see exemplified in the
Presenze family, a household seemingly led by the grandmother of the family, containing
far more women than men. In one scene of
the film Eula reveals to the family her true feeling about the family leaving
the island, and she expresses how Yellow Mary is a part of her, a part of all
of them. For Eula, her reliance and love of her family is her way of survival. In
order, then to exist in the new and oppressive world of slavery, the Gullah had
to find a way to adapt their beliefs to keep their religiosity in order to
survive. As mentioned above, the Gullah could not separate life from religion,
so therefore their religion had to be adapted to what was deemed more
acceptable to the native whites in order for the Gullah themselves to survive.
Sadly, many look
at the linguistic and religious practices of modern African Americans from the
lens of the twenty first century, with no thought, consideration, or knowledge
of the past. Unfortunately, both white and
black Americans share this ignorance. Many take specific issue with American
Ebonics, stating it is the “language of the uneducated”, and “proof that
African American families do not place education at a high level of
importance.” While this may be the case
for some African American families, the same could be said of many white
families, who are illiterate and cannot read above a first grade level. Many also look to the black churches as a
breeding ground for negativity and promotion of the continuation of
segregation, especially in urban areas.
Walk into any church in the city of Detroit or its suburbs and you will
find a congregation that is either ninety percent white or ninety percent
black. Dancing, clapping, and speaking in tongues intimidate traditional white
liturgical churches, and very little inter-denominational work is done between
white and black parishes. What, then can
be done to inform, educate and make more Americans (both white and black)
knowledgeable of how much of both of their cultures was influenced by African
retentions, and how a new American culture was created by the transformed
African retentions? The first response to this question by most is, of course,
education. But how can we achieve this
when many schools today struggle with the most rudimentary basics such as ABC’s
and 123’s? An idea much broader than just school education and that may have
some impact is a National, federally funded three-year long celebration of the 150th
anniversary of the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and the
passing of the 13th amendment in 1865. During these three years,
there could be celebrations in every town with traveling museum exhibits, local
celebrations of African music and dance, culinary festivals featuring
low-country cooking, mini-series documentaries, free family -tree searches by
heritage societies and foundations, reduced travel rates to important sites in
African American history, such as Charleston, New Orleans, Harlem and stops
along the Underground Railroad. Black
and white churches could unite in service projects to help poor black
communities, and the popular media and Hollywood could take “African retention
awareness” as its new cause. Hopefully,
after three years of information flowing through schools, government and social
celebrations, the population could be flooded with information, resulting in a
greater appreciation for the African traditions that have contributed to the
culture of both white and black Americans.
A remarkable challenge facing historians of
African American slavery is to examine the specific retentions of American
slaves in order to understand the ways in which they were able to adapt to
their new environment, and to carefully discern specific ways in which these
retentions were transformed by the horrific circumstances of slavery. As
demonstrated above, African slaves in the New World retained elements of
African language and religiosity. These
retentions were transformed by the hardships of slavery to become a language
and religion that is uniquely African American, which in turn transformed
aspects of white America as well. It is
in understanding this shared past that we may come to understand each other.
[1] John Edward Philips, The African Heritage of White America Chapter thirteen of classroom
text. Holloway, Joseph E. Africanisms
In American Culture. 2nd. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 372
[2] John Edward Philips, The African Heritage of White America Chapter thirteen of classroom
text. Holloway, Joseph E. Africanisms
In American Culture. 2nd. Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 391
[3]Molefi Kete Asante, African Elements in African American English Chapter Three of class
text: Holloway, Joseph E. Africanisms In American Culture. 2nd.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 75
[4] Molefi Kete Asante, African Elements in African American English Chapter Three of class
text: Holloway, Joseph E. Africanisms In American Culture. 2nd.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 76
[5] Margaret Washington, Gullah Attitudes toward Life and Death Chapter six of classroom
text. Holloway, Joseph E. Africanisms In American Culture. 2nd.
Bloomington, IN: Indiana Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 152
[6] Joseph E. Holloway, The Sacred World of the Gullahs Classroom Text Chapter Seven, Holloway,
Joseph E. Africanisms In American Culture. 2nd. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 207
[7] Joseph E. Holloway, The Sacred World of the Gullahs Classroom Text Chapter Seven, Holloway,
Joseph E. Africanisms In American Culture. 2nd. Bloomington, IN: Indiana
Univ Pr. 2006.
Pg. 189
