Posted by The nexus of our African American culture is life on the plantation. Africans from Senegambia to West Central Africa were taken from their homelands, boarded onto ships, and relocated to America. In this abrupt and traumatic transition, the survivors of the journey had to create a new life in a foreign land.
Each country in Africa had its own diverse societies and cultures. Members of these societies were surrounded by people who spoke the same language and participated in the same customs. However, when Africans reached America, they were often surrounded by people from other countries all together. Slavery presented a new society, or social grouping. Enslaved Africans were now a new social group in America and were a part of insular communities on the plantations. Within these insular communities, traditions, customs, and values began to take shape. Old food preparation techniques were repurposed to feed their families. New language was born out of the necessity to communicate as well as new song and dance that was created to entertain and inform. Life on the plantation was an amalgamation of many cultures morphing into a new culture with an identity all its own.
African American culture might have gotten its start on the plantation but that is nowhere near where it ended. Stay tuned tomorrow to see where we are headed next.
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