A Historical Perspective: African Contributions to American Culture

This essay explores the significant contributions of Africans to American culture, challenging earlier debates about the survival of African heritage in the United States. It highlights how enslaved Africans, primarily from the Bantu-speaking regions, retained and adapted their cultural traditions despite the hardships of slavery. The essay details African expertise in agriculture, particularly rice cultivation in South Carolina, and their role in developing the American dairy industry and open grazing practices. It also discusses the influence of African folklore, such as the Brer Rabbit tales, and the cultural significance of Congo Square in New Orleans, where African dances and music thrived. The essay emphasizes the lasting impact of African traditions on American cuisine, language, and performing arts, demonstrating the profound and often unacknowledged role of Africans in shaping American identity and culture. Desklib provides this and many other solved assignments for students.

AFRICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN CULTURE
By Joseph E. Holloway Ph.D
Source:THE SLAVE REBELLION WEB SITE
(http://slaverebellion.org/index.php?page=african-contribution-to-american-culture)
Scholars have long recognized African origins in the linguistic forms and
the culturaltraits of African Americans, and thus assumed that these
Africanisms were derived principally from West Africa. There has been
much debate over the origins of African culture in the U.S. The classic
debate between Melville J. Herskovits and E. Franklin Frazier is still
relevant. To revisit it briefly, Frazier believed that Black Americans lost
their African heritage during slavery; thus, the African American culture
evolved independently of any African influences. Herskovits argued the
opposite that it was not possible to understand and appreciate African
American culture without understanding its African linkages and carryover
called Africanisms.Current scholars are more concernedwith using a
transnational framework to examine how African cultural survivals have
changed over time and readapted to diasporic conditions while
experiencing slavery, forced labor, and racial discrimination.
The new scholarship suggests that the West Africans contributed primarily
to Euro-American culture whereas people who came from the vast Bantu
speaking areas of Africa, to the east and south of West Africa, are tho
most likely to have left an African cultural heritage to African Americans.
Plantation slavery tended to acculturate West Africans relatively quickly,
yet unwittingly encouraged retention of African traditions among others.
Enslaved Africans, not free to openly transport kinship, courts, religion,
and material cultures, were forced to disguise or abandon them during the
Middle Passage. Instead, they dematerialized their cultural artifacts during
the Middle Passage to rematerialize African culture on their arrival in the
New World. Africans arrived in the New World capable of using Old
World knowledge to create New World realities.
Africans, and their descendants, contributed to the richness and fullness of
American culture from its beginnings. Their contributions in early
America, for which they have received little or no credit, include the
developmentof the American dairy industry, open grazing of cattle,
artificial insemination of cows, the development of vaccines (including
vaccination for smallpox), and cures for snake bites.

African stories and folklore, such as the Brer Rabbit, Brer Fox, and Chicken
Little tales originated in Africa, and were absorbed into America’s culture
of childhood and laid a foundation for American nursery culture. Despite
the limitations imposed by slavery, Africans and their descendants made
substantial contributions to American culture in aesthetics,animal
husbandry, agriculture, cuisine, folklore, folk medicine and language. This
chapter examines African contribution to American culture.
AFRICAN RICE CULTIVATION
The major contribution of enslaved Africans was in agriculture. In the
1740s, rice from Madagascar was introduced to South Carolina’s farming
economy. Africans, experts in rice cultivation, were transported from the
island of Goree, off the coast of what is now the Senegambia, to train
Europeans to cultivate this new crop.
The first successful cultivation of rice in the New World was accomplished
in the South Carolina Sea Islands by an African woman who later showed
her owner how to cultivate rice. The first rice seeds were imported directly
from the island of Madagascar in 1685; Africans supplied the labor and the
technical expertise for this new crop industry. Africans off the coast of
Senegal helped train Europeans in the methods of cultivation and those
who specialized in rice cultivation were imported directly from the island
of Goree. Africans were able to successfully transfer their rice culture to the
New World. The method of rice cultivation used in West Africa and South
Carolina was identical. Enslaved Africans used three basic systems: ground
water, springs, and soil moisture retention, or high water table. These three
systems are found on both sides of the Atlantic, and formed the basis for
South Carolina’s antebellum economy.
Early Africans brought with them highly developed skills in metal
working, leather work, pottery, and weaving. Senegambianswere
employed as medicine men (root doctors), Blacksmiths, harness makers,
carpenters, and lumberjacks. These trades were passed down to other
enslaved Africans by the skilled African craftsmen in an apprentice-type
fashion.
Traditional African food culture has been preserved even today in many
areas of American cuisine, as in the technique of deep fat frying, southern
stews (gumbos), and nut stews. Okra, tania, Blackeyed peas, kidney an
lima bean were all brought on slave ships as food gathered in Africa for the
Africans during the transatlantic voyage. Fufu, a traditional African meal
throughout the continent, was eaten from the Senegambia to Angola an

was assimilated into American culture as “turn meal and flour” in South
Carolina. Corn bread prepared by African slaves was similar to the African
millet bread. In some of the slave narrative reports, “cornbread” was
referred to as one of the foods that accompanied them to the New World.
AFRICAN CONTRIBUTIONS TO AMERICAN “COWBOY” CULTURE
The first major contribution by Africans to North American society was in
the arena of cattle raising. When the Fulani (or Fula) people from
Senegambia, along with longhorn cattle, were imported to South Carolina
in 1731, colonial herds increased from 500 to 6,784 some 30 years lat
These Fulas were expert cattlemen and were responsible for introducing
African husbandry patterns of open grazing now practiced throughout the
American cattle industry. Cattle drives to the centers of distribution were
innovations Africans brought with them as contributions to a developing
industry. Originally a cowboy was an African who worked with cattle, just
as a houseboy worked in “de big House.” Open grazing made practical use
of an abundance of land and a limited labor force.
Africans and their descendants were America’s first cowboys. Most people
are not aware that many cowboys of the American West were Black,
contrary to how the film industry and the media have portrayed them.
Only recently have we begun to recognize the extent to which cowboy
culture has African roots. Many details of cowboy life, work, and even
material culture can be traced to the Fulani, America’s first cowboys, b
there has been little investigation of this by historians of the American
West.
Contemporary descriptions of local West African animal husbandry bear a
striking resemblanceto what appeared in Carolina and later in the
American dairy and cattle industries. Africans introduced the first artificial
insemination and the use of cows’ milk for human consumption. Peter
Wood believes that from this early relationship between cattle and Africans
the word, “cowboy” originated.
As late as 1865, following the Civil War, Africans whose responsibilities
were with cattle were referred to as “cowboys’ in plantation records. After
1865, whites associated with the cattle industry referred to themselves
“cattlemen,”to distinguish themselvesfrom the Black cowboys. The
annual North-South migratory patterns the cowboys followed are directly
related to the migratory patterns of the Fulani cattle herders who lived
scattered throughout Nigeria and Niger. Not only were Africans imported

with the expertise to handle cattle, but the African longhorn was imported
as well, a breed that later became known as the Texas longhorn.
Much of the early language associated with cowboy culture had a stron
African flavor. The word buckra (buckaroo) is derived from Mbakara, the
Efik/lbibio work for “poor white man.” It was used to describe a class of
whites who worked as broncobusters,bucking and breaking horses.
Planters used buckras as broncobusters because slaves were too valuable to
risk injury. Another African word that found its way into popular cowboy
songs is “get along little dogies.” The word “doggies” originated from
Kimbundu, along with kidogo, a little something, and dodo, small. After the
Civil War when great cattle roundups began, Black cowboys introduced
such Africanisms to cowboy language and songs.
TALES OUT OF AFRICA
In the area of folklore, Brer Rabbit, Brer Wolf, Brer Bear, and Sis’ Nann
Goat were part of the folklore the Wolof brought by way of the Hausa, Fula
(Fulani), and the Mandinka. Other West African tales of a trickster Hare
were also introduced. The Spider (Anansi) tales appeared in the United
States in the form of Aunt Nancy and Brer Rabbit stories. All the stories of
Uncle Remus, as retold in the Sea Islands, are Hausa in origin via the
Mande (Mandinka). These African tales laid the foundation for American
nursery rhymes.
These stories found their way into American culture as told by slaves. The
Chicken Little story is also part of this tradition, and originated unaltered
from Africa. The Hare and Hyena, corresponds to Brer Rabbit and Brer Fox
tales. African slaves who fled to the Creek Indian Nation introduced these
West African Trickster tales, which were also adopted by the Seminoles.
THE CONGO SQUARE
Le placed du Congo, Congo Square, is in old New Orleans. An ordinance
of the Municipal Council, adopted on October 15, 1817, made the name of
this traditional place law. It was considered one of the unique attractions of
old New Orleans, ranking second only to the Quadroon Ball. At the square,
women wore dotted calico dresses with brightly colored Madras kerchiefs
tied about their hair, to form the popular headdress called the tignon.
Children wore garments with brightfeathers and bits of ribbon.The
favorite dances of the slaves in Congo Square were the bamboula and the
calinda, two Congo dances, the latter being a variation of the former th
was also danced in voodoo ceremonies.

Another favorite dance at the Congo Square was the Chica, which was very
popular during the slave era. The talent of the female dancer resides in the
perfection of her ability to move her hips, the bottom parts of her wai
with the rest of the body remaining in a sort of stillness which does n
disturb the weak swaying of her hands, waving the ends of a handkerchief
or her waist petticoat. A male gets closer to her, leaping up suddenly, and
falls back rhythmically, almost touching her. He pulls back, leaps up again
and challenges her to the most seductive duel. The dance gets animate
and soon becomes lustful.
Another dance particular to New Orleans and the Congo Square was th
Ombliguide. This dance was criticized in 1766 by the New Orleans City
Council. The dance is performed by four men and four women and
involved objectionable movements with navel-to-navel contact, a common
trait of Angolan traditional dancing. Enslaved Africans came regularly to
Congo Square to perform the Ombliguide and other Congo dances, such as
the Calinda, Bamboula and Chica, all transplanted directly from Central
Africa. The partial Europeanization of some of these African movements
eventually created the native dances of Latin American countries such a
the Marcumbi, a dance learned by the Spanish and later brought to La
America. The Fandango, the national dance of Spain, originated in Cuba,
from African dances. Other dances derived from the Ombliguide are th
Chacharara, Cadomba, Melongo, Malamba, Gati, Samba, Rhumba, Mamba,
Conga and Tango.
The “ring shout” was a dance performed in the Congo Square, also. This is
a dance involving people moving aroundin a circle counterclockwise,
rhythmically shuffling their feet and shaking their hands while those
outside the ring clap, sing, and gesticulate. Movement in a ring during
ceremonies honoring the ancestors was an integral part of life in Centr
Africa and is believed to have been transported to Congo Square direct
from Africa.
Enslaved Africans maintained their music, song, and dance cultures as they
adapted to life in the New World. Many African dances survived because
they were reshaped and adopted by European Americans, while others
remained intact, or changed with the new circumstances. For example, the
ring shout started as a sacred Kongolese dance, but later found expression
in non sacred forms of dance.
In both Africa and the New World, the circle ritual had different meanings
in the distinct cultures. In the Kongo, the ring shout circle is identical to the
Gullah counterclockwise dance, which is linked to the most important

African ceremony – the rites of passage. Among the Mande, the circle
dance is a part of the marriage and birth ceremonies, and in Wolof culture,
the ring circle is central to most dancing.
The Bamboula and the Calinda, variations of voodoo dance, became
popular forms of dance expression in early New Orleans. The Cakewalk
and the Charleston traveled from Africa to become integral to American
dance forms on the American plantation.
The Calinda, also known as La Calinda, is one of the earliest forms of
African dance seen in America. This Kongo/Angolan dance first became
popular in Santo Domingo, then in Haiti and New Orleans. La Calinda is
first reported by Dessalles in 1654 and by a French monk, Jean Baptist
Labat, who went to Martinique as a missionary in 1694. The Calinda is a
variation of a dance used in voodoo ceremonies, and is always performed
by male and female dancers in couples. The dancers move to the middle of
the circle and begin to dance. Each dancer chooses a partner and performs
the dance, with few variations, by taking a step in which every leg is
straightened and pulled back alternatively with a quick strike, sometime
on point, sometimes with a grounded heel. This dance is performed in
manner slightly similar to that of the Anglaise. The male dancer turns by
himself or goes around his partner, who also makes a turn and changes her
position while waving the ends of a handkerchief. Her partner raises his
hands in almost clenched fists up and down alternately, with his elbow
close to his body. This dance is vivid and lively. In 1704, records show that
a police ordinance was issued prohibiting night gatherings from
performing the Calinda on plantations.
SLAVE MUSIC AND THE BANJO
The dance now known as the Charleston had the greatest influence on
American dance culture than any other imported African dance. It is a
form of the jitterbug dance, which is a general term applied to
unconventional, often formless and violent, social dances performed to
syncopatedmusic. Enslaved Africans brought it from the Kongo to
Charleston, South Carolina, as the juba dance, which then slowly evolved
into what is now the Charleston. This one-legged sembuka step, over-and-
cross, arrived in Charleston between 1735 and 1740. Similar in type to the
“one-legged” sembuka-style dancing found in northern Kongo, the dance
consists of “patting” (otherwise known as “patting Juba”), stamping,
clapping, and slapping of arms, chest, and so forth. The name “Charleston”
was given to the Juba dance by European Americans. In Africa, however,
the dance is called the Juba, or Djouba.

Thomas Jefferson wrote in 1781: “The instrument proper to them [Africa
American] is the Banjar, brought from Africa, and which is the [form] of the gu
its chords being precisely the four lower chords of the guitar.” The ba
known in America as an African instrument until the 1840s, when minstrel
shows took it as a part of their Blackface acts. As a result, the banjo became
a badge of ridicule and Blacks abandoned it, allowing southern whites to
claim it as their own invention.
Benjamin Latrobe, an American architect,while in New Orleans also
noticed that the banjo was particular to Africans. In his own words, “a
crowd of 5 or 600 persons assembled in an open space or public square. I we
the spot & crowded near enough to see the performance. All those wh
engaged in the business seemed to be Blacks. I did not observe a do
faces. They were formed into circular groups [sic] in the midst of four of whic
which I examined (but there were more of them), was a ring, the largest not 1
in diameter. In the first were two women dancing. They held each a
handkerchief extended by the corners in their hands & set to each oth
miserably dull & slow figure, hardly moving their feet or bodies. The m
consisted of two drums and a stringed instrument. An old man sat ast
cylindrical drum about a foot in diameter, & beat it with incredible quickness w
the edge of his hand & fingers. The other drum was an open staved
between the knees & beaten in the same manner. They made an incredible n
The most curious instrument, however, was a stringed instrument which no do
was imported from Africa. On the top of the finger board was the rude figure
man in a sitting posture, & two pegs behind him to which the strings
fastened. The body was a calabash. It was played upon by a very little old ma
apparently 80 or 90 years old.”
Other African instruments that survived the Middle Passage were the
thumb piano also known as the mbira, common in the late 19th century in
New Orleans, and the cane fifes found in both West and Central Africa
The making and playing of cane fifes survived the Middle Passage.
Africans and African Americans use the same technique to make them.
African drums were common until the Stono Rebellion of 1739. Talking
drums were well known on both sides of the Atlantic, especially for the
use in slave revolts. The first description of the use of drums in America
comes from the official account of the Stono slave rebellion in South
Carolina where they were used by Angolans. Afterward the colony of
South Carolina in the Slave Act of 1740 passed laws prohibiting “drums
horns, or other loud instruments.”

One of the most popular chordophones is from the Kongo/Angolan area,
the mouth-resonatedMusical Bow. It only appeared sporadically in
African American culture when compared to its diffusion from Africa to
South America and the Caribbean, where it is played by Africans, Native
Americans and mixed groups. Today the African Mouth Bow’s greatest
U.S. distribution is in isolated white communitiesin the Ozark and
Appalachian mountains.
AFRICAN INFLUENCES ON WHITE AMERICAN CULTURE
David Dalby has identified early linguistic retention and traced many
Americanisms to Wolof including such words as OK (okay), bogus, boogie-
woogie, bug (insect), John, phony, guy, honkie, dig (to understand), jam
jamboree, jitter(bug), jive, juke(box), fuzz (police), hippie, mumbo-jumbo,
phoney, root toot(y), and rap, to name a few. Other linguistic Africanisms
first used by Americans includes words such as banana, banjo, cola (as in
Coca-Cola), elephant, goober (peanut), gorilla, gumbo, okra, sorcery, tater,
tote and turnip. [For further reading on African Linguistic retention, see
Holloway and Vass, The African Heritage of American English].
The acculturation process was mutual, as well as reciprocal. Africans
assimilated white culture, and planters adopted some aspects of African
customs and practices, such as the African agricultural methods of rice
cultivation, African cuisine (southern cooking), open grazing of cattle, and
uses of herbal medicinesto cure New World diseases. For example,
Africans are credited for bringing folk treatment for small pox, knowledge
of birth by Caesarian section (pharaonic in origin), and cures for snake bites
and other poisons.
Through the root doctor, Africans brought holistic health practices to th
plantations. The African house servants also learned new domestic skills,
including the art of quilting from their mistresses. They took a European
quilting technique and Africanized it by combining their appliqué style,
reflecting a pattern and form which are still found today in the Akan and
Fon textile industries of West Africa. While many of the Mandes were
enslaved as craftsmen, artisans, and house servants, the field slaves we
mainly Central Africans who, unlike the Senegambians,brought a
homogeneous,identifiable culture. The Bantus often possessedgood
metallurgical and woodworking skills. They had particular skill in iron
working, making the wrought iron balconies in New Orleans and
Charleston.

As field workers the Bantus were kept away from the developing
mainstreamof white American culture. This isolation worked to the
Bantus’ advantage in that it allowed their culture to escape acculturatio
and maintained their homogeneity. Bantu contributions to South Carolina
and Louisiana included not only wrought iron balconies, but also wood
carvings, basketry, weaving, clay-baked figurines, and pottery.
Cosmograms, grave designs and decorations, funeral practices, and the
wake are Bantu in origin. Bantu musical contributions include banjos,
drums, diddle bows, mouthbows, Quilts, washtub bass, jugs, gongs, bells,
rattles, idiophones, and the lokoimni (a five-stringed harp). The Bantus had
the largest constituency in South Carolina and possibly in other areas of the
southeastern United States, including Alabama and Louisiana. Herskovits
noted that the cultural center of the Bantu in North America is in the South
Carolina Sea Islands off the Carolina coast.
Given the homogeneity of the Bantu culture and the strong similarities
among Bantu languages, this group no doubt influenced West African
groups of larger size. Also, since the Bantus were predominantly field
hands or were used in capacities that required little or no contact with
European Americans, they were not confronted with the same problems of
acculturationas West African domestic servants and artisans were.
However, the Mande had a greater influence on white American culture.
Coexisting in relative isolation from other groups, the Bantus were able to
maintain a strong sense of unity and to retain a cultural vitality that laid the
foundation for the development of African American culture.
AFRICAN CROPS TO THE NEW WORLD
Crops brought directly from Africa during the transatlantic slave trade
include rice, okra, tania, Blackeyed peas, and kidney and lima beans. They
were consumed by Africans on board the slave ships on the way to th
New World. Slavers collected local cultivated crops such as rice and yams,
and included dried beans, peas, wheat, shelled barley and biscuits to feed
the cargo.
African women prepared much of the food during the transatlantic voyage
as suggested by an entry from the journal of the ship Mary from Monday
June 20, 1796: “The Women Cleaning Rice and Grinding corn for corn
cakes.” These foods were mixed with a sauce of meat or fish, or with palm
oil. Once they survived the Middle Passage, the meals they consumed in
the plantation fields consisted of boiled yams, eddoes (Tania), okra,
callaloo, and plantain heavily seasoned with cayenne pepper and salt.

Other crops brought from Africa included peanuts (ultimately from South
America), millet, sorghum, guinea melon, watermelon, yams (Dioscorea
cayanensis),and sesame (benne). These crops found their way into
American food ways and became part of the ingredients found in the
earliest cook books written by Southern Americans.
Genus, Species Common Name
Abelmoschus esculentus okra, guimbombo
Aracis hypogaea groundnut
Blighia spida ackee, aka, akee
Cajanus cajan Angola pea, pigeon pea
Cannabis sativa diamba, marijuana
Cassia italica Jamaican senna
Cola acuminate bichy tree
Cucumis anguria maroon cucumber
Dioscorea alata yam bacara
Dioscorea cayenensis yellow yam
Elaeis guineensis African oil palm
Monodora myristica nutmeg
Oryza glaberrima African rice
Phaseolus lunatus broad bean
Sesamun indicum benne seed
Sorghum vulgare guinea corn, wheat
William Ed Grime, Ethno-Botany of the Black Americans Algoniac, Mic
publications, 1970
A young physician, Sir Hans Sloane, living in the West Indies, found many
of these crops growing on the island of Jamaica as early as 1687. The
plants reached the mainland of North America either directly from Africa,
or came with enslaved Africans destined for North America and through
trade with the West Indies. These crops may have already found a home in
North America before Sloane's encounter. Eventually, however, these crops

went from being eaten exclusively by Africans in North America to being in
white southern cuisine.
Blackeyed peas were first brought to the New World during the
transatlantic slave trade as food for slaves. They first arrived in Jamaic
around 1675, spreading throughout the West Indies, and finally reaching
Florida by 1700, North Carolina in 1738, and Virginia by 1775. Slave planter
William Byrd mentions Blackeyed peas in his writings in 1738. By the time
of the American Revolution, Blackeyed peas were firmly established in
America and a part of the cuisine.
George Washington wrote in a letter in 1791 that "pease" (Blackeyed peas)
were rarely grown in Virginia. In 1792 he brought 40 bushels of seeds for
planting on his plantation. Blackeyed peas became one of the most popular
food crops in the southern part of the United States. George Washingto
later referred to them as "callicance" and "cornfield peas," because of
early custom of planting them between the rows of field corn.
Okra arrived in the New World during the transatlantic slave trade in the
1600s. Okra, called gumbo in Africa, found exceptional popularity in New
Orleans. In French Louisiana, Creole cuisine and African cooking combined
to produce the unique cuisine of New Orleans. Gumbo is a popular stew, or
soup, in which okra is the main ingredient, thickened with powder from
sassafras leaves (gumbo filé). One observer in 1748 noted that thickene
soup was a delicacy liked by Blacks.
Okra was commonly used by the American white population before the
American Revolutionary War. Enslaved Africans used the young fruit that
contains the vegetable mucilage to eat after boiling. The leaves were a
used medicinally to make a softening cataplasm, and seeds were used
make a coffee substitute on the plantations of South Carolina. Okra wa
popular among women to produce abortion, by lubricating the uterine
passage with the slimy pods. In West Africa, women still use okra to
produce abortion, using the same method.
The next important crop to arrive to the United States by way of Africa is
the American peanut. The peanut is known by several names, including
groundnut, earth nut and ground peas. Two other words of African origin
for the peanut are Pindar and goober. Among other recorded sources of the
use of these African names, both Thomas Jefferson and George Washington
called peanuts peendar and Pindars (1794, 1798); the word was used before
the Revolutionary War. The word goober was used principally in the 19th
century. The period of its greatest popularity was the 1860s when the Civil

War song "Goober Peas" was written. After the war the song’s lyrics were
attributed to "A Pindar" and its music to "P. Nutt."
The American peanut has an interestinghistory. While the peanut is
indigenous to South America as a crop, it was first brought to Africa b
Portuguese sailors and then back to Virginia from Africa by enslaved
Africans. The peanut was used to feed Africans crossing the Middle
Passage. One New World observer noted, "The first I ever saw of these
[peanuts] growing was the Negro's plantation who affirmed, that they grew
in great plenty in their country." In Africa, peanut stews, soups, and gravies
serve as an important part of any meal. Nut soups, however, in the
American South, although of African origin, and are no longer enjoyed by
the descendants of Africans, but rather are associated with Euro-Americans.
The peanut is a crop that George Washington Carver researched. From his
experimentshe found water, fats, oils, gums, resins, sugar, starches,
pectins, pentosans, and proteins. From these compounds he discovered
over 300 possible peanut products, including Jersey milk that led to the
production of butter and cheese. Among the 300 products arising from his
research were instant coffee, flour, face cream, bleach, synthetic rubber and
linoleum. Dr. Carver found rubbing peanut oil on the body helpful for
rejuvenating muscles. Mahatma Gandhi found that peanut milk, as well as
the soy bean formula Dr. Carver created for him, constituted a healthy part
of his diet.
Sesame first arrived in South Carolina from Africa by 1730. In 1730, a
Carolinian sent sesame along with sesame oil to London. This is an item of
considerable importance in Colonial America and England because table oil
was one of the products England hoped to obtain by colonizing the Ne
World. In order not to import olive oil for cooking, Britain encouraged
production of table oils by offering bounties on edible oils. By 1733, a book
on gardening published in London, noting the cultivation of the sesame
plant and its usefulness as a source of "sallet-oil." Enslaved Africans grew
sesame for uses other than its oil. Thomas Jefferson noted in the 1770s that
benne (another name for sesame) was eaten raw, toasted or boiled in soups
by African slaves. Jefferson also noted that enslaved Africans baked sesame
in breads, boiled in greens, and used it to enrich broth. Today sesame
used primarily as a bread topping.
African cooks in the "Big House" introduced their native African crops and
foods to the planters, thus becoming intermediary links in the melding of
African and European culinary cultures. The house servants, while learning
from the planters, also took African culinary taste into the Big House.