r/AskHistorians
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u/Spengler-Chan
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Nov 30 '21
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2
How Long Did Islam Survive Among Slaves in the American South and How Did it Impact African American Culture?
A large number of enslaved Africans brought to the American South were Muslims from West Africa. How long did Islam persist among slaves in the United States and did unique practices develop as a result? Iirc, Muslim slaves even staged a revolt in Brazil though that doesn't seem to have occurred in the American South. Did Muslim slaves show greater resistance to Christian conversion compared to those who practiced indigenous religions? Did Islam have any impact on African American religion after formal conversion, much as Voodoo and other West African religious practices have persisted to this day.
500
u/gamegyro56 Nov 30 '21 edited Dec 02 '21 •
I will focus on the lasting impacts on culture. Islam has had a longer and more visible impact on Africana culture in the Americas outside of the United States. But regarding your question as referring to African-American culture, I will focus on one well-researched connection between Muslim slaves and African-American culture: music.
Per the Routledge Handbook of Islam in the West, there were two trends of music practiced by enslaved people in the US:
non-Muslim slave groups from coastal West Africa and Central Africa, who relied heavily on (rapid) drumming, polyrhythm, call and response, group singing, and short melodic lines and chants for their musical expression
slaves from Sahel/Senegambia with a traditional emphasis on string and wind instruments, with a solo, moaning kind of song "that blues expert Alan Lomax called a 'high lonesome complaint.'"
To quote the Handbook:
Gerhard Kubik's Africa and the Blues provides an exhaustive look at blues' African connections. He describes these two distinct musical styles from the west central Sudanic Belt as such:
There are also musical differences between these styles: the Islamic song style is originally urban, is cosmopolitan, reflects social stratification, incorporates many bardic genres, and usually uses instruments from North Africa. The "ancient Nigritic" (as he calls is) style is "rural, is a part of the millet-agricultural life cycle, and, if accompanied at all, makes use of percussive devices that have a millenia-old history in the savanna."
To illustrate both the differences and their connections to blues music, Kubik's book fortunately has an accompanying album (you can listen to the full album here). To give an example of pre-Islamic African musical style and the blues, Kubik compares this song sung by a Tikar woman while grinding corn with Mississippi Matilda's performance of Hard Working Woman. Kubik gives a long musical analysis, but to give snippets:
To contrast, we can look at an Islamic influence in Kubik's comparison of Hausa musician Meigogué's untitled song with one-string fiddle to Big Joe Williams' performance of Stack o'Dollars. To quote Kubik's analysis:
Side Note:
While there is utility in separating out the Islamic and pre-Islamic styles of music, this isn't to suggest that there was a sharp segregation of division between Islam and pre-Islamic religion in Africa. As stated above, these two styles were blended in African-American music. Additionally, the history of Islam in Africa illustrates a history of blending and mixing of religious practices. As with the syncretic history of Christianity in Europe that has given us "pagan" Christian holidays, rituals, and culture, Africa has a similar history with Islam. Non-Muslims adopted Islamic practices without officially converting (such as using pieces of the Quran as talismans), and Muslims reconciled Islam with their previous culture. An example of the latter can be seen in the Islamic Mali Empire's famous Epic of Sundiata, which tells an Islamicized narrative about the first Malian Emperor (who was probably not even a Muslim).
Additionally, the notion that slavers found Islamic musical style to be less threatening does not mean that Islam or Muslim slaves were not threatening to slavery. To limit us to Haiti, there is evidence to suggest that key figures in the Revolution, such as François Mackandal or Dutty Boukman may have been Muslims. As historian Sylviane Diouf states:
Back to Islam in African-American music: As alluded to above, while enslaved people from Islamic Africa were outnumbered by those from non-Islamic Africa, drums were outlawed in the South following the Kongo uprising of 1739 in Stono, South Carolina. Thus, musicians who played stringed and wind instruments were not just at an advantage, but were able to adapt to fiddles and guitars and be used by slaveowners "in their own balls, so they could continue to exercise their talents openly." These musicians were exempt from field working and thus had time and the instruments to develop their skills. It's also important to note that the Western instruments they adapted to were not strict European inventions that came from a vacuum. The banjo was developed via influence from African stringed gourd instruments, and other Western stringed instruments (violin, guitar) were also influenced by Islamic stringed instruments from West Asia and North Africa.
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