CHAPTER ONE - THE MUSIC
Part One - The History of Afro-American Music
African Roots
The Europeans who had discovered, tamed and later colonized North America soon realised the need for a large labour force to develop the new world. In 1661, the colony of Virginia legalized slavery and other colonies were soon to follow. By the late seventeenth century slavery was widespread. It was in the sparsely settled, almost tropically fertile, Southern colonies where labour was in short supply. White labourers were not keen to apply themselves, on the scale required, to develop these territories to their full potential. Tobacco was the first major crop to draw slave labour, quickly followed by rice, sugar and cotton.
English ship owners from Bristol and Liverpool, made their fortunes by capturing Negroes in Africa and then shipping them across the Atlantic, to be sold as slaves in the American colonies. During nearly three centuries of trading approximately 35 to 40 million black Africans were torn from their own environment to make the crossing, but because of the horrific conditions on board the slaving ships only 15 million survived to reach the American colonies.
During the American War of Independence (1775-1783) the Northern States declared slavery illegal, but because the prosperity of the Southern States depended on it, it wasnít until 1808 that the import of slaves was banned in North America. It was the American Civil War (1861-1865) however that finally dealt the death blow to slavery in the South.
The Afro-American Music Fusion
The music of Africa brought by the slaves to North America was very different to the music that had been brought by the European settlers. It was considered vulgar, coarse and although very rhythmical, devoid of proper harmonies.
At first the blacks continued, as much as possible, to practice their own African music. In the South drums and loud horns were generally banned because the slave owners feared that they might be used for signalling a mutiny. This resulted in the popularity of quieter instruments like the banjo, which is one of the only modern instruments directly descended from Africa. In the North, where there was not so large a concentration of slaves as to present a formidable threat of revolt, blacks were allowed to put on music and dance festivals.
Throughout the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries most blacks were exposed to much European music. Those blacks who went to church learned to sing in the European manner. Others learned to perform European music on homemade instruments by emulating the whites around them. As time passed, European musical practices began to colour the old African system, the two forms began to fuse and thus was born black American folk music.

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