- Dancing to the rhythm of the cat | MyBlues

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MyBlues The way I feel about blues

- Dancing to the rhythm of the cat

Posted on September 12th, 2011

There is almost a kind of romantic touch to it when we read that music was an essential part of the life of the African slaves who were brought to the colonies on the American continent. Music was not only the medium to express emotions at crucial life time events, but it was also a core part of their daily activities, work or leisure. Music was a way of communicating, it was a component of their language. It spoke, just as words did. When we focus on these sonic aspects of the slaves existence, we almost tend to forget the hardship, the cruelty, and yes let us call it the way it was : the barbaric way they were mostly handled. Putting the spots on music was also extremely functional for the slave owners: the image of the dancing and the music making African American had a conscience soothing effect. In the ruling stereotype of the white ideology it was interpreted as the evidence that the slave was pleased with his situation. How else could one reconcile music making and dancing with their agonies of life? For the abolitionists, it was an incongruity to see the African American sing and dance in spite of the horrors that confronted him. It was even less comprehensible that slaves were already dancing during their sea voyage coming from Africa or indirectly from the Caribbeans. And yet, the reports on the slaves dancing on the ship are unmistakable. Dr George Pinckard, a British army doctor, who accompanied an expedition to the West Indies, wrote in one his letters (1796) : We saw them dance, and heard them sing. In dancing they scarcely moved their feet, but threw about their arms, and twisted and writhed their bodies David Schoepf, a German naturalist who sailed to the Bahamas in 1784, wrote : Another sort of amusement was furnished us by several among the negroes on board, native Africans. One of them would often be entertaining his comrades with the music and songs of their country. As always, there is more than meets the eye. Dena Epstein (2003) has put forth enough first hand documents to prove that the slaves music did not come spontaneous. Though it was certainly a way to link memories and emotions back to their previous life that was ripped from them, the dancing had in the first place its source in the commercial considerations of the slave traders. Slaves were stimulated to dance and sing in order to keep the tensions down and prevent mutinies from erupting. No wonder, writes one author upon examination of the records of the Middelburgsche Commercie Compagnie a Dutch trading company and one of the key players in the slave trade that very few records of slave rebellions can be find in the logs of the slave trading firms (3). Dancing and singing was not only supposed to boost the morale, it was also a way to keep the commodity fresh and alive. The slaves were called on open deck where they were made to exercise, and encouraged by the music of their beloved banjar, to dancing and cheerfulness, writes Dr Pinckard further in his letter. The Cyclopdia, a two-volume, alphabetically arranged encyclopaedia compiled and edited by the

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English scholar Ephraim Chambers and first published in 1728, confirms that the dancing and singing on boats was a general practice, and the book also explains the motivation: () the poor Wretches, while yet in sight of their Country, fall into Sickness, and dieThe only sure means to preserveem, is to have some Musical Instrument play toem, be it ever so mean. By making his human cargo sing and dance, the captain of the ship tried to keep his merchandise in good shape, or at least to survive the crossing of the Atlantic. Each dead slave cut his profits. The following description of the conditions on board speaks for itself (1). they sail cautiously yet boldly in, anchor, and in two or three hours are filled with negroes, who are carried off to them in canoes. The refractory ones are clapped in irons, or made drunk with rum; and in this stupefied condition they are carried aboard, stowed in a sitting posture, with the knees drawn up so closely that they can scarcely breathe, much less move. Now their sufferings become dreadful horrible; indeed, human language is incapable of describing, or imagination of sketching even the faint outline of a dimly floating fancy of what their condition is homesick, seasick, half starved, naked, crying for air, for water, the strong killing the weak or dying in order to make room, the hold becomes a perfect charnel house of death and misery a misery and anguish only conceivable by those who have endured it.

It was thus not out of amusement that slaves sang: most of the time they had the choice between making music or being flogged. Dr Falconbridge, a British surgeon on four voyages in slave ships between 1780 and 1787, wrote in 1788 in his An Account of the Slave Trade on the Coast of Africa : Exercise being deemed necessary for the preservation of their health, the [slaves on board] are sometimes obliged to dance, when the weather will permit their coming on deck. If they go about it reluctantly, or do not move with agility, they are flogged. He tells further, leaving nothing to the readers imagination : a person [stands by them] all the time with a cat-o-nine-tails (2) in his hand for that purpose. Other testimonies run along the same line : The slaves were kept in irons, and in the afternoon, after being fed, the boatswain and the mate make them dance; and if they do not, they had each of them a cat to flog them, and make them do it which I have seen

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repeatedly (Epstein, 2003, p. 8). What did they then sing? The documentation is not abundant and should be read carefully having in mind the enormous cultural gap between the observers and the observed. Phrases that keep coming back in the descriptions are: the singing was monotonous, the words we did not understand, the dancing consisted of only beating the deck violently with the foot that was at liberty (the other being chained), the songs consisted of one stanza constantly repeated, and the song was a wild yell, devoid of all softness and harmony, and loudly chanted in harsh monotony It is safe to assume that their music was directly stemming from their African background, and was dominantly a lamenting cry for the inhumane rupture with their home. In any case, as one of the observers noted : the words we did not understand. The fact of music making was more important for the slave trader than what was sung. On the boat however, how embryonic it was then, we might also witness the springing of the later acculturation process of European and African music. On the one hand, the slave trader got to know the African instruments as for instance the banjar (the later banjo); on the other hand, the slaves heard the music of bagpipes, harp and fiddle that were played by the crew. This acculturation process would continue in the coming decades and century leading eventually to new forms of music which more or less kept the African distinctive characters, but were new American musical forms. This process however is very complex. Once the slave set foot ashore, the conditions for music making changed fundamentally. Simplifying the image, one might state that on boat the music making was an obligation, once ashore, the boundaries for music making were set essentially by the tolerance of the white population. During the transport on the boat the slave could be flogged for not making music, once arrived on the plantation, he could be flogged for being too noisy. The tolerance from the white population determined when music could be made, where it was appropriate and how it could be performed, using which instruments. Already before 1700 British and French colonists had for instance issued prohibitions, not of the dancing itself, but of drums, trumpets and other loud instruments (Epstein, 2003). What is important here is that the extent of tolerance displayed must have had a determining impact on the degree to which slaves could keep intact their own cultural background, and hence the level on which their music will later on leave its traces on the new emerging genres. This tolerance was not in the first place an individual characteristic of the white master. The complete social context needs to be taken into account, and especially the place that the slave occupied in the social system. The sheer demographic situation is already a main factor : the higher the relative importance of the black population to the total population, the higher the probability that Africans could succeed in preserving their own characteristics, and put their stamp on the way that music developed. The geographical dispersion is another factor : a high concentration will guarantee a better preservation of the ancient culture than when the Africans were scattered with little or no communication means between them. The urban context offered other possibilities for musical expression than the rural context. The role that the institution of slavery played in the total economic structure needs also to be the object of attention: it makes for a radically different environment when the white working class perceives the slaves as a competitor on the labour market or not. The cultural and religious background of the slave owner will without any doubt also have played a significant role in the tolerance he showed towards how slaves could follow their own musical idioms, or

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were forced to integrate European values in their cultural patterns. I think I have made it clear in this and my previous articles that the approach to study black music and how it evolved at the end of the day in blues, ragtime and jazz, needs imperatively be of a (social-)dynamic and comparative nature. It needs to be dynamic in its recognition that the institution of slavery has never been a static institution: slavery has evolved considerably over time until it was formally ended with the Civil War. The institution has also taken different shapes: not all slaves have always been African (also native Americans and Africans have kept slaves). And above all, I see it as crucial that a more comparative perspective should be taken, analysing in depth how regional differences in the socio-economic fabric were linked to the way that music developed. Some regional differences are quite evident, for instance when we see that in the Louisianas French and Spanish colonial era of the 18th century, slaves were commonly allowed Sundays off from their work and were allowed to gather in the Place de Ngres (Congo Square), whilst in other regions there were official attempts to suppress African dancing and instruments (Epstein, 2003, p. 27). The comparative cultural analysis need not to be limited to the sole American states; after all, from the nearly 15 million Africans that have been shipped in slavery, only a relative small portion (half a million) had the northern American continent as end station. How did the African music interact for instance in the Southern American communities ? What developments took place there which can help us in understanding the extent and content of the acculturation process in the north American states? But Im floating away now from what I wanted to tell you in this article: already on the boats that brought them to the colonies, Africans and Europeans were confronted with each others music. While still on the ships, the music making was defined as an obligation. Ashore, it was defined as a right and the conditions for exercising this right have written the recipe for the unique American musical stew that would be cooked. ______________________________________________ SOURCES & NOTES ______________________________________________ (1) http://www.melfisher.org/exhibitions/lastslaveships/slaveships.htm (2) The cat o nine tails, commonly shortened to the cat, is a type of multi-tailed whipping device that originated as an implement for severe physical punishment, notably in the Royal Navy and Army of the United Kingdom. (3) The estimates are that on some 10 % of the voyages mutinies did happen. Note that the crew used also other more drastic measures to prevent mutiny, measures which I can hardly describe here since they are too crude. - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congo_Square - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ephraim_Chambers - http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~towcesterfamilies/George%20Pinckard.htm - http://www.digitalhistory.uh.edu/database/subtitles.cfm?titleID=25 - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_slave_trade - http://www.sonofthesouth.net/slavery/history-slavery.htm

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- http://www.understandingrace.org/history/gov/colonial_authority.html - http://www.lva.virginia.gov/public/guides/SlaveryInVA.pdf - http://www.civilwarhome.com/slavery.htm - http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/overview.htm - D. J. Epstein, 2003, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals : Black folk music to the Civil War

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