66 FEBRUARY 2020
IN LATE AUGUST 1619, a year and a few days before the arrival of
the Mayflower, around 20 Africans from the ship White Lion
were sold in Jamestown colony; their arrival was duly recorded
by John Rolfe (of Pocahontas fame), the colony’s registrar. They
were not the first Africans in what would become the United
States, but they (and the hundreds of thousands of Africans
who followed) brought with them, in their heads and hands,
knowledge and skills that transformed the food of the nascent
nation. Their position, and that of their descendants, at the bot-
tom of the established pecking order placed them at the working
epicenter of nation-building—and meant that, over the interven-
ing four centuries, their influence in culinary life, agriculture,
animal husbandry, brewing, and distilling would create a lasting
culinary legacy that is often overlooked.
Establishing a chronology of labor is difficult, but the first
work that was done was probably agricultural and domestic,
with the newly arrived working in the fields alongside inden-
tured whites. Angolan-born Antonio, one
of the original group of Africans, served a
term of indenture and became a farmer and
a sizeable landowner. Through the work of
Antonio and those like him, farming would
be transformed by ideas, such as the careful
planting of crops, that were a part of African
and Native peoples’ traditions. The crops pro-
duced from their methods yielded almost five
times as much as the scattered-seed method
that was common in Europe.
Agricultural practices from the African
continent prevailed in many areas, but in
none as much as in the cultivation of rice in
the Carolina Low Country. From early years,
the expertise of enslaved Africans who were
from the rice-growing regions of West Africa—
Senegambia, Liberia, and Sierra Leone—created extraordinary
wealth for the Carolina colony. The Carolina Gold seed itself may
have arrived from Madagascar. Other ideas ranging from crop
rotation to systems of planting also were transmitted. Crops
from Africa like okra, watermelon, black-eyed peas, sorghum,
coffee, kola nuts, and sesame were brought across the Atlantic
and became staples of the American diet, especially in the South.
Some crops, like peanuts, arrived from other parts of the hemi-
sphere via the African slave trade.
Recent studies suggest that not only plants but also animals
may share African genesis. The celebrated Texas Longhorn cattle,
long thought to be a mix of Criollo and European cattle, actually
contain DNA of Fulani cattle from West Africa, and descen-
dants of enslaved Fulani herdsmen were some of the nation’s
first cowboys. Indeed, by the end of the Civil War, fully 1 in 4
cowboys was Black.
Agriculture and animal management were not the only areas
influenced by Africa and its descendants; the very taste of the
new nation was given an African tinge by the myriad African
American cooks who toiled in its taverns and kitchens. When
many of the founding fathers sat to table, their meals were pre-
pared by Black cooks and served by Black hands. Washington’s
chef, Hercules; Jefferson’s chef, James Hemings; and unknown
cooks for the signatories of the Declaration of Independence
brought African American culinary know-how to the highest
levels of the profession. In Star-Spangled Manners, Judith Martin,
better known as Miss Manners, goes so far as to suggest that the
very nature of America’s much-vaunted Southern hospitality
owes more to African customs than European ones.
The scope of influence of African Americans in the beverage
industry is still being uncovered, but already findings indicate
that in the Colonial and Federal periods, a significant number
worked in taverns as servers and were functioning as master
brewers, as with Peter Hemings, James’ brother, who occu-
pied that position at Monticello. Nathan “Nearest” Green, who
was born enslaved, was the distiller who
taught his craft to Jack Daniel. As it was a
branch of the service industry, many of the
country’s early bartenders were Black, and
before Prohibition, most of the bartenders in
Washington, D.C., were Black, even founding
the Black Mixologists Club, a professional
organization. Tom Bullock, who tended
bar in St. Louis, wrote The Ideal Bartender
in 1917, the first such tome penned by an
African American—and one that became a
bible for mixologists leading the craft cocktail
revolution a century later.
Food also offered a range of possibilities for
those with an entrepreneurial bent. Women
in Gordonsville, Virginia, saw a market for
selling food to passengers on the railroads
that crossed the town: They sold fried chicken and baked
goods through the train windows to hungry passengers. In
19th-century Philadelphia, Robert Bogle established a group
of Black caterers who offered their services to the city’s well-
to-do. Around the country, African American street vendors
hawked everything from New Orleans calas (rice fritters) to
pig’s feet in Harlem. African American eateries large and small
have fed all Americans for centuries, from Providence’s first ale
and oyster house, opened by Emmanuel Bernoon in 1736, to
Edouardo Jordan and Mashama Bailey’s restaurants earning
James Beard Awards today.
African Americans have toiled in every aspect of the country’s
food—growing it, selling it, serving it, and creating and offering
the beverages to accompany it. It’s a 400-year history that is
only now in the 21st century being fully understood, researched,
and told. It’s about time. —Jessica B. Harris, professor emerita at
Queens College, is a culinary historian, consultant, and cook-
book author specializing in the food of Africa and its diaspora.
wo rd s b y JESSICA B. HARRIS
THE HISTORY OF
BLACK
CONTRIBUTIONS
TO AMERICAN
CUISINE IS ONLY
NOW BEING
FULLY TOLD.
FOOD STYLING: JILLIAN KNOX; PROP STYLING: NIDIA CUEVA
illustrations by RACHELLE BAKER
