CHAPTER 4 | THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC 87
War. Black Americans preserved African cultural practices not only out of prefer-
ence but also because whites discouraged their participation in Euro- American
life. With chances for interaction limited, they relied on interactions with each
other, and a strong African heritage was thus maintained.
There is scant documentation of the beginnings of African American cul-
ture, which, like A merican Indian culture, relied on oral transmission. Yet some
observers left comments that allow historians to piece together an idea of black
music making before the Civil War. Even before 1800, newspapers provide data
on black musicians in the form of advertisements. Slaves, after all, were part of
the American economy. And musical skills could increase a slave’s market value,
as the following ad from a Virginia newspaper in 1766 confi rms: “to be sold.
A young healthy Negro fellow who has been used to wait on a Gentleman and
plays extremely well on the French horn.” A Boston newspaper in 1745 carried
a notice from an owner in Newbury offering a reward for the return of “Cato,”
who had disappeared a few days earlier: “about 22 Years of Age, short and small,
speaks good english and can read and write... has a smooth Face, a sly Look,
took with a violin, and can play well thereon.” This ad is a reminder that in
colonial times slavery was practiced in the North as well as the South. But most
of all, it was an attempt to keep Cato from gaining his freedom.
Cato’s literacy may have made him exceptional, but his ability to play a Euro-
pean instrument was not entirely unusual. Advertisements in the Virginia Gazette
between 1736 and 1780 carried more than sixty references to black musicians,
of whom three-quarters were said to be violin players. The presence of African
American fi ddlers shows acculturation going on, with blacks mastering “white”
instruments. It also points to a vocation taking shape: that of the black dance
musician. In the North, music for formal dances and for dancing schools was
routinely supplied by black musicians. In the South, meanwhile, blacks per-
formed for dancing at their masters’ balls, assemblies, and special “entertain-
ments.” Many of these players were slaves, which limited their ability to collect
payment. But some were free and may be considered tradesmen of sorts. Already
in the eighteenth century, then, black dance musicians were meeting a need
in white society. And they must have been skilled, for only their success could
explain why an institution as unbending as slavery would allow blacks the role
of entertainer.THE AFRICAN ROOTS OF AMERICAN MUSIC
American slaves kept alive oral traditions rooted in Africa despite seemingly
overwhelming obstacles. As early as the seventeenth century English slave trad-
ers developed the practice of transporting slaves to the West Indies for “season-
ing,” in which they were trained in Western modes of living. Most slaves in the
United States, then, came here not directly from Africa but by way of the Carib-
bean; many, in fact, were second-generation slaves born in the West Indies. Once
in this country, slaves were discouraged from communicating in their native
languages. Likewise, slave owners generally suppressed the making of drums
and other loud musical instruments for fear they would be used to signal upris-
ings. And even benevolent whites made efforts to supplant African cultural
traditions with white practices in an effort to “improve” black Americans—often
succeeding only in impressing on blacks a sense of their own cultural inferiority.newspaper datablack musicians in the
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