Africanisms
The term usually refers to the cultural and linguistic practices of West and Central Africans who were transported to the Americas during the trans-Atlantic slave trade.
Africanisms have influenced the cultures of diverse countries in North and South America and the Caribbean through language, music, dance, food, animal husbandry, medicine, and folklore.
Although physical artifacts could not be kept by slaves because of their enslaved status, "Subtler linguistic and communicative artefacts were sustained and embellished by the Africans’ creativity.
[7] African and African-American linguistic structures, as well as the traditions of rhythmic speech, call-and-response and verbal battles, developed into rap and hip-hop, which has had a global influence.
[8] The Gullah dialect of English spoken in the Sea Islands off the coast of Georgia and the Carolinas has retained many African features.
Latin American Spanish words with African roots include merengue, (music/dance as well as 'mess' or 'wimp') cachimbo (pipe, soldier), and chevere (fantastic, great).
[11][12][13] Scholars have noted that the Haitian Creole that developed in Saint Domingue contained a mixture of Africanisms and local expressions, "a thousand little nothings that one wouldn't dare to say in French.
[18] Other musical instruments of African origin, from the Bantu culture of Angola, include drums, diddley bows, mouthbows, the washtub bass, jugs, gongs, bells, rattles, ideophones, and the lokoimni, a five-stringed harp.
In New Orleans, a city filled with people of French, Latin American, West Indian and African heritage, lighter-skinned Black Creoles sometimes trained as classical musicians, where they learned western music theory.
Ragtime, a late 19th century precursor to jazz, blended elements from minstrel-show songs, African American banjo styles, and the cakewalk with European music.
[21] Other African-influenced Latin music includes bachata, batucada, cha-cha-cha, conga, funk carioca, mambo, tango, pachanga, reggaeton, rumba, samba, son, salsa, tropicalia, and zouk.
[25] African traditions in Black gospel singing can be heard in the call and response patterns, vocal styles and polyrhythmic clapped accompaniments.
[29] During the Transatlantic slave trade many foods accompanied enslaved people to the Southern United States including okra, black-eyed peas and African rice.
Other African dance traditions brought to the Americas and the Caribbean included improvisation, an orientation towards the earth, circularity and community, call-and-response, polyrhythms and the ring shout.
[35][36] When drumming was forbidden to slaves by their masters, they created complex percussive polyrhythms by clapping their hands and stomping their feet.
Like its sister vernacular form, jazz, from which it takes its rhythmic propulsion, it is a blend of African and European sources, and it has had a broad influence on American life and art.
These influences combined with indigenous and European traditions to create many of today's Latin dances, including salsa, samba, mambo merengue and bachata.
[40] Capoeira is a popular Brazilian dance and martial art form derived from the Engolo tradition of Angola that was originally brought by enslaved people to South America.
"[45] Missionaries noted that slaves in the southern United States continued to hold on to African practices such as polygamy and "idolatrous dancing".
In the United States and Haiti, this blend of Christianity and African traditions created new spiritual practices, like Hoodoo, Louisiana Voodoo and Voudoo.
Words with African origins that made their way into American cowboy culture and songs include bronco, buckra, Buckaroo, and dogie.
An enslaved man named Onesimums explained the procedure to Cotton Mather, which led to the development of the smallpox vaccine in the United States.
An enslaved healer named Panpan was freed by Lieutenant Governor William Gooch because his herbal treatment was able to cure syphilis and yaws.
Enslaved Jane Minor was emancipated because of her medical expertise during an 1825 epidemic in Virginia and eventually ran her own hospital, using her earnings to free at least 16 slaves.
Other elements of creative folklore that were brought to the Americas by Africans, particularly Angolans, included wrought iron work, basketry, weaving, pottery, clay figurines and grave decorations.
