Storytelling, music, and dance have all played a central role in African culture, because they help preserve history and religious and social customs. Traditional drama in Africa combines storytelling, songs, and dances with costumes, masks, mimes, traveling entertainers, and persons called griots. ... Their drumming and dancing clearly followed African patterns; whites marveled at them. ... Ring Shouts - Involved dancing as well. ... They are also linked with the ring-shout, an ecstatic dance of African origin. ...

• Word Count: 2002
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Africans brought here against their will were not born slaves. ... They were traders and hunters, musicians and dancers, poets and sculptors. ... In Africa their cultures were rich and varied, as different from one another as were the African peoples themselves. ... "Oroonoko" was a love story about an african prince put into slavery. ... He is a leader of an African Tribe, and nobleman of African descent. ...

• Word Count: 928
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Would you agree that African culture survived more strongly in the Caribbean colonies than in North America? In 1562 John Hawkins, the first English slave-trader arrived in Africa with a fleet of three ships. Into these ships he put the three hundred black Africans he had abducted from Sierra Leone. ... African "promiscuity" was seen as proof that family life did not exist in Africa as Europeans knew it. ... LEISURE (MUSIC AND DANCE) "Slaves often sang when at work in the fields or factory, measuring out via songs the pattern of work, the rhythm of labour; a refrain and choral response w...

• Word Count: 2095
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The Slave Dancer a novel by Paula Fox, a tale which took place in the 1840s in New Orleans, Louisiana to the coasts of Africa and to the Mississippi River, the colonial years of America, when slave trade and land exploration was everyday life. ... Cawthorne's intentions were to put about a hundred slaves in there, African gold he called them. Finally the day had come when they had reached the coast of Africa. ... The Captain ordered for Jessie to dance the slaves. ... Jessie grew up lived his life and nearly forgot about his trip to Africa in 1840 the way he use to dance the slaves by t...

• Word Count: 1821
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

Their music consisted mostly of beats from all kinds of drums, dancing about to the pure rhythm. ... "It was created in the days of slavery in America, when a black person was still an African in America, not an African-American. ... Music is often combined with speech, dance, and the visual arts to create multimedia performances. ... (African American music). ... Still today there are many African influenced music. ...

• Word Count: 1385
• Approx Pages: 6

Examining the role that religion played in the African-American community, primarily pre-civil war, can be a difficult task due to the limited amount of evidence available.1 While it is a common notion that slavery life was embedded with Christian ideals, a Christian-like ideology is likely more accurate.2 Syncretism occurred with the combining of African tradition and Christian principles to create an African-American spirituality specific to its people. ... This conglomeration of ideals to form an authentic African-American spirituality with Christian and African overtones has been descri...

• Word Count: 1954
• Approx Pages: 8
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Montes steered the Amistad toward Africa but very slowly. ... The Africans were described as "ecstatic." ... Some of these freed men tried to raise money by dancing and singing. ... The 35 surviving Africans and 4 missionaries boarded the ship and headed for West Africa. After 50 days, they arrived in Freetown Harbor, and some immediately showed their happiness by stripping off their clothes and dancing. ...

• Word Count: 1082
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

The Black slaves of colonial America brought their own culture from Africa to the new land. Despite their persecution, the "slave culture" has contributed greatly to the development of America's own music, dance, art, and clothing. ... Another type of music distinct to African slaves was gospel. ... A main difference between African and Christian religions, however, is that Africans did not find it necessary to convert all other cultures to their religion. ... It may be that Africans had scientific methods native to Africa that they brought to the New World, but these were o...

• Word Count: 1049
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

African Americans used music as a form of empowerment and a source of identifying blackness, unity and strength. ... Janelle Monae in her song Q.U.E.E.N was offended when the media claimed that she was a lesbian because of her track, which she used as a revolutionary tool to reshape the minds of both men and women who viewed her actions as male because she wore pants or danced in public. ... Firstly, African Americans have used music as a marker of identifying their blackness and discourse from their homeland of Africa. ... Music in the African American culture has weighed heavily on the Afric...

• Word Count: 1424
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: High School

Carolina and the middle states enslaved Africans as well. ... There they were traded for Africans. ... The slaves mixed their African roots with Christianity. The African practice of the give-and- take between caller and dancers in the African ring-shout dance became apparent in the slaves "responsorial" style of preaching in which frequent assents and omens accentuated the minister's sermons. ... Music and dance were the slaves vehicle of self expression. ...

• Word Count: 1117
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

Douglas was a constant workaholic with a primary emphasis in African-American art, and was considered by many to be the "Dean of African-American painters". All of these events took place during one of the strongest African-American art movements ever, the "Harlem Renaissance", thus, Douglas can be seen as one of the foremost African-American painters of all time. ... The first panel shows blacks in their native Africa putting emphasis on dance, music and sculpture. ... Finally, the subject of the fourth panel is again music and dance. ... The right third exemplifies African-Americans in many ...

• Word Count: 1729
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

Douglas was a constant workaholic with a primary emphasis in African-American art, and was considered by many to be the "Dean of African-American painters". All of these events took place during one of the strongest African-American art movements ever, the "Harlem Renaissance", thus, Douglas can be seen as one of the foremost African-American painters of all time. ... The first panel shows blacks in their native Africa putting emphasis on dance, music and sculpture. ... Finally, the subject of the fourth panel is again music and dance. ... The right third exemplifies African-Americans in many ...

• Word Count: 1753
• Approx Pages: 7
• Grade Level: High School

Initial literature on enslaved black women analyzes stereotypes constructed of African women brought to the new world. ... Additionally, their "monstrous" bodies suggested savagery, substantiating European conceptions of African inferiority to further legitimize African subjugation. The first comprehensive book to be written about enslaved African American women is titled Ar'n't I a Woman by Deborah White. ... " In addition, Bondswomen partook in highly improvised dance and musical performances. ... Whether through competitive dance or fashion showcasing, these hete...

• Word Count: 1150
• Approx Pages: 5
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Graduate

The African resistance in the United states was much different than that of African resistance in other parts of the world. ... Culturally they would continue to practice their native dances, read moral narratives, played music, kept their native language patterns alive, built and maintained families, practiced their own spiritual beliefs, and even did magic. "The slaves made European forms serve African functions." ... The free Africans also helped the cause. The free Africans were also being mistreated and abused. ...

• Word Count: 579
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

African spirituals were carried to America among the hearts of oppressed slaves in the 1600s. ... African Spirituals gave root to other genres of music: blues, folk, and in 1950s, rock n roll. ... Hip-Hop is synonymous with the culture of appreciation of Rap, as well as one that produces different danceable beats. ...

• Word Count: 502
• Approx Pages: 2
• Grade Level: High School

Slavery has existed all through the United State at the moment in time and by 1760 there were about 325,800 African slaves in North America. ... Africans were the perfect choice of slave to farm in colonial American, because slavery had already existed in Africa. African natives were all of ages and sexes. ... They had to obey a number of harsh rules; for example: they could not gather for a harmful dance. ...

• Word Count: 1502
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Captivity narratives of Americans relate the experiences of whites enslaved by Native Americans and Africans enslaved by Americans. ... In Equiano's narrative, he is taken from his African home and thrown into a Western world completely foreign to him. ... However, Equiano holds on to a considerably part of African heritage. ... This compromise leaves him torn between his adopted Western beliefs and his native African values. ... For example, Rowlandson, in her first encounter with the Natives she is quick to remark, "Oh the roaring, and singing, and dancing, and yelling of those black c...

• Word Count: 1490
• Approx Pages: 6
• Has Bibliography
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

Unlike the thousands of immigrants who have traveled toAmerica to forge for themselves a new home, imported Africans were forced into America as property. ... The story of the American slave is thus the story of the African's search for a home in a hateful land. ... " '[I]n this here place, we flesh; flesh that weeps, laughs; flesh that dances on bare feet in the grass. ... There was no grace – imaginary or real – and no sunlit dance in the Clearing could change that" (89). ...

• Word Count: 2092
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: High School

For example, in the first chapter when Shelby and Haley are discussing the ensuing trade, Harry enters the room and Shelby has him dance around like a clown and then tosses raisins at him. ... Clare hypocrisy; she wants to free the slaves, send them to Africa, and let missionaries deal with them because she herself is a racist. ...

• Word Count: 2149
• Approx Pages: 9
• Grade Level: High School