National Park Service 23

Chapter 2

Identifying and 

Documenting Africanisms 

on the American Landscape

Through its cultural resources programs, the

National Park Service has identified and formally

recognized many historic places associated with

African cultural heritage. African-related historic

properties have been listed in the National Register

of Historic Places, designated as National Historic

Landmarks, documented through the Historic

American Buildings Survey/Historic American

Engineering Record, and addressed in conferences,

such as “Places of Cultural Memory: African

Reflections on the American Landscape.” This

chapter provides a preliminary list of such historic

places and summarizes their connection to 

African culture.

The properties that have been recognized by NPS cultural

resources programs include those that: 

● are representative of ethnic heritage, as in the case of

Congo Square 

● embody distinctive characteristics, such as the shotgun

homes in the Smoketown Historic District 

● are associated with events and persons that have made 

significant contributions to the broad patterns of our 

history, such as the Stono River Slave Rebellion Site, and 

● may yield or are likely to yield information important in 

prehistory or history, such as the African Burial Ground. 

The list suggests the types of historic places that communities

might consider for formal documentation and recognition.
24 African Reflections on the American Landscape

The National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the nation’s inventory of historic districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects

significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture at the national, state, and local levels. The

National Register contains almost 75,000 properties and with

nearly 1.2 million historic resources within those properties.

Congo Square

New Orleans, Louisiana

As a gathering place for the enslaved population of New

Orleans, Congo Square’s significance lies in the events that

took place there. On Sundays, enslaved people congregated at the plaza, just across the street from the French

Quarter, as a respite from their daily toil. The dance and

music ceremonies performed at Congo Square are integral

to much of contemporary African American popular

culture, and American popular culture. Descriptions of

the dances, instrumentation, and songs, most notably by

architect Benjamin Henry Latrobe during a visit in 1819,

correspond with West African antecedents. The National

Register nomination makes frequent reference to the

importance of Africa to this place.(1)

The founding of the colony of Louisiana by the French

dates to 1702, and the first people of African descent

arrived in 1719. By 1728, the Africans were almost exclusively from the Upper Guinea region, specifically Senegal

and Gambia, which provided a homogeneous African identity.(2) Spanish rule in Louisiana dates from 1763 to 1800 and

during this time the use of the Congo Square by Africans may

have begun. The Spanish regime was more progressive than

the French or English in their treatment of the enslaved Africans

and was willing to allow them more autonomy and free time.

Today, the plaza still embodies the African influence. It 

is paved with an overlapping circular pattern in the brick 

courtyard intended to imitate the dances performed by

Africans.(Illustration 10) As stated in the summary of the

National Register nomination, “[t]his public open space is 

significant as the site, during the early 19th century, of traditional slave dances consciously preserving African dance patterns and musical instruments.” Congo Square, as a public

space, serves as a cultural landscape, important for its ethnic

heritage in the culturally diverse city of New Orleans.

Illustration 10:

An aerial view of Congo Square

in New Orleans shows the circular pattern intended to mimic the

dances, as described by Latrobe,

of the Africans who spent their

leisure time there. 

Photo courtesy of the Louisiana Department

of Culture, Recreation and Tourism
National Park Service 25

Smoketown Historic District

Louisville, Kentucky

The Smoketown district is located in the easternmost section

of central Louisville. An ethnically diverse neighborhood since

its inception, Smoketown is an African American community

that predates the Civil War. Originally, the area was settled by

Quakers, followed by people of German descent, which were

the most dominant cultural group until the late 1800s. The

neighborhood saw an increased influx of African

Americans after the Civil War, making it the

largest continuously occupied African American

community in Louisville. Its longevity exceeds

that of two other communities serving people of

African descent, Browntown and Little Africa, in

other sections of the city. 

The city and neighborhood were places of tertiary

migration. People came from all over the South

due to the belief that abolitionist General John

Palmer, commander of the Union forces in the area, would

emancipate all African Americans present in Louisville on 

July 4, 1865. This migration continued, providing labor for the

burgeoning industrial complex in Louisville. Smoketown was

bordered by several factories, including a tobacco processing

factory, which was the largest industry. 

Smoketown has a large number of shotgun houses, a popular

house type in industrial Louisville following the Civil War. 

The shotgun is derived from a Yorubá housing type via Haiti.

The Yorubá house melded with the Arawak Indian ajupá

or bohío to create the Haitian caille. From Haiti, it came to

Louisiana with the influx of free Africans. Shotgun houses are

narrow (roughly 12 feet wide), 2 to 3 rooms deep, aligned with

the gable and front door facing the street, which are distinctive

parts of the design. Theoretically, one could open all the doors

Illustration 11:

The 700 block of E. Breckenridge

Street contains examples of

camelback shotgun houses and

single shotgun houses in the

Smoketown Historic District in

Louisville. 

Photo courtesy of Roy Hampton

Illustration 11a:

On the 900 block of S. Hancock

Street, double shotgun houses sit

side by side in the Smoketown

Historic District. 

Photo courtesy of Roy Hampton
26 African Reflections on the American Landscape

of the house, fire a bullet through and not disturb anything,

hence “shotgun.” The shotgun house form traveled from

Louisiana, up the interior waterways to Kentucky, Ohio, and

Missouri with African Americans from the lower South. This

housing type became popular in industrialized southern urban

areas following the Civil War, when housing was needed in

densely populated areas.

According to the National Register nomination, shotgun houses

could be found as early as 1855 in this section of Louisville. The

Encyclopedia of Louisville notes that the city of Louisville has

four types of shotguns: single, double (two single-shotgun

houses combined under one roof), camelback (with an additional story over the back room), and double camelback.(3)

(Illustrations 11 and 11a, page 25) Presently, the shotgun house

makes up approximately ten percent of the city’s housing stock.

Christiansted Historic District

St. Croix, Virgin Islands

The Danish were the first of the European countries to develop

a successful commercial endeavor on the island of St. Croix.

Enslaved Africans played a significant role in the

development of the port town of Christiansted.

They were employed as artisans and assisted in

the construction of the many buildings found in

the district. Hipped roof, single-story rectangular

buildings with porches dot the landscape of

the district. (Illustration 12) The building type is

reminiscent of housing types from Ghana. The

Africans in Christiansted passed through the

Danish slave forts in what is now Ghana.(4)

Through the labor of enslaved Africans, the Danish were able

to establish a successful sugar production and export enterprise with the Danish West India and Guinea Company. Sugar

cane cultivation has North and West African antecedents.

There was also a substantial free African population, which

played an important role in the development of the town.

“Free Gut” is a residential area that was established for free

blacks. According to the National Register nomination, the

enslaved population reached over 27,000 as compared with

approximately 5,000 European settlers and planters. With the

sizable African descendant population, Christiansted Historic

District is a primary migration stage. It potentially holds significant historical information about the lives of Africans

immediately arrived from West Africa.

Illustration 12:

A northwest view of Market

Street shows hipped roof houses

in the foreground and the background in Christiansted Historic

District, St. Croix, Virgin Islands,

circa 1976. 

Photo courtesy of Samuel N. Stokes
National Park Service 27

National Historic Landmarks

Designated by the Secretary of the Interior, National Historic

Landmarks are nationally significant historic places because

they possess exceptional value or quality in illustrating or

interpreting the heritage of the United States. 2,341 historic

places bear this distinction.

African Burial Ground Complex 

New York, New York 

Illustration 13a:

A tack-decorated coffin lid with

“HW,” with the date 17[3]8 was

found during excavations at the

African Burial Ground National

Historic Landmark. 

Photo courtesy of Dennis Seckler

The African Burial Ground Complex holds an estimated

10,000 to 20,000 people of African descent interred since the

early eighteenth century. The Burial Ground was in use from

approximately 1712 to 1785.(5) It was rediscovered during the

construction of a federal office building.(6) Administered by

U.S. General Services Administration, the site is marked with 

a commemorative plaque and statue called “Triumph of the

Spirit.” New York was the first place of contact with America

for many of those interred. Therefore, the evidence found 

at the Burial Ground was interpreted through the lens of

Africanisms. 

The Burial Ground was an African place in New York.

Anthropological research reveals the effects of the strenuous

work regimes, dietary patterns, and genetic background 

of some of the earliest Africans in America. Archeological

information illuminates the funerary practices of the various

people: whether they were buried with or without a coffin, 

the orientation of their bodies to the cardinal points denoting

religious affiliation, the personal objects that were interred

with them, and the types of ceremonies that were conducted

at the gravesite. All of these practices reveal much about the

Illustration 13:

Archeological investigation 

at the African Burial Ground 

has uncovered numerous 

examples of grave markers, 

such as headstones and 

cobbles. 

Photo courtesy of Dennis Seckler
28 African Reflections on the American Landscape

ethnic background of those interred. (Illustrations 13 and 13a,

page 27) The significance of the site is the link of cultural 

practices and items interred to West African people who 

were recently transported to the Americas.

Stono River Slave Rebellion Site

Near Rantowles, South Carolina

On September 9-10, 1739, a group of 20 enslaved Africans

gathered near the Stono River and commenced one of the

most serious slave insurrections in the colonial period. The

rebellion traveled from farm to farm, gaining recruits, and

killing slaveholders along the way to its intended goal,

Spanish-controlled St. Augustine, Florida. The slaveholders 

in the area eventually put down the rebellion some 12 miles

south of its origin. At the conclusion of the rebellion, more

than 60 British settlers died, and 40 of the estimated 80

enslaved Africans perished in the days and weeks following

the revolt.

According to contemporary sources, the Rebellion was 

led by an Angolan named Jemmy and contained a number 

of Angolans in the original group. The National Historic

Landmark documentation cites a report that the band of

insurrectionists marched “like a disciplined company.”

Accounts of the period note a banner, which the insurrectionists rallied around and from which they derived a source

of confidence. Peter Wood, in Black Majority, references

African traditions where some secret societies viewed banners as having protective abilities.(7)

The significance of a core group of people from the same

general cultural zone cannot be underestimated. As a point 

of primary migration, South Carolina imported many Africans

directly from Africa. Thus, cultural retentions were strong in

South Carolina. Many of those sold into slavery were captives

of wars between the rival African groups. They may have also

shared mutually understandable languages. This familiarity

allowed for a cohesiveness that was crucial to the relative

success of the rebellion. Unlike other rebellions, there was no

information leak or betrayal to the planters by any enslaved

Africans in the Stono area. The insurrection led South

Carolina to pass some of the most restrictive slave codes in 

the colonies. The National Historic Landmark property is

being reevaluated for possible inclusion of the area where 

the Rebellion was finally stopped.
National Park Service 29

Historic American Buildings Survey

The Historic American Buildings Survey (HABS) documents

important architectural sites throughout the United States 

and its territories. The program is an integral component of

the federal government’s commitment to historic preservation. HABS documentation, consisting of measured drawings,

large-format photographs, and written history, plays a key

role in accomplishing the mission of creating an archive of

American architecture and engineering.

African Baptist Society Church

Nantucket, Massachusetts 

The African Baptist Society Church, or African School as it

was also known, is the oldest remaining building in Nantucket

associated with peoples from West Africa. As late as the end 

of the Revolutionary War, one-third of the African descendant

population in Massachusetts had been born in Africa, creating

an African cultural presence in the commonwealth. The building is located on land bought in 1826 for $10.50 in a neighborhood called Newtown. The section of Newtown where 

the church resides was known as “Guinea.” The name historically refers to a broad region of West Africa, ranging from the

Senegal River in Senegambia to Cameroon, covering much 

of the area from which enslaved Africans came.(8) Throughout

the eastern seaboard, references to black sections of towns

that were called “Guinea” can be found. 

Illustration 14:

The African Baptist Society

Church was measured and drawn

as a part of the Historic American

Building Survey program to

record architecturally significant

buildings throughout the nation. 

Drawing courtesy of HABS

Illustration 14a:

The 1968 photo of the African 

Baptist Society Church shows 

the church sitting in contrast 

to other buildings in its 

surroundings. 

Photo courtesy of Jack Boucher, HABS
30 African Reflections on the American Landscape

In Clay Lancaster’s The Architecture of Historic Nantucket, 

the African Baptist Society Church is cited as “noteworthy... 

built at the corner of Pleasant [Street]...to serve the colored

colony to the west.” Presumably built by members of the

society, the building is unique to Nantucket, but bears resemblance to housing types found in the South where there were

larger concentrations of people of African descent.(9) Photos

of the surrounding homes and buildings show no structures 

of similar design. (Illustrations 14 and 14a, page 29) 

The use of “colony” to describe the black population infers

that they were free, or at least had some degree of movement.

Slavery was abolished by the Massachusetts legislature in 1783,

and according to William Piersen’s Black Yankees, as much 

as 40% of the state’s African population may have been free 

by 1764.(10)

Historic American Engineering Record

The Historic American Engineering Record

(HAER) documents important engineering 

and industrial sites throughout the United States

and its territories. The program is an integral 

component of the federal government’s commitment to historic preservation. HAER documentation, consisting of measured drawings, largeformat photographs, and written history, plays 

a key role in accomplishing the mission of creating an archive of American architecture and 

engineering.

Laurel Valley Sugar Plantation

Thibodaux, Louisiana

Sugar production came to Louisiana in 1794. It

was introduced to Louisiana from the Caribbean,

where it had been commercially successful for the

French, Dutch, Portuguese, and Danish. Laurel

Valley Plantation is an example of a complete

sugar-producing complex. The plantation contains

a great deal of vernacular architecture of African

derivation. In addition, knowledge systems transferred from

the Caribbean, the Atlantic Islands, and Africa made sugar cultivation possible.(11)

The Boudreaux family settled on what was the Laurel Valley

Plantation in 1831, seeking a fortune from the profitable, but

labor-intensive sugar cane crop. The family eventually sold 

Illustration 15:

An orthographic architectural

drawing of double Creole quarters notes the adaptation of a

porch to the double pen-type

vernacular housing. 

Drawing courtesy of HAER

Illustration 15a:

This photograph illustrates 

a row of the Creole quarters

housing at Laurel Valley

Plantation. 

Photo courtesy of Jet Lowe, HAER
National Park Service 31

Illustration 16:

This view illustrates a row 

of shotgun houses at Laurel

Valley Plantation. 

Photo courtesy of Jet Lowe, HAER

the property to Joseph Tucker in 1834, who expanded the 

production of the plantation. Laurel Valley eventually encompassed 5,000 acres. Tucker depended on the labor of enslaved

Africans, increasing his number from 22 in 1831 to 160 by 1852. 

Much of the original slave housing was destroyed by a later

plantation owner and was replaced with double creole “T”

quarters (a two-level, double pen house with a porch built 

in beneath the roof line) for workers. A “street” of double

shotgun houses with porches, both African vernacular adaptations, includes 26 houses.(Illustrations 15, 15a, and 16) The

shotgun houses are indicative of an established Africanderived housing type, while the creole quarters point out 

a hybrid, merging architectural traditions that created a 

distinctive Southern housing type.

Places of Cultural Memory Conference

“The Places of Cultural Memory: African Reflections on the

American Landscape” conference was held May 9-12, 2001 

in Atlanta, Georgia. The conference presented recent scholarship on Africanisms in the built environment. It brought

together preservationists and academicians interested in

developing a fuller understanding of the influence of

African cultural heritage on the landscape of the Americas.

The papers are compiled as a single volume, Places of 

Cultural Memory: African Reflections on the American

Landscape, Conference Proceedings, May 9-12, 2001, Atlanta,

Georgia (Washington, DC: Department of the Interior,

National Park Service, 2001), and are available on-line at

http://www.cr.nps.gov/crdi/conferences/conflinks.htm. 
32 African Reflections on the American Landscape

Two of the presentations are summarized below.

“Interwoven Traditions: Archaeology of the Conjurer’s

Cabins and the African American Cemetery at the 

Jordan and Frogmore Manor Plantations”

Presented at the “Places of Cultural Memory” conference 

in Atlanta, Georgia, Kenneth L. Brown’s paper speaks to the

importance of understanding material culture as interpreted

by the enslaved Africans, not just searching for items of

African origin or design. Brown conducted archeological

research on excavations of the slave quarters of two plantations in distinctly different locations, Texas and South

Carolina. The excavations revealed cosmograms, graphical

depictions of the universe according to West and Central

African religious beliefs, at both sites. However, instead of

a drawing or inscription on pottery, for example, the cosmograms were buried beneath cabins. 

The cosmograms found at the Jordan Plantation, Brazoria

County, Texas used various items, from thermometers to brass

Confederate military buttons and coins (dimes and quarters).

According to Brown, these lie outside of direct African interpretation, but are examples of adaptation of western material

culture for African religious practices. The items were located

in deposits at the four cardinal directions. Another interesting

aspect of the Jordan Plantation site was that it showed a mix 

of two West and Central African cultural groups, BaKongo

and Yorubá.(12)

According to Brown, the cosmogram found at the Frogmore

Manor Plantation, St. Helena Island, South Carolina had

fewer European American elements and could more readily

be interpreted in West African contexts. The cosmogram was

located under what is believed to be the Conjurer/Midwife’s

cabin at Frogmore Manor. Although glass, seashells, and nails

were present, just as in the contents at the Jordan plantation,

Brown notes the cosmogram deposits at the Frogmore

Plantation have a more “African appearance” to them. The

most notable distinction was the use of a fully articulated

chicken and cow (save for its tail) in two of the four deposits.

Cattle represent wealth in some African cultures, such as 

the Fulani in Nigeria, and chickens provide protection from

spirits. Bottles and colono-ware with bottoms broken out

were found along with the animals.(13)
National Park Service 33

The findings at the two plantations provide a means of comparison for research on similar locations throughout the

South, and in places where African descendant people settled.

In the Caribbean and South America, West African beliefs are

common aspects of spirituality, and are more prevalent than 

in North America. Santería in Cuba, and Vodun, or Voodoo 

in Haiti, are examples of West African based beliefs, creolized in a Christian context. They are part of ongoing African

reflections in the New World, which are being strengthened

with the immigration of West African practitioners of traditional religious beliefs. Today, with increased numbers of AfroCaribbean and African people moving to America, there is 

the potential for further cosmograms and items of worship to

appear in art and as material culture artifacts, as well as those

found “hidden from plain view.”(14)

“Africanisms Upon the Land: 

A Study of African Influenced Place Names of the USA”

In her paper, Annette Kashif examines the place-naming practices of African descendant people. Toponyms are reflections

of a person or group’s power and dominion over a place. In

the instances where African descendant people held influence

over the landscape, it follows that the names would hold

African connotations. These places ranged from towns to

rivers and swamps. Linguistic characteristics have proven less

dependent on time and place to maintain a cultural relationship to Africa. Language patterns survive beyond the direct

influence of original speakers, past their presence in a place.

Therefore, Kashif’s analysis goes beyond a one-to-one connection with African toponyms and places. This examination of toponyms encourages a broader interpretation of

Africanisms, delving into more deep structure analysis, requiring further understanding of linguistic patterns of West and

Central African languages.

Kashif offers three types of toponyms by which she classified

the place names: 

● place names derived from African words (African homophone), such as the Wando River in the Gullah/Geechee

region of South Carolina, which is also the name of a river 

and a city (Kwando) in Angola

● place names from a mixture of words from several African

language groups or an African and non-African word (African

hybrid) such as Black Pocosin Mingo (15)
34 African Reflections on the American Landscape

● African semantic content transfers (African calques) such 

as Nicodemus, Kansas, named for an enslaved African prince

who purchased his freedom. Semantic transfers are not

limited to inspirational figures, but can be an ethnic or linguistic reference, a duplication of another toponym, or a commentary on the human state-of-affairs.

According to Kashif, African American speech patterns are

different from those of their European counterparts, due to

the linguistic influences of the African languages that became

creolized with English. These reflections show up in all

aspects of American English inflected by African-derived

speech. They include the names of places and the significance

of what the names meant to those giving them. Using this sort

of analysis, examination of place names in areas with influential African descendant communities should uncover additional Africanisms. 

Conclusion

The examples given above are intended to offer preservationists examples of the influence of African cultural heritage on

the American landscape. It is hoped that these examples will

encourage preservationists to re-examine cultural resources in

their communities or under their purview to determine what

may hold the imprint of Africa. From large public places to an

individual house, the possibilities for identifying Africanisms

are great. For every African Burial Ground, there is a cemetery

with African-inspired grave decorations. For every shotgun

district in Georgia, there is another row of such residences 

in a long abandoned industrial section in another location.

Africanisms reside in all of those places where people of

African descent were involved in the development of a community, from its physical structures to its cultural lifeways. 
National Park Service 35

1. While visiting New Orleans in 1819, Benjamin

Henry Latrobe described and drew the instruments used and dances taking place in Congo

Square. John Vlach makes the connection with

the instruments to Africa in his book, The AfroAmerican Tradition in Decorative Arts (Athens

and London: University of Georgia Press, 1990),

24-26. Cf. National Register of Historic Places,

Congo Square, New Orleans Parish, Louisiana.

National Register #92001763.

2. Following the lead of Roger Bastide, Midlo 

Hall believes that the influence of the enslaved

Africans from Congo was overstated to the 

detriment of those from Senegambia. Hence, 

the name “Congo Square” may not be most 

representative of the dominant African ethnic

group in New Orleans at the time. The formal

name of the area recognized as Congo Square 

is Beauregard Square for Confederate General

P.T.G. Beauregard, but it has been known as

Circus Public Square and Place des Negres as

well. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Africans in Colonial

Louisiana: The Development of Afro-Creole

Culture in the Eighteenth Century (Baton Rogue:

Louisiana State University Press, 1995), 291-293,

see f.n. 26.

3. See John Kleber, ed., The Encyclopedia of

Louisville (Lexington: The University Press of

Kentucky, 2001), 818-819.

4. Slave forts along the coast of modern Ghana,

controlled by different European powers

throughout their histories, were points of exportation for the Atlantic slave trade. The Danish

established coastal trading posts by 1670.

Frequently, captives were taken from the surrounding countryside, held in the forts until the

ship was filled, either in the present port or by

moving to another port along the West African

coast. See Kwame A. Appiah and Henry Louis

Gates, Jr., eds., Africana: The Encyclopedia of 

the African and African American Experience

(New York: Basic Civitas Books, 1999), 830; 

Eric R. Wolf, Europe and the People Without

History (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University

of California Press, 1982), 208-212.

5. First documented reference to the Burial Ground

comes in a letter from Chaplain John Sharpe 

in 1712. In 1785, land development proposals for

the common land indicates the Burial Ground

was no longer in use. See National Historic

Landmarks, African Burial Ground Complex, New

York, New York. National Historic Landmarks

#93001597.

6. The African Burial Ground Memorial effort 

has a tumultuous history. Only a portion of the

Burial Ground is available for visitation, the 

rest being covered by the federal office building. Community pressure preserved the site from

total destruction, and led to the Memorial, a

statue “Triumph of the Spirit” and an Interpretive

Center. The hundreds of remains, presently with

the W. Montague Cobb Bio-Anthropology

Laboratory at Howard University in Washington,

DC, are to be returned to their final resting-place.

7. Secret societies operate as organizing polities 

for some West and Central African ethnic groups.

See Peter Wood, Black Majority: Negroes in

Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the

Stono Rebellion (New York: W.W. Norton &

Company, 1975), 315, 316, see f.n. 30, 317. Furthermore, ethnicities serve to bind members of clans

to one another. A socially inferior family would

be obligated to follow the lead of a superior one,

determined by relationship of a family to the

founder of local group. Cf. Charles Balandier,

Daily Life in the Kingdom of the Kongo (New York:

Pantheon Books, 1968), 180-209, 213-226.

8. Historically, Guinea has been conceived of in

two sections. Upper Guinea, according to

Thornton, extended from the Senegal River to

Cape Mount in Liberia; Lower Guinea was

located between the Ivory Coast and modern

Cameroon. The modern country of Guinea

borders Guinea Bissau and Gambia on the 

north, the Ivory Coast and Liberia to the south, 

and Mali and Ghana to the east. See John K.

Thornton, Africa and Africans in the Making 

of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800, second edition

(Cambridge, UK and New York: Cambridge

University Press, 1998), 187-192.

ENDNOTES
36 African Reflections on the American Landscape

9. Clay Lancaster, The Architecture of Historic

Nantucket (New York and London: McGrawHill, 1972), 242.

10. William D. Piersen, Black Yankees: The

Development of an Afro-American Subculture 

in Eighteenth Century New England (Amherst:

University of Massachusetts Press, 1988), 22.

11. The cultivation of sugar cane has Afro-Caribbean

and African antecedents. Muslims introduced

sugar to North Africa during the eighth century.

North and West Africans provided the necessary

labor for the sugar boom throughout the

Mediterranean, including Spain and Portugal.

Most sugar cultivation took place in East Africa,

but substantial industries flourished in Morocco,

and later in the Atlantic islands of the Azores, the

Canaries, Madeira, and Cape Verde, off the west

coast of Africa. Christopher Columbus brought

cane cuttings with him to Hispanola on his

second voyage to the Americas in 1493. Familiarity

with sugar cultivation and need for a larger work

force found Portugal importing Africans to the

Americas to work on plantations. African agricultural skill made possible the production of

sugar cane in the Caribbean and United States.

Africans from the Upper Guinea region had agricultural experience with difficult crops, such as

indigo and rice, prior to sugar cane. See Hugh

Thomas, The Slave Trade: The History of the

Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440-1870,(New York: Simon

and Shuster, 1997), 135-137. Africana offers a

summary of sugar and its relationship to Africa.

See Appiah and Gates, ed., Africana, 1800-1803. 

12. The inter-African cultural melding is consistent

with trends in places of secondary and tertiary stages of migration. Brown discusses the 

use of BaKongo nkisi, a protection amulet or

Conjurer’s kit, and a possible amula, or symbol 

of reverence to Ogun, a Yorubá deity, in the 

cosmogram beneath the Jordan Conjurer/ 

Midwife’s cabin. Deposits found beneath the

Praise House may represent a creolized cosmogram with a Christian aesthetic, having a crucifix

as the center and deposits radiating to the cardinal directions. Also, the similarity and compatibility of cosmograms to the Christian cross

cannot be overlooked. Congo and Angola were

exposed to Christianity prior to the Atlantic Slave

Trade. The Praise House was the place for communal worship on the plantation for the African

descendant people, found frequently in the

coastal Carolinas and Georgia. There is also a

cemetery that may contain further evidence of

these African reflections. See Kenneth L. Brown,

“Interwoven Traditions: Archaeology of the

Conjurer’s Cabins and the African American

Cemetery at the Jordan and Frogmore Manor

Plantations,” in Places of Cultural Memory:

African Reflections on the American Landscape.

Conference Proceedings, May 9-12, 2001, Atlanta,

GA (Washington, DC: Department of the

Interior, National Park Service, 2001). 

13. See note 7 in Chapter 3 for the significance of

glasses and jars in funerary practices.

14. Brown, “Interwoven Traditions,” 109. For more

information on African religious beliefs in the

New World, see Holloway, ed., Africanisms in

American Culture.

15. Kashif found only one hybrid, Black Mingo

Pocosin, a swamp bordering Virginia and North

Carolina. Annette I. Kashif, “Africanisms Upon

the Land: A Study of African Influenced Place

Names of the USA,” in Places of Cultural

Memory: African Reflections on the American

Landscape. Conference Proceedings, May 9-12,

2001, Atlanta, GA (Washington, DC: Department

of the Interior, National Park Service, 2001), 27.