How Race was Involved with the Banjo
One of the most important contributing factors to the inclusiveness of the banjo in Appalachian music is the instruments African heritage. As the freed slaves moved north after the end of the Civil War, they brought with them a rich culture and with that the banjo. As the freed men found work and began to get involved in society, people began to hear the banjo they brought with them and they too wanted to be able to play it.
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In 1781 Thomas Jefferson, writing about slaves on his own plantation, said, "the instrument proper to them is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa.” This account shows that the instrument was brought by the slaves from Africa to the United States where people became intrigued by the new instrument.
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In the 1840's, with the popularity of minstrel shows(Minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, an indigenous American theatrical form, popular from the early 19th to the early 20th century, that was founded on the comic enactment of racial stereotypes.) in which professional entertainers performed songs and dances derived from what they interpreted to be black culture. The banjo became the central instrument of these "plantation melodies".
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As the freed slaves found jobs, their culture began to gain attention. For example native Appalachians met black section workers who laid track and brought with them the guitar- light and portable like the fiddle and banjo (AFM)
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It is said that those who played the banjo learned to play from Africans who brought it.
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Appalachian music was unmistakably influenced by African American culture…and one instrument widely associated with the region (the banjo) were of African American origin.
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We know too that the banjo was of African Origin…many of the twentieth-century mountain songs were called “blues” and were adapted from African American song genre.
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Pictures:
http://black-face.com/images/minstrel-show-christy.jpg (accessed on 12/13/2017)
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Background:
http://www.sethswingle.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/PJJ_6686-R.jpg
(accessed on 12/13/2017)
