History of the Black diaspora

The world’s oldest Banjo: A Thread

Creole Bania, created by the Afro-Surinamese descendants of slavery.

The banjo’s rich history mirrors the cultural complexities and age of the Americas, linking The Caribbean, America & Africa to eachother

The first record of a banjo was in Jamaica,1687

The banjo had similar names in the Americas confirming African descent. bania, banya, banjo, banger, banza, and panja, and were observed in New York, the Carolinas, New Orleans, Haiti, Cuba, St. Vincent & Barbados to name a few

“The Old Plantation” water color attributed to John Rose, Beaufort County, South Carolina, 1785–1790,  owned land and African-American slaves outside of Beaufort, South Carolina. He depicted The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation in this painting. Gift of Abby Aldrich Rockefeller.

Because drums & wind instruments dominated African music and traditions but were banned in the Caribbean and the colonies by Europeans that enslaved African people, they switched to banjos. It was intended for indoor use for the entertainment of the enslaved.

The African calabash was replaced by what materials were at hand in “the New World” and as new generations took up the instrument and added new wrinkles & tunes to its sounds.
Fewer than 5 pre-19th c. gourd banjos exist today,but millions were made. Creole-bania bein the oldest

European Colonizers went to the Caribbean, noted the instrument and collected it, drawing it and recording what was otherwise largely an oral tradition. The earliest banjos were considered exotic wonders but evolved to become one of the instruments considered typically “American”

John Gabriel Stedman documented & illustrated “Creole-Bania” as No. 15 in a group of 18 different “instruments of sound” played by the “African Negroes” of Suriname in his book “Narrative of a 5 Years Expedition against the Revolted Negroes of Surinam”

The body of Creole Bania (left) was made out of a calabash (right). It’s drumhead is made from animal skin, held on with wooden pins. It has 2 S-shaped sound holes (like a fiddle)

It has 3 long strings, 1 short string and a carved peghead. It’s neck is thinner than modern banjo.

Winti, the African traditional spirituality that was kept alive in secret by the Afro-Surinamese descendants of slavery despite a ban (til 1971) by the Dutch during slavery & colonization. Still uses the calabash for rituals, like pouring libation when calling upon the ancestors

“Creole Bania” is currently on display in the Rijksmuseum voor Volkenkunde (National Museum of Ethnology in Leiden,the Netherlands), it’s considered to be the oldest extant example of the early gourd banjo (c. 1620 – 1860), created by the Afro-Surinamese descendants of slavery

I put a LOT of effort into this, I hope y’all appreciate it

As Black people,it’s CRUCIAL to learn about the history of the Black diaspora. Don’t do yourself the disservice of focusing on one continent

I believe Knowledge is the greatest vehicle on the road to our liberation https://twitter.com/pushathanos__/status/1325909124748488705