The institution of slavery tried to deny its victims their cultural identity. Ripped out of their own cultural environment, they were expected to abandon their heritage and adopt their enslavers’ culture. Nonetheless, studies have shown that there were aspects of slave culture that differed from the master culture. Some of these have been interpreted as a form of resistance to oppression, while other aspects were clearly survivals of a native culture in the new society. Slave culture on large plantations probably contrasted what it was on small farms or in urban households.
Religion, which performed the function of communion, seems to have been a particularly fruitful area for the creation of slave culture. Africans perceived misfortunes, including enslavement, as the result of sorcery, and their religious practices and beliefs, were formulated as a way of coping with it. Myalism was the
…show more content…
African medicine was practiced in America by slaves. The poisoning of masters and other hated individuals was an African method of coping with evil. Across the Caribbean, slaves had elections adapted from West African customs to choose governors, sheriffs, and judges to maintain order among themselves. Houses were modelled on African examples with items like rugs and thatched roofs. Nevertheless, few African social practices survived in the New World. However, their music and dance are known to have African roots, and they differed dramatically from the practices of the European master culture; the use of drum and banjo were especially significant. Songs and spirituals borrowed their strong call-and-response patterns from the West African style. Artists like, Madonna and Herbie Hancock have sampled music from Western Africa into their own songs. On top of that, they wrote stories to amuse themselves, and the African element is most evident in their stories of animals. Their stories and songs often featured the