Containing African American History: Coil Baskets, Face Jugs, and Dave the Potter – Part One

For centuries, African American history has been tightly contained by standard U.S. historical narratives.  Facts and figures have long been available, as well as slave testimonials and, more recently, initiatives in religious, linguistic, musicological, demographic, and ethno-archaeological studies.  Nonetheless, African American history frequently continues to be presented as: unknown, due to the lack of documentation (an excuse that is patently untrue), or secondary to whatever dominant narrative presides at the moment (the happy plantation darkie of decades ago, the slaves-as-immigrant-workers outrage of last year’s Texas textbooks).

All the while, objects of African American material culture – objects that have complicated and important stories to tell – exist right under our noses, in museums certainly, but also in yard displays, rural cemeteries, road-side markets, and eclectic (even mainstream) shops.

Here I’d like to consider objects that contain African American history in a special way – the containers themselves.  Because of the unwieldy length of this post, I’ve divided it in half:  this installment concerns coil baskets, and the upcoming one will address face jugs and inscribed stoneware by Dave the Potter. 

Coil Baskets

Anyone visiting Charleston or Savannah has noticed people selling sweetgrass baskets.  These containers are made from woven, tied, and coiled indigenous grasses; they range in size and complexity from simple ‘bread baskets’ to large, elaborate storage vessels.  What do these containers tell us about African American history?

First, the form and technique show telling similarities with basketry common both in the ‘rice coast’ (present day Sierra Leone and what used to be called ‘Upper Guinea’) and the western Congo (what used to be called ‘Angola,’ but comprising areas surrounding the mouth of the Congo river -- present day Gabon, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Angola, Congo-Brazzaville; areas that were dominated by the Kongo culture).  Raw data concerning slave ship itineraries confirms that most slaves ‘imported’ to the greater South Carolina coast came from these locations. Indeed, the word ‘Gullah’ (referring to African-inflected settlements still extant along this coast) seems to be a portmanteau of ‘Angola’ and ‘Gola' (a subset of the Mende civilization prominent in the "Rice Coast').

Temne (Sierra Leone) coiled basket

Kongo (DRC) coiled basket

Second, these hybrid baskets attest to a preference of early South Carolina (broadly speaking, but as Charleston was the main slave depot, we can use the name to encompass the Southern Atlantic coast) plantocrats for slaves of a certain origin.  That would be: people from rice-growing regions and, more generally, people from swampily tropical regions.  Why?  Because rice cultivation was being promoted, and the prevailing colonial thought was that like thrived in like:  in other words, that slaves who came from hot, humid climates would last longer than slaves who came from more temperate areas. 

We’re talking now about pre-Revolution colonies.  Britain tried to regulate agro-business in its New World holdings, and ‘South Carolina’ was deemed optimal for rice production.  An unforeseen consequence, and no doubt a welcome one, was that slaves from preferred areas arrived with not only their bodies but also with their minds and memories.  Recent research shows that most advancements in rice culture – sluices, floodgates, canals, tidal-flood plain cultivation --- were due to slaves knowledgeable about rice cultivation in mangrove swamps. 

Women laboring in South Carolina rice fields, with a sluice gate in the background

Third, ‘South Carolina’ coiled baskets suggest what sorts of knowledge and material culture survived the Middle Passage and took root in the New World. Most plantation owners tried mightily to suppress African religious practices . . . and to prevent insurrection by mixing African ethnicities when possible.  The demands of rice cultivation made it difficult to have a diversified slave labor force, however, as revolts such as the ‘Angola’-led Stono Rebellion of 1739 attest.  Coiled baskets indicate that the two major enslaved ethnicities in South Carolina found common ground not only in their suffering – rice cultivation was particularly brutal and deadly – but also in analogous cultural traditions.

Basket weaving in Sierra Leone, c. 1900

Basket weaving in South Carolina, c. 1900

Both Kongo and Rice Coast peoples had long-standing coiled basketry practices: South Carolina sweetgrass baskets became hybrid African forms that contain the particular slave history of the region, rather like how Geechee – the creole developed in the greater South Carolina coastal area – exhibits a significant blend of ‘Rice Coast’ and ‘Angolan’ linguistic elements.  Coiled baskets are utilitarian objects; so, unlike more overtly religious art forms such as spirit figures or coded drumming, they were not prohibited.  Indeed, as some of these objects, like winnowing baskets, were directly connected to rice cultivation, their production was encouraged.  Similarly, Geechee, like other slavery-born creoles, was tolerated because it facilitated work-related communication and, due to its dependence on ‘master language’ strata, was easily learned by whites and was seen as less subversive than uncreolized and, to whites, impenetrable African languages. 

We’re fortunate that an African-based craft is still practiced largely unchanged after 250 or more years.  Coil baskets retain essential forms, techniques, and functions from their Rice Coast and Kongo origins while bearing witness to the history of slavery in the South Carolina to Georgia coastal corridor.

(Next up:  Face Jugs, Dave the Potter, and Selected References)