Abstract
Abstarct African Rice ( Oryza glaberrima Steud.): Lost Crop of the Enslaved Africans Discovered in Suriname. African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) was introduced to the Americas during the slave trade years and grown by enslaved Africans for decades before mechanical milling devices facilitated the shift towards Asian rice (O. sativa L.). Literature suggests that African rice is still grown in Guyana and French Guiana, but the most recent herbarium voucher dates from 1938. In this paper, evidence is presented that O. glaberrima is still grown by Saramaccan Maroons both for food and ritual uses. Saramaccan informants claim their forefathers collected their first “black rice” from a mysterious wild rice swamp and cultivated these seeds afterwards. Unmilled spikelets (grains with their husk still attached) are sold in small quantities for ancestor offerings, and even exported to the Netherlands to be used by Maroon immigrants. Little is known of the evolution of O. glaberrima, before and after domestication. Therefore, more research is needed on the different varieties of rice and other “lost crops” grown by these descendants of enslaved Africans who escaped from plantations in the 17th and 18th centuries and maintained much of their African cultural heritage in the deep rainforest.
Highlights
Domesticated some 3,500 years ago from wild ancestors along the Niger River in Mali, African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) was introduced to the New World in the 17th century by means of the slave trade
Prior to the research presented here, no vouchers of O. glaberrima were present in the Herbaria in Guyana (BRG), Suriname (BBS), or French Guiana (CAY), nor in the large Neotropical collections of the National Herbarium of the Netherlands (L), the New York Botanical Garden (NYBG), the Smithsonian Institution (US), and the Missouri Botanical Garden Herbarium (MBG)
Carney’s plea may sound dramatic, but in the same village where we found the African rice, a large EU–funded development project was underway with the aim of integrating Maroon knowledge with modern agricultural techniques to develop sustainable agroforestry systems
Summary
Domesticated some 3,500 years ago from wild ancestors along the Niger River in Mali, African rice (Oryza glaberrima Steud.) was introduced to the New World in the 17th century by means of the slave trade. Until the first Asian rice (O. sativa L.) was introduced in the 1690s, the entire rice cultivation in South Carolina must have been based on O. glaberrima (Carney 2001; Salley 1919). The introduction of mechanical hulling devices on the South Carolina rice plantations in the 18th century facilitated the shift towards Asian rice (Carney 2001 and 2005). To avoid breakage of the grains, O. glaberrima must be milled by hand with a wooden mortar and pestle, after which the hulls must be removed through winnowing the cereal by hand (Carney 2001; Linares 2002)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
