Black Musicians from Slavery to Freedom: An Exploration of an African-American Folk Elite and Cultural Continuity in the Nineteenth-Century Rural South

Abstract

During the nineteenth century, black instrumentalists enjoyed a special position in the rural black community of the American South. In the antebellum slave quarters, they earned the status of a folk elite because of their contribution to community life.(1) Like their sacred counterpart, the preachers, as their neighbors called them, provided opportunities for slaves to come together to recreate a sense of community in one of the few social outlets available to them - the frolic, the secular counterpart of the Sunday prayer meeting. Emancipation, however, brought new challenges to that community and the transition from a pre-political slave community to a freedmen's community that was acutely aware of the importance of political activity placed new demands on its leaders.(2) Musicianers did not respond to the political challenge of Reconstruction in ways that broke clearly with their old roles in African-American society. Consequently, they did not participate in any substantial way in the new political dimension of rural black life in which ex-slaves would attempt to define the parameters of freedom. Nevertheless, war, emancipation, and Reconstruction had not completely altered black community life in the rural South. Musicians, the community's secular ministers, continued to play a central role in African-American social and cultural life, a role that may have had a greater impact than politics on the continued strength of the African-American community prior to the era of the civil rights movement. The frolic became the fish fry, house party, or picnic. Reels, jigs, and ballads eventually made way for the more individualistic blues. Guitars replaced fiddles as the most popular instrument. But musicians remained at the center of their folk culture and rural black society by providing the southern black community with the opportunity to come together to revive its collective spirit on a regular basis. In this respect, well into the twentieth century, Virginia Piedmont, Mississippi Delta, Texas, and other blues musicians continued a tradition that had its roots in the slave quarters of the antebellum South.(3) Before the Civil War, slave musicianers, like other skilled slaves, were uniquely qualified to set themselves apart from most of their neighbors. Because of their talent, they could lay claim to privileges associated with freedom that ordinary field hands could not. Since the job of musician was a menial one by the standards of the upper orders of white southern society and since white Southerners needed musicians to entertain at their social functions, slave musicianers used their talents to their advantage much as any slave craftsman might have done. Consequently, musicians enjoyed more freedom of movement than the average slave, because they received passes to travel to and perform at various white social functions. While performing their art, they escaped constant white supervision, earned a steady if small source of income, gained confidence and self-respect, and generally loosened their personal bonds of slavery.(4) The rewards earned by serving the needs of their white masters clearly impressed fellow bondsmen, but they were only partially and secondarily responsible for the status of slave musicianers. More important than any privilege won from white society were the services that they performed for their own people.(5) In the antebellum slave quarters, musicianers claimed the status of a folk elite primarily because of their contributions to community life. As performers, slave musicians assumed an indispensible role in the frolic, one of the two most important widespread and regularly held social events in the slave South, the other being the prayer service. Interestingly, while there is some evidence of tension between the sacred and secular in the slave community, frolics coexisted peacefully with religious services. There are examples of slaves attending dances on Saturday night and prayer meetings on Sunday mornings. …