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The Influence of Black Slave Culture on Early America


The Black slaves of colonial America brought their own culture from Africa to
the new land. Despite their persecution, the "slave culture" has contributed
greatly to the development of America's own music, dance, art, and clothing.

Music

It is understandable that when Africans were torn from their homes and families,
lashed into submission , and forced into lifelong slave labor, they would be, on
the most part, resentful and angry. Various forms of expression, clandestine
yet lucent, developed out of these feelings. One such form was music. Native
African music consisted mainly of wind and string melodies punctuated by hand
clapping, xylophones, and drum beats. Along those lines, an early type of
slave music was the spiritual, which has its roots in Protestant hymns taught to
the slaves. Spirituals were "long thought to be the spontaneous creation of
African-American slaves and the only original folk music of the U.S."......

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Approximate Word Count: 1052
Approximate Pages: 5 (250 words per double-spaced page)

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