Slave Culture Research Paper

Which Aspects of Slave Culture has the Greatest Impact on Western Culture?

The slave culture has gradually influenced the Western culture in many different aspects of life such as music, art, food, language…etc. However, in my opinion, the western music has been affected the most by the slave culture because most music in western countries have been developed from slavery whereas our language has been affected the least because the slave culture has hardly affected or changed English in any way.

One aspect of the Western culture which has been affect by slavery is music. In slavery, music played a big part in the slaves’ daily routine. They would sing together while working so as to keep their spirits up; they would sing to each other during their free time; they also used music as a way of expressing their emotions and opinions. Gradually, these songs have developed and entered our western culture and a large percentage of songs have slave origins. Many of our music have been categorised into different song types such as jazz, hip hop, gospel which have nearly all branched out from the slave music. The slaves also bought their
African instruments to America which are still used today in the Western culture for example the banjo, tambourine and calabash.

The western literature has also been affected by slavery and there are many forms of writing influenced by it.
During their enslavement, African slaves told stories and fables to one another many of which have developed further and can now be found in the Western culture such as the tale of Br’er Rabbit. Teddy Roosevelt wrote about his aunt, Georgia in his autobiography and says ‘She knew all the 'Br'er Rabbit' stories, and I was brought up on them’. In western countries, Br’er Rabbit has been made into a Disney film. There are also many poems and other slave narratives which have been influenced by the culture. Their were also autobiographies such as Olaudah Equiano’s The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African in which he says ‘I now wished for the last friend, Death, to relieve
me’

The western language also contains some African roots such as new words and languages. The slaves’ owners forced together Black Africans who spoke different African languages because they then would have to communicate in English; however, the slaves merged together their different languages to create pidgins. Pidgin languages which have developed a lot are still spoken in western countries such as Creole spoken in Louisiana…etc. Also, some words in English have originated from slavery like yam, funk and jazz.

The cuisine in western countries also has food which originates from slavery. This is because the slaves on the plantations had barely enough food and it wasn’t very varied. It was hard for the slaves to get any decent food and freed slaves were often to poor to buy food such as meat. Therefore, due to the poverty and lack of food, the African-Americans created their own food from the resources they had. These are called Soul Food and are still found in America and other Western countries. They also brought rice, okra and watermelons to our culture.

Despite all these aspects which have all been influenced by slave culture, I believe that western music has been affected the most. There are many different types of songs in our Western culture and nearly all of them originate from the slave culture. Also music is important to our Western culture as it had been important to the slaves. The aspect which has least affected our culture is our language because most countries do not know or speak pidgin languages and there are very few words which have been introduced to our English language and therefore does not make such a big impact on Western culture.