Black Rice : The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas

Few Americans identify slavery with the cultivation of rice, yet rice was a major plantation crop during the first three centuries of settlement in the Americas. Rice accompanied African slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. By the middle of the eighteenth century, rice plantations in South Carolina and the black slaves who worked them had created one of the most profitable economies in the world. Black Rice tells the story of the true provenance of rice in the Americas. It establishes, through agricultural and historical evidence, the vital significance of rice in West African society for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began. The standard belief that Europeans introduced rice to West Africa and then brought the knowledge of its cultivation to the Americas is a fundamental fallacy, one which succeeds in effacing the origins of the crop and the role of Africans and African-American slaves in transferring the seed, the cultivation skills, and the cultural practices necessary for establishing it in the New World. In this vivid interpretation of rice and slaves in the Atlantic world, Judith Carney reveals how racism has shaped our historical memory and neglected this critical African contribution to the making of the Americas. Annotation Few Americans identify slavery with the cultivation of rice, yet rice was a major plantation crop during the first three centuries of settlement in the Americas. Rice accompanied African slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. By the middle of the eighteenth century, rice plantations in South Carolina and the black slaves who worked them had created one of the most profitable economies in the world. Black Rice tells the story of the true provenance of rice in the Americas. It establishes, through agricultural and historical evidence, the vital significance of rice in West African society for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began. The standard belief that Europeans introduced rice to West Africa and then brought the knowledge of its cultivation to the Americas is a fundamental fallacy, one which succeeds in effacing the origins of the crop and the role of Africans and African-American slaves in transferring the seed, the cultivation skills, and the cultural practices necessary for establishing it in the New World. In this vivid interpretation of rice and slaves in the Atlantic world, Judith Carney reveals how racism has shaped our historical memory and neglected this critical African contribution to the making of the Americas "Few Americans identify slavery with the cultivation of rice. Yet rice was a major plantation crop during the first three centuries of settlement in the Americas. Rice accompanied African slaves across the Middle Passage throughout the New World to Brazil, the Caribbean, and the southern United States. By the middle of the eighteenth century, rice plantations in South Carolina and the black slaves who worked them had created one of the most profitable economies in the world.". "Black Rice tells the history of the true provenance of rice in the Americas. It establishes, through agricultural and historical evidence, the independent domestication of rice in West Africa and its vital significance there for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began. The standard belief that Europeans introduced rice to West Africa and then brought the knowledge of its cultivation to the Americas is a fundamental fallacy, one that succeeds in effacing the origins of the crop and the role of Africans and African-American slaves in transferring the seed, the cultivation skills, and the cultural practices necessary for establishing rice in the New World."--BOOK JACKET. Frontmatter Preface (page xi) Introduction (page 1) 1 Encounters (page 9) 2 Rice Origins and Indigenous Knowledge (page 31) 3 Out of Africa: Rice Culture and African Continuities (page 69) 4 This Was "Woman's Wuck" (page 107) 5 African Rice and the Atlantic World (page 142) 6 Legacies (page 160) Notes (page 179) References (page 217) Index (page 233) "Through agricultural and historical evidence, [the author establishes] the independent domestication of rice in West Africa and its vital significance there for a millennium before Europeans arrived and the slave trade began."-- Jacket THE EMBARKATION of the Portuguese into the Atlantic in the fourteenth century led to social and ecological transformations that brought sub-Saharan Africa within the orbit of European navigation. Judith A. Carney. Includes Bibliographical References And Index. Includes Bibliographical References.