Ancient Maroon rice songs suggest secret rice cultivation during slavery in Suriname

During slavery, music has been used to convey secret messages. Songs of enslaved Africans have hardly been documented for American plantation societies outside the US. Here we discuss two versions of a work song of Maroon rice farmers in Suriname and French Guiana. The songs probably originated on a plantation in Suriname, where the enslaved secretly grew rice in their own food plots to plan their escape. The use of at least two different African terms for rice reflects their ingenuity to communicate in spite of linguistic differences and also indicates rice knowledge predating their transatlantic voyage, which confirms the African agency in rice cultivation in the Americas. Ancient songs about Maroon agriculture remain largely undocumented and are in danger of being lost, but reveal an unwritten history of slavery and the successful struggle of the Maroons for freedom.

• View at Publisher

Free Full Text ( Final Version , 654kb )