Gourd Banjos: From Africa to the Appalachians
- Monday, October 01, 2001 -
"While in America, Bremer eagerly sought opportunities to come in contact with both free and enslaved blacks."
Bremer was an astute observer, so there is no reason to believe her description of a gourd banjo with "one or two strings" is incorrect. The number of strings varied on banjo-like gourd instruments described in Africa and the West Indies. Slaves may have introduced banjo-like instruments at different times and in different places. It seems likely, however, that the forerunner of the uniquely American banjo was introduced in the Chesapeake area of Virginia and Maryland in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries.
Gourd Banjos on the Frontier
There are several references to banjos and banjo playing on the frontier. None that I have found describe the banjo in detail, indicating it was commonly known. It is likely that many frontier banjos were made from gourds; however, it is also likely that some had wood frames. Sir Hans Sloane described instruments made of "hollow'd timber," so there is no reason to suppose some of these weren't present in early America. Materials for a wood frame banjo were readily available, and frontiersmen were adept at constructing artifacts from materials at hand. Also, the references do not mention the number of strings; it is possible that the number may have varied in different areas.
The gourd banjo was on the frontier by the Revolutionary era. Debow's Review, a southern magazine, published Prof. George H. Stueckrath's historical article, The Upper Country of South Carolina, in December 1859 (Volume 27, Issue 6). Stueckrath discusses the early frontier history of Greenville, South Carolina. Following are some of his comments:
"The first settlements in the Greenville District were made about the commencement of the Revolutionary war ... The most of the settlers were from Virginia...but there are several citizens now living who were the first settlers ...Mrs. Green was about nine years old when the battle of King's Mountain was fought [Oct. 7,1780] ...Mrs. Green gives the following account of an old-fashioned 'cotton picking,' which is too good to be lost: In those good old-fashioned times when high and low, the rich and poor, were alike attired in home-spun, made by the industrious and ingenious hand of the busy housewife – when split-bottom chairs, even, was a luxury never dreamed of , and a vehicle, other than the Jersey wagon, an ox-cart, or a sled, never contemplated – the neighbors in the various settlements would meet alternately at each other's house to pick the seed out of the cotton and prepare it for the wheel. These occasions presented a favorable opportunity to 'the young folks' to show their preference for each other, and was attended with much merriment. After the evening's labors were finished, they would join in a regular old-fashioned Virginia reel, and keep time with flying feet to the delightful strains drawn from a gourd banjo."
Mrs. Green's description of the courting ritual for "young folks" sounds much like frolics featuring the banjo in eastern Kentucky. These were mostly affairs for young people to meet, play games, dance to the banjo, and socialize. I am convinced the banjo tradition in the mountains had its inception in the courting rituals and dances of young people of the "lower classes" in Maryland and Virginia.
The cotton referenced by Mrs. Green was grown in frontier gardens for "home-spun" clothing. Picking the seeds from the cotton was quite a chore. The frontier was a great leveler of social classes; neighbor had to depend on neighbor for many things, including defense against Indians. Steuckrath reports:
"Mr. Hite ... was one of the first settlers of the Greenville District ... about the commencement of the revolution Mr. Hite and most of his family were massacred by a band of this savage tribe [Cherokees]."
The "high and the low, the rich and the poor" were not segregated as they were in Tidewater Virginia.
The banjo was in Knoxville, Tennessee, by 1798. Robert M. Coates quotes James Weir in The Outlaw Years:
"Rum shops lined the streets. 'I stood aghast!' wrote James Weir, who visited the town in 1798. He saw men jostling, singing, swearing; women yelling from the doorways; half-naked niggers playing on their 'banjies' while the crowd whooped around them.... 'The town was confused with a promiscuous throng of every denomination' – blanket-clad Indians, leather shirted woodsmen, gamblers hard-eyed and vigilant – 'My soul shrank back.' The whole town was roaring,"
The banjo was in Wheeling, West Virginia, by 1806. Wheeling was a wild frontier town at that time, with many taverns. Epstein quotes from Travels in America by Thomas Ashe:
