Folklore, language, music, and culinary traditions from Africa were brought to the Americas by Africans. Rich varieties of African diaspora culture took root in a New World that was clearly shaped by the cultural innovations of Africans and their descendants as they forge new lives with one another, European neighbour, and Native Americans.



Folklore

African Traditions in a New World:
Survivors of the Middle Passage gave new life to certain African themes, characters, and stories in their homes and neighbourhood in the New World, and much of the folklore of the African diaspora reflects a dynamic combination of African traditions and New World influences.  The more mundane routines of everyday life, such as the way families functioned through the rituals of birth and death, simple routines of cooking and dressing, and the local calendar of celebrations, were frequently linked in folklore to religious worldviews and beliefs.

Objects and Crafts as Carriers of Folklore:
Through canoes, trays, combs, stools, and ceramics shaped for daily use, a variety of artefacts made by enslaved craftspeople with local materials helped spread folklore. Some of those crafts and skills, and the objects themselves, survive to this day.  The intricate ways in which African cultures interacted with European and American peoples and cultures in the New World played a crucial role in shaping the folklore of Africans and their descendants in the Americas at every turn.




Folktales and Cultural Exchange:
This was, perhaps, most obvious in language.  Phrases, words, and patterns of speech, lived on from African vernacular.  In time, however, descendants of African slaves came to speak the local variants of English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Dutch.  Similarly, the folklore which evolved, normally in the adopted language of the Americas, was itself shaped by contact with other, non-African peoples of the Americas.  The varied world of folklore, including Bre'r Rabbit and American Uncle Remus tales. South (with their links to Native American and African folklore), to the Anansi tales of Jamaica, and the bouki stories of Haiti—all used local imagery to make their point.  Such examples evolved as a folklore which spoke not only to the world of slavery, but offered lessons for daily life and survival in the harsh conditions of bondage.

 Language

African Languages and Identity:
There was a wide variety of society and culture represented among the Africans forced onto slave ships. Africans viewed themselves in terms of kinship groups, lineage, and ethnicity, which were defined by distinct traditions and languages, despite the fact that Europeans frequently referred to them as "Africans," a term that no African would have recognised. In this way, those belonging to distinct groups, lineages, and ethnicity tended to view others as “foreigners.”  The language of race was introduced by Europeans beginning in the fifteenth century.

Development of Pidgin Languages:
For the enslaved, understanding the language of European and American slave traders and plantation owners was necessary to understand the new world of Atlantic slavery that legally determined so many aspects of their lives from life to death.  From the African languages spoken by early Portuguese sailors and traders on the West and Central African coasts, a new language called "pidgin" emerged. A similar pattern emerged for each of the major European languages as more Europeans arrived and their trading presence became more concentrated.

Additionally, children of African women and European sailors or traders who were bi-racial and were born on the coast frequently spoke both languages fluently and were employed as interpreters and traders. At the points of African embarkation on slave ships, and then in the Americas, African and European people worked as interpreters, using a mix of African and European languages in order to convey instructions.

Creole Languages in the Americas:
In the Americas, new languages emerged and evolved.  They were, again, pidgin or creole languages which emerged from the blending of African, European, and Americanised-European languages.  At some point, different varieties of pidgin developed into their own full-fledged creole languages. All bore strong linguistic features of the dominant African group in the region.

 Music


Recreating Music under Enslavement:

During the Middle Passage, European slavers deprived African captives of material possessions, but survivors made new versions of familiar instruments out of gourds, shells, wood, bones, and string. Social and religious life were shaped by instruments such as drums, rattles, banjars, fiddles, and bells.

Music, Control and Resistance:
African music was feared by Europeans, so they enacted laws to prevent gatherings, drumming, and signalling. Enslaved communities used hidden codes in songs to communicate despite restrictions. Music thrived especially in maroon communities where African cultural forms persisted and adapted.

Religious and Cultural Influence:
Throughout the Americas, African and European cultures had different influences on one another. African musical elements like syncopation, poly-rhythms, and call-and-response were combined with European instruments and hymns by enslaved people. Traditions such as ring shout and Capoeira emerged as blended religious and cultural practices.

 Food-ways

Diet during the Middle Passage:
On slave ships, Africans ate oats, beans, maize, plantains, rice, oil, and water to survive. The environment was harsh, and water scarcity frequently resulted in significant mortality.




American Foods:
African foods like rice, ackee, and yams mixed with European and Native American ingredients in the Americas. Slave owners rationed food, while enslaved people often supplemented diets through hunting, fishing, and gardening.

Formation of New Cuisine:
African diaspora foodways blended African, European, and Native American ingredients and cooking methods. Jamaica's ackee and sailor fish, which is a national dish rooted in the survival of enslaved people, combines African fruit, European-preserved fish, and local spices.