fcmv west africa

Background
During the 1600s and 1700s, nearly 250,000 Africans were brought to colonial America to serve as enslaved agricultural workers, domestic
servants, and artisans. Although captives were taken from a vast area of the African continent, and from many different ethnic groups,
the great majority were members of West African cultures that lived in the hinterlands of the Atlantic coast. Africans lived in all of Great
Britain's North American colonies, though their population was highest in South Carolina and Virginia.

In Virginia, beginning in the early 1700s, tobacco planters imported increasing numbers of captive Africans to work their plantations.
This shift from white indentured servants to enslaved African workers in the colony's tobacco economy was far-reaching. Race-based
enslavement quickly became a central feature of life in Virginia, and Africans and their Virginia born descendents would be treated as
property, and denied the freedom and opportunities of white colonists. As settlement expanded westward toward and into the
Appalachian Mountains and the Valley of Virginia, enslaved Africans and African Americans were among the settlers in backcountry
areas. Nearly 40% of the Africans imported into Virginia during this time were brought from a part of the West African coast called the
Bight of Biafra. Many of these captives were Igbo, a people living in the upland area north of the Bight of Biafra in what is now the
nation of Nigeria. The West African Farm represents life in a free Igbo household in the Biafran hinterlands in the 1700s.

People
Like many West African ethnic groups whose members were brought to Great Britain's American colonies during the 1700s, the Igbo
were long established and highly successful. Over the course of many centuries, they domesticated plants and animals and developed
farming techniques suited to the rain-forest environment in which they lived. They also used local trees, particularly palms, for food and
materials. The range of skills and knowledge possessed by the Igbo and their neighbors by the 1700s included metal-working,
wood-carving, and basket-making as well as pottery and textile manufacture.

The peoples of West Africa were linked by an extensive trade network and system of markets. The Igbo were especially adept traders;
men dominated the long distance trade, and women the local markets. Their trade skills and connections brought them goods and
information from other parts of Africa and beyond. The many cultural achievements of the Igbo included the creation of a four-day
week for marking the passage of time, local autonomy and representative government, and a sophisticated world view centered on a
system of religious beliefs and practices.

Farming Practices
Yam farming was the primary occupation of the Igbo, and a man's success as a farmer and status in his community was measured by the
number of yams he planted, harvested, and stored in his barn. The Igbo cleared their farm land with machetes and fire and prepared it
for planting using hoes. Seed yams were planted in large mounds constructed using special hoes developed for the task. Hundreds of
yams were needed to sustain even a modestly sized household, and the area needed to produce that number was large.

The work of clearing land, planting yams, and tending to them over the course of their long growth cycle was performed by men.
Women planted vegetables and other roots crops that expanded the compound food supply in the spaces between the yams mounds,
and were responsible for tending the household's farm land.

The yam and its cultivation also had deeper spiritual meaning for the Igbo. Each stage of the yam's growth cycle was marked by special
rituals and celebrations that culminated in the yam harvest, but ended only when the season's produce was transported to the barn and
properly stored. A large, full yam barn was a sign of prosperity and good fortune for everyone in the compound, though especially for its
head man.

Life in an Igbo compound
Among the Igbo of the 1700s, the basic social and economic unit was the household, which was usually composed of a man, who was
head of the household, his wives, whose number depended upon and enhanced the man's wealth and status, his children, and usually
other dependents. Igbo men and women were members of lineages -- extended families with common ancestors -- and their position
and prospects in their community were influenced by the status of their lineages. This included their access to and use of farm land,
which was ultimately owned by the lineage. The largest political units among the Igbo were the village and village-group, and the heads of
the resident lineages and the community's other successful men managed local affairs.

The home of an Igbo household was its compound, which was a group of several buildings arranged within an enclosure. The buildings
were primarily dwellings for the man and his wives - each of whom would have a house of her own - and perhaps a house for the son
who would inherit the man's compound. Compounds also included a yam barn where the household's main food crop was stored. These
buildings and the compound enclosure were commonly constructed of readily available materials; mainly clay, bamboo and local wood,
and roofed with raffia palm thatch.

Central to every Igbo compound were its shrines and ritual objects. For the Igbo of the 1700s, the spirit world was closely connected to
world of the living, and ones interactions with the spirit world were as important as ones interactions with the living. Spirits were forces
for both good and evil, and to insure their favor regular attention was required. The most important spirits were those of an Igbo man or
woman's dead ancestors, and these received to the most attention and veneration. Shrines dedicated to ancestors were present in every
compound, and the daily rituals were performed and sacrifices offered by the household in their honor to insure their favor. Other
shrines and ritual objects in the compound were for protection against malevolent spiritual forces and living enemies, to celebrate personal
achievements, and to insure the loyalty and affection of household members.

Immigration
The arrival of Europeans on Africa's Atlantic coast in1400s brought great change to the Igbo and their neighbors. Initially, Europeans
sought sources of gold, spices and other commodities in West Africa. The discovery of America, the establishment of European colonies
there, and the need for labor to exploit the New World's resources gave rise to the trade in humans that took ten million Africans from
their homes over the course of five centuries.

The transatlantic slave trade grew over time and the 1700s were one of its peak periods. At its height the slave trade reached deep into
the hinterlands of West Africa and beyond, and involved many Africans as traders as well as captives. Igbo could be found on both sides
of the hinterlands slave trade. Their population was large and their long history of living in separate, independent villages left them
vulnerable to the raids and kidnappings that fed the transatlantic trade. The Igbo homeland was covered by a web of overland trails and
rivers that linked marketplaces and collection points throughout the hinterland of the Bight of Biafra to the coastal ports of Bonny, and
Old and New Calabar. Over one million captives were shipped from these ports during the period of the slave trade. Roughly 30,000
Igbo were shipped to Virginia between 1716 and 1755.

Contributions to American culture
The African captives who were brought to the American colonies carried knowledge and skills with them that they used to cope in their
new conditions and passed on to subsequent generations of Americans. Wherever Africans settled in the colonies they contributed to the
growth and success of the local economy and the wealth and status of their owners with their labor. When permitted, they influenced the
form and function of pottery, basketry, wood-working and textiles they produced for others. Their most notable and enduring
contributions to American culture are found in foodways, music, folklore, and religious worship. Okra and black-eyed peas are among the
most common items in the American food supply that were introduced by Africans. The banjo and particular musical forms such as
Blues and Jazz grew from African ideas brought to America. American folklore shows African influences, especially stories involving
animals speaking and behaving like humans. Finally, the enthusiasm and spirit of Christian worship among many Protestant
denominations in America is believed to have originated in early African and African-American worship services.