Rice was braided into the hair of African women to serve as sustenance on their way to enslavement. The hairstyle—cornrows—hid rice and even seeds as they traveled with no belongings through the Middle Passage.
African slaves no longer had access to their natural herbs, butters and oils to take care of their hair. They resorted to bacon grease, butter, and kerosene as their moisturizers, conditioners, and shampoo.
The braids were often used to relay messages between slaves, signal that they were going to escape, or even used to keep gold and seeds to help them survive after they would run away.
When slaves were brought to the American colonies from west Africa, they often grew various kinds of rice in small gardens to feed themselves. Rice became a cash crop for plantation owners, however, with the advent of a high-quality variety of rice in 1685.
Africans brought with them from their homeland several types of seeds for planting, including okra, watermelon, black-eyed peas, sesame (benne) seeds, and kola nuts, which were originally a main ingredient in carbonated cola soft drinks.
Palm wine and beer made from barley, guinea corn, or millet were used widely. The alcoholic content of these beverages is less than 3% (Umunna, 1967). For the most part the drinking of beer and wine was one of acceptance without moral or immoral implications.
Most favoured by slave owners were commercial crops such as olives, grapes, sugar, cotton, tobacco, coffee, and certain forms of rice that demanded intense labour to plant, considerable tending throughout the growing season, and significant labour for harvesting.
In late summer or early autumn the rice was harvested. Over the course of the autumn and winter slaves prepared the rice for sale. Slaves threshed the rice on hard floors with flails.
Indigenous to sub-Saharan Africa and brought by enslavers on the Middle Passage, African rice was used to feed the enslaved from Senegambia in the late 1600s, as well as the famous "seed from Madagascar", an Asian variety of rice.
By the mid-18th century, many rice planters provided monthly rations of rice, which eased slaves' desperate search for food. Africans stretched these rations by growing subsistence crops in their private garden plots after their daily tasks were completed.
Cornrows were a sign of resistance for slaves because they used it as maps to escape from slavery and they would hide rice or seeds into their braids on their way to enslavement.
In Africa, braid styles and patterns have been used to distinguish tribal membership, marital status, age, wealth, religion and social ranking. In some countries of Africa, the braids were used for communication. In some Caribbean islands, braid patterns were used to map routes to escape slavery.
Lighter-skinned, straighter-haired slaves were favored and selected for more desirable positions in the house, so many slaves would go to dangerous lengths to straighten their hair, using hot butter knives or chemicals that burned their skin.
They slept on a pile of rags or straw. Some were given a blanket; many were not. House slaves often lived in the plantation house. They might have had a space to sleep near the kitchen, laundry, or stable.
Such is the case with chebe powder, a natural hair product used by the Basara tribe in the African nation of Chad. "They are known for growing their hair well beyond their waist due to the use of chebe powder," says Alicia Bailey, hair expert and global education manager at Design Essentials.
There are two reasons why we believe African hair texture is genetic. Firstly, the texture is universal in Africans, while nearly absent from other ethnic groups. Secondly, it is consistently passed down to the children in each new generation.
Faunal remains in excavations have confirmed that livestock such as pigs and cows were the principal components of slaves' meat diets. Other sites show remnants of wild species such as opossum, raccoon, snapping turtle, deer, squirrel, duck, and rabbit.
During their limited leisure hours, particularly on Sundays and holidays, slaves engaged in singing and dancing. Though slaves used a variety of musical instruments, they also engaged in the practice of "patting juba" or the clapping of hands in a highly complex and rhythmic fashion.
Weekly food rations -- usually corn meal, lard, some meat, molasses, peas, greens, and flour -- were distributed every Saturday. Vegetable patches or gardens, if permitted by the owner, supplied fresh produce to add to the rations. Morning meals were prepared and consumed at daybreak in the slaves' cabins.
There were two methods of selling enslaved people: Auction - An auctioneer sold enslaved people individually or in lots (as a group), with people being sold to the highest bidder. Scramble - Here the enslaved people were kept together in an enclosure. Buyers paid the captain a fixed sum beforehand.
On plantations, slaves prepared and cooked the majority of the meat for planters' tables.
Escaped slaves often faced harsh punishments after being captured, such as amputation of limbs, whippings, branding, and hobbling. Individuals who aided fugitive slaves were charged and punished under this law.
Slaves were generally allowed a day off on Sunday, and on infrequent holidays such as Christmas or the Fourth of July. During their few hours of free time, most slaves performed their own personal work.
At the age of sixteen, enslaved boys and girls were considered full-fledged workers, tasked as farm laborers or forced into trades.
As a result of this high infant and childhood death rate, the average life expectancy of a slave at birth was just 21 or 22 years, compared to 40 to 43 years for antebellum whites. Compared to whites, relatively few slaves lived into old age.