Before the American Revolution, a woman whose name I may never know disembarked at the port of Charleston, South Carolina, where she was to be delivered to a rice field. She was a Sierra Leonean mond. She had “R.A.C.E.” – the Royal African Company – branded on her back. The ship she is on departs from Liverpool or London and sails south along the Upper Guinea coast, anchoring at Bunce Island at the mouth of the Sierra Leone River to await the loading of her cargo, the “healthy slaves” bought on deck or in dock auctions. The ship’s final destination was the swampy, mossy lowlands of the Carolinas.
The spread of rice to America was a journey of people’s labor and knowledge transfer. From 1750 to 1775, more than 50,000 African slaves were taken from the so-called “Rice Coast,” the traditional rice-growing region of Guinea, Guinea Bissau and the western Ivory Coast. Where my African ancestors came from, the central areas are now Sierra Leone and Liberia. Since rice was not a Native American product, the farmers did not know how to grow it. Africans were taken to the Americas and grew food for many areas on the East Coast of the United States and in the British Caribbean. In the pre-Civil War South, if cotton was the king of agricultural products, then rice was a close second. Rice brought unparalleled economic power, transforming Charleston, and later Savannah, into prosperous international ports.
The female slaves who brought these skills were a precious commodity. For more than 4,000 years, from the time when wild rice was harvested to the time when rice was grown artificially some 3,000 years ago, the rice experience was in their heads. And in their wombs was the potential for slavers to sacrifice human dignity in the pursuit of wealth based on centuries of American “democratic experimentation,” which is somewhat ironic.
Long before they arrived, the Americas may have had African rice – one of the world’s only two major types of artificially cultivated rice; the other is Asian rice. Originally produced in the sub-Saharan region, African rice was brought in by slaves through the Middle Passage of the slave trade and used to feed slaves from Senegambia in the late 17th century. In addition, a famous Asian rice called “seed from Madagascar” was also used as their food. By the 18th century, with European encouragement, Asian rice varieties were widely grown on West African coastal plantations, and both types of rice served as supplies for the slave ships that transported slaves to meet the needs of the New World colonies.
Native West African rice and southern American rice were more than mere distinctions between freedom and slavery. New dangers followed, from pathogens and parasites to alligators and snakes, to a sunrise to sunset labor pattern that added hours to the 12-hour daylight hours on the equator. There is also the pain of punishment, torture, trading and separation from loved ones. It was bad enough to be uprooted from one’s home, but the constant physical and mental torture became an almost constant terror.
The production of rice made some exploiters very rich, and the great pleasures were supported by the hard work of male and female slaves. In the rice plantations, the most experienced and fastest working slaves had some time to cultivate their rice fields and gardens, and some extra time to hunt and fish. They pounded the rice with a mortar and pestle, just like their African ancestors, in a kind of rhythmic musical exchange. They weave baskets; carve stone tools; weave fishing nets to catch fish, shrimp and crabs; and build coops with palm stems to raise chickens and pearl fowl (also from West Africa), which can also peck in the yard. Along with these animals, West African rice is served, and the recipes have been adapted to suit the tastes of the plantation. All of this is a blatant challenge to exploitation and assimilation, an easily overlooked but omnipresent resistance.
Many of the iconic rice dishes of the American South come from West Africans who know how to cook.
Image source, GETTY IMAGES
Image with text.
Many of the iconic rice dishes of the American South came from West Africans who knew how to cook.
Shortly after the unnamed woman’s arrival in America, during the War of Independence (1775-1783), tens of thousands of Africans fled South Carolina for the British-controlled frontier. It is unlikely that she was one of them, as she may have had a child or two who could not easily escape. But many would end up in Nova Scotia, Canada, or back in Sierra Leone. As planters regained control after the revolution, a new variety of rice emerged: Carolina Gold, which ensured that slavery would not develop anywhere until the Confederacy surrendered. The origins of Carolina Gold remain mysterious, but genetic research in 2007 suggests that it may have come from a Ghanaian variety called Bankoram, one of 20 native varieties of genes mixed with Carolina Gold.
Golden Carolina became a common food in the Carolina lowlands, eventually extending to the Native Americans of the Southeast, traditional southern England, French Huguenots, German Pfalz (Palatinate), Spanish and Hispanic Jews, the last two influences coming from Moorish Spain and the Middle East. The last two are influenced by Moorish Spain and the Middle East.
However, the most important cultural genes of Carolina rice are the cooks: Mende, Temne, Fula, Limba, Loma, Bassari, Sherbro, Kru, Balanta, and others. West African peoples, as well as the Afri-Creoles of Barbados, a colony of the Carolinas. A similar tradition of rice cultivation exists in southern Louisiana and the lower Mississippi River Valley, also established by colonial powers. In this case, centuries of French cooking experience in Africa led to a cooking style that eventually defined the southern United States.
In southern American rice recipes, Africans have a preference that once the rice is steamed, each grain is cooked separately, and each grain is cooked separately. The only rice that is cooked until it is sticky is used to make fritters like calas, which are sold fresh and hot on the streets of New Orleans, or to make pudding, bread or candy. Rice is delicious because it is almost always accompanied by a “trio” of tomatoes, onions and peppers, as well as the traditional West African food of a cake base topped with okra, peanuts, cowpeas, vegetables and stewed seafood or chicken. My grandmother and mother were my best cooking teachers and passed on to me cooking methods such as the curry-based Southern cuisine (Country Captain) brought by British traders via India, rice trio pot dishes, or rice with chicken stew.
To this day, every grain of rice I make is individual. When I made a pilgrimage to my ancestral homeland, Sierra Leone, in 2020, I witnessed the painstaking process of processing rice. The people were very proud of their relationship with this crop. I felt a deep connection to the South Carolina lowlands, from the sound of the tall, long pestles pounding in the bowls to the confidence with which they sifted the grain in beautiful straw baskets, like those sold in Charleston and Savannah. The final fragrant, rich rice was soft and toothsome.
The rice fields are golden during the harvest season
Photo credit: GETTY IMAGES
For 20 years, I’ve been immersed in this work, traveling, researching and cooking, and I’ve realized that you can eat and enjoy food while still understanding that human cultural heritage influences your recipes. The historical pain is as important as the desire for texture and flavor. Beyond that, we are also looking for the cultural meaning of food. It can mean something different to each group, or it can have a completely different story behind it.
My story is embodied in many ingredients, not just rice. But when we talk about rice, we’re not just talking about West Africa, but Madagascar, where my other ancestors came from; to East Asia, where rice is native; to India and the Middle East, where my other ancestors lived; and to Italy and Spain, where I have people who would also like this grain. As descendants of rice communities, we have ties to many parts of the world, from China to Mali, to Latin America, to the southern United States.
I may never know the name of the Monde woman, but now I call her Mama Wovei, which means “elderly mother” in her native Monde language. Mama Wovei had a daughter in 1770-1780, whose name is also untraceable, and in 1800 she had a granddaughter named Nora. Nora’s daughter Hurst was born in Charleston in 1828 and was sold to slave owners in Alabama at the age of 12. Hurst gave birth to a daughter named Josephine just after the American Civil War, and in 1890 she gave birth to another daughter named Mary, who had a daughter, Clintonia Hazel. Clintonia gave birth to my mother, Patricia, in 1948.
The year before Patricia died, I inherited the dishes and recipes for cooking rice, and I had the pleasure of introducing her to the unnamed woman who had gotten off that ship so long ago. In a map book documenting Patricia’s journey, I told her the story of her great-great-great-grandmother, “Mama Vovi. We traced her path on paper with our fingers, crossing the Atlantic Ocean in seconds, while it took Mama Vovi months. I asked Patricia what her best masterpiece was. She said, “A little boy named Michael, with whom I was very patient and gentle. That’s me.”
Michael Vandy is a James Beard Award-winning author and historian. His new book, Rice, is now available for purchase!
