Black musicians of the appomattox area
Since before Appomattox county was formed in 1845, the region has been home to a number of amazing musicians that have played their part in the music that made America.
To learn more about some of these amazing musicians, SOON you will be able to simply click on the banjo below:
"The Music for the Dance" by Arthur Burdett Frost 1891
But first . . . a word on The Banjo . . .
The banjo was not INVENTED in Appomattox Virginia by Joel W. Sweeney in the 1830s. The banjo was not invented in Ireland. The banjo was born of the stringed lute traditions throughout Africa- in Senegal among the griots, tribal historians, in Mali, Madagascar, Niger, and numerous other locations. The banjo then came to the "Americas" where it developed among the Africans brought to this hemisphere by the Atlantic slave trade
. The first banjo instrument in the"Americas" was described in 1678 by a traveler to Martinique as the “banza” played by musicians of African descent. In 1781 in his Notes on Virginia Thomas Jefferson described the slaves at Monticello as playing “. . . the banjar which they brought hither from Africa.” These instruments almost invariably consisted of a gourd body with an animal hide head, a wooden neck either planed or rounded and from three to four to five strings.
Black Musicians in virginia from 1750-1970
This timeline is a work in progress and should not be taken as comprehensive or exhaustive since the search for history is endless and is daily revealing new discoveries. This compilation is of importance because it was not until relatively recently that the historical record of Black music making in the Americas was hardly known by many and at times had been explicitly denied as existing at all.
Primary historical sources such as ads seeking recapture of formerly enslaved freedom seeking music makers, official records such as those of the Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands. and others are just some of the sources used to compile this list.
Among the many works that have attempted to write the historical wrong of the missing or hidden record of Black music makers, two main sources helped to make up this list. One was the seminal work of librarian Dena Epstein who noticed this missing historical record that she was sure was there and made it here life's work to find that record and share it with the world. Bob Winans work specifically on Black Virginia banjoists was also vital to this compilation.
Please let me know if you know of other records not shown here.
Dates | Played For | Location | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
1750s | songs | near Fredericksburg | John Davis, "Travels of Four Years and a Half in the United States of America During 1798, 1799, 1800, 1801, and 1802" New York, Henry Holt, 1909, pp. 413-416; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 360. An old slave mentions playing the banjo as a young man, probably in the 1750s. |
1759-1775 | songs and dances | Caroline and King George Co. | Jonathan Boucher, "Boucher's Glossary of Archaic and Provincial Words" London, Printed for Black, Young and Young, 1852, BAN; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 353. |
late 1760s | dances | toured Norfolk, Jamestown, Richmond, Petersburg south to North Carolina | John F. D. Smyth,"A Tour in the United States of America" London, Printed for G. Robinson, J. Robson, and J. Sewell, 1784, I, p. 46; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 354. |
1774 | dance | Westmoreland Co. | Hunter D. Parish, ed.,"Journal and Letters of Philip Vickers Fithian. 1773-1774" Williamsburg, Va., Colonial Williamsburg, 1943, p. 83; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 360. |
1755-1780 | not specified | Nansemond Co., near Suffolk | Virginia Gazette, Jan. 8, 1780, p. [2], col. 3, and Feb. 18, 1775, p. [3] , col. 2; cited in Epstein,"Sinful Tunes," p. 34. |
1784 | "Humphrey, 26 fond of playing on the banjo" sought freedom on March 8, 1784 | New Bridges, Hanover Co. (Humphrey was born in Essex Co.) | Virginia Gazette & Weekly Advertiser, May 1, 1784 |
1792 | "Will, 24 is fond of & plays well on the instrument called the banjo." | Hanover Co. | Virginia Gazette & General Advertiser, June 6, 1792 |
1799 | songs | Richmond | Thomas Fairfax, "Journey from Virginia to Salem. Massachusetts (1799)" London, Printed for Private Circulation, 1936, p, 2; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 354. |
1800s-1818 | "Old Titus; The Original Banjoman" played at the horse races | Fairfield horse race track in Richmond | "The Richmond Daily Dispatch" April 21, 1852 |
1800s- | Jesse, Robert, James, and Thomas Scott | Charlottesville, Albemarle Co. | See David McCormick's "Rock & Reel" Monticello's Black Fiddlers |
1810s- | Beverly, Eston, & possibly Madison Hemings | Charlottesville, Albemarle Co. | See David McCormick's "Rock & Reel" Monticello's Black Fiddlers |
1806 | dance | Wheeling, W.Va. | Thomas Ashe, "Travels in America, Performed in 1806" London, R. Phillips, 1808, I, p. 233; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 360. |
1817 | songs | Richmond | James Kirke Paulding, "Letters From the South, by a Northern Man" New York, Harper and Brothers, 1835, I, pp. 96-97; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 355. |
1820s | not specified | toured Northern Neck, Fredericksburg, Orange County, Charlottesville, Richmond, Norfolk | John Finch,"Travels in the United States of America and Canada" London, Longman, Rees, Orme, Brown, Green and Longman, 1833, pp. 237-238; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 360 |
1820s | Unnamed Black banjoists who taught Joel Sweeney | Appomattox Co. | Arthur Woodward, "Joel Sweeney and the First Banjo," Los Angeles County Museum Quarterly, 7 (Spring, 1949), 7. |
1820-1850 | "Uncle Eph" referred to as the enslaved man who played a gourd instrument that inspired Sweeney | Appomattox Co, Capmbell Co or Lynchburg, VA | George Collins Papers Library of Virginia, Undated, Unidentified Newspaper account |
1830s | dance | Prince Edward Co., lower end | William B. Smith, "The Persimmon Tree and the Beer Dance," Farmers' Register (Shellbanks, Va.), 6(April, 1838), 58-61; reprinted in Bruce Jackson, The Negro and His Folklore in Nineteenth Century Periodicals, Austin, University of Texas Press, 1967, pp. 3-9. |
1832 | songs and dances | between Richmond and Jamestown | John Pendleton Kennedy,"Swallow Barn: or, A Sojourn in the Old Dominion" Philadelphia, Carey and Lea. 1832, I, pp. 110-113; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 355-356. |
1839-1842 | dances--with fiddles | Mecklenburg Co. | Mary A. Livermore, "The Story of My Life; or. The Sunshine and Shadow of Seventy Years" Hartford, Conn., A.D. Worthington and Co., 1897, p. 257; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 357. Epstein's date of 1847 is a little later than Livermore was actually in Virginia. |
1830s-1850s | songs | Southampton Co. | Charles L. Perdue, Jr., Thomas E. Barden, and Robert K. Phillips, "Weevils in the Wheat: Interviews with Virginia Ex-Slaves" Charlottesville, The University Press of Virginia, 1976, p. 141: interview with Marriah Hines (b. 1835). |
1830s-1850s | dances | Prince George Co. | Peter Randolph, "Sketches of Slave Life; or, Illustrations of the 'Peculiar Institution'" 2nd ed., Boston, published by the Author, 1855, p. 68; cited in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 357. |
1840s-1860s | dances | Franklin Co. | Weevils., p. 265: interview with Martha Showvely (b. 1837). |
1840s-1850s | dances--with fiddle | Franklin Co., near Rocky Mount | Weevils, p. 82: interview with Baily Cunningham (b. ca. 1838). |
1840s-1850s | with fiddles | King George Co. | William Ferguson Goldie, "Sunshine and Shadow of Slave Life, Reminiscences as Told by Isaac D. Williams to "Tege."" East Saginaw, Mich., Evening News Printing and Binding House, 1885, p. 62, reprinted in Epstein, "Folk Banjo," 357. |
1840s-1860s | dances | Appomattox Co. | Weevils, p. 49: interview with Fannie Berry (b. 1841). |
Sept 12, 1851 | "Bob-29, very fond of picking the banjo" | Floyd C.H., Floyd Co. | The Richmond Examiner, 1851. |
Bob was originally sold from Patrick Co. by H.W. Reynolds to Pleasant Howell | |||
1853 | dance--with fiddle, bones | Lynchburg | Watercolor sketch by Lewis Miller, reproduced in Dena Epstein "The Folk Banjo: A Documentary History," Ethnomusicology, 19(1975), 365; Epstein, Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War, Urbana, University of Illinois Press, 1977, p.157; and on the album of BRI-001, Non-Blues Secular Black Music. |
May 1855- 1941 | John Henry Scruggs- Banjoist | Marshall, Buckingham Co (B) Macon, Powhatan Co. (D) | Fox Movietone News on November 8, 1928, in Powhatan, Virginia |
1850s-1860s | songs and dances | Forest (Bedford Co.)15 | Weevils., p. 326: interview with Robert Williams (b. 1848). |
1850s-1860s | songs and dances | Charlotte County | Weevils., p. 231: interview with Levi Pollard (b 1850). |
1850s-1860s | dances | near Norfolk | Weevils., p. 267: interview with Marrinda Jane Singleton (b.1840). |
1850s-1860s | dances--with fiddles, tambourines, bones | Yanceyville | Weevils., p. 316: interview with Nancy Williams (b. 1847). Yanceyville, Va. is in Louisa Co., but the reference here may be to Yanceyville, N.C., in Caswell Co. |
1850s-1860s | "frollicking" | "eastern Virginia" | John B. Tabb, Letter to the Editor, "The Critic and Good Literature" n.s. 2(August, 1884), No. 32, 65. |
1850s-1860s | songs | Richmond area | Dorothy Scarborough", "On The Trail of Negro Folk Songs" Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1925, p. 164. |
1850s-1860s | dances | Suffolk (Nansemond Co.) | Weevils., p. 225: interview with Matilda Henrietta Perry (b. 1852). |
May 31, 1867 | "Asst. Supt. at Lynchburg reports case of a colored man who was pursued, shot at & wounded in the hip by a party of white men because he would not play the banjo for them." | Campbell Co. (7th US Military District) | Records of the Asst. Comsnr. for the State of Virginia |
Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen and Abandoned Lands, National Archives Microfilm Publication No. 1048, Roll 59, Folio 87 | |||
"Records Relating to Murders and Outrages" | |||
1880-1970 | Josh Thomas | Hollins, Roanoke Co | |
1890-1900s | Members of Polk Miller's Old Southern Quartette. | ||
1900-1970 | Henry Robinson | Bedford Co | |