SLAVERY

INTEGRATING INTO AMERICA

            While this native dance form was flourishing and establishing traditions, the slave trade was rapidly impeding on African life. Africans were brought to the Americas and West Indies as slaves as early as the sixteenth century. By the year 1510, ten thousand Africans were being transported to the West Indies. By the end of the sixteenth century, there were 900,000 black slaves living in the region (Knowles, 25). Living conditions on slave ships were incredibly inhumane; Africans were shackled together and often slept piled and stacked on top of each other. In result from lack of air, many slaves suffocated and did not make the journey. The depletion of slaves arriving safely to the Americas was quite noticeable, and in an effort to fix the problem, the masters and crew working the ships would make the Africans dance. Rather than sitting in their own filth and wasting away, the slaves would be “up and moving, keeping in good health…” (in regards to their journey on slave ships; a testimony from James Arnold for abolition of slavery in Parliament, late 1700s, Knowles, 25). Slaves were frequently forced to mimic the dances of the Irish and English crew. This is seen as a possible explanation for the early cross-pollination of European and African cultural styles that would later develop into American tap dancing.

 THE NEGRO ACT OF 1740

            The Negro Act of 1740 sparked a change in African dance in the Americas that would directly lead to the earliest forms of tap dancing. The Act prohibited “any African-American from beating drums, blowing horns, or the like which might on occasion be used to arouse slaves to insurrectionary activity” (Knowles, 39). To prevent the slaves from “acting up” or starting an uprising, their traditional African drums were taken away. As mentioned before, music and dancing went hand in hand within the African culture. However, the banning of drums did not prevent the slaves from practicing their spiritual and traditional dances. Slaves substituted the drums with bone clappers, tambourines, and most importantly, hand/body slaps with foot beats. The human body became the main source of rhythm and communication, and the elaborate use of heel and toe beats eventually grew into early forms of tap dance.