Rice culture and the Atlantic slave trade
The Guinea-Sierra Leone Liberian region is home to the cultivation of both swamp and uphill rice. There is sufficient evidence to show the overwhelming presence of a unique rice culture. Some ethnic groups in the region developed more expertise in rice growing than others. Among those ethnic groups with specialized knowledge of rice cultivation and often with a habit of rice consumption include a large percentage of the Mande and the West Atlantic linguistic groups. The paper will highlight techniques utilized by these groups to produce both swamp and uphill rice throughout the period before the slave trade. Because of their know-how in rice technology, Africans from what is today known as the Mano River region were sought by plantation owners in the Low-country of South Carolina and Georgia (USA). Thus, European slave traders traded West Africans with American plantation owners. Consequently, many West Africans from the rice growing area were highly in demand in the Southeastern region of the US. Over the centuries, particularly during the 17th century, many African were brought to South Carolina and Georgia with the sole purpose of planting rice in a region with a similar ecology as the one they left behind. In the above context we are able to examine the relationship between Henry Laurens of South Carolina, a well known slave trader and Richard Oswald, a London slave trader operating from Bunce Island along the Sierra Leone River
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| Format: | conference_item biblioteca |
| Language: | eng |
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CIRAD
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| Subjects: | B50 - Histoire, rizière, système de culture, féodalisme, histoire, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_34891, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_1971, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_2874, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_3635, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_8355, http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_8114, |
| Online Access: | http://agritrop.cirad.fr/468005/ http://agritrop.cirad.fr/468005/1/ID468005.pdf |
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