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But just as the quadroon balls played a role in social compliance, there were dances that did just the opposite -- played a role in resistance.
There are numerous reports that indicate that the city governments dreaded when the Negroes performed the "Calenda," "the dreaded Calenda," it's referred to. It's referred to [as such], throughout the Caribbean and throughout the Deep South. The organization of the dance is very similar. The fact that it is a war dance is very similar. It's done with clubs in the hand. The head is wrapped the same way. The "Calenda" looks very much like the European Moors' dances.
When I saw it done in Cuba, I was just astounded at how much it looked like the old Moors' dances. And of course, we labor under the illusion that there was no world before Columbus, that there was no connection between Africa and Europe before Columbus. If you were to ask me to surmise about the resemblance between this apparently Caribbean form that originates after Columbus and this dance in Europe known as the Moors' dance, I would say that the Moors, the so-called Moors, who we know have a heavy influence in southern Europe, took this dance up into Europe and shared it.
For people of African heritage, dance serves a purpose far beyond that of mere entertainment. And of course, in the environment of [the] United States and slavery, the intentions of the slave master when he allows slaves to have dances, of course, were very different than the intentions of the slaves who came to those dances. Not only were those dances seen by the Africans who participated in them as a chance to reconstitute and reinforce community, but it was seen as a time to strike a blow for resistance. There was a tremendous amount of resistance activity going on at dances.
Harriet Tubman made her runs on Saturday night and oftentimes took people out of slave dances. That gave the runaway a two-, three-, four-hour head start before he or she could be counted as missing. And so the dances take on an air of resistance. They are a time that Africans used to gather themselves together not only physically but psychologically and spiritually as well. There was a tremendous amount of resistance activity on all fronts occurring, attempts to reconstitute African culture. And of course, this is a resistance activity, resisting the encroachment of European culture, resisting the push to relinquish who you are, resisting the push to give up the old gods, give up the old ways, give up the old dances. And Africans resisted that.
In Weber's DEEP LIKE THE RIVER, in which he talks about the educational function of dancing in the slave quarter, there's a wonderful quote in which a slave hears about a dance and tells the master. It's a repetitious, a hidden dance, and of course, many of these dances were clandestine affairs. People would sneak off the plantation into the woods to have these dances, sometimes sacred, sometimes secular dances. This particular slave heard about this dance and told. Well, he was ostracized from all the rest of the dances. In fact, he said that, "I was never told about another dance ever again in that slave quarter." Slaves used dances to reinforce behaviors they wanted repeated. They used it to enforce and invoke the code of secrecy, the code of silence, which was of paramount importance in the slave quarter. And of course, we inherit that code of secrecy not simply from the slave experience but from the traditional postures that members of secret societies in Africa put on. And so the code of secrecy is something that we inherit from Africa through the slave experience. And of course, dance contributes heavily to that, to the maintenance of that code of secrecy in the slave quarter.
There seems to have been a level of complexity to slave society in the South that many overlook.
We tend to think of African-American culture in the South, especially in the slave quarter community, as monolithic. Prior to the coming of King Cotton, we had at least three separate African-American cultural regions. The slaves of the Virginia, North Carolina region, and of course, we know that there is an identifiable "Wolof" strain in those people. We can document that. Those people have a particular language profile, particular African ethnic strain, and they are growing primarily what? Tobacco. So the material culture of that region, the organization of labor, the organization of leisure is different than it is for people who are in the Louisiana, Gulf Coast region. We know there's a Dahomean strain of slaves that come in from Haiti. We also know that there's a Bacongo strain down there and we know that those people are primarily engaged in what? Sugar cane, indigo. So the material culture and the organization of labor, the organization of dance activity is different than it is for people who are growing tobacco or people who are on the California coast growing rice.
So after emancipation we get the second big change, we get the second leveling of regional differences, because when emancipation comes not only are those itinerant musicians and dancers free to move northeastern culture into the south central region, but slaves themselves begin to move. Slaves move from Alabama back to North Carolina looking for that relative that they had been sold away from. Many of them plant their soles on the ground and walk for two years, for three years. And of course, they're also moved around by the upheaval of the Civil War. They're moved around by the reorganization of labor. And so that impacts upon the national profile of African dance.
Prior to emancipation, you had the interaction of blacks and whites. Sometimes that was forbidden, but white musicians sneaked into the slave quarter and would sneak into slave dances, and there are a number of accounts in slave narratives talking about this. And so once emancipation comes and once Reconstruction is under way, you have the establishment of a public institution by blacks, a public dance place by blacks, that gives a national visibility to the dances. And it also allowed the dances to become commercializable and exportable around the nation. So now anybody has access to this stuff. Anybody has access to these dances. And there's a tremendous amount of exchange between blacks and whites. In fact, it accelerates during emancipation.
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