One of the oldest myths associated with the banjo is that the instrument originated in the American South. This dates back to the earliest days of blackface minstrelsy in the 1830s and '40s.
Actually, the banjo can trace its origins to the Caribbean. According Dena Epstein's crucial seminal work Sinful Tunes and Spirituals: Black Folk Music to the Civil War (1977), enslaved Africans and Creoles (blacks of African descent born in the New World) were first documented in the late 17th century as making and playing plucked lutes with gourd bodies and fretless necks on the islands of Martinique (1678), Jamaica (1689), and the Antilles (1698). These were the earliest forms of the New World Banjo.
While they were very similar in construction and physiology, what these lutes were called varied from colony to colony: banza (Martinique, 1678; the preferred term in French and Spanish colonies); strum-strum (Jamaica, 1689); bangil (Barbados, 1708; Jamaica, 1739); banshaw (St. Kitts, 1763); Creole Bania (Suriname, c.1770s); banjar (Antigua, 1788); and so on.
The European observers, who noted in their journals these various different forms of the early banjo they encountered, had no doubt as to where these "peculiar" instruments came from. As Englishman John Luffman wrote in his travelogue, A Brief Account of the Island of Antigua (1788): "[The banjar] is the invention of, and was brought here by the African Negroes...."
We don't see the banjo in the historical record of England's American colonies until the 1730s. Surprisingly enough, the first mention of the instrument in North America wasn't on a southern plantation. It was in New York City. In March 1737, a piece in John Peter Zenger's New York Weekly Journal reported on a Pinkster celebration, held in the fields outside of New York City, in which blacks danced to the music of drums, fiddle, and bangar (banjo).
As Graham Russell Hodges points out in his seminal work, Root & Branch: African Americans in New York & East Jersey, 1613-1863 (The University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, NC. 1999):
A satire that appeared in the New York Weekly Journal in 1737 noted use of African musical instruments during Pinkster. Africans from the Guinea Coast [the region of West Africa stretching from modern-day Senegal down to Liberia, also known as "The Rice Coast" back in slavery times] in particular were adept at drums and stringed instruments. Bangars, rattles,and fiddles were common at Pinkster festivals.
Pinkster, a traditional Dutch celebration of the Christian holiday Pentecost and springtime, was adopted by early African American communities in New York and New Jersey. By the early 18th century it had evolved into a unique local festival that reflected a mix of African, European, and Amerindian influences, akin to Mardi Gras in Louisiana and Carnival in the Caribbean and Brazil. The festival remained an important feature of regional African American life and culture well into the 19th century.
As Hodges points out, music was an essential element of the Pinkster celebrations. Instruments of African derivation such as the bomba-style hand drum, the conch shell trumpet, and the bangar (gourd-bodied banjo) combined with the European instruments like the violin (fiddle)-- the principal string instrument for secular social/dance music in European American and African American traditions-- to create raucous dance music.
(Note: "The pipe and tabor" are a small flute, played with one hand while the other beats on a tabor drum with a playing stick. It's an instrumental combination common throughout Europe and Latin America for accompanying traditional dancing. However, the use of the term "pipe and tabor" in the context of this epic poem may be allegorical rather than a reference to an actual performance by this specific instrumental combo.)
This is wonderfully illustrated in the following passage from A Pinkster Ode, originally published in Albany, NY in 1803 that was "Most Respectfully Dedicated To CAROLUS AFRICANUS, REX: Thus Rendered in English: KING CHARLES, Capital-General and Commander in Chief of the PINKSTER BOYS:"
(Note: King Charles [c.1699-1824] was a slave originally from Angola. He "ruled" over Albany's annual Pinkster festivities-- which typically ran from three to six days-- with complete regal pomp. "Charley of the Pinkster Hill" held court in an elborate outfit patterned after the uniform of "a British brigadier of the olden time." )
Now hark! the Banjo, rub a dub,
Like a washer-woman's tub;
And hear the drum, 'tis rolling now,
Row de dow, row de dow,.
The pipe and tabor, flute and fife,
Shall wake the dullest soul to life.
All beneath the shady tree
There they hold the jubilee.
Charles, the king, will then advance,
Leading on the Guinea dance,
Moving o'er the flow'ry green,
You'll know him by his graceful mien;
You'll know him on the dancing ground,
For where he is folks gather round;
You'll know him by his royal nose,
You'll know him by his Pinkster clothes,
You'll know him by his pleasant face,
And by his hat of yellow lace;
You'll know him by his princely air,
And his politeness to the fair;
And when you know him, then you'll see
A slave whose soul was always free.
Look till the visual nerves do pain,
You'll "never see his like again."
