Chapter 2: American Popular Music in the Nineteenth Century Pt.1
Enslaved Africans brought with them a rich musical tradition that, despite violently disrupted through systemic oppression, would leave an indelible mark on American music. The brutal journey across the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, claimed countless lives. Those who survived the voyage were stripped of their cultural tools, including musical instruments, language, and communal bonds, upon arrival. Slaveholders often deliberately separated individuals from the same ethnic or linguistic groups, fearing that shared cultural practices could foster solidarity, communication, and ultimately incite resistance or rebellion. These strategies were meant to break cultural continuity and suppress communal identity. While these actions severely undermined specific African musical lineages, they did not erase African cultural values. Instead, those values were preserved, adapted, and reimagined within the constraints of enslavement, becoming a foundational force in the development of American music.
Despite these traumatic disruptions, enslaved Africans retained and reimagined their aesthetic sensibilities. Through oral tradition, rhythmic complexity, call-and-response patterns, and communal expression, they reshaped the European musical forms they encountered in the colonies. This creative resilience gave rise to new, hybrid musical expressions that served as early examples of what would eventually become spirituals, work songs, blues, and other foundational American genres. The synthesis of African and European elements became the hallmark of American popular music, a legacy that continues to resonate today.
Cakewalks and Minstrel Shows
One vivid example of early cultural exchange and appropriation between European and African American traditions is the Cakewalk, a 19th-century dance that exemplified how enslaved Africans reinterpreted white cultural forms using African aesthetic values.
British colonists brought with them European ballroom dancing, which became increasingly important as colonial society grew more stable and stratified. Formal dances like the Minuet, Cotillion, and Quadrille were popular among the upper class, while country dances such as the Jig or Reel were common in more informal settings. These dances played a central role in social life, signaling status and refinement.
Dance had an even more central place in West African cultures, where it was closely tied to storytelling and religious practices. On American plantations, enslaved Africans absorbed the dance forms of their white owners but transformed them through the lens of their own cultural aesthetics. They introduced new rhythms, movement styles, and humor. The result was the Cakewalk, a stylized dance competition in which enslaved people exaggerated the postures and steps of elite white ballroom dances performed by slaveowners, often mocking them in pointed ways. The best dancer was awarded a prize, sometimes literally "taking the cake."
Musically, the Cakewalk combined European and African elements. Enslaved musicians often used European instruments like the fiddle alongside African-derived instruments such as the banjo, which originated from West African lutes and was adapted and reinvented by enslaved people in America. Cakewalk music featured syncopated rhythms, call-and-response phrasing, and improvised variations. These are all core features of African diasporic musical practice that would later shape ragtime, jazz, and other American genres. Call and response is a musical structure in which a leader sings or plays a phrase, known as the call, and a group or instrument responds with a corresponding phrase. This interactive, conversational format is rooted in African traditions and was central to spirituals, field hollers, and later gospel and blues, reinforcing community participation in performance.
Ironically, when white plantation owners watched these performances, they failed to recognize the satire and instead viewed the Cakewalk as an entertaining novelty. By the late 19th century, the Cakewalk had crossed over into white popular culture and became a featured attraction in fairs and national exhibitions, including the 1876 Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia and the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. The Cakewalk stands as an early template for American popular music’s recurring pattern: African American artists transform and innovate existing forms, only for those innovations to be adopted, commercialized, and often misinterpreted by white audiences. This dynamic of cultural creation, crossover, and appropriation continues to shape American music to this day. Eventually, it was incorporated into the era’s dominant theatrical form: the Minstrel Show.