Antebellum South African American Culture

For African-Americans, the Antebellum South was a turbulent landscape of competing culture and hardship. The first recorded instance of African slaves being brought to North America was in 1607, and the Thirteenth Amendment was passed in 1865, meaning that the practice of slavery took place within the United States for over two-hundred years. In these two-hundred years, an advanced and distinctly American culture would arise, and within this culture, as with any other culture, there was music. West-African religious practices merged with protestant Christian practices, and historians and musicologists dispute over which influence Afro-Gospel music most heavily displays. As protestant Christianity heavily emphasises conversion, there is no