The South Carolina Negro Act prohibits drums
Eight months after Stono, the South Carolina assembly passes a comprehensive slave code which, among many other restrictions on movement, assembly, earning and literacy, bars enslaved people from using drums, horns and other loud instruments. Comparable provisions follow in other mainland colonies. The musical consequence is long-run: where drums were banned, the timeline and interlock of West African ensemble practice had to be reconstructed on legal materials — the voice, the body, and stringed instruments.
Historical — it happened, and the record is settled.
Subjects
- Colonial prohibition of drumming · phenomenon · British mainland North America, principally the Carolinas · not located
- The West African drum ensemble · cultural practice · West and West-Central Africa · not located
- Banjo · artefact · The Caribbean and North America · not located
Evidence
Partly verified — Core facts are sourced; some optional detail is deliberately absent.
The Negro Act of 1740, Province of South Carolina
The Act restricted assembly, movement, earning and literacy among enslaved people and barred the use of drums, horns and other loud instruments, the colonial authorities holding that drums functioned as a means of assembly and signalling. V55 verification basis: retrieved in search summary from encyclopaedic and museum accounts; the statute text was not read, and no section or clause number is cited.
Province of South Carolina general assembly · 1740-05-10 · Partly verified
The Negro Act of 1740 (South Carolina slave code), passed in response to the Stono Rebellion of 9 September 1739
Recorded on Colonial prohibition of drumming
- Hans Sloane records gourd lutes in Jamaica
- The Stono Rebellion
- The South Carolina Negro Act prohibits drums
- Jefferson names the banjar and its origin
- New Orleans confines Sunday gatherings to Congo Square
Related
Related because they share a subject in the Atlas — never because the text looks similar.
- New Orleans confines Sunday gatherings to Congo Square · 1817
- Jefferson names the banjar and its origin · 1781
- The Stono Rebellion · 1739-09-09
- Hans Sloane records gourd lutes in Jamaica · 1687–1688