african rice in the history of the new world

Rice was introduced to multiple regions of the Americas during the colonial period. Rice plantations flourished in the U.S. southeast and eighteenth-century Brazil. Long attributed to European initiative, recent scholarship suggests that enslaved Africans provided more than labor to the emergence of rice as a food crop in the western hemisphere. This emerges from scholarly consensus that rice was independently domesticated in West Africa 3,000 years ago and further recognition of its role as provisions on transatlantic slave ships. This article summarizes the research findings in support of African agency in New World rice cultivation. A comparative historical approach to Atlantic rice culture suggests African cultural antecedents. The discussion examines the role of enslaved rice-growing Africans in transferring the seed and cultivation skills critical for pioneering the crop’s establishment in the Americas.