Braids of Resistance: How Hair Helped Africans Survive Slavery

How did hair braiding support the resistance to the slave trade?  Hair braiding helped to preserve cultural identity, served as a coded form of communication,  social bonding, and a survival tool.  Enslaved Africans braided maps and routes into their hair.  The braiding styles represented rivers and escape routes.  For example, cornrow styles represented roads and plantation boundaries. While still held in captivity in Africa, women braided rice, seeds, and grains into their hair.  Later, planting crops in the Americas helped maintain food traditions.  Hair braiding styles were an indicator of which region in Africa they were from.

In the town of San Basilio, Colombia, cornrows were well known to be used to communicate escape plans and maps to safe routes.  The town was founded by Benko’s Bicoho,  a former king and escaped slave.  The community served as a refuge for runaway slaves. They developed their own language and maintain hair braiding as an important part of their cultural identity.   Cultural traditions supported the use of cornrows and braids as a form of resistance to the slave trade. Braiding techniques were passed down from one generation to the next, providing hope and resilience, linking past survival skills to current-day Afrocentric identity.

Roland McFadden, MA

Source:

Piesie, K. (1923). Africa's Hair: Before and After Slavery.  Same Tree Different Branch Publishing.