African roots A Visit to Ms. Catherine's House

African Roots Many of the people who lived in these houses no doubt had Bantu ancestors because about forty percent of the Africans who were brought to South Carolina came from the Congo-Angola area, the Bantu area. Though the Bantu were divided into hundreds of different ethnic groups, they all stemmed from the same original ancestors and consequently shared an overarching Bantu culture. So the people who lived in these houses were strongly influenced by the Bantu heritage and that influence permeates our southern cultural heritage. Photo 1999. Note: More information available from Amelia Wallace Vernon, African Americans at Mars Bluff, South Carolina (Baton Rouge, Louisiana State University, 1993. Reprint. Columbia: University of South Carolina, 1995), pp. 15, 222 note 8.

Copyright Amelia Wallace Vernon. All rights reserved, 2008.