Judith A. Carney’s article, “African Rice in the Columbian Exchange” published in 2001 in the Journal of African History, discusses the fundamental role of Africans in shaping the New World through their knowledge of rice cultivation and African food crops. Carney wants to demonstrate the other side of the Columbian Exchange that gets overlooked by other studies and show how Africans are agents in shaping the New World, and that behind this labor force of slavery there is a skilled African with full knowledge of agricultural techniques for rice. This neglect is surprising given the fact that Europeans took African crops as provisions for slave ships that took course to the New World. Thus, Carney wants to credit Africans for their contribution
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First, Carney shows a list of diverse plants domesticated in Africa before the Columbian Exchange to state that Africa alone before the Columbian Exchange was a continent full of many food crops in the savanna, tropical region and the coast. Then, Carney focuses on a list of African plants introduced into the Americas through the Atlantic slave trade and finally, she illustrates the African plants planted by slaves in the New World. The form of the article displays a fashion of introducing in each of the three parts an overview of her argument, shows evidence to disapprove other scholars, and analyzes it to come to a conclusion that supports her …show more content…
The relationship between Carney and other scholarships on the role of Africans in the Columbian Exchange is polarized because historian Orlando Ribiero “echoes the conventional view of African crops by saying that Africa... provided nothing important”. However, Carney goes about providing a list of native African crops that can be seen in cuisines of Jamaica, Brazil, and Martinique as evidence of Africa’s contribution to the Columbian Exchange. She even connects to the historiography of the subject by giving background on the agriculture in Africa, discussing the interaction between European settlers, and evaluating evidence to reveal the impact Africans have made in agriculture and cuisines across the Atlantic and into the Americas. In my opinion, Carney’s argument was developed and concise at using evidence to support her position in stating the influence of African crops and African’s knowledge of the cultivation of rice in the Atlantic world. She even engaged against other scholarship using evidence to defend her argument and give credit to the Africans for their accomplishments. But, I think more evidence could be used to fill in some gaps and reduce the inductive leap to make it more deductive and easier to follow through in order to get her point
First, Carney shows a list of diverse plants domesticated in Africa before the Columbian Exchange to state that Africa alone before the Columbian Exchange was a continent full of many food crops in the savanna, tropical region and the coast. Then, Carney focuses on a list of African plants introduced into the Americas through the Atlantic slave trade and finally, she illustrates the African plants planted by slaves in the New World. The form of the article displays a fashion of introducing in each of the three parts an overview of her argument, shows evidence to disapprove other scholars, and analyzes it to come to a conclusion that supports her …show more content…
The relationship between Carney and other scholarships on the role of Africans in the Columbian Exchange is polarized because historian Orlando Ribiero “echoes the conventional view of African crops by saying that Africa... provided nothing important”. However, Carney goes about providing a list of native African crops that can be seen in cuisines of Jamaica, Brazil, and Martinique as evidence of Africa’s contribution to the Columbian Exchange. She even connects to the historiography of the subject by giving background on the agriculture in Africa, discussing the interaction between European settlers, and evaluating evidence to reveal the impact Africans have made in agriculture and cuisines across the Atlantic and into the Americas. In my opinion, Carney’s argument was developed and concise at using evidence to support her position in stating the influence of African crops and African’s knowledge of the cultivation of rice in the Atlantic world. She even engaged against other scholarship using evidence to defend her argument and give credit to the Africans for their accomplishments. But, I think more evidence could be used to fill in some gaps and reduce the inductive leap to make it more deductive and easier to follow through in order to get her point