The subject of Judith Carney’s one section of The Journal of African History is about how and where rice came from in the Americas, and the contribution African indigenous rice cultivation played in shaping the food/economic systems of the New World. The problem Carney propels in her paper is that very little attention was given to African plant domesticates, which played a huge role in the Columbian Exchange. her main argument is that Africans are the main agent of the rice coming to the Americas, but they are not given the credit for bringing rice and the cultivation method in the Americas.
The structure of the reading is chronological, because she starts off with the plants grown in Africa, diffusion of plants during slave trade, domestication …show more content…
While, some of the other primary sources she used paralleled with the main argument she was making that Africans contribution led to the Americas having successful rice productions. For instance, one primary source she used is August Chevalier’s work of acknowledgments, which states that the domestication of rice was in Africa, but the sophisticated irrigation system was introduced by the Portuguese. This primary source is stating exactly what Carney disapproves in this article that the domestication and the cultivation methods of rice, both, came from the Indigenous Africans. Another primary source she uses is John Drayton’s recordings of 1802. This source supports the idea that glaberrima was continued to be cultivated by the African slaves in Americas. However, these rice were the different varieties of the glaberrima rice. Drayton’s recordings revealed that there were several types of rice grown in Carolina by the African slaves, who carried the methods of rice cultivation from where they came from (West Africa) even after traversing the Middle …show more content…
She prioritize her findings over any previous evidences regarding the origin of rice in the Americas. For example, she states in the article that scholarships on the Columbian Exchange gave extensive attention to the role Europeans played in the maritime exchange; however, very minimal attention has been given to the active agent of the maritime exchange across the Atlantic, Africans. Therefore, she was the first, who contributed the evidence and put forth the fact that cultivation of rice in the Americas came from Africa, and rice was also cultivated by the African slaves, who knew the methods because they practiced those methods in their home country as well. Carney is just revising the previously held conclusions; she made the correction of such a wrong idea, which was taking us far from the
The structure of the reading is chronological, because she starts off with the plants grown in Africa, diffusion of plants during slave trade, domestication …show more content…
While, some of the other primary sources she used paralleled with the main argument she was making that Africans contribution led to the Americas having successful rice productions. For instance, one primary source she used is August Chevalier’s work of acknowledgments, which states that the domestication of rice was in Africa, but the sophisticated irrigation system was introduced by the Portuguese. This primary source is stating exactly what Carney disapproves in this article that the domestication and the cultivation methods of rice, both, came from the Indigenous Africans. Another primary source she uses is John Drayton’s recordings of 1802. This source supports the idea that glaberrima was continued to be cultivated by the African slaves in Americas. However, these rice were the different varieties of the glaberrima rice. Drayton’s recordings revealed that there were several types of rice grown in Carolina by the African slaves, who carried the methods of rice cultivation from where they came from (West Africa) even after traversing the Middle …show more content…
She prioritize her findings over any previous evidences regarding the origin of rice in the Americas. For example, she states in the article that scholarships on the Columbian Exchange gave extensive attention to the role Europeans played in the maritime exchange; however, very minimal attention has been given to the active agent of the maritime exchange across the Atlantic, Africans. Therefore, she was the first, who contributed the evidence and put forth the fact that cultivation of rice in the Americas came from Africa, and rice was also cultivated by the African slaves, who knew the methods because they practiced those methods in their home country as well. Carney is just revising the previously held conclusions; she made the correction of such a wrong idea, which was taking us far from the