Trade centres · cultivated for at least three thousand years
Rice agriculture
Oryza glaberrima, African rice — domesticated in West Africa, farmed on upland and swamp, and the region's staple wealth.
Biography
African rice was domesticated in the inland Niger delta and carried into the forest belt long before contact. In Liberia it was grown by upland shifting cultivation, with the forest cut in the dry season, burned, and sown broadcast; in the coastal swamps it was transplanted into bunded, tidally flushed beds.
Women held the knowledge of seed selection and maintained the varietal stock. Ship captains provisioned here because rice was reliably surplus: the Grain Coast fed the Atlantic trade.
Historical significance
The agricultural science of this coast was exported with its people: African rice technology underwrote the Carolina and Georgia rice economies.
Timeline
- c. 1500 BCEOryza glaberrima domesticated in West Africa
- pre-1500 CEUpland and swamp systems established in the forest belt
- 17th–18th c.Surplus rice provisions Atlantic shipping
Related entries
References
- Carney, Judith (2001). Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas.
- Fields-Black, Edda (2008). Deep Roots: Rice Farmers in West Africa and the African Diaspora.
Suggested reading
- Carney (2001).