Some Additional Notes on "Guinea Corn"

I've been challenged.  Family friend Kristen Hale Alldredge cites family traditions of eating the guinea corn grain well into the 20th century in rural southern Kentucky.  She wants to know, and expects me to answer, if this is indicative of a slave custom.  Well, yes, probably. 

I told her "the key lies in Charleston."  Cryptic little quips like this fly off the top of my bald head in just such a manner all the time. Backing up my prophetic assumptions requires a bit more work.

I'm always happy when I'm right. 

Bread, dumpling, porridge, or pudding, all made from Guinea Corn.

COOCOO, a very thick Hasty Pudding, made of the meal of Indian or Guinea corn, and used instead of bread.  Steele, Joshua.  Mitigation of Slavery.  London, 1814.

I feel confident in saying this is the first published referenced to an original Anglo-African word for one of the traditional preparations of Guinea Corn.

Back to Charleston, and the key.  Come along, Miss Kristen.  You started all this.

No help in supporting our African-legacied farm to table theories for grain sorghum, but I found that guinea corn was certainly a major crop in South Carolina, even in Mississippi, as the 1800s progressed, primarily for feeding of livestock.  The more I read, the more I came to realize that in the deep South at least many traditional grains were quickly relegated to cattle silage.  The "American Farmer" of Baltimore, MD, No. 36-Vol. 37 for 25th November 1825 quotes the "Southern Patriot" of Charleston's report on the October meeting of the South Carolina Agricultural Society regarding the grain, saying, "For the best conducted experiment to be made in the year one thousand eight hundred and twenty-six, ...9th For a similar experiment on Ghinea corn, (Holens sorgum,) on not less than one acre- The Silver Medal."

As this infers a commercial crop (from the context of the article), we must assume it's primary intent was as silage.  But were Carolina slaves still eating it as a regular part of their diet?

It turns out there is further anecdotal evidence of continued use of guinea corn aka "Indian Millet", "holens sorghum" or "sorghum cernuum" as a cereal grain by African-Americans of South Carolina well past the early 18th century observations of Mark Catesby.

Allow me to quote now from "The Rural Carolinian" Vol. 6, Charleston, SC 1875, where we read that, "The Guinea Corn,"  Sorghum Cernuum, sometimes also bears the name (incorrectly of guinea grass), as "S" points out in the October number of the RURAL CAROLINIAN.  This is cultivated very generally by the negroes in the low country for grain.  It is a great bearer.  The seeds are beaten in a mortar like rice, and when properly hulled, make a good substitute for rice."

So, clearly, at least in the vicinity of Charleston, though cooking preparations may have changed with a shift in taste for bread to hot cereal, Black Carolinians maintained a place in their diets for the ancient African sorghum, Guinea Corn, well past the American Civil War (northern aggression, between the states, late unpleasantness, what have you). 

Looking further south, the slaves of Charleston weren't alone apparently in eating guinea corn.  A remarkable and pertinent citation from the Encyclopaedia Metropolitana, Or, Universal Dictionary of Knowledge, Vol. 6, London 1845 (thank goodness the British had a fascination apparently with slave diets), tells us the table form of sorghum grains spread even into Florida.  On page 187 of the chapter on that state, in discussing the native and introduced crops of antebellum Florida, we are told, "Indian corn, buckwheat, and Guinea corn, are the principal breadstuffs.  Rye and oats have been introduced."  Thus the authors infer that guinea corn is a native to Florida, which I doubt.  More likely sorghum grain was introduced by slaves pouring in after 1822 from Georgia and South Carolina once Florida became a territory.  Slave traders as well brought in slaves to Florida from the upper South.  I ponder for a moment, but how likely is the possibility that foods traveled regionally via the slave traders?  Sales in Virginia, Kentucky, & Tennessee spreading people and traditions west and east within the antebellum South, then back again.  Hmmm.  Something to think more on.

This all just leaves me with more questions.

Now, did the initial Great Diaspora of Black Southerners scatter seeds for guinea corn throughout the South, or did the process start long before 600,000 boys and men shed blood in a war we still don't fathom?  Perhaps, each.  Do Kentuckians eating guinea corn into the 20th century tie directly to South Carolina slaves of the 18th century?  Could be, but even I have to bite my tongue and not act as if I already have all the answers.  My sensible conjectures don't always find adequate substantiation.  Usually, but not always. 

I'll have to dig further.

Dig, Dig, Dig

"The Southern Cultivator and Dixie Farmer" Vol. XLIII Jan-Dec 1885 p. 156 cites the expanded cultivation of guinea corn to Middle TN.  Here an article speaks of the stubble of guinea corn in the fields of "Ethel Meadows" plantation in Maury County. 

Almost home to Kentucky.  Anyone want to dig with me?

Guinea Corn growing in Kano, Nigeria, 1967, in a photo by Harry Marshall, photo courtesy of "Learn NC."