Undercurrents of Power by Kevin Dawson

Author:Kevin Dawson
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc.
Published: 2018-11-14T16:00:00+00:00

Figure 25. “Canoe on the Bonny River.” This photograph details the size and intricacies of figureheads mounted on some riverine dugouts. Joseph H. Reading, Voyage Along the Western Coast or Newest Africa: A Description of Newest Africa, or the To-day and the Immediate Future (Philadelphia: 1901); opposite 70. Author’s collection.

In the tropical Americas, many slaves constructed dugouts from silk cottonwoods. If we take the Americas in their entirety, sources suggest most slave-built canoes were hewn from cottonwoods. Different genera are found throughout the tropics. All are ideal for canoe construction.36

Amerindians probably told some African-born captives which New World trees possessed desirable qualities. Others learned through trial and error, undoubtedly applying their botanical knowledge to the process. Cedar was used on arid Caribbean islands, as it is decay- and insect-resistant, lightweight, and strong. Dugouts in the Danish West Indies were “constructed from cedar, which are subject to neither worms nor rot.”37

Bald cypress (Taxodium distichum) was commonly used in the American South. Its easily worked timber is called “the wood eternal” and is ideal for construction where resistance to water, decay, and insects is needed.38 The Liriodendron tulipifera of the American Southeast is commonly dubbed the tulip tree or yellow poplar but was also “called Canoe-wood.”39

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