Science / Medicine : American Blacks’ Early Crafts

Seventeenth-Century clay tobacco pipes recovered in Maryland and Virginia represent the earliest craftsmanship by black people in North America, according to UC Berkeley researchers. Designs in the bowls of the pipes had until now been considered the work of American Indians. But Berkeley anthropologist Matthew Emerson, who analyzed the pipes, says they match the styles and techniques in West African pottery.

“The pipes reflect close contact between Africans and English on 17th-Century plantations before the full institutionalization of slavery,” Emerson said. “They are fashioned in European form but decorated in West African art style.” He added that the pipes show blacks were crafting goods for themselves in the British colonies by 1650.

In photo of 17th-Century Maryland pipe at left, the “kwardata” motif, the diamond shape on banded background, is very similar to design on bowl portion of Nigerian pot at right.