The Akan Drum is a

drum The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments. In the Hornbostel-Sachs classification system, it is a membranophone. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a ...

that was made in West Africa and was later found in the

Colony of Virginia The Colony of Virginia, chartered in 1606 and settled in 1607, was the first enduring English colony in North America, following failed attempts at settlement on Newfoundland by Sir Humphrey GilbertGilbert (Saunders Family), Sir Humphrey" (histor ...

in North America. It is now the oldest African-American object in the

British Museum The British Museum is a public museum dedicated to human history, art and culture located in the Bloomsbury area of London. Its permanent collection of eight million works is among the largest and most comprehensive in existence. It docum ...

and possibly the oldest surviving anywhere. The drum is a reminder of all three continents' involvement in the estimated twelve million people transported across the Atlantic Ocean as part of the

transatlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade, transatlantic slave trade, or Euro-American slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and i ...

. The drum is normally displayed in Room 26, the North American gallery, in the British Museum.

Description

The drum is made from two species of wood that are native to

sub-Saharan Africa Sub-Saharan Africa is, geographically, the area and regions of the continent of Africa that lies south of the Sahara. These include West Africa, East Africa, Central Africa, and Southern Africa. Geopolitically, in addition to the List of sov ...

, ''

Baphia ''Baphia'' is a small genus of legumes that bear simple leaves. ''Baphia'' is from the Greek word βάπτω (''báptō-'', "to dip" or "to dye"), referring to a red dye that is extracted from the heartwood of tropical species. The genus is restr ...

'' and '' Cordia africana''. The latter fine-grained

hardwood Hardwood is wood from dicot trees. These are usually found in broad-leaved temperate and tropical forests. In temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen. Hardwood (which comes from ...

is known for its ability to be carved and its resonance, which makes it suited to musical instruments. The

drumskin A drumhead or drum skin is a membrane stretched over one or both of the open ends of a drum. The drumhead is struck with sticks, mallets, or hands, so that it vibrates and the sound resonates through the drum. Additionally outside of percu ...

came from a deer hide and was stretched over the wooden structure using vegetable fibre.

Provenance

The drum was made in the Ghana region of West Africa between 1700 and 1745, and is presumed to have travelled to America on board a

slave ship Slave ships were large cargo ships specially built or converted from the 17th to the 19th century for transporting slaves. Such ships were also known as "Guineamen" because the trade involved human trafficking to and from the Guinea coast ...

. As enslaved people had either been prisoners of war or kidnapped from their homes, they wouldn't have been able to carry any personal possessions. So it is presumed that the drum was either brought by a member of the crew or possibly by a son of the African chief who had sold the enslaved people for transportation. To exercise their human property, the slave traders would "dance the slaves". It is supposed that this was why the drum was transported. The word ''

Akan Akan may refer to: People and languages *Akan people, an ethnic group in Ghana and Côte d'Ivoire *Akan language, a language spoken by the Akan people *Kwa languages, a language group which includes Akan * Central Tano languages, a language group ...

'' refers to the culture in what is today

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and Tog ...

and includes the Fante, Asante and Akuapem people. TheOldPlantationBanjoDrum

This particular drum was obtained in Virginia by the Rev. Clerk on behalf of the

Anglo-Irish Anglo-Irish people () denotes an ethnic, social and religious grouping who are mostly the descendants and successors of the English Protestant Ascendancy in Ireland. They mostly belong to the Anglican Church of Ireland, which was the establis ...

scientist Sir

Hans Sloane Sir Hans Sloane, 1st Baronet (16 April 1660 – 11 January 1753), was an Irish physician, naturalist, and collector, with a collection of 71,000 items which he bequeathed to the British nation, thus providing the foundation of the British Mu ...

. Sloane had travelled through

Jamaica Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of Hispa ...

and had observed at first hand enslaved people playing instruments including those that were to evolve into the

banjo The banjo is a stringed instrument with a thin membrane stretched over a frame or cavity to form a resonator. The membrane is typically circular, and usually made of plastic, or occasionally animal skin. Early forms of the instrument were fashi ...

. Sloane gathered examples of the tools of slavery and other artifacts which included this drum. Clerk and Sloane thought erroneously that this drum was made by Native Americans, however their trip to Jamaica confirmed that it indeed not only "African" but from the Akan people of Ghana, where the instrument was in abundance amongst others of the Akan such as the

Seperewa The seperewa, also known as seprewa or sanku, is a Ghanaian (specifically Akan) harp-lute, similar to the dagaare/ sisaala ''koriduo'', the Mandé kora, the Gere duu, and Baoule aloko. Description The seperewa belongs to a class of harp- ...

harp. Sloane's collection is a founding collection of the British Museum, his collection was purchased by the British government in 1753. The drum is still displayed at the British Museum as part of the "Sloane collection". Sloane's catalogue records this item as "''drum made of a hollowed tree carved the top being brac'd wt. peggs & thongs wt. the bottom hollow from Virginia''". In 1906, curators at the British Museum realised that the drum could not have been created by Native Americans, but must have been made in Africa. In the 1970s, it became possible to use expertise from Kew Gardens to determine that the wood was grown in Africa. The drum is thought to have originally been made for a musician in an African chief's orchestra.

Importance

This is the oldest African-American object in the British Museum and was part of its founding collection. This drum was chosen to be featured in ''

A History of the World in 100 Objects ''A History of the World in 100 Objects'' was a joint project of BBC Radio 4 and the British Museum, consisting of a 100-part radio series written and presented by British Museum director Neil MacGregor. In 15-minute presentations broadcast on ...

'', a series of radio programmes that started in 2010 as a collaboration between the BBC and the British Museum.Akan Drum
A History of the World in 100 Objects, BBC. accessed 26 September 2010 The drum has also been used as the lead object in a special display at the British Museum in 2010 called "From Africa to America: drumming, slavery, music". The exhibition looked at how this drum was used in the "dance of the slaves", but also as an example of the collision of cultures that was created by the slave trade that eventually led to

jazz Jazz is a music genre that originated in the African-American communities of New Orleans, Louisiana in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, with its roots in blues and ragtime. Since the 1920s Jazz Age, it has been recognized as a m ...

and

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm ...

. The slave owners were unsure of how they should treat African music. On some plantations drums were banned. In September 2020, the Akan Drum was selected to be featured in the British Museum's "Objects of Crisis" series on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video sharing and social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by Google, and is the second mo ...

by former deputy chair of the Museum trustees

Bonnie Greer Bonnie Greer, OBE FRSL (born 16 November 1948) is an American-British playwright, novelist, critic and broadcaster, who has lived in the UK since 1986. She has appeared as a panellist on television programmes such as ''Newsnight Review'' and ''Qu ...

. The series, hosted by

Hartwig Fischer Hartwig Fischer (born 14 December 1962) is a German art historian and museum director. Since April 2016, he has been director of the British Museum, the first non-British head of the museum since 1866. From 2012 to 2016, he was director of the D ...

, intended to highlight objects in the British Museum collection that show how people of the past have faced major challenges.Objects of Crisis: The Akan drum
YouTube, accessed 7 September 2020

References

{{British Museum African drums Ghanaian musical instruments African objects in the British Museum Ghana–United States relations Ghana–United Kingdom relations African-American history of Virginia Pre-statehood history of Virginia Individual musical instruments