American Slaves' Christmas Was a Respite from Bondage

On a Christmas morning in the late 1840s, the people on a cotton plantation in eastern North Carolina – like Oak Forest plantation, owned by my fifth great-grandfather, Reverend William Bellamy – would begin their day with a few random thumps rousing people awake.

The thumping would give way to music, from hide stretched over boxes, gourd rattles, cowbells, triangles, whistles and horns, all urging excited children to rise from cornshuck pallets and put on trousers covered in patches and gleaming white shirts or dresses made from homespun fabric dyed in false indigo, poke berries and onion skins.

The children would joined the crowd outside the rough log cabin quarters, clapping and singing, as a man emerged covered in strips of colorful rags, his head obscured by animal hides and topped off with deer antlers. As he moved in time with the makeshift orchestra, raccoon tails would fly in the air and whips would crack as the crowd moved, dancing, towards the big house. Under the watchful eye of the overseer, my ancestors would dance towards the planter’s house, singing, and – before the planter could say a word – the children would all shout, “Christmas gif’!”

That was called John Canoe, a ritual that was once part of Christmas celebrations from Suffolk, Virginia to Wilmington, North Carolina, extending inland a few counties past the Fall Line. Also practiced in the Jamaica and other parts of the Caribbean, the masquerade and dance were typical at Christmas time in this part of the south, representing full circle connections with west Africa and other parts of the diaspora.

It was only one of many ways enslaved people celebrated Christmas in the midst of bondage.

On Christmas morning from Maryland to Texas and from Missouri to Florida, enslaved children played “catching Christmas gif’” with slaveholders. The first to demand a gift won and, on this day, enslaved children might have their only taste of oranges, grapefruit, peppermints or chocolates and the...