The Carolina low country and the Chesapeake possessed the largest slave populations in British North Country. In both of these areas, hoodoo and conjuring were extremely important to transplanted Africans. Slaves called on spirits and spiritual knowledge for a variety of reasons; they used traditional remedies to heal the sick, and they also relied on sorcery to harm their enemies, both black and white. Slaves who had accesses to the world of charms and poisons were feared and revered in slave communities. Bogota Map Tourist Attractions White masters’ fears of being poisoned by their slaves loomed large and were not unfounded. Slaves suspected of poisoning met harsh fates, including torture and death throughout North Country. Slaves also decorated their cabins and created art objects with items and patterns that could welcome positive spirits and ward off negative ones.
Folk medicine and conjuring were closely related in the Southern colonies, and slave doctors, nurses, and midwives who could heal were valued by their African compatriots and English masters alike. Funerary practice was extremely important to natives of West and West Central Africa, as it marked the passage from the world of the living to the world of the dead, and it remained so to Africans living in the Country colonies. African funeral traditions lived on throughout the South. Many slaves believed that death returned them to their ancestral homelands in Africa, and funerals sometimes turned into celebrations, complete with long processions, music, and drinking alcohol. The dead sometimes were dressed in African clothing and beads and were occasionally buried under mounds of glass, potsherds, and seashells. This type of grave was used in the Carolina low country throughout the colonial period and beyond.
