Enslaved Africans, and the African American slaves that followed them, could be found in all parts of the country, and put their hands to virtually every type of labor in North America. They tended the wheat fields and fruit orchards of New York and New Jersey; they traveled underground to mine iron and lead in the Ohio Valley; they piloted fishing boats and worked the docks in New England; they operated printing presses in New York City, dairies in Delaware, and managed households from Florida to Maine. Even in the early 19th century, when the Southern cotton plantation system was at its peak, enslaved African Americans still plied their own specialized skills and worked at a wide variety of tasks and trades.
Africans also brought the skills and trades of their homeland to North America, and their expertise shaped the industry and agriculture of the continent. West Africans with experience navigating the waterways of their homeland helped open the rivers and canals of the Northwest frontier to boat traffic, and seasoned African cattle drivers were able to apply their skills to ox teams and livestock. Many Africans were deeply familiar with large-scale rice and indigo cultivation, which were completely unknown to European Americans; without the skills of Africans and their descendants, the rice fields of South Carolina and Louisiana might never have existed.
African culture was also brought to bear on the business of everyday life in African America, however long the separation from the homeland might have been. The forms of worship, family organization, music, food, and language developed by African Americans in slavery can all be seen to bear the signs of African traditional culture, as can the architecture, art, and handcrafts they left behind. In some areas, such as South Carolina and Florida, several different West African languages were melded over the years to form a new dialect, known as Gullah or Geechee, that partially survives in some rural areas to this day, particularly in songs.
