The institution of the slave orchestra and slave ensembles dates back to the first recorded example we know of, the nine Black musicians brought to Manila in 1594/5, and lasted until slavery formally ended worldwide in the late nineteenth century. In some cases, even after slavery was abolished, colonial powers continued to practice it, though not by that name, until the early twentieth century. A global approach to music history should include these centuries of forced musical assimilation and labor that coincide with colonialism and the global slave trade.

Understanding the history of classical music outside Europe and North America needs to first place into context the fact that many of these slave orchestras and ensembles continued as institutions operated and populated by former slaves and, second, that many types of musical styles and genres developed as their direct descendants. Understanding hybridity in ensembles gets increasingly complicated when we take into account that the slaves who comprised these institutions were from all parts of the world, as local Indigenous peoples were also enslaved in colonial countries. For example, an estimated one to two million Indonesians were part of the Indian Ocean and Trans-Pacific slave trade and constituted many of the ensembles in East Asia, South and Southeast Asia, as well as possibly South Africa.

This bibliographic resource was created as an aid to understanding the centuries-long history of slave ensembles and is a work in progress.1 General pieces are listed first, followed by sources ordered alphabetically by modern common names used in the Anglophone world. From an academic and scholarly standpoint, it is important to understand that many of the sources are in native and Indigenous languages rather than the language of the colonizing powers. Most of the accounts that Western scholarship has access to are descriptions in reports or diaries by officials and tourists. This reality shows the sharp divide between Western musicology, with its Eurocentric language focus, and local, Indigenous literature and oral histories. Indeed, this Eurocentrism has made it far too easy to ignore the global history of classical music and its relationship to colonialism, slavery, and white supremacy.

While some readers may want to use this bibliography to construct an entire course, another approach is to incorporate a few items into current Western music history courses as microlessons. For example, instructors may draw on Fosler-Lussier’s work (2020) to connect the orchestra of Indonesian slaves in nineteenth-century Batavia (Jakarta), who performed the music of European composers for their owner, Eurasian Dutch colonist Augustijn Michiels, to the 1855 Netherlands premiere of Berlioz’sSymphonie Fantastique. Such an approach acknowledges the racism inherent in Western music history and can be a first step in addressing it.

General

Andita, Aniarani. “Mae Mai. Produced by Jon Silpayamanant. In English. URL: https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/Yearbook for Traditional Music, 54, no. 1 (June 27, 2022): 93–95. https://doi.org/10./ytm..

Berg, Maxine. “Music, Culture, and Empire in Eighteenth-Century Britain.” University of Warwick Global History and Culture Centre, August 4, 2020.https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/arts/history/ghcc/blog/musicandempire

Gilbert, Andrew. “Jordi Savall Maps Out the ‘Routes of Slavery’ with Music.”San Francisco Chronicle Datebook, October 29, 2018. https://datebook.sfchronicle.com/music/jordi-savall-maps-out-the-routes-of-slavery-with-music

Lu, Tiffany, Kensho Watanabe, and William White, hosts. “Slave Orchestras.” Audio podcast.Classical Gabfest, no. 10, November 4, 2020. https://cgf.buzzsprout.com/1313269/6230515-10-slave-orche

McQueen, Garret, and Scott Blankenship. “Opus 109 – Decolonizing The Mind.” Audio podcast.Trilloquy, season 3, no. 9, July 26, 2021. https://www.trilloquy.org/opuses/opus-109

Silpayamanant, Jon. “Classical Music and its Slave Orchestras.”Mae Mae (blog), July 30, 2020. https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2020/07/30/classical-music-and-its-slave-orchestras/

———. “Colonialism, White Supremacy, and the Logic of Exclusion of Colored Bodies in Classical Music.”Mae Mai (blog), September 15, 2020. https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2020/09/15/colonialism-white-supremacy-and-the-logic-of-exclusion-of-colored-bodies-in-classical-music/

———. “Slave Orchestras: Classical Gabfest Interview Transcript.”Mae Mai (blog), January 18, 2021. https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/2021/01/18/slave-orchestras-classical-gabfest-interview-transcript/

———. “Slave Orchestras, Choirs, Bands, and Ensembles, A Bibliography.”Mae Mai (blog), March 8, 2021. https://silpayamanant.wordpress.com/socbe-bib/

———. “World of Classical: Pious Voice and Plucked Strings.” Radio broadcast. BBC Radio 3, July 10, 2022.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0018ylc

———. “World of Classical: Courtly Dances, Imperial Advances.” Radio broadcast. BBC Radio 3, July 17, 2022.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00194xt

———. “World of Classical: Nationhood and New Sounds.” Radio broadcast. BBC Radio 3, July 24, 2022.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m0019c1d

Silpayamanant, Jon (@Silpayamanant). “<— Learning more about Slave Orchestras around the world than I ever thought, or really wanted, to know…” Twitter thread, July 17, 2020.https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/1284326698503331843

———. https://repositorio.ufba.br/ri/handle/ri/11381 1/https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/1316389302469885952

———.” Twitter thread and thumbnail with link attached, March 8, 2021. https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/1368933662058758146

———. “And as comprehensive my bibliography on Slave Orchestras is, I’ve yet to update it with primary sources and I’m still finding numerous secondary sources for it. I’ve barely scratched the surface of this topic!” Twitter, July 6, 2022.https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/1544700990531698690

Templeton, Hannah. “Mozart and the Slave Trade.”Hannah Templeton: Eighteenth-Century Music Historian (blog), April 30, 2016. https://hannahmtempleton.wordpress.com/2016/04/30/mozart-and-the-slave-trade/

Wallen, Errolyn. “Classical Commonwealth: Part 1.” Radio broadcast. BBC Radio 3, February 21, 2021.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000sht9

———. “Classical Commonwealth: Part 2.” Radio broadcast. BBC Radio 3, July 17, 2021.https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00194xm

Brazil

Batista, Henrique Medeiros. “‘Africa!Africa! Africa!’ Black Identity in Marlos Nobre’sRhythmetron.” PhD diss., Bowling Green State University, 2020. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=bgsu1586866469586654

Brandão, Silmária Souza. “Múltiplas mulheres: mulher, mãe, amante e trabalhadora em Salvador na segunda metade do século XIX.” Paper presented at Anais do XXV Simpósio Nacional de História, Fortaleza, Brazil, 2009.https://anpuh.org.br/uploads/anais-simposios/pdf/2019-01/1548772192_415881e2c9e7bf992c9bef4b13941efa.pdf

Correa, João Batista.Escravidão e Liberdade na Imperial Fazenda de Santa Cruz. 1856–1891. Rio de Janeiro: Luminaria Academia, Editora Multifoco, 2017.

Freire, Luiz Cleber Moraes. “Nem tanto ao mar, nem tanto à terra: agropecuária, escravidão e riqueza em Feira de Santana, 1850-1888.” PhD diss., Programa de Pós- Graduação em História da UFBA, 2007.https://repositorio.ufba.br/ri/handle/ri/11381

Fryer, Peter.Rhythms of Resistance: African Musical Heritage in Brazil. London: Pluto Press, 2000.

Gagliardi, Clarissa Maria Rosa. “As cidades do meu tempo: a experiência do turismo em Bananal – SP.” PhD diss., Pontifícia Universidade Católica de São Paulo, June 2005.https://tede2.pucsp.br/handle/handle/4025

McNally, Dennis.On Highway 61: Music, Race and the Evolution of Cultural Freedom. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2014. https://www.dennismcnally.com/books/on-highway-61/

Newitt, Malyn.The Braganzas: The Rise and Fall of the Ruling Dynasties of Portugal and Brazil, 1640–1910. London: Reaktion Books, 2019.

Silpayamanant, https://repositorio.ufba.br/ri/handle/ri/113811/https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/13

16389302469885952

Silva, Alexandra Lima da. “O saber que se anuncia: o poder da palavra em tempos de escravidão (Rio de Janeiro, 1830 a 1888).”Revista Brasileira de História da Educação 18 (2018). http://dx.doi.org/10./rbhe.v18..e002https://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_abstract&pid=S2238-00942018000100201%5D

Silva, Claudia Felipe da. “Bandas de musica, imigração italiana e educação musical: o corpo musicale ‘Umberto I’ de Serra Negra, uma localidade interiorana com forte presença italiana.” Master’s thesis, Universidade Estadual de Campinas, Faculdade de Educação, Campinas, SP, 2009.http://repositorio.unicamp.br/Acervo/Detalhe/471274

Caribbean

Meredith, Sharon.Tuk Music Traditions in Barbados. London: Routledge, 2015.

Salman, Brittany. “How Colonialism Shaped Me as an Individual and My Culture.”Medium, February 13, 2017. https://medium.com/@brittanysalmon1/how-colonialism-shaped-me-as-an-individual-and-my-culture-f38aa046ba6f

Stuart, Andrea.Sugar in the Blood: A Family’s Story of Slavery and Empire. New York: Vintage, 2013. https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/174940/sugar-in-the-blood-by-andrea-stuart/

Valiente, Jessica Lynne. “Siento una Flauta: Improvisational Idiom, Style, and Performance Practice of Charanga Flutists in New York from 1960 to 2000.” PhD diss., City University of New York, 2015.https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/1170

Chile

Barrenechea Vergara, Paulina M. “La figuración del negro en la literatura colonial chilena. María Antonia Palacios, esclava y músico: La traza de un rostro borrado por/para la literatura chilena.” PhD diss., Universidad de Concepción Departamento de Español, 2007.http://repositorio.udec.cl/xmlui/handle/11594/1069

Silpayamanant, Jon (@Silpayamanant). “Another chapter in the story of Slave Orchestras and Ensembles! I won’t be surprised if we eventually find enslaved people that actually composed for the groups!” Twitter thread, October 26, 2020.https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/132078150301034905

Indonesia

Amirio, Dylan. “La Baroque Nomade: The Travelersof Music.”Jakarta Post, March 29, 2018. https://www.thejakartapost.com/life/2018/03/29/la-baroque-nomade-the-travelers-of-music.html

Aural Archipelago. “Tanjidor: Colonial Echoes in Makassar’s Chinatown.”Aural Archipelago: Field Recordings from around Indonesia, June 28, 2017. https://www.auralarchipelago.com/auralarchipelago/tanjidormakassar

Djumrianti, Desloehal. “Representations of Jakarta as a Tourist Destination: a Critical Discourse Analysis.” PhD diss., University of Sunderland, 2018.http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/id/eprint/8848/

Fosler-Lussier, Danielle. “Colonialism in Indonesia: Music Moving with an Occupying Force.” InMusic on the Move, by Fosler-Lussier, 19–42. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2020. http://www.doi.org/10./mpub..

Hahn, Emily.The Raffles of Singapore: A Biography. Garden City, NY: Doubleday. 1946.

Irving, D. R. M. “Trading Tunes: Thomas Forrest, Malay Songs, and Musical Exchange in the Malay Archipelago, 1774–1784.” InIntercultural Exchange in Southeast Asia, edited by Tara Alberts and D. R. M. Irving, 203-235. London: I. B. Tauris, 2013.

Mack, Dieter. “Some Thoughts on ‘Authenticity’ in Music.”Proceedings from Classical Music in the Context of ASEAN, New Authentic Classic, Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music, Bangkok, Thailand, 2015.http://www.pgvim.ac.th/pgvis/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Proceedings2015.pdf. Proceedings from Classical Music in the Context of ASEAN, New Authentic Classic, Princess Galyani Vadhana Institute of Music, Bangkok, Thailand, 2015. http://www.pgvim.ac.th/pgvis/wp-content/uploads/2020/06/Proceedings2015.pdf

Notosudirdjo, Franki S. “Music, Politics, and the Problems of National Identity in Indonesia.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin, 2001.

Suryadarma, Raden Franki. “Music and Theater Among the European Immigrants in Java During the British Interregnum, 1811–1816.”Historical Studies in Ethnomusicology (SEM). AMS/SEM/SMT joint meeting, Oakland, California, November 9, 1990. https://cdn.ymaws.com/ams-net.site-ym.com/resource/resmgr/files/abstracts/ams-abstracts-1990.pdf

Sumarsam.Javanese Gamelan and the West. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2013.

———. “Past and Present Issues of Javanese–European Musical Hybridity: Gendhing Mares and Other Hybrid Genres.” InRecollecting Resonances: Indonesian-Dutch Musical Encounters, edited by Bart Barendregt and Els Bogaerts, 87–108. Leiden: Brill, 2014.

Japan (Dutch Trading Post at Dejima)

Lehmann, Jean-Pierre. “Intellectin the Edo Era.” InThe Roots of Modern Japan, by Lehmann, 109–29. Macmillan Asian Histories Series. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1982. https://doi.org/10./978-1-349-17714-1_4

Watanabe Shuseki |渡辺秀石. Scenes of Life in the Dutch Factory (Residential Area, Sometimes called Bankan) at Deshima (Dejima) in Nagasaki. Late 18th c. Painting/handscroll. British Museum. https://www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/A_1944-1014-0-22

Philippines

Gibson-Hill, C. et al. “Documents Relating to John Clunies Ross, Alexander Hare, and the Early History of the Settlement on the Cocos-Keeling Islands.”Journal of the Malayan Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 25, no. 4/5 (160) (December 1952): 5–306. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41502769

Summers, William J. “The Jesuits in Manila, 1581–1621: The Role of Music in Rite, Ritual, and Spectacle.” InThe Jesuits: Cultures, Sciences, and the Arts, 1540–1773, edited by John W. O’Malley, Gauvin Alexander Bailey, Steven J. Harris, and T. Frank Kennedy, 659–79. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1999. https://doi.org/10./9781442681569-035

South Africa

Bouws, Jan.Die Musieklewe van Kaapstad 1800-1850. Cape Town: A.A.

———.Solank daar musiek is..:Musiek en musiekmakers in Suid-Afrika (1652­­–1982). Kaapstad: Tafelberg-Uitgewers Beperk, 1982.

Cornell, Carohn. “Whatever Became of Cape Slavery in Western Cape Museums?”Kronos25 (1998): 259–79.http://www.jstor.org/stable/41056437.Kronos 25 (1998): 259–79. http://www.jstor.org/stable/41056437

Dunseith, Michael Hamlyn. “Manifestations of ‘Langarm’: From Colonial Roots to Contemporary Practices.” Master’s thesis, Stellenbosch University, 2017.http://scholar.sun.ac.za/handle/10019./101096

Gould, Dawn. “Ramifications of Politics.”Imaginemag!: A South African Arts and Culture Magazine, February 27, 2016. https://imaginemag.co.za/?p=1555

Iziko Museums of South Africa. “Cloete era: 1778-1885 | Heritage of Slavery.” Accessed April 29, 2024.https://slavery.iziko.org.za/cloeteera

Martin, Dennis-Constant.Coon Carnival: New Year in Cape Town, Past and Present. Cape Town: David Philip Publishers, 1999.

———. An Imaginary Ocean: Carnival in Cape Town and the Black Atlantic. InAfrica, Brazil and the Construction of Trans-Atlantic Black Identities, edited by Boubacar Barry, Elisée Soumonni and Livio Sansone. Africa World Press: Trenton, NJ and Asmara, Eritrea, 2008.

Muller, Carol A.South African Music: A Century of Traditions in Transformation.ABC-CLIO World Music Series. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004.South African Music: A Century of Traditions in Transformation. ABC-CLIO World Music Series. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004.

Navratil, Andrea. “O Brother, Where Art Thou Going? The Construction of Collective Identities in Contemporary South Africa.” Honors thesis, University of Vienna, November 2008.https://www.doi.org/10./thesis.

Steltzner, Becky L. “The History of the Clarinet in South Africa.” PhD diss., University of Cape Town, Faculty of Humanities, College of Music, 2016.http://hdl.handle.net/11427/20332

Stone, Gerald L. “The Coon Carnival.” Unpublished paper, University of Cape Town, Abe Bailey Institute of Interracial Studies, 1971.

Wal, Anne Marieke van der. “Slave Orchestras and Rainbow Balls: Colonial Culture and Creolisation at the Cape of Good Hope, 1750–1838.” InIdentity, Intertextuality, and Performance in Early Modern Song Culture, edited by Dieuwke van der Poel, Louis Peter Grijp, and Wim van Anrooij, 352–71. Leiden: Brill, 2016. https://doi.org/10./9789004314986_015

Sri Lanka

Raat, Alexander J. P. “The Life of Governor Joan Gideon Loten (1710­–1789): A Personal History of a Dutch Virtuoso.” PhD diss., Uitgeverij Verloren, Hilversum, May 12, 2010.https://hdl.handle.net/1887/15514

Schrikker, Alicia, and Kate J. Ekama. “Through the Lens of Slavery: Dutch Sri Lanka in the Eighteenth Century.” InSri Lanka at the Crossroads of History, edited by Zoltán Biedermann and Alan Strather, 178–93. London: UCL Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10./j.ctt1qnw8bs..

Schrikker, Alicia, and Nira Wickramasinghe. “Introduction: Enslaved in the Indian Ocean, 1700–1850.” InBeing a Slave: Histories and Legacies of European Slavery in the Indian Ocean, edited by Alicia Schrikker and Nira Wickramasinghe, 17–40. Amsterdam: Leiden University Press, 2020.

Silpayamanant, Jon (@Silpayamanant). “Apparently, most of the slaves in Colombo, so presumably also most of the slave musicians there, were from Makassar, Indonesia during Dutch colonial rule. Indonesians slaves also composed most of the slave musicians in orchestras on the archipelago.” Twitter, October 11, 2021.https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/1447733737035284481

———. “And I’m still saddened that we know more about Dirk Willem van der Brugghen than we do about the musicians that played in the slave orchestra he owned in Colombo from c. 1753–c. 1770.” Twitter, October 12, 2021.https://twitter.com/Silpayamanant/status/1447943212614754319

Suriname

Jan Ijzermans, Jan. “Ontstaan en ontwikkeling van de creoolse populaire muziek in Suriname: 1800-1940.”OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde en Geschiedenis. Jaargang6 (1987): 49–66.https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_oso001198701_01/_oso001198701_01_0007.php.OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse Taalkunde, Letterkunde en Geschiedenis. Jaargang 6 (1987): 49–66. https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_oso001198701_01/_oso001198701_01_0007.php

Stipriaan, Alex van. “Muzikale creolisering: De ontwikkeling van Afro-Surinaamse muziek tijdens de slavernij.”OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse taalkunde, letterkunde en geschiedenis. Jaargang19 (2020): 8–37.https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_oso001200001_01/_oso001200001_01_0003.php.OSO. Tijdschrift voor Surinaamse taalkunde, letterkunde en geschiedenis. Jaargang 19 (2020): 8–37. https://www.dbnl.org/tekst/_oso001200001_01/_oso001200001_01_0003.php

United States

Baker Jr., David Sherman.Historical Sketch of North Kingstown. Providence: E. A. Johnson,

Epstein, Dena J. “Slave Music in the United States before 1860: A Survey of Sources (Part I).”Notes, 20, no. 2 (1963): 195–212. http://www.doi.org/10./894726

———. “Slave Music in the United States before 1860: A Survey of Sources (Part 2).”Notes 20, no. 3 (1963): 377–90. http://www.doi.org/10./895685

Horn, Stanley Fitzgerald.The Hermitage: Home of Old Hickory. New York: Greenburg, 1938. https://www.gutenberg.org/files/57231/57231-h/57231-h.

htm

Johnson, Jillian. “Voodoo and Slave Culture in Frederick Delius’ Koanga.” PhD diss., University of Alabama, 2018.https://ir.ua.edu/handle/123456789/3681

Southern, Eileen.The Music of Black Americans: A History. 3rd ed. New York: Norton, 1997. https://wwnorton.com/books/The-Music-of-Black-Americans.

Stimeling, Travis D., and Kayla Tokar. “Narratives of Musical Resilience and the Perpetuation of Whiteness in the Music History Classroom.”Journal of Music History Pedagogy 10, no. 1 (2020): 20–38.