The banjo is on record in the Americas first, and the Carter Family learned from a Black man
Record: the document says itPattern: documents line upDisputed: argued, often by a hostile witness
Year: 1687 · Places: Carolinas, Louisiana, Northeast, Ayiti, Caribbean, South America, Africa
SUMMARYThe banjo is on record in the Americas first, and the Carter Family learned from a Black man (Nov 7, 2026; Tito: "That banjo has been in the Appalachias since the beginning of time / We started country music")
RECORD (Birthplace of Country Music museum)"the first record of a banjo is from about 1687 in Jamaica" (Hans Sloane's Jamaica account, to open on Duke's Banjology site); "the earliest known banjo that still exists" is the "Creole Bania," made "sometime before 1777" in Suriname and collected by Capt. John Gabriel Stedman (Tropenmuseum, Netherlands); banjo-type instruments were "observed all over the Caribbean," in New York, the Carolinas, New Orleans, Cuba, Haiti, St. Vincent and Barbados
RECORD (Notable Folklorists of Color)Lesley Riddle (1905–1979) traveled the Appalachian countryside with A.P. Carter collecting songs; he taught the Carter Family blues and gospel songs and his fingerpicking style, and taught Maybelle Carter slide guitar; with his instruction they recorded "Coal Miner Blues," "The Cannonball" and "I Know What It Means to be Lonesome."
PATTERNthe "first family of country music" learned from a Black musician, and the oldest banjos on record are American, not African
DISPUTEDthe status-quo claim that the banjo descends from the West African akonting (Daniel Jatta's research) rests on resemblance, not on an older dated African banjo. OPEN, needs deep research: a banjo or gourd lute in Appalachia or the Southeast before 1687; Native string instruments before contact (the Apache fiddle is one known example). Connects: P851, P852.