<h2><u>The South African Gumboot Dance</u></h2>
Perhaps the most recognizable dance in the show, the gumboot dance originated during apartheid-era South Africa. The dance gets its name from the thick rubber rain boots (think modern day Hunter Boots) known as “gumboots” or “wellingtons” worn by migrant laborers who were employed in diamond and coal mines. The apartheid government enacted laws that restricted these workers from speaking to one another, so they developed their own means of communication: using the sounds and stomps of their gumboots as a form of morse-code. The movement eventually transformed into a dance, which became particularly popular during the fight against apartheid and even became a protest symbol. Those involved in the Struggle would participate in the gumboot dance as a way to express their unification in the fight against the oppressive government. Even after the official end of apartheid in 1994, the gumboot dance remained a symbol of hope and solidarity. This dance made its way into popular culture as well, with Paul Simon writing a song titled “Gumboots” featured on his touchstone album Graceland. The formation of the gumboot dance marks a pivotal point in both the history of South Africa, as it symbolized the fight against a powerful regime, as well as in the history of dance, as it became the foundation for the development of step-dancing.
Jefferson wanted to try to reach out to the Federalists.
Slavery in Virginia dates to 1619,[1] soon after the founding of Virginia as an English colony by the London Virginia Company. The company established a headright system to encourage colonists to transport indentured servants to the colony for labor; they received a certain amount of land for people whose passage they paid to Virginia.[2]
Africans first appeared in Virginia in 1619, brought by English privateers from a Spanish slave ship they had intercepted. Some laws regarding slavery of Africans were passed in the seventeenth century and codified into Virginia's first slave code in 1705.[3] Among laws affecting slaves was one of 1662, which said that children born in the colony would take the social status of their mothers, regardless of who their fathers were. This was in contrast to English common law of the time, and resulted in generation after generation of enslaved persons, including mixed-race children and adults, some of whom were majority white. Among the most notable were Sally Hemings and her siblings, fathered by planter John Wayles, and her four surviving children by Thomas Jefferson.