In the pre-colonial era, black hairstyles were our pride and an identity, a glance at an individual’s braids can tell you if they are married, single, in a polygamous marriage, a soldier, royalty or a mother and their tribe.

The higher your place in society, the more elaborate your hair style.

During slavery, with the aim of alienating Africans from their cultural identity, slave masters termed black hair ‘dirty’ and declared shaving off slaves’ hair more ‘sanitary’. To avoid hair shaving, slaves started wearing their hair in tight braids along their scalp in the style named CORNROWS because of their similarity to cornfields. This way their hair was ‘neat and tidy’.

Cornrows for the slaves became more than just a means of holding onto their identity and history but rather became a tool in the fight for freedom. In South America, because they could not read or write, slaves would hide maps, secret signals in elaborate cornrow styles to help them escape plantations.

Around the 17th Century, Benkos Bioho a member of the royal family in Guinea Bisau was captured by the Portuguese but was able to escape in Cartagena to found San Basilio the first free village in the Americas and also formed an intelligence network that included female slaves using cornrows styles to deliver maps & information.

In 1619 Spaniards violated the peace treaty with Bioho. He was hanged and quartered in March,1621 by Governor Garcia Giron who argued that, “It was dangerous the extent to which Bioho was respected in the population”.