ABSTRACT
African patterns of thought and behavior could survive only where the Negroes were isolated and where there was sufficient common understanding among them to give significance to African survivals. The planters had some knowledge of the tribal backgrounds of the slaves; while in Brazil terms were used by the planters to indicate vaguely the area in Africa from which the slaves came. The size of the slaveholdings on the farms and plantations significantly influenced both the extent and nature of the contacts between the slaves and the whites. The adjustment which the transported Negroes had to make in their new environment was to acquire some knowledge of the language of the whites for communication. The important position of the mother in the Negro family in the United States has developed out of the exigencies of life in the new environment. In the United States it has been more difficult to discover African survivals in the religious behavior of the Negroes.
