In this recent article (click to read) in the Wall Street Journal, the essayist wrongly asserts a disconnect between classic novelist Jane Austen and the banjo, and this inaccuracy must be politely rectified. The journalist declares, “The banjo is the musical equivalent of the battle ax: metallic, obvious, lethal and usually wielded by someone who has not read Jane Austen.” In the attached newspaper photo from the Bath Chronicle (September, 2006), the BRC founder appears dressed in seafaring costume at the 2006 Jane Austen Festival in Bath, England. Jane Austen, a musician who played the piano forte daily, was probably familiar with the banjo. In her novel “Mansfield Park,” one of the characters travels to the West Indies, a geographical incubator for banjo culture.
By ordinance in Martinique in 1654 and 1678, more than a century before Jane Austen put pen to paper, it was not permissible for slaves to gather and dance to the music of the “banza.” Although prohibiting the celebration African banjo music, this unfortunate statute is probably the first historical notice documenting the banjo’s original trans-Atlantic arrival in the Americas. The BRC founder and his spouse attended the 2006 Bath Festival dressed as Captain Fredrick Wentworth and Anne Elliot from the beloved Jane Austen novel “Persuasion.”