RUMOR: Maps in Cornrows Helped Black Slaves Escape Slavery

Black slaves created maps and other information in cornrows to help escape slavery to the North.

Origin

In February 2022, the African American Art & More Facebook page published a brief story about how Black slaves purportedly passed along maps and other information in cornrows to help them escape to the North.

It read as follows:

Happy Black History Month

Did you know Cornrows were used to help slaves escape slavery?

Slaves used cornrows to transfer information and create maps to the north.

Since slaves were not allowed to read or write they had to pass information through cornrows.

It is believed to have originated in Colombia, South America where Benkos Bioho, in the late 1500’s came up with the idea to have women create maps & deliver messages through their cornrows. They were also called “canerows” to represent the sugarcane fields that slaves worked in.

One style had curved braids, tightly braided on their heads. The curved braids would represent the roads they would use to escape.

Also in their braids they kept gold and hid seeds which helped them survive after they escaped. They would use the seeds to plant crops once they were liberated.

Cornrows was the best way to not give back any suspicion to the owner. He would never figure out such a hairstyle would mean they would escape or the route they would take. #BlackHistoryMonth

One of the posts that copied and pasted the text was shared more than 4,500 times. Several other posts that shared the cornrows information were shared at least hundreds of times each. We were also asked about this rumor in our Snopes Tips Facebook group.

In our initial research, we were so far unable to find any information about this subject in newspaper archives or old books. The Facebook posts claimed that Black slaves used cornrows not just for maps to the North but also “to transfer information.” It’s unclear what this meant exactly, other than perhaps the idea to “deliver messages” to each other.

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RUMOR: Maps in Cornrows Helped Black Slaves Escape Slavery
Source: Kapit Pinas