The cake walk started as a black parody of white elite ball room dancing and snootiness done in the slave quarters and on the lawn and in front of the big house. Enslaved Africans dressed in their finest (which was often 2nd and 3rd hand clothes) and danced with a bail of water on their head making one keep their upper body stiff like elite western formal dance styles in contrast to popular freewheeling body movements of African inspired dances. The master class observed and started competitions waging bets on who was the best cake walker among a group of slaves. At the end of a competition, the masters won the money and gave the enslaved winner cake; thus the name, the cake walk. The two types of cakes I see described in largely travel accounts are every day cakes and special occasion cakes.
In the Caribbean and Latin America people ate cassava cakes and cakes made from sweet potatoes. In North America corn based Johnnycakes, hoecakes, and ashcakes remained very popular because most southerners owned very few cooking utensils. Enslaved Africans for example baked corn meal on the surface of hoes used in the fields thus the name hoe cakes. Most of what we describe today as cakes were prepared for holidays and other special occasions or as fast food sold on the streets in urban centers.
The Mandinka on the coast of the Gambia for example, made “sweet cakes [made from] pounded rice and honey.” In nineteenth century Cuba and Brazil enslaved African women hawked sweet and tempting cakes for their masters. We also have an account from the Norwood Estate in Louisiana of a slave owner who served her slaves a lavish Christmas meal including “frosted cake, and pastry of many kinds.” And finally a 1904 description of a special occasion in Georgia describes a table spread with chicken, gingerbread, and a jelly-cake.
For more: Listen to an interview I did on the Chief’s Table on the cake walk and additional interviews on the special show about cakes. Really good stuff and recipes! http://www.whyy.org/91FM/chef/
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