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Is jumping the broom truly an African tradition or a colonial way to wed people they thought were undeserving of a church wedding?
I seriously have my doubts.

from my memory slaves were not aloud to get married so they had to jump the broom

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This is an African American slave tradition...

yes that is true thanks for the clarification thinking just didnt state it

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no you was right, just addin a lil more definition to it... lol

Here's some more definition to it:

I also found this as well:

For this interested in how it's done:

http://www.randomhouse.com/wotd/inde...?date=20010226

Can you tell me how the phrase jump over the broom came to refer to getting married?
The phrase is most commonly jump the broom. The traditional act of jumping the broom, in which a couple jump together over a decorated broom that has been placed on the floor in front of them, is enjoying a resurgence in African-American wedding ceremonies.

During slavery, slaves were often not allowed to marry, and so an alternative ceremony for marking a couple's commitment was adopted. Most historians and curators of African-American cultural collections agree that the tradition--at least as practiced by African-Americans--originated in the southern U.S. However, that is not entirely accepted; there is still speculation about possible African ceremonial origins, one of which was for a bride to sweep the home of her mother-in-law on her wedding day.

Since wedding traditions differ so widely across Africa, I think the origin during slavery is more likely: slaves came from many different tribes with quite divergent marriage traditions, and in researching this phrase, I discovered that the exact same ceremony is an ancient Celtic tradition. The link here is that many slave owners were Scots-Irish immigrants (or their descendants).

From the early days of Christianity in Ireland, rituals tended to blend the pagan with the Christian. An example of this was the handfasting ceremony, a commitment ceremony held when a priest was not available. Couples who just couldn't wait until the traveling priest turned up would ceremonially tie their wrists together, then join hands and jump over a broom to guarantee children. In Celtic tradition, the broom was a symbol of fertility; Beltane (May Day) festivities often included fertility rites such as broom-jumping or broom-riding. It seems possible that the idea of this type of unofficial but sincere marriage ceremony could have been adopted by early slaves at the suggestion of their Celtic masters. That the masters were party to these ceremonies is evidenced by one former slave's account of her own wedding, quoted in Harriette Cole's Jumping the Broom: The African-American Wedding Planner.

Today, what the ceremony symbolizes is largely a personal choice, as is the inclusion of it in a wedding. It can represent sweeping out the old and welcoming the new, or a jump into a new life, or (as it did for the Irish) the beginning of a new life in which domestic issues come to the fore. Some African-Americans reject it as a vestige of their slave past, and others embrace it as a unique cultural expression.

Linguistically, the term jumping the broom has not yet become synonymous with marriage in the way that "tying the knot" is. For more details about the modern ceremony itself, you can check out Harriet Cole's book.

Wendalyn

....which has its roots in West African rituals

and also in European cultures as well...


And I've heard of the broom being used in some African traditions when the bride would sweep the mother in laws house as a sign of entering the new family.

Thing is, where would enslaved African-Americans have been exposed to Celtic wedding ritual traditions? Correct me if I'm wrong, I could well be, but I was unaware of any widespread presence of Celtic traditions in 16th-19th-century American culture.

If that isn't the case, and if we saw traditions similar to broom-jumping in both Africa and among Celts, it would seem to be more likely that enslaved Africans in the US would have brought those traditions over with them across the seas than it would be for the traditions to be introduced to them once here.

I understand whatcha yuh saying but the thing is and even in these articles they're not sure themselves because 1, there's no such tradition of jumping the broomin Africa (I've been searching and come up with nothing, so I can be wrong), there's the use of a broom for some wedding ceremonies... but it's either that this tradition was created by the African Americans or perhaps like she stated here I believe the slave masters were the ones who looked over these weddings, correct me if I'm wrong, so the master could've brought this tradition OR perhaps it was a combination of slaves coming together with something sacred to seal the wedding.