The banjo originated somewhere in Africa as a hide-covered gourd instrument. The string instrument took different forms and was called banjar, bangie, banjer, and banza. The banjo was played in early 17th century America by Africans in slavery who constructed their instruments from gourds, wood, and tanned skins, using hemp or gut for strings. This prototype was eventually to lead to the evolution of the modern banjo in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. .

The practice of using open drone strings existed on African instruments, but the idea of accomplishing this effect with a short string from a tuning peg on the neck is claimed to have been a distinguishing feature of the banjo as it developed in America. Just who originated this "thumb string" has never been established. Joel Sweeney modified the banjo by adding a string and had something to do with the shell construction which replaced the gourd body of the African instruments.

Until 1800 the banjo remained essentially an instrument played by black people. White people learned how to play the banjo from the blacks and began to imitate them in public with their faces painted black. Joel Sweeney was one of the first to do this followed by others such as Dan Emmett, Billy Whitlock and G. Swaine Buckley in the 1840s, and Tom Briggs, Frank Converse and Hi Rumsey in the 1850s.

Performing in minstrel shows and circuses, they continued to spread the popularity of the banjo in the United States and abroad in the years leading up to the American Civil War. By the time of the Civil War, there were a lot of minstrel show banjo players.The lively playing technique of that period was known as "stroke style," striking the gut strings then used on the banjo with the fingernail of the forefinger alternating with the thumb.