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[The development nexus]
The development nexus
From the crisis of the 1970s onwards, the persisting oppression and marginalization of women came to be identified as a significant factor in Africa's underdevelopment. ^6 The disproportionate burdening and impoverishment of women provided the material conditions for an escalation of feminist consciousness. This was the context in which the Association of African Women for Research and Development (AAWORD) convened in Dakar at the end of the 1970s, with the specific agenda of challenging the gendered effects of development (AAWORD, 1982). The imposition of structural adjustment programmes through the 1980s, and the accompanying divestment of the public sector gave even more salience to the class and gender exploitation at the heart of African economies, as the conditionalities of structural adjustment increased the burdens on the poorest strata across African societies in gendered ways, exacerbating the feminization of poverty. ^7 The 1980s also saw the establishment of the Women's Research and Documentation Project at the University of Dar es Salaam, ^8 and the Women's Research and Documentation Centre founded by historian Bolanle Awe at the University of Ibadan in 1988. By conducting research and advocacy work on the situation of women in the surrounding communities, these early interventions marked a departure from ivory-tower conventions, and faced resistance from colleagues. However, feminists working on women and gender were able to draw modest amounts of development funding into resource-starved universities, so that by the mid 2000s, there were as many as 40 gender and women's studies departments in African Universities. Academic networks were pressured to include women and take on gender analysis by women in their ranks, as well as by external donors. ^9
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[^0]: 6 Boserup's seminal monograph "Women's Role in Economic Development" was published in 1970. The "feminization of poverty" became a catch phrase for the complex intersections of class (or more accurately, socioeconomic status and rural locations) with gender that were implicated in underdevelopment.
7 Antrobus, a vocal critic of Structural Adjustment in both the Caribbean and Africa, was also a founder of the Women and Development Network (WAND) at the Cave Hill Campus of the University of West Indies, and of the DAWN network. See Antrobus, P., 2004. The Global Women's Movement: Origins, Issues and Strategies. London, Zed Books.
8 Faculty members Marjorie Mbilinyi and Ruth Meena were among the founding group.
9 The Council for the Development of Social Science Research in Africa (CODESRIA) has led the way, holding the first regional workshop on 'Gender Analysis' in 1991, followed by an annual summer institute and annual gender workshops. See Imam, Ayesha, Amina Mama and Fatou Sow (eds) Engendering African Social Sciences (Dakar, CODESRIA, 1996) and CODESRIA's Gender Series.
The connections between continental and Caribbean feminist activism point to a long historical consciousness. During the early 1990s, feminists on the continent were inspired by the success of colleagues establishing gender and development studies at the University of the West Indies. This informed the establishment of the African Gender Institute (AGI) and its success. Apart from adding women and gender studies to the University of Cape Town curriculum, AGI convened a continent-wide programme to strengthen gender studies and research. The AGI strategy brought African departments and centres into a re-engagement with feminist movements around pedagogic and curriculum work to advance feminist agendas within and beyond the African academy. Relationships between African and Caribbean feminists have been sustained through exchange visits and mutual invitations, and the establishment of the African gender studies journal Feminist Africa in 2002 informed the establishment of the Caribbean Feminist Review five years later, in 2007. ^10
Between the 1980s and the present day, African feminists on the continent and in the diaspora have been able to mobilize resources to establish NGOs and programmes for women. This has enabled the formation of thousands of women's organizations carrying out advocacy, training, information and resource work, and significant outreach to women in remote and disadvantaged communities.
The impact of so much mobilization cannot be detailed here, but there is now an extensive bibliography of sources detailing some of the advances and gains that have accrued to women through the rise of feminist organizing and its pervasiveness. Indeed, feminism of one form or another has come to pervade many arenas, across civil society and social movements, political and state structures, legal and policy making institutions, religious formations, social and educational spaces, as if it will indeed leave no stone unturned. Perhaps the most celebrated gains have been those evident in gender equality clauses in constitutions and the African Union's policy commitments, as well as in numerous legal reforms by national governments. It is perhaps only on the African continent that the highest level of governance - the African Union has responded to concerted feminist advocacy, with a series of new protocols and commitments. ^11
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[^0]: 10 Feminist Africa Issue 6 'Diaspora Feminisms' was edited by Trinidadian feminist Rhoda Reddock, and a number of Africans have contributed to the Caribbean Feminist Review.
11 The Protocol on the African Charter on Human and People's Rights and the Rights of Women in Africa (the Maputo Protocol) of 2003 has been signed by 36/54 nations (as at July 2016), and is the most advanced statement on African women's rights. Furthermore, in 2003, a Diaspora Division was established at the African Union.
The strategic adeptness of women's organizing in African and Caribbean contexts has resulted in significant advances in women's legal rights and political participation, policy discourses and provisions for women. However, the opportunities afforded by development funding have been contradictory. Specific advances in one or more areas have often been accompanied by wider de-politicization that may steer attention away from controversial subject matter and issues, or more radical actions. Often, feminist energy and skills are redirected towards providing skills and services to a development industry concerned by 'mainstreaming gender' in inclusionary ways that serve to maintain the status quo. In this sense, radical feminist agendas tend to remain at the margins, while the mainstream landscape is complicated by new professionals variously referred to as 'gender trainers', 'gender experts' and 'gender consultants' who offer distilled technical skills that are freed from the historical-political ferment that concerned the generations before them.
New questions arise with every gain. So, for example, what criteria differentiate 'success' from 'appropriation'? What material conditions determine whether the appropriation of feminist concepts becomes a good or a bad thing? With the massive proliferation and dispersal of discourses enabled by digital technologies and facilitated by postmodernism, how do we establish what is 'real' as compared to purely discursive? Pan-African feminism is born of intertwined epistemologies of resistance, which respond to material conditions of African histories and the fact that African women and men live different lives in societies that are more or less segregated by sex and gender. While sex and gender may be fluid and flexible in terms of African cultures, the fact is that with globalization, Western hegemonies of race, gender and sexuality are propagated through the 'global development' industry, as much as by 'global market forces' constricting the historically available possibilities in ways that demand more radical and complex strategies of resistance. | The development nexus | [
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[Transnational feminism for Global Africa]
Transnational feminism for Global Africa
African feminism, once freed from the burden of proving its authenticity and relevance, embraces a transnational outlook derived from a long experience of transnational contacts across the African world. The example of the PanAfrican Women's Organization (PAWO) reminds us that African women have recognized the merits of continental unity since at least 1962. More than half a century later, the convening of the fourth African Feminist Forum (AFF) in
Harare in 2016 marks a radically different moment and heralds twenty-firstcentury possibilities. The African Feminist Forum has convened four times since its creation in 2016, attended by hundreds of African women on the basis of their identification with feminist politics. The Forums are uniquely designed, self-critically reflective celebrations of continental feminist movements in all their diversity. Pursuing a transgenerational and inclusive mobilizing strategy, the AFF promotes the hosting of national forums to involve and inspire hundreds more women across the continent. ^12
Transnational feminism can be defined as a contemporary movement that proceeds on the basis of identified common interests that are not bound by national borders and can be better addressed by cross-border organizing. As an epistemological perspective, it offers a methodology for challenging the gendered effects of globalization, including the unfavourable terms under which women from Africa and other Southern contexts are being incorporated into the global market. Transnational feminism is explicitly anti-capitalist and retains an antiimperialist focus on the exploitative features of the global market economy. ^13 Today there is greater engagement with mainstream matters that earlier generations might not have regarded as priorities for women: macroeconomic policies and global trading systems; conflict and security; environmental degradation and climate change, all of which are addressed through transnational organizations and networks and supported by transnational women's funds, ^14 whose modest budgets provide little indication of their global impact.
Finally, the evidence presented here demonstrates connections that have passed the test of time and have the potential to facilitate processes that can contribute to the realization of an inclusive, just and equitable vision of Global Africa that brings freedom to African peoples, wherever they are.
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[^0]: 12 The founding commitments of the African Feminist Forum are articulated in the Charter of Principles for African Feminists. The assertiveness of the Charter and its far-reaching objectives point to a rising generation of African feminists working in and for Africa, finding the power and voice to address longterm injustices and confront even the most contentious issues. These include action against the multiple forms of violence perpetrated against women, the rights of lesbian, gay, transgender and other sexual minorities, alongside long-term struggles for political, socio-cultural and economic justice.
13 Many feminist networks remain concerned with all the issues that would conventionally be defined as feminist: sex- and gender-based violence, sexuality and sexual freedom, women's health and reproductive rights, harmful traditional practices, women's education and political participation, women's human rights, domestic labour, the exploitation of women's labour, sexual harassment, constraints on women's mobility and the policing of dress. Feminist movements are at the forefront of such organizing, taking full advantage of new technological tools and levels of mobility.
14 For example, the Global Fund for Women and the African Women's Development Fund. | Transnational feminism for Global Africa | [
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[CHAPTER 15 | INTELLECTUAL GENEALOGIES OF BLACK/QUEER/DIASPORA]
CHAPTER 15
INTELLECTUAL GENEALOGIES OF BLACK/QUEER/DIASPORA
Jafari S. Allen
As we proceed upon the specific and difficult tasks of survival in the twenty-first century, we of the African diaspora need to recognize our differences as well as our similarities. [...] We seek what is most fruitful for all people, and less bunger for our children. But we are not the same. [...] To successfully battle the many faces of institutionalized racial oppression, we must share the strengths of each other's vision as well as the weaponries born of particular experience. First, we must recognize each other. ^1 | CHAPTER 15 | INTELLECTUAL GENEALOGIES OF BLACK/QUEER/DIASPORA | [
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[CHAPTER 15 | Introduction]
Introduction
Black/queer/diaspora work emerges from radical black and Third World lesbian feminist art, activism and scholarship, and builds upon the scholarly and programmatic practice of black queer studies and queer of colour critique, to consider the state of diasporic black queer projects in the context of various shifts in empires and affiliations. For at least thirty years, activists, artists and scholars have shown the social and poetic co-articulation of blackness, 'queerness' and nationality - putting together how blackness and oppositional
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[^0]: 1 Audre Lorde, foreword to Showing our Colors (Opitz et al., 1992).
consciousness, and blackness and sexual and gender non-conformity, are lived, albeit uneasily. The conjunction of these various streams of work owes much to the maturation of the literature in black and queer of colour studies, and the current existential crisis in queer studies, and also to the recognition of the presence of the transnational in every moment, even 'at home', and the rapidity of popular forms of (uneven) global exchange. In this short summary of the black/queer/diaspora studies project, I hope to provide a sketch of the salient issues and texts in this emergent field. Today, new South-South conversations from the Caribbean to various regions of Africa, Asia and Oceania, for example - and voices from the North, clarifying their simultaneous British-, American-, Canadian- or Europeanness, are beginning to be heard in a framework that is non-national and 'non-Western'.
Introduction
Brazilian history is organically linked to modern slavery. While LusoBrazilian history stretches back over 500 years, barely a fifth of this corresponds to the post-abolition era. Over the course of almost 400 years, indigenous and African populations were used as slave labour. In the beginning of the Portuguese conquest of the territory that was to become Brazil, it was the indigenous populations that were enslaved throughout the sixteenth century and part of the seventeenth century. During the latter period, they were replaced by Africans, particularly as of the seventeenth century. Although Africans were mainly used as workers in the sugar mills, over time they came to occupy the entire sugar production chain, from planting and harvesting to grinding and making the final product, which was exported to Europe. Sugar was thus the classic commodity of a colonial agro-export economy, linked not only to the metropolis of Portugal, but also to other regions, such as Holland, Italy and Germany - countries that had not yet been formed - where the slave business and the slave trade were financed. This traffic, in turn, provided the bulk of the labour exploited by this Atlantic system, and thus remained in its various developments in the production of other goods - particularly gold and coffee - until the final abolition of the traffic to Brazil in the mid-nineteenth century.
Despite the brutality of the situation, slave resistance did not waver. Although not the only forms of collective resistance under slavery, the most common were revolt and the formation of quilombos and mocambos, the terms used in Brazil for communities of fugitive slaves. Although many quilombos were formed gradually - by means of adhesion from individual fugitives or groups - others resulted from collective flights sparked by revolts in one or more plantations, mines or villages. This seems to have been the case for the famous quilombo of Palmares, whose initial nucleus was formed by a revolt in a mill in the captaincy of Pernambuco. Fugitives also incited rebellion among enslaved workers on plantations and farms, perfectly reflecting what we understand by the term 'revolt'.
This work thus pursues 'new' sets of questions, conjuncturally related to perennial ones: Do African and Afrodescendent sexual minorities and gender insurgents share common desires, or conditions, across borders and languages? What 'erotic subjectivities' (Allen, 2011b) and insurgent black queer poetics obtain in sites scholars have previously ignored, or spaces that reach 'across', 'through' and 'between'? What political or affective strategies might be effective for one place or space, but not for others? And finally, what methodologies must we use to track all of this? By what means should we convey our analysis and reflection? Black/queer/ diaspora work surfaces at a moment when the terms 'black', 'queer' and 'diaspora' have already begun to be elaborated beyond the metaphors and concepts offered by any one of these constituencies, and beyond false dichotomies of essentialism and anti-essentialism (Hall, 1996; Gilroy, 1993; Mercer, 1994; Carby, 1987; Carby, 1999; Lara, 2006; Glave, 2008a). ^2 Following Rinaldo Walcott's crucial intervention to the effect that a 'diaspora reading practice [...] can disrupt the centrality of nationalist discourses within the black studies project and thereby also allow for an elaboration of a black queer diaspora project' as 'the reconceptualizing of black queer and black diaspora produces both a black queer diaspora and a new black queer theory' (Walcott, 2007), we can thus claim to position black/queer/ diaspora in black studies, queer studies and feminist studies as a 'backbone rather than anomaly' (Johnson and Henderson, 2005, p. xii).
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[^0]: 2 We were also profoundly shaped and inspired - from the time we were children and young adults - by the prose of writers like Zora Neale Hurston, James Baldwin, Gwendolyn Brooks, Chinua Achebe, Derek Walcott, Dionne Brand, Toni Morrison and others, who are of course masters of affective and performative writing. For many of us therefore, black/queer/diaspora is as much about the writing - that is, not 'writing up' data, reporting or mimicking the prose style of French theory, but rather attempting to convey feeling as supplement or complement to information - as, and articulated with, theory and methodology.
Here, black identity/identification is understood as hybrid, contingent, relational and no less socially real. That is, 'black' is a useful term for describing the historical, political and affective ties of many individuals to one another, yet we do not attach mystical, transhistorical or essential biological value to this term. The black diaspora is at once about particular locations (actual and imagined), roots/uprooting (principally understood as being from Africa, but equally, in other cases, to and within Africa), and routes along which bodies, ideas and texts travel. By diaspora we mean these conditions of movement and emplacement, and processes of (dis)identification, and also relationality, as Jacqueline Nassy Brown (2005) points out. Afrodescendent groups' (dis) identification as black, Afro-hyphenated, Kréyol, Creole, mixed or other, does not occur in a vacuum, but is conditioned by particularities of place, in relation to discourses and practices within other places. Black diasporic relationality refers to this process. And while actual migration, whether forced, chosen or coerced, continues to be a major factor in making the black world, the diaspora is so deeply constitutive of the fabric of blackness that it is also experienced among individuals who will never leave their own town, but who nevertheless powerfully imagine their own black/queer 'other' identity. | CHAPTER 15 | Introduction | [
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[Who's 'queer'?/Whose queer?]
Who's 'queer'?/Whose queer?
Black and queer of colour scholars have already pointed to the important contributions of the larger enterprise of queer theory, with respect to its ruthless critique of normativity, and have roundly criticized queer theory's proposition of universal heterosexual privilege, which undermines the importance of intersectional experience and positionality (see especially, Rodríguez, 2011, pp. 331-348; Allen, 2009b, pp. 311-326 (16); Halberstam, 2005, p. 23 (3-4 84-85), pp. 219-233). Sexual minorities and gender variant individuals from the global South who negotiate but do not wholly capitulate to what Cymene Howe (2002, pp. 237-79) has called the 'universal queer subject' discursively fall, in both time and space, outside the narrowly Western and Northern middleclass gay constructions of 'family', 'lesbian', 'gay', 'queer' and 'gay rights'. Not only are black subjects always already queer in terms of normative liberal ideals of the person, but black queers also often seem 'a queer too far' for much of queer studies and gay and lesbian popular culture and politics. Still, 'queer' not only marks one of the constitutive academic discourses and historical moments here, but is also a critical way of seeing and saying. That is, following Muñoz (2009,
p. 1), for me, 'queerness is essentially about [...] an insistence on potentiality or concrete possibility for another world'. And of course, for black queers, survival has always been about finding ways to connect some of what is disconnected, to embody and re-member. Collections such as E. Patrick Johnson and Mae G. Henderson's Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology, Jennifer DeVere Brody and Dwight A. McBride's 'Plum Nelly: New Essays in Black Queer Studies' (a special issue of Calalloo: A Journal of African and African-American Arts and Letters) and a number of other works have already drawn the lineages of black queer studies. 'Plum Nelly' and black queer studies each emerge in different ways from the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference (2000), organized by Johnson at the University of North Carolina (Boggs, 2000). Black queer studies more or less followed the parameters of the conference, focusing on blacks in the United States of America, with Rinaldo Walcott's contribution pushing at these borders from Canada, a 'queer place in diaspora'. However, Michelle Wright and Antje Schuhmann's collection Blackness and Sexualities, which emerges from the Europe-based Collegium for African-American Research and was published in Germany, broadens the geographic and thematic scopes of the black queer studies project, to Europe (and Cuba), as well as to themes that are not strictly LGBTQ. Each of these works, characterized by insurgent re-readings of classical or otherwise well-known texts, reclamation of intellectual traditions, and writing into the scholarly record subjects otherwise relegated to the margins, at once cleared and claimed space (Battle and Barnes, 2010; Page and Richardson, 2010).
More recently, Omise'eke Natasha Tinsley's GLQ article 'Black Atlantic, Queer Atlantic: Queer Imaginings of the Middle Passage' proposed a rethinking of metaphors of ships, oceans as bodies, and performative bodies (offered by Paul Gilroy, Antonio Benitez Rojo and Judith Butler, respectively), arguing that the black queer Atlantic 'churns differently [...] diffracting meanings', leaving black queer diasporic subjects 'whole and broken', 'brutalized and feeling [...] divided from other diasporic migrants and linked to them' (Smith, F. 2011). Apropos of queer of colour critique, José Esteban Muñoz's Cruising Utopia: The Then and There of Queer Futurity follows his earlier work's commitment to creating alternative visions of performance and performativity, read through a lens constituted in and through cultural theory that affirms futurity, but with a difference. As more individuals trained in social science methodologies contribute to this work, we are beginning to see new possibilities (McCready, 2010). Say it Loud, I'm Black and I'm Proud: Black Pride Survey 2000, Gloria Wekker's The Politics of Passion, Wesley Crichlow's Buller Men and Batty
Bwoys, David A.B. Murray's Opacity, my own work and Juan Battle's Social Justice Sexuality Project, now under way, have begun to provide ethnographic dimensions and empirical data (Decena, 2011; Moore, 2011; Allen, 2011b) for black queer studies and queer of colour critique.
While commentators have astutely cited the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference (2000) as a watershed moment which provided both a platform for the staging of black queer studies and a foundation for various other related pursuits, like collaboration and mentoring that support the work of black queer studies and black queer scholars and artists, an event that preceded it by five years is just as significant, yet has garnered little critical attention (Alexander, 2000, pp. 1285-1305; DeVere Brody, 2000, pp. 1-1277; Woodard, 2000, pp. 1278-1284). The 'Black Nations/Queer Nations?' Conference, documented by Shari Frilot in a film of the same name, was concerned not only with raising questions about the study of black LGBT two-spirited and same-gender-loving black people, across nationality, class, ability, gender and sexual expression, but also with expanding the capacity for critical engagement and political organizing (Frilot, 1995). As Vincent Woodard asserted in his astute review of the Black Queer Studies in the Millennium Conference (2000), the 'Black Nations/Queer Nations?' Conference 'was the first to pose the black queer question in an academic setting'. The interrogative and often contradictory meanings and politics of each term - black, queer and nations - and the articulations instantiated by the stroke (/) make this at once a potentially destabilizing and generative heuristic. In fact, this heuristic sutures (or makes coherent) the in-between idea of black/queer/diaspora. 'Black Nations/Queer Nations?' is thus also an important model for engaged projects, which, like black/queer/diaspora work, attempts to deepen and broaden the ineluctable connections between scholarship, activism and artistry. Even a cursory look at the foundational works of black queer studies - anthologies, broadsides, chapbooks, poetry collections and other non-academic intellectual and political work - demonstrates this connection. ^3 Black queer studies and queer of colour critique is practised not only in scholarly publications
, but also in teaching at graduate and undergraduate levels, and in panels offered at local and international conferences and symposia. ^4 In addition, a number of critical archival and cultural projects, political organizations and personal connections between individuals
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[^0]: 3 See especially Barbara Smith, Audre Lorde and Joseph Beam. Much primary material, including personal papers and ephemera can be found at the In the Life Archive.
4 Caribbean Region of the International Resource Network (Caribbean IRN).
whose networks and texts stretch across the globe, represent a more widespread and democratic circuit of black queer here and there. | Who's 'queer'?/Whose queer? | [
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[Genealogical matrices]
While literatures on globalization and transnationalism have tended to highlight the ways in which the State is disappearing or being eclipsed by global capital and new information technologies, even neo-liberal (leaning) States retain their powers and prerogatives of surveillance, severe discipline and in some cases expulsion or extermination of vulnerable persons, even as they continue to disinvest in public health, education and welfare. My own research in Cuba, Trinidad and Tobago and Brazil, and experiences at home in the United States of America, impels us to take seriously the distinctions between socialist and liberal States, post-colonial and imperial nations, North and South. There are crucial historical and political-economic distinctions that condition and structure both the ways in which a State - any State - attempts to regulate particular bodies, and how national belonging is reckoned. Still, it seems the State - seemingly every State, though of course with widely varying scales and intensities - depends upon racialized heteropatriarchy (which is always also classed) to constitute and maintain itself in the global hierarchy of States (Allen, 2009a, pp. 53-62; Allen, 2011b). Since she wrote The Boundaries of Blackness, Cathy J. Cohen has exposed the ways in which the United States of America and black institutions, academics and families construct the dangerous vulnerabilities of the deeply and multiply subaltern - an analytic category she has formulated as 'punks, bulldaggers, and welfare queens' (Cohen, 1997, pp. 437465). In her essay 'Deviance as Resistance: A New Research Agenda for the Study of Black Politics', Cohen critiques African-American studies' politics of respectability and argues that the reputed deviance of lesbians, gays, transgender and bisexual persons, single mothers and State aid recipients, in the eyes of American policymakers as well as scholars and civil society leaders, marks this group not only as unruly would-be subject-citizens, but also outside of cultural boundaries of belonging and care (Cohen, 2004, vol. 1
, marks this group not only as unruly would-be subject-citizens, but also outside of cultural boundaries of belonging and care (Cohen, 2004, vol. 1, pp. 27-45). Similarly, M. Jacqui Alexander has argued that some bodies, such as those of the lesbian and the 'prostitute', cannot be included as citizens in former colonies of the Caribbean precisely because they embody sexual agency and eroticism radically out of step with the aspiration of the nation to advertise itself as independent, developed, disciplined and poised to join the number of putatively civilized
States (Alexander, 1994, pp. 5-23; Alexander, 1991). As she beautifully shows, this same 'erotic autonomy' is the place from which individuals and groups have staged various rebellions. Taken together, the work of Alexander and Cohen illustrates both a set of nettlesome political problems and a theoretical puzzle, across a black diaspora that is at the centre of the black/queer/diaspora project: Is there any place where the benefits and recognition of citizenship can accrue to the unruly - the 'prostitute', homosexual, 'welfare queen', transgender person, or the black? What calculus emerges when these gendered, raced and sexed categories of the non-national, deviant, non-ethnic/racial, non-conforming, or merely 'other' are compounded? One of the major contributions of the black/ queer/diaspora project is to show that 'diaspora' constitutes a way out of the nation State. Failing inclusion as a properly hygienic citizen or subject, where is the place for the black queer? This query also pointedly suggests that the notion of citizenship, with its obvious rules of exclusion and exception, stands in for a wider range of assurances and freedoms, since non-State actors like families, cultural groups and especially religious organizations, often think like a State - making strange bedfellows with repressive State apparatus in their support for projects of respectability. Their shared project is to discipline individuals into local legibility and particular forms of subjectification. An assortment of players, including Muslim clerics in northern Nigeria, Christian fundamentalists governing the Statehouse of Indiana and other areas of the United States of America, and government officials in the Caribbean and East Africa, citing their personal conservative Christian and Hindu religious beliefs, erroneously imagine a moment before the experience of same-sex desire, and support the enactment or continuation of 'anti-gay' legislation. As they perform a celebration of sexual diversity
, erroneously imagine a moment before the experience of same-sex desire, and support the enactment or continuation of 'anti-gay' legislation. As they perform a celebration of sexual diversity, Western European nations continue to disclaim the black and Afro-hyphenated within their borders.
Black 'quare' studies in the United States of America have focused on 'making an intervention at home', as Johnson and Henderson remind us. ^5 Recently, examinations of African, Caribbean, Canadian, European and Latin American literature and film have revealed that this theme is indeed global: 'home' as a site of ambivalence and potential 'conflama' (a United States black gay vernacular composite connoting confusion and drama), yet at the same time somehow constituting Hemphill's 'place that will be worth so much effort and love'. It
[^0]
[^0]: 5 'Quare' of course refers to E. Patrick Johnson's important intervention in Black Queer Studies: A Critical Anthology, which first appeared in 2001: "Quare" Studies, or (Almost) Everything I Know about Queer Studies I Learned from My Grandmother'. Text and Performance Quarterly, No. 21, pp. 1-25.
is just as central in black/queer/diaspora literature beyond America's borders (Walcott in Johnson and Henderson, 2005). Our Caribbean: A Gathering of Lesbian and Gay Writing from the Antilles, edited by Thomas Glave, is just as powerfully read as a diasporic text as an Antillean one, and while mostly from the 1990s and 2000s, includes work from as far back as 1956 that reveals, like much of Glave's own beautifully evocative lyrical writing, that 'home' in (and out of, and returning back to) the Caribbean is also a troubled space. Of course Canadian/Trinbagonian Dionne Brand's critically acclaimed oeuvre also layers (im)migration, diaspora, dispacement and longing. While there is a growing number of works on Africa that sympathetically engage sexuality, including those of Marc Epprecht, Neville Hoad and the working group's own Graeme Reid, the impressive collection edited by Sylvia Tamale, African Sexualities: A Reader (which is more of a comprehensive reader on sexualities rather than specific to homosexualities and trans identities) has opened the way for more work highlighting African sexual minorities and gender insurgents from the perspectives of black African activists. As the work of photographer and activist Ajamu X and the community arts organization rukus! shows, Britain continues to be a hotbed of black/queer/diaspora work. This of course follows the work of British artists like filmmaker Isaac Julien, Nigerian photographer Rotimi FaniKayode, and critical cultural scholar Kobena Mercer, whose work in the late 1980s and 1990s spoke pointedly and engagingly to black queer culture across three continents, before focusing more particularly on visual art. This brilliant and provocative work parsed the political and conceptual consequences of gender, racial and sexual difference, nationality, ethnicity and aesthetics within Britain and beyond. Moreover, popular forms of Africentricity - another iteration of earlier pan-African movements - are also well represented in black lesbian and gay culture in Britain and the United States of America. | Genealogical matrices | [
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[Genealogical matrices]
As Cohen notes, truly radical or transformative politics have not resulted from queer theory thus far. In some cases, it has in fact 'served to reinforce simple dichotomies between heterosexual and everything "queer"'(Cohen, 1999, p. 22). Perhaps the transformative politics we have been waiting for will emerge through following and participating in actual political transformations on the ground. As one example, the concept of 'sexual orientation inclusion advocacy', as practised in Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, may provide fertile ground. This work by and on behalf of vulnerable populations of LGBT persons seeking to be free from violence, harassment and discrimination is far from a singleminded focus on 'sexual rights'; it sees itself as extending participation and protection for minorities and vulnerable persons of all kinds, in these self-
consciously multicultural post-colonial countries. Thus their queer work, which seeks to redeem the anti-colonial struggle, is, to borrow the title of a recent Arcus Operating Foundation report that surveyed the field, at once about Saving Lives, Promoting Democracy, Alleviating Poverty, and Fighting AIDS (Galst, 2010). Uninvited interventions by radical black feminists in black politics, arts and letters demonstrated that submerged, discredited or 'alternative' knowledges, produced in the interstices of violence, silence, invisibility or forgetting, exposed a wider horizon of possibilities than had been imagined previously (Combahee River Collective, 1986; Ferguson, 2004; Clarke, 1983 [2000], pp. 197-208; Simmons, 1983 [2007]). The black/queer/diaspora project takes up this challenge to develop a synthetic vision and methodology of diasporic black queer futurity. We have taken up the work that Cathy J. Cohen has challenged us to do, shifting research agendas to understand and meet the urgent demands of those who are multiply vulnerable. Furthermore, we are following M. Jacqui Alexander's proposal that the key epistemological aim of our work should be to think/live/write contradictions of genre, discipline, materiality, spirituality and affect, all at once (Alexander, 2007, pp. 154-166). | Genealogical matrices | [
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[GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction]
Introduction
It was at the beginning of the second half of the fourth century of the Hejira (H), or tenth century of the Common Era (CE), that geographer and chronicler Muhammad Abū al-Qāsim Ibn Hawqal decided to travel the world. The story of this pilgrimage is recorded in the book he left for posterity: Kitäb al-Masālik wa-l-Mamālik (Book of Roads and Kingdoms), known mainly under its other name Ṣurat al-'ard (The Face of the Earth). In this travel journal the author explains that he wants to examine the reasons for the differences between countries and the customs, culture and ways they adopt. In all likelihood he left Baghdad on 7 Ramadān 332 H / 15 May 943 CE. He travelled to the Maghreb, Sahara, South Africa and Muslim Spain from 336 to 340 H ( 947 to 951 CE). He went on to Egypt and Syria, followed by Iran, Armenia, Transoxania and Iraq before winding up his travels in 362 H / 973 CE with a journey across Arab Sicily. This journey of over thirty years resulted in this itinerant geographer writing an exciting narrative based, he said, on his unequivocal observation of reality and a meticulous appraisal of the testimonies he had collected. We are particularly interested in the description of African countries and his perception of blacks in general.
Ibn Hawqal remains silent when it comes to the real motives for his travels. But at the beginning, in his prologue, he presents a succinct account of his investigative methods and the reasons for choosing the people he deemed worthy of inclusion in his account and those whom, because of their different characteristics, he excluded. The author provides a geographical and ethnocultural map of the world based on phenotypical and religious criteria. In an empirical way, it offers a classification that crosses the line of colour and distinguishes people by their customs and modes of governance. This chromatic, custom-orientated and political taxonomy ended with territories inhabited by blacks being seen as the representation and quintessence of the most radical kind of otherness. In the author's eyes this part of the world was the prototype of wild societies living in a state of nature. Dark-skinned, devoid of beliefs and intelligence, these people had slid to the bottom of the human hierarchy.
Having established that much, however, the author changes his mind and plays down his opinion a little, appraising two distinct African communities. Apparently, the moral and institutional weaknesses that he attributes to blacks in general are not entirely irreversible. Hence the Ethiopians and Nubians are included in the ranks of civilized nations, being capable of extricating themselves from the mass of black people mired in unbelief and absolute ignorance. However, the author seems to insinuate that such qualities are not specific to those peoples. In his opinion, they are the product of closeness to Egypt and Byzantium. This happy coincidence of being situated near two great civilizations has given them the advantage of avoiding the insurmountable defects considered widespread among the blacks. Ibn Hawqal takes great care to explain his way of thinking. Clearly, this is based on an elementary logic that excludes so-called primitive peoples and retains only those whose customs have been mellowed by culture and civilization. Apparently the issue is not simply the type of social or political organization, because the choice also depends on other peculiarities specific to them. Ergo, because of their physical and moral differences, their identity is said to be reinforced by a twofold naturalness. The climate and physical environment, combined with the prism of colour, would therefore explain the different way in which they are treated.
This approach is neither surprising nor unexpected. The same grounds for categorization and cultural stigmatization were at work from the beginning of the Arab conquests. Ibn Hawqal is heir to a long tradition that is perceptible amongst the earliest geographers, chroniclers and travellers. It would probably be wrong to downplay the importance of his work. His concern to educate is clear, especially as he claims to want, as a traveller and eyewitness, to give an
informed account of events that he himself has experienced. But despite his willingness to convey tangible information, the author fails to pull away from the preconceptions of his time.
Let us, then, continue to follow his line of reasoning. Undoubtedly, Ibn Hawqal is quick to give his conjectures the appearance of a principle of evidence. Hence the following text:
I have not mentioned the country of blacks in the Maghreb, nor Bedjdja and Zanj, nor other groups living in the vicinity because proper organization of empires is down to religious conviction, good morals and wise institutions; and the preservation of wealth depends on a just method of government. But these people neglect these qualities and do not participate in them; they therefore deserve to be singled out from other empires when it comes to being developed. However, some of the blacks settled in the vicinity of these famous empires adopt a religious belief, regulated lifestyles and sensible institutions and become closer to the inhabitants of these empires: an example are the Nubians and Abyssinians who conform to Byzantine ways of life. Before Islam, they were confined on Byzantine lands just as Nubian region borders Egypt and Abyssinia skirts the coastline of the Red Sea. Between these peoples and Egypt there are settled desert areas with gold mines; on the other hand they are linked to Eygpt and Syria via the Red Sea. [...] These are the known empires: the territory of Islam has grown by annexing the land of the aforementioned empires and it has seen its prestige and grandeur grow as a result (Ibn Hawqal, 1967, pp. 9-10).
Evidently this viewpoint is far from unique. The framework of the narrative and the specific use of words are clearly reminiscent of the words and mindset of his predecessors, especially Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī (1967), al-Balkhī (1899) and al-Istakhrī (1961). Furthermore, he claimed that al-Istakhrī, his teacher and loyal companion, had entrusted him with the work and made him responsible for correcting topographical maps and annotations. The composition of his work clearly shows a direct link with a particular literary genre from the late third to early fourth centuries called 'adab al-masālik wa-l-mamālik (general survey of roads and kingdoms) which helped to forge and propagate a new vision of the world. With Arab expansion beyond the Maghreb, Sudan and the Mediterranean, this viewpoint would be widely expounded by successive Arab scholars. The way blacks were perceived was therefore to leave a lasting impression.
It must be said that during the first centuries of Islam the image of the African continent was only an obscure and fragmented reflection. In general, the weight of intellectual opinion among Arab scholars would long be marked by the old prejudices inherited from their Greek masters. Despite the importance | GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction | [
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[GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction]
of contact with Sudanese kingdoms and of trading initiatives, mainly geared towards gold and slavery, we have very few accounts or overviews of Africa, its peoples, their character traits and history. The speculative and descriptive geography did not reveal anything specific to the old continent. As for the term Ifriqiya, this designated the eastern Maghreb and presented no analogy whatsoever with the name that would later be given to the 'dark continent'. The latter was seen as an archipelago of wild lands inhabited by scattered peoples, which extended to the fringes of the Maghreb, the Sahelo-Sudanese strip, the shores of the Red Sea and the lands bordering the Indian Ocean and the Sea of Zanj. Early travel accounts described a hostile world inhabited by primitive populations; paradoxically, they were of major interest because of trading opportunities in gold, precious wood, ivory and enslaved people.
How were these territories, criss-crossed for long periods by traders familiar with long-term trade, so cloaked in silence? However, if the Arab merchants had been endowed with audaciousness and commercial skill alone it is unlikely that they could have extracted so much profit from such a remote and perilous undertaking. Those taking such risks must have had an extensive knowledge of routes, stopovers and distances between the countries concerned. But that alone cannot explain the success of the Arab merchants. They also needed an accurate appreciation of the needs, habits, psychological inclinations, tastes and preferences of the African peoples.
Despite the many strands of Arab scholarship flourishing by the beginning of the ninth century, knowledge about the black population remained extremely scant. When it came to social conformity, it suffices to look at the work of geographer Ibn al-Faqīh al-Hamadhānī. In Mukbtasar Kitāb al-Buldān, he compared the shape of the planet to that of a bird. In this system, Africa was stripped of all material reality. The parts that he sketched of the northern part of the continent, from the western fringes of Egypt to the extreme edges of the Maghreb, are insubstantial. In this highly evocative allegory of the thinking of the time, Ibn al-Faqī (op. cit., pp. 3-4) recalls that:
According to 'Abd Allah Ibn Wā̄il al-Saḥmī, the shape of the world is split into five areas. The world looks like a bird's head with two wings, a chest and a tail. The head of the world is China and beyond China is where people called the Wāq-Wāq live; and beyond the Wāq-Wāq are a people whose numbers are only known to Allah. The right wing is India and beyond India there is an ocean beyond which there is no-one; the left wing is al-Khazar [...]; the chest of the world is Mecca, Hedjaz,
Syria, Iraq and Egypt; the tail stretches from Dhāt al-Humān to the Maghreb, and the worst part of the bird is the tail.
Documentary sources provide much of our information regarding the development of mindsets, the introduction of colour prejudice and the establishment of an imaginary hierarchy. Understanding the processes involved in producing stereotypes and the markers of biological and sociocultural identities proves an inexhaustible subject. To which precise moment in the history of the Arab and Muslim world can we trace back the premises of the naturalization and essentialisation of blacks? How did the transition from simple stereotype to systematic stigmatization come about? Did the latter precede or coincide with the spread of enslavement?
In general, the texts reveal the spectacle of successive and overlapping cycles of resignation and friction. They explicitly mention sporadic tension and aggravation. This is apparent in the writings of authors such as al-Djāhiz (1964, vol. I), al-Balādhurī (1996), al-Ṭabarī (1991), al-Mas'ūdī (1973), Ibn Ḥawqal (2014), al-Wakī (n.d.) and Ibn Khaldūn (n.d.). It emerges that between the late seventh and early eleventh centuries, bloody conflicts were provoked by enslaved black people. Exacerbated by the spread of enslavement into all areas of activity, the enslaved people's revolt raised chronic concerns. We know that the rebellion unleashed in the lower Mesopotamian valley between 869 and 883 resulted in tragic bloodshed. Spurred on by their early successes, the enslaved rebels extended their protests further afield and directed their attacks toward Baghdad. News spread like wildfire, spreading panic and fear throughout the Caliphate provinces.
According to the chronicle of al-Ṭabarī (op. cit., vol. V, p. 587), the longest and most bloody revolt lasted for fourteen years and pitted enslaved people against the caliphate army. This contemporary historian of events is the first to provide conclusive evidence drawn from administrative archives and facts he had personally experienced. The author describes in great detail the ups and downs of the insurgency and its spread across the land. His accounts highlight the parallel rise of wealthy bourgeois estate owners and, on the other hand, a considerable core of (mainly African) enslaved people. In addition to forced labour, the latter suffered oppression and relentless misery. We also know that though their movement involved bloodshed, the rebels succeeded in thwarting the expansion of hydrographic and agricultural initiatives in the lower Mesopotamian valley.
Importantly, it is in this context of rebellion and tragic confrontation that we witness the most violent outburst of images and negative attributes directed
Importantly, it is in this context of rebellion and tragic confrontation that we witness the most violent outburst of images and negative attributes directed
against blacks. As a result, there is a noticeable change in the tone of historical narratives. Chronicler al-Tabarī is a case in point. This historian, who is usually relatively objective when narrating facts, cannot stop himself from denigrating and maligning the actions of the insurgents. His words take on a violent tone, fiercely denouncing the enslaved rebels and describing them as a 'band of savages, godless monsters, cursed and evil traitors, enemies of God and Islam'.
This new rhetoric marks the beginning of the crystallization of the issue of colour and enslavement. When a scholar like Ibn Hawqal confesses his discomfiture about including specific information about the world of blacks in his book, this voluntary omission is not unrelated to the memory of the grim years of the enslaved people's struggle. The copyist for Ibn Hawqal (op. cit., pp. 237-8), who visited the environs of Basra during 537 H / 1122 CE, reported that 'there was scarcely anything left except ruins and rare vestiges. All the neighbourhoods have been demolished apart from a few that are still famous [...]'. This devastation, he says, began with the Zanj revolt and became more noticeable thereafter. | GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction | [
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[GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction]
By examining some classic literary, geographical and historical texts we shall attempt to unravel the complexity of these culturalist and racializing discourses. By reconstructing their semantic and genealogical threads, we shall try to identify their historical significance. As we have just seen, the founding of an immense colonial empire brought about profound socio-economic and cultural changes - a shift that shattered traditional and family values. By the middle of the seventh century, the outlines of a new society had appeared, with a particular interest in the acquisition of enslaved people. As the main source of energy and prestige, enslaved people would soon be greatly in demand. In a way that was probably different but concordant, Arab chronicles attest to this insatiable call for labour that could be fashioned and worked at will. The development of large-scale work in mines, palm groves, cotton fields and sugar cane plantations, hydroagricultural projects in Iraq, Arabia, Iran, the Persian Gulf, Maghreb and Andalusia was the lever for the mass deportation of a dependent workforce.
But the enslaved did not all come from the same world. They were an assortment of people of disparate origins and with different skin colours. Even if the warning signs of racialized discrimination were visible from the first century, it should be said that slave recruitment was not based on phenotype. That is perhaps the main difference between this model and the Atlantic enslavement model. It is certainly problematic to speak of an exact symmetry between the notions of slavery and negritude. Neither can we subscribe totally here to Achille Mbembe's reflection on modern European societies and the tragic fate
of the black man that he mentions in his Critique of Black Reason (2017). Of all human beings, he says, the Negro is the only one whose flesh was turned into a commodity. Moreover, the Negro and his race have never been linked as one in European consciousness. Since the eighteenth century they have been, as an entity, the hidden and oft denied subsoil from which modern knowledge - and also of government - was rolled out.
Obviously, the first part of this paragraph cannot apply because it does not correspond to the historical period we are dealing with here, and because of the extreme variations of origin and skin colour of those enslaved during the Middle Ages. On the other hand, the second part of his proposition, although describing a situation far removed in time and space, might not be totally devoid of meaning when it comes to thinking about otherness, similarities and dissimilarities in the Muslim world. It should not be forgotten that even back then, Arabs were not completely indifferent to the ethnic origins of the enslaved. Despite the silence and denial, some writers even had the audacity to launch a debate on the colour issue and representations of blacks. The Risāla fī Fakhr al-Sūdān, written by al-Djāhiz (died 869), the great prose writer of African descent, is clear proof of the exacerbation of social tension and ethnic prejudice. This admirable text is also a supreme historical testimony to the extent of the subjection being suffered (al-Djāhiz, op. cit., vol. I, pp. 172-226).
As a lucid observer, the author examines the history of this repressed underclass tucked away in the low-lying lands of Basra and al-Ubulla. He sheds light on their stubborn resistance in the face of contempt and exploitation. As such, he is the great initiator of a new genre in Arabic literature, that of appraising society. One of the points in favour of al-Djāhiz is that he examines the contradictions in his world from a conceptual and contextual standpoint. He is the first Muslim philosopher to describe social reality and expose the discrimination and violence suffered by black minority groups. He sets out the dilemma between so-called universal ethical principles and social practices in a clear way, without skirting the issue. The result is a careful examination and decoding of Arab perception of black minorities.
This epistle has the great merit of being both historical and didactic. It retraces the genesis of discriminatory discourse and goes on to meticulously decode the rhetorical processes and mental maps keeping blacks on the lowest rung of the human ladder. The brilliance of this author's offbeat style of writing, with its tinges of humour and irony, reveals the power of images and stereotypes. By describing their modes of enunciation, he emphasizes the scope of legends and sinister allegations. He also explains how the colour adjective aswad (black)
has come to replace the noun 'abd (slave). This lexical retroversion had the effect of reinforcing the similarity between stereotypes that mixed up social, ethnic and anthropological traits. It ultimately resulted in an essentializing category: ^1 a persistent prejudice that still haunts Arab societies. The author also puts the spotlight on another ethnic referent, that of Zanj, (plural Zunüj, and Zanjiyyāt in the feminine), often used in narrative texts to describe the enslaved black people. Originally this word was attributed to East African Bantu communities. Over time the word became widespread. 'Abd, 'aswad and Zanj became interchangeable terms. As nouns, they stood for a confusion of biological, social and cultural identities. The Risāla fī fakbr al-Sudān highlights the resonance of these discursive amalgams and their impact on collective mentalities.
It is clear that these realities date back further than al-Djāhiz's era. The main argument of this epistle is one of transparency and a strong need for a debate on the representation of blacks over the two periods of history: pre- and postIslam. He writes to the blacks, for the attention of Arabs:
This is one aspect of your misguidance. In pre-Islamic times you considered us equals and were happy for us to marry your daughters and wives. But once the laws of Islam were established you decreed that that was all obsolete (al-Djāhiz, op. cit., vol. I, p. 197)
A little further on he adds:
God - Almighty - did not create us black to disfigure us. Rather it is the climate in our countries that has caused that situation (ibid., p. 219).
Turning to the register of resistance, the author recalls certain episodes of their history in the lands of Islam. He recollects the mutiny that happened in the second half of the eighth century before the great rebellion of 869 CE: | GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction | [
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[GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction]
The Zanj said: The forty who rebelled in the valley of the Euphrates at the time of Sawwār Ibn 'Abd Allāh were our own. They displaced the inhabitants of the valley of the Euphrates from their homes and massacred the people of al-Ubulla (ibid., vol. I, p. 195).
This brief allusion to fugitives from slavery and their desperate struggles is supported by other medieval chroniclers, especially al-Balādhurī and al-Wakī̄. The latter recounts serious incidents that occurred at the beginning of the 'Abbasid caliphate. He reports clashes between dozens of brown-skinned
[^0]
[^0]: 1 These categories are still used in many Arab countries. In the Maghreb, the word 'abd is often used as a generic substitute for any individual with a dark complexion.
enslaved people, during the year 143/757-60, to the famous grand judge Sawwār Ibn 'Abd Allāh, who we know was the first Hanafi magistrate to be appointed by Caliph al-Manșūr himself (r. 136-158 H/754-775 CE).
This judge was entrusted twice with the jurisdiction of Basra; the first time from 138 to 144 H / 755 to 761 CE , followed by a three-year gap. He was reinstated as head of the magistracy in 147 H / 764 CE and remained in that post until his death in 157 H / 774 CE. Apparently in addition to his job as grand qadi (magistrate) he was also head of the police force and probably officiated for some time as a prefect. It was during his first term that, according to the author of ' A k b b \bara r al-Qudāt, a group of enslaved people caused a disturbance:
A group of twenty or so black slaves owned by Basra masters escaped on horseback and rode off towards Daoud Basin. Once there they protested vehemently, causing much tumult and noise (al-Wakī, op. cit., p. 270).
Terrified, some of his relatives advised him to kill them all. Others suggested that he should turn a blind eye, believing that they were only anguished, starving brown-skinned enslaved people who would eventually return to their masters. Others recommended sending troops over to disperse them (al-Balādhurī, op. cit., p. 350). But the situation deteriorated rapidly. The rebels took refuge in the thickets of al-Ubulla, which they turned into an improvised fort and raiding base. This restiveness quickly turned into a major movement. Despite their small number, they spread their radius of activity and raged for several days, sowing havoc and destruction, attacking the houses of the rich and killing many inhabitants. They even challenged the authorities by congregating close to the prefect's house.
Finally, qadi Sawwār decided to put an end to the rising insurgency and called in the army. Government troops repelled the rebels and massacred most of them. Shortly afterwards, however, another revolt broke out, this time in the heart of the holy city of Medina, egged on by other groups of enslaved black people. It is likely that stories of the exploits in Basra and al-Ubulla would have helped boost the boldness of those enslaved in Medina.
Most chroniclers described these enslaved individuals by the simple generic of Sūdān. For al-Djāhiz these rebels were undoubtedly Zanj. We cannot say exactly when they began to settle in southern Iraq. But it is highly likely that they were deported to Iraq under the first Umayyad caliphs to work on canals, terracing/earthwork and irrigation projects. It is in this region that most enslaved Africans were found.
Considered to be particularly disorderly, they were the source of the most infamous Arab proverbs; and the butt of the most ferocious rants by Christian doctor and Baghdad theologian Ibn Buṭlān. According to him, owning these kinds of slaves was not easy. Judging them to be disobedient and fractious, he recommended they be treated with harshness and brutality and forced to work until they dropped to their knees. In his opinion, enslavement and hard labour went together because, he explained:
[T]heir extremely dark skin, hateful nature, mood swings, careless and unthinking temperaments, physical endurance and capacity to withstand pain and suffering predispose them "naturally" to hard labour. (Ibn Buṭlān, 1957, pp. 354-378)
This treatise, written by the highly skilled practitioner Ibn Butlān, offers a singular and striking framework for psychological and social representation. The author tries to sketch a racialized classification of people and ethnicity. From this value grid he goes on to a kind of "rationalization" of domestic activity and socio-professional assignment. Armenians and Zanj, considered to be particularly disorderly and rebellious, are, from that moment on, described as the vilest and most dastardly of the enslaved, whether black or white, on planet earth.
The recurrence of revolts, terrorism and repression led to the question of whether enslaved resistance boosted the impact of categorization. Indeed, we can see the gradual formation of the spectre of irremediable human inferiority of the enslaved. For their part, Muslim jurists did not fail to provide legal and moral assurances legitimizing the legality of the slave trade and reinforcing the authority of masters over their servants. In his Risäla, devoted to elements of Malikite Muslim dogma, Ibn Abī Zayd al-Qayrawānī (2005, pp. 146, 150, 182), while admitting ambiguity regarding enslaved status, did not hesitate to legally associate children born to enslaved females with cattle, and brown-skinned enslaved people with fleeing camels.
In short, it is a terrible blow to reduce the enslaved to the status of an animal. From his own experience of being enslaved, Frederick Douglass shows the pitfalls inherent in these manœuvres aimed at reversing the causes and effects of oppression and enslavement:
Ignorance and depravity, he says, and the inability to rise from degradation to civilisation and respectability are the most common allegations made with regard to the oppressed. The evils of slavery and oppression are precisely those that the owners of slaves and oppressors would like to assign from their system to the natural character of their victims. In this way, the very crimes of slavery become the very best defence of slavery (F. Douglass, quoted by Gates, 1995, p. 94).
However, in addition to the power of images and prejudices, the register of myth and religion is mobilized in turn to give the most misleading insinuations more weight. From this point onwards, negritude, stupidity, ugliness and turpitude are presented as obvious signs of a congenitally weak, deceitful and hypocritical nature. We find in the work of Ibn Qutayba, a former disciple of al-Djāhiz who ended up turning his back on his master's thinking, an eloquent testimony to the way in which this gradual and progressive shift in the ethic stereotype slid towards contempt and stigma. In a passage in his work Kitäb al-Ma'ārif, Ibn Qutayba returns to the question of blacks, the Sūdān and the so-called divine curse. To do this he appeals to the authority of Wahb Ibn al-Munabbih (born in the mid-eleventh century), a Christian of Yemeni descent who was honoured and celebrated for his immense knowledge of the Bible and Talmud. Ibn Qutayba states that in the beginning, blacks were white, beautiful and radiant, before Noah cast his curse on the children of Ham: | GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction | [
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[GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction]
Wahb Ibn al-Munabbih reports that Hām, the son of Nūh, was originally a white man. He had a beautiful face and a very pleasing appearance. But God changed the colour of Hām following the curse of Nūh, his father. Hāam then went away followed by his children and settled on the coast. God made them multiply and grow. They became the lineage of black people called the Sūdān. They ate fish. They sharpened their teeth like needles so the flesh of fish stuck to the teeth. Some of the descendents of Hām settled in the Maghreb. Hāam produced Kūsh, Kan'ān, and Fūt. The latter went to live in India and Sindh and peopled the area with his posterity. Kūsh and Kan'ān, however, both spawned the race of blacks represented by the Nubians, Zanj, Fazzanais, Zaghāwa, Abyssinians, Copts and Berbers (Ibn Qutayba, 1992, p. 26).
This disparate canvas would be used by a raft of Arab prose writers to systematically spread their imprecations. Ibn Hawqal, like Ibn Butlān or philosophers such as al-Kindī or Ibn Sīnā, did not bother adding any aesthetic or moral consistency. Al-Mas'ūdī openly admits that Arabs adopted the prejudices inherited from the ancient Greeks and they, in turn, helped to accentuate them.
He recalls that the philosopher Ya'qūb Ibn Ishāq al-Kindī had discussed the physical and intellectual attributes of blacks. In a treatise on the determination of celestial bodies, he had, says al-Mas'ūdī, repeated the classification of Greek philosopher Galen who gave them ten specific traits, namely:
Frizzy hair, lack of eyebrows, full nostrils, thick lips, sharp teeth, a strong skin odour, dark black pupils, cracks on hands and feet, [...] developed penises and an excessive cheerfulness. The predominance of this last trait is explained by mental debility amongst black people and low intelligence [...] Tāwus al-Yamanī, the disciple of
'Abd Allah Ibn al-'Abbās, never ate the flesh of an animal killed by a black man. Blacks, he said, are hideous creatures. I was told, adds al-Mas'ūdī, that Caliph Abū al-'Abbās al-Rādī bi-Allah, son of al-Muqtadir, never accepted anything from the hand of a black man. He said that they were disgusting slaves. I do not know if, by acting in this way, he was following the example of Ṭāwus or if he was conforming to particular rites (al-Mas'ūdī, 1973, vol. I, pp. 82-83).
To break the stranglehold of conformity, we had to wait until the middle of the fourteenth century. It is in the work of Ibn Khaldūn, a philosopher and scholar from the Maghreb, that we see the emergence of a new scholarly mindset. He tried to tackle, in his own way, the thought processes of the past and its insane excesses:
Genealogists, who know nothing about the nature of things, he explains, have imagined that blacks [...] are the sons of Hām [...], sons of Nūḥ and that the curse placed on them by the latter is the reason for the darkness of Hām's skin and the slavery that was subjected on his descendants by God. Now the Pentateuch only says that Nūḥ curses his son Hām and nowhere is there mention of his skin colour. The curse only made the sons of Hām slaves of the descendants of his brothers. To attribute the skin colour of black people to their being sons of Hām is to ignore the true nature of heat and cold and their impact on climate and creatures. The dark skin of inhabitants in these two parts of the world result from climactic conditions, that is to say, the increasingly hot sun of the south (Ibn Khaldūn, n.d., p. 83).
The problem Ibn Khaldūn has is that he cannot completely get rid of the alleged theory of humours and ancient stereotypes, nodding to the inferiority, inconstancy and extreme emotivity of blacks (Ibn Khaldūn, n.d., p. 86).
In this short overview we have examined the evolution of the intellectual and semantic framework surrounding the representation of black African communities in the classical Arab world. The few literary and historical narratives included in this picture reveal important accounts of the process of elaborating a classificatory rhetoric of enslavement-generated minorities. In spite of the alarm calls by al-Djāhiz and al-Mas'ūdī and the timid and laborious developments put forward by Ibn Khaldūn, we see that the preponderance of Arab scholars, whether Muslim, Jewish or Christian, remained particularly imbued with prejudices inherited from the Ancients. Philosophers, doctors, jurists and Arab chroniclers quickly began to develop semantico-discursive schemas extolling the hold of stereotypes and stigmatization. With the spread of enslavement, the realms of knowledge seem to have been set aside in favour of strategies justifying domination and oppression. New and highly colourful taxonomies are emerging from behind this intellectual movement of paradigms of knowledge.
Of all the classical Arabic prose writers, al-Djāhiz is a pioneer. His unusual approach gives us an active picture that is a perfect reflection of the rise in social tension and discrimination. The author intends to shatter the wall of silence and points out the high places of exclusion and contempt. To support his argument he uses dramatic examples from daily life, opens the field of micro-history and redefines the foundations of a universal humanism. Throughout his epistle we are shown a gallery of portraits celebrating black men and women; individuals sanctified by posterity because of their poetic erudition, wonderful valour, piety and wisdom. However, most Arabic scholars were reluctant to accept the relativity of values and propriety. They found al-Djāhiz's viewpoint and his defence of blacks erroneous and impertinent. Ibn Qutayba, one of the most eminent representatives of the classical literary tradition, wastes no time vilifying him, saying, 'if he was convinced that he was responsible for his writing [...], he would not wear himself out in an effort to make the false unbelievable in his own eyes' (Ibn Qutayba, 1962, p. 65; Pellat, 1977, pp. 1-8; Pellat, 1980, pp. 1-67).
This rapid review demonstrates the importance of carrying out a deep and thorough investigation of the documentary sources to unravel numerous issues. It is clear that these issues are not just rooted in the past. Today, as in the past, the hindrance of access to public freedoms and citizens' rights is still a stumbling block where social and racial discriminations are concerned. What is going on at the moment in Tunisia, ^2 Morocco and Mauritania, to name but a few countries, speaks volumes about the lasting nature of the phenomenon.
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 2 For the first time in the history of the country since the first abolition of slavery in 1846, Tunisian authorities have only just officially recognized the extent of the racism that is eating away at society. After the bloody attack on three Congolese students in December 2016 in downtown Tunis, the Prime Minister Youssef Chahed pledged to launch a new debate on anti-racist laws: 'We need a national strategy to change attitudes, [and] a law that makes discrimination illegal', he said (cf. Libération dated 27 December 2016). Let us hope that these promises will be carried out in order to eradicate this scourge for good: http://www. liberation.fr/planete/2016/12/27/la-tunisie-se-decide-a-agir-contre-le-racisme-anti-noirs_1537749 | GENEALOGY OF A DISCRIMINATORY RHETORIC IN THE CLASSICAL ARAB-MUSLIM WORLD | Introduction | [
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[Historical sources for the study of Global Africa]
Historical sources for the study of Global Africa
This volume offers a comparative and interdisciplinary perspective, especially because of the multiplicity of historical sources used. The authors of this section were invited to develop other ways of writing the history of the African diasporas, taking into account new epistemes, interdisciplinary methodologies, both traditional and unfamiliar historical sources, literary and artistic works on African history, and diasporic experiences as essential material.
The methodology used to study Africa and its diasporas must take into account several aspects of the issues involved, such as: the historiography on the specific theme; the nature of the sources, which are often written, by European and African authors alike, in European languages, in addition to Arabic, Mandarin and other Asian languages; familiarity with documentary typologies and their variations; the colonial nature of reports and other narratives (such as travel logs); the logic of the records' formation and organization; the context in which the records were produced; their potential for revealing controversial facts and complex processes; the cross-checking of different types of sources; and the interdisciplinary interpretation and critique of the documents. Any questions regarding sources, whether written, oral or part of material culture, should, preferably, focus on the production of history from an endogenous viewpoint, which favours the agency of Africans and their descendants, as well as their cultural references and class and gender backgrounds.
The section contributions are based on a wide range of historical sources. Documents of the slave trade, such as ship manifests, customs documentation and other serial records, as well as slave trade data stored in digital databases, were revisited for the purpose of reconstructing individuals' trajectories and their efforts to change their living conditions. Other records, such as travel diaries and police, legal and administrative correspondence, form a corpus of
evidence for analysing individual and collective flight, the formation of maroon communities and revolts.
Ecclesiastical documents constitute another important source for studying the experiences of Africans in the diaspora and have been used by historians for decades. These records show that Catholicism was not only a manorial platform for controlling Africans, but also an instrument of African power, autonomy and organization. The research conducted by Soares (2002) on brotherhoods organized around West African 'origin groups' uses documents produced by the brotherhoods themselves, such as minutes and by-laws, along with baptism, marriage and death records kept by the Catholic Church. Soares (2019) recently published a study on a manuscript written by Francisco Alves de Souza, the leader of a Catholic congregation in Rio de Janeiro; in the manuscript, de Souza describes himself as a member of the Makii people from the northern border of the kingdom of Dahomey. These ecclesiastical sources are used extensively in the research on the Atlantic world (Reginaldo, 2011) because the brotherhoods were 'the first and main institutionalized form of organization for black Africans and their enslaved and free descendants' (Soares, 2002, p. 61). In the chapter she has written, Lucilene Reginaldo uses this kind of source to examine the creation and internal dynamics of Catholic brotherhoods founded by both enslaved and freed Angolans in Brazil.
Their widely studied wills and post-mortem inventories have shed light on various aspects of Africans' lives, such as their occupations, how they managed to purchase certain goods and their freedom. Because of the wealth of information they have to offer, these documents have also been explored as sources for biographies of Africans and their descendants. The numerous biographies published in the last two decades clearly suggest a departure from strictly demographic, economic and social historical perspectives and a move towards perspectives centred on more concrete, individual experiences. The latter type of perspective often illuminates issues related to the demographic, economic and societal characteristics of the many living environments of diasporic Africans (Lindsay and Sweet, 2013).
Another dimension of the sources used for studying diasporas in Global Africa is a focus on a broad definition of material culture which goes beyond artefacts by recognizing that human relationships are both social and material. From this perspective, the material world is no longer seen as a mere backdrop to the development of social action, but is instead recognized as the 'means for building memory, giving coherence and continuity to social life and, thus, cultural reproduction' (Silva Santos, Symanski and Holl, 2019, p. 27). In recent
decades, material-culture studies have emerged as a transdisciplinary field, dealing with both the past and contemporary issues and involving disciplines such as archaeology and anthropology, as well as history, cultural geography, sociology, museology, the hard sciences and technology studies. In recent decades, on both sides of the Atlantic and in East Africa and the Indian Ocean regions, there has been an increase in archaeological research aimed at understanding the history of the African diasporas (Silva Santos, Symanski and Holl, 2019; Allen, 2017; Seetah, 2015; Ogundiran and Saunders, 2014; Haviser and MacDonald, 2007; Ogundiran and Falola, 2007; others).
Material culture has therefore become essential for advancing research on the techniques and knowledge Africans carried with them, their religious practices, their aesthetic tastes and their ways of resisting oppression, achieving integration and doing business. For example, in 2011, some extraordinary discoveries were made during an archaeological excavation carried out at Cais do Valongo (former harbour of Rio de Janeiro, where more than half a million Africans disembarked between the end of the eighteenth century and 1831), recognized as a World Heritage site by UNESCO in 2017. Several tons of the material remains of enslaved people and those employed in the slave trade have been unearthed there. One example concerns research into glass beads, through which Patrícia Brito (2019) discovered important details about the bead trade in nineteenth-century Rio de Janeiro and the participation of enslaved communities in this trade. In addition, she found out that preferences for a certain type of bead (known as the 'drawn bead'), for certain colours (such as blue) and for larger bead sizes were associated with symbolism and with social and religious stratification. In their chapter for this book, Flávio dos Santos Gomes and Luís Cláudio Pereira Symanski look at the importance of historical archaeology in the study of African traditions recreated in the quilombos and districts where enslaved people lived in the Americas.
Lastly, catechisms, dictionaries, songs, interviews, collections of tales from oral traditions and newspaper announcements were used to think about language and other forms of communication in African diasporas. Even though the languages spoken by Africans did not become predominant in the societies examined, documents show that, at certain times, they were widely used and did not disappear completely. The contributions to this book show that African languages changed the host languages in the diasporas and created new cultures. | Historical sources for the study of Global Africa | [
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[Historical sources for the study of Global Africa]
The historical sources used in the research for this collection of texts were obtained from archives located on all the continents marked by the African diasporas, as well as on the African continent itself. For example, Lucilene
Reginaldo, who studies the religious brotherhoods founded by Angolans in Brazil, did her archival research in Luanda, Salvador da Bahia and Lisbon. In her chapter on the presence of peoples from the northern coast of Mozambique in Madagascar, Klara Boyer-Rossol combined oral sources of the Makua people with a variety of written sources found in Malagasy, English, French, Norwegian and Portuguese archives on both sides of the Mozambique Channel. Here, numerous research experiences arose, involving multicontinental investigation aimed at tracking down historical sources of information on the experiences of Africans in the diasporas and in the communities established within the boundaries of the African continent. | Historical sources for the study of Global Africa | [
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[Mapping the African diasporas]
Mapping the African diasporas
This section has six subsections with the following themes: the formation of communities; resistance; spirituality; languages; work and technology; and back-to-Africa migration.
The first subsection covers the currents of voluntary and involuntary movement in the eastern and western Indian Ocean, as well as the creation of black communities in Europe, in the Indian Ocean region, on the west and east coasts of Africa and in the Americas. The notions of community and of political entities concern people seeking to establish bonds with others in a similar situation in the period between the fifteenth and the nineteenth century. The second subsection covers the various forms of resistance among Africans who were enslaved or under other forms of oppression and exploitation. In the third subsection, diasporic forms of religion are examined from the standpoint of community formation around their places of origin, which revives the debate between the global and the local. The fourth subsection focuses on the languages spoken in Africa and their presence in the lexicons of European languages and in music and other performance traditions. The fifth subsection deals with the different types of labour performed by Africans, besides work in mines and on plantations; it discusses the techniques Africans brought with them from their places of origin and introduced to the New World. Finally, the last subsection covers the return to Africa of Africans and their descendants from diaspora territories. The remainder of this introduction looks more closely at the six themes on which this section is based. | Mapping the African diasporas | [
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[Communities]
Communities
This subsection begins with the African presence in East Asia, the western regions of the Indian Ocean and the Middle East. The first contacts between Africa and China occurred before the Han dynasty ( 206 BCE - 220 CE). In addition, evidence confirms the presence of Africans in China during the Tang (618-907 CE) and Song ( 960-1279 CE ) dynasties. Evidence also shows that voyages motivated by trade and diplomatic interests were made between the East African coast and southern China; in other words, there was movement of free Africans in Asia. However, forced movement did take place. The chapter by Don J. Wyatt shows that, despite the presence of Africans in China's historical record, we can only speak of trade in African captives as having begun in approximately the eighth century of the Common Era.
According to Wyatt, at no time were Africans enslaved and brought to China by Chinese slave traders. On the contrary, there was 'a known and confirmable succession of groups that ferried Africans from west to east across the Indian Ocean into China and that profited thereby from their sale as slaves'. Śrivijayan and Javanese merchants are reported to have introduced the trade in African captives to the court of the Tang dynasty. Later, traders from the Middle East also took up the activity. Wyatt doubts that the references to slaves that appear in Chinese sources actually relate to Africans. The author questions the association of terms such as zanj with Africans and slavery among the Arabs, pointing out that in 1083, when Cengtan, a noble from Zanzibar, visited Guangzhou (Canton), this term was not associated with enslavement at all. Wyatt suggests that the term Kunlun, also thought by past researchers to be a reference to enslaved Africans, was not restricted to Africans. In sum, this contribution shows that the presence of Africans in eastern China increased considerably only in the mid-seventeenth century, when they were brought there by Europeans. Thus, in East Asia, Africans comprised a minority of enslaved peoples. China and other Asian nations with centralized power took people captive through military actions within the region itself.
The presence of Africans in South Asia has been documented as early as the third century CE, and it increased substantially in the tenth century with the expansion of the Arab slave trade. Historians have pointed out that the diasporas resulting from the Atlantic slave trade and slavery in the Americas do not constitute a model analogous to that of the African diasporas in the Indian
Ocean region, given that, even in the modern era, African diasporas in the latter part of the world were not solely associated with slave trafficking.
Ocean region, given that, even in the modern era, African diasporas in the latter part of the world were not solely associated with slave trafficking.
Faaeza Jasdanwalla discusses the African presence on the island of Janjira (a name that comes from the Arabic jazira, which means 'island'), off the west coast of India, which since the fifteenth century has had a significant population from East Africa. The Africans and their descendants in Janjira were called Sidis. Jasdanwalla writes about the participation of the Sidis in trade networks as sailors, naval commanders and public servants, as well as in other capacities. Two Africans who had come to India as enslaved people in the sixteenth century stood out in the region: Malik Ambar, who became the regent of the Ahmadnagar sultanate in India, and the administrative official Ambar Sainik, who became the Sidi governor of Janjira.
People from East Africa were also taken to the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman. From the beginning of the eighteenth century to the final decades of the nineteenth, a great number of Africans were taken to Sistan va Baluchestan through a slave trade network dominated by the Oman sultanate, which extended from East Africa to other regions of the Indian Ocean and the Persian Gulf, as we learn from Behnaz Mirzai, the prominent historian of slavery in Iran. She analyses the formation of Afrodescendent communities in southern Iran, Khuzestan, Sistan va Baluchistan and the provinces of Bushehr and Hormozgan and the extent of their integration into the local populations. Mirzai points out that to conduct a critical analysis of enslaved Africans and their descendants in Iran, one must consider the local socioeconomic, cultural, geographic, historical and legal specificities conjunctionally. According to Mirzai, despite ethnocultural variety and general heterogeneity, African traditions have both influenced Iranian culture and been transformed by it.
Cassandra Pybus discusses the African diaspora in Oceania, specifically in eastern Australia during the American War of Independence (1775-1783). Founded as a British penal colony, New South Wales received prisoners convicted of petty crimes in England. Pybus uses London parochial and judicial records and New South Wales archives to trace the origins of blacks in the penal colony, and she sketches profiles of individuals such as Billy Blue, who fought in two wars. After leaving the United States of America in 1782, Blue went to London, where he did various jobs and ended up being arrested and convicted for stealing sugar. The majority of the Africans convicted of crimes and sent to Australia and New Zealand experienced some sort of enslavement. Pybus unveils the complex diasporic processes that brought Africans, both voluntarily and involuntarily, to Oceania.
With regard to the Indian Ocean region, Klara Boyer-Rossol writes about human trafficking between Mozambique and Madagascar, which increased significantly during the nineteenth century while the slave trade was gradually becoming illegal. In the chapter she has contributed, she shows how the slave trade routes between East Africa and the island of Madagascar led to the emergence of new sociocultural groups on the latter: the Makoas and Masombikas, whose names derive from generic terms used to refer to people whose geographic or ethnic origin is in what is present-day Mozambique. In addition to emphasizing the dynamics of international trafficking, the author examines the formation of the Makoa identity on the island and the Makoan struggle to return to the African continent. | Communities | [
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[Communities]
Catherine Servan-Schreiber reports on the sociocultural development of the island of Mauritius, characterized by the presence of people from India, China, Europe and Africa. In her chapter, she discusses the narrative debates concerning the history and cultural identity of the island's residents. To counterbalance a colonial hegemonic narrative that denies African traditions on the island, Servan-Schreiber examines texts in the local black literary tradition and musical styles such as sega, seggae, and chutney.
Leaving the Indian Ocean and moving towards the Atlantic Ocean, we arrive in the Mediterranean. We are guided by Salah Trabelsi, who explores Berber, Nubian and Sudanese soldiers' participation in the Muslim conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the seventh century onward. The author proposes a pluralist history that goes beyond simplistic and dualistic categories: blacks/ whites, enslaved/free, East/West, Islam/Christianity. Using Arabic and Latin chronicles as sources, the author breaks the silence on African soldiers' participation in the conquest. He points out that, whether voluntarily or involuntarily, large numbers of women, children and men moved between the two shores of the Mediterranean basin, merged with Arabo-Spanish society and greatly contributed to its development.
Isabel de Castro Henriques deals with the African diaspora in Portugal from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century. This diaspora was associated with the slave trade, in which Portugal played an important role. In her chapter, de Castro Henriques highlights African integration into Portuguese society, where mestizos became numerically significant. She shows that Africans and Afrodescendants used strategies to resist and to integrate into their new social environment. For the author, syncretism took place in Portugal; although new religions were not created, certain religious codes, both European and African, were modified. She points out that black confraternities and the
participation of Africans in many Catholic religious festivals, with their dances, processions and music, are evidence of the Africanization of Catholic rituals and syncretism in Portugal.
Roquinaldo Ferreira and Carlos Silva Jr., using concepts such as those of the trans-imperial approach and the Afro-Atlantic community, examine the formation of such communities on the West African coast. Exploring African governors' power to dictate the terms of social and commercial interaction with foreigners, the authors discuss the diplomatic, commercial, religious and cultural exchanges that were essential to the construction of communities on the Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin and in Loango and the southern regions of the Congo. Finally, they point out that in the Atlantic coastal societies of Africa that received larger numbers of European traders there developed highly cosmopolitan and urban environments that gave rise to families and individuals specialized in the Atlantic trade; their identities reflected an intense cultural exchange, both domestically and overseas.
The chapter by Edda L. Fields-Black examines the concept of creolization as applied to Upper Guinean and West Central African peoples, characterizing it as a sort of 'primary creolization'. Fields-Black argues that said peoples were creolized before becoming part of a modern diaspora. The author discusses the evidence of this primary creolization in cultural contacts among different peoples on the West African coast. The Mande, a group with considerable military and political power, had subjugated, incorporated and enslaved other peoples. For Fields-Black, although the Mande had instituted a political and legislative apparatus and assumed the control of trade in the Upper Guinea region, cultural praxes between conquerors and the conquered were no longer distinctly Mande, Atlantic (here the author refers to the linguistic classification) or Kruan, but rather Creole. Fields-Black's argument points to a cultural dynamic that took place before transatlantic enslavement and the creation of the modern African diaspora.
Michele A. Johnson discusses the presence of Africans and their descendants in Canada, a longue durée history spanning from the early seventeenth century to the twentieth century. Johnson focuses her analysis on the introduction of slavery in Canada, the kinds of work in which the enslaved were employed, the struggles for abolition, the voluntary and involuntary flows of black people from Africa, Jamaica and the United States of America to Canada, and racism as a structural element in the history of Canadian society. Although Afrodescendants have lived in and contributed to Canadian society and economy for centuries, that there have been recurrent attempts to exclude these people is clear. Alleging
that Afrodescendants were unsuited for the Canadian climate and society, State authorities long ago created a narrative that was regularly applied as an excuse to explain Afrodescendants' low rates of admission to the country. The author covers in her chapter the voluntary and involuntary movements of African peoples from the Caribbean to Canada and from Canada to the United States and Sierra Leone.
Also from a long durée perspective, Paulette A. Ramsay writes about Afrodescendent communities in Mexico from the fourteenth century to the present. She explores key elements of this history, such as the importation of captives from Africa to work in silver mines and plantations, various forms of slave resistance and institutions grounded on the idea of racial mixing. Ramsay argues that the lack of research on Afro-Mexicans reflects the absence of affirmative action policies in the country. She challenges the Eurocentric discourse of negation and discusses Afro-Mexican traditions that are essential to understanding Mexican society.
Rina Cáceres examines how Central America has been a locus of African diasporas since the sixteenth century. Using a comparative and long-term approach, she discusses the dynamics of slavery in the region, as well as the resistance strategies adopted by enslaved people, such as palenques (runaway communities), negotiations with slavers and legal challenges in the pursuit of individual freedom, and the struggle for general emancipation. In the chapter she has written, Cáceres also explains transformations in the social, political and literary realms of Costa Rica and other Caribbean societies that took place at the end of the nineteenth century. In addition, she describes more recent struggles for citizenship.
Deborah A. Thomas looks at the Jamaican diaspora in the United States of America in the twentieth century, describing it as a process that has evolved over time, as is the case with other diasporas. She unravels how African-American culture has influenced the Jamaican black community through new social media and how Jamaican popular culture has done the same vis-à-vis the United States. According to Thomas, despite its hegemonic position, the United States does not have a monopoly on the global production of blackness. Jamaican cultural and political struggles have become references of black awareness in other areas of the diaspora, including the United States. | Communities | [
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[Resistance]
Resistance
The enslavement of Africans around the world was also marked by resistance against the enslavers. Resistance against slavery took on diverse forms, both violent and subtle, individual and collective. It included revolts, revolutions, the murder of slave-masters, flight and the formation of runaway communities, as well as magic spells, feigning illness, stealing and a long list of day-to-day resistance actions. Until the 1950s, enslaved people's revolts did not receive much scholarly attention. In recent decades however, they have received noteworthy attention, especially from scholars of the black Atlantic.
In contrast with resistance in the Middle East, significant research has been done on examples of resistance in the Americas. The seventeenth-century quilombo (a settlement of fugitive slaves in Brazil) of Palmares is a case in point. Since the turn of the twentieth century, studies on Palmares have sought to understand the runaway community as a political entity. The advances in research on the history of Angola in the 1970s and 1980s led to new interpretations of the significance of Palmares. The internal organization of this quilombo was connected to political experiences in Angola before the arrival in Brazil of the main cluster of Africans who created the gigantic quilombo. This knowledge was essential for resistance and struggle against enslavement in Brazil (Hunold Lara, 2010; Nascimento, 1985).
Besides Palmares, there were thousands of fugitive settlements in the Americas, the Indian Ocean and even Africa itself. They and their people were known by different names in different places: marrons, palenques, cumbes, mainels, cimarrones, mussitos, aringas and so on (Amantino and Florentino, 2012; Capela, 2006). Communal living among escaped slaves, regardless of the duration of such community, is a major example of how Africans and their descendants resisted colonialism and enslavement. In sum, in Africa, Brazil, Haiti, the United States and Madagascar, on Indian Ocean islands and in the Arab world, among other places, the fugitive settlements established by the enslaved in defiance of the enslavers triggered major transformations in those societies and across colonial and national boundaries. ^1
[^0]
[^0]: 1 The Zanj Revolt, considered one of the most extraordinary events in the Afro-Arabic world, is an exception. The year 869 was the beginning of one of the longest slave rebellions in the history of the Abbasid caliphate. The Zanj, who originated in East Africa, worked under harsh conditions on plantations and in salt mines in Basra (southern Iraq), receiving only food in exchange for their labour. Freed and runaway slaves participated in the protest against Arab slave-masters (McLeod, 2016, p. 80). Some historians suggest that the Zanj included not only enslaved Africans, but also people from ethnic groups outside Africa (Talhami, 1977). This revolt, much like others, was an act of rebellion against the tyranny of the slave-masters and part of a struggle for autonomy.
The chapter by Rafaël Thiébaut examines aspects of resistance to enslavement in the Indian Ocean in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. His analysis covers inland individual flights, collective rebellions, shipboard revolts and cases of marronage on the islands of Madagascar, on the Mascarene Islands, in Cape Town, in India and in the Malay Archipelago.
João José Reis discusses collective slave resistance in Brazil in the form of quilombos and uprisings. These were the most common types of active resistance. He argues that although it was not the only one, religion was a crucial factor in revolts as 'a language and inspiration' most notably for Muslim rebels, but also for those devoted to Catholic saints and Yoruba orixás. The author also points out that the enslaved contributed actively to their emancipation in 1888 with numerous local uprisings and mass flights from plantations.
Two chapters examine the most spectacular and successful example of slave resistance in the Americas, the Haitian Revolution. Sylviane A. Diouf discusses the influence of the Haitian Revolution on aborted slave conspiracies and actual revolts in the United States. Diouf emphasizes that the Haitian Revolution was one of the most important political events of its time in the Americas.
Matthew J. Smith's chapter goes beyond the revolutionary process to evaluate the relationship between the Haitian Revolution and Africa. For the author, Haiti has always provided the world with a counter-discourse to European racist discourse regarding Africa. Smith suggests that, throughout the twentieth century, political events and economic and environmental crises placed Haiti and the African continent in a position of mutual solidarity and mutual influence, in both the political and cultural realms.
In his study of strategies of resistance against enslavement in Colombia, Rafael Antonio Díaz Díaz says that the study of rebellion and cimarronismo must take into account more than just the formation of palenques, and he suggests other means and strategies used to achieve freedom. Beginning with a critical analysis of historiography since the 1950s and referring to the concept of amphibian culture, the author demonstrates that the various African cultural groups in the country developed a political cartography of resistance. This could be seen in cultural and political construction, the appropriation of territory along rivers and the development of solidarity and family ties. Women played a major role in these processes, particularly in the formation of extended families in Colombia.
Rafael Sanzio Araújo dos Anjos proposes other readings and representations of the Brazilian geographic space now characterized by the exclusion of the Afrodescendent population. In his chapter, he uses maps, graphs and photos to increase knowledge
of the territorial references associated with centuries of displacement from Africa to Brazil and to discuss the main configurations and spatial elements of the African matrix in Brazil, particularly contemporary quilombos.
This subsection concludes with Ana Lucia Araujo's contribution. In her chapter, Araujo suggests that the abolition of the slave trade in Africa and of slavery in the Americas resulted in long and complex social and economic processes which extended from the nineteenth to the twentieth century. Without the usual emphasis on political history, she demonstrates that the ending of these two activities was only possible through the actions of enslaved men and women who challenged their legal status and organized rebellions and mass flights. Araujo highlights the role of the enslaved in their emancipation, both in the Americas and in Africa, focusing more on the former, as well as worldwide elites' interest in creating other forms of exploitation, some of which involved forced labour. | Resistance | [
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[Spirituality]
Spirituality
Studies of diaspora religions are shaped by theories developed at least one century ago and concerning cultural encounters and their results. They can be categorized into two superficially conflicting options: one, the retentionist perspective, emphasizes what Africans were able to keep from their original traditions; the other, the creolization approach, focuses on the changes Africans went through as enslaved people in the Americas. This dichotomy has been shown to be unproductive. Present-day historiography seeks to identify transformations achieved in African contexts, as well as in the diasporas, considering the absence of pure cultures or cultures that remained stagnant during the diaspora formation processes.
Sylviane A. Diouf's analysis of Muslim resistance in the Americas shows that the large presence of Senegambians was an important ingredient in the revolts aboard slave ships and among slave societies in the Americas. In this sense, enslaved African Muslims from Senegambia were connected by their faith, knowledge of Arabic and religious networks. Her chapter, just as the one written by Reis, points to the revolutionary potential of Islam.
Lucilene Reginaldo looks at the religious brotherhoods dedicated to Our Lady of the Rosary in Angola, Portugal and Brazil. Beginning with an Atlantic angle, her piece shows that Catholic brotherhoods were important spaces for association and served to propagate black devotions, both in Central Africa and
the Atlantic diaspora. For Reginaldo, devotion to the rosary was not part of the agenda of colonial power, but rather the result of the people's experience with Catholicism in Angola and the Congo. In the context of the Middle Passage and the diaspora, the Angolans created an identity in which the brotherhood had specific African meanings for both new and old divinities, in the Old and the New World. Thus, Our Lady of the Rosary was transformed and associated with water spirits such as Kalunga, who could protect devotees at sea and beyond.
Luis Nicolau Parés covers African religions practised in the Gulf of Benin region and how they both endured and were transformed in Brazil. Parés analyses the concept of nation, using it to track people's origins and classify the African-derived cults from the colonial period to the present day. For the author, the identification of a group with a specific African nation, both in Brazil and other regions of the Americas, is a discursive and ideological resource that can be flexible and geared towards achieving social legitimacy and religious authority. | Spirituality | [
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[Languages]
Languages
The previous subsection explains that a specific African vocabulary, particularly terms related to religion, gastronomy, songs and greetings, survived. This subsection focuses on the presence of African languages and their transformations in different diaspora settings.
Margarida Petter discusses the presence of African languages in the Americas as a whole and problematizes the fact that creole languages were not created in the majority of the countries in question. For Petter, this does not mean that African languages were not spoken in regions of the Americas or that they have completely disappeared. Much to the contrary, she points to the importance of the African lexical influence and grammatical interference found in Portuguese and Spanish in the Atlantic diaspora. Moreover, she highlights the survival of African languages in Afro-Brazilian cults (the languages have a liturgical function and their use is restricted to initiates and practitioners, in a context where language is understood as a symbolic vehicle of expression and not of 'linguistic competence') and in contemporary black rural communities.
Alain Anselin addresses the invisibility that the authorities created with regard to the languages spoken by enslaved Africans in the Americas. Despite this invisibility, there were/are clear links to African heritage "inscribed" in the very materiality of crops', such as the names given to landscapes, tools and foods; this is also the case in the realm of intangible culture, which includes
songs, prayers, dances and so on. Anselin argues that the 'invisible ties' that link the diaspora to Africa refer not only to vocabulary, which in itself reveals many keys to transculturation, but also to the negotiation of codes in the formation of new languages.
Sônia Queiroz's chapter analyses, from a comparative perspective, oral narratives recorded in books, both in Angola and in Brazil, taking into account the hypertextualities and points of contact between those narratives. Whereas elsewhere there is a tendency to treat oral tales as children's literature, Queiroz shows that in Brazil, oral tales are the result of 'processes of transculturation and of dialogue between cultures and languages: Bantu and Latin peoples, African languages and Portuguese, oral and written'. The analysis of oral tales collected by Europeans in Angola and those compiled in books in Brazil shows the strong influence of Bantu languages in Brazilian oral literature. Unfortunately, Brazilian oral compositions tend to be marketed as children's literature. | Languages | [
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[Work and technology]
Work and technology
This last subsection examines the African diaspora labour and technical know-how not limited to domestic chores and plantation work. Africans and Afrodescendants were involved in almost all activities in the societies in which they lived, working under the authority of others as well as with intellectual and technical autonomy. Not much is known about this subject; however, the books by Edda L. Fields-Black (2008) and Judith A. Carney (2001) are exceptional sources of information. They show how plants, food, techniques and technologies were transplanted by Africans to both the New and the Old Worlds.
Mariana P. Candido's chapter opens this subsection. In it, Candido discusses the role of gender, taking into account that the social division of labour is a historical construct, as are the perceptions of gender, masculinity and femininity. She observes that, although only a limited number of records are available, there are enough to show that women in Africa and the diasporas performed different functions. In the Americas, they worked in mining and in the fields; they also worked in urban settings as maids, seamstresses, street vendors, cooks, nurses, healers, midwives, nannies and such. In addition, Candido indicates that, although they experienced great seignorial violence, Africans and Afrodescendent women also played an important role in resistance against enslavement, participating in the planning of collective flights, conspiracies and other forms of disruptive activity.
Judith A. Carney demonstrates in her chapter that, as have the Americas and Asia, Africa has played a central role in domesticating food sources, despite Africa's marginalization in archaeobotanical research until recently. Using significant written and pictorial sources, she investigates which African foods were introduced in the Americas by enslaved Africans. Carney highlights the agency of Africans in the selection and cultivation of new tropical crops in the New World, for both their own subsistence and that of other inhabitants.
The study of material African culture by Luís Cláudio Pereira Symanski and Flávio dos Santos Gomes is rooted in the historiography debate in Brazil, the United States of America and the Caribbean. Using research on the production of ceramics in African and Afrodescendent communities, the authors examine African heritage in the Americas. For Symanski and Gomes, material culture is associated with motivations, contexts and identities in the slave quarters that were inside or close to the enslavers' residences. Material-culture analysis reveals a long process of redefining an African orientation. The questions surrounding the production and redefinition of material culture, construction technologies, and the intangible dimension of the quilombos and mocambos are also addressed.
In the chapter he has contributed, Jaime Rodrigues explores the experience of Africans as merchants and mariners and their contribution to modern maritime culture. By means of various documents (travelogues, trade records, correspondence and so on) and systematic debate with the historiography, the author presents the profiles of sailors, including their legal status (free, enslaved or freed), their origins, their occupations on board and the reasons behind their decision (when not enslaved) to engage in sea activities. Names of individuals who worked on both the African coast and transatlantic voyages emerge. The author says that involvement in maritime labour offered good opportunities for the exercise of autonomy or freedom in the case of both free and enslaved Africans. | Work and technology | [
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[Returnees]
Returnees
Africans and their descendants often returned to Africa, which in symbolic terms meant a return to the land of their ancestors. The return to Africa comprised different stages, reasons and circumstances. For Afrodescendants it was in fact their first trip to the continent of their forebears. There were also Africans who had been liberated from slave ships by British naval squadrons, who had never set foot outside their home, and who usually did not return
to their place of origin. Others, liberated in similar conditions, were sent to the East African coast and the English colonies in the Caribbean. The main motivation for voluntary migration back to Africa was, some scholars argue, the desire to return to an imaginary homeland. However, many also returned involuntarily, for example to escape persecution after the 1835 Malé Revolt in Bahia (Castillo, 2017).
According to Antonio McDaniel, the returnees constituted the first group of modern immigrants to West Africa from the Americas and other diaspora sites. They were people from different parts of Global Africa: Jamaica, Brazil, Cuba, Nova Scotia, Britain, the United States. The idea of return was also based on the belief that there was no possibility for Africans and their locally born children to be treated fairly in racialized societies (McDaniel, 1995, p. 20). Looking at the Indian Ocean region, Klara Boyer-Rossol examines the plans of the Makua in Madagascar to return to Mozambique at the end of the nineteenth century. Although, because of prohibition by the authorities of Madagascar, these projects were carried out on a small scale, they show that the Makua had a desire to return to the Africa of their imagination. The author thus corrects the misconceptions of academics (Campbell, 2008, p. 40) who suggest that the Africans located in communities on the side of the Indian Ocean had no homeland and thus had no desire to return to one.
The chapters in this volume move from the Indian to the Atlantic Ocean. Clifford Pereira writes that in the nineteenth century, the Indian Ocean witnessed another diasporic event in the return of African captives to their homelands. Royal Navy squadrons rescued Africans from the East African coast from slave ships operating in the Indian Ocean. With the supposed objective of protecting them from slave traders, these individuals were placed in Christian missionary orphanages in the Indian city of Mumbai (then Bombay).
Pereira traces the trajectories of individuals who returned from Bombay to Rabai and Frere Town in Kenya, such as Seedi Mubarak Mumbai (c.18201885), known as 'Seedi Bombay'. He accompanied European explorers and is considered one of the most travelled Africans of his day, easily exceeding any European 'explorer' in Africa. For the author, the young people who were rescued had 'African origin' in common and developed a sense of community without ethnic barriers and simply imbued with the idea of freedom.
In her chapter, Suzanne Schwarz analyses how the British colony of Sierra Leone emerged as an important site in the global diaspora of Africans uprooted and displaced by the Atlantic slave trade. Following the transfer of the settlement to British Crown control in 1808, the multi-ethnic composition
of the settlement was increased markedly through the forced relocation to Freetown of tens of thousands of Africans released from slave ships on the West African coast by Royal Navy patrols. Sierra Leone developed as an early and important site of experimentation in Protestant missions, which had an impact beyond the geographical limits of the small colony. Although earlier historical writing has placed emphasis on the work of European missionaries, this chapter emphasizes how an outstanding characteristic of activity in Sierra Leone was the extensive and independent roles of people of African origin and descent.
From another perspective, Sylvie Kandé analyses the same region. In her chapter she examines the construction of the Krio/Creole identity in Sierra Leone, referring to different local and Atlantic events and historiography, and its theoretical perspectives on the African diaspora. For the author, Sierra Leone is a space built on the hybridism that started early in the region, during the expansion of Islam and the arrival of European traders at the outset of overseas expansion. Hybridism began to intensify at the end of the seventeenth century, with the ebb of black populations from different parts of the diaspora and Africans freed from slave ships (after the abolition of the slave trade). Thus, Creole identity formed in the region is characterized as fluid and complex and understood through the prism of hybridity. For Kandé, expatriates and their descendants acquired a transnational identity without breaking with the concept of nation.
In his chapter, Milton Guran writes about enslaved Africans from Brazil, called 'Agudás' or 'Brazilians' returning to the West African coast. Guran shows that the Agudás integrated in an 'exemplary' manner into the region, where they played an essential role in the formation of the modern State of Benin. The author analyses the process of constructing the Agudá social identity in Benin from the end of the eighteenth century to the end of the nineteenth century. This process of identity construction was marked by elements of belonging, influenced by returnees' everyday life in Brazil before their return to Africa; these elements included enslavement, the Portuguese language and the Catholic religion. Guran shows that plans to return were also based on tensions between the people who returned and the people who lived in the cities chosen for the construction of new spaces for the diaspora.
The last chapter, by Mônica Lima e Souza, takes a broader approach. It shows that the return movement involved various stages, motivations and circumstances. In her historiographic review, Lima e Souza looks at the stories of returnees to concentrate on similar perspectives. She examines the case of Africans returning from Rio de Janeiro to Congo-Angola, shifting the focus from the West African coast as the point of return. | Returnees | [
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[CHAPTER 1 | Introduction]
Introduction
We should regard no cause as contributing more directly to the first appearance of Africans in Asia generally or China in particular than the East African slave trade, whereby captives were ferried into bondage in the various littoral regions that border the Indian Ocean (Harris, 1971, pp. 5-6; Beachey, 1976, p. 2; Beachey, 1976, pp. 1-2; Filesi, 1972, pp. 21-22, 25). The origins of this trade in slaves extracted from along the lengthy expanse of the territories composing the East African coastline are quite ancient, extending back some four millennia, with a plausible prehistory extending back even further (Campbell, 2008, p. 21). However, as shown below, despite speculations about it having occurred for much longer, we can only reasonably regard the trafficking of Africans into China through this trade as a phenomenon having commenced not much earlier than the eighth century of the Common Era.
By that time, many of the common and some of the uncommon conventions of slavery had long held sway in China. For example, exogenous (foreign) as well as endogenous (native) enslavement had been practiced from time immemorial, with some forms of the latter especially continuing even today. ^1 Yet, ironically,
[^0]
[^0]: 1 See, for example, the 'open' versus 'closed' system as discussed in James L. Watson (1980, pp. 1-15).
neither from the first occasion nor at any subsequent point were the Africans imported into and enslaved in China transported there principally by Chinese. Instead, there is a known and confirmable succession of groups that ferried Africans from west to east across the Indian Ocean into China and that profited thereby from their sale as slaves.
Included among the groups reputed to have first engaged in the trade in African slaves upon its inception were peoples of the East Indies or, in modern parlance, Indonesian heritage, such as those of the state of Śrivijaya and of Kalinga (then 'Heling' in Chinese; modern-day Java). Through one of the many nonofficial histories of the Chinese Tang dynasty (618-907), we are informed that, in 724, Buddhism-observant Śrivijaya dispensed an African female to the imperial Chinese court in homage to the reigning emperor Xuanzong (r. 712-756) in his role as Devaputra ('Son of Heaven') (Schafer, 1963, pp. 47, 291). Via both versions of the official history of the Tang, we are apprised that what is now the State of Java, within the six-year span between 813 and 818, dispatched three tribute missions to the court of then-reigning emperor Xianzong (r. 806-820), supplying the monarch with exotica comprising a live rhinoceros, a five-coloured parrot, and a collection of African servant boys and girls (Schafer, 1963, pp. 47, 103, 291; Wyatt, 2010, p. 155).
These recorded instances in which Śrivijayan and Javanese representatives purveyed slaves in tribute to the courts of the Chinese Tang dynasty during the early years of the eighth and ninth centuries, respectively, are surely informative. However, whether considered in tandem or separately, the episodes challenge us to discern across time just how African were the slaves described as being delivered. In other words, we must foremost ask: Were these slaves truly Africans? Removed in time as we are, absolute certainty on this question will always elude us. However, we can know that the Chinese of Tang times believed that they were because it is discernible from the names that they affixed to them.
The Chinese histories cited above and their corroborating sources are of course the products of the subsequent eleventh century. Nonetheless, all refer to the slaves transferred from Śrivijaya and Java on to China as either sengzhi or cengqi. These names are Chinese approximations of the then-contemporaneous term Zanj and its many variations, which was the name generically assigned by the Arab slave-traders to the Bantu peoples that they were engaged in steadily extracting and enslaving in considerable numbers from along the central and southern seaboard of East Africa (Wyatt, 2010, pp. 69-70, 111, 155).
Our recognizing this linguistic connection affords us two tenable answers to yet another seminal question, with one solution being somewhat more plausible
than the other. Given the vast distance separating the South China Sea region and the eastern equatorial coastline of Africa as poles at opposite ends of the Indian Ocean, how had these tribute-bearers of Śrivijaya and Java even come into possession of the slaves that they bestowed upon the two Tang Chinese emperors? One may contend of course that the Śrivijayans and Javanese had acquired the Africans they purveyed directly from East Africa, by travelling to and appropriating them from somewhere along the south-eastern shoreline or perhaps from slightly nearer Madagascar or Pemba. However, for them to have done so would require sailing a distance of over 4,000 miles (6,440 ~km) and then returning, with there being no evidence that the early inhabitants of the Indonesian archipelago ever developed and constructed ocean-going ships capable of such an extensive journey (Alpers, 2009, pp. 47-48; Anderson, 2015, pp. 254-58). Therefore, much more likely than the Śrivijayans and Javanese having procured the slaves referred to in the Chinese records themselves is that they had done so by purchase from Arab traders. Once in possession of them, they then had elected to trans-ship the slaves along as items of exotica to China. | CHAPTER 1 | Introduction | [
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[A visitor from Zanzibar]
A visitor from Zanzibar
The foregoing description of the entrance of the Zanj upon Chinese consciousness might well lead one to think that all of the earliest residents of Africa to enter China did so as slaves and thus against their will. To be sure, the portrait of the enslaved African has predominated throughout traditional Chinese history and literature. Nevertheless, there are exceptions to the prevailing rule and the most salient among the early ones is assuredly provided by a more expansive historical narrative concerning a certain visitor to China from what is now Zanzibar.
The Tang dynasty was succeeded by the Song dynasty (960-1279), and the sole official history of the latter recounts two intriguing visits to China in close succession made by a traveller who originated from Africa. The site of departure is indeed central to the account, serving as its starting point:
Cengtan is on the Southern Sea, with its town about twenty li (about seven miles or eleven kilometres) inland from the seacoast. In 1071, Cengtan brought gifts to our court for the first time. Travelling by sea, with the favourable [monsoon] winds, the envoy took 160 days. Sailing by way of Wuxun [in the vicinity of today's Muscat,
Oman], Kollam [in India], and Palembang [in Indonesia], he arrived at Guangzhou (Tuotuo et al., 1977, 490.14122). ^2
What is above described as the country or perhaps city of Cengtan, which also appears in the literature as the more common variant Cengba, is a name that in Chinese parlance of the eleventh century denoted Zanzibar - meaning literally in Arabic the 'region of the blacks' - from south of the Juba River to Cape Delgado along the eastern coast of Africa (Wyatt, 2010, pp. 69-70; Filesi, 1972, pp. 2, 18, 20, 21).
The official history of the Song dynasty conveys additional details about Cengtan. For instance, we are informed that its 'language sounds like that of the Arabs' and that its 'climate is warm year-round' (Tuotuo et al., op. cit.: 490.14122). Most important among these details, however, is that the initially nameless envoy of Cengtan becomes named:
In 1083, the envoy Protector Commandant Cengjiani came [to China] again [bearing gifts] to court. [Our emperor] Shenzong [r. 1067-1085], recognizing the extreme distance he had travelled in returning, beyond presenting him with the same gifts as before, added 2,000 taels of silver (Tuotuo et al. 1977, 490.14123).
In Song times, a tael, being a liang in Chinese, was equivalent to 1.3 Western ounces.
We cannot ascertain whether the distinguished Cengjiani himself was African, or even if Cengtan in particular or Africa in general was his birthplace. Yet, even if he lacked African ancestry or provenance, we may be safely assured in believing Cengjiani to have come as directly as he could to China from Africa. Moreover, from the exaltedly prestigious title that the reigning Song emperor had bestowed on him, the latter half of which - 'commandant' (langjiang) - was granted only occasionally to aboriginal chieftains of the borderland west and southwest, we can detect that the Chinese regarded this emissary from Africa with high esteem. Yet, for assurance of his identity from the Chinese perspective as an African in China we can find no better proof than in his name itself. The Chinese - ceng-jia-ni - again appears clearly to be a phonetic approximation of the designation Zanj, which was likely meant at that time also to indicate his Zanzibarian place of origin (Filesi, 1972, p. 31; Dathorne, 1996, pp. 74, 83, 164). Thus, curiously, in the sole instance of Cengjiani, the term Zanj may very well somehow become dissociated from the condition of enslavement. However, given its literal meaning in Arabic as 'the blacks' (Snow, 2015, p. 9; Dikötter,
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 2 See also Philip Snow (1988, pp. 20, 196). Snow refers to Cengjiani as Zengjiani; strictly proper pinyin transliteration dictates the former spelling.
1992, p. 9), this same ascription Zanj would prove an inescapable marker of slavery for the increasing numbers of Africans in their midst that the Chinese would incrementally encounter. | A visitor from Zanzibar | [
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[From Guangzhou to Quanzhou]
From Guangzhou to Quanzhou
The foregoing record in the Song official history on the visits of Cengjiani contributes at least one last truly essential detail facilitating our enhanced understanding of the earliest presence of Africans in China. We can and should note that it identifies the major port city of Guangzhou as his arrival point on Chinese soil. In the reorientation of the African presence in China away from representing a pre-eminently Indian Ocean phenomenon toward its coming to constitute a nascent Pacific Ocean one, Guangzhou provides the initial locus.
Guangzhou is distinctive in the history of commerce in China for long being the only port of call wherein trade was permitted by and with foreigners (Fong, 2014, pp. 475-92). For our purposes, the most relevant among the many groups that was to be found collected there in pre-modern times was an amorphous catch-all category of foreigners that the Chinese called the Kunlun (Wyatt, 2010, pp. 2-8). Extant sources make clear that the Kunlun were in the first instance Malays and, curiously, when described in the literature as free individuals, we discover examples of the Kunlun referred to with the same matter-of-fact and neutral dispassion that applied to the sighting of any other foreign merchant at Guangzhou. During Tang times, in the year 750, the esteemed Chinese Buddhist monk Jianzhen (687-763), stated: 'On the river (Guangdong), there were commercial vessels of the Boluomen (Brahmins of India), Bosi (Persians), Kunlun (Malays), and others, whose number is difficult to determine' (Mabito Genkai, 1928, p. 466).
However, still more of the literature pertaining to the Kunlun at Guangzhou makes fully evident the fact that they were neither always free nor were they necessarily Malays. The most famous example to this effect comes to us from the Song era and from the brush of Zhu Yu (1075?-after 1119), who recorded first regarding the profusion of foreign slaves that:
The wealthy in Guang[zhou] maintain numerous foreign slaves. These slaves are unequalled in strength and are capable of carrying - on their backs - several hundred catties. Neither their language nor their passions bear any connection to ours. Their natures are simple; they do not attempt to flee. For their part, the people of Guangzhou call them "wildmen".
As for the colour of these slaves, it is as black as ink. Their lips are red and their teeth are white. Their hair is curly as well as ochre-coloured. They are both male and female, and they inhabit the various mountains across the sea (Zhu Yu, 1921, 2.4).
Zhu Yu concludes by also referring directly to the slaves that the Chinese specifically called by the name Kunlun, stating: 'There [also] exists a kind of wildman that lives near the sea. These slaves are able to immerse themselves in water without batting or blinking their eyes. They are called Kunlun slaves' (Zhu Yu, 1921, 2.4).
Zhu Yu above proffers the existence of two groupings or classifications of Guangzhou slave, and whereas the latter category might conceivably have consisted only or predominantly of ethnic Malays, the former one seems extremely unlikely to have. The looming but vexing question is whether Africans comprised any part of either group. Moreover, in hazarding to speculate, we find that resorting to a stereotypical racial characteristic so familiar as blackness of skin complexion is of no use to us because the Chinese considered it to be a trait common to all Kunlun.
Over the course of the Song era, the prominence of Guangzhou as a port city was eclipsed by the rise of Quanzhou, which is located about 450 miles ( 720 km ) further north along the south-eastern China coastline. Once Quanzhou supplanted Guangzhou, the interstate nature of trade between them expanded exponentially. Yet, most important for the present, whereas ascertaining conclusively whether Africans represented any quotient of the Guangzhou slaves during Song times is beyond our capacity to determine, we find that we incur no such difficulty in connection with Quanzhou.
By far the most visible and influential of the foreign traders at Quanzhou were the Arabs, who were drawn there in great numbers by the profits to be had. The Arabs were also the most entrenched members of the Quanzhou foreign merchant community, for many of them - in direct contravention of Chinese regulations purchased dwellings or even built homesteads. Archaeological discoveries such as the unearthing of a Muslim graveyard indicate that they also died there. Inasmuch as Arab merchants came to populate Quanzhou, so did their overwhelmingly African slave-servants, which lent the Chinese city a unique deservedly ethnobinary reputation. Or, as the scholar Zhu Mu (?-after 1246) framed the situation:
The various foreigners are all of two types, black and white, and in every case they reside in Quanzhou, which is called "the foreigners' port". Every year, they come forth by sea aboard large ships, laden with ivory, rhinoceros [horn], tortoise shell, pearls, crystals, agate, exotic fragrances and black pepper (Zhu Mu, 2003, 12.208). | From Guangzhou to Quanzhou | [
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[The persevering presence]
The persevering presence
Prior to its entrance into the early modern age, the African presence in China underwent a period of dormancy. For the less than a century of duration of the Yuan dynasty (1279-1368), for reasons such as the reopening of the overland Silk Roads as conduits of trade, there are lacunae especially in our knowledge of the extent to which Africans may have been imported into China by sea. For their part, the Mongol interest in seafaring focused more on the expansion of their empire, which was not advanced, than on mercantilism, which could have been advanced more so than it was (Wilkinson, 2015, pp. 777-78).
Nevertheless, once introduced into the Chinese context, the African presence would endure and, at times, quite vibrantly so. With the advent of the Ming dynasty (1368-1644), the African presence was reinforced in Chinese consciousness through the seven remarkable maritime voyages that the imperial grand eunuch commander Zheng He (1371-1435) undertook between the years 1405 and 1433. Being unprecedented in terms of size and scope, these expeditions - specifically the three latter ones conducted in 1417 and after brought Chinese ships to African shores and African envoys as free men to China, both for the first time (Dreyer, 2006, pp. 82-91, 99-134).
In the tow of the Portuguese merchant-mariners at the turn of the sixteenth century, those Africans who did arrive in China came again as slaves. Like their Portuguese masters themselves, these Africans found their niche and lived out their days on the tiny peninsular outpost opposite Guangzhou known then as now as Macau (also Macao; in Chinese, Aomen). To slavery again they had indeed been consigned. Still, let us also be sure to note that, by the middle of the seventeenth century (1640), these Africans in China - 'number[ing] about five thousand' (Boxer, 1960, p. 143) - were more populous and therefore present than they had ever been. | The persevering presence | [
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[The persevering presence | References:]
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Snow, P. 1989. The Star Raft. China's Encounter with Africa. Ithaca, NY, Cornell University Press.
Tuotuo et al. 1977. Songshi [History of the Song]. Beijing, Zhonghua shuju. (In Chinese.)
Watson, J. L. 1980. Introduction. Slavery as an Institution, Open and Closed Systems. J. L. Watson (ed.), Asian and African Systems of Slavery. Berkeley, Calif., University of California Press, pp. 1-15.
Wilkinson, E. 2015 (orig. pub. 1973). Chinese History. A New Manual, 4th ed. Cambridge, Mass., Harvard University Asia Center.
Wyatt, D. J. 2010. The Blacks of Premodern China. Philadelphia, Penn., University of Pennsylvania Press.
Zhu, M. 2003. Fangyu shenglan [Topographical Guide for Visiting Sites of Scenic Beauty]. Beijing, Zhonghua shuju. (In Chinese.)
Zhu, Y. 1921. Pingzhou ketan [Pingzhou Chats on Things Worthwhile]. Shanghai, Bogu zhai. (In Chinese.) | The persevering presence | References: | [
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[THE AFRO-INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE RISE OF EUROPEAN INFLUENCE (1500-1700)]
THE AFRO-INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE RISE OF EUROPEAN INFLUENCE (1500-1700)
Faaeza Jasdanwalla
In the past two decades, there has been a steady increase in academic research and focus on the global African diaspora, particularly the African diaspora in the Indian Ocean region. Scholars such as Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya, John McLeod, Kenneth X. Robbins, Sylviane Diouf and Beheroze Shroff are but a few who have written actively and prolifically about, and promoted awareness of, the subject.
Scholars such as Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya explore the identity of Africans in the Asian trade routes, with special focus on cultural influences such as music and dance (De Silva Jayasuriya, 2010), while scholars such as Beheroze Shroff establish a link between African identity in India (especially in the Indian states of Maharashtra and Gujarat) and socioeconomic circumstances (Shroff, 2007); others, including Ababu Minda Yimene, associate African identity in eastern India with religion (Yimene, 2007). Many of the issues relating to African migrants in India who made their way up to the higher echelons are discussed in a single work entitled African Elites in India: Habshi Amarat, edited by Kenneth X. Robbins and John McLeod (2006). Most recently, the exhibition on the African diaspora in India launched in New York in 2013, curated by Sylviane Diouf and Kenneth X. Robbins, is travelling globally as well as within India. This volume of the General History of Africa will therefore raise awareness in an area of history that has received much interest in the past two decades
and bring together a variety of perspectives and research in this field in one comprehensive work.
and bring together a variety of perspectives and research in this field in one comprehensive work.
Drawing on the theme of African migrants who went on to govern small princely states in India, this chapter focuses specifically on the kingdom of Janjira, located on the west coast of India, south of Mumbai. Apart from Janjira and the princely state of Sachin in the Indian state of Gujarat, there was only a brief spell of African rule, in the region of Bengal in eastern India. There were, however, several instances of Africans who played prominent roles in the politics of other princely states in India, such as Ahmadnagar and Hyderabad. For example, Malik Ambar, who was of African descent, was the regent of the minor Ahmadnagar king and de facto ruler of the kingdom of Ahmadnagar from 1607 to 1626 . He was responsible for increasing the power of the Ahmadnagar dynasty and is also associated with the establishment of the city of Aurangabad (Robbins and McLeod, 2006, pp. 44-106, 128-138). In addition, in 1621, it was Malik Ambar who granted his capable African administrative officer, Sidi Ambar Sainak, the island off the coast of the village of Danda-Rajpuri on the west coast of India, which resulted in the establishment of the princely state of Janjira (Damad, c.1920, pp. 16-21). The African Sidis managed to rule over this region until it was eventually merged into the Indian Union in 1948. The etymon of Sidi is the Arabic word sayyidi meaning 'my lord'. In this chapter, Sidis refer to the sub-Saharan Africans who settled in India.
This chapter focuses on the establishment of the princely state of Janjira and explores the interactions of its rulers with its neighbouring powers, especially the Marathas and the British in the immediate vicinity. The sources for the history of Janjira are varied and include official government gazettes, works dedicated solely to the history of Janjira, by Peshimam and Chitnis (Chitnis, 2005; Peshimam, n.d.), and an unpublished and undated handwritten manuscript in Urdu from the early twentieth century, presented in the style of a court history, by Sidi Abdul Rahim Damad (c.1920). Foundational works such as those by Banaji and Ranade have also been consulted to obtain an in-depth understanding of the political and military interactions between the Sidis, Marathas, Mughals and the British, although it should be noted that relations with the British were consolidated only in the early nineteenth century, which is beyond the time frame of this chapter (Banaji, 1932; Ranade, 1999).
The Africans who eventually established their rule over the island fortress of Janjira originated from Abyssinia and arrived on the west coast of India in the fifteenth century. While some Sidis soon proved their abilities as sailors and naval leaders, others gained prominence as administrative officials, obtaining
significant posts with the existent Bahmani and Ahmadnagar kingdoms on the west coast of India (Banaji, 1932, pp. xix-xx).
significant posts with the existent Bahmani and Ahmadnagar kingdoms on the west coast of India (Banaji, 1932, pp. xix-xx).
The island fortress of Janjira (which originates from the Arabic word jazira, meaning 'island') lay off the coast of the village of Danda-Rajpuri, approximately 40 miles south of Mumbai. Initially under the suzerainty of the Sultan of Gujarat, it fell into the hands of the Bahmani kingdom and was later conquered by the Ahmadnagar ruler Malik Ahmad Nizam Shah in the early sixteenth century. Because of its strategic location, this island had already been earmarked by Sidi traders as far back as the fifteenth century. Once it was taken over by the Ahmadnagar ruler, the Sidi administrative officers in his service were appointed thanedars or governors of the island. The Sidi thanedar Bairam Khan (1527-1538) successfully removed Ram Patil, the local leader of the Koli or fishing community who occupied the fortress of Janjira and proved to be a thorn in the side of the Ahmadnagar kingdom. Thereafter, the wooden structure of the fort was replaced by a stone construction under subsequent Sidi thanedars (Chitnis, 2005, p. 1; Khanzada, 1950s, p. 2; Maharashtra State Gazetteers. Kolaba District. 1964, pp. 71-149; Peshimam, n.d., pp. 1-2; Thapar, 1992).
The Sidi general Malik Ambar referred to above effectively wielded power over the Ahmadnagar kingdom as the regent of the minor ruler Murtaza Shah in the early sixteenth century. He appointed another Sidi, named Sidi Ambar Sainak, to conduct an administrative assessment of Janjira. Sidi Ambar Sainak's report was so thorough and impressive that he was granted full control over the island as its effective ruler upon the death of the then thanedar Yakut Khan Shazli in 1621 (see Table 1). This marked the beginning of the princely state of Janjira. Over the next few decades, the Sidi rulers of Janjira conquered a 42-mile stretch of land along the Konkan coast (region along the west coast of India) encompassing approximately 325 square miles (Chitnis, 2005, p. 1; Damad, c.1920, pp. 16-21).
According to the account given by two English 'land soldiers' in the 1620s,
The Castle of Danda is scituated in the sea upon a little hommock, distant from the shoare a little more than a muskett shot; by nature very strong; wherein are at least 400 men, six great peeces of ordinance, and some 16 or 18 falconet and ravenet; envyroned with a wall, of 18 or 20 foote towards the land and some 14 foote towards the sea, round about, with battlements and half moones; and upon the top and middle of it a great house, and by it a block house, from whence we sawe three peeces of ordinance shott over to the S. side unto two Mallabarr friggitts which were coming into the baye (Foster, 1909, pp. 252-253; see also Banaji, 1932, p. 3).
Table 1. Sidi thanedars and rulers of Janjira (1508-1948) | THE AFRO-INDIAN DIASPORA AND THE RISE OF EUROPEAN INFLUENCE (1500-1700) | [
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[Thanedars]
Thanedars
Mirza Ali, Kalbe Ali
Bairam Khan
Fahim Khan
Arnay Khan
Ibrahim Khan
Surur Abdul Samad
Yakut Khan Shazli
Rulers of Janjira
Sidi Ambar Sainak
Sidi Yusuf Khan
Sidi Fateh Khan
Sidi Khairat Khan
Sidi Kasim Khan (also known as Yakut Khan I)
Sidi Surur Khan (also known as Yakut Khan II)
Sidi Hasan Khan
Sidi Sumbal Khan
Sidi Abdul Rahman Khan
Sidi Hasan Khan (second term)
Sidi Ibrahim Khan I
Sidi Mohammad Khan
Sidi Ibrahim Khan I (second term)
Sidi Yakut Khan
Sidi Abdul Rahim Khan
Sidi Jawhar Khan
Sidi Ibrahim Khan II
Sidi Zamarud Khan
Sidi Ibrahim II (second term)
Sidi Mohammad Khan
Sidi Ibrahim Khan III
Sidi Ahmed Khan
Sidi Mohammad Khan
Source: Faaeza Jasdanwalla
1508-1527
1527-1538
1538-1587
1587-1612
1612-1618
1618-1620
1620-1621
1621-1642
1642-1648
1648-1667
1667-1696
1696-1707
1707-1732
1732-1734
1734-1736
1736-1740
1740-1746
1746-1758
1758-1759
1759-1761
1761-1772
1772-1784
1784-1789
1789-1794
1794-1803
1803-1825
1825-1848
1848-1879
1879-1922
1922-1948
1734-1736
1736-1740
1740-1746
1746-1758
1758-1759
1759-1761
1761-1772
1772-1784
1784-1789
1789-1794
1794-1803
1803-1825
1825-1848
1848-1879
1879-1922
1922-1948
The reconstruction of the exterior and interior structures of the fort of Janjira was finally completed in 1728 under the rule of Sidi Surur Khan, also known as Yakut Khan II (see Table 1), and the fort proved to be impregnable. The main and only entrance to the fort was flanked by a series of bastions and was constructed in such a way that it was not visible until a boat was in close proximity to it. This provided a clear advantage for the Sidis within the fort. Altogether, it had 22 bastions that were 80 feet high and formed the consolidated exterior of the fort, each comprising canons, vantage points and designated ammunition storage areas (Damad, c.1920, pp. 40, 41, 48; Peshimam n.d., p. 9). In total, 572 cannons were used to protect and defend the fort from attack, the largest of which was named Kalal Bangadi, measuring 17 feet in length and with a bore of 14 inches. The origin of this canon is disputed by historians (Naravane, 2001, p. 105). There were several carvings of animals and Persian inscriptions in various parts of the fort, including an inscription attributing the construction of the fort to Yakut Khan II (Chitnis, 1999, pp. 4-6; Kadri, n.d., pp. 70-71, 74-75). The fort was a self-contained township comprising two freshwater lakes, royal residences, tombs and mosques, as well as residences for retainers, soldiers and Sidi sardars or chiefs. ^1
figure 1. View of the fortress
figure 1. View of the fortress
Janjira stands out in early modern Indian history as possibly the only region that operated, in theory, on the basis of democratic principles, given that rule over the territories was not hereditary. Once a Sidi ruler died, a group of Sidi chiefs or sardars appointed the next ruler based on his qualification and abilities to take on the position. This method of selection often resulted in the appointment of the son of a Sidi ruler as the next ruler, but the idea behind it was still democratic, as it required general agreement on the part of the sardars. The
[^0]
[^0]: 1 For a detailed description and illustrations of the fort of Janjira, see Jasdanwalla F. (2015).
drawback of this idea of meritocracy was that it also led to much factionalism, with some sardars pushing for the selection of a ruler who would best serve their interests, while other factions had the power to depose rulers with whom they were displeased. This method was implemented from the establishment of Sidi rule over Janjira in 1621 until the early nineteenth century when, after much chaos and upheaval, Sidi Ibrahim Khan II (see Table 1) agreed to become the next ruler of Janjira in 1803 only on the condition that the position of ruler or nawab would be a hereditary one thenceforth. The etymon of 'nawab' is the Arabic word na'ib, meaning 'deputy' (Jasdanwalla, 2011, pp. 41-58).
Often, the true mettle of the ruling Sidi nawab was revealed in his interaction with neighbouring powers and his competence in protecting the Janjira fort and adjoining territories from enemy attacks. As alluded to earlier, the structure and construction of the fort had potentially rendered it impregnable. This feature, in conjunction with the strategic location of the fort, had attracted at an early stage the attention of Shivaji, the overlord of the Konkan coast and founder of the Maratha kingdom in the seventeenth century. Shivaji had conquered much of the territory in the Konkan and Deccan regions ^2 and wished to gain control over the lands occupied by the Sidi nawabs of Janjira - the prime target being their seat of power, the fort. Under the tenure of the third Sidi ruler of Janjira, Sidi Fateh Khan, there was much discontent among the Sidi ranks. Shivaji took advantage of this unrest and lay siege to the fort of Janjira in 1659. Notwithstanding Fateh Khan's mettle, he could not endure the extended siege of the Marathas and, in order to save himself, he decided to hand over the fort to the enemy. Learning of this intent, two discontented Sidi chiefs who had left the fort in disgust sprang into action to save the fort and the position of the rulers of Janjira. They returned to the fort and soon fought off the Marathas (Robbins and McLeod, 2006, pp. 179-180). This setback, however, did not deter the Marathas, who laid siege to Janjira several times until the nineteenth century, first under the descendants of Shivaji and then under the Peshwas who took over the seat of Maratha power; but the Sidis remained triumphant. Thus, despite numerous attempts, the Janjira fort sustained its invincible status (Damad, c.1920, pp. 22-34, 45-46, 72-76, 94-95; Peshimam, n.d., pp. 4-8, 9-10, 16-18).
It is therefore possible to argue that responsibility for the territory and subjects of Janjira lay not solely with its ruler, but also with the group of Sidi
[^0]
It is therefore possible to argue that responsibility for the territory and subjects of Janjira lay not solely with its ruler, but also with the group of Sidi
[^0]
[^0]: 2 The Konkan is a stretch of coastal territory in the present Indian state of Maharashtra. The Deccan refers to a plateau which covers much of central and southern India, with the Vindhya Range forming its northern boundary.
sardars who appointed him based on the idea that the chosen person was the most capable to rule. This was clearly evident during the Maratha siege of 1659, when the selected ruler, Fateh Khan, had proved to be self-serving and unable to rise to the challenge. The responsibility for protecting the fort from inevitable seizure by the Marathas under Fateh Khan rested with the Sidi sardars, who took immediate measures to ensure the defeat of the enemy. After the two Sidi chiefs Khairat Khan and Kasim Khan proved their military prowess against the Marathas, the election of both as successive rulers of Janjira was seen as not only inevitable but also prudent. | Thanedars | [
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[Thanedars]
However, interaction and confrontation with the Sidis of Janjira was not limited merely to the Marathas. By virtue of their presence on the west coast of India, the Sidis were in direct contact with the British and the Mughals. When Janjira was handed over to Sidi Ambar Sainak by Malik Ambar in 1621, the relationship between the Sidis and the Mughals was initially tense. The Mughal emperor Shah Jahan had embarked on a conquest of the Konkan and had appropriated the village of Danda-Rajpuri - and the Janjira fort was located off its coast. The British too recognized the strategic location of the fort near the village of Danda-Rajpuri and coveted it for themselves as an advantageous trading base. Attempts to open negotiations with the Sidis were made in 1628 and again in 1639, both of which failed. In 1657, the British were even asked to assist the Mughals in capturing the fort of Janjira, but ironically they were not in a position to offer aid at the time. However, the greatly advantageous location of Janjira prompted renewed dialogue between the East India Company at home and its employees in India in 1659. In a letter dated 23 March 1659, the East India Company wrote to the Surat Council:
wee desire you to take notice that wee have here againe reassumed the debate of this businesse, and doe conclude that Danda Rajapore will be a very commodious and secure place to settle upon, being soe scituated as that in respect of trade, both to Persia, Mocha, Acheene, etc., and the freenesse from troubles and dangers, that it is to be preferred farr belore Surratt (Foster 1921, pp. 207-208; see also Banaji 1932, pp. 5-6).
Finally, in 1660, the British received notification from higher authorities to take Janjira by force and formulated a plan to that effect which involved cutting off food supplies to the fort. An expedition was planned under the guise of bearing gifts to the Sidis, but with the true purpose of gauging the situation. For reasons unknown - given the silence in the records - the expedition and subsequent plan to storm Janjira were abandoned. Instructions and plans of this nature issued by the East India Company were often difficult to put into action for various practical reasons. However, the fort of Janjira remained desirable to
the British. Cognizant of the rising might of the Marathas - who, as we have already seen, were desperate to gain control of the strategic fort - the British considered assisting Shivaji in his mission against Janjira in the hope of gaining the fort. Nevertheless, the British contemplated the prudence of such a move, since having the Sidis as their enemy on the west coast could also prove to be detrimental to British interests (Banaji, 1932, pp. 1-12).
At around the same time, the all-important port of Bombay, which had hitherto been in the possession of the Portuguese, was transferred to the British in 1665 and handed over formally to the East India Company in 1668. This state of affairs coincided with a number of attacks by Shivaji on the fort of Janjira, all of which had been unsuccessful. In 1669, Shivaji attacked Janjira once again. Although the Portuguese had declared their friendship towards the Sidis, there was little sign of that friendship being honoured, as one of the Sidi vessels was captured by the Portuguese. This left the Sidis reliant on the goodwill of the British, to whom they offered their vessels for trading purposes. As highlighted above, however, it was clear that the British also had their eyes on Janjira in view of its advantageous position and were willing to grant concessions to the Sidis in the interim with regard to their presence in Bombay, albeit with utmost caution. By then, under the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, the Sidis had been appointed as admirals to the Mughal fleet on the west coast on account of their naval prowess in 1660, and they proved their mettle not only in service to the Mughals but also in defeating Shivaji once more in 1672 under Sidi Yakut Khan.
The British thereafter faced a dilemma as both the Sidis and Shivaji appealed to them for help against the other. An additional dimension entered the equation at this point, namely, the Dutch - who desired Bombay and proposed that if Shivaji helped them to take over Bombay from the British, they would help him to capture Janjira from the Sidis. The British, having discovered the potential deal, appeased Shivaji by promising him the most beneficial terms in a settlement between himself and the Sidis. However, the British still found themselves in a predicament. If the Sidi requests for certain concessions were refused by the British, the former would inflict damage on the British through hostile inroads into Bombay. On the other hand, however, the British also had to contend with hostilities breaking out between the Marathas and Sidis in and around Bombay which undoubtedly proved damaging to the British in terms of property and goods. If concessions were granted by the British to the Sidis, Shivaji would threaten to accept the offer of the Dutch and assist them in taking over Bombay. Above all, by not granting the requests of the Sidis to anchor their vessels around Bombay, the British risked the wrath of the Mughal emperor
who had appointed the Sidis as his admirals in that region. A semblance of peace between the Sidis and the British ensued and lasted until 1683, when a series of incidents arose which resulted in hostilities between the two parties the following year (Banaji, 1932, pp. 13-25, 35).
Matters came to a head, however, between 1689 and 1690. There were signs that the Sidis were preparing for an invasion of Bombay and the British informed them by letter that any attempt by Sidi ships to make their way from Danda-Rajpuri to Bombay would be considered an act of aggression. Bombay was a relatively defenceless, and therefore tempting, target for the Sidis, who in this instance acted of their own accord - rather than at the instigation of Aurangzeb - in response to the provocation by the British. The British captured the Sidi fleet laden with corn and cloth and offloaded the goods in Bombay. The Sidis requested the British to return their fleet and goods, but the request and subsequent threats by the Sidis fell on deaf ears. As a result, the Sidis landed on the shores of Bombay on 14 February 1689. Their initial advances into Bombay and plunder of the surrounding area remained unchecked as the British deserted the Bombay forts, leaving behind treasure and ammunition that fell immediately into Sidi hands. It was not until the following day that the British governor decided to take action, albeit in vain, since the Sidis took hold of most of Bombay except Bombay Castle and remained stationed in Bombay for the ensuing months. The only means by which some semblance of order could be regained was through the intervention of Aurangzeb, who issued a farman calling for the reinstatement of privileges to the British with regard to trade, as well as the dismissal of the governor of Bombay, Sir John Child, who had clearly proved to be incompetent, and the evacuation of Bombay by the Sidis. The Sidis, however, were most reluctant to leave their gains in Bombay. It was only when the demand for treasure by the Sidis had been satisfied by the British that they finally agreed to depart from Bombay on 22 June 1690. Much of Bombay had been left in ruins and had resulted in heavy losses for the British, both in monetary terms and manpower (Banaji, 1932, pp. 40-58). | Thanedars | [
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[Thanedars]
The ensuing 40 years saw a period of peace, or rather a period in which the British avoided hostilities with their neighbours, be it the - still powerful - Marathas or then the Sidis. They used this period to consolidate the administration of Bombay and presented a far more united front by deliberately abandoning internal quarrels (Banaji, 1932, p. 59). Anglo-Sidi interactions took the form of an alliance in the eighteenth century and, in the following century, it was the British who intervened in one of the most prolonged and strongly contested succession disputes, overriding the claim of the Sidi sardars to elect
the next nawab of Janjira. They acknowledged the hereditary rule of the nawabs which had been put in place in 1803 and approved the accession of Sidi Ahmed Khan, who ruled from 1879 to 1922 (Jasdanwalla, 2011, pp. 51-54).
Sidi Ahmed Khan was succeeded by his son, Sidi Mohammad Khan, who ruled Janjira until the princely states of India were merged into the Indian Union in 1948. For over three centuries, Janjira had withstood innumerable attacks upon it, survived despite setbacks and maintained its African roots. Until the late nineteenth century, Sidi nawabs married women from the Sidi community itself and maintained their biological links to their African heritage. In many other ways, they had embraced the cultural influences of the surrounding region, especially in terms of dress and food. The fort as the epicentre of the princely state and, later, the new Ahmedganj Palace on the mainland (constructed in the early twentieth century) were what appeared to secure the bond among Sidi inhabitants. It is therefore possible to argue that the identity of the Sidis of Janjira was closely linked to Janjira itself and to their hold over important and strategic areas in the face of their enemy, the Marathas - who were also the enemy of the powerful Mughal Empire, seated in Delhi. Although they had arrived at a late stage and were foreigners in the land in which they settled, they were assimilated into the native population in some ways but were always conscious of their African origin. The relatively small princely state of Janjira not only managed to hold out against local and European (including British) attacks but also stood out in India as the only princely state (apart from the princely state of Sachin, established by an offshoot of the Janjira Sidis) that was governed by rulers of African descent. Until recently, the history of the Sidis of Janjira had been inextricably linked to their interaction with the colossal forces in Indian history, namely the Mughals, the Marathas and the British. It is only in recent years that the history of the Africans in India has been researched and written with the Sidis as the central protagonists. No longer are they simply peripheral participants. | Thanedars | [
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[CHAPTER 3 | Introduction]
Introduction
Scholars of slavery use terms such as 'slavery', 'abolition', 'emancipation' and 'diaspora' when describing the impact of population dispersal, socioeconomic conditioning, legal system transformation and changes in status on communities who have been forcibly relocated. It is therefore important to realize that a meaningful application of these terms is possible only if societal variations are explored.
For a critical analysis of enslaved Africans and their descendants in Iran, we must consider not only the geographical spaces in which unique subnational communities were formed but also the local socioeconomic, cultural, geographical, historical and legal specificities. It is important to note that the term 'African diaspora' is relevant only to the experience of people of African descent who lived in Iran in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Thereafter, these former diasporic communities incorporated subregional and subethnic diversities to such a degree that while some elements of African culture persisted into twenty-first century Iran, there is virtually no historical memory of 'Africanness' among these people. Moreover, as there is little visible connection between black communities within the country, it is misleading to suggest that they identify with or belong to the global African diaspora (and more appropriate, instead, to suggest that every Iranian province has its own unique diaspora). For black Iranians, identifying
with Africa is not relevant beyond basic physical resemblance and there appears to be a reluctance to do so because of the sense of detachment and alienation it would cause - possibly leading to a loss of Iranian identity. Accordingly, it is more important to study the transformation of the communities of African descent in Iran, historically located along the shores of the Persian Gulf that stretch across the country from south-west to south-east, in the provinces of Khuzestan, Sistan va Baluchistan, Bushehr and Hormozgan. | CHAPTER 3 | Introduction | [
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[Iranian subnations]
Iranian subnations
Iran is a multi-ethnic society consisting of thirty-one provinces. Each subsociety has its own unique local language, cultural traditions, economic systems, social patterns and customs. In the same way as the country's political divisions have changed over time, local socioeconomic and cultural structures have adjusted to and been transformed by new realities (Mirzai, 2014, pp. 351376). Given the different patterns of slavery in the Indian and Atlantic Oceans, generalizations can lead to erroneous assessments and conclusions. For this reason, this paper focuses only on the formation of black communities in the aforementioned provinces, from the era of the slave trade to the present, and does not attempt to do so within a larger context.
Historically, enslaved people were transferred from East Africa to the coastal ports of the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean. The seaborne slave trade was largely dominated by Arab dealers, who had been using wellestablished maritime commercial networks for centuries (Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Islamic Republic of Iran 1266, Q1263.6.15; Nicolini, 2004, p. 100). They relied on strategies ranging from exploiting long-established climatic patterns (e.g., monsoons and winds) to adopting the flags of other nations or hiring Iranian vessels to evade search and seizure by British ships following the implementation of slave-trade suppression legislation after the mid-nineteenth century (National Archives of the United Kingdom 1847, FO 84/692; Lorimer, 1908-1915, Vol.1: pt. 1A, pp. 339, 548-550). Because slave trafficking depended on this system rather than on organized internal networks, most communities of enslaved Africans were established at disembarkation points along Iranian southern coastal frontiers and ports (Mirzai, 2002, pp. 229-246).
After being delivered from sea slave traffickers to their new owners, the enslaved people began a new chapter of life. They were employed in a variety of occupations, from domestic employment to work in agricultural industries
and fisheries, the military, politics and entertainment. Although the concept of possession is fundamental to slavery, the domestic rules and dominant social, economic, communal and geographical orders were detrimental in defining local slavery. Enslaved Africans had to adapt to often quite different local cultural circumstances by learning new dialects and adopting new religions and communal mores. Labour realities differed profoundly in rural and urban settings. It is not surprising, therefore, that such varyingly different environmental and geographical paradigms resulted in such different communitarian experiences. | Iranian subnations | [
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[Sistan va Baluchistan]
Sistan va Baluchistan
Sistan va Baluchistan is located in the south-eastern corner of Iran, bordering Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Gulf of Oman. There are two distinct ethnoreligious groups: the majority Shi'a Sistanis of Sistan in the north and the majority Sunni Baluchis of Baluchistan in the south. The dress, language, food and customs of this province bear a stronger affinity with the neighbouring country of Pakistan than with other Iranian provinces. Moreover, a harsh climate along with a long history of high taxation, foreign control and emigration has meant that this region is one of the least populated, most desolate and underdeveloped provinces in Iran. Enslaved Africans were therefore brought to the region to meet labour shortages faced by affluent kbans (local rulers) and they worked here, often alongside commoners and peasants in many different industries, as they had done for centuries (Vaziri 1386 SH, pp. 16, 26; Sykes, 1902, p. 106). From the early eighteenth century until the last decades of the nineteenth century, they came via a slave trade network dominated by the Sultanate of Oman, which extended from eastern Africa throughout the Indian Ocean and Persian Gulf regions (Landen, 1967, p. 63).
Groups with deeply embedded cultural mores and kinship networks (further bound by a common descent) tend to reinforce shared economic, cultural, historical and genealogical connections through marriage and other mechanisms of social mobility. Thus, it may be seen that social stratification strengthened principles based on kinship and descent. The ultimate result of such social arrangements was the political elevation of certain influential local groups, which consequently reinforced a sense of second-class citizenship among other groups. Importantly, such patterns were the result of specifically local social processes and were not mirrored elsewhere in society.
In general, the choice of a spouse was governed by centuries-old norms that prescribed consanguinity and endogamy and the eligibility of an individual member
In general, the choice of a spouse was governed by centuries-old norms that prescribed consanguinity and endogamy and the eligibility of an individual member
of every ta'ife (community) to marry within her or his own kin and social group, while members of other communities were necessarily deemed ineligible. Combined with intermarriage traditions, this led to the development of visibly 'African' communities during the slave trade era, most often in village settlements. It is important to note that this kind of endogamous culture was characteristic of power structures, status and wealth - as could be seen in the ranking and hierarchy of other Baluch ta'ifes - and was not determined by race. Moreover, such prescriptive marriage customs existed elsewhere in Iran but their rigidity, standards and measures varied from one region to another over time. Based on customary oral traditions, these rules were independent of national and state laws and were promulgated by local leaders (shaykhs and khans) and chiefs of every village.
A close examination of local social structures reveals the historical processes that affected the status of enslaved Africans in Sistan va Baluchistan. These include a predominant pattern of 'assimilation' in cities and 'integration' in more remote areas and rural districts. In cities, freed slaves consciously or unconsciously lost their distinctive identities as they were assimilated into the host society while, in remote and rural areas, they consciously or unconsciously maintained some aspects of their ethnic identities as they were integrated into society. Again, it may be seen that this paradigm was the result of pre-existing local customs and rigid social hierarchies that defined relationships based on wealth, power, status, lineage and kinship in the ta'ifes (communities). The status of enslaved Africans was therefore based on their rank as 'slaves' and 'outsiders' rather than on racial characteristics or skin colour.
The stratified, hierarchical and endogamous nature of the rural areas of Sistan va Baluchistan persists to some degree to this day. Thus, its ethnographic paradigm and the categorization of descendants of enslaved people have not changed fundamentally. In addition, it is interesting to see the similarity between this social structure and that of the caste system in India; this may be explained by a shared history under British rule (Guha, 2013, pp.31, 143-174; Dirks, 2001, pp. 213-243).
Governmental incompetence or reluctance to enforce laws in rural and peripheral areas helped to perpetuate traditional practices and customs and to reinforce the hierarchical nature of local culture. Until the Islamic Revolution in 1979, local ruling elites were obdurate about social reform. Recent globalization has accelerated political change, reform and social equality by helping to dismantle the khan system and replace it with local councils that support social mobility for descendants of former slaves. Thus, while endogamous marriages still occur within ta'ifes, there is much greater social and economic mobility and flexibility. | Sistan va Baluchistan | [
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[Khuzestan]
Khuzestan
The province of Khuzestan illustrates a quite different situation. As a neighbour of Iraq, its inhabitants are ethnically Arab through centuries of travel and immigration. An abundance of water and fertile soil suitable for agriculture, along with oil reserves and various industries, have provided job opportunities (Jamalzada 1384 SH, pp. 70, 108; Khazeni, 2009, p. 123). Most people belong to the Shi'a denomination and speak Arabic. Society was divided into the ta'ife (tribe or community), 'ashire (clan), hamule (dynasty) and beyt (family). While not necessarily hierarchical, this system led to the formation of a few slave clans which adopted similar characteristics to those found in Sistan va Baluchistan. However, as illustrated by the enslaved people who joined the 'Abdulkhan community when it left the Iraqi part of the Ottoman Empire in 1856 and settled in Khuzestan, groups were able to form their own clan. The 'Abid or Kakahi clan are therefore descendants of enslaved Africans (Sistani 1366 SH, Vol.1, p. 417). Central government policies affected the local social system in this region in the twentieth century and the traditional social structure has now been transformed. For example, while many shaykhs still act as mediators in social, political and economic matters in their communities, their authority was officially abolished in the 1920s (Sanasarian, 2000, p. 14). | Khuzestan | [
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[Khuzestan | Southern coastal provinces]
Southern coastal provinces
Together, the provinces of Hormozgan and Bushehr have Iran's longest coastline along the Persian Gulf, and this is where the greatest number of enslaved Africans disembarked until the mid-nineteenth century. Although most were engaged in the fishing industry, others were involved in the agricultural sector and domestic service.
The southern ports region has long been characterized as multi-ethnic and pluralistic. Moreover, while it is a predominantly Shi'a area, about one-fifth of the region's inhabitants are members of the Sunni sect, of which some 96 per cent belong to the Shafi'i denomination. Given the range of beliefs and ethnicities, groups tended to congregate in quarters. For example, in Bandar Abbas, Sunnis were concentrated in the Ozi, Soro and Shagho quarters, while the descendants of Africans had their own Islamic centre to perform rituals and lived in areas called Blacks' Quarter, Blacks' Pulpit and Behind the City (Kababi 1368 SH, pp. 157, 162, 158).
In the southern coastal region, kinship networks tended to be more fluid and symbolic and could therefore exert less of an impact on the way individuals interacted. Key factors were the area's extremely hot and humid climate especially during the summer - and trade, which encouraged the migration of coastal peoples and communities throughout the Persian Gulf. Coastal communities, which were cosmopolitan and multicultural, tended to exhibit greater racial and religious tolerance (Mojtahed-Zadeh, 2003, p. 67). Peoples of African descent, therefore, tended to reside in non-hierarchical communities that practised mostly exogamous marital arrangements. Today, all the inhabitants of southern Iran, including descendants of Africans, are referred to as Bandaris (the people of the port) and those who remain visibly distinctive are known as siyaban-i janub (the blacks of the south). These terms are commonly used in popular culture, films and songs, highlighting their African origin. Ironically, many Iranians are wont to attribute the prevalence of either lighter or darker complexions to climatic variations, namely, darker skin to the south and fairer skin to the cooler north. | Khuzestan | Southern coastal provinces | [
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[Cultural unity and diversity]
Cultural unity and diversity
Communal diversity is an entrenched phenomenon in Iranian society. In spite of ethno-cultural variety and overall heterogeneity, specific African traditions can be seen to have influenced Iranian culture, especially in the south. These customs, which cross social and geographical boundaries, connect individuals and communities both within Iran and in Africa. This is particularly apparent in various cultural elements with African origins and Iranian influences, from rhythmic music and song to healing rituals. They may differ from the original in name, symbol, performance and representation, but share common principles and concepts. For instance, the bandari music and songs characteristic of the southern coastal regions include sabalu, in which people sit in a circle, play the tambourine and shake their shoulders (Sistani 1369 SH, p. 499). In addition, the sangali song was traditionally sung by sailors while rowing or loading goods (interview with Esma'il Mubarak, an Afro-Iranian, in 2000; Eqtedari 2536, p. 251). Remnants of the Swahili language and belief systems are still apparent in healing ritual songs, including Zar and Gowat (Darvishi 1376 SH, p. 175). These traditions reveal the extent to which Iranian culture, shamanistic cults, Sufism and traditional African rituals have merged over centuries of interaction and migration. | Cultural unity and diversity | [
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[THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800)]
THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800)
Cassandra Pybus
The earliest record of a person of the African diaspora in Oceania was an unnamed 'black servant' on Captain James Cook's second voyage to the Pacific. He was among a party of ten men from HMS Adventure sent ashore in a cutter to collect greens at Queen Charlotte Sound (in present day New Zealand) on 17 December 1773 (Beaglehole, 1969, pp. 749-52). All of these men were killed by Māori warriors, led by the chief Kahura and subsequently eaten in a whāngai hau ceremony, in which the participants consumed the spirit of an enemy and his ancestors (Salmond, 2003, p. 229). It is clear from the evidence that the Māori made no distinction between this African man and the other nine European men in the cutter with him. It is safe to assume that there were other men from the African diaspora on Cook's ships in his various voyages into the Pacific, but they remain even more anonymous than that unfortunate 'servant'.
Historians know much more about the African men who were aboard a fleet of eleven British ships under Captain Arthur Phillip that sailed into the Pacific late in 1797. This was the First Fleet sent to create a penal colony on the east coast of Australia that Captain Cook had named New South Wales. The ships carried 759 British felons sentenced to 'transportation beyond the Seas' and a few hundred marines to guard them. A decade earlier, these convicted felons would have been shipped to the American colonies, but since the American War of Independence, 1775-1782, the British Government had been desperate
to find a new dumping ground for Britain's unwanted felons. Several proposals for convict settlements on the west coast of Africa - near the slave factory of Cape Coast Castle, on the coast of Sierra Leone, or on an island miles up the Gambia River - were considered and rejected before the Home Secretary, Lord Sydney, chose the very distant and utterly unfamiliar place Captain Cook had found on the other side of the world (Christopher, 2011).
An African convict was among the very first to make landfall in New South Wales, as one of a small group of convicts sent ashore to cut grass for the horses on 20 January 1788. The officer who accompanied the group was aware of the watching Aborigines and he later wrote a rather fanciful account of the behaviour of these curious natives. They were 'much pleased' to see a 'man of their own complexion', he wrote, and appeared to be puzzled that the black man failed to understand when they called out to him in their language (Bradley, 1969, p. 62). This was hardly likely. What the Aborigines were calling out was later translated as 'go away' and was addressed to all the invaders. For the indigenous people of Australia, someone from Africa who had suddenly appeared on their shores dressed in a convict uniform would have appeared no less alien than those with pale faces dressed in the same strange clothes. On more than one occasion the Aborigines showed keen interest in the fact that the invaders came in different skin colours, but they gave no sign of cultural identification with anyone. None of the First Fleet diarists record which African man it was who first stepped ashore, but he would have been one of eleven African convicts aboard the First Fleet, less than two per cent of the convict cargo.
All these eleven men were illiterate. Their trial records provide no account of how they came to be in England and the sparse, one-line entries in their transportation indents provide few clues to their history. They had all been arrested in the period between 1782 and 1787, a time when the black population in England increased dramatically, especially in Greater London, where most were sentenced. By 1785, the black population in that city was around 10,000 and parish records indicate that the great majority were young black men concentrated in parts of the East End of London, such as Stepney, Minories, Wapping, Shadwell, Limehouse and Deptford. Analysis of records of black baptisms for 1770-1800 for the parishes of Greater London, using data supplied by the London Metropolitan Archives, indicate that about one per cent of baptised Londoners were black; however, this underestimates the black population, many of whom were not Christian. Analysis of trial records from the Old Bailey, the Middlesex and Kent Assizes in the period immediately after the American War of Independence, reveal about 0.9 per cent of indictments
were identified as black, but racial identity was not always specified in the court documents. In the more detailed records for the prison hulks the percentage of convicted black felons was two per cent. An average of all three indicators suggests a level of about 1.3 per cent of a population of 750,000 , or just under 10,000 (Pybus, 2006).
It was the view of contemporary observers that this sudden influx of indigent black men, living by their wits and whatever they could steal, was a direct result of the American Revolution. Between 4,000 and 5,000 African Americans ended up in London in the aftermath of that war, nearly all of them runaway slaves who had deserted their masters when promised their freedom by the British. The runaways who sought protection from the British had been granted freedom by British proclamation, but in order for them to remain free once the conflict had ended, they had had to leave America and forge a problematic new life in far-flung corners of the British Empire, constituting a diaspora within a diaspora (Pybus, 2006). Regardless of where these African men came from, it is clear that they could not find any legitimate means of support in England, with a labour market flooded with returning soldiers and sailors. Having no home parish, they were unable to access relief under the Poor Law. A pauper was required to return to his 'parish of settlement' before being entitled to receive relief. The Scots and Irish were sent back to their country of birth, but it was neither practical nor desirable to return refugees to America (Braidwood, 1994, p.32). It is not surprising that African American refugees ended up in the prison hulks charged with minor felonies, such as stealing food or clothing.
The majority of the Africans on the First Fleet came to Britain via the American colonies. John Moseley came from Virginia before defecting to the British forces in the American Revolution. He worked in New York until 1783 when he was recorded as leaving New York as a seaman on a British ship (Pybus, 2006). He was arrested in Portsmouth in 1784 for impersonating another seaman who had been kidnapped into slavery, in order to get his wages. ^1 Daniel Gordon, formerly of Charleston, South Carolina, was arrested near Portsmouth in 1786 in possession of stolen clothing. ^2 John Randall, originally from New London, Connecticut, was almost certainly from a disbanded British regiment when he was sentenced for stealing a watch in Manchester in 1785. ^3 George Francisco was sentenced to seven years for stealing in 1784 after spending three years as
[^0]
[^0]: 1 John Moseley, Old Bailey Session Papers, (OBSP) 1783-84, https://www.oldbaileyonline.org.
2 Winchester Quarter Session Records, 5 April 1875, Hampshire Record Office.
3 Manchester Quarter Sessions, 14 April 1875, Lancaster Record Office.
a prisoner of war in France, having been captured on a British warship. ^4 Samuel Chinery had probably come from America when he was sentenced at Exeter, Devon in 1786 for the theft of a linen shirt. ^5 It is unclear whether John Coffin was from America but he was working as a servant in Exeter in 1784 when he was arrested for stealing. ^6 | THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800) | [
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[THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800)]
Some of the African convicts appear to have been sailors who came from the Caribbean or the west coast of Africa. When Thomas Orford, described as 'a negro' who spoke 'broken English', was tried in London, he gave evidence that he had come off a ship. ^7 John Martin, who was also sentenced for stealing clothing in London, appears to have been a seaman from the Caribbean, just off a ship. ^8 Sixteen-year-old James Williams, known as 'Black Jemmy' was a serving seaman who was sentenced in 1785 at the Old Bailey to seven years' transportation for theft of clothing. ^9 The youngest African transported was John Williams, who was also a seaman. He was fourteen when he was indicted at Maidstone as 'Black Jack', for breaking into a house and stealing alcohol, clothing and money. ^10
The most notable of the African convicts was John Caesar, sometimes called Black Caesar, who has a claim to being a historical figure of major importance. He was Australia's first bushranger. ^11 Caesar was six feet tall and was aged about twenty-two when he was convicted of theft at the Maidstone court in 1786 and sentenced to seven years' transportation. ^12 He was believed to have come from Madagascar and the name Caesar suggests that he was originally enslaved. Since people from Madagascar were not sold in Britain or the Caribbean in the eighteenth century, this suggests he came to Britain from the American slave colonies (Duffield, 1998, p. 57-93). Malagasy captives were highly prized as slaves in America, and both New York and Virginia had several shipments from Madagascar (Platt, 1969, pp. 548-577).
[^0]
[^0]: 4 George Francisco: OBSP, 1784-85, https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
5 Samuel Chinery: ASSI 23/8, 24/26, NAUK
6 Exeter Flying Post 1784-86, vol. xxiii, no. 1141, 12 January 1786
7 Thomas Orford: OBSP - 1783-84 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
8 John Martin: OBSP 1781-82 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
9 John Williams: ASSI, 13/13; NA ASSI, 35/225, NAUK
10 James Williams: OBSP 178485 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
8 John Martin: OBSP 1781-82 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
9 John Williams: ASSI, 13/13; NA ASSI, 35/225, NAUK
10 James Williams: OBSP 178485 https://www.oldbaileyonline.org
11 The 'bushranger' is an armed outlaw who has become Australia's iconic hero. The most famous bushranger, Ned Kelly, is celebrated in Peter Carey's Booker prize-winning novel The True Story of the Kelly Gang New York: Knopf, 2001.
12 Assizes 35/226, 38, NAUK
At the penal settlement established in New South Wales, Caesar was reputed to be the strongest man in the place, and a hardworking convict, but 'incorrigibly stubborn' (Collins, 1975, p. 57). He managed to profoundly irritate the Judge Advocate, who penned an appraisal of this recalcitrant convict saying, 'in his intellect he did not differ widely from a brute' and concluding that the man was forced to steal to feed his brutish appetite. In May 1789, he was caught with stolen bread, and sentenced to be flogged with 500 lashes. Guessing that the terrors of the unknown hinterland were less terrible than a penal settlement, Caesar ran off into the surrounding bush, armed with a musket and cooking pot. He was soon caught and brutally punished, but no matter how many times he was caught Caesar always managed to abscond back to the bush. By 1795, he was still at large and providing encouragement to other absconders. Armed with stolen muskets, Caesar and his associates constituted a greater threat to the penal settlement than the local Aborigines (Collins, op. cit., p. 377). Australia's first outlaw was eventually shot and killed by a convict bounty hunter in 1796. Caesar's legacy, however, lived on. His daughter Mary Anne Poore, born in Australia, received a land grant in the second penal colony of Van Diemen's Land in 1813.
There can be no doubt that penal servitude in New South Wales was coercive and brutal. Convicts were torn away from their families, dumped at the end of the world and forced into backbreaking labour on State projects, without a wage, for a period of four to twelve years. Arbitrary punishment was meted out that could scar them for life. Yet for all its harshness, penal servitude was nothing like chattel slavery. Little distinguished the convicts from those who guarded them. Many of the marines at Sydney Cove, like the seamen on the transport ships, had been impressed into service and they too faced excessively brutal punishment for minor misdemeanours and were lucky if they were ever paid. Everyone, convict or free, had to labour on State projects in the first decade of settlement in order to create a place to live, just as everyone had to scrabble for subsistence in the face of famine. From the lowliest convict to the governor, everyone had the same allowance of food, even when the government rations were cut to a quarter.
Most significant for the African cohort was that children born in the penal colony had the same status and privilege of any freeborn British subject. Among the very first generation of Australian-born there were more than a dozen with African fathers. Among the first generation of freeborn settlers in Australia there were at least four with African fathers: Lydia Randall born in 1791, Mary Anne Poore born in 1792, Mary Randall born in 1793, and John Randall Jr.
born in 1797. In 1812, Mary Randall married another African, John Martin, and their marriage produced 13 children and 52 grandchildren. Descendants of that union are now said to number 25,000. For John Randall and John Martin, both probably born into slavery, to see their children with the privilege of the freeborn, guaranteed by custom and law, was a significant achievement, probably worth all the bitter tribulations that had brought them to this strange place at the very end of the world.
After the First Fleet, the ships brought a steady trickle of African convicts from England, although probably slightly less than one per cent of the 164,000 convicts transported. Among them was an African man who was celebrated as one of Australia's Founding Fathers, Billy Blue, who arrived in 1801. A commemorative portrait of Billy Blue hangs in the State Library of New South Wales. This portrait in oils is the work of J. B. East, an artist of some renown who had exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts and who probably produced his portrait immediately after Blue's death on 6 May 1834. His painting captured a tall, graceful black man with intelligent eyes and a beatific smile, in rag-tag clothing made from bits of military uniform, with his signature top hat, carrying the accoutrements of a bag slung over his shoulder and a carved stick. Blue is standing at the monument known as Mrs Macquarie's Chair in the Governor's Domain, as an acknowledgement of Blue's patron, Governor Lachlan Macquarie, while the distant harbour reminds the viewer of Blue's position as the official ferryman on Sydney Harbour, a position he held for many years. Within days of his death, The Australian newspaper announced that East's painting was on public view and the Sydney Gazette newspaper produced two full columns extolling Blue as a founding father of New South Wales, whose memory would be 'treasured in the minds of the present generation, when the minions of ambition are forgotten in the dust'. Indulging in high-flown praise, the editor told his readers: 'the reign of Billy is coeval with the foundation of the colony' (Sydney Gazette, 8 May 1834). | THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800) | [
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[THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800)]
At the time of his death, Blue was a very old man, believed to be aged somewhere between ninety-seven and ninety-nine. Some people believed he came from the Caribbean, but years after his death, his children revealed that he had told them his birthplace was New York. ^13 A petition he wrote to the governor in 1823 reveals that he had been impressed in America to fight with the British in the Seven Years' War and he had subsequently fought with the
[^0]
[^0]: 13 Susannah Scofield, granddaughter of Blue, provided a document, now lost, stating that Blue had told her father that he was born in New York. This account was reproduced in The Star, 21 September 1808.
British in the American War of Independence. ^14 After being evacuated from America in 1782 he lived in Deptford, London, where he made a living working in various activities including chocolate manufacture. ^15 In 1786 he was arrested and convicted of stealing sugar from a West Indian ship that he was unloading. ^16
Billy Blue lived in the penal colony of New South Wales for three decades, earning the affectionate nickname 'the commodore' for his increasingly eccentric behaviour. He adopted the habit of boarding ships that arrived in Sydney Harbour, wearing his tattered, mismatched uniform and top hat, to welcome the ship's captain in his official capacity as commodore. As the Sydney Gazette told its readers, Blue expected to receive 'suitable homage from all of His Majesty's subjects, as befitted a man of his position'. Twirling his stick and declaiming 'True Blue Forever', the old man demanded that men salute, children doff their hats, and women curtsy to him. This highly subversive performance had the curious effect of endearing Blue to all levels of Sydney society, who happily complied with his demands (Sydney Gazette, 15 December 1829). When Baron von Hügel landed in Sydney in 1834 he was confronted by an old black man standing in the middle of the street with a sack over his shoulder, 'saying something crazy in a loud voice at every passer-by'. On inquiring about this disreputable apparition, the European aristocrat could scarcely believe his ears when he was told that this was 'the old commodore whom Governor Macquarie appointed port captain'.
There continued to be a small trickle of African convicts from England, but after 1820 the penal colonies began to receive enslaved workers transported directly from Mauritius and the slave colonies of the British Caribbean. Their status as chattels was rarely stated on the official documentation, reflecting official squeamishness about complicity in the slaving business. An exception was a man sentenced to life in St. Vincent, known simply as Bruce. His owner had not managed to get his property returned and the British Government had to compensate the owner for the loss, so Bruce's offence was probably some act of rebellion. He was transported at some considerable cost to the British Government. ^17 The same could be said for Sophie, an enslaved Malagasy woman who was transported after she set fire to her owner's barn in Mauritius. Likewise, Theresa, another enslaved woman from Madagascar transported from Mauritius
[^0]
[^0]: 14 Petition of William Blue, CS R2052. 4/1764, Nov.1923, State Records of New South Wales.
15 Deposition of William Blue, 29 September 1786, Q/SB 225, Kent County Archives.
16 Indictment of William Blue, Q/SIW 422, Kent County Archives
17 Index to convict indents, 1788-1842, Fiche 5969-5979, Research Office of New South Wales.
in the same year, was found guilty of assault after she tried to hit her master's daughter with a hoe as retaliation for the brutal treatment she had received (Anderson, 1998, pp. 116-133). Two enslaved children in Mauritius, Constance, aged eight, and Elizabeth, aged twelve, were found guilty of trying to poison their mistress, and were transported for life (Pybus and Bradley, 2007, pp. 29-50).
The traffic in enslaved people convicted of felonies dramatically increased as the anti-slavery movement in Britain grew louder and more persistent, and the slave colonies saw transportation as a means to control a dangerously restive slave population excited by rumours of impending emancipation. In December 1831, 60,000 Jamaican slaves staged the largest slave rebellion in the British Empire at Montego Bay, which was put down with savage violence in January 1832. Subsequently, hundreds of slaves were vindictively condemned to death under martial law. After the orgy of execution, combined pressure from England to stop the killing encouraged white Jamaicans to rid themselves of enslaved troublemakers in other ways. Transportation was an attractive option because it permanently removed the people whose executions could incite more trouble (Duffield, 1986, pp. 25-45). Unlike the 344 enslaved rebels executed after the rebellion, eight rebels from Montego Bay were transported to the Australian penal colonies.
One such was Alexander Simpson, who arrived in Van Diemen's Land in 1833, having been convicted at a Jamaican Court Martial, on 20 January 1832, of 'making use of Seditious language, Joining and Engaging in Conspiracy, Traitorous, Rebellious or Hostile Acts against His Majesty's Government and against the peace and safety of the Island' and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted and he was transported to Australia (Duffield, 1986). On his arrival he told the muster that his offence was: 'Mutiny and exciting the Slaves to Rebellion. I was a slave myself'. One of the most remarkable unintended consequences of penal transportation of enslaved rebels was that on conviction they became free subjects. So, when Simpson was granted a conditional pardon after a few years, he was able to live out the rest of his life in Australia with all the legal rights and protections of the freeborn British.
With the abolition of slavery and during the period of apprenticeships, convicts still came from the slave colonies. In these cases, the felonies for which they were convicted often masked the real crime, which was resistance to the continuation of unfree labour as forced apprenticeships, widely perceived as slavery in a new guise. These convicts were sent to the second penal colony established in Van Diemen's Land (modern Tasmania) in 1803. Convicts who came through the Van Diemen's Land system all had their bodies minutely
described and gave short biographical statements which were all noted in their convict record, so historians have evidence of physical descriptors, as well as self-identification, to help them establish the number of Africans in that penal system. The number in Van Diemen's Land who can be confidently identified was 283 , comprising four women and 279 men. | THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800) | [
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[THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800)]
Most were so-called 'apprentices' sent from the Caribbean colonies and Mauritius, but there were six military offenders from British army regiments who were court-martialled for desertion or mutiny in the Caribbean between 1833 and 1838. ^18 There was nothing in their commonplace names to distinguish them from the great mass of English and Irish convicts arriving in the penal colonies sentenced by military courts, except that these men gave their native place as Africa. Moreover, they had distinct ritual scar patterns that indicated they had reached adolescence in Africa. Although it is not possible to say exactly where they were from, strong variations in their scar patterns suggest they came from various African locations. Given that the British slave trade had stopped in 1808, it was unlikely these men had come to the Caribbean as enslaved workers. In fact, they were 'liberated slaves', taken from impounded slave ships at Sierra Leone and then impressed into British military regiments. Between 1808 and 1825, 2,738 liberated Africans entered the services and most went into the West Indian regiments, with quite dramatic rises in 1827 and 1828 and further sharp rises in the mid-1830s. ^19 As Roger Buckley has shown, the African soldier became indispensable in the defence of the British Caribbean slave plantations (Buckley, 1979, pp. 136-138).
In addition to providing a recruitment station, Sierra Leone also served the purpose of providing settlement for many others who were liberated from captured slave ships. One of these 'liberated slaves' was James Brown, who landed in Van Diemen's Land in 1833, having been sentenced to seven years for stealing shoes in London. To the clerk taking down his conviction he gave this mini-autobiography: 'I was taken when a child as a Slave from the Congo River and sold to a Spanish Slaver. Captured by a British King's Ship and liberated at Sierra Leone. [I was] brought away from thence as servant to Mr McCormack' (Duffield, 2001, pp. 117-135). Brown spoke the truth. John McCormack was an Irish trader who settled in Sierra Leone in 1816 before returning to London in 1830 with his 'apprentice'.
[^0]
[^0]: 18 CON18/15, Archives Office of Tasmania.
19 CO 267/153/328, NAUK.
While it is rare to find such a direct statement of an enslaved slave past as that of James Brown or Alexander Simpson, for the majority of African convicts transported to Australia, their formative experience was of slavery, be they runaways from North America, liberated from impounded slave ships, chattel slaves on Caribbean plantations or 'apprentices' from Mauritius and the Caribbean. There were even a handful of enslaved people transported from the Cape of Good Hope with tell-tale names such as Adonis and Jacob.
Most convicts sent from the Cape Colony were indigenous Khoi who had been ruthlessly pushed off their lands in the eighteenth century and forced into debt peonage and near-slavery in which they were obliged to indenture their children up to 25 years of age. Most of the Khoi transported to the Australian penal colonies were impressed soldiers from the Cape Rifles who had been tried by court martial in the Cape, mostly for desertion (Malherbe, 1985, pp. 19-50). Other Khoi were among a group of offenders emptied out of Robben Island in the early 1830s, who were convicted of banditry and cattle stealing, which was colonial code for Khoi resistance. David Stuurman led a quixotic attempt to re-establish an independent self-sustaining Khoi community, for which he was dubbed 'the last chief of the Hottentots'. He and his followers were hunted down and imprisoned on Robben Island and it was from here that Stuurman was transported to New South Wales in 1823 (Malherbe, 1980, pp. 60-64). Several of his compatriots escaped from Robben Island and were recaptured a decade later and transported to Van Diemen's Land. Peter Haley was a transported Khoi man who became one of Australia's notorious outlaw bushrangers, until his flamboyant career was cut short by the hangman in 1836.
People of the African diaspora came to Australia and New Zealand as convicts and free settlers throughout the nineteenth century. These immigrants are much harder to quantify as they were often seamen who jumped ship. African seamen had been a feature of British maritime life since the Seven Years' War, and in the nineteenth century, they could be as much as a third of the crew. In the age of steamships, a high proportion of crew were African sailors called 'seedies', from the Swahili coast, especially Zanzibar, who fed the coal into the engines (Stanziani, 2014, p. 63). Desertion was a weapon in the limited arsenal of the seafaring man, but for an African man, desertion in any Atlantic port, or anywhere in the Caribbean, carried the very real fear that they would be caught and immediately re-enslaved or traded into slavery elsewhere. Such a man need not fear being caught in the illicit slave trade in the distant ports of Oceania. These were places where a man might get a new start, regardless of his background. This made Australia and New Zealand very likely places to
jump ship and many sailors did, evading immigration registration (Goodall et al., 2008, pp. 44-74).
Even more likely to jump ship were African Americans, who made up a third or more of the crew on the American whaling ships that were so common in the South Pacific in the nineteenth century (Bolster, 1997; Newton, 2013). Whaling concentrated the worst elements of the maritime industry, especially for a black sailor, and desertion rates were high, particularly in the Southern whale fishery. Sometimes American whaling ships found themselves entirely bereft of crew as men deserted throughout the Pacific: in Australia, in New Zealand, and in a whole raft of small Pacific islands. This rash of desertion among American seamen reached epidemic proportions during the gold rush that began in 1851 in the Australian colony of Victoria. Police records from the subsequent decade reveal dozens of African American men, often known as Black Jack or Black Harry or Black Pete, arrested in the goldfield regions for vagrancy or being a 'rogue and vagabond'. ^20 These men invariably gave mercantile occupations, such as sailors, cooks or carpenters, and they probably jumped ship in the hope of finding gold, then found themselves stranded with no visible means of support. Thomas Johnson was one African American who was charged with vagrancy in 1865. This man, who gave his place of birth as North Carolina, was described as a woodcutter when he married the Irish woman Mary Gallagher in Melbourne on 16 April 1868. ^21 Their son Thomas Creighton Johnson was born in 1874. ^22 In his adult years, Thomas Creighton Johnson moved to Western Australia, where in 1924 he married. Already quite an old man, he had poor luck with farming and he died in 1937, leaving his wife pregnant with her fifth child and completely destitute. Four children were placed in care at St. Joseph's orphanage and nine years later, the last child, Colin, was also placed in care. Colin Johnson went on to transcend this miserable background, becoming internationally renowned as Mudrooroo, Australia's premier Aboriginal writer. Since the revelation in the 1990s that Mudrooroo's heritage was African
, becoming internationally renowned as Mudrooroo, Australia's premier Aboriginal writer. Since the revelation in the 1990s that Mudrooroo's heritage was African, not Aboriginal, he had been ostracized by the Aboriginal community and went to live outside of Australia. | THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800) | [
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[THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800)]
It is one of the many tragedies of race relations in Australia that history has not allowed for the stories of settlers from the African diaspora. The eliding of
[^0]
[^0]: 20 Victorian Police Gazette 1853-1861 and Victorian Central Register of Prisoners, microfiche, McN1383, National Library of Australia
21 369/1868, Births Deaths and Marriages Registry, Victoria, Australia
22 1720/1874, Births Deaths and Marriages, NSW State Archives and Records, Australia
African ancestry began very early in Australia's history and has led to widespread misreading of racial identity: an Australian who had colonial antecedents could only be European or Aboriginal. The refusal to acknowledge that Australia began as a multiracial society crystallized with the federation and establishment of the independent Commonwealth of Australia in 1901, which immediately legislated to restrict immigration and expel non-European immigrants. This came to be known as the White Australia policy and lasted until 1973, when laws were passed to ensure that race would be totally disregarded as a factor for immigration to Australia. Two years later, the Racial Discrimination Act made racially based selection criteria unlawful. In the decades since, Australia has maintained large-scale multiracial immigration, but not until the 1990s did this include sizeable numbers of people from Africa. On a global scale, the African diaspora in Oceania is very small and concentrated on the large island continent of Australia. This may seem historically insignificant, but the mere fact that at the end of the eighteenth century Africans made it to the impossibly remote Southern Pacific Ocean is remarkable and indicates both the complexity and the vast scope of the diasporic process. | THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN OCEANIA (1700-1800) | [
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[THE 'MASOMBIKA' OR 'MAKOA' IN MADAGASCAR | Introduction]
Introduction
The history of migration between East Africa and Madagascar is at least as old as human settlement of the Great Island in the first millennium. In the debate on this settlement, two conflicting arguments emerged early in the twentieth century. The first tended to associate Madagascar with the Malay world (Grandidier, 1908), while the other emphasized Arabic and Bantu influences (Ferrand, 1909). The contribution of the African continent would manifest itself by the presence on the island of the 'Makoa' or 'Masombika' people, originally from East Africa. According to Deschamps (1959), at least some of the Makoa living in the twentieth century on the west coast of Madagascar originated from 'much earlier voluntary migrations'. This hypothesis is open to critical assessment. The crossing of the early Makoa differs from other East African migrations, ^1 in that it was forced. Witnesses who claim a Makoan identity report that their ancestors, born on the continental mainland, were 'lost' (very) upon their arrival on the Malagasy shores. This term, which derives from the
[^0]
[^0]: 1 East Africans who came on a voluntary basis to set up home on the west coast of Madagascar in the nineteenth century, including the Ajojo [Comorians], the Soahili [Swahili], the Ngodja [from Zanzibar] and the Ngodji [from Angoche in Mozambique] were Muslims and spoke Swahili. Their migration was often motivated by trade, including slavery.
slavery vocabulary of Madagascar, suggests a loss of liberty or kinship (Molet, 1974). Others have referred more explicitly to the servile condition of their ancestors, indicating that they had been 'purchased' (novidiana) or were 'slaves' (andevo). ^2 The deportation of these ancestors from the continental mainland appears to have been relatively recent, as it took place during the nineteenth century, at a time when the settlement of the island was already established. All the East African captives imported and enslaved in Madagascar, as well as their descendants born on the island, were referred to under the generic terms of 'Masombika' or 'Makoa'. They derive their names from the Makhuwa, ^3 the most common sociolinguistic group in North Mozambique. The word 'Masombika' derives from the island's name and the port of Mozambique, the former capital of the Portuguese colony in East Africa and a major slave trafficking hub. It is possible to link the use of slave labour imported to the Great Island with the advent of the Kingdom of Madagascar. The Masombika introduced into this kingdom since the reign of King Radama I (Grandidier, 1877) were the subject of specific legislation which was intended to secure compliance with the agreement concluded with the leading sea power of the day, Great Britain. Under the terms of the treaty signed in 1817, and ratified in 1820, Great Britain agreed to recognize the sovereignty of Radama I over the Great Island in return for the renunciation of the export of slaves. This period marked the reversal of the major influx of slaves to Madagascar. Although exports showed a declining trend over the nineteenth century, imports of captives grew in significance, possibly reaching their peak during the 1860s and 1870s, a period of economic prosperity in the Kingdom of Madagascar (Campbell, 1989). During these decades, the prohibition of the slave trade was invoked by the treaty of 1865 concluded between London and Antananarivo
, 1989). During these decades, the prohibition of the slave trade was invoked by the treaty of 1865 concluded between London and Antananarivo, and by a series of legislative measures that culminated with the collective emancipation of the Masombika, proclaimed in 1877 by Queen Ranavalona II in the territories over which she claimed control (approximately two thirds of the island). According to British Consul Pakenham, around 100,000 Masombika may have been liberated in 1877, or one third of the effective population of the entire island (Rakotondrabe, 1997), evaluated at approximately 300,000 towards the end of the nineteenth century. According to Campbell, at least 650,000 slaves would have been imported
[^0]
[^0]: 2 Makoan narratives recorded in Morondava and Maintirano on the west coast of Madagascar in 2008.
3 I have distinguished between the Makoa (according to the Malagasy spelling), the population established in Madagascar, and the Makhuwa, from Mozambique. In the same way, 'Makoa' describes the language spoken in Madagascar, and 'Emakhuwa' describes that used in Mozambique.
from Mozambique to Madagascar between 1820 and 1890. This historian has worked partly on the basis of data produced by British officers, in an abolitionist context. These figures probably require some downward adjustment. ^4 Given its clandestine nature, it is difficult to estimate the volume of slave trading imports with any accuracy. However, it may be estimated that the numbers concerned were considerable, involving up to several hundred thousand individuals. A proportion of East African captives (possibly 20 per cent) were only in transit on the Great Island; they were re-exported elsewhere. In practice, due to its partial escape from Antananarivo rule, the western coast of Madagascar played a key role in relaying slaves across the western Indian Ocean, feeding both the French markets for 'engaged labour' and the Malagasy slave markets (Boyer-Rossol, 2015). With the gradual decline of re-exportation to the French plantation islands of La Réunion and Nosy Be, and a decrease of imports to the Kingdom of Madagascar, East African captives were progressively retained on the west coast of Madagascar and enslaved locally. In the region around Maintirano, the illegal slave trade continued well beyond 1877 and the Makoa were kept in bondage until at least 1896, the year slavery was abolished in Madagascar. This emancipation involved approximately half a million individuals, out of an approximate population of 2.5 million on the entire island (Grandier, 1956). This figure, produced in a colonial context, may well require upward adjustment (Rakoto, 2014). It relates to the populations of territories formerly under Antananarivo rule, and consequently does not include the Masombika who were liberated in the Kingdom of Madagascar in 1877, nor persons who remained in servitude at the end of the nineteenth century in those regions which remained independent, particularly in the west. Accordingly, during the second half of the nineteenth century
, particularly in the west. Accordingly, during the second half of the nineteenth century, Sakalava territories experienced a significant expansion of internal slavery. ^5 Local slave markets were supplied by internal slave raids, and by external slave trading networks. ^6 The slave trade | THE 'MASOMBIKA' OR 'MAKOA' IN MADAGASCAR | Introduction | [
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[THE 'MASOMBIKA' OR 'MAKOA' IN MADAGASCAR | Introduction]
[^0]
[^0]: 4 Other nineteenth century sources, specifically written Malagasy sources (including registers of the freed Masombika) suggest a more plausible minimum estimate of 350,000 East African captives imported and enslaved in Madagascar during the nineteenth century.
5 Although the servile population was numerically more significant in the central highlands (particularly in Imerina) than in the less densely populated western region, the proportion of slaves to the total population was probably equivalent in these different regions of the island, reaching a figure of between 20 and 25 per cent of the total population by the end of the nineteenth century.
6 Thus, in the western regions under Antananarivo rule, such as Mahajunga, where the Makoa were particularly numerous, the collective liberation of the Masombika decreed in 1877 dealt a blow to the institution of slavery itself, and numerous slave owners opposed this royal decree, specifically by moving to areas which were not under Antananarivo control.
ceased with French colonization, which also involved the closure of continental horizons for inhabitants on the west coast, with a substantial decline in traffic across the Mozambique Channel. | THE 'MASOMBIKA' OR 'MAKOA' IN MADAGASCAR | Introduction | [
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[Enforced crossing of ancestors from 'beyond the seas']
Enforced crossing of ancestors from 'beyond the seas'
On the west coast of Madagascar, the inhabitants continue to perpetuate the memory of their ancestors who came from 'beyond the seas'. ^7 Questioned during the 2000s, witnesses who identified themselves as Makoan had, for the most part, known grandparents or great-grandparents who were born on the continental mainland. The deportation of their ancestors dates back to the second half of the nineteenth century, when the slave trade between East Africa and Madagascar intensified. It would appear that the majority of captives introduced at that time were mainly from the Makhuwa-Lomwe societies of northern Mozambique. In his life story, Kalamba (circa 1853-1903) retraces the major stages of his journey: a childhood in a country located within present day Mozambique, his capture, the trip to the coast, his sea crossing in a dhow, being sold and subsequent enslavement in western Madagascar (Boyer-Rossol, 2013). Notwithstanding the relative proximity of the East African and Malagasy coasts, ^8 the sea crossing was fatal for large numbers of captives. Contemporary observers estimated that, on average, over a third of East African captives died before reaching the Great Island. ^9 Starvation, promiscuity and disease had a major impact upon the survivors of the crossing. Kalamba recalls the terrible conditions he endured on the dhow. Captives were deprived of food and water. Some jumped overboard, preferring suicide to the fear of being eaten by the Malagasy. ^10 Another testimony has reached us in the form of an account given by one Masombika, who describes the deplorable hygiene conditions and the survival strategies adopted by captives during the sea crossing. 'Horrified by the dirt and stink in the bowels of the boat', he managed to persuade the sailors to let him sit in the hold. This is how he witnessed the scenes of panic amongst the ship's crew as the dhow approached
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 7 Surveys were conducted in 2004 and 2008 in the coastal region between Morondava and Mahajunga, the last great bastion of the illegal slave trade in Madagascar.
8 Only 400 kilometres separate Mozambique from the Saint André Cape in Western Madagascar. The duration of the enforced crossing by dhow varied between 4-5 days to in excess of 10 days.
9 Natural History Museum of Paris (MNHN), Grandidier Foundation. 3259. Unpublished manuscript notes. Book 18, Notes de Majunga à Tananarive. Du 15 au 30 août 1869, p. 1043.
10 The myth of cannibalism was widespread on the slave trading routes of the Indian Ocean.
the north west of Madagascar and was surprised by a British warship (Houlder, 1877). In the context of illegal slave trading, shipments were riskier for traffickers, and more gruelling for the captives. In order to evade British patrol ships, the masters of slaving vessels would prolong the journey. Captives were disoriented by the numerous navigational manoeuvres. During the crossing itself, there was resistance among captives, creating connections between themselves that were recorded as a bond of kinship. Oral Makoan tradition recalls the memory of 'brothers' and 'sisters' transported in the same dhow. Established in conjunction with deportation, this notional kinship was socially reinterpreted in Madagascar in the form of affiliation. Any union between the descendants of these Makoan 'brothers' and 'sisters' continued to breach the taboo of incest, which lies at the origin of the development of the institution of kinship (Lévi-Strauss, 1949). The shared experience of the 'Middle Passage' forged links between captives that were sustained thereafter, notwithstanding their dispersion upon arriving in the Great Island. | Enforced crossing of ancestors from 'beyond the seas' | [
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[Diversity in Masombika status]
Diversity in Masombika status
The Masombika in Madagascar experienced a variety of circumstances. Their legal status, social conditions and emancipation modes varied, depending upon where they lived and the period of time at which they were introduced to the island. In the central highlands, the majority of the enslaved came from inland (a large section of the servile population were former war captives), but on the west coast the Makoa were frequently the largest group amongst the slave population. ^11 At the crossroads of various models of enslavement, ^12 slavery practices and servile functions appear to have been very diverse in the west of Madagascar during the nineteenth century. Slaves were soldiers, craftspeople, cooks, sailors, porters, ox keepers or domestic servants. Royal slaves were assigned ritual or military tasks. Kings, chiefs and their entourages were surrounded by Makoa concubines. ^13 The majority of Makoa slaves, both men and women,
[^0]
[^0]: 11 Thus, in the western regions under Antananarivo rule, such as Mahajunga, where the Makoa were particularly numerous, the collective liberation of the Masombika decreed in 1877 dealt a blow to the institution of slavery itself, and numerous slave owners opposed this royal decree, specifically by moving to areas that were not under Antananarivo control.
12 A distinction may be drawn, amongst other practices, between plantation slavery, 'domestic' slavery and other endogenous practices which defined relationships of dependency in Madagascar.
13 The figures of the soldier slave and the concubine, common in the Sakalava kingdoms in the west, were unknown in Imerina. Soldiers were recruited from the free population.
13 The figures of the soldier slave and the concubine, common in the Sakalava kingdoms in the west, were unknown in Imerina. Soldiers were recruited from the free population.
were put to work on farms. Around Maintirano, in a region of the west which remained independent, there were 'plantations of rice, maize, sorghum and bananas that were cultivated by thousands of Makoa slaves. You would walk for two days without coming across an inch of unfarmed land and without meeting a free man', according to the French traveller Douliot, writing in 1892. While in some parts of the west the Masombika were kept in bondage until the end of the nineteenth century, in the territories of the Kingdom of Madagascar, the Masombika emancipated in 1877 were considered to be subjects of the Queen and, as such, indentured to her. They nevertheless remained at the bottom of the social scale, and were subject to a degree of endogamy within their group. In Imerina, the prohibition of marital union between freemen and slaves continued to influence social relations long after the abolition of slavery. Through the interplay of marital alliances, it is possible that the descendants of East African slaves in the west enjoyed a greater degree of social mobility than in Imerina. In the independent kingdoms of the west, as elsewhere in East African societies (Médard, Derat, Vernet and Ballarin, 2013), emancipation was not a legal act, but rather a slow process of integration into a kinship group. However, this process involved forgetting the past and/or a denial of foreign and servile origins, causing the rupture of the bond between these descendants of slaves and their ancestors born on the continent. | Diversity in Masombika status | [
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[The issue of return to Africa]
The issue of return to Africa
While the majority of the emancipated Masombika had no prospects other than to remain settled on the island, some endeavoured to return to the continental mainland. In Morondava, a western port controlled by representatives of the Antananarivo, the Makoa had been liberated by the royal degree of 1877. In the vicinity of the garrison town, they established a small community of freemen, living mainly from the land and including the early converts of the Norwegian Lutheran mission in western Madagascar (Boyer-Rossol, 2013). Missionary Jacobsen described Samuel, one of the first Makoa evangelists in Morondava, in the following terms: 'For him, as for other Makoa, the ache for Africa stemmed from deep within the heart and much could be written about their attempts to return to their native land' (Aas, 1919). The Makoa in Morondava were born in the hinterland to the west of Mozambique, in Makhuwa country (Last, 1895). During the 1880s, some endeavoured to return to this homeland by enlisting the support of the Norwegian Mission, wrote missionary Aas:
A group of approximately 50 Christian Makoa came numerous times to the Mission to ask for permission to leave with a missionary for the highlands of Mozambique. I had a hard time trying to calm them down; they wanted to build a boat and leave. They were only placated when I promised to bring the matter up with the mother church back home [in Norway], and they said they would accept the will of God (Aas, 1923).
Any collective plans for a return were dependent upon certain logistical resources, the mobilization of capital and negotiation with the local authorities. The construction (or purchase) of boats depended upon a presumptive capacity for the accumulation of wealth by the emancipated Makoa, who did not shirk from paid employment. Within a few decades (1880-1900), the Makoa at Morondava accumulated 300 (Danish) krone, which were deposited, through the offices of pastor Aas, at a private bank in Stavanger in Norway (Aas, 1923). In 1889, a number of the Makoa at Morondava, also converted to the Lutheran faith, endeavoured to cross the Mozambique Channel, with the support of missionary networks. A group of 26 Makoa expressed their intent to travel to Natal, where the Norwegian mission was established. This request was rejected by the Malagasy authorities. ^14 Following the emancipation of 1877, the manamboninabitra (officers) posted in the provinces received an order which forbade the Masombika from leaving the territory belonging to the Kingdom of Madagascar, on the pretext of preventing them from being exported beyond the sea. ^15 The most propitious times to leave the island came during periods of crisis, when the tight grip of government authority was relaxed. In February 1893, the west coast of Madagascar was struck by a terrible cyclone that caused several hundred fatalities. 'Under these desperate conditions, the Makoa returned to their former dream of leaving Morondava and travelling back to their African homeland, but this notion did not result in a mass exodus' (Aas, 1923, p. 73). Pastor Aas suggests that some Makoa would have attempted to repeat their initially enforced crossing in reverse, all the way back from Madagascar to the interior of the African continent. After 1896, the French administration imposed conditions which rendered any departure from the colony impossible. ^16 The Makoa therefore experienced an enforced long-term settlement in Madagascar.
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 14 A.R.M. III CC 246, Letter from Rainizafindrazaka 13H to Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony, Morondava, 1 Alahamady 1889.
15 A.R.M. III CC 81. Letter from Andriamasinoro 12H to the Queen, Anonibe, 26 Adijady 1877.
16 These included a demand by the colonial administrators that the boat on which the Makoa planned to cross the Mozambique Channel should be larger, and should be captained by a white man. Aas R.L., op. cit., vol 2, 1923, p. 175.
They nevertheless managed to maintain symbolic links with the African continent, mainly via the conduit of culture. | The issue of return to Africa | [
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[Sharing a common culture, imported from the continent and transformed on the Great Island]
Sharing a common culture, imported from the continent and transformed on the Great Island
The Makoa and Masombika shared a common culture that transcended their differences in status in Madagascar. Although they came from different regions in East Africa, all of the captives deported from the continent to the Great Island spoke Makoa amongst themselves, a dialectal variant of Emakhuwa, which is spoken extensively in North Mozambique. In Madagascar, Makoa became the language of servitude, probably acquired during the enforced crossing, and particularly during the period of incarceration in barracks on the Mozambique Channel coastline. The Makoa language remained in use for a prolonged period on the west coast of Madagascar, where the Makoa experienced a degree of group autonomy. The early captives born on the continent imported and adapted very diverse cultural practices (songs, music, dances, special drums, culinary and decorative practices, etc.), mainly originating from North Mozambique (Macaire, 1996). ^17 During the twentieth century, the gradual loss of the last Makoa born on the continent led to a decline in Makoan cultural practices and, finally, to the disappearance of the identity of the Makoa group itself. In an attempt to escape the stigma of servitude, the majority of the descendants of East African slaves on the Great Island forged links with other Malagasy group identities. Only a few inhabitants on the coast continued to perpetuate the memory of their ancestors.
[^0]
[^0]: 17 On the western Malagasy coast, Makoan cultural practices were manifested in harvest festivals, funeral rites or ancestral cults. | Sharing a common culture, imported from the continent and transformed on the Great Island | [
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[CHAPTER 6 | Introduction]
Introduction
Because of its colonial past and its geographical position, Mauritius is a meeting point for three continents - Asia (India and China), Europe and Africa - and illustrates the Indian presence on Creole land. Here, Indianness and creolity merge together, a situation not dissimilar to that in the West Indies and the Caribbean islands in general, though with a more prevalent Asian influence. Forged by the maritime history of Indian trade, particularly from Gujarat, and reinforced by the history of indentured servitude, ^1 economic, political, religious and cultural ties between India and Mauritius have long been evident (Carsignol, 2010, p. 321; Grégoire, 2014). Yet as Dev Virahsawmy, the champion of the Creole language, proclaims, lor nou lil, nou tou kreol isi: 'On our island, we are all Creoles' (Virahsawmy, 2004, p. 37). Since the early days of indentured servitude, Indian communities have established unions with Mauritian women of African descent (Teelock, 2009, p. 254).
Between 1839 and the end of the nineteenth century, biological and cultural mixing continued and intensified, adding European, Indian and Chinese elements into the then mostly black and Malagasy population. Several
[^0]
[^0]: 1 A system of hiring under contract started in colonial times, after the abolition of slavery in 1834.
Introduction
'Fourteen years old, round face, big eyes, flat nose, big lips, small ears, without body marks'. ^1 This is how Miquelina Conga was described in 1835, shortly after receiving the legal status of 'liberated African', a category involving quasifreedom that followed British efforts to suppress the slave trade. This status would represent a major change in her life, perhaps comparable only to the change she suffered at the time of her capture in Africa, subsequent to which she was sold and transported as an enslaved person to the Americas. Belonging to the 'liberated African' category meant that she was subject to specific laws and conditions of labour and exploitation. In addition, being a liberated African in a country where slavery still existed was a challenge, since attempts to enslave those thus designated were not unusual (Mamigonian, 2002; Florence, 2002; Chalhoub, 2012).
In Brazil, many regulations were created to deal with liberated Africans. The first one was the Charter of 1818, by which all apprehended Africans in illegal slave ships were to be considered free and returned to Africa. When this was not possible, they were to fulfil 14 years of service under the responsibility of the
[^0]
[^0]: 1 Arquivo Nacional GIFI 6D 12.
imperial government, and were expected to learn the Portuguese language and the customs and religion of Brazil. However, the return to Africa did not happen often, and most liberated Africans remained in Brazil (Mamigonian, 2002).
[^0]
[^0]: 1 A system of hiring under contract started in colonial times, after the abolition of slavery in 1834.
waves of political struggle arose, particularly in the 1930s. Indian political awareness increased and class movements penetrated the Creole community, but the struggles remained compartmentalized. People of mixed race were still stigmatized, as shown by Mauritian novelists Carl de Souza (Le sang de l'Anglais), Marie-Thèrése Humbert (A l'autre bout de moi) and Ananda Devi (Pagli). The 1968 constitution recognized four ethno-religious groups: Hindus ( 52 per cent), Muslims ( 17 per cent), Mauritians of Chinese origin ( 3 per cent) and the general population ( 28 per cent). The fourth category grouped together that which remained of the former colonial society: white people of French and English origin and descendants of formerly enslaved black people, mostly of Afro-Malagasy or mixed-race descent.
Although Mauritius proclaims itself the archetypal 'rainbow nation', a multicultural land par excellence, Mauritian society has developed on community foundations that hinder the emergence of a strong national identity and limit economic development (Jauze, 2004). Religion, culture, skin colour and socioeconomic status have been sources of division since the country's colonization. Communalism, which governs everyday social relationships, is expressed as much in community life as it is in political life, where the makeup of the parties and the discussions they hold are based on identity. In Mauritius, ethnicity, upon the basis of which each community has developed a particular way of life, remains a factor in spatial, community and economic division. Thus, in the towns, a clear relationship is established between an individual's ethnic descent, activity, socio-professional category and occupation of space.
The Charter of 1818 was the only document, until 1853, that mentioned a period of service. All laws and regulations after this Charter stated that liberated Africans were to serve and work under guardianship, but for how long was not stated. Only in 1853 was it again stated that the term was 14 years. However, the Charter of 1818 was very clear on one point: liberated Africans should be treated in such a way that their physical integrity and their right to freedom were respected ^2. This understanding of the law is key to understanding the judicial procedure that Miquelina and her representative followed in applying to the Ministry of Justice to secure her freedom.
It is not known when Miquelina arrived in Brazil, though she was registered as 'a Liberated African of those who were by the Charter valid as a Law of 26 January 1818 and the Law of 7 April 1831', ^3 and was described as belonging to the Congo nation, which establishes that she came from western Central Africa. The lack of further details, however, does not prevent one from appreciating how she managed her quest for emancipation and how she used the experience she acquired during her years of service to understand the judicial system and use it in her favour.
Miquelina registered her petition for emancipation in 1844. Petitions made by liberated Africans and their employers are prime sources for reconstructing their life stories. Such requests ranged in scope from petitions made by liberated Africans for final emancipation, after completing their period of service, to requests to change their place of employment (whether to follow a spouse, avoid undue physical punishment or for other reasons). As for employers, one finds requests for changing the concession or the place of employment, requests for dismissal of service, complaints of bad behaviour, and so forth (Mamigonian, 2002; Cavalheiro, 2015). Any dispute between liberated Africans and employers that went beyond household boundaries could be settled by the Ministry of Justice, often represented by the Judge of Orphans. Therefore, when Miquelina decided to seek emancipation, she went to the Ministry of Justice and, with the help of a representative, filed a petition.
[^0]
[^0]: 2 Collection of the Laws of the Brazilian Empire, 1808-1889, including: Charter of 26 January 1818, establishing penalties for those engaged in illegal slave trade; Decree No. 1303 of 28 December 1853, declaration that liberated Africans whose services were for private employers were to be emancipated after 14 years of service, when they so requested, and regulations for the destiny of said Africans.
3 The original reads 'liberta dos que o são pelo inciso 1^2 do Alvará com força de Lei, de 26 de Janeiro de 1818, e artigo 1^2 da Carta de Lei de 7 de abril de 1831^\prime. | CHAPTER 6 | Introduction | [
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[CHAPTER 6 | Introduction]
Although pertinent historical research is now beginning to emerge, it was previously lacking, and it is still necessary to delve back into literary texts and testimonials. When we do so, we see that Africa is little represented therein. It is rare for African or Malagasy names to be given to Creole children (Palmyre-Florigny, 2003, p. 15). For a long time, movements such as Garveyism, Caribbean pan-Africanism and American black consciousness have had little success in Mauritius. The self-styled 'King Creole', Gaëtan Duval, presented negative images of independent Africa. The 1968 Mauritian independence movement did, however, take a stand against apartheid. In 1977, Rastafarianism was more widely expressed in Mauritius, but it also relied heavily on biblical and Indian references. In 1980, awareness of Creole malaise stirred up emotions, but it was not until 1985 that the assertion of black identity was made manifest by the musician Kaya. On the one hand, the Christian church was said to be responsible for wanting to cut Creoles off from their African roots (Bunwaree, 2004, p. 53); on the other hand,
'the influence of Indianness could not be under-estimated in the cultural development of the Creole people' (Chan Low, 2003, p. 43).
The dynamics of miscegenation and creolization, which embody the particularity of the Indian Ocean region, were brought about in part by 'couriers' or 'cultural entrepreneurs' from all the communities in question. On a religious level, although Mauritius does not have the 'marriage of cultures' found on Reunion Island, where every member of a single family may adopt a different religion (Dumas-Champion, 2008), deep-rooted syncretisms between Hinduism, Christianity and the popular Malagasy religion of ancestor worship do exist there. The entire island celebrates both Indian (Cavadee, Maha Shivaratri) and Christian (Père Laval pilgrimage) festivals. Tamils are often baptized and Creoles take part in Hindu rituals from childhood.
Consequently, the term 'creolization' is covered by Édouard Glissant's concept of a process whereby different cultures are linked to one another but wherein no single culture is dominant (Le Traité du Tout-Monde, 1997; Le discours antillais, 1981; Poétique de la relation, 1990). When defined based on strictly economic issues, it also refers to how the Creole elite was limited (Allen, 1982). Creolization is seen as an alternative to colonial hegemony: 'The world of ethnicity and that of creolity will be viewed as two particular ways of denying the importance of economic differences and métissage in the transformation of Mauritian society' (ChazanGillig, 2003, p. 64). In a narrower, more literal sense, creolity, creolization and Créolie are related when considered in the Indian Ocean context of emancipation since 1978. In the case of Reunion Island, Créolie came to define a new form of writing (Samlong, 1989, p. 179). In the Mauritian experience, Créolie came to embody a specific culture, one that celebrated equality and fraternity and that was loaded with a poetic energy connecting the islands: 'Where, outside our Indian Ocean region, could a creative thought without exclusivity of language be found?' (Prosper, 2001, p. 110). Since the 1890s, 'the proliferation of the press, the increase in literary and philosophical circles, the rise in readership and its extension to the mixed-race population, through their constant interaction, are the very foundation for the Mauritian Creole literary project' (Furlong and Ramharai, 2005, p. 39). From this literary breeding ground, a minority of writers, visual artists and journalists campaign for the recognition of a global Creole identity that applies not only to the descendants of Africans, but also to Europeans and Indians. By opposing the idea that only the descendants of slaves can be custodians of creolity, Firoz Ghanty denounces a version that is 'a historical [and] which would negate the miscegenation', thus reinstating the idea of 'roots' to cement Mauritianness:
There must be no confusion between the Creole community and Creolity. Creolity is different cultural roots which, over time, have consolidated to form a whole, a culture in its own right. Indentured servitude and the discord of trade with the outside world behind the closed doors of colonisation have helped and will further contribute to the structuring of Creolity (Ghanty, 2005, p. 4).
'What is the Creole identity? An eating habit? A certain type of behaviour? Some slave blood from Africa? If it is humour, everyday family life, spicy food or music, are we not all Creoles in Mauritius?' (Bhujun, 2006).
The Creole [...] is a European, African or mulatto born outside his ancestral land and adapted to his homeland [...] By extension, a Creole is anyone who was born far from his ancestral land or any person who comes into contact with other cultures to create different configurations of the culture(s) of origin (Torabully, 2007).
The Creole identity did not take full hold. The process of identity reconstruction within the Creole community of Mauritius took place through the clearance of Africanity and its subsequent revival (Jocelyn Chan Low). This revival was accompanied by the creation of the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture in Port Louis, aimed at encouraging direct contact between Creoles and Africans, which remained infrequent.
Since the 1990s, the meaning of the word 'Creole' has evolved; it now fully incorporates Africanity as much as it does the hybridity of the Creole identity. The way in which Creoles and Indians have worked with hybridity, within a composite culture, has encouraged a new way of looking at representations of the body and the person, thus contributing to modernity. Mauritius became 'an original mix of Creole and ancestral society' (Hookoomsing, 2003, p. 31). Françoise Lionnet adopts the term 'cosmopolitical Creole', criticizing the use of the term 'creolization' although this is a popular dynamic and cosmopolitanism when it comes to elite culture (Lionnet, 2012). | CHAPTER 6 | Introduction | [
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[Mauritian aesthetics of creolity / cultural bearers of a mixed-race identity]
Mauritian aesthetics of creolity / cultural bearers of a mixed-race identity
Creolity as a global identity is perceived as a culture in its own right, one which has its own understanding of the world, life and things and expresses it through specific language, musical sound, visual art and iconography. It is seen primarily as an aesthetic (Ghanty, 1994) in literary creativity.
A series of journals, including Revi Kiltir Kreol, distributed by the Nelson Mandela Centre for African Culture, serve as a platform for discussion on the issues of Indianness, Africanity, miscegenation and creolization. Dev Virahsawmy, an advocate for cultural diversity and important intellectual figure, takes centre stage. He embodies the specific features of the Creole voice. In Toufann: A Mauritian Fantasy, his adaptation of Shakespeare's The Tempest, he establishes a dialogue with other African writers; he connects India and Africa using a play on words between tüphān ('tempest' in Hindi) and tou fan (Mauritian Creole for 'everything's falling apart', itself reminiscent of the title of Things Fall Apart by Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe). This is an original way of understanding history both from its culture of origin and in a context of contemporary ideas (1999) structured around a so-called 'transcolonial' logic (Putchai, 2003). Namasté, the famous novel written by Creole author Marcel Cabon, describes life in an Indo-Mauritian village, turning its back on prejudices (Joubert, 2005, p. 10). Through his travels in the Republic of South Africa, the poet Édouard Maunick restored the lost link with Africa. 'I am Negro by choice' («je suis nègre de préférence»), he says in Les manèges de la mer. In Paris, meetings with Présence Africaine and the friendship of Aimé Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor made him conscious of this. Defying the island where Africanity was at best ignored, Édouard Maunick made it a concerted choice and not a legacy suffered. 'His negritude is neither colour nor race, but a celebration/forbidden to the border Creoles'; ^2 it is 'beautiful and good and legitimate' to be mixed-race: 'Give me my mixed-race kingdom started at the break of day / I predict mixed blood like a fiery tongue' (Joubert, 2009, p. 42).
In tribute to Léopold Sédar Senghor, Édouard Maunick coordinated UNESCO's publication of Présence Senghor, a collection of 90 poems selected to celebrate the ninetieth birthday of the Senegalese poet and president. The journey from Dakar celebrates his mixed blood:
sonore / le chemin pêle-mêle Tambacounda / Sangomar / Podor / et Sangalkam / sonore / Sebikotane / récitation pour mémoire du temps présent / complice / pour valider mon sang métis [Sonorous path / Haphazardly Sonorous Tambacounda / Sangomar / Podor / and / Sangalkam / Sebikotane / Recitation for the record Time / present/complicit / To validate my mixed blood] (Joubert, 2009, p. 77).
[^0]
[^0]: 2 Border Creoles are people of mixed-race origin with very pale skin.
Finally, Sedley Richard Assonne, a leading urban poet drawing inspiration from Baudelaire, Tagore, Senghor and old Tamil religious texts, personifies Mauritian mixed-race poetry. In Les Salines, dedicated to the neighbourhood of Port Louis where he was born, he describes his Indian, African and European descent:
Everything always brings me back to the Salines / I know every corner / The exact place where friendship grows / In the Western cemetery, only witnesses/the sleepers of the other bank / prayed for me at the foot of Amina Bibi / and between stags and tortoises / I explored the blossoming garden / Robert Edward Hart, dear voice fallen silent / I was born a poet by liberating a jabberwocky / Leaving the everyday mess for the freedom of the sky / I had the black of Africa on my skin / and in my words the sweetness of honey. | Mauritian aesthetics of creolity / cultural bearers of a mixed-race identity | [
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[Sega, seggae, chutney Bhojpuri: spicy Mauritian blends of Creole music]
Sega, seggae, chutney Bhojpuri: spicy Mauritian blends of Creole music
If there is one place where creolization takes on its full meaning, it is music. Music is used to identify common aesthetic components and/or specific features of Mauritianness. It is also through music that knowledge is shared, in addition to community-based endeavours, political instruction and segmented perceptions, and where Mauritianness is built.
As can be seen in European accounts, the importance of Mauritian sega music has been highlighted since 1832. Original sega was a chant, a tale given rhythm by the ravanne, a local percussion instrument which is a sort of flat tambourine, and sometimes by the maravanne, an instrument similar to the maraca. Sega narrates the legends of the African tribes deported into slavery and tells the stories of daily life on the plantations. Sega is not only Mozambican and Malagasy in origin; it also derives from musical sources in Senegal, the Gambia, the kingdom of Galam, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, the kingdoms of Loango and Angola and the kingdoms of Ardres, Juda and Benin (Didier, 1987; Massamba, 2003, p. 12). It is both a dance and a rhythm. 'Jazz, Mississippi blues, calypso, reggae and séga share a founding rhythm from ancestral Africa' (Police, 2001). Its most famous performer is the singer Ti-Frère. 'Listen to the voice of Ti-Frère, the voice of Africa, the magical voice' goes the poem Lavrwa Tifrer (Sedley Richard Assonne). Through its freedom of expression, sega has come to influence the other forms of musical expression in Mauritius. It gave rise to seggae, the fusion of sega and reggae; seggae groups such as Otentikk Street Brothers, Les Natty Rebels and Racinetatane cultivate close
ties with Madagascar and Reunion Island. With his group Sagaï, Menwar, a spokesperson for the Mauritian Creole minority, developed a musical concept that he has modernized, enriching it with other African percussion music. Sega has, above all, transformed the Indian folk music of Bhojpuri, popular on the island since the time of indentured servitude, and made it a 'spicy' music, similar to the chutney music of the Caribbean. On the other hand, in the 1970s, sega, which had started out under the name of 'oriental sega', demonstrated even greater Indian influences. In the 1990s, the chutney style was claimed to be the herald of 'a home-made, mixed-race music', 'a music from the islands', a 'fusion music' (Servan-Schreiber, 2010) called 'Bollywood sega', confirming both the Indian dimension and the African character of the music.
In the context of the struggle to preserve a common Mauritian heritage centred on the popularity of sega, Mauritius boasts its own culture, separate from that of the United States of America, 'far from those crude copies of Afro-American urban culture, R\&B, rap and the rest' (Ghanty, 2005, p. 91). It also denounces excessive Americanization, advocating a return to African roots (Assonne, 2003).
This promotion of Creole Africanity is confirmed in the musical forms of reggae and seggae. With the singer Tony Farla and his group Negro Pou Lavi, 'so-called black music is gaining in popularity among young people' (Hansley). Currently, West Indian and Caribbean music strongly influences representations of Mauritian identity. The most popular festivals in the Indian Ocean (Africolor, Musiques Métisses, Rythmes Caraïbes, Sakifo, Womex, Samemsa Muzik and so on) depend on Indian, African, Creole and European networks, without putting forward the idea of 'Afro-Indian-Oceanic' music as a style of its own which is comparable to that of Afro-Caribbean or Afro-American music; the concept of 'mixed-race' dominates. | Sega, seggae, chutney Bhojpuri: spicy Mauritian blends of Creole music | [
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[AFRICANS IN PORTUGAL | Introduction]
Introduction
The reconstruction and consolidation of an unprecedented Africanity that marked the lives of African populations settled in Portugal, in a situation of subordination resulting from a slave trade that stretched from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, requires not only the study of the integration strategies used by Africans, but also a very particular attention to how these populations brought from Africa sought to preserve their Africanity, their values and practices in the framework of an inevitable process of social and cultural change, in Portuguese society and the new European world in which they were forcefully integrated.
Refusing the most archaic elements of a 'traditional' Africanity incompatible with the new social situation, adhering to Portuguese practices, men and women organized themselves to maintain control of their lives, remaking their cultural identities, and recovering and Africanizing values of modernity; that is, developing a process of modernization of their Africanity and thus contributing to the reconstruction of an innovative and participative global Africanity.
These populations, enslaved and free, who constituted the first African diasporic movement in Europe, played a key role in the renewal of Africanity, even if prejudices, images and negative representations of Africans marked a
long Eurocentric and European vision that excluded Africa from the history of the world, from the history of civilizations, from global history. | AFRICANS IN PORTUGAL | Introduction | [
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[Integration processes]
Integration processes
The dearth of research on the multi-secular presence of Africans in Portugal, their cultures and their participation in shaping Portuguese society constitutes an important gap in Portuguese historiography, as can be said for Europe, whose relations with Africa are also part of a long-term framework. This is a revealing situation on the lack of recognition and appreciation of Africa, which requires reflection and above all the revision of the classificatory operations that, from the 1800s marked and 'scientifically' ranked humans.
Studying the uniqueness of the African presence that has shaped Portuguese cultural and historical heritage requires a broad and rigorous analysis of the multifaceted path of Africans in the country, because of Portuguese history and Portugal's relations with Africa and the world. Such research should also contribute to the clarification of the active participation of the African diaspora in the construction of modern Europe, creator of world capitalism (Fonseca, 2011, Gusmão, 2004, Henriques, 1993 and 2009, Lahon, 1999, Lahon and Neto, 1999, Margarido, 1984, Pantoja, 2011, Pimentel, 1995 and 2010, Saunders, 1994, Tinhorão, 1988, and Vasconcelos, 1942). | Integration processes | [
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[Integration processes | The establishment of Africans: time and space]
The establishment of Africans: time and space
Historically, the memory of African presence in Portugal began to be organized in the thirteenth century, with the earliest references to this population in the Iberian Peninsula and more particularly in Galician territory. It is a written and iconographic memory that outlines the conditions in which some prejudices were born based on Africans' physical characteristics, their bodies devalued due primarily to colour, and negative connotations on other somatic characters such as hair, mouth, nose, smell and so forth, that set them closer to animality, opposing them to the superior normative white body (Margarido, 2003). Consequently, body and colour logic are inherent obstacles to full integration into the human (or 'white') society for Africans to be allowed to autonomously organize their lives.
In the historical framework of the populations that arrived in the Iberian Peninsula, by land or sea, as was the case of two of the most significant settlement
phases - the Roman and the Arab, in different and relatively short periods which left numerous marks in the country, the presence of Africans in Portugal constitutes a fundamental differentiating element, part of another civilizational logic launched by Europeans from the fifteenth century onwards. Most of the men, women and children of Africa did not come of their own free will, but were captured or bought off the coasts of the continent to be landed as slaves at the western end of the Iberian fragment of Europe (Zurara, 1973). Stripped of everything, thousands of Africans from different regions and cultures were forcefully integrated into the country from the fifteenth to the nineteenth centuries, becoming a structuring presence of Portuguese society, leaving direct or indirect signs in its memory, imaginary, language and places.
Among the places whose strong African brand was (even up to today) revealed by eighteenth century toponymy, the neighbourhood of Mocambo in Lisbon stands out for its unprecedented and unique character at the European level. It is the African district of the capital, the sixth district of the city by royal charter of 1593, whose designation refers to Umbundu, one of the Angolan languages. Like the synonym quilombo, a term of the Quimbundu language also from Angola, which acquired in Brazil a unique historical dimension of African resistance to European colonization, mocambo designates a 'place of refuge', 'place of settlement', 'small village' or 'camp'. But Mocambo in Lisbon was, from the end of 1500 s, an urban space where Africans, both free and enslaved, were settled and where from the seventeenth century, they cohabited with the Portuguese, especially people linked to sea-related activities. Little by little, the Africans abandoned this urban space, following the seventeenth century measures of the Marquis of Pombal that prohibited the importation of enslaved Africans into the country and abolished slavery in Portugal in 1773. The disappearance of Mocambo in Lisbon was progressive and rapid, turning first into a street, then the Travessa do Mocambo in the nineteenth century, and disappearing in the second half of the 1800s (Henriques, 2009). | Integration processes | The establishment of Africans: time and space | [
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[The creation of a new identity]
The creation of a new identity
Disembarking continuously in Portugal from the mid-fifteenth century and for three centuries, one of the first tasks of Africans lay in the need to divest themselves of African identity, which was no longer adapted to the conditions of Portuguese society. It can be said that they were obliged to solve the fundamental problem of identity: having left Africa, lost their family, been forced to renounce their mother tongue and speak another language, Africans were obliged in these
circumstances to invent another identity, capable of enabling them to assert their originality. The Portuguese multiplied the obstacles: disqualifying Africans; condemning them to be captives, slaves, alforriados (freed), all statutes that contributed objectively to denying their autonomy. Keeping the memory of their country of origin, Africans were forced to devise survival strategies, beginning by inventing another personality closer to the values and practices of Europeans.
An important issue recognized and highlighted in the Portuguese texts is that these Africans belonged to different African societies and cultures. While for most Portuguese, Africans appeared as a homogeneous block, by colour and social practices, they were culturally distinct, carrying well-differentiated historical memories. Bearers of an identity inscribed in body and mind. They were subjected by the Portuguese to various rituals designed to move them away from their cultural values and practices to integrate them into the Portuguese norm. Adhering to the new social and religious forms, Africans accepted baptism and Christian names, the rejection of nudity, the body dressed, Christian marriage, affective relations, also adhering to Catholic organizations, practices and festivals, to ludic, political and military events, introducing marks of their cultural singularity into Portuguese life.
An essential aspect to the consolidation of their new identity was the learning and use of the Portuguese language. Since the fifteenth century, especially in cities, the 'language of black people', that is, a Portuguese language with important African phonetic, syntax and semantic innovations, was devalued and ridiculed. The fixation of this language was due to its use in the sphere of sixteenth century plays, having consolidated over the centuries, and translating the reductive and patronizing way in which Portuguese society classified Africans. | The creation of a new identity | [
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[African intervention in Portuguese daily life: work and celebration]
African intervention in Portuguese daily life: work and celebration
Present throughout the country from north to south, on the coast and inland, Africans performed a wide range of diverse and indispensable tasks for Portuguese daily life, in the fields, cities and maritime-colonial enterprises, particularly as sailors in the Portuguese caravels. While they carried out most domestic activities, agriculture, fishing, craft activities and commercial tasks such as retailing essential products, characterized their spheres of integration and participation in the lives of the communities in which they lived. This included, for example, constant and essential intervention in the maintenance of urban structures - such as water supply, waste disposal, street cleaning and transport - on which Portuguese cities
and towns depended. More than in rural areas, it was in cities that Africans, both enslaved and free, had a wide range of tasks that allowed them a certain autonomy. In addition to the tasks associated with urban management and hygiene - sweepers, carriers, handlers - as well as indispensable services such as water supply, which led the authorities to build, manage and control the use of spouts, mainly by women, they were also engaged in commercial activity focused on food goods - agricultural products, fish and manufactured products - as well as the sale of other consumer goods, such as charcoal. Men were given heavier tasks, including transport of people and goods, information dispatch and distribution of messages, as well as craft production, such as pottery, carpentry, iron and leather work, goldsmithing, weaving, shipbuilding, working in the navy and fishing.
Free Africans specialized in certain trades. They integrated into society, having learned profit-making activities, the imposed rules, prices and forms of relationship, thus achieving membership in Portuguese society. Integrated into all wealth-building sectors, Africans were a structuring element of the country's urban life. If economic activity constituted the main participation of Africans in Portuguese daily life, they were also organized around many other events of a social nature, especially ludic religious festive ceremonies where they found a privileged space of integration. Africans of various social statuses - although most were enslaved or sailors, it is important to emphasize the presence of other Africans as diplomatic representatives or senior religious dignitaries - participated intensely in Portuguese public and private life. Processions, bull-fighting, collective shows, celebrations associating the religious and the profane highlighted the strong African involvement, through dance, music and its religious manifestations. This range of activities lead to the creation and consolidation of religious and cultural forms that persisted in Portuguese imagination and practices. | African intervention in Portuguese daily life: work and celebration | [
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[The 'mulattos': an unprecedented integration]
The 'mulattos': an unprecedented integration
One of the least studied but very significant problems lies in the formation, from the end of the fifteenth century, of a large minority of mixed-race populations, which caused great perplexity in Portuguese society. They were inserted into a zoomorphic classification structure designed to add the men and women designated as mulattos to the vast category of Muslims, and in so doing, refusing to accept them as Portuguese. In this way their classification based on the assumption of their sexual hyperactivity - especially the mulattas - derived
from their African blood, marked the construction of a lasting and devaluing archetype that has not yet completely disappeared.
While some Portuguese mestizos had asserted themselves in society through marriage with high-status Portuguese, as was the case of Dona Simoa Godinho, of Santomense origin (sixteenth century), professional prestige, for the playwright Afonso Álvares and the painter Domingos Lourenço Pardo (seventeenth century), or religious status, for Mother Cecilia of Jesus (seventeenth century) - it was in the late eighteenth century that two operations, whose antagonistic complementarity deserves to be mentioned, took place. Gradually overcoming the harshness of prejudices, many 'mixed-race' children of white and socially recognized parents, obtained social and financial support to enter Portuguese universities or clergy. While family protection, money, literary or professional prestige and careers in public administration were factors of some dilution of somatic stigma, they also caused headaches for political leaders of the following centuries, to the extent that they managed to acquire positions of arbitration in the Portuguese relational fabric. Much criticized by different sectors and personalities of Portuguese society, the mulattos, considered blacker than white, were able to strengthen their position in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, despite the emergence and consolidation of scientific theories that legitimized the hierarchization of races, geographies, and civilizations. From Pai Paulino to Fernanda do Vale (known as Preta Fernanda), Honório Barreto, Sousa Martins, Gonçalves Crespo, Costa Alegre and Virginia Lent to many other intellectuals and great professionals of the 1900s, it can be shown how important was their intense participation in Portuguese collective life. This, however, did not eliminate the ferocity of value judgments from society concerning the 'half-breeds'. In 1925, the poet Mário Saa stressed that the 'influence of black blood in Portugal, is in many people, [...] the halfbreeds dominate in Portugal by population element more than in any other nation in Europe
, the poet Mário Saa stressed that the 'influence of black blood in Portugal, is in many people, [...] the halfbreeds dominate in Portugal by population element more than in any other nation in Europe, with increased bulge and reduction of the brain index'. This very popularized value judgment served to feed the fundamental principles of racism, presenting Africans as a teratology: the mulattos would be inscribed in the framework of the monstrosities capable of macular effect on the human species, because despite having a white father or mother, they reflected the African structural inferiority. | The 'mulattos': an unprecedented integration | [
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[A reinvented Africanity]
A reinvented Africanity
Integrated into Portuguese society, Africans organized the conditions to ensure the preservation of their Africanity, adapting it to the new realities they faced and renewing their cultural values and their identity forms, leaving, through their social practices, structuring marks in the cultural fabric of Portuguese society. The knowledge of this process of reinvention of Africanity requires the study of the strategies thought up and used by these men and women, brutally removed from their native land, family, social and cultural space, to ensure their physical and cultural survival. The forms of adhering to Portuguese practices, complicity and syncretic creations, must be considered in two perspectives: on the one hand, they translate an intelligent way of responding to violence, integrating, reconstituting their identity and preserving fundamental values of their ancestral cultures; on the other hand, they allowed the fixation of African cultural marks in Portuguese society, sometimes in the form of syncretism, particularly in the ludic, magico-religious, linguistic, toponymic spaces (Costa, 1947), constituting, today as yesterday, intangible cultural heritage in Portugal. | A reinvented Africanity | [
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[A reinvented Africanity | The reconstruction of the religious space]
The reconstruction of the religious space
While the slave trade turned Africans into a commodity, Portuguese society organized operations aimed at strengthening their depersonalization and de-socialization, in order to eliminate their Africanity. Having lost the land, lineage, language and name, Africans sought to reconstruct a new and autonomous identity, associating Portuguese cultural practices with African civilizational values, deeply marked by their own historical singularity, creating unprecedented socio-cultural forms.
Since kinship, religion and music form the foundations of the existential forms of Africans, it is understood that the conditions under which they were transferred to Europe, as well as to the American colonies, were manifestly antithetic to the maintenance of such structures. In the absence of kinship that is, of the extended family, which includes both the living and the dead who remained in Africa - Africans, culturally very diverse, adhered to Portuguese ludic and religious spaces, associating themselves through religion, which by its invisible nature could remain in the tight frame of their experiences, not forgetting the fact that religions are almost always marked by religious tensions.
If the sacred territories of the Portuguese and the African did not coincide and if it is easy to see that authorities and the clergy had sought to dismantle African religions, claimed to be too dependent on 'spells' or 'idols' - so-called
African objects of worship - it is also certain that Africans sought to find in Catholicism the social niches capable of providing a certain religious autonomy. It should be emphasized how Africans sought to transplant to Europe, and Brazil, the organization of festivals designed to honour the ancestor spirits, who, in return, should ensure their protection. This fact features the vigour of African religions, which have shown themselves capable of integrating a number of Christian practices while asserting their religious practices, characterized by the conjunction of theological discourse, music and dance. The regulation of religious fact proved to be fundamental because, on the one hand, it made it possible to recover the order organized in Africa and, on the other hand, it took account of the religion dynamics in Portugal, which, while it did not create new religions, forced some European and African religious codes to be modified. | A reinvented Africanity | The reconstruction of the religious space | [
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[New religious forms: syncretism and Africanization]
New religious forms: syncretism and Africanization
The profound religious dissociation between Africans and Portuguese did not prevent the appearance of religious forms, clearly visible through the presence of black religious figures in the churches - which accounts for the dispersion of Africans throughout the country - as well as the brotherhoods and the many Catholic religious festivals that were taking place, according to the religious calendar, in Portuguese cities, towns and villages. Estranged from their religious leaders, Africans found themselves in the need to invent other forms of religious authority, such as black holy figures, venerated by Africans and Portuguese, who highlight not only the capacity for integration of the African community into the country, but also a particular aspect of religious syncretism resulting from the construction of an 'Africanized' Christianity.
Accepting the Portuguese initiatives, Africans joined the brotherhoods from an early age, participating in the many organizations and activities of the Church, thus creating a space for the preservation of their specifically African values, leading the more conservative clergy to denounce the existence of religious practices, where the African structure sought to dissolve European rules. Among the confraternities, institutions of a religious nature, which aimed to protect their members, organize celebrations and actions of support and solidarity, consecrating themselves to the cult of a religious figure of Catholicism, the Brotherhood of Our Lady of the Rosary of the Blacks, founded around 1520, bringing together black and mixed-race men and women, enslaved and free, performed a social, economic, moral and religious function that was fundamental in the life of Africans.
First in Lisbon, then in Évora, the brotherhoods multiplied throughout the country, often bringing together Africans from the same 'nation' - Mina, Congo, Angola, Benin - and setting themselves in places where African population density was most significant to generate a community of interests and practices. If the confraternities did not prove the Christianization of Africans, they highlighted the way they used a Portuguese-rooted association that allowed them to organize defensive systems, providing the possibility to recover money to ensure the survival of their members and develop strategies for cultural preservation. Participating in the many religious ceremonies, Africans introduced practices considered profane, such as their dances, much appreciated by the Portuguese population and censored by the political and ecclesiastical powers, but not banned.
Up to the beginning of the twentieth century, the brotherhoods participated in the numerous processions - religious, ludic, social events revealing social hierarchies and economic power - organized in honour of catholic cult figures, such as Our Lady of the Rosary or the Body of God, which marked the Catholic calendar. But the presence of Africans in these events did not fit a single purpose. While some participated as members of the brotherhoods, others were part of the body of the processions with their instruments and their rhythms, their behaviours and their offerings, always counting on the agreement of the organizers. It is one of the most characteristic aspects of this situation that entrusted Africans with festive and musical production, creating spaces of street fun and spectacle, indispensable to the success of the initiative, evidencing a process of Africanization of a Catholic ritual. Music and dance were not only African ludic manifestations, they were part of the social relationship between peoples, also organizing their relations with deities. | New religious forms: syncretism and Africanization | [
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[Religion and social practices]
Religion and social practices
Religion, however, was also the space where Africans were able to reorganize the family, a new group, providing through the initially religious festivals, the necessary framework for maintaining their historical-cultural dynamics. The remarkable fact that the Mocambo neighbourhood in Lisbon or, where appropriate, other urban concentrations of Africans, should be created and the minimum forms of kinship should be upheld, contributed to the preservation of certain African social practices. The very fact that Africans had enough ingenuity to create Mocambo in Lisbon highlights an ability to define strategies of total non-dissolution in Portuguese space, thus creating a space of their own,
probably from free or hard-won Africans. Mocambo, and other urban spaces concentrating Africans allowed communities, for example, to handle births, marriages and deaths, since African rules imposed rituals that diverged from Portuguese practices.
It is noteworthy that African polygamy, which has remained in Mocambo, will have joined wives from various backgrounds and speaking different languages, as was common in Africa. Given the classificatory kinship, each woman of the patriarch was at the same time the mother of her own children and the other patriarch's children. Women, more than men, acted as guardians of cultural values, that is, their traditions were naturally contradicted by the conditions of the functioning of Portuguese society, but were preserved in part through African religious strategies. | Religion and social practices | [
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[Feasts, historical memory and reinvention of Africanity]
Feasts, historical memory and reinvention of Africanity
Dances, songs and African characters marked the Catholic religious ceremonies, where the feasts of the Brotherhoods occupied a privileged place, integrating Africans in the Portuguese space, allowing them to recover and live some of their cultural practices that were based on fundamental pillars of their historical memory. Since the Confraternity of Our Lady of the Rosary of Blacks is the most relevant to the African community, the feasts consecrated to this Virgin Mary were of particular importance, because for all the brotherhoods, the annual feast of her saint was the most important moment of the institution's life. Throughout the country, there were the popular feasts of the black brotherhoods of Senhora do Rosário, who, as is still the case today in Brazil, elected a black man from his 'nation', to whom they gave the honorary title of king. The Congo and Angola were the most attached to this tradition. It highlights their demographic importance, organizing the festivities, making invitations to the ceremonies for important personalities, electing the kings, and seeking to occupy a privileged position vis-à-vis the other Africans. They intended to establish a secular history of relations between the kings of Portugal, the Congo and the N'gola, a tradition that marked in a profound and lasting way the conservation of historical memory. The example of the kings and queens of the Congo was unique, for its long duration, but also for the many situations created around these African royal figures in Portuguese society.
The election of an African king or queen in the framework of Portuguese religious ceremonies revealed an African strategy of historical, cultural and identity revitalization. The African importance of these royal figures, who
possessed a restricted and abstract power, limited by the borders of African spaces and practices, was based on the evocation of the African past and stressed the existence of a history that ensured the long autonomy and hegemony of Africans. However, the maintenance of these kings and queens, political leaders, but above all links with their history and religion, resembled the past and did not lose sight of the present, nor the future: the 'real' acts, accompanied by the constant presence of music and dance, appear as means of ensuring the integration of Africans in Portuguese cultural practices.
A long description of 1731, reported by an ecclesiast, which took place in the city of Braga in northern Portugal entitled, Bayle dos Negros, highlights the complexity of articulating the African cultural and identity aspects in Portuguese religious events. It also reveals the integration of other communities settled in Portugal. The description of this particular procession, an unholy parade that follows the religious gathering, gives an account of the prominent place given to the king and queen of Angola, accompanied by many participants who presented their dances and sang their oath of allegiance simultaneously to the Church and its Angolan sovereigns. African singing, dancing, historical memory and identity sentiment characterized this event, associated with the 'language of black people' and the Portuguese religious organization, highlighting the festive syncretic forms that marked Portuguese society.
Also, the parties and public and private dances centred on the character of the king and the kingdom of the Congo were frequent in the nineteenth century, as reported in Portuguese periodicals. This tradition was reported in the Jornal do Comércio (1860), which described a ball of
the Congo in Lisbon [...], given by Princess Sebastiana Julia, regent of the Congo empire [...] very crowded with whites [...]. After midnight, the guests left, who had paid for their entrance tickets, and only the princess and her court remained [...] and some whites. Pretoria danced to her Congo dance and other dances in Europe.
The African importance of the relationship between party/history/religion, the reconstruction of a new African identity based on the past but inserted into the Portuguese present, is underlined, as revealed by the adhering to elements of Portuguese modernity - such as the financial element or the police protection available to these festivals - resulting in the creation of unprecedented synchronous operations. | Feasts, historical memory and reinvention of Africanity | [
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[AFRO-ATLANTIC COMMUNITIES IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD | Introduction]
Introduction
In a seminal article that drew extensively on Pierre Verger's pioneering scholarship, historians Robin Law and Kristin Man coined the term 'Atlantic community' to refer to the historical and complex ties between the slave coast and the northern Brazilian region of Bahia (Law and Mann, 1999; Verger, 1987). Law and Mann viewed the Afro-Atlantic world as an integrated space by virtue of the constant circulation of people, ideas and goods. In their estimation, despite the oppression and violence brought about by the slave trade, it was a world marked by remarkable cultural fluidity and dynamic political configurations. Left unanswered is whether Afro-Atlantic communities also developed elsewhere in Africa.
This chapter takes a trans-imperial approach to survey the creation of AfroAtlantic communities across Atlantic Africa. Philip Havik has pointed out that Afro-Atlantic communities were 'particularly active in the case of areas of Portuguese influence including the Upper Guinea coast, the Bight of Benin, and Angola' (Havik, 2018, p. 60). First, historians must inquire whether such communities existed in African regions such as the Gold Coast and the Loango coast, where the Portuguese were also active. Second, they must also probe AfroAtlantic communities in the context of Africa's engagement with European
nations other than Portugal. More importantly, scholars must also seek to restore the place of African agency in the formation of Afro-Atlantic communities.
nations other than Portugal. More importantly, scholars must also seek to restore the place of African agency in the formation of Afro-Atlantic communities.
As early as the sixteenth century, the Spanish colonization of the Americas drew extensively on transatlantic commercial and social ties with Senegambia and Central Africa (Angola and the Congo), anticipating the sociocultural dynamics that would later characterize the broader Afro-Atlantic world (Green, 2016; Wheat, 2016; Gómez, 2017; Schultz, 2016). Transatlantic ties underpinned the trajectories of Gold Coast African missionaries who helped spread Christianity in the Danish Caribbean (Sensbach, 2005; Simonsen, 2015). They also lay at the heart of the experience of two African nobles from Old Calabar who were swept by the slave trade into the British Atlantic world (Sparks, 2004; Sparks, 2014, pp. 1-3, 46-8). In the Dutch Atlantic, they facilitated the return to Elmina, in West Africa, of free Africans taken as slaves to Suriname in 1746 (Kok and Feinberg, 2016). In the French Atlantic, they are epitomized by the voluntary migration of Senegalese families to French Guiana, which challenged the deeply-entrenched racial structures of French colonialism (Traver, 2016).
In many ways, the formation of Afro-Atlantic communities was a function of the early interaction between Africans and Europeans, a distinctive feature of which was diplomatic, economic and cultural exchanges that granted Africans significant economic and political leverage. In Senegambia, trade relations were largely managed by tangos mãos, lançados and local traders based out of the Cabo Verde islands (Boulègue, 1989; Mark, 1999; Brooks, 2003; Green, 2012; Gijanto, 2016, pp. 40-1). Along the Gold Coast, coastal communities comprised of culturally mixed individuals played a key role in trade and provided food supplies and labour to European coastal forts (Daaku, 1970). Similarly, African kingdoms leveraged significant power in the Bight of Benin, establishing the framework within which trade and cultural exchange took place and benefiting greatly from the trade with the broader Afro-Atlantic (Law, 2005a). | AFRO-ATLANTIC COMMUNITIES IN THE ATLANTIC WORLD | Introduction | [
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[Afro-Atlantic communities on the Gold Coast]
Afro-Atlantic communities on the Gold Coast
Early African interaction with Europeans along the Gold Coast illustrates the social, economic and cultural dynamics that undergirded the creation of Afro-Atlantic communities. Portuguese merchants were lured to the Gold Coast because of the region's large production of gold. An existing gold trade had long connected the region to the great empires of the Sahel. Mande traders travelled from the Gold Coast to Djenné, Timbuktu and other regions in western and
central Sudan (Abaka, 2012, p. 82). African gold was the central pillar of a 'presixteenth century world economy', and at least eleven coastal trading settlements existed by the time the Portuguese arrived (Kea, 1982, p. 58; Kea, 2012, p. 348). With the collapse of Songhay, Atlantic trade with the Portuguese became key to the Gold Coast economy (Dantzig, 1980a, p. 86; Gomez, 2018, p. 332). Despite Portuguese and Dutch attempts to reach gold mining regions directly (one Portuguese traveller ventured approximately 400 kilometres inland), African states, including Akwamu, Denkyira and Asante controlled the flow of this mineral from the interior to the coast (Dantzig, 1973, pp. 169-85; Valsecchi, 2013, pp. 35, 46).
The Castle of São Jorge da Mina (in present-day Ghana), which was built in 1482, embodied Portuguese power on the Gold Coast and allowed them to control the coastal gold trade while also developing diplomatic relations with African polities inland (Vogt, 1979; Ballong-Wen-Mewuda, 1993; DeCorse, 2001). Elmina provided a framework for commercial, political and social exchanges with Africans that outlasted Portugal's presence as a major power on the Gold Coast. Europeans sought to influence African politics, but their power was largely limited to the coast. From the mid-sixteenth century, other European nations challenged the Portuguese grip and sought to make headway on the Gold Coast (Klooster, 2016, p. 24). However, they largely replicated the Portuguese model of trade and social relations with Africans (Valsecchi, 2013, p. 41).
What Europeans did control was an early trade in human beings to the Gold Coast, which satisfied a large demand for labour generated by gold mining activities. The Portuguese brought enslaved Africans from the kingdom of Benin and central Africa to work as porters in trade caravans that transported gold from the interior of the Gold Coast and laboured on Elmina and other forts and lodges (Daaku, 1973, p. 24; Vogt, 1973, pp. 453-67). It is notable that enslaved work would remain a key feature of labour relations in coastal trading hubs even after the arrival of other European nations in the mid-seventeenth century. Like the Portuguese, the British and the Dutch took enslaved Africans from Allada and Benin to work on the Gold Coast (Reese, 2010; Shumway, 2013; Rönnbäck, 2015).
The Portuguese initially relied on various goods to engage in trade with Africans, but by the 1650s, English traders had introduced large quantities of weapons to the Gold Coast (Kea, 1971, pp. 187-9; Thornton, 1999, chapter III; Daaku, 1973, pp. 149-52). A military revolution was then set in motion that significantly impacted social and political dynamics among the African kingdoms. European firearms spread to forest kingdoms and became pivotal
to the prosecution of warfare. New military techniques were first adopted by Akwamu, but Denkyira took the process to a new level by importing large quantities of weapons (McCaskie, 2007, p. 10). African polities relied on Europeans not only to acquire gunpowder and firearms but also to obtain military support in the form of mercenaries to fight local wars (Dantzig, 1980a, p. 199; Law, 2008; Law, 2012, pp. 45-6, 74).
Afro-European relations were built upon multiple ties between the Gold Coast and the Bight of Benin. Slave ships would at times seek food provisions on the Gold Coast prior to sailing to the Slave Coast (Law, 2018, p. 8). Following the Europeans' example, African rulers recruited soldiers and obtained military support from polities on the Gold Coast (Dantzig, 1980a, p. 215; Law, 1991a, p. 229). By the mid-seventeenth century, Gold Coast African merchants had come to control the supply of akory beads, which were obtained on the Slave Coast and widely used on the Gold Coast (Law, 2011a, p. 8; Daaku, 1970, p. 25). The majority of the canoe men working for Europeans on the Slave Coast were recruited on the Gold Coast (Dantzig, 1975, p. 265; Law, 1989; Strickrodt, 2015, pp. 68-71; Heijmans, 2018, p. 131). By the early eighteenth century, diasporic movements by Gold Coast Africans seeking to escape the rise of Akwamu had prompted the foundation of Little Popo and other settlements on the Slave Coast (Law, 2005b, pp. 251-53; Gayibor, 1995, p. 200; Strickrodt, 2015, pp. 29, 75-8).
By paving the way for the establishment of coastal forts along the Gold Coast, the arrival of several European trading companies further transformed the landscape of society and trade along the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast. While the Dutch controlled fifteen forts, the British possessed nine establishments along the Gold Coast (Dantzig, 1980b). Embodying a complex set of AfroEuropean military, diplomatic and commercial relations, coastal forts were also focal points of European wars (Hair and Law, 1998, vol. I, p. 250; Deveau, 2005, pp. 130-5; Davenant, 1709, p. 6; Klooster, 2016, pp. 101-3; Sutton, 2014, pp. 56-91; Shumway, 2014, p. 65). Often built only after the Africans granted permission, their existence was sometimes predicated upon payment of rent by the Europeans (Valsecchi, 2011, p. 45; Makepeace, 1989, pp; 237-84) As stated in a contemporaneous account, 'every inch of ground is the property of the Negroes - and they are sufficiently tenacious thereof. The very castles pay them ground rent' (J. S. G., 1753, p. 12-13; DeCorse, 1992, p. 164; DeCorse, 1998, p. 222; DeCorse, 2018).
Most importantly, these coastal hubs ushered in an era of unprecedented urbanization and cosmopolitanism, while also setting the stage for the formation of small, yet highly influential, African trading families. A case in point was
Edward Barter, a mixed-race man educated in England who built himself a fort and dominated trade on the Gold Coast in the late seventeenth century (Daaku, 1970, pp. 98-9). Another example was John Conny, who played a key role in trade relations in a Brandenburg fort and once refused to turn it over to the Dutch (Jones, 1985, p. 11). At Anomabo, John Currantee skillfully played the British off against the French to maximize his leverage in trade and politics (Shumway, 2014, pp. 33, 42, 76-9; Kea, 2000; Everts, 2009; Weiss, 2015; Everts, 2012; Ipsen, 2015; Sparks, 2014, chapter 2).
In this context, Africans retained significant bargaining power vis-a-vis Europeans (Chouin, 1998; Law, 1994b, pp. 51-64; Feinberg, 1976, pp. 618-30). Not only did African kingdoms control internal trading routes to the coast, but African religious authorities played a critical role in determining which European traders would be allowed to participate in trade on the coast (Law, 2013a, pp. 39-40). This pattern of African-controlled exchanges extended to religion and legal matters, with many Europeans participating in the religious ceremonies of 'many coastal polities engaged in Atlantic trade', submitting to African legal practices, and seeking to gain favour with African polities in the forest interior (Apter, 2017, p. 42; Shumway, 2014, p. 67; Yarak, 1990). | Afro-Atlantic communities on the Gold Coast | [
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[Afro-Atlantic communities in the Bight of Benin]
Afro-Atlantic communities in the Bight of Benin
Similar patterns of cross-cultural and social interactions developed in the Bight of Benin. There, the first contacts between Europeans and Africans dated from the 1500s, when Ijebu merchants sold ivory, pepper and locally produced cloth to the Portuguese (Law, 1991a, p. 118). Beads and enslaved Africans were later sold on the Gold Coast in exchange for gold or shipped to the Portuguese colony of Sao Tome and Principe. The Allada kingdom dominated this early trade, and by the 1620s it had become a major source of labour for Spanish America and particularly for the sugar plantations in northeast Brazil and Spanish America. Tellingly, Jesuit priest Alonso de Sandoval wrote a treatise (published in 1627) and noted a great number of Gbe speakers (from the Bight of Benin) in Cartagena de Indias.
By the 1630s, the Allada kingdom had engaged in commerce with the Dutch, then seeking to obtain labour to develop sugar plantations in recently occupied land in Brazil. As the Dutch took on Portuguese possessions in Central Africa and Brazil, this trade was deeply influenced by events taking place elsewhere in the Atlantic. The Dutch takeover of Luanda, in Angola, prompted a decline of
shipments of enslaved Africans from Allada. Later, the expulsion of the Dutch from Brazil and Sao Tome and Principe drove the Allada slave trade downwards. By the 1670s, however, the arrival of British and French traders had transformed Allada into the most important supplier in the Bight of Benin. In both cases, slave trade activities were dictated by the demand for labour in the Americas as both French and British sought to provide labour for colonies in the Caribbean, where sugar production was heavily dependent on enslaved labour (Law, 1991a, pp. 157-63; Law, 1994a, pp. 59-92).
Religion was a key feature of Afro-European exchanges on the Slave Coast. A Catholic mission was sent to the kingdom of Allada in the late 1650s with the goal of converting the kingdom's elites and fostering trade relations (Law, 1991b, pp. 46-9). In an interconnected world, this mission also reflected disputes between Portugal and the Vatican over control of missionary work in Africa. These, in turn, cannot be fully understood without factoring in events taking place in Central Africa, where the kingdom of Kongo was at odds with the Jesuits and seeking to strengthen direct ties to the Vatican (Chouin, 2016, pp. 108-9; Valsecchi, 2013, p. 52). Against this backdrop, an Allada ambassador was baptised and a catechism was published in an Allada language - probably Aïzo (Law, 1991a; Parés, 2016, pp. 99, 100, 374-5, footnote 23).
To a degree, Allada's diplomatic manoeuvring reflected Portugal's diminished standing on the Slave Coast, as well as the lack of interest on the part of the Dutch in developing trading connections with the kingdom after the loss of Brazil. By the second half of the seventeenth century, however, the arrival of French and British merchants had prompted an increase in Atlantic trade. Accordingly, not only the Dutch but also representatives of British and French trading companies openly courted Allada's rulers, frequently sending luxurious gifts to the kingdom (Brauner, 2016). In response to diplomatic overtures, the Allada king wound up dispatching Afro-Portuguese Matteo Lopes to Paris as an envoy (Brauner, 2013, p. 7; Heijmans, 2018, p. 100)
As Allada and Hueda gained prominence in Atlantic trade, African rulers clearly had the upper hand vis-a-vis the Europeans. 'In 1703, the king was even in a position to enforce on the French, Dutch and English a peaceful co-existence', despite their wars in Europe (Dantzig, 1975, p. 258). Despite the existence of European coastal forts, these were not actually fortified, nor did they provide much in the way of military assistance. Spaces of cultural exchange existed on the coast, with creole Portuguese as a lingua franca widely used in commerce by Europeans and Africans (Tilleman, 1697, p. 30; Law, 1991a, pp. 116-9; Hair, 1997, p. 18). However, African rulers and their representatives
remained fully in control of business, fending off European attempts to establish zones of exclusive trade, and imposing free trade.
In this context, the Hueda kingdom showed great aptitude for political and economic diplomacy, regularly receiving European emissaries and sending its own emissaries abroad. In the 1690s, for example, British traders reported that the Hueda ruler had taken 'us by the hands, snapped our fingers, and told us we were very welcome, that he was glad to see us, that he longed for it, and that he loved Englishmen dearly, that we were his brothers, and that he would do us all the good offices he could' (Phillips, 1732, p. 217). In 1721, a Hueda ruler played a central role in the construction of a Portuguese fort in his territory. In addition to sending a letter to Brazil to invite the Portuguese to establish themselves in Hueda, the ruler furnished labour to build the facility.
Hueda's diplomatic overture to the Portuguese authorities in Brazil coincided with the rise in the demand for enslaved labour in the wake of the discovery of gold in Brazil. The kingdom's coastal port of Ouidah played a critical role in the supply of enslaved labour to the Portuguese colony in South America. Fifty per cent of all enslaved Africans taken across the Atlantic between 1700 and 1730 were shipped from there. The capital of colonial Brazil, Salvador, both hosted a large, enslaved population and became an important entry point for enslaved Africans eventually taken to Minas Gerais, making its social and religious fabric distinctly African (Reis, 2013; Richardson, 2009, p.161).
If Salvador became the centre for dispersal of captives in Portuguese America, Ouidah was converted into a multi-ethnic community and a centre of trans-imperial trade (Law, 2013b). Against the backdrop of fierce competition from British, French and Dutch merchants, the Portuguese managed to remain competitive in the slave trade by relying on two types of goods brought from their Brazilian colony: smuggled gold and tobacco, both highly sought after by Africans and Europeans along the African coast (Ferreira, 2014).
The rise of Dahomey, the leading African polity in the region after the conquest of Allada (1724) and Ouidah (1727), marked a new chapter in the Afro-European relations in the Bight of Benin. However, trade relations along the Slave Coast were by no means dominated by Dahomey alone. The intensity of the slave trade prompted the rise of alternative commercial outlets at Badagry and Porto-Novo (the latter founded by refugees from the destruction of Allada). This, in turn, provided European merchants with a variety of business-friendly outlets to develop their business (Silva Jr., 2017, pp. 87-8). In the 1760s, large numbers of Africans made captive in wars waged by the inland kingdom of Oyo were deported through Badagry and Porto-Novo. | Afro-Atlantic communities in the Bight of Benin | [
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[Afro-Atlantic communities in the Bight of Benin]
Dahomey's geopolitical interest in the Atlantic trade drove intense diplomacy along the coast as well as across the Atlantic and Europe. To channel the slave trade away from rival ports on the Slave Coast and back to Ouidah, Dahomey ruler Tegbesu dispatched an embassy to Salvador in 1750 (Lara, 2001, pp. 15165; Sweet, 2011, chapter 10). Other embassies followed in 1795, 1805 and 1811 (Araújo, 2011; Parés, 2013; Soares, 2014). Interestingly, other African polities also engaged in diplomatic exchanges, inviting Portuguese authorities to build fortresses in their territories and sending envoys to Brazil to discuss the trade in human beings at a time of nascent abolitionism. Similarly, the increasing participation of Onim (Lagos) in the Atlantic trade resulted in attempts at establishing diplomatic relations with colonial and independent Brazil (Verger, 1987; Santos, 2012; Guizelin, 2015).
Another outcome of the increased slave trade was the emergence of AfroAtlantic communities along the Slave Coast. While first established by agents of merchants based out of Brazil, these communities would later comprise a wide variety of individuals, including both enslaved and freed individuals. Some had first gone to Africa as crew members of slave ships or to work as translators at trading stations along the African coast (Fayer, 2003, pp. 281-95; Christopher, 2006, pp. 85, 66; Rodrigues, 2005, pp. 191, 205; Klein, 2010, p. 86). One example was João de Oliveira, an enslaved African from Brazil who settled in the Bight of Benin in the 1730s. As an ambassador of sorts for Portuguese interests, Oliveira played an important role in the opening of two major enslaving ports, Porto-Novo and Lagos. When he returned to Salvador in 1770, Oliveira had become a wealthy man and the owner of a considerable number of captives (Silva Jr., 2017, pp. 82-3).
Oliveira's life story provides insights into a larger pattern of mobility across the Atlantic. This pattern is also illustrated by the trajectory of Antonio Vaz Coelho, a black freedman born in Brazil, who 'made several voyages to Ardrah [Porto-Novo], where he at last settled, and became a very respectable trader' by the end of the eighteenth century (Dalzel, 1793, p. 169). Others used membership of brotherhoods in port cities in Africa and Brazil to travel back and forth across the Atlantic (Parés, 2014).
Such Atlantic crossings were furthered by a backlash against free blacks in the wake of the 1835 Muslim rebellion in Salvador, Bahia (Reis, 2003, pp. 465-7, 479-95; Castillo 2011, Vol. 2, pp. 27-51). Noticeably, they overlapped with the rise of anti-slave trade activities, which prompted the decentralization of shipments of captives along the African coast. Against this backdrop, some returnees settled in coastal communities and became active in the illegal trade
(Costa e Silva, 2004; Law, 2004, pp. 186-211; Law, 2016). However, it would be mistaken to associate the back-to-Africa movement only with the slave trade. While transatlantic voyages, mostly to Lagos, were fuelled by Afro-Brazilian religiosity, they were also driven by continuing social and trading ties between Africa and Brazil (Matory, 2005; Parés and Castillo, 2015, pp. 13-43; Cunha, 2013; Lindsay 1994; Guran, 2000; Strickrodt, 2015; Souza, 2008; Mann, 2013; Falheiros, 2013; Castillo, 2016; Silva, 2016; Parés, 2017). In Africa, a strong sense of religiosity, particularly around Catholicism, was central to the making of an 'Agudá' identity (Parés, 2015). | Afro-Atlantic communities in the Bight of Benin | [
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[Afro-European relations in Central Africa]
Afro-European relations in Central Africa
A similar mix of cultural exchange and diplomatic relations characterized Afro-European relations in Central Africa, which stretched from Malembo to the south of Angola. Here, two patterns of engagement soon emerged. On the Loango coast, from Malembo to the Congo River, African rulers successfully dictated the terms of trade and social relations. While Portugal pioneered contacts with Africans, it later lost ground to Dutch, British and French merchants (Sommerdyk, 2012). As the British and French dropped out of Atlantic slavery, the Loango coast came under the influence of the merchants from Rio de Janeiro, signalling the importance of Brazil - the largest destination in the Americas for captives - to the overall management of the South Atlantic networks in the trade in human beings.
Notably, Afro-European relations were far from being defined by trade alone. In the kingdom of Kongo, the first major Central African polity to make contact with Europeans, rulers (manikongos) used Christianity to strengthen their power soon after establishing ties to the Portuguese in the 1480s. From agricultural crops to military hardware to prestige goods, the Kongolese elite quickly incorporated elements of European culture and technology (Heywood and Thornton, 2007, pp. 199-200). Several members of the Kongolese elite became diplomats (dispatched on missions to Lisbon, Brazil, and the Vatican), military strategists and aides to missionaries seeking to spread Christianity in Central Africa (Thornton, 1984; Thornton and Mosterman, 2010; Thornton, 2013; Almeida, 2009; Brinkman, 2016). To dampen Portuguese interference in their internal affairs, Kongolese rulers sought to strengthen ties to the Vatican and other European powers. They provided the Dutch with military support to break Portugal's grip on Angola (Thornton, 2016, pp. 189-213).
While the kingdom of Kongo soon became a focal point of the slave trade, with a devastating impact on its social and political fabric, the Loango coast was not seriously affected by the trade in human beings until the early eighteenth century. There, trade relations initially revolved around products like ivory and locally produced cloth sold in Luanda (Martin, 1972; Soares, 2017, pp. 59-86). By the mid-eighteenth century, however, the demand for enslaved labour in the Americas had brought French and British merchants to regions including Cabinda and Malembo, which accounted for more than half of enslaved Africans taken to the French Caribbean (Mobley, 2015, pp. 123-6).
The Loango coast shared traits with the Slave Coast as both regions saw African kingdoms playing a pivotal role in the Atlantic trade. Another commonality was the rise of cosmopolitan trading groups which derived power and wealth from commercial exchanges with Europeans. However, key differences stand out, particularly with regard to the impact of the slave trade on African polities. While Slave Coast kingdoms kept a tight grip on Atlantic trade, the rise of trading families took a direct toll on the centralized power of the Loango kings. A case in point was the Ngoyo kingdom, whose royal elite lost power as members of its state apparatus gained wealth and power along the coast. In contrast to the power and wealth of coastal trading families including the Franque and Puna families, 'the last invested king of Ngoyo died in 1830' (MacGaffey, 2000, p. 192; Serrano, 1983; Martin, 1987, pp. 65-86; Pinto, 2006).
South of the Congo River, Afro-European relations were distinctive in nature because of Portuguese success in establishing a coastal enclave around the cities of Luanda and Benguela as well as the region's deep ties with Brazil, Portugal's colony in South America. Luanda displayed noticeable commonalities with coastal hubs on the Gold Coast. While both were undeniably under the control of Europeans, their social and economic fabrics were heavily dependent on slavery. In both places, a cosmopolitan coastal elite dominated the operation of the slave trade. As on the Gold Coast and the Slave Coast, members of Angola's coastal elite travelled across the Atlantic and dispatched their offspring abroad for education and professional training (Candido, 2011; Candido, 2013).
In many ways, however, Luanda and Benguela made for truly unique environments. First, by hosting a permanent civilian, religious, judicial and military apparatus, they were urban settings unlike anything ever created in continental Africa. They served as springboards for networks of trade and influence well beyond the African coast, allowing the Luanda administration to project power into the city's hinterland. Far from uniformly European, they gave rise to deeply amalgamated social and cultural landscapes. Second, while
both cities were taken over by the Dutch in the 1640s, Portuguese sovereignty was otherwise uncontested (Boxer, 1952). In contrast to the Slave Coast, coastal elites did not necessarily represent the power of African kingdoms, nor did they always advance Portugal's commercial and political interests. In fact, they often pursued their trade interests at the expense of Portuguese strategic goals, building close transatlantic connections to Brazil, Portugal's colony in South America. | Afro-European relations in Central Africa | [
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[Precursors to creolization in early modern Upper Guinea Coast]
Precursors to creolization in early modern Upper Guinea Coast
The latest evidence to date on the transatlantic slave trade into the Carolina, Georgia and Florida region gives historians new insight into the Western African cultural heritage of the people who are today called the 'Gullah Geechee'. On 824 slaving voyages between 1710 and 1860, an estimated 150,130 African captives were captured, purchased, imprisoned and transported against their will from ports in West and western Central Africa disembarking slaving vessels in South Carolina, North Carolina, Florida and Georgia ports. Of the total number of captives directly imported into this portion of the American colonies, roughly 43 per cent originated in the Upper Guinea Coast and roughly 42 per cent originated in western Central Africa, a statistical 'dead-heat'. The slave vessel records reveal the percentage of captives which originated in the Upper Guinea Coast and western Central Africa. However, they cannot tell historians how the culture of these two Western African regions or Western African ports would influence the enslaved communities in the South-Eastern Atlantic Coast whose descendants became the Gullah Geechee.
FIGURE 2. Areas of origins of enslaved Africans from the 'Lowcountry'
In identifying for historians two broad embarkation regions, western Central Africa and the Upper Guinea Coast, the slave ship data also pinpoints the genesis of Lowcountry Creoles (Figure 2). Linda Heywood and John Thornton have argued that the culturally and linguistically homogeneous western Central African kingdoms of Kongo and Ndongo were the source of 'Atlantic Creole' culture in colonial Virginia (Heywood and Thornton, 2007, pp. 236-39, 49, 51, 60-61, 62-67, 70,72,82,98-109,69-70,86-94,95-97,99,206,08-11,22-26; Sweet, 2003; Sweet, 2006). Among the Upper Guinea Coast's relatively heterogeneous Atlantic and Mande language groups, ^5 Toby Green argued that the transatlantic slave trade and
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 5 Atlantic, Kruan and Mande are three separate language groups which within themselves are relatively heterogeneous; the Northern and Southern branches of the Atlantic language, in particular, are relatively distantly related (Childs, 2007; Thornton, 1998 pp. 186-92).
violence could not be separated from the birth of Creole societies in the Atlantic World. Particularly in Cabo Verde and Upper Guinea, Atlantic Creole societies emerged from commercial relations among New Christians, Atlantic and Mande groups. Thus, 'primary creolization' based on the pre-existing frameworks of cultural pluralism among the lineages in the region foreshadowed Atlantic creolization and modernity. ^6 In both western Central Africa and the Upper Guinea Coast, AfroEuropean creolization on the African side of the Atlantic acted as a precursor to creolization in the New World among enslaved Africans who originated in these two regions (Thornton, 2010; Green, 2012). Creolization within indigenous Western African communities has received relatively little attention.
From the sixteenth century, European observers reported the occurrence of a regional transformation, which would re-shape the economic, political, social and cultural history of the Sierra Leone and Liberia subregion of the Upper Guinea Coast. Speakers of languages in the Central and South-Western branches of the Mande language family moved through the interior of presentday Sierra Leone to the coast of Liberia to establish trade networks linking the interior with the coast. In some areas they also took over the riverine trade networks that had been operated by the Sapes from Sierra Leone in the south to the Biafada territory along the Rio Grande in the north. Historians have called this social, political and cultural movement the 'Mani or Mane invasions' and the Central and South-Western Mande-speakers the 'Mani or Manes'. (Green, 2012, pp. 236-38). According to Adam Jones, the Manes were the linguistic ancestors of speakers of the present-day Vai language in the Central branch of the Mande language group; vocabulary words recorded by European observers and attributed to the Manes included Vai words (Brooks, 1993, p. 288; Jones, 1983a, p. 25; Jones, 1981, p. 159; Hair, 1968, pp. 47-73, 52, 58-59). The movement of Mande groups from the interior impacted Atlantic and Kruan groups occupying the coast from the Cape Verga region of present-day Guinea to the Cape Mount region of present-day Liberia (Brooks, 1993, pp. 275-78).
Slave trader Sir John Hawkins was one of the first Elizabethan navigators to reach the Upper Guinea Coast. Hawkins made his second voyage in 1564 to the coast of Sierra Leone, specifically to the islands off its coast, the Îles de Los. There, he encountered Atlantic groups, Sapes, Krim and Bullom speakers, the indigenous inhabitants of the coastal region. Hawkins' two ships visited the Îles
[^0]
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[^0]: 6 Green, 2012, pp. 10, 12-13, 18, 28, 34, 53, 56-57, 61, 62, 96-97, 103, 05, 48, 74, 78-79, 226, 34, 72-73, 76. Green demarcates the sixteenth century as the beginning of modernity, in which a new period of trans-national ideologies, such as racial hierarchies, impacted ongoing processes of creolizattion.
de Los, because they 'went to an Island of the Sapies, [...] to see if they could take any of them' captive, which Hawkins' men did by 'burning and spoiling their townes' (Williamson, 1970, pp. 16-17). Though this account is a slaving voyage, it is an invaluable primary source for the political, social and cultural transformation already in progress in the islands off Sierra Leone's coast.
Hawkins' description of the influx of Manes in coastal Sierra Leone echoes travellers' accounts for the region recorded as late as the early seventeenth century. European visitors observed Mani armies made up of recruits from speakers of Kruan languages, whom they called Samboses and Sumbas, fighting the Sapes or Sapi who spoke languages from the Atlantic group. The Temne and Bullom inhabitants of the Iles de Los, 'who were before Sapies', however, had already been 'conquered by the Samboses, inhabitants beyond Sierra Leone' (Williamson, 1970, pp. 16-17; Brooks, 1993, p. 288; Green, 2012, pp. 236-37). The Sumbas had arrived before Hawkins and his men, conquered the territory by force, 'tooke [the Sapies] in warres, as their slaves' (Williamson, 1970, p. 17; de Almada, 1984, pp. 16/7, 16/9, 16/10, 18/2, 18/5). The Sumbas paid tribute, but allied with and were not enslaved by the Manes. On the contrary, the Manes conquered the Sapes and enslaved them, making the Sapes 'till the ground' because they 'neither have the knowledge thereof, nor yet will work themselves' (Williamson 1970, p. 17). Using involuntary Sape labour, the Sumbas cultivated millet, rice, root crops and palm wine, transforming the islands into 'a veritable granary' (Williamson, 1970, pp. 17-18). The Sapes may have been an easy target for defeat by the Manes and their Sumba armies, because a lack of good-quality iron on the coast made it difficult for them to build strong defences against invasion (Green, 2012, p. 241; Hawthorne, 2003). | Precursors to creolization in early modern Upper Guinea Coast | [
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[Precursors to creolization in early modern Upper Guinea Coast]
By the 1590s, however, a social, political and cultural transformation had progressed even further. André de Almada, a Luso-African born in Cabo Verde, traded along the Upper Guinea Coast rivers. His first-hand account written in the 1590s, but recorded in the 1560s, provides a rare glimpse at Portuguese and Afro-Portuguese commercial relationships with coastal villages and insight into the Sapes cultural and linguistic traditions in a time of great regional change. Contemporary observations from as early as the sixteenth century in present-day Sierra Leone and the Cape Mount region of Liberia also describe a transformation occurring among the subregion's Atlantic and Mande inhabitants.
According to de Almada, among speakers of languages the Atlantic language group, Nalus, Bagas, Cocolins, Sapes and Sumbas, and the Mande language group, Manes, cultural distinctions were breaking down, because the Mani-Sumbas had incorporated so many captives. Nalus, along with Bagas and Cocolins, 'dress[ed] like
Sapes'(De Almada, 1984, pp. 13/5, 15/6, 16/1;Brooks, 1993, pp. 298, 304). The Nalus spoke a language from the Northern branch of the Atlantic language group and the Bagas, Cocolins and Sapes spoke languages from the Southern branch of the Atlantic language group. However, de Almada assumed that the Sapes and Manes 'understood each other' and the Manes '[spoke] the same language as the Sumbas speak' (De Almada, 1984, pp. 16/1, 16/6, 17/1; Brooks, 1993, p. 235). Linguistically, this was unlikely. Maybe the Sapes and Sumbas could communicate with one another. Though both of their languages belong to the Southern branch of the Atlantic language group, the relationship is too distant for the languages to be mutually intelligible. The Manes spoke a language from an entirely different language group, Mande. Though de Almada appears to be misinformed about the relationship among the Sapes, Sumbas and Manes, one cultural trait is clear, however: ‘[Sape] men and women [filed] their front teeth, above as well as below' (De Almada, 1984, pp. 16/6, 17/1). Before him, Hawkins reported Sapes or speakers of Atlantic languages for the Northern and Southern branches as far north as the Rio Grande engaging in the same body modification practice 'for a braverie, to set out themselves' as well as scarring the flesh on their arms, legs and bodies in patterns (Williamson, 1970, p. 17). By the 1590s, Sapes, Sumbas and Manes were engaged in warfare, political/social overlordship and cultural contact, but important cultural distinctions remained.
South of Sierra Leone in present-day Liberia, the south-westward movement of Mande groups, specifically speakers of Vai/Kono languages, penetrated the coast at Cape Mount, where West Atlantic and Kruan groups' territories met (Brooks, 1993, pp. 72, 288). For a large swath of the Upper Guinea Coast spanning northwestern Liberia and to a lesser extent southern Sierra Leone, the late historian Paul E. H. Hair described the unpublished Kquoja account on the political history of Cape Mount, the core of Olfert Dapper's travellers' account, as 'one of the richest pieces of documentation of any black African district and people in the period before 1700' (Hair, 1974, p. 34; Jones, 1990, pp. 181-86; Jones, 1983b, pp. 23-25). The author of the Kquoja account was likely well-acquainted with the Cape Mount region. He may have been an employee of Samuel Bloomaert, a director of the Dutch West India Company beginning in 1622 and resided in Cape Mount between the late 1620s and the 1640s (Jones, 1990, pp. 180-81, 74, 76; Jones, 1983b, p. 23; Hair, 1974, p. 33; Hair, 1964, p. 130).
By the time Olfert Dapper's informant travelled in Liberia and witnessed the results of the 'Mani invasions', no remnants of the Mani existed in Liberia. The Karou had themselves been conquered by the Folgia kingdom. They 'by assistance of the Folgians conquering the Veyes after a tedious war' ruled over the Vey or Vai, along with the Puy and Kquoja. The Karou came to rule present-day Liberia's Cape
Mount region and present-day coastal Sierra Leone (Dapper, 1686, pp. 399, 79, 81, 98, 407; Jones, 1983b, pp. 23, 25, 33, 34, 36). The Folgians were themselves subjects of 'Emperor of Manou, or Manoe, a mighty Prince' in the interior to whom they paid 'yearly tributes in slaves, salt, red cloth, kettles, basons'. The Kquoja king and some of his officials had intermarried with women from groups conquered by the Kquoja (Dapper, 1686, pp. 379, 98-99, 401; Brooks, 1993, pp. 302, 04, 06; Jones, 1983b, p. 28). Mani influence continued to be felt, however, in a new subregional culture among the Mani and the Atlantic and Kruan groups among whom they settled and whom they incorporated into their cultural practice, social structure and political organization.
The Poro power association, 'Belli-Paaro', is but one example. Mediating disputes was one of the primary functions of the Poro power association in south-western Liberia, in addition to socializing young males into manhood and maintaining peace and security along trade routes. As the demographic, cultural and linguistic changes swept south-westward, the Mani initiated young men from Atlantic and Kruan groups into these South-Western Mande institutions (Brooks, 1993, pp. 74, 289). Young males speaking different languages were all 'incorporated into the society of Spirits' and instructed in 'causes which concern the Wars, Justice, and Government' took part in eating meat offerings made to the spirits, Jaananen (Dapper, 1686, pp. 402-04; Brooks, 1993 p. 304; Jones, 1983b, p. 39). Before they became men, the youth from different ethnic groups also took an oath '[swearing] by Belli-Paaro, that is, Divine Justice' that they would not cause conflict, disrupt trade routes or steal trade goods. If a man broke the oath, the Belli-Paaro spirits acted as a divine arbiter, prosecuting through painful ordeals and sentencing the wrongdoer to lay in a basket of thorns, 'be carried away by the Jaananen' or executed. By the recording of Dapper's account, men from Mande, Atlantic and Kruan groups in south-western Liberia were initiated into Belli-Paaro, enabling the small Kquoja kingdom to rule over its large territory 'more by wisdom, policy, than by power'. According to Dapper, the King of Kquoja was the 'head' of Belli-Paaro ruling over a council of elders, simmanoe, who all had been 'marked' by the spirits with 'some row of cuts, from the neck along both shoulder blades'. Poro power was centralized and institutionalized at a 'university' beyond Cape Mount, which may have been where the highest-ranking members of the society were trained (Dapper, 1686, pp. 38-40; Alvares, 1990, ff.138v-39; Brooks, 1993, p. 302). The power association formed the core of political power and kept the peace among multiethnic communities throughout south-western Liberia.
Travellers' accounts from sixteenth and seventeenth century Sierra Leone and Cape Mount provide evidence of complex cultural, social and political processes
at work. Cultural contact among Mande groups, moving into the region as smiths, traders and warriors, and Atlantic and Kruan groups subjugated, incorporated and in some cases enslaved by the Mande. The emphasis here is on the incorporation of the Atlantic and Kruan groups by the Mande, which resulted in the Mani in Sierra Leone adopting the dress and language of Sumbas who fought their wars and the Vai initiating young men in Atlantic and Kruan groups in south-western Liberia into their power associations. Though the Mande achieved political control of the region through violence, the cultures practised among conqueror and conquered groups were no longer distinctly Mande, Atlantic or Kruan after the 'Mane invasions', but Creole (Dapper, 1686, p. 381). | Precursors to creolization in early modern Upper Guinea Coast | [
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[COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA]
COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA
Michele A. Johnson
The earliest historical records of persons of African descent in Canada refer to a man who reportedly died in the settlement of Port-Royal (Nova Scotia) during the winter of 1606-1607 and to Mathieu Da Costa, who, in 1608 was contracted to work for Pierre Dugua de Mons as an interpreter between the French explorer-colonizers and the Mi'kmaq people during trading expeditions in Acadia (Johnston, n.d.; Johnston, 2001; Lescarbot, 1928; MacBeath, 2017; Trudel, 1960, 2017; Winks, 2000). ^1 While there is some question as to whether Da Costa's contract is sufficient evidence of his North American sojourn, the fact that he acquired the language skills involved makes him an intriguing
[^0]
[^0]: 1 According to Historica Canada, Da Costa entered into a contract to work with Dugua de Mons for three years and was 'paid a salary that was quite considerable' (http://blackhistorycanada.ca/events.php?id=21). According to George MacBeath, 'Dugua de Monts [...] also known as Du Gua and de Mons', was an 'explorer, trader, governor of Acadia, and founder of Port-Royal, the first permanent settlement in Canada' (George MacBeath, 'Dugua De Monts Pierre (also known as Du Gua and de Mons)'. Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Vol. 1. (University of Toronto/Université Laval, 2003). http://www.biographi. ca/en/bio/du_gua_de_monts_pierre_1E.html (Accessed 18 March 2017). A.J.B. Johnston, noting that more recent scholarship 'identifies the personage as Dugua de Mons', points out that Da Costa's contract was to last for three years starting in 1609 and that his 'annual salary was to be 60 crowns, about 195 livres, which was a significant amount' (Johnston, n.d., pp. 2, 19). See also Johnston (2001, p. 162) and Winks (2000, p. 1).
figure with a nonetheless largely elided place in the Canadian national narrative (Johnston, n.d.; Johnston, 2001; Pachai, 1987). ^2
figure with a nonetheless largely elided place in the Canadian national narrative (Johnston, n.d.; Johnston, 2001; Pachai, 1987). ^2
There are similar silences on the role of slavery in the creation and definition of the early colonial spaces that would become Canada. However, according to the historical record, in 1628 a child was brought to Quebec from Madagascar or Guinea, possibly by British Commander David Kirke during the British invasion of New France (1628-1629). The petit nègre was sold at the age of 6 or 7 years for 50 écus to Le Baillif, a French clerk who had entered the service of the English. Before departing with the British in July 1632, when Quebec was restored to French control, Le Baillif gave the enslaved child to Guillaume Couillard de Lespinay, carpenter and seaman (Provost, 2017). In Couillard's household, the young African was taught catechism by the Jesuit priest Paul Le Jeune and in 1633, when he was baptized, he took the first name Olivier, from Olivier Letardif, the head clerk of the Compagnie des Cent-Associés, which controlled the colony and the surname of the priest (Trudel, 2017). As Robin W. Winks argues, Olivier Le Jeune, enslaved African, 'was neither the first slave nor the first Negro in New France, but he was the first of whom there is any adequate record' (Winks, 2000, p. 1). It is difficult to know exactly what Le Jeune's duties involved; however, his labour was possibly utilized in a variety of ways since Couillard had 10 children, at least 100 acres of land and a flour mill (Provost, 2017). It is not clear if Le Jeune remained enslaved until his death in 1654, when the burial register listed him as a domestique, nor whether his case was unique in the earliest period of European colonization.
In 1663, when New France was transferred from the Compagnie des Cent-Associés to royal control, the authorities looked to slavery as one means of increasing the necessary workforce to establish the colony. According to Winks, in 1677, Jean-Baptiste de Lagny, Sieur des Bringandières obtained royal permission to exploit the colony's resources and, in 1688, he approached Jacques-Réné de Brisay, the colony's governor, who, with the support of the colony's intendant, Jean Bochart de Champigny, appealed to the imperial authorities for the provision of enslaved African workers (Winks, 2000, p. 4).
[^0]
[^0]: 2 Johnston outlines the archival evidence for the controversy over Da Costa's employment by French and Dutch traders, his contract to work for Dugua de Mons, signed in 1608, and Da Costa's imprisonment for 'insolences' in 1609. In his analysis of the 'possibilities and probabilities' regarding Da Costa, Johnston points to the long history of European-African contact, the role of African interpreters, the development of trade languages and the possibility of his transatlantic travel prior to the 1608 contract, thus exploring the possible means by which Da Costa acquired his skills. Johnston makes reference to scholarship by Hilary Russell, who 'summarizes the evolution of the published references to Da Costa in her unpublished manuscript, Looking for Mathieu da Costa, ms. on file, Parks Canada, Halifax' (Johnston, n.d.).
In the wake of the adoption of the 1685 Code Noir in the French colonies in the Caribbean, the said appeal reflected the hope that similar utilization of African labour would lead to profits for investors. Louis XIV assented to the appeal to support African slavery in New France on 1 May 1689 and reiterated this in 1701. While the upheavals of King William's War and the War of Spanish Succession affected international trade routes during this period, the institution of slavery continued to grow in the colony, leading the intendant Jacques Raudot to issue an ordinance on 13 April 1709 establishing that all enslaved Africans and Indigenous peoples who had been and who would be purchased 'shall be the property of those who have purchased them and will be their slaves' (Winks, 2000, p. 6). In 1716, the intendant Michel Bégon repeated the observation on the lack of labour and appealed for an expanded trade in enslaved Africans who could 'till the soil, fish for cod, saw timber, build ships, and exploit the iron mines' (Winks, 2000, p. 8). | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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[COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA]
Although the trade did not expand as quickly as the intendants wished, by 1736, the number of enslaved persons had risen to a level where regulation was deemed necessary: accordingly, the intendant Gilles Hocquart issued a new ordonnance establishing a uniform means of manumission (Winks, 2000, p. 6). According to Marcel Trudel, by 1759 there were at least 1,132 enslaved Africans in New France, concentrated mostly in Montreal and other towns where the majority worked as domestic servants for the merchant classes, administrative authorities, doctors, members of the military and clergy (Donovan, 1995; Riddell, 1920, 1923; Trudel, 1960; Winks, 2000, p. 9). The latter would have been among the enslavers who participated in the domestic slave trade, some of the transactions of which were evident in Actes notariés (Notarial Acts) filed in the Province of Quebec in the 1740s and 1750s (Riddell, 1923). ^3 Among the enslaved in New France was Marie-Joseph Angélique, who belonged to the wife of François Poulin de Francheville and was accused of setting fire to her mistress's house in April 1734, thereby destroying a significant portion of Montreal. She was tried, humiliated, tortured and executed; her corpse was then burned and, according to Afua Cooper, her ashes were flung 'to the four winds' (Cooper, 2006, p. 22; Trudel, 1960). While there is some debate about whether
[^0]
[^0]: 3 William R. Riddell discusses the sale of 'five Negro slaves, two men and three women and girls' sold by la dame Cachelière for 3,000 livres in 1743: Robert, aged 26 to 27 years, sold by Damelle Marie-Anne Guérin for 400 livres in 1748; Louison, 'a Negro woman [...] about 17 years old', sold by Amable-JeanJoseph Came for 1,000 livres in 1749; Jean Monsaige, sold by Jacques Damien pour le servir en qualité d'esclave in 1751; Nicholas, aged about 30 years, sold by Joseph de la Tesserie in 1757; and Pierre, aged about 18 years, sold for 1,192 livres in 1757.
Angélique started the fire or was wrongfully accused, the barbarity with which her body and spirit were broken was reminiscent of enslavement in many other contexts in the Americas (Beaugrand-Champagne, 2004).
In the mid-eighteenth century, as the enslavement of Africans was being extended to the rest of the Americas, the institution of slavery gained further support in Canada. Winks notes that, as the Seven Years' War - known as the French and Indian War - drew to a close, the French treaty of capitulation (1760) to the British included article 47, which 'affirmed that all slaves would remain the possession of their masters, that they might continue to be sold, and that they could be instructed in the Roman Catholic faith' (Winks, 2000, p. 24). With the formal end of the conflict and the Treaty of Paris (1763), France ceded its colonial claims in North America to Britain, and the said article further strengthened the institution of slavery. In this context, James Murray, the first British governor of Quebec, corresponding with persons in New York in 1763, declared that 'Black Slaves are certainly the only people to be depended upon' and that he would 'begrudge no price' in order to procure 'two Stout Young fellows, who have been accustomed to Country Business' along with 'a clean young wife' for each (Elgersman, 1999, p. 23; Riddell, 1919, p. 396; Winks, 2000, p. 26).
In addition to the Treaty of Paris, the Quebec Act of 1774 confirmed the rights of British citizens to their property, including the enslaved, and the Imperial Act (1790), which encouraged immigration and included the right to import 'Negroes, household furniture, utensils of husbandry or cloathing' [sic], further strengthened the institution of slavery (Winks, 2000, p. 26). In addition, free Black people were not included among those encouraged to immigrate and, according to Winks, '[a]ll white settlers over fourteen years old were to take an oath of allegiance' whereas 'children and Negroes, slave or free, were not expected to do so since they were unable to swear'. Therefore, the racialized hierarchy that animated the exclusion of persons of African descent from claims of citizenship was increasingly obvious (Winks, 2000, p. 26).
Eighteenth-century historical records show that there were Afrodescendants in the eastern portion of Canada. This included persons involved in the unsuccessful attempt by the French to repel the British conquest of Louisbourg in 1745 and settlers in Nova Scotia who came in response to offers of passage and provisions from the British Government. However, as was the case in Quebec, not all Afrodescendants in the Atlantic Provinces (Nova Scotia, Cape Breton Island, Prince Edward Island and Newfoundland) were free settlers: in 1752, a 'negro servant' named Orange was mentioned in a will and, according to Winks, ‘[i]n 1768 alone, 2,217 Negro slaves valued at £ 77,595 sterling were
imported into the British provinces of North America, Newfoundland, Bahama, and Bermuda'. While most Afrodescendants probably went to the Bahamas and Bermuda, some remained in the Atlantic Provinces and others would be added to their ranks, including in the fisheries of Newfoundland (Fleming, 1953; Mackey, 2004; Riddell, 1919, 1920a, 1920b; Winks, 2000, pp. 26-28). ^4
According to James Walker, in 1775, when Britain and thirteen of her North American colonies went to war, 'attention in some British quarters turned towards the half-million slaves in American hands who could be recruited as invaluable allies within the enemy camp'. While there were some concerns about inciting rebellion among the enslaved in the thirteen 'rebel' colonies, when Lord Dunmore, the governor of Virginia, declared martial law, he also called for support from 'all indentured servants, negroes, or others' to join the imperial forces in order to restore order. Walker says that within a week of the publication of Dunmore's Proclamation, 'over 300 black men joined the Governor's "Ethiopian Regiment", and when the governor met the rebels at Great Bridge on 9 December 1775, 'one half of Dunmore's troops consisted of runaway slaves'. Although Dunmore seems to have acted on his own authority, according to Walker, '[t]he inscription 'Liberty to Slaves', emblazoned across the chests of the Ethiopian Regiment, became a British slogan and de facto a British war policy' (Walker, 1976, pp. 1-2). | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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In an imperial context still deeply committed to the transatlantic trade in enslaved Africans and the system of slavery, abolitionist sentiments never prevailed in the British war strategy. While the policy was reissued in Sir Henry Clinton's 1779 Philipsburg Proclamation, which promised 'to every Negro who shall desert the Rebel Standard, full security to follow with these [British] Lines, any Occupation which he shall think proper', enslaved Africans belonging to British Loyalists were not offered their freedom in exchange for their services (Walker, 1976, p.2). Nevertheless, the response to the Philipsburg Proclamation was significant: while it is unclear how many persons of African descent joined the British forces, estimates range up to 100,000 , representing about 20 per cent of the Black population. Regardless of their number, argues Walker, 'the overriding motive of the escaped slaves, and one that was shared by free blacks who became Loyalists, was for security in their freedom' (Walker, 1976, p. 4). Whether as soldiers of the corps of Black Pioneers, cavalry troops, sailors in
[^0]
[^0]: 4 From the 1750s to the 1770s, enslaved Africans were found in Liverpool, New Glasgow, Bridgetown, Amherst, Onslow, Cornwallis and Halifax. According to Winks, in 1788, there were reports of Black men working in the fisheries of Newfoundland.
the Royal Navy, skilled workers, general workers, guides or in a variety of other capacities, they contributed significantly to the war effort. In return, beginning in 1776, some African Americans were evacuated with British forces to Nova Scotia. However, others were sold back into slavery in North America or the Caribbean, as a reflection of the mentality of many in the British forces (Walker, 1976, pp. 3-6).
As the American Revolution progressed and the British defeat became apparent, the fate of the enslaved and free African Americans who had joined the British forces became a matter of great concern. The negotiated peace agreement sought, among other things, to prevent the unlawful 'carrying away [of] any Negroes or other Property of the American Inhabitants' from the United States of America. In response, the British issued guidelines which provided that Black people who were behind British lines before 30 November 1782 were free and could be evacuated with other British Loyalists; for others, petitions for their return by former enslavers were heard. In order to expedite the evacuation, the British commander-in-chief Sir Guy Carleton kept a record of all free Black people being removed so that compensation could be paid to legitimate American claimants. This "Book of Negroes" listed a total of 3,000, inspected in New York between 26 April and 30 November 1783, bound for Nova Scotia'; it did not include those who preceded the roll or took other routes, or those who followed. By the end of the evacuation, more than ten per cent of the 30,000 Loyalists who migrated to Nova Scotia were free Black men, women and children (Walker, 1976, pp. 11-12). And they were not alone: along with the thousands of free 'Black Loyalists' were large numbers of enslaved African Americans who accompanied their Loyalist masters to British imperial locations, especially in Upper Canada (now Ontario) and the Atlantic Provinces.
While historians might debate whether these free or freed persons were Black Loyalists or enslaved African Americans who joined the British forces in pursuit of their freedom, it seems certain that their experiences in Nova Scotia were disappointing at best (Cahill, 1999; Walker, 1999). The main obstacle to their successful settlement was limited or no access to land. According to Walker, the land-granting policy sought to compensate those who had lost the most in the American Revolution, and the former large landholders were dealt with first. Therefore, 'few blacks received any land at all, and when they did it was in smaller quantities than promised, contained some of the province's worst soil, and was often located so far from major settlements that establishing
a viable farm upon it or even visiting it was extremely difficult' (Walker, 1976, p. 18). ^5 Walker argues that
[t]heir disappointment, and the discrimination with which they were met, indicated that they were not to be treated as equal citizens after all, and encouraged many of them to believe that they would have to look beyond the governor and his surveyors to complete their escape from slavery and to achieve the independence they sought (Walker, 1976, p. 32).
It is likely that the discrimination the Black Loyalists faced - although they were free - was related to their association with previous servitude and the fact that race-based slavery was still practised in the Atlantic Provinces. As mentioned previously, the British evacuation at the end of the war included enslaved African Americans: according to Walker, '[a]n estimated 1,232 slaves, often designated "servants" or "servants for life", were brought by Loyalists from the former American colonies' (Walker, 1976, p. 40). The extension of slavery to the provinces led to the growth of the domestic slave trade and increasingly harsh conditions, including cruel whippings and even murder; as a result, some enslaved persons attempted to escape their enslavement (Riddell, 1920; Winks, 2000, pp. 51, 53). ^6
Although the coexistence of enslaved and free Afrodescendants made it difficult to identify and control those who were enslaved, Nova Scotia displayed the characteristics of a slave society. The Black Loyalists were largely landless and often reduced to share-cropping or indentured servitude; suffering from inadequate government support (including rations), they were forced into competition in the labour market, were subjected to pervasive racism and prejudice - including an anti-Black race riot led by White soldiers at Shelburne in July 1784 - and faced the threat of being resold into slavery in the United States of America or the Caribbean. They were also denied the rights of citizenship, including trial by jury, the right to vote and equal treatment in the courts - which sometimes sentenced them to whipping akin to the punishment imposed on their enslaved brethren. Under these circumstances, many within the Black Loyalist communities began to look elsewhere for their promised land.
[^0]
[^0]: 5 Resorting to petitions, delayed by years and repeatedly relocated, a small number of the Black Loyalists finally established Black settlements in Birchtown, Brindley Town and Little Tracadie (in the only lands granted directly to free Black people); others were concentrated in Preston and Halifax, while others, landless, were scattered in Lunenburg, Wilmot, Cornwallis, St. Margaret's Bay, Granville and Port L'Hebert.
6 Winks points to the multiple advertisements for runaways and argues that the enslaved were treated as property and 'continued to die young' (Winks, 2000, p. 53). | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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[COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA]
6 Winks points to the multiple advertisements for runaways and argues that the enslaved were treated as property and 'continued to die young' (Winks, 2000, p. 53).
In 1791, the Sierra Leone Company was formed to regularize the effort to found a colony in West Africa which would provide a 'home' for the thousands of free Black people in Britain. Under the leadership of Thomas Peters, a Black Pioneer leader who had been made false promises of government support and land grants, more than 200 of the Black settlers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick drew up a petition that outlined their dissatisfaction with their condition and sought a remedy. The petition made its way to the Secretary of State for the Home Department, Henry Dundas, who requested that the authorities in Nova Scotia address the situation and also suggested as an alternative that the settlers consider Sierra Leone as an asylum. After a flurry of meetings and negotiations, on 16 January 1792, a convoy of 15 vessels with more than 1,190 Black passengers left Halifax harbour for Sierra Leone (Walker, 1976). And they were not alone.
In the wake of the British conquest of Jamaica in 1655, the colonial forces found themselves at odds with formerly enslaved Africans who had escaped and formed Maroon communities in the mountains of the island. The guerilla war which ensued ended with a treaty signed in 1739 which provided the Maroons with land and some autonomy. However, in July-August 1795, the Trelawny Maroons and the colonial forces were once again at war: on this occasion, the Maroons were defeated and subjected to a disadvantageous treaty. In June-July 1796, this resulted in 549 Jamaican Maroon men, women and children being exiled to Nova Scotia (Hinds, 2001; Robinson, 1969). While there was some trepidation among Nova Scotian authorities regarding the deported Maroons, the concerns were initially allayed by the group's willingness to work on the fortifications at Citadel Hill in Halifax (known thereafter as the Maroon Bastion) and to settle in parts of Preston, which had been previously occupied by the departed Black Loyalists. By the end of 1796, however, disagreements between the provincial authorities and the Assembly of Jamaica with regard to financial support for the Maroons, the group's cultural practices and growing determination to leave Nova Scotia led to an array of confrontations, petitions and negotiations. Allister Hinds argues that for the next three years, as the costs related to their settlement mounted, the Maroons resisted the authorities' efforts to integrate them into the colony and, well aware of the possibility of removal from the inhospitable climate and poor land, instead seemed to make organized and calculated attempts to force the colonial authorities to send them to Sierra Leone (Hinds, 2001, pp. 214-215). As a result of the pressure from their petitions and activities, by August 1800, the authorities were convinced to facilitate the transportation of 551 Jamaican Maroons to Sierra Leone, where the latter joined the Black Loyalists who had already settled there. According to Hinds, their departure
signalled the end of an experiment which failed [...] not only because the Colonial Authorities in Jamaica and Nova Scotia were unable to reconcile their differences over the problems which emerged in the creation of the Maroon settlement, but also because the Maroons refused to adjust to living conditions in Nova Scotia (Hinds, 2001, p. 219; Lockett, 1999; Picart, 1996).
The Atlantic Provinces emerged as a preferred destination for Black settlement in the late eighteenth century, and that trend would continue in the nineteenth century. According to Harvey Amani Whitfield, during the War of 1812, which pitted the British against their former colonies (the United States of America), some African Americans joined the British forces and were active in the Colonial Marines as soldiers, spies, messengers and guides (Whitfield, 2002). In 1814, as the war drew to a close, Vice-Admiral Sir Alexander Cochrane issued a proclamation offering all residents of the United States of America who would join the British side a choice of military positions or transportation to a British colony - in the same way as the British had done during the American Revolution. While the offer was not restricted to enslaved African Americans, 3,500-3,600 joined the British lines and, according to Whitfield, 'by the end of 1818 approximately 2,000 had landed in Nova Scotia', while 400-500 went to New Brunswick (Spray, 1977; Whitfield, 2002, p. 33; Winks, 2000, pp. 114-141). In the wake of this mass migration, the American Government demanded the return of the formerly enslaved Americans or payment for their freedom: after a great deal of negotiation, in 1827, the British Government paid US\$1,204,960 for the enslaved African Americans removed during and after the war (Winks, 2000).
This wave of African American immigrants was labelled the 'Black Refugees', perhaps to distinguish them from the remaining Black Loyalists. They faced a Nova Scotia Assembly convinced that the province would not benefit from the arrival of 'a separate and marked class of people, unfitted by Nature to this Climate, or to an association with the rest of His Majesty's Colonists', as well as material destitution and an outbreak of smallpox (Winks, 2000, pp. 116-117). The changing policies to deal with the group included plans to settle them as small farmers; however, as had been the case with previous groups, the plots were too small, the soil was unproductive and their settlements faltered. Winks attributed the dire circumstances of the Black Refugees to their enslaved origins in the American South, their competition with White immigrants for employment, a series of natural disasters, their restricted access to land, their lack of leadership and attempts by White colonizers to manipulate them (Winks, 2000, pp. 114, 124-128). Whitfield challenges this interpretation and notes that there is evidence of the emergence of 'black self-assertion and agency', even in
the archives of the colonial elite, and points to 'a group determined to make a place for themselves in colonial society' (Whitfield, 2002, pp. 31, 49).
the archives of the colonial elite, and points to 'a group determined to make a place for themselves in colonial society' (Whitfield, 2002, pp. 31, 49).
The society in which the Black Refugees, Black Loyalists and Jamaican Maroons sought to find a place for themselves embraced slavery; however, by the end of the eighteenth century, the institution was under some pressure. According to Riddell and Winks, the main sources of pressure included the actions of members of the judiciary: in Nova Scotia, the courts often frustrated attempts by enslavers to recover runaways; in New Brunswick, a divided court led to confusion about the rights of enslavers and a growing preference for indentureship. Indentureship was also increasingly preferred in Prince Edward Island (formerly Isle St Jean) and Cape Breton, while in Lower Canada (now Quebec), attempts to pass an abolition act were defeated, even though the courts leaned towards the enslaved whose cases were heard. | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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In Upper Canada however, a limited, gradual abolition was implemented in response to the case of Chloe Cooley, a so-called 'Negro Wench' who came to the attention of the authorities when she loudly resisted the actions of her enslaver, Mr Vrooman, to sell her to an enslaver in the United States of America. When Vrooman was prosecuted, not for selling Cooley - which he had the right to do - but for 'violent breaches of the Public Peace', the charges against him were dropped; however, in May 1793, the Act to Prevent the further Introduction of Slaves and to limit the Term of Contracts for Servitude, ^7 also known as the Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, was adopted unanimously. Winks notes, importantly, that 'Upper Canada's act to abolish slavery freed not one slave', since those who were enslaved were not freed; children born to enslaved mothers would thenceforth become apprentices until the age of 25 years, and any children born to these apprentices were to be born free (Winks, 2000, p. 97). The population of enslaved persons in the provinces would be freed only by the British Emancipation Act of 1833, which was enacted on 1 August 1834.
These developments in abolition and emancipation had an impact on African Americans. In 1793, the same year in which Upper Canada adopted its Act to Limit Slavery in Upper Canada, the Congress of the United States adopted the Fugitive Slave Act, which endorsed the rights of slaveholders to recover enslaved persons who had escaped their bondage. When Upper Canada's limited freedom for enslaved persons was expanded by the British Emancipation Act, the British provinces became even more attractive as a destination for the enslaved in the
[^0]
[^0]: 7 Statutes of Upper Canada, 33 George III, Cap. 7.
[^0]
[^0]: 7 Statutes of Upper Canada, 33 George III, Cap. 7.
United States of America. Furthermore, in 1850, the Congress of the United States adopted the second Fugitive Slave Act, which strengthened the previous Act and required authorities and individuals in the 'free states' to cooperate with the law, thereby placing 'fugitives' in a tenuous position, including in northern states; crossing the border into Canada thus became increasingly attractive.
It is estimated that between 1815 and 1860, some 50,000 enslaved African Americans escaped their bondage and went to Canada, mostly to south-western Upper Canada (St. Catharines, Windsor, Amherstburg, London, Chatham, Dresden, Toronto, Oro), where they also established some Black communities, such as Dawn, Wilberforce and Elgin/Buxton (Meyler, 2001; Prince, 2012; Shadd, 1994; Silverman, 1984; Smardz Frost, 2008; Tobin and Jones, 2007; Ulman, 1969; Winks, 2000, pp. 142-177, 187-232). The routes of escape varied, and the majority of those who escaped relied on their own ingenuity and on assistance from their community, as well as from some White allies, to escape their enslavers; in the 1830s, the network which facilitated the escapes was referred to as the 'Underground Railroad', an allusion to the railroad systems that were being built in the United States of America.
Initially, the flow of 'fugitives' into Canada was greeted relatively positively: they were a potential source of (cheap) labour and their choice of residence indicated Canada's alleged moral superiority over the United States. However, according to Winks, by the end of the 1830s, many White Canadians were concerned about the level of Black migration and, in the 1840s and 1850s, Black immigrants were distinctly unwelcome in many areas (Winks, 2000). By the 1850s, some Black individuals and communities complained that the level of prejudice in Canada equalled that in the United States; Reverend William King, who founded the Elgin settlement, said that they were unable to 'roll back the prejudice against them' (Drew, 1856; Winks, 2000, p. 144). Notwithstanding the fact that some Black people served in the provincial militias, that the Coloured Corps supported the Government in the Rebellions of 1837-1838, and that many commented on their loyalty, the Black community was increasingly 'the object of growing prejudice' (Winks, 2000, pp. 151, 148). ^8 Perhaps not surprisingly then, when the American Civil War started, tens of thousands of 'fugitives' returned to the United States to fight in the war, to find their families and to avail themselves of the sorts
[^0]
[^0]: 8 According to Winks, when the rebellion in Upper Canada was launched in 1837, 'nearly a thousand Negroes volunteered for service within the month'. There were rebellions against the crown and political authorities in Upper and Lower Canada; the uprisings were put down but resulted in loss of life and the unification of the Canadas.
of opportunities that some believed were not possible in Canada. After the Civil War, some 'fugitive' descendant Black Canadians moved to the United States in search of better educational and employment opportunities.
For those who remained in Canada, while there was no systematic, codified legal segregation, some African Canadians in Canada West (formerly Upper Canada, later Ontario) and Nova Scotia experienced legally segregated schools but, for the most part, encounters with racism were individualized or localized (McLaren, 2008). While they experienced prejudice, in some places, Black individuals had rights of citizenship; in others, however, theatres and hotels were segregated, Black people were not allowed to run for public office, sit on juries or have business licenses, and some churches banned the burial of Black believers in church-owned cemeteries (Winks, 2000, pp. 288-336). Since the experiences were very uneven and racism lay just beneath the veneer of tolerance, it was difficult for Black communities in Canada to generate a sustained anti-racist movement. Many believed that their experiences were unique and personal, others believed that compared to their colleagues in the United States of America they had little cause for complaint, and others made enough personal and familial progress to eschew anything that would rock the proverbial boat. However, perhaps because of the growing segregation and racism that they faced, many African Canadian communities became self-reliant. Where they were excluded from churches and schools, they built their own; since the important events in their communities were ignored by the local and national newspapers, they created their own (Brown-Kubisch, 2004; Clairmont and Magill, 1999; Fingard, 1992, 1995; Hill, 1963). However, as separate and separated communities with differing self-identifications, they developed few links among themselves; the larger White community might have viewed and treated them as a single group defined and proscribed by their racial heritage, but they envisioned themselves and operated as several distinct groups/diasporas, each with its (competing) agenda. | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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[COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA]
In addition to the communities of African descent that were established in the Atlantic Provinces, Canada West and Quebec, a Black presence also developed on Vancouver Island in British Columbia. The majority of the estimated 400 families who settled on the Pacific coast in the 1850s were free, skilled and financially independent former residents of California, where African Americans were increasingly barred from enjoying the full rights of citizenship and faced increasing segregation (Winks, 2000). The immigrants were warmly welcomed by Governor James Douglas (an Afrodescendant born in British Guiana), the local newspaper and clergy; they were represented by spokespersons such as Mifflin Wistar Gibbs, a successful businessman; and their relatively small number initially raised fewer of the concerns that the larger groups in Nova Scotia and Canada West caused
among White Canadians. Nevertheless, members of the community experienced prejudice: when they volunteered to serve with the fire brigade, they were rejected; their military group (the Victoria Pioneer Rifle Corps) was segregated and so was the worship in the Congregational Church on Vancouver Island and the theatre in Victoria; they were attacked by the editor of The British Colonist for apparently not supporting his bid to become Attorney General; and they were excluded from jury duty, the Victoria Literary Institute and the temperance society (Howay, 1939; Kilian, 1978; Winks, 2000). By the late 1860s, Black settlers in the West were receiving a very poor welcome in Canada.
For other groups, the story was similar. Among African Americans anxious to escape the Black Codes, various vagrancy laws, economic exploitation and erosion of the rights of citizenship through legalized disenfranchisement, fraud and terrorism in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, some looked to Canada for possible relief. According to Elizabeth Beaton, among the migrants were 'several hundred African-American skilled furnace men' who were recruited to work in the steel enterprises in Cape Breton between 1901 and 1904. They soon found that their work and personal lives were affected by 'the realities of racial and paternalistic attitudes': they were routinely placed to work in the blast furnace ostensibly because 'black people could better stand the heat of the blast furnaces', and they were housed in company shacks, some of which were 'exceedingly filthy', had no sewerage or water connection, had poor ventilation and were poorly - if at all - heated. Attacked in the local newspapers and generally portrayed as undesirable, after a strike in 1904, the community drifted away to other provinces or back to the United States of America, 'penniless, destitute and disappointed' (Beaton, 1995, pp. 67-93).
Similarly, those African Americans - many of whom were from Oklahoma - who responded to the Canadian Government's promotion of immigration to western Canada and who migrated to Alberta and Saskatchewan soon realized that the recruitment campaign was not meant for them. According to Stewart Grow and R. Bruce Shepard, the African American migrants encountered attitudinal and administrative barriers (Grow, 1974; Shepard, 1991). When a group of 200 African Americans sought admission to Manitoba in March 1911, the group's members were submitted to rigorous examinations regarding their health and financial and moral standing. When all passed and were admitted, some White Canadian citizens (especially in Edmonton and Winnipeg) protested and parts of the press argued for a ban on Black immigration to prevent 'the Negro question' and race riots (Winks, 2000, p. 308).
By 1912, the movement for exclusion had spread: the Great Northern Railway sent notices to its employees advising them that potential Black immigrants would not be admitted to Canada. In the same year, W.D. Scott, Superintendent of Immigration, dispelled any doubts among African Americans by publicly asking them 'not to come to western Canada since opportunities for them were better in a warmer climate' (Winks, 2000, p. 312). With the start of the Great War, the Canadian Government took the opportunity to prohibit entry 'to any nationality or race [...] deemed unsuitable having regard to the climatic, industrial, social, educational, labour or other conditions [...] [or] because of their probable inability to become readily assimilated' (Shepard, 1997; Winks, 2000, p. 31). Although persons of African descent had lived in - and made their contributions to - Canada for centuries, the exclusionary intentions of the Canadian authorities were clear: Afrodescendants' alleged 'unsuitability' for the climate and society were regularly used as excuses for their extremely low rates of admission to the country.
Given the racial atmosphere in Canada, it should not be surprising that, during the First World War, very few persons of African descent were accepted for military service, White soldiers refused to serve with them and there was a desire for segregated units, although no White officer wanted to give such a command. In 1916, confronted by the possibility of recruiting African Canadians, Major-General W.G. Gwatkin, Chief of General Staff, claimed that '[t]he civilized negro is vain and imitative [...] he is not impelled to enlist by a high sense of duty; in the trenches he is not likely to make a good fighter; and the average white man will not associate with him on terms of equality', therefore, there was 'no place for a black battalion' (Winks, 2000, p. 317). Instead, the No. 2 (Negro) Construction Battalion, with White officers, was authorized in July 1916. In France, African Canadians laboured on behalf of a nation that promptly forgot their contribution and, in some instances, greeted them with hostility. With these racial attitudes in place, perhaps it was not surprising that in the 1920s, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, British Columbia and Ontario witnessed the rise and popularity of the Ku Klux Klan; although its public visibility declined, the Klan's sentiments would remain in place among many Canadians (Henson, 1977). This was the context in which immigrants from the Caribbean, mainly of African descent, arrived.
During the nineteenth century, small numbers of Caribbean men were recruited to work on the ships that plied many of the country's harbours. In the early twentieth century, according to Agnes Calliste, some Caribbean men were recruited to work in the steel mills in Nova Scotia where, '[d]espite their skills, | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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[COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA]
most of them were restricted to jobs in the Sydney mines and the steel plant's coke ovens because of the segregated workforce and the myth that blacks could withstand the heat better than whites' (Calliste, 1993-1994, p. 135). Women from the Caribbean were also sought to occupy places in the labour force: between 1910 and 1911, 100 women from Guadeloupe were recruited to work in Quebec as domestic servants (Calliste, 1993-1994, pp. 140-141). ^9 Despite general satisfaction with their work, fear of a growing Black presence foreshadowed by permanently resident Black women caused Government officials to require their departure once their contracts were completed. In 1955, Caribbean women would, once again, be targeted as domestic workers through the West Indian Domestic Scheme, which was popular because, according to Linda Carty, it was clear that 'recruiting in the Caribbean would be cheaper owing to its relative proximity to Canada, thus resulting in minimal administrative costs' and that 'wages would be lower than those paid to white workers' (Carty, 1994, p. 218). By 1965, a total of 2,690 Caribbean women had been admitted under the scheme - more than all the Caribbean immigrants who had come to Canada before 1945 - and since it was one of the few means by which Caribbean people could migrate to Canada, during the 1960s and 1970s, many nurses, teachers, secretaries, clerks and trained service workers used this avenue for the prospect of personal and familial improvement (Bakan and Stasiulis 1997; Calliste, 1996; Giles and Arat-Koç, 1994; Henry, 1987; Johnson, 2012; Macklin, 1994; Silvera, 1989; Walker, 1984). Both domestic schemes, especially the second scheme, allowed for an influx of African-Caribbean women and their families to reinvent the cities where they tended to congregate; however, the labour scheme also reinforced the association between Blackness and servitude that had previously existed in Canadian society.
In addition to the women who were recruited for domestic service, another labour scheme - which started in Jamaica in 1966 and was extended to the rest of the Caribbean in 1974 - recruited temporary farm workers, thus bringing an additional Caribbean presence, comprising primarily Black men. They worked and continue to work - on farms in Alberta, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island and Ontario (accounting
[^0]
[^0]: 9 According to Calliste, 'they were in great demand as domestics since few Canadians were attracted to this work; indeed, most Canadians left such work as soon as possible because of the deplorable working conditions - low pay, long hours, hard labour, low status, isolation, and lack of independence and respect. Unlike European women, most Caribbean women remained in domestic service since other areas of employment were closed to them [...] most employers expressed satisfaction with their employees because they were cheap, intelligent, industrious, devoted, fond of children, docile, polite, submissive, and, unlike some domestics, "they knew their place" (Calliste, 1993/1994, p. 141).
for ninety per cent of those recruited) but were not - and are still not - legally allowed to stay in the country beyond their annual contracts. In addition, there were Caribbean students who had started to arrive on temporary permits in the 1920s; their number increased after the Second World War and by the 1960s was significant. They were largely blamed for the eruption of student radicalism and alleged Black Power sentiment at Sir George Williams University in 1969 (Eber, 1969; Forsythe, 1971) and, as a result, 'Afro-Caribbeans' were increasingly viewed as a potential source of disruption. More recently, the label of 'problematic Black communities' (who are read to be of Caribbean, particularly Jamaican, origin) has gained prominence with the apparent growth in gang activity and intracommunity violence. While the crime rate in Canada is relatively low and steadily declining and the majority of crimes are committed by the majority White population, the racialized spectre of 'young Black men with guns' has led to an eruption of rhetoric and policies aimed at nullifying what many (White) Canadians believe to be 'naturally' aggressive and disruptive tendencies among Black people (Backhouse, 1999; Chan, 2004; Foster, 1996; Rowe, 2008; Thornhill, 2008).
In addition to the Caribbean community, since the 1960s, there has been a growing wave of migrants from 'continental Africa'. Between 1946 and 1960, Africans represented only 0.3 per cent of the immigrants to Canada; between 1960 and 1980, on account of the changes in immigration policy discussed below, that proportion rose to 1 to 2 per cent of the country's immigrants. The majority of migrants are from South Africa, Tanzania, Ethiopia, Kenya, Ghana, Uganda and Nigeria. They have been joined by a number of refugees fleeing from natural disasters and conflicts in Ethiopia, the former Biafra/Nigeria, Sudan, Somalia and Rwanda; however, large numbers of Africans who might be considered refugees are unable to make Canada their home since, the authorities argue, they do not meet the United Nations' definition of the term 'refugee'. In the last few decades, the situation of communities of African descent has become even more complex with the migration of Afro-Latin Americans from every country in the region. Perceived as fulfilling neither the racial expectation of 'Latinos' nor the linguistic expectations of 'Blackness', most of these Spanishand Portuguese-speaking persons of African descent are trying to find their place and are creating communities in Canada.
The very existence of the many communities of African descent in Canada is remarkable. According to Joseph Mensah,
[h]istorically, Canadian immigration policy has been racist, to put it bluntly (...) The conventional wisdom in pre-1960s Canada was that Blacks, in particular, were so physically, mentally and morally inferior to Whites that the influx of Blacks would inevitably create racial problems in this country (Mensah, 2010, p. 69).
From the prohibitive Immigration Act of 1906 to Robert Borden's declaration in 1908 that the Conservative Party (which would become the government in 1911) 'stands for a white Canada', to the Immigration Act of 1910, the sentiment was clear (Walker, 1984, p. 9). The latter Act, described as 'restricted, exclusive, and selective', prohibited the entry of immigrants who belonged to 'any race deemed unsuitable to the climate or requirements of Canada, or of immigrants of any specified class, occupation or character' and was implemented by 'exclusion officers' (Calliste, 1993-1994; Winks, 2000, p. 307). This general sentiment was repeated by Canadian Prime Minister Mackenzie King, who declared in 1947 that the people of Canada did 'not wish, as a result of mass immigration, to make a fundamental alteration in the character of [their] population' (Winks, 2000, p. 435). Not surprisingly then, the Immigration Act of 1952 allowed for the exclusion of persons 'for reasons of nationality, citizenship, ethnic group and geographical area of origin' (Walker, 1984, p. 10). It was only in 1962 that Canada formally ended the preferential treatment of prospective white immigrants and began to emphasize educational achievement and professional skills as a basis for (selective) immigration. | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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[COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA]
This resulted in a significant increase in the migration of Afrodescendants, which was even more marked after 1967 as a result of a change in the immigration policy to the 'points system' which calculated - and continues to calculate - the eligibility of potential immigrants according to optimal working age, educational achievement and occupational experience. According to some scholars, the policy change highlighted the fact that Afrodescendant migrants constituted the most educated and highly skilled of any immigrant group (Macionis, 1999; Mensah, 2010). However, despite their qualifications and despite Canada's claims of tolerance and progressivism, persons of African descent in Canada often experience anti-Black racism and discrimination that create difficulties in finding decent housing or jobs at their levels of qualification and result in their being treated with suspicion and hostility by significant segments of Canadian society. Indeed, few Black people would argue with Cecil Foster's description of Canadian racism, as 'racism with a smile on its face' (Foster, 1996, p. 14). | COMMUNITIES OF AFRICAN DESCENT IN CANADA | [
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[AFRICAN-MEXICAN COMMUNITIES | Excluded from the Mexican Nation <br> Paulette A. Ramsay]
AFRICAN-MEXICAN COMMUNITIES
Excluded from the Mexican Nation <br> Paulette A. Ramsay
In the first years of the twenty-first century, almost five hundred years after the conquest, it is surprising that Mexicans as well as foreigners are still shocked on discovering the black presence in Mexico.
Ben Vinson III and Bobby Vaughn, Afroméxico
For Afro-Mexicans, descendants of enslaved Africans brought into New Spain during the first three centuries of colonial rule, recognition and acceptance have been delayed, due to their reduced and scattered presence among more than sixty different "indigenous" groups, but primarily the result of Mexico's self-avowed mestizo credentials.
Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson | AFRICAN-MEXICAN COMMUNITIES | Excluded from the Mexican Nation <br> Paulette A. Ramsay | [
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[AFRICAN-MEXICAN COMMUNITIES | Introduction]
Introduction
The last three decades have witnessed a quiet and slow rewriting and re-versioning of Mexican historiography, mainly by scholars from the Caribbean, the United Kingdom and the United States of America. This has been less evident within Mexico itself, where only a few anthropologists and historians have begun to revisit Mexican historical discourse, which has been largely silent
about African-Mexican communities for a long time. Historians such as George Reid Andrews and Patrick J. Carroll have asserted that as a result of Mexico's undeniable participation in the trade in African people and the plantation enterprise, a significant number of descendants of Africans may be found in Mexico, despite their extreme marginalization and invisibility and Mexico's silence about their existence. Indeed,
many Mexicans have embraced notions of national identity originally defended by Mexican educator and politician José Vasconcelos Calderón, along with Mexico's elites, which posit that the Mexican nation is mestizo because descendants of blacks have completely disappeared due to racial mixing (Ramsay, 2016, p. 28).
This chapter outlines a history of the contradictory nature of the African presence in Mexico: its submersion and visibility; the half-hearted and selfdefeating efforts of successive governments to respond to it while balancing international pressure with internal political interests; and above all, the ways in which African-Mexicans and Afro-Mexican culture have impressed themselves on the political and cultural landscape, both through acts of political resistance and self-fashioning and through the preservation of African culture in Mexico.
Certainly, several of the communities of African ancestry dispersed across different regions are obvious products of racial mixing - mainly indigenous and black. These include groups in the northern states of Yucatán and Quintana Roo, who are mainly descendants of Maroons and free blacks from the United States of America (Muhammad, 1995, p. 170). However, the largest and most clearly defined group of blacks is to be found among the forty small communities on the Costa Chica and Costa Grande of Oaxaca and Guerrero respectively, on the Pacific Coast. In the state of Guerrero these communities include: Cuajinicuilapa, El Pitarroso, San Nicolás, Montecillos, Punta Maldonado, Buenos Aires, Alto de Barranas, Cerro del Indio, Banco de Oro, El Tamarindo, El Tamaic, El Jícaro, El Vaivén, El Quizá, Cerro de las Tablas, Ometepec, El Capricho, Vista Hermosa, Huehuetán and Juchitán. Among the villages in Oaxaca are Collantes, Morelos, La Boquilla, El Chivo, Cerro de la Esperanza, Santo Domingo, Santiago Tapextla, San Juan Bautista Lo De Soto, Santa Maria Cortijo, La Estancia, La Culebra, Rancho Nuevo, El Callejón, Lagunillas, El Ciruelo, Rio Grande, Santa Rosa, Cerro Hermoso (Ramsay, 2016, p. 18).
While the mixed heritage of people in many of these communities is undeniable, there are many persons in villages such as Santo Domingo, Collantes, El Ciruelo and Tapextla who can safely be regarded as 'fully' Afro-Mexican. Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson describes the African demographic as follows:
Among the villages with a more than eighty per cent Afro-Mexican population are El Ciruelo, Estancia Grande, Rancho Nuevo, Santa María Cortijos and Santiago Llano Grande, El Maguey, San Juan Bautista de Soto, Corralero, Collantes and Lagunillas. Others, with a significant, though not majority black population are Pinotepa Nacional, Santa Rosa, Río Grande and Santa María Huazolotitlán.
(Interview with Paulette Ramsay, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 15 April 2014)
(Interview with Paulette Ramsay, Port of Spain, Trinidad, 15 April 2014)
Despite this significant Afrodescendent population, the majority of Mexicans neither know of these communities nor realize that the myth of the complete disappearance of blacks in Mexico has long been refuted. Indeed, such is the level of ignorance about Mexico's racial heterogeneity that exists at different levels of Mexican society that African Mexicans are often treated as foreigners and even illegal immigrants. Quite often they report that while travelling outside of their communities they are routinely stopped by the police and accused of being undocumented aliens from Cuba or Central America. They often endure long stares and even touching of their hair by curious fellow Mexicans. That unfamiliarity comes in part because Mexico's black population, often to escape persecution and discrimination, historically never moved in large numbers to big cities and have kept largely to themselves in scattered communities in three southern states - Oaxaca and Guerrero, the two mentioned above, and Veracruz (Archibold, 2014).
"They say we are ugly and have donkey skin", I was told by a young girl on one of my visits, as she tried to explain her reluctance to leave and socialize outside of her small village of Tapextla, showing how painfully aware she is of her outsider position in her own country. Clarence Page wrote in 2005 of a distressed cattle farmer, who complained that "people ask us where we are from" (Page, 2005). | AFRICAN-MEXICAN COMMUNITIES | Introduction | [
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[Afro-Mexicans/African-Mexicans]
Afro-Mexicans/African-Mexicans
The small number of Mexican scholars who have written about the presence of Afrodescendent people in Mexico insist on referring to them as Afro-mestizo. This is a term which clearly signals resistance to any real consideration or acceptance of the true Africanness of the communities. Tellingly, Ben Vinson and Bobby Vaughn assert that
Mexico is the only Latin American country where some scholars still refer to black people as Afro-mestizo. Although this term would seem to identify a special characteristic of the Mexican "mixing" in the Costa Chica, individuals recognized
today as blacks do not show more particularities of "mixing" than the rest of the black of the African diaspora. In fact, the tonalities of the skin colour as well as a wide range of phenotypes are the norm amongst African descendants. Therefore, Mexico is not the exception (Vinson III and Vaughn, 2004, p. 257).
In this discussion the terms Afro-Mexican and African-Mexican are used interchangeably, as a counter to Afro-mestizo, which seeks to advance Mexico's mestizo identity by suggesting that individuals may have black blood, but still do not constitute a separate ethnic Afrodescendent group. Afro-mestizo represents a 'watering down' of the fact that these groups of persons have survived and have not been made more 'Indigenous' than 'Black' due to miscegenation, as official Mexican discourse holds. As an ideological signifier, this term operates within the framework of Indigenismo, the political agenda of favouring indigenous groups in Latin America. In Mexico, as David Carrasco (2001) has argued, official policies and ideologies work to emphasize the importance of Mexico's heritage, even though the policies were intended to improve the conditions of impoverished people. In fact, it has been said that while 'Indigenous groups have received national as well as international attention and support, Afro-Mexican voices have largely gone unheard' (Muhammad, 1995, p. 178). | Afro-Mexicans/African-Mexicans | [
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[Historical beginnings]
Historical beginnings
Blacks have inhabited Mexico since the 1500s. The highly celebrated Mexican anthropologist Gonzalo Aguirre Beltrán established in his book La población negra de México 1519-1810 (1946) that the importation of blacks into Mexico began with Hernán Cortés in 1519, and Juan Cortés was the first African slave brought into Mexico by Hernán Cortés. Patrick Carroll later corroborated the long presence of blacks in Mexico in his assertion that 'they participated in virtually every major thrust into the colony' (Carroll, 2001, p. 26). As was the case in other Spanish-occupied territories, the large-scale importation of Africans was directly related to the decimation of the indigenous groups under the pressure of unaccustomed forced labour. The Spaniards' economic pursuits were being seriously compromised and so, after Bartolomé de Las Casas declared in 1511 that Africans were needed to 'replace the indio who was being exterminated at an alarming rate of four million within the first twelve years of the conquest' (Muhammad, 1995, p. 164), an alternative source of slave labour was sought, and Africans were seen as the natural choice.
Blacks had come to be regarded as being stronger than 'Indians', able to endure the rigours of the mines and sugar plantations. They were imported into Mexico through the ports of Veracruz, Campeche and Acapulco and taken across the territory to work in the silver mines in places such as Taxco and Zacatecas, and on sugar plantations in Morelos and the Orizaba valley as well as in other enterprises in Puebla and Michoacán. It has been established that more than 15,000 Africans were imported into Mexico between 1530 and 1550, and more than 900 were imported after 1570 to work in Taxco in the silver mines. Overall, Mexico was reputed to have imported the largest number of African slaves, and according to Muhammad, 'Mexico was the most successful economy in colonial Spanish America because of black labour' (Muhammad, 1995, p. 178). | Historical beginnings | [
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[Colonial Mexico: stereotypes, African-Mexicans and the shaping of the Mexican nation]
Colonial Mexico: stereotypes, African-Mexicans and the shaping of the Mexican nation
The European population made it clear that they held very negative views of Africans and their descendants who were taken to work for them in Mexico. Several terms were coined to characterize blacks and convey this negative perception of them. Among these disparaging phrases were: gente sin razón (senseless people), gente de mala sangre (mongrels, people with bad blood) and mala raza (evil race). In other words, blacks in Mexico did not escape the longstanding assertions made about blacks in the slave-holding European world to justify the enterprise of slavery (Sanders, 1969, p. 522). Obviously, this suspicion of blacks and their perceived natural propensity to evil influenced the decision to deny them religious freedom, or any freedom to practise their African customs and traditions, all of which were categorized and rejected as witchcraft and sorcery. Blacks were not allowed to express their feelings or opinions about the treatment they received or their lack of any right to live as they wished. The extremely harsh punishments that were meted out to any enslaved African who attempted to protest, even verbally, against his or her masters, have been well documented (Martínez Montiel, 1992, p. 452).
The brutality of the system of forced labour resulted in repeated efforts by blacks to defy the oppressive system in the mines and on the sugar plantations. Escape, or marronage, was an endemic strategy of defiance. In 1609, a Maroon warrior named Gaspar Yanga, or Nyanga, who led other slaves in flight from the plantations, established the first palenque or Maroon community in Mexico and the Americas. Yanga and his fellow Maroons led a determined opposition,
fighting for self-government and the right to own land. After tough negotiations with the representatives of the Crown, he obtained land rights and privileges for the first Maroon town, San Lorenzo de los Negros in Veracruz, later renamed Yanga after its founder (Martínez Montiel, 1992, p. 542). The nature of the negotiations and the continuing relationship with the colonial authorities is instructive. Maroons in Yanga collaborated with the Spanish for the recapture and return of captives. The town was granted full militia status, not because the Spanish wanted this, but because they depended on the Maroons' knowledge of the fortresses and hideouts of runaways and their ability to manage the terrain to help recapture them. This agreement was also made in the expectation that as a result, Maroons would be 'helped' to return to the plantations and become 'obliging citizens' (Vinson III, 2001, p. 22).
The Afro-Mexican population of Yanga, unlike those of several similar Maroon communities in Latin America, has almost completely 'disappeared' due to racial mixing. The town of Yanga today does not have the distinctive features of an Afro-Mexican community that are immediately visible in some of the other Maroon communities such as San Basilio de Palenque in Colombia. Such features include African-derived continuities in language, folklore, festivities, religion and kinship patterns, as noted by Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson (quoted elsewhere in this chapter). Several researchers into this period of Mexican history observe that the extensive racial mixing and the departure from African cultural practices in Yanga are the result of the collaboration with colonial powers on which the community's 'security' was founded. Muhammad is among those researchers who see this factor as the reason Yanga became 'racially and ethnically indistinguishable from other settlements that dotted the area, after a few generations' (Muhammad, 1995, p. 166). In other words, collaboration became a means of destroying the African genealogical line and culture, an effect much broader and more far-reaching than the aim of stemming their flight from the plantations.
The miscegenation that led to this erasure carries its own irony, as Afro-mestizo inadvertently points to the African presence in Mexico's roots and national genealogy. Whether one sees the Yanga strategy as collusion or the success of the Spaniards' divide-and-rule strategy, it is clear that this negotiation of survival space produced results that were at best ambivalent, both for the Yanga community and for mainstream Mexico's narrative of national identity throughout most of the country's history.
Despite the success of the Spanish in convincing the blacks of Yanga to collude in their agenda, blacks in other parts of Mexico did not relent in rejecting and rebelling
Despite the success of the Spanish in convincing the blacks of Yanga to collude in their agenda, blacks in other parts of Mexico did not relent in rejecting and rebelling
against the oppression to which they were constantly subjected. It was their resentment and refusal to participate in their own exploitation that propelled them to join in the fight for equality pursued by other proponents of the War of Independence. George Andrews records that when the Hidalgo Revolt of 1810 spread to the plantations of Veracruz, blacks fled from the plantations and joined the rebels fighting against colonial rule (Andrews, 2004, p. 58). The role of Afro-Mexicans in the shaping of the Mexican nation is marked by their participation in the War of Independence, which freed the country from oppressive Spanish colonial rule. They were willing to be part of that rebellion since they viewed it as a way of bringing slavery to an end and becoming part of an independent nation. They envisioned themselves as part of an inclusive polity.
The two most famous black fighters were Vicente Guerrero - popularly known as El Negro Guerrero - who later became President of Mexico, and José María Morelos, who became a general in the War of Independence. Slavery was officially abolished in Mexico in 1829 during Guerrero's presidency. The states of Guerrero and Morelia were renamed in honour of these two black Mexicans. Today, they are probably celebrated more for their role as fighters in the war, with less emphasis being given to their origins and racial composition.
Despite the elevation of Guerrero and Morelos as symbolic heroes, participation in the liberation movement did not accrue many benefits to blacks. Their socio-economic status remained the same as they were unable to find employment, lacked the means to support themselves and could not protect themselves from continuing discrimination. They soon discovered that the caste laws previously established to keep them subjected were still being used to continue to subjugate them. Many returned to the sure prospect of a meal on the plantations and others resorted to 'vagrancy' and itinerant lifestyles. | Colonial Mexico: stereotypes, African-Mexicans and the shaping of the Mexican nation | [
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[Afro-Mexican communities today: Indices of underdevelopment and exclusion]
Afro-Mexican communities today: Indices of underdevelopment and exclusion
Afro-Mexican communities lack many basic amenities and facilities. Even a short visit to the many small African-Mexican communities of the Costa Chica reveals the level of neglect encountered by the people. Essential services such as health centres and hospitals lack adequate medication, equipment and medical personnel. The education system is woefully inadequate as schools are not properly staffed or equipped. It could be said that not very much has been done to improve the impoverished conditions in which Afro-Mexicans have
lived since the 1950s, when Aguirre Beltrán wrote about the absence of medical facilities and schools in the region.
Since the 1980s, the activism of Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson and a few other members of the society has resulted in some improvements, but the conditions remain unacceptable, with many communities still having no access to drinking water, paved roads or safe and adequate housing. Perhaps the most deplorable aspect of their living conditions is housing. The majority of houses are constructed from fragile and improvised materials available in the immediate natural surroundings, mainly wood, sticks, mud, palapa thatch and palm leaves. Most are dilapidated, unmistakably unsafe and vulnerable in an area subject to frequent hurricanes. This is even more disconcerting when issues of human dignity and comfort are considered.
One member of the African-Mexican community, very conscious of being a black person belonging to a distinctive ethnic group within Mexico, maintains that there have been no attempts at the government level to assist in improving the living conditions of African-Mexicans:
Although there are Government programmes that could satisfy these housing needs, they are not used to resolve the problem as a consequence of bureaucratic, political and economic red tape.
(Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016, Kingston, Jamaica). ^1
(Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016, Kingston, Jamaica). ^1
Blacks who openly embrace their blackness are not readily embraced into the political system, since Mexican politics has for the most part been concerned with power and maintaining the status quo. African-Mexicans have not benefited from any significant representation in the political landscape. The very few members of their community who have participated in representational politics have not been enthusiastic or loyal spokespersons for their communities or their urgent needs. For instance, in 1999 the Partido Revolucionario Institucional (Institutional Revolutionary Party) garnered the support of many African-Mexicans in Guerrero. However, its leader Cisneros was soon recognized as being more interested in promoting indigenous causes than those of the African Mexican communities. What was even more egregious to blacks was that he made no public acknowledgement of his own black heritage (Ramsay, 2016, p. 15).
In 2017, it is true to say that Afro-Mexicans continue to be denied a place in the official definitions of Mexican identity and nation. The foundations for this denial
[^0]
[^0]: 1 Original text: ' [...] aunque existen programas gubernamentales para dar respuesta a estas necesidades de vivienda no resuelven el problema por tener vicios burocráticos, políticos y económicos.'
were laid in the 1925 essay by José Vasconcelos Calderón, which forcefully informed post-revolutionary Mexico's definition of the nation, claiming that as a distinct ethnic group, the black group had been totally diluted and no longer existed. Vasconcelos's position fortified the 1910 decision to cease including African-Mexicans in the national census. Interestingly, this situation persisted until 2015, when a voters' survey, designed to measure claims that blacks existed in Mexico, yielded the following results:
[O]f the 32 states that make up the Mexican republic, 7 states have a population of people of African descent of 1.5 % to 6.5 %, 19 states
[O]f the 32 states that make up the Mexican republic, 7 states have a population of people of African descent of 1.5 % to 6.5 %, 19 states
have a 0.1 % to 0.8 % and 6 states have no population of African descent. So of 64.3 % of the population, there is acknowledgement of the presence of people of African descent and of Indigenous persons.
(Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016)
Despite these figures, and the fact that this survey followed the formal recognition by two states of their black presence - Oaxaca in 2013 and Guerrero in 2014 - Afro-Mexicans who live in those two states continue to be marginalized. Ironically, Oaxaca and Guerrero have not followed through on any of their stated intentions, despite publicly announcing that they embraced the rights of blacks to be recognized as legitimate members of the states. Sergio Peñaloza, the current President of Mexico Negro, has this to say:
All our collective rights (economic, social, cultural, civil and political) have been violated or rather, we do not exist. We are not the recipients of any rights, and, as a consequence, we are the subject of exclusion, marginalization and governmental and social discrimination.
[T]o date they have not drafted the secondary laws that would allow the benefits of constitutional recognition to become a reality. If we are not recognized, we have no part in the development plan of the Mexican State at the three governmental levels. No specific public policies have been designed for the Afro-Mexicans neither are we included in census-taking.
(Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016, Kingston) ^2
[^0]
(Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016, Kingston) ^2
[^0]
[^0]: 2 Original text: '[T]odos nuestros derechos colectivos (económicos, sociales, culturales, civiles y políticos) han sido violado o mejor dicho no existimos, no somos sujetos de derechos, traduciéndolos en exclusión, marginación y discriminación gubernamental y social [...] basta la fecha, no han elaborado las leyes secundarias que permita hacer realidad los beneficios del reconocimiento constitucional. Si no estamos reconocidos, no estamos como colectivo el plan de desarrollo de estado mexicano en sus tres noveles de gobierno, no se diseñan políticas públicas específicas para los afro-mexicanos y tampoco somos incluidos en el conteo censal.' (English translation by Bradna McLaren.)
While at the Federal level the Constitution was modified in 2019 to acknowledge the black presence in Mexico, there is still very little, if any, translation of this into daily life or actual promotion of African Mexicans as a distinct ethnic group that contributes to Mexican multiculturality. | Afro-Mexican communities today: Indices of underdevelopment and exclusion | [
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[Contemporary resistance models: the case of Mexico Negro]
Contemporary resistance models: the case of Mexico Negro
For many years, Afro-Mexicans were regarded as persons who had accepted the ideology of mestizaje and therefore lacked any knowledge or understanding of themselves as blacks. The work of Trinidadian Catholic priest Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson has helped to raise their consciousness of race. Mexico Negro is in part the product of Father Nelson's consciousness-raising efforts. The organization is motivated, first, by the members' rejection of the fact that when the Constitution of the United Mexican States was originally drafted in 1810, African-Mexicans were excluded, despite their participation in the independence movements. Secondly, members are fully aware of Mexico's failure to comply with specific recommendations of the United Nations such as the Durban Declaration, adopted at the World Conference against Racism, Racial Discrimination, Xenophobia and Related Intolerance held in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, that all nations throughout the world should acknowledge the presence and existence of people of African descent in their respective countries. Thirdly, they are motivated by the International Decade for People of African Descent (2015-2024) proclaimed by UNESCO, to continue to challenge the Mexican Government in its ongoing neglect of all these United Nations mandates.
Unfortunately, despite efforts such as those of Mexico Negro, the majority of Mexicans remain totally unaware of the status and day-to-day realities of their African and Afrodescendent compatriots. Mexico Negro's main objective is 'to obtain constitutional recognition from the Federal Government of Mexico and a commitment to the development of their region with good roads, a good education system and social amenities' (Ramsay, 2016, p. 161). Peñaloza laments that the community's situation is made worse by its inability to access or provide effective means of challenging the status quo, given the way the system is established. His words suggest a sense of near-impotence in face of the systemic blockades to inclusion:
Most of us members of the Afro-Mexican communities do not have the theoretical tools that would allow us to know and exercise our rights. This situation is exacerbated by the professional training of the administrators of justice and the nonexistence of government legislation on issues of concern to people of African descent.
(Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016, Kingston, Jamaica) ^3
Apart from being restricted by their own limitations, Afro-Mexicans are confronted by a deeply entrenched system of attitudes of intolerance and rejection of blackness in Mexican society. They face both racism and discrimination on a daily basis, in particular when they try to venture outside their tiny enclaves to larger cities. This is one of the reasons Mexico Negro sees itself as an educational body that insists on educating the people about the unacceptability of the racial disparagements and discrimination to which they are frequently subjected, both openly and in more subtle forms.
Ironically, the Mexican Government was not unresponsive to the United Nations recommendations for black inclusion: in 2003, it established the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination (CONAPRED), but Peñaloza highlights with scepticism its ineffectiveness and failure to fulfil its true mandate:
In Mexico, discrimination and racism are practices which together with daily actions and behaviour seem so natural that they are not considered discriminatory practices. And as there is no institution that punishes these acts, the possibility of eradication is remote. It is worth mentioning that the National Council for the Prevention of Discrimination (CONAPRED) has been established to eliminate racism and discrimination. However, it only makes recommendations but does not sanction and has not completed the strategy required to combat these practices which cause hurt and lead to deplorable acts. (Sergio Peñaloza, unpublished presentation, 2016, Kingston, Jamaica) ^4
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 3 Original text: 'En su mayoría los habitantes de las comunidades afro-mexicanas, no tenemos las herramientas teóricas que nos permitan conocer y ejercer nuestros derechos, situación que sumada a la formación profesional de los impartidores de justicia y la inexistencia de reglamentación de las instituciones gubernamentales con enfoque afrodescendiente.' (English translation by Bradna McLaren.)
4 Original text: 'En México, la discriminación y el racismo son prácticas que están junto a acciones y comportamientos cotidianos pareciendo tan natural que no se consideran prácticas discriminatorias y no babiendo una institución que castigue dichos actos está lejos erradicarse, cabe mencionar que para prevenir el racismo y la discriminación está el Consejo Nacional para Prevenir la Discriminación (CONAPRED), solo que bace recomendaciones pero no sanciona y que incompleta la estrategia que combata estas prácticas que lastiman y llevan a bechos lamentables.'
In arguing that the government mandates have no teeth because of the reluctance to impose sanctions for discrimination, Peñaloza highlights the ways in which 'democratic' governments have sought to balance the competing pressures of their internal constituencies on the one hand, and global belonging, or approval in the international community, on the other. In such a balancing act a minority population of less than seven per cent, particularly an Afrodescendent population, is given short shrift; mandates become token gestures.
Mexico Negro wages an ongoing campaign to see the UNESCO recommendations enforced in the areas of health, education and development. In the organization's view, this is the only way of restoring dignity and fairness to this marginalized community. It has also declared its commitment to the Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination (CERD) and to raising consciousness about self, ethnicity, heritage, history and the importance for people to redefine themselves as persons who have the right to be recognized as integral members of Mexican society. However, 'perhaps their biggest challenge to the Mexican Government is for the inclusion of Afro-Mexicans in the national census so that there will be an official record of the number of black persons in the country' (Ramsay, 2016, p. 161). | Contemporary resistance models: the case of Mexico Negro | [
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[Contribution of African-Mexicans to Mexico's multicultural society]
Contribution of African-Mexicans to Mexico's multicultural society
Mexican historiography remained silent for a long time, almost until the end of the twentieth century, about the cultural contributions of Africans to Mexican cultural dynamism. It must be conceded that, as part of its attempt to satisfy the provisions of the United Nations International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD, 1965) so that people of African descent the world over should be accorded recognition, status and specific opportunities for educational and human development, the Mexican Government developed and launched a project in 1989 through its Ministry of Foreign Affairs called Nuestra Tercera Raiz (Our Third Root), which was placed under the auspices of the National Council for Culture and the Arts. The main achievements of the programme include studies on slavery in the Americas, and research into the musical traditions, religious practices and general belief systems of people of African descent. That this programme was unsatisfactory is clear not only from the fact that today, eleven years later, the majority of Mexicans still have no knowledge of either the location or existence of African-Mexican communities, but also from the fact that even though the cultural projects lasted more than five years, they left no completed statistics
or records of existing Afro-Mexican communities and their way of life. As late as 2010, the National Institute of Statistics and Geography was still uncertain about including persons of African descent in Mexico as a distinct category.
Despite these challenges, Afro-Mexicans have made themselves an undeniable part of the Afro-Costa Chican cultural landscape. The strongest evidence of how this group of Afrodescendants have survived marginalization and exclusion is evident in their cultural expressions. Father Glyn Jemmott Nelson states that:
Behind the "official" silence and "out of sight" of most Mexicans, much of what was brought from Africa centuries ago has been preserved and continues to reveal itself in music, in regional festivals of Veracruz and along the Pacific Coast, in culinary styles, in their folk dances, language and religious practices and especially in the patterns of association and kinship which have survived. (Interview with Paulette Ramsay, 15 October 2013, Port of Spain, Trinidad) | Contribution of African-Mexicans to Mexico's multicultural society | [
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[Music]
Music
In the area of music, the corrido is perhaps the most popular musical form associated with African-Mexicans. The earliest recognition of the centrality of the corrido to African Mexican culture was made by Aguirre Beltrán in a study in the 1950s, when he explained that the corrido was generally recognized throughout Mexico as a traditional cultural form associated mainly with the people of the Costa Chica. Along the Costa Chica, the corrido is practised among Afro-Mexicans in annual celebrations and depicts local events such as disputes or assassinations, and even commemorates specific experiences related to the Mexican Revolution. In several African-Mexican communities, annual corrido competitions are held to display the corridistas' talents, as they compete with each other in ballads, mostly sung in an Afro-Mexican dialect.
The performative and carnivalesque nature of the corrido connects it to a larger aesthetic of performance usually associated with the global African diaspora. The corridos reveal an attempt to legitimize particular identities and to project African-Mexicans, in particular males, with different identities from those witnessed in society. Some corridos suggest that Afro-Mexican males challenge
the status quo, disparage political leadership and promote themselves as competitive, capable, confident men who are concerned with promoting a culturally nationalist agenda, to privilege members, to destabilize the hegemonic masculinity of the society, and to demonstrate that the new masculinity which they are performing/promoting is essentially concerned with exhibiting power (Ramsay, 2016, p. 83). | Music | [
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[Dances: La Danza del Diablo, La Danza de la Tortuga and El Son de Artesa]
Dances: La Danza del Diablo, La Danza de la Tortuga and El Son de Artesa
The dances that are celebrated include the Turtle Dance (La Danza de la Tortuga), the Artesa/Fandango de Artesa (or El Son de Artesa) and the Devil Dance (La Danza del Diablo). The Turtle Dance is a very famous performance in which dancers dramatize the cruelty meted out to blacks during slavery. The figure of Pancho carries a whip in his role as the vicious overseer who mercilessly beats black workers. This invigorating dance is interesting as on one level it appears to be a mere celebration, but on a different level it is really a cynical representation and undermining of the plantation system of oppression.
The Fandango de Artesa is a dance in which a couple dances on a wooden trough carved from a ceiba, also known as guanacaste, a tree which grows in abundance on the Costa Chica and is well known for its huge trunk (Ramsay, 2016, p. 22). The trough is usually carved to represent an animal's head at one end and a tail at the other and is placed upside down so that a couple or a single individual may dance barefoot on it. Music is produced mainly by tapping the feet on the hollow log along with music produced by string and wooden instruments, a lead singer and a group of persons clapping and singing loudly.
The Artesa is an important part of the festivities at weddings and other African-Mexican community celebrations. Today, the best-known Artesa groups are to be found in San Nicolás and El Ciruelo. In fact, in the town centre of San Nicolás there are several Artesa troughs on display, while the mural on the Town Hall depicts an Artesa setting. Both artwork and carvings seem to serve as an emblem of their identity for a people who recognize their unique culture. Mexico Negro is actively encouraging younger Afro-Mexicans to maintain an interest in this unique cultural form so as to ensure its continuity and the understanding of its role in defining African Mexican cultural heritage.
The Devil Dance is the most acclaimed dance form, which has been performed by Afro-Mexicans in Maroon communities of Costa Chica from the colonial era to the present. In the Afro-Mexican town of Collantes it is performed during Todos Santos (All Saints' Day) in November. In El Ciruelo, Morelos and La Boquilla, it is the most celebrated cultural form, while in the state of Guerrero it is very popular in San Nicolás, Lo Desoto and Cuajinicuilapa (Ramsay, 2016, p. 21). The instruments used in the Devil Dance (or Dance of the Devil) include the harmonica, charrasca and tigrera. The charrasca is a cow's jawbone with the teeth loosened to create a bass sound as the player rubs the teeth with
an ice pick (Apodaca, 2008, p. 52). During my own observation of this energetic dance, I found it extremely exhilarating to watch this unusual instrument being played. The tigrera, also referred to as bote, is a drum with animal skin stretched over the top. The player uses a stick to rub the animal skin to produce music (Apodaca, 2008, p. 52).
Twenty dancers and three masked musicians dance through the streets, performing as rebel spirits that are out of control. One other set of dancers is disguised by masks that depict the idea of resistance against the status quo. The masks are usually made from animal skin, cardboard and elastic bands. As I have argued elsewhere, there are analogous messages between some corridos and the Dance of the Devil, in the sense that in both cultural forms, rebellion and defiance are projected as admirable qualities. The devil is depicted as a figure which at the same time symbolizes the evil of the Spanish slavery system. The theme of rebellion also resonates with the subversive intent of many of the corridos, which protest against oppression by superior and powerful forces (Ramsay, 2016, p. 21).
These African-influenced cultural forms associated with Mexico's black communities serve to emphasize that cultural marronage continues to be a defining feature of the African Mexican presence. The ways in which these practices resonate with other popular forms in other parts of the African diaspora emphasize the connection of the Afro-Mexicans to a broader global African context. | Dances: La Danza del Diablo, La Danza de la Tortuga and El Son de Artesa | [
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[Literary production]
Literary production
As has been the case with the communities themselves and the people in them, the small body of Afro-Mexican literary production has not been given much attention by mainstream Mexico. A large part of this production is oral. African-Mexicans have preserved oral verses such as coplas, décimas and verseform folktales. These oral verses were recorded under a special project by the Mexican National Council for Culture and Arts in 1992. The main participants were Mexican anthropologists Francisca Aparicio Prudente and Maria Cristina Diaz Pérez. The folktales were collected through a project of the Guerrero Regional Unit for Popular Culture and were compiled by two members of the Afro-Mexican community, Augustín Torres Diaz and Israel Larrea. This oral literature reveals that Afro-Mexicans share a past with Africans in other parts of the world such as the Caribbean.
Both projects had as their motivation the concern that these critical aspects of African-Mexican culture and constructions of cultural identity were threatened and needed to be recorded for posterity. Furthermore, the Guerrero Institute for Popular Culture, an organization founded and run by enthusiastic community members, had an interest in raising awareness about the presence of African-Mexicans and their unique cultural forms, and so the project was undertaken to commemorate five hundred years of European contact with the Americas. Afro-Mexicans themselves were invited to narrate the folktales that had been preserved through different generations. The oral poems were collected in a similar manner and provide an understanding of the values and general beliefs of their communities.
Malinali Meza Herrera (1992) has said of the African-Mexican oral poems that:
Malinali Meza Herrera (1992) has said of the African-Mexican oral poems that:
Thousands of Africans were forced from their homeland to be carried away as slaves to plantations, mines and farms in the Americas. Coming from different ethnicities, they suddenly saw themselves without their cultural references, without their land, their gods and languages [...] they had to reinvent new forms of expression, copy others and adapt others. Speech communication thus became an urgent tool for survival. [...] Verbal expression has ever since then accompanied important acts of community life. [...] men and women, children and adults create and recreate this ancestral heritage. ^5
The coplas and décimas suggest that there has been a communal space in which African-Mexicans have preserved an Afro-Mexican identity. The oral poems in general often reveal an interactive form or a poetry of exchange, which functions both to establish an independent collective identity and an assertion of individual selfhood. Although intended to entertain an audience through humour and mockery, they simultaneously reveal an aspect of a community's way of life and provide an indication of how in a marginalized context, people attempt to redefine themselves.
The literary production also includes more contemporary lyric poems that help to link African-Mexican communities to an African past and a global African diaspora and reveal an increasing level of consciousness among them as they respond to efforts to educate them about themselves as people of an Afroderived heritage. These lyric poems seem both 'overtly and covertly' to construct an Afro-Mexican identity, as seen in the work of emerging writers such as Zárate Arango and Álvaro Carrillo. A study of many of the lyric verses written by these new poets from the Costa Chica, who are obviously concerned about self-fashioning, reveals this tendency quite clearly. Their work may be explained
[^0]
[^0]
[^0]: 5 Meza Herrera (Malinali), Foreword to Cállate, burrita prieta: poética afromestiza, Chilpancingo, Mexico: Dirección General de Culturas Populares, 1992, vii, (English translation by Bradna McLaren).
by post-colonialist Stephen Slemon's view of creative revisionism (1998), which involves the subversion or displacement of dominant discourses. In other words, African-Mexican oral poems may also be seen as a way of providing their own mode of expression which simultaneously conveys the cultural distinctiveness of their society.
The cultural forms, folktales, corridos, dances and oral and lyric poems are clear indications that Afro-Mexican communities form a cohesive group of persons who understand their belonging to a specific place with cultural connections to a wider global black diasporic community. Their preservation of these forms and their continued support of the work of Mexico Negro suggest an inherent understanding of self, identity and place that is uniquely Afro-Mexican. The lyric poems in particular show a generation of black-conscious African-Mexicans, who craft poems of self-assertion, self-authoring and self-definition. Among their collections are lyric poems that defy the ways in which they have been devalued and homogenized; poems that express pride in the beauty of the black skin, and poems that reject the denigration of blacks.
The lyric poems present a contrast with the oral poems because they show African Mexicans creating their own literature and self-representations, whereas the oral poems and folktales are re-narrations of pre-existing works which have been passed on by different generations. The lyric poems suggest a conscious effort to write a story, in a more formal manner, of self-acceptance and acceptance of identity as black persons. Even so, the tradition of re-narration is, equally, a form of dynamic cultural change and responsiveness, as the re-narration is never a static reproduction of the original. It is marked by linguistic and other shifts over time, as well as by the improvisations made to fill the gaps left by memory.
Mexican historiography in the twentieth century continues to be dominated by colonial Eurocentric ideas, and African-Mexicans are excluded from positions of power. However, the eyes of the world are slowly focusing on Afro-Mexican communities, and taking note of Mexico's insistence on defining itself as a mestizo nation. Scholars outside of Mexico continue to reveal the cultural diversity of Mexico and challenge the hegemonic definitions of the Mexican nation. The work of a small group of persons within the Afro-Mexican communities is also promoting the agenda of ending the invisibility and marginalization of these communities, establishing their roles in the building of the Mexican nation, and bringing issues of local concern to global attention. | Literary production | [
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[AFRICAN COMMUNITIES IN COSTA RICA AND CENTRAL AMERICA | Introduction]
Introduction
It could have been a morning like any other. Though the discussions on climate change have taught us that the climate is not always the same, one could have imagined that it was like any other typical sunny morning in July in the old city of Cartago, right in the heart of the Americas. Even so, the day was not like any other, this would be a very special day, this would be the day of his baptism. Anton arrived at the parish of Nuestra Señora del Carmen accompanied by his godparents, Father Balthazar de Grado and Juan de Cárdenas, on 20 July 1599. Anton was the first African registered in Costa Rica that had his name recorded, although he most certainly was not the first to be baptized.
Perhaps Anton was aware that through this act he was entering a new congregation of souls; he could have already known the Catholic rituals from his native land of Congo, whose capital in those days had several Catholic chapels. Perhaps he was not aware, and went reluctantly to a church embedded in a society that was being settled amid blood, sweat and tears. Anton was not alone. In 1599, the cusp of a new century, there were other Africans baptized in the same parish. The scene was the same, including for orphans; the Africans arrived with their godparents. This was the case of Francisca, who arrived with Andrés and Ana, both Afro-mestizos. We see this couple acting, again and
again, as godparents to these children of God. There were cases like that of Madalena, possibly born someplace in Africa, who arrived with an indigenous couple as her protectors.
While the small province had few inhabitants, month after month, one after the other, Africans and Afro-mestizos, free and enslaved, became increasingly visible in the ecclesiastic record. By 1625, their number had increased. Five were registered on 24 March, fourteen one day later, and twenty-five on 26 March. On 30 March, thirteen additional Afrodescendants were registered with five more the following day. Two were left for the visit on 1 April.
Hundreds of people arrived in the region. They came from the small Wolof and Serer communities, from the Akan, Yoruba and Congo cultural areas, and from the Muslim, Animist and Christian lands. They were united through the crossing of the Atlantic as the horror of the Middle Passage linked them in a great network spanning the ocean from the Americas to Africa.
Between Mexico and Colombia, Central America is located on the western border of the Caribbean Sea and connects the northern and southern continents. This region was also part of the larger history of African and Afrodescendent migrations. | AFRICAN COMMUNITIES IN COSTA RICA AND CENTRAL AMERICA | Introduction | [
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[African presence in the formation of the new nations]
African presence in the formation of the new nations
At the beginning of the Spanish conquest in the sixteenth century, Central America had an indigenous population of approximately five million people. In the following years, the population dropped to extreme levels; in some regions, the death toll was greater than fifty per cent of the total population. This was due to the impact of military conquest, disease, enslavement, famine and the dismantlement of the indigenous states and societies' political and economic systems. By the middle of the eighteenth century, communal strategies, political restructuring and the force of their civilization led indigenous communities to recover demographic stability (Lutz, 1982).
It is precisely as this indigenous demographic decline was under way that we see a sustained demand for workers and a continued increase in the Afrodescendent populations across the region. School textbooks teach (Euraque and Martínez, 2016) that Central American populations are chiefly of mestizo, ladino, indigenous and European descent. However, the reality is that Africans and their descendants were and are an integral part of the contemporary society's foundation.
During the colonial period, most of the Central American territory was under Spanish hegemony and under the authority of the General Captaincy of
Guatemala, which managed the region from Chiapas to Costa Rica. Nonetheless, Central America's Caribbean coast was under British influence. Hence the coastal areas became integrated into a colonial network that connected them commercially and demographically to the Antilles (West Indies) and particularly to Jamaica, starting in the seventeenth century. Accordingly, the Caribbean coast was historically an area of dispute between Spain and Great Britain, with distinct patterns of occupation that determined the diversity of their identities.
From the start of the sixteenth century until the start of the nineteenth century we find waves of African and Afrodescendent migrations. Unlike what happened in the Caribbean islands, in Central America different forms of labour control coexisted, such as the repartimiento and encomienda, debt bondage and enslavement. All of these labour regimes affected the indigenous, African and Afrodescendent populations (Cáceres, 2000).
During the first two centuries, the Africans were brought directly from Africa, Spain and also from intermediate ports like those of Veracruz or Cartagena. Men, women and children were seized from their communities and sent to America. At the beginning, they came from Western Africa, from groups such as the Wolof, Biojo, Biafara, Bran, Bañon, Zape and Mandinga. Around the middle of the sixteenth century, the Castilian and Portuguese crowns united. This resulted in changes to the geographic origin of the enslaved people, which came primarily from the Congo-Angola region (Cáceres, 2002; Lohse, 2014). Lokken (2013) has found that between 1610 and 1628, at least fifteen transatlantic merchants did business in the capital of Central America, bringing people from western Central Africa on boats that arrived 'accidentally' to the Caribbean coast. As David Wheat (2016) has pointed out, this made the region an extension of the African Atlantic. In the following century, the British networks in the Caribbean used the islands as distribution waypoints for the Africans taken from their colonies in West Africa (O'Malley, 2016).
They were brought in as labour for the mines in Honduras and Nicaragua, the sugarcane plantations of Amatitlán and San Jerónimo in Guatemala, the indigo plantations in El Salvador, and the cacao plantations in El Salvador and Costa Rica. They were also used to build structures like the military fort at San Fernando de Omoa, in Honduras, to cut timber in Belize and to carry goods towards Panama, which at the time was one of the main communication routes between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Others worked throughout Central America in domestic services, on small-scale construction projects, in agriculture and in the cattle industry (McLeod, 1980).
Most of the enslaved Afrodescendants fought against their enslavement through flight. Some successfully created autonomous communities like the palenques of Portobelo and Bayano in Panama. Lokken (2001) and Komisaruk (1999) for Guatemala, and Acuña Léon (2005) for the case of Costa Rica have identified other resistance strategies. As these authors have demonstrated, the enslaved Afrodescendants knew and used Spanish legal tools to negotiate the change of their masters and the purchase of freedom, as well as to report physical and sexual abuses (Cáceres, 2016). These few cases demonstrate, however, the enslaved people's agency.
In the urban centres, male and female neighbours organized collective strategies to challenge the law of the womb that stipulated that a child of an enslaved mother would also be born enslaved. This was the central concept that sustained the slave system. Many of the enslaved women remained anonymous in the urban world. This was the case with Cayetana, enslaved by Alfonso Ulloa. She had three children: Francisca, Manuel and Tomasa. To free them from enslavement, she secretly used her midwife as intermediary to give her children to other people to be raised as free. Francisca was raised by Paula Coto, a neighbour to the Puebla de los Pardos, Manuel was cared for by Josefa Bonilla who lived in Los Arrabales, and Tomasa was given to María Candelaria Álvarez who lived in the neighbourhood of Churuca (Acuña León, 2005, p. 11).
Many important Central America traditions can be traced to these first generations of Africans. They include the marimba - an essential part of the region's folkloric music tradition - Coyol wine and words like: cachimba (smoking pipe), angú (plantain purée), candanga (devil), mandinga, morongo (blood sausage), timba (belly), etc. (Duncan and Meléndez, 2005).
At the same time, other generations of free Afrodescendants had settled throughout the area. In the colonial archives, they were called negros criollos (black creoles) to note that they were born in the region, or mulattos and pardos - Afro-mestizos - to note the admixture of Africans with other ethnic groups. | African presence in the formation of the new nations | [
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[African presence in the formation of the new nations]
Population resettlement was part of a system of social reengineering imposed by Spanish rule in the Americas. It started by creating a new type of indigenous community known as pueblos de indios, whose goal was to supply labour for colonial economic projects. As part of the same system, during the seventeenth century the Spanish created towns specifically for Afrodescendants. They included: Villa de la Gomera in Guatemala; El Realejo, San Felipe de Austria, Santa María del Haro de Nueva Segovia and Abierto de Granada in Nicaragua; San Vicente in El Salvador; and La Puebla de los Pardos in Costa Rica. This urban reengineering sought to strengthen the demographic limits of the empire and, more importantly, to facilitate tax collection by the Crown (AGI, Guatemala 43, N 49; Cáceres, 2000).
In the urban centres, the Afrodescendants worked as artisans, tailors, blacksmiths, carpenters, weavers, cobblers, merchants and service employees. In the rural areas of Costa Rica, in Matina for example, they farmed lands and cacao fields. They were also actively involved in regional trade. By this time, they spoke Spanish, were catholic, paid taxes, took part in the militias and years later were politically prepared to ask for the right to be Spanish citizens during the Cádiz Cortes of 1812.
Throughout the colonial period, some Afrodescendants managed to develop successful economic activities and become part of the elite. Many Afrodescendants had never been enslaved, and although they were part of the militias, spoke Spanish and were catholic, there were still some sectors of the society that wanted these free individuals to be placed into slavery. The permanent threat of enslavement haunted the free Afro-mestizos, who by the day were rising in number within an increasingly mixed society. | African presence in the formation of the new nations | [
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[The abolition of slavery]
The abolition of slavery
Independence from Spain in Central America occurred in 1821, and a Constitutional Assembly was formed to establish the new laws that would guide the nascent republics. Starting with the call to form this assembly, we see evidence of Afrodescendent influence. It was agreed that one representative would be appointed for every 15,000 individuals, emphasizing the phrase 'without excluding those of African origins'. A study of the assembly's proceedings reveals an intense year of discussion on one basic concept: freedom (AGCA B, Leg 91, Exp. 2472). Among these proceedings, one letter stands out. Signed by six enslaved people, it was read in 1823 by the assembly. The letter reads:
The civil freedom of men is [an] invaluable jewel.... God does not want the men that He has cast into a free world to be enslaved. . . The origin of slavery ... is no more than the uncontrolled greed of men who, to increase their wealth, have infested the \ldots coasts of Africa, enslaving their inhabitants, which clearly,... is no other [thing] than to rob them of their precious jewel of freedom, and deprive them the social life of [those] who are their cruel murderers, a principle which [must be] rejected and labelled as illegal \ldots because what legality can it offer, \ldots if the natural law shows us... that all men have been born free?
The discussion about freedom continued amid fierce confrontations. Two positions emerged. Some argued that freedom should be immediate; others believed that the enslaved individuals should pay for their freedom. In the end,
the commission appointed to study the abolition of slavery recommended an immediate end to the law of the womb and the granting to enslaved individuals of both freedom without the need for payment, and citizenship rights.
After a heated debate and facing the danger of obstructions to the proposed law, the law's supporters accepted the creation of a public fund to compensate slave owners. The law incorporated another point that was then controversial: citizens' rights recently acquired by the inhabitants of the newly independent territories 'would be immediately lost by those who owned or trafficked slaves' (AGCA B, Leg 91, Exp. 2473, F 14V, 6 January 1824). This rule also applied to foreigners.
It is in this context that the Honduran delegation called attention to the 'irritation' that this could cause in the neighbouring regions of Cuba and Jamaica, which continued to employ enslaved people (AGCA B10 Exp. 4042, Leg 185, f5, 1824). Omens became a reality in 1825 when one hundred people fled from British Belize, and subsequently were granted asylum. According to Martínez and Contreras (1962), the traditions in Petén recall this episode and argue that a large part of the inhabitants of San Benito are descendants of this population. During this year, the same authorities also reported a slaver leaving the region by way of the Caribbean coast, forcing some of his enslaved workers onto boats heading to Cuba, where slavery was still legal.
After a year of debating, on 24 April 1824, the National Constituent Assembly declared the freedom of all enslaved people a right enshrined in article 13 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Central America, under the section titled 'On the Citizens': 'All men are free in the Republic. No one who abides by these laws can be a slave, and no one who traffics in slaves can be a citizen'.
At the same time, on the Caribbean coast of Central America, Great Britain abandoned its enclaves in Mosquitia, Nicaragua, and on the Black River, Honduras, in response to treaties signed with Spain in 1787 and 1860. However, in the Antilles, the British violently removed the Garifuna from the island of Saint Vincent under the authorization of the British Parliament and shipped them to Honduras. Saint Vincent's 'empty lands' were then devoted to growing sugar. The case of 'the Caribs' as the Garifuna were called at the time, is the most vivid example of the role that Central America played in the dispute for the Caribbean between Spain and Great Britain.
During the nineteenth century, the new Central American states were not yet well established and their confrontation with Great Britain evolved. An example was the forced and violent annexation of the Miskito Kingdom by the State of Nicaragua at the end of the nineteenth century. Great Britain had recognized this kingdom, located on Nicaragua's Caribbean coast, as an independent nation. After
annexation, Nicaragua created a racialized narrative to justify the occupation of this land and the subordination of its citizens (Hooker, 2010).
These changes and contradictions shaped various forms of identity. These identities were defined not only by specific African origin and racial ascription, but also by the position of individuals in relation to language and religion inherited from the metropolitan powers, and the antagonism derived from the period of imperial confrontation. | The abolition of slavery | [
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[The great Afro-Antillean migration]
The great Afro-Antillean migration
At the end of the nineteenth century, new Afrodescendent immigrants were arriving in Central America from the Caribbean islands, particularly from Jamaica, enriching the region's cultural mosaic. Numerically, this was the largest migration in the region's recent history. Thousands of workers were brought in to build the infrastructure for the new export economies, including the Panama Canal, railroads and agricultural activities. These immigrants boosted the cultivation of cacao, abaca and banana - Central America was the largest banana producer in the world (Chomsky, 1996). Writers, nurses, teachers, priests, railway and telegraph operators and accountants also arrived, all of which enhanced the professional composition of the region's countries. As some of these immigrants returned to their countries of origin, they in turn further enriched the cultural dynamic of the Antilles. The immigrants' professional training and family connections, as well as their membership in the English-speaking world, facilitated their participation in international discussions connecting Central America, the Antilles and New York.
In the case of Costa Rica, religious schools promoted British-style education. Among the religious congregations were the Baptist, Wesleyan, Anglican and Moravian churches as well as the Salvation Army. These religious institutions created networks that brought together a great number of Afro-Caribbean individuals within the Antilles and Caribbean Central America.
The development of mutual aid societies and lodges strengthened these complex international networks. Members would be received as brothers after presenting their organizations' credentials in different locales around the Caribbean. In Costa Rica's case, as in the rest of the Antilles, subsidiaries were created of the Independent United Order of Mechanics, the Loyal Order of Ancient Shepherds, the Lebanon Foresters, the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, and the Independent Benevolent Order of Elks. This also includes the subsidiaries of the Jamaica Mutual Life
Assurance Society, which functioned as an international savings and transfer bank (Putnam, 2009 and 2013). These support organizations emerged in a complex socioeconomic context of confrontation and negotiation between the banana companies that dominated the economy of Caribbean Costa Rica and their workers (Senior Angulo, 2011). This sets the stage for the arrival of Marcus Garvey, who played an influential role in the region's press.
According to Putnam (2009), the different lodges, the secret societies, associations, social clubs, churches, scout groups, newspapers and so forth looked for financial, physical and spiritual security, while promoting racial pride, individual improvement and collective brotherhood. For example, from early on, the Mosaic Templars and the Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) spread the discourse of racial solidarity and pride between the AfroCaribbean people. Similarly, the Friendly and Literary Association, sponsored by St Mark's Anglican Church, aimed to promote the social, intellectual and physical advance of the city's youth. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, various labour organizations were founded along Costa Rica's Caribbean coast, such as the Artisans' and Labourers' Union, whose first public action was the celebration of Emancipation Day, on 1 August 1910. This event, attended by the provincial governor of Limón, gathered almost 5,000 Jamaicans, who paraded through the streets of the city of Limón (Fernández, 2013).
Several newspapers were also created, some monthly, others weekly. One of them, The Nation, had Marcus Garvey as an editor. Regional news circulated through these papers, informing people of political issues, connections and transportation with the Antilles, and economic developments in the Caribbean. They also advertised a large quantity of products, which suggests that a large consumer society existed in Limón, the main Costa Rican port at the time. The following are examples of the types of newspapers that circulated between 1910 and 1964 in the Caribbean:
1. Limón Weekly News
2. The Central American Express
3. The Nation
4. Boletín Anunciador
5. El Atlántico
6. El Caribe: Semanario limonense
7. El Comercio
8. El Correo del Atlántico: órgano de divulgación de la provincia de Limón
9. El Limonense
10. El Partido Nacional
11. El Pueblo Limonense
12. El Tiempo: diario de la mañana
13. Faro Limonense
Difficult changes still lay ahead. The nineteenth century would see a surge in new theories that intended to halt the period's advances. The Jim Crow laws from the north would be followed in the south by the views of Argentinian educator Faustino Sarmiento. He promoted the idea of the 'improvement of Latin American blood' which was supposedly weakened by excessive racial mixing. These ideas were feeding off the popular eugenics movement, while European powers divvied up the African continent in 1885.
From the end of the nineteenth century and at the time the first European capital loans were being requested to fund the construction of infrastructure, the Central American liberal elite began to devise narratives about the past. These narratives, detrimental to the region's culturally diverse heritage, were intended to magnify their European roots.
During this so-called era of progress, the ideas of barbarism and civilization prevailed, and the Central American states erased all traces of their Afrodescendent history. The states ceased using census categories that recorded the ethno-racial diversity within their population, thus creating a fantasy of egalitarian societies. On the ground, the different populations were separated according to residential area and access to rights, while the collective memory of their history was being erased.
In the twentieth century, the migratory policies went beyond the official historical discourse that defined the Central American society as 'white' or 'mestizo' by minimalizing the indigenous populations' role and denying the Africans' contribution. At the same time, governments began to pass restrictive laws against immigrants, designing a legal structure to impede migration and to categorize populations according to their proximity to Caucasian cultures. Central American governments started with Asians and people from the Middle East. In 1897, El Salvador prohibited entry to all Chinese people, and then laws were passed to restrict the entry of Arabs, Malaysians, Libyans, Turks, Gypsies, Syrians and Palestinians. Costa Rica prohibited entry to Chinese people in 1897, and in 1904 to Arabs, Turks, Syrians, Armenians and Gypsies. In 1904, Panama prohibited the immigration of Chinese, Turks and Syrians, and in 1912 it prohibited the entry of Coolies (Putnam, 2010).
According to Euraque (2004) and Putnam (2010), it was in the 1920s that the region produced anti-black laws that prohibited the entry of Afrodescendent immigrants and limited their ability to be hired, even when they had been born in Central America to immigrant parents. In Honduras, in 1929, the blacks were added to the list of 'restricted races' and in the following decade a new law was passed that prohibited the entry of Coolies, Gypsies and Chinese. In Panama, | The great Afro-Antillean migration | [
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[The great Afro-Antillean migration]
blacks that did not speak Spanish were added to the list of 'undesirable' races and banned from immigration. Then a law was passed that limited citizenship to those who already resided in the country. In 1931, Guatemala declared the immigration of foreigners of the 'black race' illegal, and later prohibited entry to people of the 'black races', 'yellow or Mongol' races and of 'Gypsies'. In 1936, Nicaragua shut out the Chinese, Arabs, Syrians, Armenians, Gypsies and Coolies. In 1925, a new law in El Salvador declared it illegal for 'members of coloured races' to enter the country.
At the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, Liberalism made the ideology of racial mixing and whitening into a social norm. Those who did not fit within this scheme, like the indigenous and black groups, were converted into the 'others', and those who questioned it were viewed as uncivilized or combative. The ideology of order, progress and civilization would be joined to this racial ideology of 'whitening' that nullified the existence, achievements and social mobility of the non-Caucasian ethnic groups (Gudmundson, 1986).
During the first half of the twentieth century, the main political demand of the second and third generation Antillean descendants would be that the state recognized their right to citizenship. Diana Senior Angulo (2011) shows that for Costa Rica, this right was achieved after intense political negotiation in 1948, as the civil war was unfolding. This also marked the beginning of the fight to get legal ownership of the lands in which these Afrodescendants had been living since the previous century.
To their first actions discussed earlier, Afrodescendent organizations added the creation of an exceptional social and political movement across Latin America. One example of this is the Central American Black Organization (CABO), founded in Belize in 1995, whose mission was to establish a network of Afrodescendent organizations in Central America. CABO brings together more than 20 organizations from Central America and from the Afrodescendent diaspora in the United States. Its goal is to promote the comprehensive development of the towns and communities of Central America with African heritage.
At the same time, a vibrant musical movement made reggae, parranda or sandunga, punta and calypso, among others, the regional anthems of Central America. There was also a push to spread the appreciation for jazz and gospel music. This movement provided new ingredients to Central American identities.
Along with the rise of these social organizations, an intellectual movement began leaving its mark on literary works that experimented with new themes
and linguistic structures. This is exemplified in the writings of authors such as Eulalia Bernard, Shirley Campbell, Delia McDonald, Isabel Estrada, June Beer, Annette Fenton, Franklin Perry, Yolanda Rossman, Deborah Robb, Andira Watson, Alderman Johnson Roden, Antonieta Máximo, Dolores Joseph, Myrna Manzanares, Wingston González, Carlos Wynter, Gerardo Maloney, Melanie Taylor Herrera and Quince Duncan (Mosby, 2003; Britton González, 2014).
As for twenty-first-century Costa Rica, the result of the constant work and pressure from Afro-Caribbean leaders and groups led to significant changes to correct the aforementioned historical discrepancies. Among the most important transformations made are the reform to the first article of the Constitution of Costa Rica to describe the country as a multi-ethnic and multicultural republic, the adoption of a national policy against racism and xenophobia that mandates public institutions to develop policies to remedy the inequality in the access that Afrodescendants have had to civil rights. Another measure consisted in establishing in the city of Cartago, the old colonial capital, the first memorial to commemorate the Afrodescendent presence in Costa Rica. This site is in Puebla de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles, also known as Puebla de los Pardos, where they began the veneration of the most important Catholic figure in Costa Rica, the Virgen de los Ángeles, affectionately referred to as La Negrita. | The great Afro-Antillean migration | [
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[BLACKNESS ACROSS BORDERS | Introduction]
Introduction
On 16 June 2004, the first ever Jamaica Diaspora Conference was called to order in Kingston. This conference was the outgrowth of a symposium held on 20 October 2003 at the Mona campus of the University of the West Indies entitled The Jamaican Diaspora Reciprocal Relations: Way Forward. For two days, the Government of Jamaica hosted over 500 delegates - half living in Jamaica, half Jamaicans living abroad - who had gathered to discuss ways that overseas Jamaicans might have more of a stake in what was happening at 'home', not only culturally but also economically and politically. During the conference, then Prime Minister P. J. Patterson outlined five Cabinet-backed incentives for overseas Jamaicans to invest in the country, including improved passport services and the issuance of an investment bond targeted specifically to overseas nationals. He also proposed the establishment of a Jamaica Diaspora Foundation 'through which Jamaica will speak to overseas Jamaicans about national development and other issues, ^1 an annual Diaspora Day, and the establishment of 'trade councils' throughout the Diaspora.
[^0]
[^0]: 1 'Jamaica reaches out to diaspora', Daily Observer, 17 June 2004.
[^0]
[^0]: 1 'Jamaica reaches out to diaspora', Daily Observer, 17 June 2004.
The editorial that appeared after the conclusion of the Conference in the Observer, one of Jamaica's two daily newspapers, argued that the profound significance of the event lay in its having officially initiated 'a process of redefining Jamaica - its expansion from an island territory to a concept of a people'. ^2 Indeed, with the 2.7 million Jamaican nationals living in North America and Great Britain roughly equalling the number of Jamaicans living 'on the rock', and with a reported forty-two per cent of overseas Jamaicans having attained a tertiary education, ^3 the recognition of a new sense of peoplehood would seem to herald new possibilities for transforming Jamaica's political economy. The editorial continued, 'There must be a continuous relationship between those of us who live on the island and the offshore communities. The critical issue is how to build these seamless relationships'. ^4
This is an issue with which many Caribbean Governments have been preoccupied for some time. Because migration has long been a central development strategy throughout the Caribbean - for individuals, families, and governments - states in the region have attempted to devise ways of 'hanging on' to their migrated populations. They have done so by recognizing dual citizenship, tapping migrant communities in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada to fund hometown associations and political campaigns, and in some cases granting overseas nationals the right to vote in elections locally. The suggestions outlined at the Jamaica Diaspora Conference in 2004, then, were in step with more general regional attempts to facilitate national development by harnessing the economic resources of the Jamaican diaspora in the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. The proposed bond issuance, for example, followed initiatives of other West Indian leaders, like Barbadian Prime Minister Owen Arthur, who have been attempting to channel the flow of remittances toward more stable and ongoing economic investment in the region. These efforts have garnered additional force in the contemporary period, as anti-terrorism legislation in the United States has resulted in the increased harassment of both legal and undocumented Jamaican immigrants, and has therefore been seen as threatening remittance flows. ^5 Of course, government directives such as those listed above have not only been designed for the purpose of 'hanging on' to populations, but also for 'catching up' with them, as many
[^0]
[^0]: 2 'The Jamaican Diaspora Conference is just the beginning', Daily Observer, 18 June 2004.
3 'Tapping into the diaspora', Daily Gleaner, 30 October 2003.
4 'The Jamaican Diaspora Conference is just the beginning', Daily Observer, 18 June 2004.
5 'Warning signs - remittance flows to Jamaica under threat', Daily Gleaner, 2003.
4 'The Jamaican Diaspora Conference is just the beginning', Daily Observer, 18 June 2004.
5 'Warning signs - remittance flows to Jamaica under threat', Daily Gleaner, 2003.
migrants have taken the lead in creating and maintaining transnational networks to advance their own multifaceted and multilocational goals. Scholars attuned to these practices have argued that contemporary processes of transnationalism and globalization have not only altered the ways people conceptualize space, community, and citizenship, but have also transformed nationalism and processes of racial formation (Basch et al., 1994; Carnegie, 2002; Clarke, 2004; Clarke and Thomas, 2006; Glick Schiller et al., 1992; Smith and Guarnizo, 1998; Sutton and Chaney, 1987).
The intensification of transnational migration and the creation of Caribbean diasporas have also raised another major issue for Caribbean States, one that has to do with the level of 'Americanization' occurring throughout the region. With the United States' economic, political, and cultural influence strengthening over the course of the twentieth century, the nature of many governments' much cherished post-colonial independence has been called into question. Yet Caribbean people have always engaged 'America' critically, negotiating its power and promise while actively building new notions of national belonging and racial mapping. These new notions have had complex, and sometimes unexpected, effects upon Caribbean nationalisms, even as these nationalisms are being reformulated 'at home'. If we agree that 'social spaces are constructed in tandem with processes of racial formation' (Brown, 1998, p. 291), then new understandings of space and community - such as those reflected during the Jamaica Diaspora Conference - raise important questions regarding emergent concepts of blackness, both in Jamaica and among Jamaicans (and their descendants) elsewhere. For example, how might we situate contemporary black America with respect to new configurations of diasporic blackness? Where does Jamaica stand in relation to (black) America, and how might this standing be interpreted differently by different generations of Jamaicans? These questions, in turn, implore us to consider the two sets of issues raised here migration and the reconfiguration of nationalisms, and Americanization and the reconfiguration of blacknesses - within the same spatial frame of analysis. | BLACKNESS ACROSS BORDERS | Introduction | [
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[BLACKNESS ACROSS BORDERS | Introduction]
In her analysis of black Liverpudlians' cultural politics across generations, Jacqueline Nassy Brown borrows the concept of 'diasporic resources' from Paul Gilroy (1987) to give a sense of the kinds of cultural and political practices that are available to them at different moments. Predominant among these practices have been African American musical forms and political struggles, leading Brown to conclude that 'black Liverpudlians actively appropriate particular aspects of "black America" for particular reasons, to meet particular needs - but do so within limits, within and against power asymmetries, and with political
consequences' (Brown, 1998, p. 298). In this essay, I want to reflect upon these issues in relation to the implications of the current global hegemony of the United States for processes of racialization among Jamaicans. I am interested here in how the concept of 'resources' is constituted over time, when and where these resources circulate, and toward what ends they are used. Ultimately, I argue, the manipulation of diasporic resources services a project of racial vindication that, though it addresses different specific needs and operates differently in the United States and Jamaica, nevertheless is a project generated and implemented transnationally. As a way to map the kinds of circulations that are critical to this project, I draw examples not only from my own ethnographic research in a hillside community outside Kingston, Jamaica, but also from renderings of the relationships between blackness in Jamaica and the United States offered by popular media. | BLACKNESS ACROSS BORDERS | Introduction | [
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[Modern blackness in Jamaica]
Modern blackness in Jamaica
By the late 1990s in Jamaica, when urban popular expressions of blackness became paramount within contemporary invocations of Jamaican particularity, the hegemony of the Creole multiracial nationalism that had been consolidated by political and intellectual elites at the time of independence in 1962 had been displaced (Thomas, 2004). This shift is critical because it marks a partial triumph of the ideologies, styles, and political and economic practices developed by working-class and poor black Jamaicans over the notions of respectable citizenship that have been (and to a degree, still are) promulgated by political and cultural elites, middle-class professionals, and most religious communities. As a result, it reflects a broader transformation in terms of who (and what) has public power to define and represent Jamaican culture in the contemporary era.
This transformation has not been due to any one specific social movement, or even to the work of several different movements. It has been, instead, the result of a confluence of factors that have had a variety of (sometimes unexpected) effects. One of these factors has been the intensification of transnational migration and the proliferation of media technologies, which have facilitated the amplification of a diasporic consciousness. Another has been the increased political, economic, and social influence of the United States, which has opened avenues for many black Jamaicans to circumvent the colonial hierarchies of colour, class, gender, culture and progress that were institutionalized by the British. These two factors are related, of course, since after independence and the closing of emigration
channels to Britain, many more Jamaicans began to avail themselves of the perceived opportunities presented by migrating to the United States. And while the nature of the influence of American cultural practices upon (especially) poor and working-class Jamaicans has been vigorously debated since the turn of the twentieth century, the current period of 'fragmented globality' (Trouillot, 2001, p. 129) has given these debates new vigour, not only in Jamaica but throughout the region as a whole. Michel Rolph Trouillot uses the term 'fragmented globality' to underline the effects of contemporary neo-liberal capitalist processes, and to draw our attention to how worldwide deindustrialization and the concomitant rise of the service and informal economic sectors, the phenomenal proliferation of information technologies, and (throughout the Third World) the implementation of structural adjustment policies, have widened the gaps between rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, North and South.
As David Murray has noted for Martinicans during the mid-1990s, 'America, or more particularly a set of mostly media-generated images of "black" America, occupied an increasing amount of attention in discussions about self and society' (Murray, 2002, p. 159). Because young people were the primary consumers of these images, Murray found that youth had become the 'new metaphor through which dissatisfaction or disappointment with Martinican society was voiced' (Murray, 2002, p. 158). Similar processes were afoot in Jamaica during this period, and the generational difference Murray identifies - a difference that seems to mark a particular shift in political worldview - has also been key to the consolidation of what I am calling modern blackness in Jamaica. That is, modern blackness reflects a changed geopolitical environment, one in which the gaps between rich and poor, developed and underdeveloped, North and South have been exacerbated by worldwide de-industrialization and the rise of the service and informal economic sectors, the proliferation of information technologies, and (throughout the Third World) the implementation of structural adjustment policies. This new environment has undermined the earlier contention that formerly colonial territories should be sovereign in order that they may participate meaningfully in international forums, and instead has generated what several scholars have insisted is a 'new imperialism', a capitulation to the dictates of global (American and European Union) markets regardless of the sociocultural, political, economic, and environmental costs (Harvey, 2003).
That youth often symbolically occupy the contested terrain of nationalists' deferred (or even derailed) development dreams does not preclude them from elaborating their own. In other words, on the one hand, current processes of globalization throughout the Caribbean have generated increased rates of violent crime, unemployment,
and poverty at the same time as structural adjustment programmes have reduced government expenditure on health care, education, literacy programmes, and other social services, thereby heightening conditions of instability for the majority of Jamaican families; while on the other hand, contemporary neo-liberal capitalist development has also created new possibilities for realizing ambition, and new opportunities for advancing new or previously marginalized ideologies and practices regarding citizenship and subjectivity. In Jamaica, for example, youth have actively transformed aspects of old colonial hierarchies of race and gender, in part through their consumption and re-signification of aspects of African American style within contemporary dancehall culture (Cooper, 1993; Hope, 2004; Thomas, 2004; Ulysse, 1999). In order to understand the meanings of America and diasporic blackness, then, we must pay attention to what different Jamaicans do with America. More particularly, what use do Jamaicans make of black America? Alternatively put, what has black America allowed variously situated Jamaicans to do in terms of reconceptualizing the meanings of belonging and community? And finally, if we understand power as 'capillary' (Foucault, 1979) - as never fully possessed by any one entity but as circulating through diaspora and always enacted within broader relations of dominance - how might we conceptualize the relationship between black America and black Jamaica as reciprocal? | Modern blackness in Jamaica | [
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[Black America in Jamaica]
Black America in Jamaica
One of the more controversial recent additions to the Jamaican cultural and educational scene has been the recognition of Black History Month in February. During the mid- to late-1990s, many cultural commentators viewed local interest in this African American commemoration as further evidence of Jamaicans' interest in adopting anything emanating from the United States. For example, Basil Walters, a frequent contributor to the Daily Observer, ^6 argued that 'it has always been a part of
[^0]
[^0]: 6 The Jamaica Gleaner is the country's premiere daily paper, and is the longest continuously published newspaper in the western hemisphere. Owned by a family whose holdings include longstanding sugar interests, the paper tends to reflect a more conservative position on many issues having to do with national development. The Observer, Jamaica's other morning daily, tended at the time this article was originally written to be more left-leaning, and reported more often on American (and African American) topics, including sporting events such as the NBA Finals, scandals such as the Jayson Blair fraud and the Kobe Bryant case, and musical collaborations between hip-hop and dancehall artistes. The Observer had also been more consistently critical of Colin Powell, who as an African American with Caribbean roots was expected to stand up for the region as a whole but who disappointed many West Indians by playing a role in Aristide's removal from Haiti, in ignoring CARICOM's collective stand against the U.S.-led war in Iraq, and in undermining support for the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court.
our national psyche to adapt and adopt anything that Americans do, whether black or white. Thus in recent times, the celebration of Black History Month has become fashionable in Jamaica, and the emphasis is on fashionable'. ^7 Walters and others saw Black History Month as an 'imported' event that would appeal to certain intellectuals, but that would remain irrelevant to the lives of the majority of Jamaicans. Verna Lee Davis-Daly, an occasional columnist for the Daily Observer, worried that
we bombard our young black populace with black music, black theatre, black art and other positive predominantly "black American" experiences. What happens, however, is that we sometimes unwittingly bypass our simple, available sources of relevant black history. ^8
Similarly, Gleaner columnist Peter Espeut argued for greater attention to Jamaican 'heroes':
I am disappointed that in this imported Black History Month, we are not hearing much about our own black heroes. It is as if we are being distracted from our own Jamaican situation by discussions about Malcolm X and Martin Luther King - great men for their milieu, mind you; but what does that say to Jamaicans in our situation? What about our struggle? ^9
The consensus among these writers seemed to be that because ninety per cent of Jamaica's population is black, 'we would need neither the approval nor the encouragement of the USA to study black history twelve months of the year'. ^10 Indeed, many noted that Rastafarians had always celebrated black history, suggesting that their example would be the more meaningful one for Jamaicans to follow.
Yet there is something more to the opposition to Black History Month being expressed by these writers, something that Peter Espeut provocatively hints at in the following passage:
The alacrity with which we in Jamaica have embraced [Black History Month] is not just another example of our penchant to copy all that is American. In Jamaica, race is still not accepted as a subject for polite conversation in middle and upper class circles". ^11
Espeut is proposing that because Black History Month is seen as an imported rather than an Indigenous event, it opens conversations that might
[^0]
[^0]: 7 B. Walters, 'Black my story - not his-story', Daily Observer, 4 February 1997.
8 V. L. Davis-Daly, 'My black history', Daily Observer, 6 February 1997.
9 P. Espeut, 'Honouring our own', Daily Gleaner, 19 February 1997.
10 C. R. Reynolds, 'Black History Month', Daily Gleaner, 18 February 1997.
11 P. Espeut, 'Honouring our own', Daily Gleaner, 19 February 1997.
not otherwise occur. What seems critical here is his suggestion that expressions of racial pride or style from the United States are taken on in Jamaica as a way to enter into public conversations about race among those who might otherwise consider such discussions 'impolite', and by so doing, to direct attention to the dynamics of racial formation both within Jamaica and transnationally. U.S. Black History Month, in this context, becomes a resource through which Jamaicans might frame an ongoing local dispute regarding the degree to which Jamaican nationalism has 'succeeded' in eradicating racial divisions in the service of the national motto - 'Out of Many, One People'.
Because this is a dispute that has tended to break down along class lines - with lower-class Jamaicans remaining the most adamant about the ways race and class interact to reproduce their marginalization with respect to political and economic power - it becomes important to question the assertion that black America does not resonate with the majority of Jamaicans, whose attention instead should ostensibly be directed toward black Jamaican heroes. Paulette, a striving lower-middle-class woman in her early thirties whom I had come to know well during the course of my extended fieldwork in a rural hillside community just outside Kingston during the late 1990s, reflected with me on her own process of 'coming to consciousness' about her heritage and history. She remembered that her parents did not emphasize a 'black history' to her while she was growing up. Nevertheless, as she grew older, she began learning more about Jamaican history by listening to a radio show on IRIE-FM about African and diasporic history hosted by Mutabaruka, a Rastafarian dub poet known for his Afrocentric (and revolutionary) lyrics, and by reading about African Americans, information that was supplemented by the television programmes broadcast during Black History Month. 'They'd show certain programs on TV and I'd see how they'd handle black people, and I'd get so emotional that I'd turn off the TV', she recalled. 'It's just recently I can really sit down and watch. I don't know if it's embarrassment or anger or what. I'd watch these programs and probably go out on the road and see [the one white landowner living in the community] and just hate him. I'd think, "you're one of those".'
Paulette also mentioned that she would teach her daughter, who was three years old at the time, about black history in order that she should 'know and love herself', especially since she anticipated that her daughter would ultimately attend a university in the United States: | Black America in Jamaica | [
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[Black America in Jamaica]
It's important to let her know that OK, she's of a different color, but she has to love self however people might say that you're black so you're not beautiful. Even here now, people are bleaching out their skins and all of that. I have to make her
know that regardless of what people might say [in the States], she will be proud of where she's coming from. Because I'm not going to grow her like how my parents just sort of had me and they never really sat and shared a lot of things with me. You have to make them know, and you do this by telling them about the history.
Paulette's personalization of aspects of the history of race relations in the Americas and her preparations for her daughter's expected migration speak to more general processes associated with globalization and identity formation. Her generation, having come of age during the 1970s flowering of black power and 'Jamaica for Jamaicans', was supported in its efforts to develop ideas about racial value that differed from those of their parents by a much-changed national context. Moreover, the technological and communications developments that had taken place since her parents' youth made external opportunities (such as a tertiary education in the United States) seem more easily accessible in some cases than those available locally.
As a result, Paulette's comments also show that history matters to the development of personal and community consciousness, and that the histories that matter are not limited to Jamaica and the West Indies, but can also include those of black people in the United States. For her, television shows like the original miniseries 'Roots' were additional resources through which to view race and class relations within her own community and nation, giving her another language through which to develop what she called her 'black consciousness'. Here, then, African American cultural productions became diasporic resources that extended their relevance across national borders because they helped provide insight into the kinds of structural inequalities faced by poor and working-class people, not only in the United States, but also elsewhere in the black Atlantic. Equally important, they could inspire the pride needed for surviving incidences of racial and class prejudice, both those experienced within Jamaica and those expected overseas.
Yet the circulation of African American cultural production does not occur outside broader relations of power and privilege, and this is what so many commentators are identifying as they decry the encroachment of American blackness upon the nationalist sensibilities of Jamaicans. In other words, as several scholars have argued, diaspora is not a unified field of experience and should be theorized in terms of power relations/asymmetries across communities, relations that are about race and nation but that are mediated by class and gender (Brown, 1998; Campt, 2004; Edwards, 2003). These insights should direct us towards two related points of inquiry. The first has to do with how current processes
of globalization have fostered new identities or facilitated a new dominance of older, marginalized ones through lateral borrowing among black communities worldwide, what Liza McAlister would call the co-production of identity among diasporic groups. McAlister's discussion of Haitian rara in New York City marks a tension between the concepts of diaspora and transnationalism. Noting that rara in New York is in dialogue with the Haitian branches of dancehall and African American hip-hop culture, and explicating the complex and changing relationships forged between Haitian and Jamaican migrants in Florida and Brooklyn (indeed, between newly arrived Haitians and established Haitian Americans), McAlister arrives at the important insight that 'the process of identity building is coproduced with other minority communities, and not just against hegemonic groups' (McAlister, 2002, p. 198). The second has to do with the ways borrowing among communities is selective and completely imbricated within the hegemonic social, economic, and political relations that make particular cultural and political practices, originating in this case in the United States, available to black communities elsewhere. Tina Campt's analysis of oral histories of Afro-Germans who lived through the Third Reich (Campt, 2004a) builds on this latter point. She argues that her interviewees drew upon African American cultural and political narratives not only because these narratives circulated as resources, forms of cultural memory that could serve as points of inspiration, but also because they formed part of the repertoire of American capital - economic, political, and cultural - that has become globally hegemonic. Her point here is that if we understand cultural memory as one among other sites of 'global flows', we more clearly reveal 'how that circulation is also structured by American global capital in ways that facilitate its accessibility and availability in different cultural sites' (Campt, 2004b, p. 17).
In other words, performances of African American blackness have been used as means to identify belonging and racial power in a range of sites throughout the black world (and beyond), yet the relations between African Americans and black people elsewhere are fraught with tension because of the globally hegemonic position of the United States and the dominance of American media. In Jamaica, on the one hand lower-class black Jamaicans have adopted and adapted some of the political and cultural trends that are portrayed in U.S. media featuring African American themes, while on the other hand, the difficulty of extracting personal and national development goals from the shadow of the United States has perpetuated an ongoing resentment. This resentment has occasionally also been extended to black Americans who, despite the stylistic appeal of African American popular culture, and despite the political appeal of
transnational racial solidarity, are nonetheless suspect because they carry the banner of the United States. | Black America in Jamaica | [
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] | 4 | 6,125 |
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