Africa and Africans in the African Diaspora: The Uses of Relational Databases
About: This article is published in The American Historical Review.The article was published on 2010-02-01. It has received 17 citations till now. The article focuses on the topics: Diaspora.
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29 Mar 2013TL;DR: In this paper, the authors trace the history and development of the port of Benguela, the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa, from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century.
Abstract: This book traces the history and development of the port of Benguela, the third largest port of slave embarkation on the coast of Africa, from the early seventeenth to the mid-nineteenth century. Benguela, located on the central coast of present-day Angola, was founded by the Portuguese in the early seventeenth century. In discussing the impact of the transatlantic slave trade on African societies, Mariana P. Candido explores the formation of new elites, the collapse of old states and the emergence of new states. Placing Benguela in an Atlantic perspective, this study shows how events in the Caribbean and Brazil affected social and political changes on the African coast. This book emphasizes the importance of the South Atlantic as a space for the circulation of people, ideas and crops.
78 citations
Book•
13 Sep 2010TL;DR: From Africa to Brazil as discussed by the authors traces the flows of enslaved Africans from the broad region of Africa called Upper Guinea to Amazonia, Brazil and presents the only book-length examination of African slavery in Amazonia and identifies with precision the locations in Africa from where members of a large diaspora in the Americas hailed from Africa.
Abstract: From Africa to Brazil traces the flows of enslaved Africans from the broad region of Africa called Upper Guinea to Amazonia, Brazil These two regions, though separated by an ocean, were made one by a slave route Walter Hawthorne considers why planters in Amazonia wanted African slaves, why and how those sent to Amazonia were enslaved, and what their Middle Passage experience was like The book is also concerned with how Africans in diaspora shaped labor regimes, determined the nature of their family lives, and crafted religious beliefs that were similar to those they had known before enslavement It presents the only book-length examination of African slavery in Amazonia and identifies with precision the locations in Africa from where members of a large diaspora in the Americas hailed From Africa to Brazil also proposes new directions for scholarship focused on how immigrant groups created new or recreated old cultures
56 citations
DOI•
01 Jan 2017
TL;DR: Morris as discussed by the authors argues that the illicit tobacco trade and the short-lived colonies that sprang from it were crucial to the ultimate success of the English, Dutch, and French Empires in the Americas.
Abstract: Cultivating Colonies: Tobacco and the Upstart Empires, 1580-1640 Melissa N. Morris This dissertation addresses a fundamental question: how did the English, French, and Dutch establish successful colonies and trade routes in the Iberian-dominated Americas? It argues that the English, Dutch, and French (a group I refer to as the “Upstart Empires”) relied upon Iberian and indigenous knowledge and trade networks in a series of illicit commercial operations and failed colonies in South America and the Caribbean before they were able to establish themselves permanently in the Americas. These little-studied colonial experiments all had one thing in common: tobacco. A crop in high demand that grows nearly anywhere and requires little special equipment, tobacco was an obvious choice for new colonies. The Spanish Empire was founded on mineral extraction and the subjugation of extant empires. For other colonizers, the development of plantation economies was crucial. Cultivating Colonies looks at how this came to be. This dissertation relies upon a diverse source base, using Spanish, Dutch, French, and English archives to tell a story that transcends imperial boundaries. The dissertation begins by considering the intersection of botany and European expansion. It situates European voyages of discovery and colonization in the context of a search for plants and their products, including spices, and argues that early colonization efforts involved a close understanding of local environments. Tobacco was a plant Europeans encountered nearly everywhere they went in the Americas, but it was only a century after Columbus that smoking became fashionable in Europe. Thus, tobacco’s rise as a transatlantic commodity coincided with the Upstart Empires’ increased presence in the Americas. Spanish colonists and Africans learned how to grow and consume tobacco from indigenous peoples. Spanish colonies on the margins of empire began to produce it to trade with the English, Dutch, and French from the late sixteenth century. Through this trade, the Upstart Empires learned more about tobacco, and also about the environment and geography of places just beyond the reach of the Spanish and Portuguese. They began to establish trading posts and colonies in such places, and especially in the Guianas—a vast stretch of land between the limits of the two Iberian powers. There, Carib, Arawak, and other indigenous groups were willing to ally with small numbers of interlopers against their Spanish enemies. In these settlements, Northern Europeans participated in indigenous warfare and traded commodities in exchange for agricultural knowledge, labor, and goods. Even as the Upstarts established permanent colonies in North America and the Caribbean, they continued to settle in South America, too. Moreover, the Upstarts’ experiences in South America were crucial to the development of their colonies to the north. Colonies as diverse as St. Christopher, Virginia, and New Netherland all grew tobacco using methods and seeds from South America. In each settlement’s early years, the Upstarts were also reliant upon indigenous and African agricultural knowledge, an overlooked foundation of European colonization. Cultivating Colonies argues that the illicit tobacco trade and the short-lived colonies that sprang from it were crucial to the ultimate success of the English, Dutch, and French empires in the Americas.
37 citations
TL;DR: In this article, the authors propose to delimit the entire continent of precolonial Africa during the era of the slave trade into broad regions and sub-regions that can allow the grouping of data effectively and meaningfully.
Abstract: In recent years, an increasing number of online archival databases of primary sources related to the history of the African diaspora and slavery have become freely and readily accessible for scholarly and public consumption. This proliferation of digital projects and databases presents a number of challenges related to aggregating data geographically according to the movement of people in and out of Africa across time and space. As a requirement to linking data of open-source digital projects, it has become necessary to delimit the entire continent of precolonial Africa during the era of the slave trade into broad regions and sub-regions that can allow the grouping of data effectively and meaningfully.
25 citations
01 Jan 2013
TL;DR: This paper argued that the importance of the slaves contribution to the rice bonanza had been greatly exaggerated and concluded that the achievement of white masters and black chattel in the Lowcountry was a unique synthesis owing at least as much to the slaves as to the planters.
Abstract: Beginning in the mid-1970s, students of the rice-growing boom that made South Carolina rich in the eighteenth century began focusing on the role of the enslaved Africans who grew the crop. They decided that the role consisted of much more than sheer brawn, that the slaves brought centuries of rice-cultivation experience in West Africa to the task, and indeed a whole cultural complex. The main advocates of this new historical formulation were Peter H. Wood, Daniel Littlefield, and particularly Judith Carney. Their viewpoint seemed generally accepted until, in 2005, it was sharply criticized by three eminent scholars, David Eltis and David Richardson, historians of the Atlantic slave trade, and Philip Morgan, a historian of American slavery. They contended that the importance of the slaves’ contribution to the rice bonanza had been greatly exaggerated. This paper, in turn, challenges their position on many points, large and small. And it concludes that the achievement of white masters and black chattel in the Lowcountry was a unique synthesis owing at least as much to the slaves as to the planters.
18 citations