Introduction: Slaves have existed on every populated
continent since well before the opening of the Western Hemisphere to European
colonization. In fact, the modern word
"slave" comes from the identification of slaves with Slavic peoples
in the Muslim societies of the Middle East.
There were still Muslim, Christian, and Jewish slaves in Europe and the
Middle East in 1492. The slave trade
was nominally abolished in Spain in 1817; but subsequently the Cuban and Puerto
Rico slave economies boomed, fed by an illegal slave trade largely based in the
United States.
British diplomatic
pressure to end the trade had limited effect in Cuba, though Puerto Ricanslave
imports virtually ended in the 1850’s.
During the American Civil War (1861-1865), however, the Union Navy
joined Britain in blockading the slave trade to Cuba, which soon became
extinct. However, slavery itself could
have endured in the Spanish colonies far longer. Slavery had powerful defenders in Spain, including dynamic (and
protectionist) bourgeois groups such as the Catalan textile
industrialists. Most of these slaves
were tied to their master’s households but did not produce basic foods or
manufactured products in those societies.
This was usually done by free urban and peasant labor.
In a few societies,
however, slaves did make up the primary labor force in agriculture and
industry. Sometimes referred to as
"industrial slavery," this type of slavery was developed in classical
Greece and Rome and would become adopted in most of the American colonies. This report describes the slavery trade
controlled by Spain and Portugal that was brought to the Caribbean and South
America and the injustices committed by the Spanish and Portuguese rippled
through the colonial governments. It
focuses on the Caribbean slave trade supported by the Spain and Portugal
governments and the Colony governments of Haiti, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. Haiti was the first black republic to become
independent in 1803.
The French and
British colonies, USA Slavery, are addressed in the Chronology of the
report. The French colonies are
Martinque, Guadalupe, and French Guiana.
The origin of the blacks from the French colonies was from Senegal; and
the origin for Cuba and Puerto Rico was from Senegal, Sudan, and Guinea were
major sources. The last enslaved
Africans who came to the island were relatively young and came from Nigeria,
Ghana, and Zaire. Between 1517 and 1542
the Spaniards expanded their dominion from the Caribbean (Cuba, Hispaniola, and
Puerto Rico) to include Central America, Mexico, Peru, and northern Chile,
irrevocably changing the lives of indigenous peoples they found there and the
Africans they brought with them.
Thomas Jefferson established the human metrics of slavery. President Buchanan tried to persuade the
Congress to buy Cuba, but the Congress was divided over the issue of
slavery.
Slaves In Africa: It
is true that African societies did have various forms of slavery and dependent
labor before their interaction with Arabs and Europeans that invaded Africa,
especially in non egalitarian centralized African states, but scholars argue
that indigenous slavery was relatively a marginal aspect of traditional African
societies. Many forms of servitude and slavery were relatively benign, an
extension of lineage and kinship systems. Slaves and servants were often well
treated and could rise to respected positions in households and
communities.
The adoption of
Islamic concepts of slavery made it a legitimate fate for non-believers but an
illegal treatment for Muslims. In the forest states of West Africa, such as
Benin and Kongo, slavery was an important institution before the European
arrival, African rulers seeking to enslave other African groups, rather than
their own people, to enhance their wealth, prestige, and control of labor.
However, the Atlantic Slave Trade opened up greatly expanded opportunities for
large-scale economic trade in human beings--chattel slavery--on an
unprecedented scale. Slavery is not unique to North America, but was a part of
ancient societies dating back to Christendom and beyond. Africans did not come first to the Americas
as slaves, but as explorers with the documented presence as early as 1200
B.C. Earliest evidence of American
interracial cooperation is seen in the courageous work of 17th and
18th century white abolitionists working in concert with free
blacks. Expanding, centralized African states on/near the coast became major
suppliers of slaves to the Europeans, who mobilized commerce in slaves
relatively quickly by tapping existing routes and supplies.
Slave Exports
from Africa: The following is a summary of the slaves
exported to different parts of the world during the periods indicated below.
Period
Volume Percent
(%)
Destination Volume
of Trade (in Millions)
U. S. 0.4-0.5
Caribbean 4-5
Middle America 0.2
Spanish S.
America 0.5
Guianas 0.5
Brazil 3.6-5
Unheralded Facts
About Slavery and Slaves:
Fact 1: In the official U.S. Census of 1830, there were 3,775 free blacks who,
owned 12,740 black slaves. The first
black slave owner was Anthony Johnson of Northampton, Virginia. His first
slaves’ name was John Casor.
Fact 2: In 1662 a Virginia law stated that a newborn was or was not free
depending on the status of his mother.
Fact 3: George Keith of Philadelphia and his friends in the Society published
the first anti-slavery document in the British Colonies (1693). Even before this, in 1688, the Germantown
protest took place during which Quakers formally spoke against slavery.
Fact 4: In 1712, twenty-three armed slaves set fire to a slave owner’s house in
New York City. Insurrection occurred
and ten whites were killed or injured.
Twenty-one blacks were convicted and executed.
Fact 5: Thomas Jefferson created a mathematical
formula in 1803 to determine what percentage of black blood made a child mixed
parentage; a Negro, Mulatto (1/2), Octoroon (1/8), and Quadroon (1/4).
Fact 6: Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond, Virginia on October 15,
1818. She was a staunch abolitionist
and heavily involved in espionage for the Union Army during the Civil War. One of her most effective agents (spies) was
Mary Elizabeth Bowser, born a slave in Richmond, Virginia and served as a maid
in the home of the President of the Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and his wife
Varina.
Fact 7: The Black Codes Law (1865-1866) was enacted
because Southern whites were concerned with controlling blacks. Several of the codes limited the areas in
which blacks could purchase or rent property.
The control of the blacks by white employers was about as great as the
control that slaveholders had exercised.
Blacks were not allowed to testify in court. Fines were imposed for seditious speeches, insulting gestures or
acts, violating curfew, and the possession of firearms.
Fact 8: The Slave Codes Law covered every aspect of
the life of a slave. There were
variations from state to state, but the general point of view expressed in most
of them was the same: Slaves are not people but property; Laws should protect
the ownership of such property and should also protect whites against any
dangers that might arise from the presence of large numbers of slaves.
Fact 9: Female slaves who delivered a child at the
same time as their mistress were made to nurse the white infant and not their
own child.
Negritude: Négritude, neologism, was coined by
Martinican poet and statesman Aimé Césaire in Paris in the 1930s in discussions
with fellow students Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Gontran-Damas. The concept of Négritude represents
a historic development in the formulation of African diasporic identity and
culture in this century. The term marks
a revalorization of Africa on the part of New World blacks, affirming an
overwhelming pride in black heritage and culture, and asserting, in Marcus
Garvey's words, that blacks are "descendants of the greatest and proudest
race who ever peopled the earth."
Senghor himself has referred to McKay as the "the true inventor of
[the values of] Négritude....Far from seeing in one's blackness an inferiority,
one accepts it, one lays claim to it with pride, one cultivates it
lovingly." Like the evolution of
the term "black" in the United States, Négritude took a stigmatized
term and turned it into a point of pride.
As a historical movement,
Négritude received two competing interpretations. Césaire's original conception sees the specificity and unity of
black existence as a historically developing phenomenon that arose through the
highly contingent events of the African slave trade and New World plantation
system (see Transatlantic Slave Trade).
The historical origins of Négritude can be traced to the
various forms of cultural expression in the French Caribbean that find their
roots in the African continent, practices that were transmogrified by the
experience of the Middle Passage and slavery.
In the Caribbean, Negritude and Rastafarianism (see Rastafarians) tended
less toward integration and more toward redefinition of Afro-Caribbean
identity.
Rastafarianism: Rastafarians, members of a social
movement, established in Jamaica around 1930, that combines elements of
religious prophecy, specifically the idea of a black God and Messiah; the
Pan-Africanist philosophy of Marcus Garvey; the ideas of Black Power Movement
leader Walter Rodney; and the defiance of reggae music.
Religion has been the
principal form of resistance in Jamaica since colonial times. As scholar of Rastafarianism, Barry Chevannes, affirms:
"Whether resistance through the use of force, or resistance through
symbolic forms such as language, folk-tales and proverbs . . . religion was the
main driving force among the Jamaican peasants." During the early 20th
century, resistance in Jamaica reached its pinnacle with the birth of Rastafarianism, as much an Afrocentric
worldview and form of black nationalism as it was a new religion, inspired by
the independent, anticolonial Christian tradition of the Ethiopian Orthodox
Church. As Horace Campbell notes, "Rastafari culture combines the
histories of the children of slaves in different societies. Within it are both
the negative and the positive—the idealist and the ideological—responses of an
exploited and racially humiliated people."
The
Rastafari Movement:
The roots of Rastafarianism
can be traced back to Jamaica's earliest freedom fighters against colonialism.
According to Leonard E. Barrett Sr., author of The Rastafarians,
Jamaica's African population "suffered the most frustrating and oppressive
slavery ever experienced in a British colony . . . Under such complete
domination two reactions were provoked: fight and flight." The Jamaican
Maroons—African slaves, who, following the British defeat of the Spaniards in
1655, escaped to the mountains—waged guerrilla warfare against the British
colonizers. In 1738 the British were compelled to grant them a limited freedom:
although the Maroons were allowed their own lands and leaders, they were also
required to police the plantation slaves, a duty which they accepted.
Henceforth, the Maroons were loyal to the Crown.
The
Quakers:
The first whites to denounce slavery in Europe and the European colonies were
members of the Society of Friends—commonly known as Quakers. Unlike the
prevailing idea of the time that blacks were inferior to whites, Quakers
believed that all people, regardless of race, had a divine spark inside them
and were equal in the eyes of God.
These beliefs led them in the mid-18th century to take steps against
slavery in Great Britain and the British colonies in North America.
The
first goal of the Quaker abolitionists was to end slave trading among fellow
Quakers because the barbarity of the buying and selling of slaves was more
obvious than that of the institution of slavery as a whole. It was also
generally assumed that if the slave trade was abolished slavery itself would soon
cease to exist. After slave trading among Friends had been stopped, during the
1760s Quaker congregations began expelling slaveholders. Under the influence of
Quakers in the American colonies, British Quakers established Britain’s first antislavery society, the London
Committee to Abolish the Slave Trade, in 1783.
African
Religions: The
African-derived religions of Latin American and Caribbean slaves and their
descendants are marked by a dual heritage.
While deeply rooted in African spiritual traditions, these religions
have also been indelibly shaped by the history of the New World enslavement,
exploitation, and racism. From “Shango”
in Trinidad to “Cumina” in Jamaica, from “Kele” in Saint Lucia to “Batuque” in
Brazil, the story is similar: molded by and resonant with Old World African
worldviews, these ritual systems also express and reflect the wrenching
experience of Diaspora.
This
essay explores how three religions, Haitian Vodou, Cuban Santeria, and
Brazilian Umbanda, illustrate this duality.
The examples of Vodou, Santeria, and Umbanda show that the religious
traditions of Africa were not transferred to the New World in static form. Rather, slaves and their descendants in
Latin America and the Caribbean selected from and reshaped the meanings of the
old beliefs to make sense of and to cope with, the devastation and exploitation
of New World slavery and racism. The
spirit of the Old World helped them in the end to discover, develop bonds with,
and to a certain extent be healed by the spirits of the New.
Vodou =
Vodou practitioners believe that upon death the soul migrates back to
Ginen (Guinea, or Africa), imagined to be a watery depth below the surface of
the earth. Going to Africa, the soul
finally achieves true freedom and becomes able to return to Haiti.
Umbanda = Umbanda, fast becoming one of the
most widely practiced religions in Brazil, emerged in the 1930s as a syncretism
(or fusion) of Yoruba-based Candomblé religion, Catholicism, and European
spiritism.
Cuban Santeria = Cuban Santería is based on
the Yoruba pantheon of deities, or orishas. A large proportion of the 700,000
Africans brought to Cuba were Yorubas, including numerous priests and
priestesses.
Caboclos =
Spirits of deceased indigenous people.
Why Africans Were Imported Into Latin America: The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the American hemisphere created a new demand for African slave labor. America was abundant in land but not in labor. Despite the availability of at least 20 to 25 million American Indians in 1500, labor was still a high-cost item for the Spanish and Portuguese. With more opportunities and wealth available through Spanish and Portuguese expansion in Europe, Asia, and Africa, the small populations of the Iberian Peninsula were reluctant to migrate to the New World. Wages necessary to entice European workers to America were too high to make colonization profitable. Moreover, the use of Muslim slaves from North Africa and the Middle East was coming to an end, and the Roman Catholic Church pushed hard to end European enslavement of Christian peoples.
Thus by 1500 most slaves held in Europe were Africans. Queen Isabel rejected Columbus' proposal
that Indians be enslaved. It was held
that American Indians were free subjects and should be enslaved only if they
waged war against the Spaniards. Even
this "just war" reasoning for enslaving some of the frontier Indians
was finally rejected by the Crown in the middle of the 16th century. Portuguese colonizers, on the other hand,
enslaved Indians from the beginning of their settlement of Brazil well into the
18th century. But even though Indian
slaves in Brazil or Indian peasants in Mexico and Peru were quickly mobilized
for the labor needs of the European colonists, there still existed a labor
shortage in America due to the decimation of American Indian populations by new
European diseases. Indian populations
declined in the 15th and 16th centuries, often to 20 percent or less of their
pre-conquest levels. In this context,
importing labor became a necessity.
Given the reluctance of poor Europeans to migrate, Africans were seen as
an unlimited labor supply that could be brought to America. The institution of slavery, moreover,
offered additional advantages to European colonizers.
As slaves, Africans were completely mobile and could be put to any
labor that their masters demanded without restrictions. Furthermore, because enslavement was usually
for life, slaves could not compete with their masters whereas contract or
indentured servants could do so after completing their term of service. For centuries, prior to European
penetration, slaves had been exported via the East African ports and by
caravans overland to North Africa.
Africa was opened to direct European sea borne trade by Portuguese
explorers in the early 15th century.
In 1444 Europeans first shipped African slaves, along with gold and
ivory, off the Senegambia Coast in West Africa. Thereafter a steady trade developed with Africa. A small number of African slaves were thus
diverted into the transatlantic slave trade even before Columbus' first
voyage. They soon became the most
numerous of the slaves in Spain and Portugal.
Also, Portugal began to use African slaves for sugar production in the
African coastal islands of Cape Verde and São Tomé. When the New World was finally opened to European settlement, a
steady supply of West African slaves was available to the Europeans who were
accustomed to using them in commercial export agriculture — above all to
produce sugar.
From 1441 to 1888, the
trans-Atlantic slave trade created an African Diaspora in the forced migration
of some 12 million people from many diverse societies and cultures in west and
west central Africa to European colonies in the Caribbean Islands, in Central
and South America, and in North America. As the tables below indicate, the
majority of enslaved people, some 42%, became slaves in the sugar plantations
of the Caribbean; Brazilian sugar plantations and mines received about 38% of
these people; approximately 15% experienced plantation and mining slavery in
the rest of Latin America; and only about 5% were sold into the English
mainland colonies (later the United States). The European colonial enterprise
was firmly based on African slavery, and historians have long acknowledged that
the very creation of Capitalism as an economic system was inextricably
intertwined with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the wealth generated by the
slave trade and the labor of those enslaved peoples.
Colonial Latin
America and the Caribbean: The period of Spanish and Portuguese
occupation and governance of territory in the Americas began with Christopher
Columbus' first landing in 1492 and ended with the Cuban War of Independence
(1895-1898). (For information on the
colonial French, English, and Dutch Caribbean see Haiti, Martinique,
Guadeloupe, French Guiana, Netherlands Antilles, and West Indies.) The European conquest and colonization of
the American continent was done with very little knowledge of the new
territory's inhabitants or its lands.
Partly as a consequence of this and partly due to their roles as
colonizers, Europeans imposed their ideas and institutions on the indigenous
peoples and the slaves brought from Africa (see Blacks and Indians in Latin
America: An Interpretation). The
colonizers recreated their cultural, legal, and political orders without
necessarily taking into account the diversity of the population that came
together as a consequence of the colonial process.
Race
and Gender: The gender parameters
of cultures of mediation, as well as the Afro-Latin American presence, are
still to be explored in full. The slaves brought over from Africa were
predominantly male and hence skewed the population. As the model transformed
into one that was slave reproducing rather than slave importing, this was also
a highly gendered process. Later Afro-Caribbean migrant workers on the Panama
Canal and on Costa Rican and Cuban plantations were also mainly male.
Conversely, the more recent Puerto Rican out-migration into the New York garment
industry was significantly Afro-female-led.
Interaction of
Indigenous Peoples and Africans in the New World: There is disagreement among contemporary
historians regarding the total population of the Americas before 1492:
estimates range between 50 and 120 million.
Since the combined population of Spain and Portugal was not greater than
eight million, the conquerors and settlers were vastly outnumbered in colonial
territory. However, their deadly
weapons, military strategies, and surprise attacks were formidable forces
against societies that often welcomed white men or regarded them as godly
creatures. Furthermore, infectious diseases brought by the colonizers decimated
many of the native populations, including the great Aztec, Maya, and Inca
civilizations of Mexico, Central America, and the Andes of South America.
Many Native
Americans were also weakened through forced acculturation, relocation, payment
of tribute, and hard labor. Others
submitted to the colonizers because fierce rivalries between indigenous groups
made political alliances with the new strongmen seem beneficial. Before 1492 western Europeans identified
Africans as both slaves and trading partners.
Christianized African slaves who lived in Spain or Portugal and had
adopted the language and culture of their masters were known as Ladinos. Some Ladinos even accompanied European
explorers on their first missions to the Americas (see Juan Garrido: A Black
Conquistador in Mexico).
Africa as a whole,
however, was perceived in terms of its infidel population, which Christians
felt gave them the right to wage wars against the continent. Enslavement of Africans and other pagan
peoples through "just" (properly declared) wars was common, and
acceptance of this practice was solidified with the knowledge that Africans
enslaved and sold their own people (see Slavery in Africa). Soon the enslavement of Africans became one
of the pillars on which 17th- and 18th-century European military enterprises
and economies rested (see Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean). The moral righteousness of the
economy-sustaining institution was only questioned in a few generally
disregarded critiques (see Colonial Critics of Slavery).
When colonized
indigenous peoples were enslaved, however, there was a serious question as to
the morality of their bondage (see Bartolomé de las Casas). Unlike Africans, who were perceived as
inhabitants of infidel and enemy territories subject to slavery, Native
Americans had been conquered and made to submit to the laws and rules of Spain
or Portugal. As a consequence, these
peoples were understood as subjects of the European powers.
The difference
perceived by Europe between native inhabitants and black slaves led to the
creation of separate laws and institutional provisions for the two groups (see
Slave Laws in Colonial Spanish America).
Between 1517 and 1542 the Spaniards expanded their dominion from the
Caribbean (Cuba, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) to include Central America, Mexico,
Peru, and northern Chile, irrevocably changing the lives of indigenous peoples
they found there and the Africans they brought with them. By the end of the 16th century, the Spanish
occupied large areas of the Caribbean and Central and South America. The Portuguese settled on the coast of
Brazil. Some historians estimated the native population of the continent at
roughly eight million at the end of the 17th century; this figure represents
approximately 10 percent of the total population before 1492.
Language: Various European nations dominated the Caribbean between the 17th
and 19th centuries, giving rise to a variety of Creoles in the
Caribbean, including French, Spanish, and English based Creoles. Among the English based Creoles are
Bahamian, Caymanian, Jamaican, Belizean, Virgin Islands Creole, and the
Barbadian. The Spanish based Creoles
include Papiamentu (spoken in Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao). The French based Creoles include Haitian,
Lesser Antillean, Grenada Creole, and Trinidadian.
CHRISTOPHER
COLUMBUS’ CONTRIBUTIONS TO SLAVERY
Thirty Million Human Beings-Victims: The blame for the thirty million or so human beings who have died as a result of Columbus' invasion must not rest entirely on Columbus. He merely initiated the decimation and enslavement of these people when he invaded this continent and shipped five hundred Arawak "Indians" to Spain (two hundred of whom died along the way). He left a legacy of racism and genocide, and for this he must be held accountable. As an individual he directly contributed only a negligible fraction to the death of those millions‑‑‑but it was Columbus who paved the way for others who would continue and expand what he started.
Columbus Day: Supposedly, Columbus Day is a time to honor a great man and to praise the "discovery" of a "New World" which we call America today. When we understand that the invasion and subsequent exploitation of this continent was achieved at the expense of millions of lives and dozens of indigenous cultures, we find more reason to mourn than to celebrate.
Should we impose our late‑twentieth century moral judgments on late‑fifteenth century individuals? After all, "discovery and conquest" were commonplace at the time. If we truly believe that the taking of human lives is morally averse, then that belief should transcend time and encompass any action by any individual at any point in history. Forgiving such atrocities has a grimly transitional implication: Murder was acceptable then, it is intolerable now, but maybe it will be acceptable again someday.
More importantly, we should consider the message being sent: You kill one person and you get the death penalty‑‑‑you kill one million and you get a holiday.
Reputation: Christopher Columbus' reputation has not survived the scrutiny of history, and today we know that he was no more the discoverer of America than Pocahontas was the discoverer of Great Britain. Native Americans had built great civilizations with many millions of people long before Columbus wandered lost into the Caribbean.
Voyage Value To Americans: Columbus' voyage has even less meaning for North Americans than for South Americans because Columbus never set foot on our continent, nor did he open it to European trade. Scandinavian Vikings already had settlements here in the eleventh century, and British fisherman probably fished the shores of Canada for decades before Columbus. The first European explorer to thoroughly document his visit to North America was the Italian explorer Giovanni Caboto, who sailed for England's King Henry VII and became known by his anglicized name, John Cabot. Caboto arrived in 1497 and claimed North America for the English sovereign while Columbus was still searching for India in the Caribbean. After three voyages to America and more than a decade of study, Columbus still believed that Cuba was a part of the continent of Asia, South America was only an island, and the coast of Central America was close to the Ganges River.
Taino Indians Victims-Hispaniola: After he failed to contact the emperor of China, the traders of India or the merchants of Japan, Columbus decided to pay for his voyage in the one important commodity he had found in ample supply ‑ human lives. He seized 1,200 Taino Indians from the island of Hispaniola, crammed as many onto his ships as would fit and sent them to Spain, where they were paraded naked through the streets of Seville and sold as slaves in 1495. Columbus tore children from their parents, husbands from their wives. On board Columbus' slave ships, hundreds died; the sailors tossed the Indian bodies into the Atlantic. A common practice was to bury the dead in the high seas. In fact, that custom is in effect within the US Navy today.
Because Columbus captured more Indian slaves than he could transport to Spain in his small ships, he put them to work in mines and plantations, which he, his family and followers created throughout the Caribbean. His marauding band hunted Indians for sport and profit ‑ beating, raping, torturing, killing, and then using the Indian bodies as food for their hunting dogs. Within four years of Columbus' arrival on Hispaniola, his men had killed or exported one‑third of the original Indian population of 300,000. Within another 50 years, the Taino people had been made extinct [editor's note: the old assumption that the Taino became extinct is now open to serious question] ‑ the first casualties of the holocaust of American Indians. The plantation owners then turned to the American mainland and to Africa for new slaves to follow the tragic path of the Taino.
This was the great cultural encounter initiated by
Christopher Columbus. This is the event
we celebrate each year on Columbus Day.
The United States honors only two men with federal holidays bearing
their names. In January we commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King, Jr.,
who struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the remaining
bonds of slavery in America. In
October, we honor Christopher Columbus, who opened the Atlantic slave trade and
launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history.
Slave Trade
Institutions in Spain and Portugal: The European
colonial enterprise in the Americas necessitated the creation of both
commercial and political institutions of control. In order to regulate the Spanish colonies' trade, the Casa de
Contratación (House of Trade) was established in 1507 in both Seville and
Cádiz. The agency was responsible for
administering the riches coming from the Americas, issuing sailing and slave
licenses, and controlling emigrants, as well as defining the laws of
navigation, commerce, and trade. In
addition, the Council of Indies, established in 1524, was to oversee the
management of the colonies. The council
had legislative and fiscal powers and enjoyed exclusive jurisdiction over the
colonies. It supervised the
implementation of laws, made appointments to posts in the colonial government,
acted as the highest appeal court, and determined geographical boundaries.
A similar institution, Casa do Brasil (House of Brazil), was
established in Lisbon for the administration of the Portuguese colony in the
Americas. A Portuguese treasurer
general who oversaw Portugal’s investments and issued licenses to extract and
exploit different commodities in Brazil controlled fiscal matters in Brazil
controlled fiscal matters in Brazil.
The slave trade proved a lucrative business for more than 200
years. More than 10 million Africans
were forcibly transported to the Americas before the importation of slaves was
abolished in the United States in 1808.
Black and Indian
Bondage: Before the arrival of the first shipments of
African slaves, Spanish and Portuguese colonizers forced many indigenous people
into servitude. Both the encomienda
system of colonial rule over indigenous populations and the enslavement of
Indians as prisoners of war enabled this exploitation soon after the arrival of
the colonizers. The encomienda system
was introduced by Nicolás de Ovando during his term as governor of Hispaniola
(present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) from 1501 to 1509.
With the encomienda,
the Spanish Crown granted colonizers the right to force Indians to work the
land as well as pay tribute to the colonizers in exchange for their overseeing
the community's Christian education and welfare. Land grants could include anywhere from a few indigenous people
to thousands. In the initial decades of
the conquest the Indians were forced to work in mines (see Mining in Latin
America), cultivate crops, build houses, take care of animals, and deliver
goods. The encomienda system thus
became the economic structure of the Spanish conquest. As the encomenderos (grantees) grew
wealthier and acquired political power, the Indian population decreased as a
result of disease and the hard labor conditions. The Spanish Crown tried to restrict the power of the encomenderos
after hearing complaints from the colonies—notably from Bartolomé de las
Casas—regarding their excessive displays of power and abuse of the Indians.
Restrictions and
even the abolition of Indian forced labor were planned in such legislation as
the Laws of Burgos of 1512 and the New Laws for the Good Treatment and
Preservation of the Indians of 1542.
However, limitations on the use of Indian labor caused a general uproar,
as the encomienda system was perceived as essential to the survival and wealth
of the colonies. The Council of Indies
had to partially retract its legislative edicts in 1545. Encomiendas were allowed to continue for at
least another generation after the death of the first beneficiary.
Treatment of Women
by the Caribbean Hispanic Colonial Population: Arrivals, along with the Spanish expansionists, moved to Cuba, the
Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico in the late 15th and early 16th
centuries. Black slaves and freed
people were common in Spanish and Portuguese urban centers like Seville,
Lisbon, and Valencia. Female slaves
performed mostly domestic duties in these cities. The ownership of domestic slaves was a status symbol for
residents of the Spanish peninsula. Thus as Spanish fortune seekers moved into
the newly occupied islands in the Caribbean, some of them brought along their
domestic slaves. The historical record
has ignored the presence of slave and free black women in the early stages of
Spanish colonial expansion in Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and Cuba; nevertheless,
these women were participants in the early difficulties experienced in the new
colonies.
Domestic Labor:
Many women were employed as domestics or worked in food-related artisan
trades. Still, black women were
considered a problematic influence in the islands, and many were victims of the
accusations and punishments of the Inquisition. A sexually unbalanced population, in which men outnumbered women,
also made black women the target of physical abuse and rape. This situation, alongside marriage and
concubinage, made for the spread of “mestizaje.” or interracial mixing between
Africans, Spanish, and Taíno people in the island colonies. Female slaves were coveted not only for
their labor, but also for their reproductive potential. It was the mother who passed down the slave
status in the Hispanic Caribbean.
Planters wanted female slaves in order to multiply their slave holdings
and avoid purchasing "new" slaves from Africa. This strategy intensified during the 19th
century when British pressure to eradicate the slave trade made the direct
importation of Africans more expensive and cumbersome.
Marriage
Restrictions: The masters'
wishes aside, the slave populations in the Hispanic Caribbean did not reproduce
sufficiently to meet the demand for slaves, which required the continuous
importation of bonded people from Africa.
Although Spanish law made it clear that marriages among slaves ought to
be respected, planters made it very difficult for slave families to exist. Notwithstanding, slaves formed families that
withstood the
difficulties of
physical separation.
Also, black women challenged traditional Spanish religious marital practices by living in common law marriages. This practice angered Spanish Catholic Church and colonial officials and was persecuted at various times throughout the colonial period and in the 19th century. The tendency of black women and other women of color to live in common law marriages reflected not only distinct cultural practices, but also skewed sexual demographics in the colonies and the high fees charged by the clergy to provide the sacrament of marriage.
Catholic Church Role in Slavery: In addition, the institutional presence of the Roman Catholic Church was traditionally weak in rural areas and plantations. During the 17th and 18th centuries, slavery was a feeble institution in the Hispanic Caribbean in contrast to the plantation societies in other Caribbean islands such as Barbados, Jamaica, and Saint Kitts. The Hispanic Caribbean colonies received many runaway slaves from the British and French colonies during these two centuries. Slaves who left a non-Spanish colony became free after one year in the Hispanic Caribbean. The only condition for their freedom was converting to Catholicism and going through catechism. As a result, a small but ever-increasing class of free blacks—libertos, as they were called in Spanish—emerged in the Hispanic Caribbean. These black freed people proved to be a problematic group for Spanish officials once sugar-based plantation societies returned to Cuba and Puerto Rico starting in the second half of the 18th century.
Catholic Church Inquisition:
One of the most feared
institutions of the Catholic Church in the Americas was the Inquisition. The Spanish Inquisition was composed of
special tribunals established to try and punish heretics (see Cartagena
de Indias). There never was a separate
Inquisition court in Brazil, but officials from the Inquisition office in
Portugal made investigative visits to the colony, especially in the early 18th
century. Originally, the Inquisition had been directed against those suspected
of practicing the Jewish faith in Spain, Portugal, or the colonies. However, as time went on the Inquisition
became a political instrument through which the cultural and social traditions
of African and indigenous people (religious beliefs, dances, sexuality,
etc.)—often considered deviant and abhorrent—could be controlled and/or
punished (See also Gay and Lesbian Movements in Latin America and the
Caribbean).
Women’s Role in the Economy: Black
women played an important role in the urban economies of the Hispanic Caribbean
during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Many black women roamed the city streets selling foodstuffs
door-to-door. Others sold their goods
near the marketplaces or had small shops. Some black women operated small
food-selling shacks, like the mondonguerías, where tripe stew was sold to the
lower classes within the city. Most of
the domestics slave or free, were black women.
They labored alongside other women of color as laundresses, cooks,
maids, wet nurses, midwives, and servants.
Many black women
served as domestics not only to middle and upper class families but also to the
governmental, military, and religious bureaucracies housed in cities like
Havana and San Juan. Some female slaves
performed such services for other people for a fee, and shared a percentage of
the fee with their masters. This
practice seems to have been widespread in the cities of Havana, San Juan, and
Santo Domingo and seems to have been among the strategies used by planters to
supplement their income in times of economy difficulty. Life in urban areas also provided female
slaves with more personal freedom compared to those working in plantations.
Women Artisan
Skills: Another area of economic activity for black
women was artisan trades such as cigar making.
Although the actual job of rolling and finishing cigars was done by men,
many black women worked in small tobacco shops classifying, stemming, and
stacking tobacco leaves. The access
that female slaves had to additional earnings through domestic work, charging
fees for their services, or street selling allowed them to secure the funds to
pay for their freedom or that of other family members. One special feature of urban life for black
women in the Hispanic Caribbean was the high rate of manumission. Outright manumission, or gradual
self-purchase (known as coartación), was much more common in urban areas than
in rural plantations. Female slaves were
manumitted, or purchased their freedom, more often than male slaves. Plantation life was as difficult for female
slaves as it was for male slaves. Black
women were involved in the arduous agricultural tasks associated with sugarcane
cultivation, including field clearing, planting, weeding, and cane cutting.
Women in Sugar
Production: Only from the industrial side of sugar
producing—working in the boiling and curing houses, where the sugarcane was
crushed and its juice turned into crystals—were female slaves usually excluded. Other black women worked as domestics in the
master's family quarters. This
strenuous work included tending the plantation's gardens, preparing and cooking
meals, repairing, washing and ironing clothes, supervising children, cleaning,
nursing the ill and aged, and tending to the personal requests of the master
and his family.
The advent of plantations in the Hispanic Caribbean changed the
ideological, legal, and economic perception of black women in the region. As racial purity and separation became more
important, churches began to keep different books dividing baptisms, marriages,
and deaths by race. Where Cuba and
Puerto Rico had provided a haven for runaway British, Danish, and French slaves
in the 17th and 18th centuries, punitive laws were passed by the Spanish
government limiting and policing the entry of non-Spanish freed people after
slavery was abolished in other Caribbean colonies.
Women
Rebellion:
Colonial officials feared the potential rebellious and agitating influence of
blacks coming from colonies where slavery had ended. The ghost of the Haitian slave rebellion also haunted the minds
of Hispanic Caribbean planters and of Spanish colonial and military authorities
(see Haitian Revolution).
Black women were
always active in the struggles to eradicate slavery in the Hispanic Caribbean.
Either through quotidian resistance or by involving themselves in larger
uprisings, black women attempted to undermine slavery. In Cuba, for example, the slave Fermina was
sentenced to death by a war council for her participation and leadership in an
1843 revolt. Many black domestics were
accused of attempting to poison their masters or employers. Female slaves often went to court to defend
their rights, be it a violation of a coartación agreement or of the promise of
manumission upon the death of the master.
Black women joined bands of cimarrones (maroons), the term used for
slaves who had escaped to the countryside to avoid the indignities of
plantation bondage.
Hispaniola:
Hispaniola Island, West Indies, in the Caribbean Sea, lying southeast
of Cuba and west of Puerto Rico.
Politically, Hispaniola is divided into the separate countries of Haiti,
which occupies the western third of the island, and the Dominican
Republic. It was named La Isla Española
by Christopher Columbus, who landed on the island during his first voyage in
1492.
The
original inhabitants of Hispaniola were Native Americans of the Arawak group.
They eventually became extinct as a result of exploitation by the early Spanish
colonists. Black African slaves were later imported to take the place of the
Native American laborers. In 1697, by the Treaty of Ryswick, a portion of
Hispaniola was formally ceded to France and became known as Saint-Domingue. The
remaining Spanish section was called Santo Domingo. In 1795, Spain relinquished Santo Domingo to France. General
Jean-Jacques Dessalines expelled the French in 1804 and proclaimed the
independence of the island, which was renamed Haiti. In 1822 Santo Domingo,
which had come under Spanish rule again in 1809, was reunited with the rest of
the island. In 1844 Santo Domingo once
more declared its independence, forming the Dominican Republic, and the island,
as a geographic unit, assumed its former name, Hispaniola. Area of the island,
78,460 sq km (30,290 sq mi).
Haiti Revolution
Uprising: The Haiti
revolution uprising in 1791 by black slaves on the Caribbean island of
Hispaniola began as a rebellion against slavery and French plantation owners,
but became a political revolution that lasted for 13 years and resulted in
independence from France. By 1804 the revolution had destroyed the dominant
white population, the plantation system, and the institution of slavery in the
most prosperous colony of the western hemisphere. The colony then became the first independent black republic in
the world, the republic of Haiti.
Causes of the Revolution: By the late 1700s, the French colony of Saint-Domingue
had developed into the richest European colony in the western hemisphere. With an extensive system of sugar and coffee
plantations based on African slave labor, Saint-Domingue exported more wealth
than all of the British North American colonies combined. A lively trade developed between North
America and Saint-Domingue: New England merchants supplied the island with
equipment, food, and horses in exchange for molasses, a byproduct of sugar
processing, that was made into highly profitable rum.
By 1789 Saint-Domingue's
population consisted of about 450,000 black slaves, 40,000 whites, and 28,000
free blacks and mulattoes (those of mixed black and white ancestry). The small white population was divided
between an upper class of about 10,000 aristocrats and a middle class of about
30,000 shopkeepers, soldiers, artisans, and others. These two groups had little in common. Allied with the wealthy whites were the mulattoes, many of whom
were offspring of the white elite and wanted to share in their privileges. Yet the mulattoes faced discrimination
because of their racial background; in turn, they despised the black slaves, as
did the whites. While the upper class
whites enjoyed a life of indulgence and luxury in Saint-Domingue, the black
slaves had a harsh existence.
Laboring long hours in the fields of Saint-Domingue's sugar, coffee,
and indigo plantations, many died of overwork and inadequate food. The death rate was high: More than 800,000
slaves were imported to the colony in the 1700s, yet in 1789 the population was
about 450,000. Although officially
protected by law from some abuse, in reality slaves could be tortured,
mutilated, or killed by their owners (see Slave Laws in Colonial Spanish
America). Most of Saint-Domingue's
slaves were recent arrivals from Africa, not born into slavery in the colony,
so they retained both the memory of freedom and elements of their
cultures. The African religion of Vodou
or Vodun was widely practiced among the slave population, even though it was
outlawed in the colony. Vodou gave the
slaves a form of cultural expression and rallying point for protest against
their oppressors.
The Rebellion: The outbreak of the French Revolution in
1789 dramatically changed the wealthy French slave colony. The struggle that split France—between the
old order, represented by the nobility and upper classes, and the revolutionary
forces of the lower and middle classes—spilled over into the slave-holding
colonies of the French West Indies.
Saint-Domingue's white population was split: the elites were loyal to
the king, while the middle class supported the revolutionaries, or Jacobins. The mulattoes (of African and European
descent), hoping to improve their lives, espoused the revolutionary ideals of
liberty and equality for themselves, but not for the slaves. With the colony's rulers weakened by
internal conflicts after a legendary Voodoo ceremony in 1791 under the
leadership of Boukman, the black slaves rebelled against their owners, killing
whites and destroying plantations and crops.
By 1793 the slave uprising had become a full-scale civil war. Seeking support to defeat the white elite,
French revolutionary officials abolished slavery in the colony. Fierce fighting between the various groups
continued, while Great Britain and Spain both sent invasion forces, hoping to
take over the French colony.
François Dominique Toussaint Louverture: In the midst of this confusion, a remarkable leader emerged in the colony. François Dominique Toussaint Louverture, a former slave, took part in the slave revolt and, with other black rebel leaders, joined forces with the Spanish army against the French. Highly skilled in military tactics and politics, Toussaint rose to high rank within the Spanish army, but when France abolished slavery, he switched sides. Promoted to general in 1795 by French colonial officials, he helped drive out the Spanish. By 1796 Toussaint ruled the colony as the French governor-general. Over the next four years, he forced the British troops to withdraw and defeated his internal rivals, especially a mulatto group in the south that was destroyed in a bloody race war. By 1801 Toussaint conquered Santo Domingo, the Spanish portion of the island, abolished slavery there, and proclaimed himself governor-general of the island for life. However, he did not declare independence but remained officially loyal to France. To rebuild the colony's economy, Toussaint demanded that both whites and blacks continue to produce their crops without slavery.
Haiti Independence: As Toussaint took charge in Saint-Domingue, Napoleon Bonaparte became
the leader of France. Napoleon sought
to return Saint-Domingue to French control and reinstate slavery as a means of
bringing the colony back to its former prosperity. Napoleon sent a large army to Saint-Domingue to replace Toussaint
with a trusted white general. Toussaint
was tricked onto a ship and was taken to France, where he died in prison. However, the army that he had trained
declared war on the French, led by two of Toussaint's subordinates,
Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christopher.
After a bitter struggle, the former slaves defeated Napoleon's forces,
massacred or drove all whites off the island, and changed the name of the
colony to the aboriginal name "Haiti," which means
"mountainous." The republic
of Haiti (see Haiti: History), created by former slaves, declared its independence
on January 1, 1804.
Effects of the Rebellion on the Louisiana
Purchase: The effects of the Haitian
revolt spread far beyond the island. It
contributed to the end of French colonial ambitions in the western hemisphere,
which led France to sell its vast territory in North America to the United
States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803.
Refugees from Haiti settled in Louisiana, helping to establish that
area's distinct French Creole culture.
The uprising also inspired fear of similar revolts in other
slave-holding areas of the Caribbean and the United States (see Slavery in the
United States). Slaveholders in these
areas isolated Haiti to keep the idea of emancipation from spreading (see
Abolition and Emancipation in Latin America and the Caribbean). Haiti's isolation continued for more than
200 years.
Haiti Vodou: In
the French Colony of Saint-Domingue (present-day Haiti), where a large number
of slaves were from the African kingdom of Dahomey, slavery destroyed
traditional African priesthoods and secret societies. Still, the great Dahomean deities, known as Iwa, came to be
worshipped in secret ceremonies administered by religious leaders (houngans)
who regulated the descent of the Iwa into mediums (ounsis). The bitter experience of enslavement led to
the division of the Iwas into Rada and Petro versions.
The Rada version of the Iwa
is regarded as rooted in Africa and tends to be characterized by tranquility
and generosity (“Rada” derives from Arada, a kingdom in Dahomey during Haiti’s
colonial period). The Petro version of
the Iwa, meanwhile is rooted in the New World and is characterized by
impatience and anger. (“Petro” derives from a certain Dom Pedro, who is
supposed to have led a rebellion of runaway slaves in the 18th
century). Legba, for example, as a Rada
spirit, is the guardian of destiny and preserves the West African notion that
the place of each person is established at birth. The Legba is a positive force, representing fecundity and the
continuity of generations. As a Petro
spirit, in contrast, Legba reflects the deep antagonisms of slave society. He arranges unexpected accidents, works at
night, and commits acts of sorcery. In
a fit of vindictiveness he can unleash people-eating werewolves, who, like slave
catchers, roam the countryside at night to steal people or their possessions.
First Settlement –Hispaniola (Dominican Republic): The island of Hispaniola in the West Indies was the first land settled by explorer Christopher Columbus, who landed on Hispaniola in 1492. This colony became the center of Spanish activity in the Americas until Spanish explorer Hernán Cortés conquered Mexico in 1519. After that, Spanish attention turned to the highly developed civilizations of the American mainland, such as the Aztec and Inca empires, where gold and silver was available. Hispaniola was left behind, a sparsely settled Spanish colony where the native people, the Arawak, had died from warfare, forced labor and the introduction of European diseases such as smallpox. Haitian Army Taking Revenge. This engraving from Marcus Rainsford’s An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Haiti, published in 1805, shows the army of revolted slaves in Haiti (formerly known as Saint-Domingue) taking revenge on white soldiers and plantation owners, Image of the Black in Western Art Project, Harvard University.
Within the next 150 years other European countries, notably England and France, settled the less populated Spanish colonies in the Caribbean. The western portion of Hispaniola was settled by French traders called buccaneers and in 1697 became the French colony of Saint-Domingue, which would later become Haiti. The eastern portion of the island remained Spanish and was called Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic).
Slavery in Cuba, A Colony of Spain: In 1526 the first shipment of African slaves was brought
to Cuba, to labor primarily on the sugar and coffee plantations. The first slave uprising took place just
four years later, and in 1533 there was a slave strike in the mines. The early
black presence can be found reflected in the first major literary work in
17th-century Cuba, a poem titled The Mirror of Patience (El espejo de
paciencia), by Silvestre de Balboa de Troya y Quesada. It describes the kidnapping of Bishop Fray
Juan de las Cabezas Altamirano by the French pirate Gilberto Girón. A bold and brave black man, Salvador Galomón,
kills the kidnapper and saves the eastern town of Holguín from danger. This early literary representation of the
black juxtaposes the injustice of enslavement and the heroism of the black
protagonist.
These two themes were to be
repeated through history. The Indian
and slave rebellions of the early colonization period might thus be regarded as
forerunners to the rebellions that accompanied the massive influx of African
slaves, at the height of the slave trade, in the 19th century. The rebellions similarly had parallels with
the abolitionist and independence movements of the late 19th century.
The slave trade experienced
an economic boom following the demise of sugar in Saint-Domingue (present-day
Haiti) after the Haitian Revolution (1791-1804) and after Spain permitted Cuba,
as of 1818, to trade with the world.
The slave trade from Africa to Cuba had already increased during the
1762-1763 British occupation of Havana, which opened the island to trade and
mercantilism. Over the next half
century it grew rapidly, with an estimated one million African slaves in Cuba
by the early years of the 19th century. Eighty-six percent of these slaves were
imported after 1790, and more than 70 percent after 1817, the year Spain signed
a treaty with Great Britain to end the slave trade, which it later ignored.
With over half the population
in Cuba of African origin or descent by the late 19th century, race and race
mixing took on entirely new dimensions.
With the decimation of the Indian population through war, disease, and
displacement, the Hispanic and the African would form the two major roots of
the nascent Cuban nation (see Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean). Their relations, however, were
turbulent. In 1812 a conspiracy planned
by José Antonio Aponte, a free black carpenter in Havana, in which whites also
participated, sought to overthrow slavery and colonial rule. In 1826 the first armed uprising for
independence took place in Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey Province), led by
Francisco de Agüero and Andrés Manuel Sánchez. Agüero (white) and Sánchez
(mulatto, of mixed African and European ancestry) were executed, becoming the
first martyrs of Cuban independence.
Throughout the 19th century,
Africans in Cuba were allowed to form their own cabildos (councils), initially
based on a specific grouping or "nation" of Africa but later
Pan-African (encompassing several such groupings) and also African-Creole
(including Africans and native-born Afro-Cubans). By the turn of the century, these evolved into the cultural,
political, and mutual aid societies and clubs that would characterize
20th-century black organizations.
United States Interest in Cuba: From the time of its consolidation as a federal republic,
the United States had coveted Cuba.
Before the Civil War, desires to annex the island as a slave state were
expressed by Antiabolitionists in the United States. President Franklin Pierce offered to buy the island in 1852. Pro-expansionist and Antiabolitionist, Pierce
had been advised that Cuba was fast becoming Africanized and a second
Saint-Domingue. Between 1857 and 1861,
President James Buchanan tried to interest the U.S. Congress in buying Cuba,
but Congress was divided over the issue of slavery. This expansionist ambition was mirrored on the island.
Cuban slaveholders saw the
possibility of annexation as protection for their economic interests. Other Cubans simply admired the modern
nation to the north. These annexationist
currents reigned in the more revolutionary aspirations of some in the
independence struggle who sought full independence as well as abolition. In 1851, however, at the height of
annexationist sentiments in the country, Joaquín de Agüero led an uprising
against Spain. The uprising was
accompanied by the first formal declaration of independence by men at arms
against the Spanish colonial government.
Haiti Revolution Impact on Cubans: A major stumbling block to the independence movement and
the economic and social mobility of Afro-Cubans, however, was the unjust
perception of the social and political role of the black, known popularly as
miedo al negro ("fear of the black"). The phobia can be traced to the Haitian Revolution in the late
18th century. Before this time, the
fear of slaves in Cuba was weaker in part because they were fewer and were
outnumbered by the whites. After 1791
the "black fear" would grow with each new shipload of African
slaves. While the wars of independence
erupted throughout the South American continent in 1808, Cuba did not follow
suit, remaining Spain's "ever faithful Isle."
The main reason for this
political immobility by a class that shouldered years of accumulated grievances
against colonial rule was its fear of blacks. This explains its phobia over the
1844 Conspiración de la Escalera (Ladder Conspiracy), which was savagely
repressed by the Spanish colonial authorities, supported by the planter class,
in which thousands of blacks and mulattoes were massacred, including the poet
Gabriel de la Concepción Valdés, known as Plácido. (Throughout the 19th century, literature played a significant
role in exposing the horrors of slavery abroad, in the works of Plácido, those
of the slave poet Franciso Manzano, and in Cirilo Villaverde's classic novel
Cecilia Valdés.)
Abolition of Slavery: The crucible of Cuban nationhood was forged in a struggle
in which Afro-Cubans were an integral political element. The rebels' 1869 Constitution of Guáimaro
proclaimed that "all inhabitants of the Republic at Arms are completely
free," and their Central Assembly of Representatives, meeting in Camagüey,
proclaimed the abolition of slavery.
Fear of blacks, however, played a central role in the war. Spain used it to sow doubt among
conservative factions of the revolutionary forces as to the intentions of black
officers who rose in the ranks, especially Generals José and Antonio
Maceo. These tactics built on already
existing divisions among the forces, comprising erstwhile slaveholders and
slaves, the former in officer capacity and often ambivalent over the issue of
abolition, and many of the latter in more subordinate, if not menial,
roles. These divisions would prove the
downfall of the Mambí (Liberation) Army in the first war. The motto of the elite was "Cuba,
better Spanish than African."
The Treaty of Zanjon: The Treaty of
Zanjón ended the Ten Years' War in 1878, but it recognized the freedom only of
those slaves who had fought in the revolutionary ranks. The Maceos, among other black generals, for
attaining neither independence nor abolition, opposed it. When these veterans tried to resuscitate the
independence movement in the so-called Little War of 1879-1880, the colonial
press conducted a virulent campaign portraying it as a race uprising. Playing on the fact that the pillars of
revolution in Oriente Province — Antonio and José Maceo, Quintín Banderas,
Guillermón Moncada, and Mariano Torres — were black, the Spanish press spread
rumors of a black republic in the making.
General Antonio Maceo was seen as the black caudillo from the east and
was accused of having designs on the presidency.
Abolishment of Slavery: Though the slave trade to Cuba was officially outlawed in
1865, both slavery and the trade continued.
It was only during the Ten Years' War, in 1873, that the last known
slave shipment landed in Cuba. (In
addition to African slaves, an estimated 150,000 to 250,000 Chinese contract
laborers were taken to Cuba from 1847 to 1887, when Spain and China signed a
treaty that ended the flow.) In 1880
(the year sugar production topped 700,000 tons, almost 600,000 of which was
exported to the U.S.), the colonial authorities decreed the abolition of
slavery but introduced a system akin to apprenticeship, known as patronato,
whereby former masters would remain owners over an eight-year period. The patronato was rendered inoperative and
ended earlier than originally planned, in 1886.
Declaration of Yara: The initial declaration of the Ten Years' War, known as
the Declaration of Yara, was made at a sugar mill and invoked freedom for the
slaves as well as independence from Spain, reflecting the extent to which
issues of abolition and independence were intertwined. However, neither the war of 1868-1878 nor
that of 1879-1880 coalesced as a popular uprising. Such an uprising occurred only after the abolition of slavery in
1886, with the second war of independence from 1895 to 1898 (see
Spanish-Cuban-American War). Many of
the rank and files of that war and its officers were black. They joined forces with white Cubans under
the progressive call to forge a republic "with all and for the good of
all." These were the words of José
Marti, a Cuban of Hispanic origin, who in 1892, while living in exile in the
U.S., formed the Cuban Revolutionary Party.
A great thinker, Marti had a genius for mobilizing men and women across
classes and races with a vision of social justice in an independent Cuba. After returning to the island to fight for
its independence, Marti died in battle in 1895.
Image of the Mulatta in Latin America and the
Caribbean: The term mulatta is a social
construction created by colonizers to signify the racial mixing of people of
African and European ancestry with the intent of “whitening” African physical
and cultural traits. The image of the mulatta is inextricably tied to the
violence of forced miscegenation of the female African slave by the European
slaveholder beginning in the 16th century. In the European imagination, the mulatta has come to signify the
vulnerable yet highly sexualized women whose sole ambition is to “better”
herself by marrying a white, European man and bearing children whose African
ancestry is not physically apparent.
By wishing to gain legal
status (see Slave Laws in Colonial Spanish America and Colonial Latin America
and the Caribbean) for her mixed children in the colonies, the mulatta
represents a threat to the racial purity of the European family. The image of the mulatta thus embodies a
contradiction, fulfilling both the desire to whiten the Latin American and
Caribbean population and the fear that non-Europeans will attain social and
political privilege in the emerging nations. (see Slave Laws in Colonial
Spanish America and Colonial Latin America and the Caribbean). The largest
concentration of mulattas are in Brazil, Cuba, and Puerto Rico.
Cuban Santeria: In contrast to Haitian Vodou, but like Candomble in Brazil and Shango
in Trinidad, Cuban Santeria is based on the Yoruba pantheon of deities or
orishas. A large population of the
700,000 Africans brought to Cuba, were Yorubas, including numerous priests and
priestesses. As in Brazil and Trinidad,
enslaved religious leaders established followings in Catholic religious
brotherhoods, then moved out of them to create a religion that was both a
continuation of traditional African practices and an adaptation to the new
needs and experiences of the present.
Santeria is now practiced in the residencies of priests or priestesses
who act as godfathers or godmothers to families of mediums. These fictive kin groups, which may include
as few as six and may include as many as 30 or 40 people, that are structured
by seniority of initiation into medium-ship.
One or more of the orishas will possess mediums.
The orishas of Santeria are
selective reinterpretations of the Yoruba pantheon. Among the Yoruba, Elegua is an erotic, phallic god invoked in
rituals of fertility. In Cuba, in the
form of Elegua, the god has lost these associations, for slaves had little
incentive to encourage their own fertility. He has become more sinister, for he
may now help to kill and poison enemies and masters. As the gatekeeper to the other gods, he has come to be associated
in Cuba with Saint Peter, the Catholic saint who holds the keys to heaven.
In Cuba, too, as in Haiti,
Ogun is associated with resistance; but unlike in Haiti, where resistance
became revolution, the Cuban Ogun avoids overt rebellion. Ogun’s traditional connection with warfare
became transmuted in Cuba into the sentiments of passive resistance and a
burning thirst for justice. His rituals
include, symbolically, the chains
of enslavement and torture, and the machetes and picks of slave
labor. His Catholic counterpart became
Saint John the Baptist, in part because this figure wished to bring about a
revolution without being able fully to do so himself.
There are a number of Yoruba
divinities that govern water, whether the ocean or rivers; these goddesses tend
to have strongly sexual overtones and to be associated with the celebration of
fertility, large families, and many descendants. In Cuba, too, there is Yemaya, the spirit of the ocean and salt
water, and Oshun, the spirit of rivers and sweet water. Here, however, these figures are not about
creating and celebrating large families.
Yemaya exemplifies the sober virtues of motherhood-care taking, wisdom,
nurturance-and is associated with the Virgin Mary. Oshun has become a goddess of youthful beauty and coquetry. Hers is not a sexuality that aims to create
large families but rather to remind devotees of the limits of vanity. She too is associated with one of the
avocations of Mary.
Of special importance in Cuba
is the spirit of Babalu-Aye. In Africa
this is a minor, secondary divinity, but in Cuba, where death and disease under
slavery became rampant, this healing god became prominent. Not surprisingly, he became identified with
Saint Lazarus, the Catholic saint who is the patron of skin diseases. Thus in the end, the pantheon of African
deities that once existed to express and celebrate the intense joys and hopes
of life have become in Santeria expressions of the longing to overcome
oppression and reminders of the limits of human power, desire, and bodies.
MARIA GRAJALES AND JOSE MARTI CONTRIBUTIONS TO
EMANCIPATION
Maria Grajales: Few black women of the colonial period have had their contributions
recognized by historians of the Hispanic Caribbean. A notable exception is
Mariana Grajales, mother of the famous Cuban 19th-century pro-independence
leader Antonio Maceo. Grajales, the mother of thirteen children (nine of them
died in the independence wars against Spain), has been canonized as a secular
symbol of protest and rebellion against colonialism in Cuba. She ran a hospital
for wounded rebels during the Ten Years' War (1868-1878), the first major war
fought by Cubans for independence from Spain. Grajales also became famous for
compelling one of her younger sons to go into the battlefield upon seeing her
son Antonio arrive at the hospital seriously wounded. Grajales was exiled from
Cuba at the end of the war and lived in Kingston, Jamaica, until her death at
age 85 in 1893.
Jose Marti, the Cuban Liberator. Martí, José (1853-1895), poet, journalist, political
activist, diplomat, writer of fiction, essayist, art and literary critic, and
playwright. Martí is one of the major
figures of 19th-century Latin America.
He is regarded by Cubans across the political spectrum as the father of
Cuba's independence. His collected
works span some 28 volumes, and include exquisite poetry, insightful essays on
Whitman and Emerson, impassioned political analysis, and a remarkable book of
children's literature, La Edad de Oro (1889).
While
still an adolescent, Martí embraced the cause of Cuban independence, founding
the newspaper La Patria Libre in 1869.
He was imprisoned and then banished for writing a letter denouncing a
Spanish fellow student. After 1871 Martí spent a great deal of his life outside
of Cuba (Mexico, Guatemala, Spain), and
most of the years between 1881 and 1895 in New York, where he dedicated himself
to the Cuban independence movement as brilliant orator, journalist,
fund-raiser, and political leader. He
often wrote for the New York Herald, and his essays and articles on the
United States dealt with issues of racism, social inequality, and U.S. imperial
aims in Latin America, American culture, and even Chinese funerals.
In
1892, while still in New York, he founded the Cuban Revolutionary Party (PRC),
to lead the struggle for Cuban independence. In establishing the PRC, Martí
envisioned a vehicle for establishing a civilian, republican regime on the
island. In 1895 Martí returned to Cuba
to fight in the war against Spain but died in a minor skirmish the same year.
Martí's
writings on race are numerous and varied.
He wrote about racism against indigenous peoples, blacks, Chinese, and
Italians. In general, these works deal with racism in Latin America or Cuba,
and in the United States. Martí wrote
convincingly about the pervasive racism in the United States after the
abolition of slavery.
Few
denunciations of racism have been written with the passion, intelligence,
poetry, and eloquence shown by Martí.
He not only saw racism as destructive and degrading but also as a
divisive element in society. Having lived through the Ten Years' War (1868-1878),
a failed attempt to win independence from Spain, he was aware of how the lack
of unity had damaged the Cuban independence cause. This concern stayed with him as he organized, fought, and died in
the second war for independence, the Spanish-Cuban-American War (1895-1898). In
essays such as "Nuestra América," but even more so in "Mi
raza," Martí energetically addressed racial tensions and divisions. In the latter essay he wrote: "A man is
more than being white, more than a mulatto, more than black. A Cuban is more than being white or mulatto
or black. On the battlefields, dying
for Cuba, both black and white souls have ascended to the heavens." The essay ends as follows: "In Cuba there is great nobility of character, in
blacks and whites."
Three
criticisms can be made of Martí's views
on race: first, that they were too abstract. Martí's views still owe a huge
debt to the Enlightenment, and his view of race was expressed from the
standpoint of humanity, an abstract universal concept. Second, this abstract universalism carried
over into his nationalism. His appeals
to Cuban national unity made him see racial perspectives as divisive and
distracting from the great common goal of achieving Cuban independence. This is understandable given the historical
circumstances within which he operated.
Third, as a result of these two appeals, to humanity and nationhood, the
historical specificity of blacks in Cuba is not addressed, which some critics
have called a discourse of negation or denial.
As Enrique Patterson has pointed out, in 1895 Afro-Cubans fought as
humans and as Cubans, but as soon as the war was over they were treated again
as blacks.
Still, Martí's thoughts on
blacks and racism in general formed an essential part of Cuban discourse on
race. Its appeal to humanity and nationhood, despite its attempt to transcend
difference and its lack of specificity, are nonetheless key components in
understanding the history of civil and human rights of the Afro-Cuban
population of the island.
PUERTO RICO
SLAVERY
Historical
Perspectives: Puerto Rico exemplifies
the complexities of race relations and the use of terminology and definitions
to describe them. Considered by some as
"the whitest of all the Antilles," Puerto Ricans are usually
described as mostly Hispanic, a homogeneous race of mixed people. This conception of the Puerto Rican
underestimates the African component, one that has had a significant impact on
the culture and ethnic composition of Puerto Rico. The African traditions brought to Puerto Rico were syncretized
with the Spanish, the Taíno, and, later, the Anglo-American traditions to
produce a rich cultural and ethnic amalgam.
The racial mixture between blacks and whites has shaped the conception
of race in Puerto Rico. There has been
a growing scholarly interest in the Creole blacks and their importance in the
formation of the Puerto Rican society (see José Luis González), in contrast to
the traditional history that has focused on the actions of the ruling white
Creole elite.
Traditional United
States conceptions of blackness (anyone with some African blood) and whiteness
are of limited use in assessing Puerto Rican conceptions of race. The population's seemingly genial attitude
toward race relations in Puerto Rico gives the impression of a society free
from racism and prejudice. Yet this
idea is proved wrong by the social, political, economic status of Afro-Puerto
Ricans.
Native American
Presence: The recorded
history of Puerto Rico began with the arrival of Columbus on November 19,
1493. Puerto Rico was inhabited by the
aboriginal Indians named Taínos, who called their island Boriquén (or
Borinquén). Since there is no reliable
documentation, estimates regarding the number of Taínos have ranged from the
unlikely figure of 8 million to the more realistic 30,000. The colonization of San Juan, the name given
to the island by the Spanish, began in 1508 when Juan Ponce de León established
the first settlement. The Taíno
population decreased dramatically during the first period of colonization as a
result of the spread of European diseases, various rebellions, and the
encomiendas system, which was the regime of forced labor that distributed Taíno
Indians among the settlers. Although
the Taínos were legally exempted from slavery by royal decree in 1542, rebel
Indians were enslaved and exploited by the colonists. By the end of the 16th century the Taínos were virtually extinct.
Africans Arrival in Puerto Rico: The first Africans arrived with Columbus in 1493.
However, the slave trade was not authorized until 1513. Many free blacks, mainly from Seville,
emigrated, searching for better opportunities in the New World. They were mainly ladinos, or Christianized
blacks, who came to serve as domestic servants. In Puerto Rico there were always larger numbers of free blacks
than slaves. These free blacks worked
in the mines and helped the militia to subjugate the Taínos. They acted individually and moved frequently
in search of better work opportunities.
Since the Taíno population
was rapidly diminishing, many colonists favored the introduction of black
slaves as a substitute for the Indian work force. African slaves were initially used to search for gold. Yet during the first half of the 16th
century the slave population remained relatively small. Only 1500 enslaved Africans were legally
introduced to Puerto Rico from 1536 to 1553.
Throughout the 17th century the legal trade remained very limited,
although an undetermined number of African slaves were introduced as
contraband.
The Trade of Enslaved Africans: The sugar industry became the most important economic activity of Puerto Rico in the 19th century. Spain grew more interested in the economic development of the Antilles as a way of regaining control of the mainland. There was a boom in sugar production in Cuba, Spanish Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico, leading to increased slave importation from West Africa. While information on the slave trade to Puerto Rico is incomplete, the available records indicate that Senegal, Sudan, and Guinea were major sources.
The black population was concentrated in the coastal sugar plantations, in places like Mayagüez, Guayama, and Ponce, in the southern region of the island. The number of blacks slaves and free pardos (mulattoes) grew rapidly between 1820 and 1840. For example, from 5037 slaves in 1765, the number grew to 21,730 in 1821. In the 1830s women constituted almost half of the slave population. They were preferred because they could give birth to more slaves as well as work on the plantations. The forced immigration of Africans reached its peak by the 1840s. The 1845 census shows that there were 216,083 whites, 175,000 free coloreds, and 51,265 slaves in Puerto Rico.
Sugar and
Slaves:
Puerto Rico’s economy underwent a major transformation with the
introduction of large sugar plantations.
Puerto Rico began growing sugarcane on the island in the early 16th
century, but it did not become a dominant crop until the 19th century. By mid-19th century, the island had more
than tripled the amount of sugar it was exporting. Along with Cuba, Puerto Rico became one of the leading Spanish
sugar colonies.
There were several reasons why Puerto Rico’s sugar industry grew at such a rapid pace. One was the Haitian Slave Revolt, in which slaves in the nearby French colony of Saint-Domingue (on the island of Hispaniola) rose in rebellion against their masters in 1791. This uprising inspired a political revolution that led to the formation of the independent nation of Haiti in 1804.
Domingue
was the world’s leading producer of sugar.
By 1804 Saint-Domingue’s sugar production had declined sharply as a
result of the turmoil and economic instability resulting from the revolt.
Without Saint-Domingue’s
sugar on the world market, sugar prices rose. In response, Puerto Rico began to
produce more sugar. Furthermore, many
of Saint-Domingue’s French sugar planters immigrated to Puerto Rico, mainly to
the western region of Mayagüez, and they brought with them money and
expertise. The Spanish government
helped expand Puerto Rican sugar production in 1815 by passing the Cédula de
Gracias, which relaxed trade restrictions with foreign nations. They also encouraged whites and free blacks
and mulattos to immigrate to the island, bringing their slaves with them.
Large-scale sugar production
was heavily dependent upon slave labor, and Puerto Rico began to import more
African slaves. Although slaves began
to be imported in the 1500s, shortly after Spain authorized slavery, they
remained a small part of the population for the next three centuries. In 1765 there were only about 5,000 slaves
in the colony. By 1830, with a new emphasis on sugar cultivation, there were
more than 30,000 slaves. Although the size of the slave population increased,
Puerto Rico did not become a society whose central character was determined by sugar and slaves. In fact,
between the mid-1800s and the abolition of slavery in 1873, the number of slaves
actually decreased.
Because farmers cultivated
several other important crops in addition to sugar, Puerto Rico had a much more
balanced economy than colonies with stronger sugar sectors. Coffee, which small
landholders could grow, became an important crop during the 19th century. In
addition, a large population of farmers without slaves
continued to grow tobacco, fruits and vegetables, and other subsistence crops.
The Puerto Rican slave
population during the 19th century never amounted to more than roughly 10
percent of the island’s population. In
several geographical regions, however, like Ponce and Mayagüez, the proportion
of slaves was much higher and the slave system was harsher. Conditions for slaves varied greatly
according to where they worked and what they did. Throughout the Americas, slaves on sugar plantations in general
suffered the most brutal labor conditions of all slaves. Slaves who lived in the larger cities, such
as San Juan, and worked as artisans, water carriers, or street vendors, to
mention only a few possibilities, generally did not labor under as extreme
conditions.
Puerto Rico in the 18th and 19th
Centuries: In the 18th century Puerto
Rico's economy remained underdeveloped because Spain refused to see the island
as anything other than a military outpost.
It was not until 1815 that the economic development of Puerto Rico
received official support, when Ferdinand VII issued the Real Cédula de
Gracias, which liberalized trade, offered incentives for immigrants, and opened
Puerto Rican ports to legal commerce.
It was also an attempt to "whiten" the island because, at the
time, the population was mainly black and mulatto (of African and European
descent).
The Trade of Enslaved Africans: The sugar industry became the most important economic
activity of Puerto Rico in the 19th century.
Spain grew more interested in the economic development of the Antilles
as a way of regaining control of the mainland. There was a boom in sugar
production in Cuba, Spanish Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico, leading to
increased slave importation from West Africa.
While information on the slave trade to Puerto Rico is incomplete, the
available records indicate that Senegal, Sudan, and Guinea were major
sources. The black population was
concentrated in the coastal sugar plantations, in places like Mayagüez,
Guayama, and Ponce, in the southern region of the island. The number of blacks slaves and free pardos
(mulattoes) grew rapidly between 1820 and 1840. For example, from 5037 slaves in 1765, the number grew to 21,730
in 1821.
In the 1830s women
constituted almost half of the slave population. They were preferred because they could give birth to more slaves
as well as work on the plantations. The
forced immigration of Africans reached its peak by the 1840s. The 1845 census shows that there were
216,083 whites, 175,000 free coloreds, and 51,265 slaves in Puerto Rico. Forced
immigration rapidly declined primarily because of the inability of Puerto Rican
plantation owners, or hacendados, to compete against the Cuban slave owners in
the international slave market. For
example, in 1840 the bozales, or African-born slaves, constituted 46 percent of
the total slave population in Ponce, the city with the largest number of slaves
at the time. By 1872 they represented
only 18 percent. The last enslaved
Africans who came to the island were relatively young and came from Nigeria,
Ghana, and Zaire.
Resistance and the Abolition of Slavery : As in the rest of the Americas, the enslaved population
of Puerto Rico resisted the slave system.
The first recorded rebellion against European domination in the
hemisphere occurred in 1514 and was jointly planned and executed by Taínos and
Africans. Numerous revolts,
conspiracies, and individual escapes occurred in different municipalities
throughout the island from 1775 to 1873.
For example, between 1795 and 1848, 22 conspiracies were reported. These acts of resistance occurred mostly in
the towns of Guayama and Ponce, where in 1821 the slave Marcos Xiorro revolted
without success but achieved legendary status among the slaves.
Treatment of the Slaves: For most slaves, to run away was the only solution to
escape from a life of oppressive work and inhumane treatment. For example, slaves were labeled with a
red-hot iron called a carimbo, used to prevent them from being illegally
introduced to the island. They were
frequently whipped. Not even pregnant
women were exempt; they were forced to lie on the ground with their bellies in
a dug-out hole (designed to protect the unborn slave) and then they were
whipped (see Punishment of Slaves in Colonial Latin America and the
Caribbean). The slaves who successfully
escaped to the mountains were called cimarrones. In Puerto Rico, there were never enough of them to take over the
land or proclaim a war against their oppressors. It was common practice for the cimarrones to set fire to the cane
fields as a means of attracting the militia's attention in order to steal their
weapons. Owners controlled and closely
watched any slave gatherings.
Revolt Conspiracies: Sometimes the slaves planned conspiracies and revolts
when they got together to play and dance bomba. They risked being found out by their master/overseer and exposed
by other slaves. Colonial authorities
encouraged antagonistic relations between slaves by granting liberty to those
cimarrones who turned in another escaped slave. They also gave freedom and 500 pesos to blacks who reported any
kind of slave conspiracy. Some slaves
bought their liberty by paying their owner; however, not many could afford to
do this. One slave annually was awarded
freedom because of good behavior; some bought their children's freedom when
they were baptized. Others escaped
bondage by committing suicide. Many of
them believed their spirit would return to Africa after they died. Other fugitive slaves escaped to Haiti and
Santo Domingo. Given the large free
black labor force on the island, some slaves tried to escape their bondage by
passing as free workers, moving from town to town until they were discovered.
Improvement of Slave Treatment: In 1826 Miguel de la Torre, the governor of Puerto Rico,
enacted the first regulation for slave treatment, which was inspired by the
increasing number of conspiracies. It
required the slave owner to feed slaves properly and provide medical aid in the
case of acute illness. Domestic slaves
had to convert to Catholicism and remain obedient to authorities and respectful
of whites. The regulation imposed harsh
penalties for rebellious slaves, including slashing and imprisonment.
Proclamation Against the African Race: In May 1848 Governor Juan Prim adopted the infamous Bando
contra la Raza Africana (Proclamation Against the African Race). It was an oppressive ordinance directed
against all people of African descent, including free blacks. All blacks were subject to court-martial for
any offense. The proclamation also
imposed the penalty of "hand cutting" to those free persons of
African descent who raised a weapon against whites, even if the aggression was
justified. Those slaves found guilty
were executed. Harsh prison sentences
were imposed on any black who insulted or threatened a white man.
Repeal of the Proclamation: The succeeding governor, Juan de la Pezuela, abolished
Prim's measures in November of the same year, but rebellions and conspiracies
continued. The system of slavery
started to erode in Puerto Rico after the 1850s, with the beginning of Puerto
Rico's independence movement. At that
time, independence and abolition went hand in hand with political radicalism.
Spanish Abolition Society: Thus the first goal of the independence movement was to
end forced labor. The Sociedad Abolicionista
Española (Spanish Abolitionist Society) was founded in 1855 by Ramón Emeterio
Betances and a group of white Creoles who secretly worked against the
institution of slavery. They promised
freedom to their slaves if they participated in the revolution.
Grito de Lares: After being exiled in 1867, Betances helped foment the Grito de Lares
in 1868, which was the first independence revolt against Spain. Although the Lares revolt failed, it
catalyzed the abolition process. Spain
was not willing to grant independence to Puerto Rico after Grito de Lares, but
it realized that slavery could no longer be maintained in the island.
Moret Law:
In 1870 the Spanish government passed the Moret Law, which provided for the
liberation of children born between 1868 and 1870 and those slaves over 60
years of age. Under this partial
abolition statute, about 10,000 slaves were set free in Puerto Rico. More than
90 percent of the slaves at this time were criollos (Creoles). On March 22, 1873 slavery was completely
abolished, hastened by the economic situation of the plantation owners. The plantation economy in Puerto Rico had
declined after 1850. The slave-owning
class had neither the infrastructure nor the cash flow of their Cuban
counterparts, and most of them were in debt by the 1860s. Therefore, they were not in an economically
viable position to oppose abolition effectively. These factors marked the end of the old plantation system of haciendas,
characterized by small and midsize plantations owned by white Creoles, and
marked the beginning of one of Puerto Rico's worst economic crises. For the former slaves, this period meant the
continuation of harsh conditions under an obligatory contract system in which
they were paid but had to rely on their owners to survive.
Distinguished Blacks with Slave Ancestry: People of African descent, predominantly free,
constituted the majority of the island's inhabitants. The great majority lived restricted lives, with no control over
where they lived or worked, no freedom to decide whom to marry, and no access
to social institutions. Nevertheless,
some managed to secure a rudimentary education; rented or owned land, stores,
and houses; and attained important positions.
Distinguished Blacks in the Segregated Militia: For example, in 1845, reports mentioned Manuel Elías, a
free colored silversmith who owned three houses and had three slaves. María Francisca Ferrer owned a house, two
male slaves, and saved an impressive amount of money. Also, Micaela Pizarro apparently was in the real estate business
and owned slaves. Free people of color
used their legal position to acquire some wealth even when they had to deal
with racial prejudice. Some inherited property
from their masters. As in the rest of
the Spanish America, the free colored men had to serve in the segregated
militia.
Vital Defense Role: In Puerto Rico, however, they
had the right by royal decree to bear arms, even in times of peace, and to
protect the island in the event of a slave revolt, an insurrection, or any kind
of attack or invasion. These men played
a vital role in the defense of the island, especially resisting the English
attack of 1797. Apparently, whites were
not threatened by the fact that colored men were in charge of defense. The number of free blacks and pardos
increased more rapidly than the number of whites between 1820 and 1840.
Cholera Epidemic: They suffered more than whites
from the consequences of the cholera epidemic that claimed thousands of lives
in the second half of the century. They
also had to cope, more than whites, with the deterioration of the public health
system at the same time. For these
reasons, and the fact that the racial classifications changed, the white
population in the second half of the century appeared to grow more rapidly. The cholera epidemic also had a great impact
on the labor force, and the number of enslaved people declined. Between 1838 and 1868 the government
improved the mechanisms of control by implementing mandatory labor laws that
affected all laboring sectors, whites as well as blacks and pardos.
White Designation and Mixture of Races: The
increasing numbers of those classified as “white” also reflected the fluidity
of racial definitions. In a context in
which few could claim “purity of blood” and whiteness was the preferred
designation, many simply elected to emphasize European ancestry. Under Spanish law, “whiteness” could be
purchased, and those who accumulated sufficient wealth paid for an official
change in their records. Free colored
people lived in an elaborate caste system, where the degree of whiteness
determined their position and possibilities in the colonial society. The stratification of the Puerto Rican
society resulting from this system granted the superiority to the whites over
the pardos and blacks. The mixture
between races was associated with illegitimacy and provided whites with another
reason for rejecting blacks. Still,
limpieza de sangre, or purity (whitening) of blood, through marrying a
lighter-skinned person, was the way to
ascend in the social class structure.
Light-skinned people had better economic and social possibilities. The government always wanted to maintain
control over the laboring population, white and black, slave and free.
Labor Classification Evaluation: All men between 16
and 60 years old who did not own or rent land were called jornaleros, or
workers who earn a salary. In 1849 Juan
de la Pezuela instituted what is known as la libreta (the notebook), which
stated that every jornalero had to carry a notebook in which the owner made
notes of the worker’s behavior.
Authorities revised la libreta and labeled as “lazy” anyone who was not
earning a salary, in which case the worker had to move to another town. This practice often tied the workers to
their owner’s land and promoted complete dependency.
Creole Blacks:
By the end of the 19th century, the majority of blacks in Puerto Rico were
"Creole blacks," born and raised on the Island. Creole blacks were better characterized as
black Puerto Rican rather than Africans living in a foreign Caribbean
island. While preserving many of the
African traditions, blacks adopted much of the Spanish culture and were
instrumental in maintaining aspects of the Taíno culture as well. Although
Roman Catholicism was the only recognized religion, the vast majority of the
population practiced syncretic forms, combining Christian images and traditions
with African beliefs. There was a
paucity of Roman Catholic clergy and other resources (doctors, etc.), a
reflection of Spain's general neglect of Puerto Rico. Thus, lay forms of religion were often the only option for the
populace.
ABOLITIONISTS
OF SLAVERY OF PUERTO RICO
Although
he was officially considered white, Betances proudly affirmed that he was of
African descent. Born to a well-to-do family in Cabo Rojo, Puerto Rico,
Betances was sent to study in Toulouse, France, at the age of ten. He later
moved to Paris and in 1855 graduated from medical school.
In
1856 Betances returned to Puerto Rico. At that time an epidemic of cholera hit
the island and killed more than 30,000 people from all social levels of the
population. The plague lasted more than a year and Betances was exceptionally
compassionate in looking after poor patients, including slaves. His medical
service to the underprivileged and oppressed during the plague caused him to
become known as "doctor of the poor."
The
colony's political and social problems concerned Betances as much as the health
of his patients. Convinced that slavery was the cruelest institution of the
colonial regime , Betances was instrumental in spearheading the antislavery movement
in Puerto Rico
(see Slavery in Latin America
and the Caribbean). He founded a secret abolitionist society made up of a small
group of criollos (people of European descent born in the Americas). The
group liberated the newborn children of slaves by buying their freedom upon
baptism. The society's goal was to reduce the number of new slaves to a
minimum. As a consequence of his abolitionist activity, Betances was forced
into exile by the colonial authorities.
After
a few years in Europe Betances returned to Puerto Rico in 1865 and immediately
resumed his liberation campaign. Betances also collaborated with members of
Cuba’s independence movement. He concluded that since Spain was not willing to
end slavery and to grant democratic rights to its colonies, the only solution
was to fight for independence. He proposed the creation of the Antilles
Confederation of independent Cuba, Santo Domingo, and Puerto Rico. In 1867
Betances was again forced to leave the island after the government received
information about his plans to organize a revolt against Spain.
From
exile in 1868 Betances headed El Grito de Lares, the first military
attempt to overthrow the Spanish government in Puerto Rico. The colonial army
controlled the insurrection in a matter of days. However, the patriotic gesture
of the rebellious criollos stood as the first nationalist act against colonial
oppression in the history of Puerto Rico.
The
attempted revolution put additional pressure on Spain to end slavery. On March 22, 1873, slavery was finally abolished in Puerto Rico.
Betances continued his struggle for the independence of the Caribbean and
provided important intellectual support to the Cuban war of independence.
Although Betances did not meet his goal of liberating Puerto Rico, his life and
political thought had a significant impact on the development
of the Puerto Rican national identity. He died in Paris in 1898, a few months
after Puerto Rico was ceded to the United States as a result of the
Spanish-Cuban-American War.
Albizu Campos: Albizu Campos, Pedro (1893-1965), Afro-Puerto Rican
nationalist leader of African descent, considered by many to be the foremost
advocate of Puerto Rico's independence and one of the most controversial
figures in political and social struggles of the 20th century.
A
passionate speaker and outspoken critic of United States imperialism and the
1898 invasion and occupation of Puerto Rico, Pedro Albizu Campos spent many
years in prison for his role in the pro-independence nationalist movement,
during the turbulent years of the 1930s through the 1950s. He opposed the annexation of Puerto Rico by
the United States when the Spanish ceded the island after the
Spanish-Cuban-American War (1895-1898).
For Albizu, Puerto Ricans—ethnically mixed and culturally different—were
not, and should not be, Americans.
Independence was the only legitimate and anti-imperialist solution to
the island's status.
From
an early age Albizu stood out as an excellent student. He grew up in the city of Ponce, a
municipality in southern Puerto Rico, where he received a grant that gave him
the opportunity to study chemical engineering at the University of
Vermont. He later graduated from the Harvard Law
School, where he received a scholarship for his outstanding achievements. During this time, he showed a great sympathy
for the independence movements in Ireland and India.
Albizu,
who had inherited his mother's dark skin color, was a victim of the
institutionalized racism in the U. S. As an army private, he was assigned to a
segregated Negro battalion. He later
visited the South and witnessed the discrimination against and mistreatment of
blacks in that part of the U. S. Upon his return to Puerto Rico, he also
confronted the racial prejudice of the dominant Creole class, which resented
his intellectual
and social achievements and the fact that he was proud of his humble origins.
Shortly
after returning to Puerto Rico, Albizu entered the Nationalist Party. From 1927
to 1929, he visited the Dominican Republic, Haiti, Cuba, Mexico,
Peru, and Venezuela promoting the cause of Puerto Rican independence. Drawing on the experiences of 19th-century
patriots such as Ramón Emeterio Betances, José Martí, and Simón Bolívar, who
had struggled against Spanish colonialism, Albizu argued that Puerto Rico's independence
was a necessary step toward the liberation of Latin America from U.S.
imperialism. For Albizu, independence
was not merely a desirable goal; it was a moral imperative. His political convictions were influenced by
his Catholic religious conception of the world.
Upon
his return to Puerto Rico, Albizu was elected president of the Nationalist
Party in 1930. After his party lost in
the 1932 polls, he adopted a radical political stance that welcomed
nonelectoral means, including violence, in order to end the colonial status of
Puerto Rico. As a result of a series of
violent clashes between nationalists and the police, Albizu was incarcerated by
U.S. federal authorities for conspiring to overthrow the government by
force. Albizu spent six years in a federal
prison in Atlanta (1937-1943), followed by four years on probation in New
York. In 1947 Albizu returned to Puerto
Rico and was received by many as a hero.
In
October 1950, the military faction of the Nationalist Party started an
ill-fated insurrection in different parts of Puerto Rico, known as the Revolt
of 50. The U.S. National Guard promptly
put an end to the revolt. Simultaneously, two nationalists made an attack on
the life of President Truman at Blair House in Washington, D.C. Although Albizu did not participate directly
in these events, he was arrested under Puerto Rico's "gag laws" (laws
prohibiting antigovernment inflammatory speech) for having incited the
insurrection through his public speeches, and was sentenced to 53 years in
prison. But in 1953, after three years
in solitary confinement in a local prison, Albizu received an executive pardon
due to his declining health.
In
1954 four nationalists opened gunfire at the House of Representatives of the
United States, wounding five congressmen.
Albizu was immediately arrested in his house in Puerto Rico; his
pardoned was revoked, and he was jailed in the same prison that he had left
only a few months earlier. Albizu's health deteriorated dramatically during
this last period of imprisonment, which he spent between prison and hospital
admissions (1955-1964). Suffering from
arteriosclerosis and a delicate heart condition, Albizu was finally released
from prison. He died on April 21, 1965.
More than 100,000 attended his burial in San Juan.
Albizu's
uncompromising quest for independence is for some Puerto Ricans the highest
possible example of dignity and courage.
For them, "Don Pedro" is one of the fathers of Puerto Rican
national identity. For others, Albizu
was plainly wrong in trying to achieve independence for the island. Despite the controversy, Pedro Albizu Campos
remains one of the towering figures of Puerto Rican history.
SUMMARY: Slavery is not unique to North America but was a part of
ancient societies dating back to Christendom and beyond. Africans did not come first to the Americas
as slaves, but as explorers with a documented presence as early as 1200
B.C. Earliest evidence of American
interracial cooperation is seen in the courageous work of 17th and 18th century
white abolitionists working in concert with free blacks. Brazil had the largest number of slaves from
Africa followed by the Caribbean Islands.
Most of the slaves to the United States arrived Charleston, south
Carolina.
Thomas Jefferson created a mathematical formula to
determine what percentage of black blood made a child mixed parentage a Negro;
Mulatto (1/2), Octoroon (1/8) and Quadroon (1/4). The first black slave owner was Anthony Johnson of Northampton,
Virginia. The Quakers were against
slavery. The Black Codes Law (1865
-1866) was enacted because Southern whites were concerned with controlling
blacks. The concept of Négritude
represents a historic development in the formulation of African diasporic
identity and culture in this century.
Rastafarians, members of a social movement, were established in Jamaica
around 1930.
The African-derived religions of Latin American and
Caribbean slaves and their descendants are marked by a dual heritage. While deeply rooted in African spiritual
traditions, these religions have also been indelibly shaped by the history of
New World enslavement, exploitation, and racism. The Spanish and Portuguese conquest of the American hemisphere
created a new demand for African slave labor.
America was abundant in land but not in labor. From 1441 to 1888, the trans-Atlantic slave trade created an
African Diaspora in the forced migration of some 12 million people from many
diverse societies and cultures in west and west central Africa to
European colonies in the Caribbean Islands, in Central and South America, and
in North America.
The period of Spanish and Portuguese occupation and
governance of territory in the Americas began with Christopher Columbus's first
landing in 1492 and ended with the Cuban War of Independence (1895-1898). The blame for the thirty million or so human
beings who have died as a result of Columbus' invasion must not rest entirely
on Columbus. He left a legacy of racism
and genocide. The first European
explorer to thoroughly document his visit to North America was the Italian
explorer Giovanni Caboto, who sailed for England's King Henry VII and became
known by his anglicized name, John Cabot.
In January we commemorate the birth of Martin Luther King,
Jr., who struggled to lift the blinders of racial prejudice and to cut the
remaining bonds of slavery in America.
In October, we honor Christopher Columbus, who opened the Atlantic slave
trade and launched one of the greatest waves of genocide known in history. One of the most feared institutions of the Catholic
Church in the Americas was the Inquisition.
Originally, the Inquisition had been directed against those suspected of
practicing the Jewish faith in Spain, Portugal, or the colonies.
The original inhabitants of Hispaniola were Native
Americans of the Arawak group. They eventually became extinct as a result of
exploitation by the early Spanish colonists. Black African slaves were later
imported to take the place of the Native American laborers. The
slave trade proved a lucrative business for more than 200 years. More than 10 million Africans were forcibly
transported to the Americas before the importation of slaves was abolished in
the United States in 1808. The French
colony then became the first independent black republic in the world, the republic
of Haiti. By 1713 Britain had emerged as the dominant
slave-trading nation. In all, the trade
brought more than 10 million Africans to America, and at least another one
million Africans died in passage.
The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 dramatically changed the wealthy French slave colony. François Dominique Toussaint Louverture was the Liberator of Haiti, Jose Marti of Cuba, and Betances of Puerto Rico. The effects of the Haitian revolt spread far beyond the island. It contributed to the end of French colonial ambitions in the western hemisphere, which led France to sell its vast territory in North America to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Refugees from Haiti settled in Louisiana, helping to establish that area's distinct French Creole culture.
CHRONOLOGY
African Slavery: The chronology is a sequential history of events about
slavery and its causes. The immigration
of slaves to the United States of America was channeled through South Carolina,
the main port. In view of the magnitude
of the scope of slavery, I have limited the study to the Caribbean because of
the link to the South American countries dealing with slavery. The slavery sequence of events in the
Caribbean is illustrated below.
The theme of this
report is to address the issues of slavery in Hispaniola, which is comprised of
Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Cuba, and Puerto Rico. All of these islands were under Spanish control except Haiti, who
was under French control. Martique and
Guadalupe were under Dutch Control. The
purpose of the chronology is to plot and track the movement of slaves at
different times from Africa to Portugal, Spain, France, Britain, and from
Europe to the United States of America and the Caribbean Islands. Slavery in the Caribbean was linked to the
countries in South America.
Historical Facts of African Slavery:
c.a. 300-700: Rise of Axum or Aksum
(Ethiopia) and conversion to Christianity.
By the 1st century, Rome
had conquered Egypt, Carthage, and other North African areas; which became the
granaries of the Roman Empire, and the majority of the population converted to
Christianity. Axum spent its religious
zeal carving out churches from rocks, and writing and interpreting religious texts.
c.a. 600-1000:
Bantu migration extends to southern Africa; Bantu languages will
predominate in central and southern Africa.
Emergence of southeastern African societies to become the stone
city-states of Zimbabwe, Dhlo-Dhlo, Kilwa, and Sofala, which flourish through
1600.
c.a. 610 / 639-641: Advent of Islam Khalif Omar conquers Egypt
with Islamic troops.
c.a. 700-800: Islam sweeps across North Africa;
Islamic faith eventually extends into many areas of sub-Saharan African.
c.a. 740: Islamicized Africans (Moors) invade
Spain and rule it unti1 1492. The Moors
brought agriculture, engineering, mining, industry, manufacturing,
architecture, and scholarship, developing Spain into the center for culture and
learning throughout Europe for almost 800 years until the fall of Granada in
1492.
c.a. 800-1000: Growth of trans-Sahara gold trade across
the sahel ("sahel" is Arabic for
"shore" or "coast") at southern boundary of the Sahara
Desert, which was likened to a sea. The
desert was not an impossible barrier; many trade routes cross it from early
times. The sahel was the intensive
point of contact and trade between sub-Saharan Africa (Africa south of the Sahara Desert) and North Africa and the world beyond, along with
contact and trade along the Atlantic and Indian Ocean seacoasts. In western Africa a number of black kingdoms
emerge whose economic base lay in their control of trans-Saharan trade
routes. Gold, kola nuts, and slaves
were sent north in exchange for cloth, utensils, and salt. This trade enabled the rise of the
great empires—Ghana, Mali, and Songhai of
the savanna ("savanna"
refers to a treeless or sparsely forested plain).
c.a. 800-1100: "Not only people and goods move across
the Sahara [from
800-1100] but also ideas” (See Note #1). After "Arab merchants
first connected sub-Saharan Africa with their vast commercial network,
reaching from Spain and Russia to the Far East," available
evidence suggests "that some black Africans were observing the wider
world, including Europe, outside their home villages rather keenly long before
Western geographers knew anything about the true course of the Niger or the
Nile" (Note #2).
The
voluntary traffic of West Africans to the Mediterranean began with the adoption
of the Muslim faith. Pilgrimage to
Mecca is one the five pillars of Islam, an obligation for all Muslims" (See
Note #2), and "pilgrimage by common people became more general from
the fourteenth century onwards" (Masonen, "Trans-Saharan
Trade"). Via " commercial, intellectual and physical contacts
with Northern Africa through the trans-Saharan trade and pilgrimage, we may
conclude that West Africans certainly knew more than something about the
Mediterranean and perhaps a little about Europe too. Before the beginning of the Portuguese discoveries in 1415, some
individuals may even have possessed quite a detailed picture of their
contemporary world" though "this knowledge was restricted to a narrow
group only, consisting mostly of rulers, scholars, noblemen, and wealthy
merchants, who all had a practical need for accurate information of the wider
world and a means to achieve it" (Masonen, "Trans-Saharan
Trade").
c.a.
1000: Ghana Empire of Soninke peoples (in what is now SE Mauritania) at the
height of power. The earliest of the 3
great West African states (emerging ca. 300 CE), Ghana equipped its armies with
iron weapons and became master of the trade in salt and gold, controlling
routes extending from present-day Morocco in the north, Lake Chad and
Nubia/Egypt in the eat, and the coastal forests of western Africa in the south.
By the early 11th century, Muslim advisers were at the court of Ghana.
c.a. 1054: "We know only that Islam was spreading
in Ghana by the time of Almoravids (1054-1147), which is confirmed by Arabic
sources.” Islam spread to Sudanic
Africa peacefully and gradually through trans-Saharan trade.
c.a. 1076:
According to traditional historical interpretations, a Berber army from
Morocco led by militant religious reformers called Almoravids attacked Ghana,
led it into a period of internal conflicts and disorganization, then by 1087,
lost control of the empire to the Soninkes. Several smaller states
emerged, including Kangaba out of which the empire of Mali arose.
c.a. 13th
Century: Rise of the Mali Empire of the Mande (or Mandinka) peoples in West Africa. The
Mali Empire was strategically located near gold mines and the agriculturally
rich interior floodplain of the Niger River.
This region had been under the domination of the Ghana Empire until the
middle of the 11th century. As Ghana
declined, several short-lived kingdoms vied for influence over the western
Sudan region.
c.a. 1235: The
small state of Kangaba, led by Sundjata
Keita, or Sundiata Keita, defeated the nearby
kingdom of Susu at the Battle of Kirina in 1235. King Sumanguru Kante led the Susu kingdom. The clans of the heartland unified under the
vigorous Sundjata, now king of the vast region that was to become the Mali
Empire, beginning a period of expansion.
The rulers of Mali nominally converted to Islam, though this did not preclude belief and practice of
traditional Mande religions.
c.a. 1250: Zimbabwe (meaning "stone house" or building), some of which are massive, were constructed in
southeastern Africa by ancestors of the Shona peoples of modern Zimbabwe.
c.a. 1260: Ife-Ife, Yoruban culture of non-Bantu
Kwa-speakers, flourished in western Africa, producing remarkable terra cotta
and bronze portrait heads, continuing Nok creative traditions.
Sundjata Keita, Old Mali, and the
Griot Tradition: The
Mali Empire, centered on the upper
reaches of the Sénégal and Niger rivers, was the second and most extensive of
the three great West African empires.
The Mali Empire served as a model of statecraft for later kingdoms long
after its decline in the 15th and 16th centuries. Under Sundjata and his immediate successors, Mali expanded
rapidly west to the Atlantic Ocean, south deep into the forest, east beyond the
Niger River, and north to the salt and copper mines of the Sahara. The city of Niani may have been the
capital. At its height, Mali was a
confederation of 3 independent, freely allied states (Mali, Mema, and Wagadou)
and 12 garrisoned provinces. The king
reserved the right to dispense justice and to monopolize trade, particularly in
gold. Sundjiata Keita is the cultural
hero and ancestor of the Mande (or Mandinka) peoples, founder of the great Mali
Empire, and inspiration of the great oral epic tradition of the griots or
professional bards.
c.a.
1324: West African Muslims with the
economic means--most notably West African rulers Mansa Musa of the Mali empire
(in 1324) made the long journey to Mecca and Egypt. (Note #3)
c.a.
1324-1325: Mali Emperor Mansa Musa's sensational pilgrimage to
Mecca, spreads Mali’s fame across Sudan to Egypt, the Islamic and European
worlds. ["Mansa"
means "emperor."] He brought
with him hundreds of camels laden with gold.
Islam penetrated Mali’s elaborate court life and thrived in commercial sahel
centers such as Jenne and Tombouctou or Timbuktu, on the great bend of the Niger River. Mali's legacy is the enduring cultural
affiliation shared by the Mande peoples (especially Malinke, Bambara, and
Soninke speakers) who today occupy large parts of West Africa.
c.a. After 1400:
Court intrigue and succession disputes sapped the strength of the
extended Mali Empire, and northern towns and provinces revolted, making way for
the Empire of Songhai to emerge from the vassal state of Gao. One of the first peoples to become
independent, the Songhai, began to spread along the Niger River. Much of Mali fell to the Songhai Empire in
the western Sudan during the 15th century.
c.a. 14th Century: Complex, advanced lake states, located between Lakes Victoria and Edward, were established, including
kingdoms ruled by the Bachwezi, Luo, Bunyoro, Ankole, Buganda, and Karagwe--but
little is known of their early history.
Engaruka, a town of 6,000 stone houses in Tanzania, played a key role in
the emergence of Central African empires.
Bunyoro was the most powerful state until the second half of the 18th
century, with an elaborate centralized bureaucracy: most district and sub
district chiefs were appointed by the Kabaka ("king"). Farther
to the south, in Rwanda, a cattle-raising pastoral aristocracy founded by the
Bachwezi (called
Bututsi, or Bahima, in this area) ruled over settled Bantu peoples from the
16th century onward.
c.a.
1400: Swahili cities flourish on
east African coast of Indian Ocean; trading esp. in ivory, gold, iron, slaves.
Indonesian immigrants reached
Madagascar during the 1st millennium CE bringing new foodstuffs, notably
bananas, which soon spread throughout the continent, and Arab settlers
colonized the coast and established trading towns. By the 13th century a number
of significant Zenj city-states had been established, including Mogadishu,
Malindi, Lamu, Mombasa, Kilwa, Pate, and Sofala. An
urban Swahili culture developed through mutual assimilation of Bantu and Arabic
speakers. The ruling classes were of *mixed Arab-African
ancestry; the populace was Bantu, many of them slaves. These
mercantile city-states were oriented toward the sea, and their political impact
on inland peoples was virtually nonexistent until the 19th century.
The Atlantic slave trade
began in Africa in the mid-1400s and lasted into the 19th century.
c.a. 14th-15th
Century: Great Zimbabwe,
impressive stone construction of the
Karanga-ancestors of the Shona peoples of southeastern Africa--is the center of
Bantu peoples that controlled a large part of interior southeast Africa. The Karanga peoples formed the Mwene Mutapa
Empire, which derived its wealth from large-scale gold mining. At
its height in the 15th century, its sphere of influence stretched from the
Zambezi River, to the Kalahari, to the Indian Ocean and the Limpopo River.
c.a.
1415: Commercial, intellectual and
physical contacts with Northern Africa through the trans-Saharan trade and
pilgrimage, we may conclude that West Africans certainly knew more than
something about the Mediterranean and perhaps a little about Europe too, before
the beginning of the Portuguese discoveries in 1415.
c.a.
1439: Portugal takes the Azores and increases expeditions along northwest
African coast, eventually reaching the Gold Coast (modern Ghana). The
Portuguese explorations were motivated by a desire for knowledge, a wish to
bring Christianity to what they perceived as pagan peoples, the search for
potential allies against Muslim threats, and the hope of finding new and
lucrative trade routes and sources of wealth.
Wherever the Portuguese—and the English, French, and Dutch who followed
them—went, they eventually disrupted ongoing patterns of trade and political
life and changed economic and religious systems.
c.a. 1441: Beginning
of European slave trade in Africa with first shipment of African slaves sent
directly from Africa to Portugal. With the
complicity and blessings of the Catholic Church. the Portuguese would come to
dominate the gold, spice and slave trade for almost a century before other
European nations became greatly involved.
c.a. 1441-1888: From 1441 to 1888, the trans-Atlantic slave
trade created an African Diaspora in the forced migration of some 12 million
people from many diverse societies and cultures in west and west central Africa
to European colonies in the Caribbean Islands, in Central and South America,
and in North America.
c.a. 1444: Europeans first shipped African slaves, along with gold and
ivory, off the coast of Senegambia in West Africa. Thereafter, a steady trade developed with Africa.
c.a.
1468: Songhai (or Songhay) Empire, centered at Gao, dominates the central
Sudan after Sunni Ali Ber’s army defeated the largely Tuareg contingent at
Tombouctou (or Timbuktu, site of the famous University of Sankore, center of
Islamic learning and book trade) and captured the city. An uncompromising warrior-king, Ali Ber
extended the Songhai empire by controlling the Niger River with a navy of war
vessels. He also refused to accept
Islam, and instead advanced African traditions.
c.a.
1480: First Europeans (Portuguese) visit Benin (Edo-speaking
ruling culture) and arrive at east coast of Africa, increasing trade in gold,
ivory, and slaves (according to Microsoft Encarta Africana 1998). Note #5
c.a.
1481-82: El Mina is founded on the West African "Gold
Coast," the most
important of the chain of trading settlements hat the Portuguese established
here. African gold, ivory, foodstuffs,
and slaves were exchanged for ironware, firearms, textiles, and foodstuffs.
c.a. 1492: The
death of Sunni Ali Ber created a power vacuum in the Songhai Empire, and his
son was soon deposed by Mamadou Toure who ascended the throne in 1492 under the
name Askia (meaning "general") Muhammad, another subject of great
oral epics. During
his reign, which ended in 1529, Askia Muhammad made Songhai the largest empire
in the history of West Africa. He
restored the previously discouraged tradition of Islamic learning to the
University of Sankore, and Timbuktu (or Tombouctou, population 50,000) became
known as a major center of Islamic learning and book trade. Askia Muhammad’s
consolidation of Muslim power worked against encroaching Christian forces.
The island of Hispaniola
in the West Indies was the first land settled by explorer Christopher Columbus,
who landed on Hispaniola in 1492. This
colony became the center of Spanish activity in the Americas until Spanish
explorer Hernán Cortés conquered Mexico in 1519.
c.a.
1493: The recorded history of Puerto
Rico began with the arrival of slaves with Columbus on November 19, 1493. Puerto Rico was inhabited by the aboriginal
Indians named Taínos, who called their island Boriquén (or Borinquén).
c.a.
1496-1498: Askia Muhammad of the
Songhay Empire (in 1496-98)--made the long journey to Mecca and Egypt. (Note
#3)
c.a.
1500: East
was coming to an end, and the Roman Catholic Church pushed hard to end European
enslavement of any Christian peoples.
Thus by 1500 most slaves held in Europe were Africans. The Atlantic slave trade did not become a huge enterprise until
after European nations began colonizing the Americas during the 1500s.
Arab
Slave Trade, from A.D./C.E. 700 to 1911: Estimates place the numbers of
Africans sold in this system somewhere around 14 million: at least 9.6 million
African women and 4.4 African men.
Despite the availability of at
least 20 to 25 million American Indians in 1500, labor was still a high-cost
item for the Spanish and the Portuguese.
c.a. 15th Century: Africa was opened to direct European sea
borne trade by Portuguese explorers in the early 15th century.
c.a. 1502: Nicholas Ovando, the Spanish governor,
brought Negro slaves to Hispaniola in 1502, shipping them from Spain to this
island where the first permanent Spanish settlement in the New World had been
established (see Slavery in Latin America and the Caribbean).
c.a. 1505: An important sequel to Ovando’s introduction
of African slave labor into the Caribbean in 1502 occurred in 1505. A mere three years later, there was a slave
rebellion in Hispaniola in which Africans and Indians joined forces against
their Spanish colonial masters.
c.a. 1507: Casa de Contratación (House of Trade) was
established in 1507 in both Seville and Cádiz.
c.a. 1508: The colonization of San Juan, the name given
to the island by the Spanish, began in 1508 when Juan Ponce de León established
the first settlement. The strength of
the church relied heavily on its alliance with the state. The close relationship between the two
institutions was made official in 1508 with the Patronato real (royal
patronage) order given by Pope Julius II.
c.a. 1509: Nicolás de Ovando
introduced the encomienda system during his term as governor of Hispaniola
(present-day Haiti and the Dominican Republic) from 1501 to 1509.
c.a.
1512: Restrictions and even the
abolition of Indian forced labor were planned in such legislation as the Laws
of Burgos of 1512 and the New Laws for the Good Treatment and Preservation of
the Indians of 1542.
c.a.
1513: Although the Tainos were legally
exempt from slavery by the royal decree in 1542, rebel Indians were enslaved
and exploited by the colonists. By the
end of the 16th century the Tainos were virtually extinct.
Africans
arrived in Puerto Rico; however, the slave trade was not authorized until
1513. Many free blacks, mainly from
Seville, emigrated for better opportunities in the New World. They were mainly Ladinos or Christianized
blacks who came to serve as domestic servants.
In Puerto Rico there were always large numbers of free blacks than there
were black slaves. The free blacks
worked in the mines and helped the militia to subjugate the Tainos.
c.a. 1514: The first recorded rebellion against the
European domination in the hemisphere occurred in 1914 and was jointly planned
and executed by the Tainos and the Africans.
c.a.
1517-1542: Between 1517 and 1542 the
Spaniards expanded their dominion from the Caribbean (Cuba, Hispaniola, and
Puerto Rico) to include Central America, Mexico, Peru, and northern Chile,
irrevocably changing the lives of indigenous peoples they found there and the
Africans they brought with them.
c.a. 1520: East African Literature Emerges: An early known example of East
African literature, dated 1520 and written in Arabic, is an anonymous history
of the city-state of Kilwa Kisiwani.
Soon after, histories of East African city-states written in Swahili appeared,
as well as "message" poems, usually written from a moral/religious
viewpoint.
The Portuguese Crown issued a law
in 1520 which allowed the legal capture of Indian slaves during war with a
tribe that refused Christianity or was presumed to practice Cannibalism.
c.a. 1524: The Council of Indies, established in 1524,
was to oversee the management of the colonies.
c.a. 1526: The first shipment of African slaves was
brought to Cuba to labor primarily on the sugar and coffee plantations.
c.a. 1528: The empire went into decline, however, after 1528, when his son
deposed the now-blind Askia Muhammad.
c.a. 1533: The
first slave uprising took place just four years later along with a slave strike
in the mines.
c.a. 1536: Only
1500 enslaved Africans were legally introduced to Puerto Rico.
c.a. 1542: Laws for the Good Treatment and
Preservation of the Indians of 1542.
Although
the Taínos were legally exempted from slavery by the royal decree in 1542,
rebel Indians were enslaved and exploited by the colonists. By the end of the 16th century
the Tainos were virtually extinct.
c.a.
1545: The Council of Indies had to
partially retract its legislative edicts in 1545.
c.a.
1584: The revolt of the Dutch provinces
of Spain in 1584 would set the stage for the expansion of the sugar plantation
model to the Caribbean.
c.a.
1600: During the 1600s the Dutch pushed
the Portuguese out of the trade and then contested the British and French for
control of it.
c.a.
1621: The Dutch West Indies Company was
established to compete with the Portuguese in Africa and America. Eventually the Dutch took Pernambuco,
Brazil’s premier sugar province. This
was also when the company then denied Portuguese access to its sources of
African slaves. They seized both the Gold Coast (ElMina) and
most of Angola in the late 1630s and early 1640s.
c.a.
1646: By 1646, Mexico’s slave
population peaked at 35,000, while also by this time Peru had some 1000,000
Afro-Americans. Moreover, Mexico
progressively freed most of its slave population and stopped importing Africans
on a major scale. By the 1790s it had
only 6,000 Afro-American slaves left, while Peru still had some 90,000.
c.a.
1650: The English seized Jamaica from
the Spanish; then came the French settlement of Saint Dominique on the western
half of the island of Hispaniola in the 1600s.
By the late 18th century these two colonies were the premier
sugar-producing zone in the Americas.
Some 200,000 Africans had been imported to these mainland and island
regions of Spain. Spaniards found their
need for slaves constantly increasing, especially in those lowland regions
where European disease had decimated the Indian population. Peru took the most African slaves, because
it was initially richer and had a smaller Indian population base than Mexico.
c.a.
1655: The Jamaican Maroons – African
slaves, who, following the British defeat of the Spaniards in 1655, escaped to
the mountains and waged guerilla warfare against the British colonizers.
c.a.
1662: A Virginia law stated that a
newborn was or was not free depending on the status of his mother.
c.a.
1680: The success of sugar transformed
these islands, from largely white populations living on small farms with
relatively few slaves.
c.a.
1688: The Germantown protest took place,
during which Quakers formally spoke against slavery.
c.a.
1690: The discovery of gold in central
Brazil opened up an entirely new activity for slave usage.
c.a. 1693: George Keith of Philadelphia
and his friends in the Society published the first anti-slavery document in the
British Colonies .
c.a. 1697: The western portion of Hispaniola was
settled by French traders called buccaneers and in 1697 became the French
colony of Saint-Domingue, which would later become Haiti. The eastern portion of the island remained
Spanish and was called Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic).
c.a. 1697: The western portion of Hispaniola was
settled by French traders called buccaneers and became the French colony of
Saint-Domingue, which would later become Haiti. The eastern portion of the island remained Spanish and was called
Santo Domingo (now the Dominican Republic).
In 1697, by the Treaty of
Ryswick, a portion of Hispaniola was formally ceded to France and became known as Saint Dominique. The remaining Spanish section was called
Santo Domingo. General Jean-Jacques
Dessalines expelled the French in 1804 and proclaimed the independence of the
island, which was renamed Haiti. In
1822 Santo Domingo, which had come under Spanish rule again in 1809, was reunited
with the rest of the island. In 1844
Santo Domingo once more declared its independence, forming the Dominican
Republic, and the island, as a geographic unit, assumed its former name,
Hispaniola. The area of the island is
78,460 sq km (30,290 sq mi).
c.a. 16th Century: Even this "just war" reasoning for enslaving some of the frontier Indians was finally rejected by the Crown in the middle of the 16th century. Portuguese colonizers, on the other hand, enslaved Indians from the beginning of their settlement of Brazil well into the 18th century.
c.a. 1700: By the late 1700s Christian morality, new
ideas about liberty and human rights that came about as a result of the
American and French revolutions, and economic changes led to an effort among
blacks and whites to end human bondage.
c.a. 1700-1888: In Brazil from the late 1700s to the final
abolition of slavery in 1888, there were at least half as many free mulattoes
as there were whites; in fact, they outnumbered whites in some of the northern
states.
c.a.
1707: Royal cédulas allowed mestizos to become clerics but
prohibited the entry of Africans into the priesthood. Given the scarcity of white Creoles, an exception for
light-skinned mulattoes was made in 1707 in Santo Domingo.
c.a. 1712: A major
uprising took place in New York City in 1712, when black and Native American
slaves killed nine whites and wounded seven more. Furthermore, 23 armed slaves set fire to a slave owner’s house in
New York city. Insurrection occurred
and 10 whites were killed or injured.
Twenty-one blacks were convicted and executed.
c.a. 1713: By 1713 Britain had emerged as the dominant
slave-trading nation. In all, the trade
brought more than 10 million Africans to America, and at least another 1
million Africans died in passage.
c.a. 1728: The earliest known work of (imaginative)
literature is written in original Swahili: the epic poem Utendi wa Tambuka
(Story of Tambuka). Swahili epic verse
writers borrowed from the romantic traditions surrounding the Prophet Muhammad,
then freely elaborated to meet tastes of their listeners and readers.
c.a. 1739: A much larger rebellion took place near Charleston,
South Carolina. About one hundred
slaves marched along the Stono River, destroying plantations and killing a few
whites. Slaveholders with the aid of
Native Americans put down the rebellion, killing 44 of the rebels.
c.a. 1740: By the 1740s
Quaker abolitionists John Woolman and Anthony Benezet were urging other Quakers
to cease their involvement in the slave trade and to break all connections with
slavery. It was not until the American
Revolution began in 1775, however, that abolitionism spread beyond the Society
of Friends.
c.a. 1746: In Buenos Aires
(present-day Argentina and Uruguay), blacks were barred from practicing African
dances.
c.a.. 1755: All forms of
Indian bondage were proscribed in Brazil by 1755, slightly later than similar
emancipation was declared in Spanish America.
However, an 1808 Brazilian law allowed
for prisoners of war to be enslaved once more. Native bondage in Brazil was again prohibited in 1831.
c.a. 1760: After slave
trading among Friends had been stopped, during the 1760s Quaker congregations
began expelling slaveholders.
c.a. 1768: In Santo
Domingo (the present-day Dominican Republic) free blacks were prohibited from
buying lands.
c.a. 1780: Also, during
the 1780s and 1790s large numbers of slaveholders in the Southern states of
Maryland and Virginia freed their slaves.
Just prior to the French Revolution, the major French colonies had
30,000 free coloreds and 575,000 slaves.
Unlike the British Islands, however, these free blacks played a far more
important role in their local economies, many being major slaveholders and
plantations owners in their own right.
c.a. 1783: Under the
influence of Quakers in the American colonies, British Quakers established
Britain’s first antislavery society, the London Committee to Abolish the Slave
Trade, in 1783.
c.a. 1787:
In Europe, Great Britain had the strongest abolitionist
movement. The major turning point in
its development came in 1787 when Evangelical Christians (see Evangelicalism)
joined Quakers in establishing the Society for the Abolition of the Slave
Trade. In 1787 Congress had banned
slavery in the Northwest Territory (a region comprising the present states of
Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the eastern part of
Minnesota, ceded to the United States by the British after the American
Revolution
c.a. 1788: In France,
Jacques Pierre Brissot, a supporter of the French Revolution, established the Société
des Amis des Noirs (Society of the Friends of Blacks) in 1788, but this
group failed in its effort against the slave trade.
c.a. 1789:
By 1789 Saint-Domingue's population consisted of about 450,000
black slaves, 40,000 whites, and 28,000 free blacks and mulattoes (those of
mixed black and white ancestry). The
small white population was divided between an upper class of about 10,000
aristocrats and a middle class of about 30,000 shopkeepers, soldiers, artisans,
and others. These two groups had little
in common. Allied with the wealthy
whites were the mulattoes, many of whom were offspring of the white elite and
wanted to share in their privileges. Yet the mulattoes faced discrimination
because of their racial background; in turn, they despised the black slaves, as
did the whites.
The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789
dramatically changed the wealthy French slave colony. The struggle that split France—between the old order, represented
by the nobility and upper classes, and the revolutionary forces of the lower
and middle classes—spilled over into the slave-holding colonies of the French
West Indies.
c.a. 1790: Eighty-six
percent of these slaves were imported after 1790, and more than seventy percent
after 1817, the year Spain signed a treaty with Great Britain to end the slave
trade, which it later ignored.
c.a. 1791:
The successful slave revolt that began in the French
colony of Saint-Domingue in 1791 was part of this revolutionary age.
The Haitia Revolution, uprising in 1791 by
black slaves on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola, began as a rebellion
against slavery and French plantation owners, but became a political revolution
that lasted for 13 years and resulted in independence from France. After 1791 the “black fear” would grow with
each new shipload of African slaves.
c.a. 1793: Meanwhile, the
growth of the cotton industry, fueled by the invention of the cotton gin by Eli
Whitney in 1793, made slavery a vital part of both the Southern and the national
economies.
By 1793 the slave uprising had become a full-scale
civil war. Seeking support to defeat the white elite, French revolutionary
officials abolished slavery in the colony.
c.a. 1795: François
Dominique Toussaint Louverture, a former slave, took part in the slave revolt
and, with other black rebel leaders, joined forces with the Spanish army
against the French. Highly skilled in military tactics and politics, Toussaint
rose to high rank within the Spanish army, but when France abolished slavery,
he switched sides. Promoted to general in 1795 by French colonial officials, he
helped drive out the Spanish. In 1795,
Spain relinquished Santo Domingo to France.
c.a. 1796:
By 1796 Toussaint ruled the colony as the French
governor-general. Over the next four
years, he forced the British troops to withdraw and defeated his internal
rivals, especially a mulatto group in the south that was destroyed in a bloody
race war. By 1801 Toussaint conquered
Santo Domingo, the Spanish portion of the island, abolished slavery there, and
proclaimed himself governor-general of the island for life. However, he did not declare independence but
remained officially loyal to France. To
rebuild the colony's economy, Toussaint demanded that both whites and blacks
continue to produce their crops without slavery.
c.a. 1799: There was also
a major revival of sugar production after the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) in
the remaining French West Indian colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
c.a. 17th and 18th
Century: During the 17th and 18th
centuries, slavery was a feeble institution in the Hispanic Caribbean in
contrast to the plantation societies in other Caribbean islands such as
Barbados, Jamaica, and Saint Kitts.
c.a.18th
Century: Portuguese colonizers, on the other hand, enslaved Indians from the
beginning of their settlement of Brazil well into the 18th century.
c.a. 1800: By 1800 there were more free colored persons than slaves in continental Spanish America. As the second independent nation in the western hemisphere (after the United States), Haiti gave support to Simón Bolívar, leader of the movement for South American independence from Spain in the early 1800s. In return, Bolívar made abolition of slavery one of the goals of his movement.
c.a. 1803: Haiti was the first black
republic to become independent in 1803.
The scope of the reports ends at the end of the Spanish American War in
1898.
The effects of the Haitian revolt spread far
beyond the island. It contributed to the end of French colonial ambitions in the
western hemisphere, which led France to sell its vast territory in North
America to the United States in the Louisiana Purchase in 1803. Refugees from
Haiti settled in Louisiana, helping to establish that area's distinct French
Creole culture. The uprising also
inspired fear of similar revolts in other slave-holding areas of the Caribbean
and the United States (see Slavery in the United States). Slaveholders
in these areas isolated Haiti to keep the idea of emancipation from spreading (see
Abolition and Emancipation in Latin America and the Caribbean). Haiti's isolation continued for more than
200 years.
c.a. 1804: Led by François Dominique Toussaint
Louverture, black rebels overthrew the colonial government, ended slavery in
the colony, and in 1804 established the republic of Haiti, the first
independent black republic in the world (see Haitian Slave Revolt). By 1804 the revolution had destroyed the
dominant white population, the plantation system, and the institution of
slavery in the most prosperous colony of the western hemisphere.
As Toussaint took charge in
Saint-Domingue, Napoleon Bonaparte became the leader of France. Napoleon sought to return Saint-Domingue to
French control and reinstate slavery as a means of bringing the colony back to
its former prosperity. Napoleon sent a
large army to Saint-Domingue to replace Toussaint with a trusted white general.
Toussaint was tricked onto a ship and was taken to France, where he died in
prison. However, the army that he had trained declared war on the French, led
by two of Toussaint's subordinates, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri
Christophe. After a bitter struggle,
the former slaves defeated Napoleon's forces, massacred or drove all whites off
the island, and changed the name of the colony to the aboriginal name
"Haiti," which means "mountainous." The republic of Haiti (see Haiti:
History), created by former slaves, declared its independence on January 1,
1804.
General Jean-Jacques Dessalines expelled the
French in 1804 and proclaimed the independence of the island, which was renamed
Haiti.
c.a. 1806:
The new nation, however, faced continued division and
economic hardship. Most of the plantation economy had been destroyed, and as
much as half the population had fled or been killed. Dessalines declared himself leader for life, setting a precedent
for many later Haitian rulers, but was assassinated in 1806. The following years in Haiti's history were
marked by many years of violent struggles among different factions.
c.a. 1807: The British
Parliament abolished the slave trade and the British, through diplomacy and the
creation of a naval squadron to patrol the West African coast, began forcing
other European nations to give up the trade as well.
c.a. 1808: While the wars
of independence erupted throughout the South American continent in 1808, Cuba
did not follow suit, remaining Spain’s “ever faithful Isle.”
The U. S. Constitution outlawed the importation of slaves, yet
slaves were not granted freedom by the Constitution until 1865.
In the continental colonies, the wars of independence from 1808 to
1825 led to freeing of large numbers of slaves by both republicans and
royalists; so that even before final emancipation, slaves were a reduced
element among the colored population.
c.a. 1812: A conspiracy planned by José Antonio Aponte, a free black carpenter in Havana, in which whites also participated, sought to overthrow slavery and colonial rule.
c.a.
1815: It was not until 1815 that the
economic development of Puerto Rico received official support when Ferdinand
VII issued the Real Cédula de Gracias, which liberalized trade, offered
incentives for immigrants, and opened Puerto Rican ports to legal commerce.
c.a. 1816: A group
established in 1816 in Washington, D.C., by such prominent slaveholders as
Henry Clay and Francis Scott Key. This
organization proposed to abolish slavery gradually in the United States and
relieve white fear of free blacks by transporting emancipated slaves to West
Africa and giving them their own country.
c.a. 1817: The slave trade was nominally abolished in
Spain in 1817.
c.a. 1818: Elizabeth Van Lew was born in Richmond,
Virginia on October 15, 1818. She was a staunch abolitionist and heavily
involved in espionage for the Union Army during the Civil War. One of her
most effective agents (spies) was Mary Elizabeth Bowser, born a slave in
Richmond, Virginia, and served as a maid in the home of the President of the
Confederacy, Jefferson Davis and his wife, Varina.
Spain permitted Cuba to trade
with the world. The slave trade from
Africa to Cuba had already increased during the 1762-1763 British occupation of
Havana, which opened the island to trade and mercantilism.
c.a. 1820-1840:
The number of black slaves and free pardos (mulattoes) grew rapidly
between 1820 and 1840. For example,
from 5037 slaves in 1765, the number grew to 21,730 in 1821. In the 1830s women constituted almost half
of the slave population.
c.a. 1820: Puerto Rico in 1820 had 104,000 free persons
of color and 22,000 slaves, whereas Cuba by 1861 contained 232,000 free
coloreds and 371,000 African slaves.
c.a. 1821: These acts of resistance occurred mostly in
the towns of Guayama and Ponce, where in 1821 the slave Marcos Xiorro revolted
without success but achieved legendary status among the slaves.
c.a. 1822: In 1822 free black Denmark Vesey
unsuccessfully conspired to lead a massive slave revolt in Charleston, South
Carolina. In 1831 Nat Turner launched a
short-lived but bloody slave uprising in Virginia. Santo Domingo, which had come under Spanish rule again in 1809,
was reunited with the rest of the island.
c.a. 1823: Clarkson joined
with Thomas Fowell Buxton in 1823 to form the British Anti-Slavery Society,
which at first advocated a gradual abolition of slavery.
There were only 3,000 people to be freed in Mexico in 1823 when
that country abolished slavery and only 13,000 in Venezuela when it abolished
the institution in 1854. These small
numbers reflected a gradual decline in the profitability of slave labor and a
corresponding decline in the political influence of slaveholders. This decline was a result of changing
economic ideas, as well as the introduction of cheap labor in the form of
contract workers from China. All of
these circumstances contrasted with those in the United States and the
Caribbean colonies.
Chile and Mexico abolished slavery as a direct result of
their independence movements. Chile was
the first to free its 4,000 slaves unconditionally in 1823, and Mexico freed
the 3,000 slaves remaining in the 1830s.
c.a. 1824: Central America
in 1824 abolished slavery as a direct result of their independence movements.
c.a. 1826: The first armed uprising for independence took place in Puerto Príncipe (Camagüey Province), led by Francisco de Agüero and Andrés Manual Sánchez. Agüero (white) and Sánchez (mulatto, of mixed African and European ancestry) were executed, becoming the first martyrs of Cuban independence.
c.a.
1827: Maurice Delafosse, in his 1927
work Les Nègres, applied to African culture the methods of ethnographic
analysis.
c.a.
1830: By the 1830s, Cuba’s sugar
output equaled that of Jamaica, and a decade later it become the world’s
leading producer of sugar. Coffee,
brought my migrating French planters, also became a major plantation crop; and
by the late 1830s, the island’s coffee plantations numbered just over 2,000
units and employed some 50,000 slaves, a number equal to those employed in
sugar.
c.a. 1830: In
the official U.S. Census of 1830, there were 3775 free blacks that owned
12,740 black slaves. The first black slave owner was Anthony Johnson of
Northampton, Virginia. His slave was John Casor.
1831: The value of coffee
exports surpassed the value of sugar exports; and by the middle of the decade,
Brazil was the world’s largest producer, shipping double the combined output of
Cuba and Puerto Rico, previously the major coffee producers in the
Americas. In 1831 Nat Turner launched a
short-lived but bloody slave uprising in Virginia.
These two developments influenced the extraordinary
career of William Lloyd Garrison, a white New Englander who became the leading
American abolitionist. Garrison began publishing a weekly abolitionist
newspaper called The Liberator in 1831. In 1833 Garrison, convinced that
slavery was a sin and hoping to avoid more violence, brought together Quaker
abolitionists, evangelical abolitionists, and his New England associates to
form the American Anti-Slavery Society (AASS).
c.a. 1833: The great
pressure they exerted, combined with continuing slave unrest, and led
Parliament to pass the Emancipation Act in 1833. Garrison, convinced that slavery was a sin and hoping to avoid
more violence, brought together Quaker abolitionists, evangelical
abolitionists, and his New England associates to form the American Anti-Slavery
Society (AASS).
c.a. 1834: British
abolitionists influenced The Netherlands and especially France, where they
inspired the creation of Société Française pour l'Abolition de l'Esclavage
(French Society for the Abolition of Slavery) in 1834.
c.a. 1837: Abolitionist
newspaper publisher Elijah P. Lovejoy was killed in Illinois while trying to
protect his printing press from a mob.
c.a. 1838: By 1838 all
slaves in the British Empire were free. Thereafter, British abolitionism
fragmented into efforts against the illegal slave trade, slavery in Africa, and
slavery in the United States. Between
1828 and 1868 the government improved the mechanisms of control by implementing
mandatory labor laws that affected all laboring sectors, whites as well as
blacks and pardos.
c.a. 1840: Lewis Tappan
led evangelical abolitionists of both races in forming the American and Foreign
Anti-Slavery Society to foster abolitionism in the nation's churches. The same year, other non-Garrisonians formed
the Liberty Party to nominate abolitionist candidates for public Office. The forced immigration of Africans reached
its peak by the 1840s. The 1845 census
shows that there were 216,083 whites, 175,000 free coloreds, and 51,265 slaves
in Puerto Rico.
The bozales, or African-born slaves, constituted forty-six percent
of the total slave population in Ponce, the city with the largest number of
slaves at the time. By 1872 they
represented only eighteen percent.
c.a. 1842: Economic and
political forces led Uruguay in 1842 to abolish slavery.
c.a. 1843: In Cuba, for
example, the slave Fermina was sentenced to death by a war council for her
participation and leadership in an 1843 revolt.
c.a. 1844: Santo Domingo once more declared its
independence. Widespread political
repression of Afro-Cubans, both free and enslaved, took place after the 1844
Conspiración de la Escalera, in which the Spanish colonial authorities and plantation owners claimed to have
discovered a widespread anticolonial and antislavery conspiracy among free
persons and slaves.
c.a. 1845:
The annexation to the United States of the slaveholding
state of Texas in 1845 and of the Mexican provinces of California and New
Mexico in 1848 led to an irrevocable division between North and South.
The forced immigration of Africans reached its peak by the
1840s. The 1845 census shows that there
were 216,083 whites, 175,000 free coloreds, and 51,265 slaves in Puerto
Rico. Forced immigration rapidly
declined primarily because of the inability of Puerto Rican plantation owners,
or hacendados, to compete against the Cuban slave owners in the international
slave market.
c.a. 1848: In 1848 most
Liberty abolitionists were led to merge into the larger Free-Soil Party, which
opposed the extension. It was the overthrow of
the French monarchy and the establishment of a republic in February 1848,
followed three months later by a major slave revolt in the French colony of
Martinique in the Caribbean, that led to the emancipation of all slaves within
the French empire in 1848. The
French Code Noir of 1685 (see Black Codes in Latin America) had
forbidden blacks to read or write, and remained in effect through 1848.
World War I had brought blacks from the French
Caribbean colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana to Europe. Already benefiting from full French
citizenship since 1848, they, along with Senegalese blacks, fought beside
metropolitan and black American soldiers (see World War I and African
Americans), and sent representatives to the French parliament following the
war.
In May 1848 Governor Juan Prim adopted the infamous Bando contra
la Raza Africana (Proclamation Against the African Race). It was an oppressive ordinance directed
against all people of African descent, including free blacks. In the French colonies of America, some 177,500
were finally liberated in 1848.
c.a. 1849: Juan de la
Pezuela instituted what is known as la libreta (the notebook), which stated
that every jornalero had to carry a notebook in which the owner made notes of
the worker’s behavior.
c.a. 1850: The system of
slavery stated to erode in Puerto Rico after the 1850s, with the beginning of
Puerto Rico’s independence movement.
British diplomatic pressure to end the trade had limited effect in Cuba,
though Puerto Rican slave imports virtually ended in the 1850s. The Fugitive Slave Law of 1850, made it a
crime to help slaves escape and made it easier for masters to reclaim escapees.
The plantation economy in Puerto Rico had declined after
1850. Most of the other new republics
did not finally liberate all remaining slaves until the 1850s though most
adopted early laws declaring freedom for all children born of slaves.
c.a. 1851:
It was the radical political abolitionists who were
most attractive to prominent black leaders, including former slaves Henry Highland
Garnet and—by 1851—Frederick Douglass.
Garnet and Douglass worked closely with the radicals, especially in
their support for the Underground Railroad—the collective name for a variety of
regional semisecret networks that helped slaves escape into the North and
Canada.
Bolivia and Colombia in 1851,
Ecuador in 1852, Argentina in 1853, and Peru and Venezuela in 1854 terminated
the institution of slavery. However, at
the height of annexationist sentiments in the country, Joaquín de Agüero led an
uprising against Spain.
c.a. 1852: In 1852 Harriet Beecher Stowe, the daughter
of a Connecticut clergyman, published Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a forceful
indictment of slavery. The book quickly
became one of the most popular works of the time, and it was important in
spreading antislavery sentiment in the North.
President Franklin Pierce
offered to buy the island in 1852.
Pro-expansionist and Anti-abolitionist, Pierce, had been advised that
Cuba was fast becoming Africanized and a second Saint-Domingue. After the 1852 exile of Argentine President
Juan Manuel Rosas, additional factors that are more difficult to measure
gradually diminished the Afro-Argentine presence.
c.a. 1853: Although slavery had officially ended in
1853, blacks still suffered racial discrimination, and many felt compelled to
choose between loyalty to their African heritage and loyalty to their nation.
c.a. 1854: The opening of
the Kansas Territory to slavery led to the formation of the even larger
Republican Party as the defender of Northern antislavery interests.
c.a. 1857: Between 1857
and 1861, President James Buchanan tried to interest the U.S. Congress in
buying Cuba, but Congress was divided over the issue of slavery.
c.a. 1859: In October
1859, white abolitionist John Brown led a tiny biracial band in a raid on
Harpers Ferry, Virginia (now West Virginia), hoping to spark a slave rebellion.
Although Virginia militia and United States troops easily thwarted his plan,
Brown’s actions and his subsequent trial and execution aroused great sympathy
in the North.
c.a. 1860: Along with the
victory of Republican presidential candidate Abraham Lincoln in 1860, Brown's
raid and the Northern reaction to it convinced Southern whites that their
proslavery interests were no longer secure within the United States.
When Brazilian troops invaded and occupied Paraguay in the 1860s
at the end of the War of the Triple Alliance, the government they established
abolished slavery. Since by then the
United States had also abolished slavery, this left Brazil as the only
independent slaveholding nation in the western hemisphere.
Cuban towns (defined as over 1,000 persons) contained over half a
million persons by the 1860s, only 76,000 of whom were slaves. Though slaves increased to 370,000 by the
1860s, there were now 233,000 free colored, and whites still accounted for well
over half the island’s population of 1.4 million persons.
Slaves were imported into Brazil until the 1860s when the British
finally forced the Brazilians to end their slave trade. Thereafter an internal slave trade developed
that moved Brazilian slaves of ever-larger numbers into coffee.
By the early 1860s over 100,000 Chinese were working in the Cuban
sugar fields. There was also a major
revival of sugar production after the Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815) in the
remaining French West Indian colonies of Martinique and Guadeloupe.
c.a. 1861:
During the months following Lincoln's election, most of
the slaveholding states seceded from the Union and formed the Confederate
States of America. As the American
Civil War began in April 1861, President Lincoln aimed only to return those
states to the Union. From the start of
the war, however, abolitionists pressured him not only to make abolition an
objective of the war but to enlist black troops as well.
c.a. 1861-65: During the American Civil War (1861-1865),
however, the Union Navy joined Britain in blockading the slave trade to Cuba,
which soon became extinct.
c.a. 1863: Military
necessity had the most influence on Lincoln's actions, but abolitionist efforts
contributed to his Emancipation Proclamation of January 1863, which declared
the freedom of slaves within the bounds of the Confederacy.
c.a. 1865:
Meanwhile, Southern slaves used the war as an opportunity to
leave their masters in large numbers.
Over 180,000 black men—most of them former slaves—served in the Union
Army, which had conquered the South by the spring of 1865. The Northern victory and continuing abolitionist
agitation led in December 1865 to the ratification of the Thirteenth Amendment
to the Constitution of the United States, which banned involuntary servitude
throughout the country. The slave trade
to Cuba was officially outlawed in 1865, both slavery and the trade continued.
c.a. 1865-1866: The Black
Codes Law (1865 -1866) was enacted because Southern whites were concerned with
controlling blacks. Several of the
codes limited the areas in which blacks could purchase or rent property. The control of blacks by white employers was
about as great as the control that slaveholders had exercised.
Blacks were not allowed to testify in court. Fines were imposed for seditious speeches, insulting gestures or
acts, violating curfew, and the possession of firearms.
c.a. 1867: After being
exiled in 1867, Betances helped form the Grito de Lares in 1868, which was the
first independence revolt against Spain.
c.a. 1868: Joaquin Nabuco,
Rui Barbosa, and former slave Luis Gama led an effort that prodded the
Brazilian government to undertake gradual abolition. However, neither the war of 1868-1878 nor that of 1879-1880
coalesced as a popular uprising. Such
an uprising occurred only after the abolition of slavery in 1886, with the
second war of independence from 1895 to 1898 (see Spanish-Cuban-American
War). Many of the rank and files of that
war and its officers were black. They
joined forces with white Cubans under the progressive call to forge a republic
“with all and for the good of all.”
c.a. 1868-1878: Grajales,
the mother of thirteen children (nine of them died in the independence wars
against Spain), has been canonized as a secular symbol of protest and rebellion
against colonialism in Cuba. She ran a
hospital for wounded rebels during the Ten Years’ War (1868-1878), the first
major war fought by Cubans for independence from Spain. Grajales also became famous for compelling
one of her younger sons to go into the battlefield upon seeing her son Antonio
arrive at the hospital seriously wounded.
Grajales was exiled from Cuba at the end of the war and lived in
Kingston, Jamaica, until her death at age 85 in 1893.
White intellectuals of the time, notably Domingo Faustino
Sarmiento, who served as president of Argentina from 1868 to 1874, complemented
the government’s pro-European immigration policy by advancing theories of
so-called scientific racism and, according to Lewis, “downplay[ing] the
significance of the black presence in Argentina and eliminate[ing] them as an
ethnic component.” Since then, blacks
have been written out of national and literary histories in Argentina.
c.a. 1869: The rebels’
1969 Constitution of Guáimaro proclaimed that “all inhabitants of the Republic
at Arms are completely free,” and their Central Assembly of Representatives,
meeting in Camagüey, proclaimed the abolition of slavery. According to the 1869 census, approximately
eighty percent of all Argentines were illiterate. While no literacy figures specifically for Afro-Argentines were
recorded, the black periodicals that survive attest to the existence of a
literate minority among them.
c.a. 1870: There were 1.5 million
slaves in Brazil—a former Portuguese colony—in 1870, but otherwise slave
populations in independent Latin American countries never approached the
numbers of those in Caribbean colonies or in the United States. There were only 3,000 people to be freed in
Mexico in 1823 when that country abolished slavery, and only 13,000 in
Venezuela when it abolished the institution in 1854. These small numbers reflected a gradual decline in the
profitability of slave labor and a corresponding decline in the political
influence of slaveholders. This decline
was a result of changing economic ideas, as well as the introduction of cheap
labor in the form of contract workers from China. All of these circumstances contrasted with those in the United
States and the Caribbean colonies.
The Spanish government passed the Moret Law, which provided for
the liberation of children born between 1868 and 1870 and those slaves over 60
years of age. Under this partial
abolition statute, about 10,000 slaves were set free in Puerto Rico. More than ninety percent of the slaves at
this time were criollos (Creoles). The
slave-owning class had neither the infrastructure nor the cash flow of their Cuban
counterparts, and most of them were in debt by the 1860s.
c.a. 1871: Legislation was
passed that called for freeing the children of slaves. However, the process began to stall in the
late 1870s, leading Nabuco to organize the Sociedade Brasileira contra an
Escravidão (Brazilian Anti-Slavery Society) in 1880, which secured the emancipation
of elderly slaves after 1885.
c.a. 1871-1940:
Certain lone figures in the French Caribbean, however,
also participated in the affirmation of black culture. The early years of the French Third Republic
(1871-1940) witnessed profound changes in Martinican and Guadeloupean culture.
c.a. 1872: By 1872 come
563,000 rural slaves worked both in other plantation crops such as sugar and a
host of other rural occupations, including cattle raising. The remaining 690,000 of the economically
active slaves in 1872 not directly engaged in agriculture were often closely
allied with plantation life.
At the time of the first imperial census of 1872, there were 4.2
million free colored in Brazil compared to 1.5 million slaves and 3.8 million
whites.
c.a. 1873: Spain to abolish slavery in its colonies of Puerto Rico
and Cuba, in 1873 and 1886 respectively.
Earlier, negotiations between government officials and planters had
produced emancipation in the Swedish (1847), Danish (1848), and Dutch (1863)
colonies in the West Indies. It was
only during the Ten Years’ War, in 1873, that the last known slave shipment
landed in Cuba.
c.a. 1878: The Treaty of
Zanjón ended the Ten Years’ War in 1878, but it recognized the freedom only of
those slaves who had fought in the revolutionary ranks. The Maceos, among other black generals,
opposed it for attaining neither independence nor abolition.
c.a. 1879: When these
veterans tried to resuscitate the independence movement in the so-called Little
War of 1879-1880, the colonial press conducted a virulent campaign portraying
it as a race uprising.
c.a. 1883: Nevertheless, although the coffee
plantations increased the number of slave workers to 284,000, by 1883 the
majority of Brazil’s slaves did not work in the coffee fields of the
central-south zone.
c.a. 1886:
The legal end of slavery, which came last to Cuba
(1886) and Brazil (1888), did not end its legacy, and in the struggle over land
and labor the process of emancipation proved as varied, long, and bloodied as
abolition (see Abolition and Emancipation in Latin America and the
Caribbean). Its impact wrought major
changes in the 19th-century Latin American and world economy, including the
collapse of older production centers.
It ushered in waves of indentured Asian and immigrant European labor,
and massive out-migrations of Afro-Latin Americans from poor and marginal lands
to cities and overseas.
Such an uprising occurred only after the abolition of slavery in
1886, with the second war of independence from 1895 to 1898 (see Spanish-Cuban-American
War). Many of the rank and files of
that war and its officers were black.
They joined forces with white Cubans under the progressive call to forge
a republic “with all and for the good of all.”
These were the words of José Marti, a Cuban of Hispanic origin, who in
1892, while living in exile in the U. S., formed the Cuban Revolutionary
Party. A great thinker, Marti had a
genius for mobilizing men and women across classes and races with a vision of
social justice in an independent Cuba.
After returning to the island to fight for its Independence, Marti died
in battle in 1895.
In Cuba an extensive black press existed during the 19th
century, both before and after abolition in 1886, and a high degree of black
consciousness was evident. Final
emancipation for all slaves came to the Spanish Caribbean islands in 1886 and
to Brazil in 1888.
c.a. 1888: The society
grew into an increasingly radical movement, and by 1888 unrest on plantations
and the refusal of the army to step in to halt the flight of slaves from their
masters brought the slave system to the brink of chaos. This resulted in the total abolition of
slavery in Brazil later that year.
c.a. 1895-1898: The Cuban
War of Independence (1895-1898).
c.a. 1898: The electoral defeat of the mulatto Issac by
Légitimus in 1898 signals the triumph of black electoral politics in the
region, foreshadowing Césaire's 50-year dominance of Martinican politics as
both mayor of Fort-de-France and Martinican representative in the French
General Assembly. The Spanish American War started in 1898.
c.a.
1919: Blaise Diagne of Senegal and
Gratien Candace organized the first Pan-African Congress with W. E. B. Du Bois
in 1919, immediately following the armistice.
c.a. 1920: Throughout the 1920s, the triumph
of Russian Bolshevism was followed closely throughout the African
diasporas. Though the French Communist
Party long regarded colonialism as strictly subsidiary to the triumph of
European proletarian revolution, journals such as Les Continents (founded
in 1924 by René Maran and Kodjo Touvalou) and, in particular, L'Action
coloniale (founded in 1918 by Maurice Boursaud) were fundamental in
articulating a preliminary Marxist condemnation of colonialism.
c.a. 1920-1930: An increasing social and judicial
permeability between colonized and colonizer helped make possible the rapid
changes in black consciousness that occurred through the 1920s and 1930s.
c.a. 1927: Maurice Delafosse, in his 1927 work Les Nègres, applied to
African culture the methods of ethnographic analysis.
c.a. 1930: In Brazil
during the 1930s, the Frente Negra Brasileira (Black Brazilian Front) advocated
incorporation into mainstream Brazilian society and avoided, as did many
political and social mulatto organizations, a separate black identity.
Négritude: Neologism coined by
Martinican poet and statesman Aimé Césaire in Paris in the 1930s in discussions
with fellow students Léopold Sédar Senghor and Léon Gontran-Damas.
In the French-speaking Caribbean, for instance, tomes of poetry
began to be published in the late 1930s as part of the Négritude Movement, an
intellectual and artistic movement that rejected French colonialism and
cultural hegemony in favor of a revalorization of the African heritage of
Caribbean peoples.
c.a. 1931: The Ligue
split, and Tiémoko Garan Kouyaté founded, with the Martinican communist
Trissot, the journal Le Cri des Nègres.
This black communist journal vigorously defended Antillean workers, and
its circulation was severely limited by the French authorities.
c.a. 1933: The Jamaican
Leonard Percival Howell founded the Rastafarian movement, striving to
"construct the black race economically, the better to serve God."
Elsewhere in the Caribbean, Cuban poets allied with the Revista de Estudios
Afrocubanos, and Nicolas Guillén in particular, along with the Cuban
painter Wifredo Lam, sought to explore and valorize their African heritage (see
Afrocubanismo).
c.a. 1933: Nuestra Raza,
the longest-running black periodical in Uruguay, was published in Montevideo
only from 1933 to 1948.
c.a. 1936: The German Leo
Frobenius's History of African Civilization was translated into French
in 1936 and avidly read by both Césaire and Senghor.
c.a. 1939:
When Aimé Césaire returned to Martinique in 1939, the
term "Négritude" was known and used only by the small circle of black
intellectuals who had surrounded Césaire in Paris, in particular Senghor and
Léon-Gantron Damas.
Note
#1 Prof. Pekka Masonen, Dept. of History, Univ. of Tampere, Finland;
African Timelines web contribution, 17 October 200).
Note#2 Masonen, "Trans-Saharan Trade."
Note
#3 Pilgrimage by common people became more
general from the fourteenth century onwards.
Note
#4 He
brought with him hundreds of camels laden with gold. Under Mansa Musa, diplomatic relations with Tunis and Egypt were
opened, and Muslim scholars and artisans brought into to the empire; and Mali
appeared on the maps of Europe.
Note #5 Between the
fifteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Edo ruled the powerful kingdom of
Benin. Today approximately 1 million
people consider themselves Edo.
GLOSSARY
American Slaves Terminology:
Bozales = African Born Slaves
Babalu Aye = The spirit of divinity in Cuba.
In Cuba where death and disease became rampant, this good healing became
prominent.
Candoble = Vodoo practice in Brazil.
Carimbo = A red-hot iron to identify the slave
with a mark on his body.
Castas Obsession = Racial groupings based on
phenotype or physical characteristics.
Caste System = The degree of whiteness
determined their position and possibilities of the colonial society.
Cédulas =
Legislation issued by the Spanish King.
Chattels = Typically movable personal property
chattels, such as furniture or cars, but may also be interests in real property
chattels, such as leases.
Cimarrones = Slaves who escaped to the
mountain.
Creolle =
People of European descent born in America.
Cuba Santeria = It is based on the Yoruba Pantheon of deities or orishas.
Deity
= God in monotheistic belief.
Diglossia =
It means that the two languages in daily use, whether Creole and French,
or Creole and Dutch, or Creole and English, are used alternately and in some
contexts exclude each other.
Diaspora = Exile of the Jews from Israel: The
dispersion of the Jews from Palestine following the Babylonians' conquest of
the Judean Kingdom in the 6th century bc and again following the Romans'
destruction of the Second Temple in ad 70.
Ecomienda System = It is the economic
structure of the Spanish conquest.
Elegua = It is an erotic, phallic God invoked
in the ritual of fertility.
Enclaves = Culturally distinct unit enclosed
within foreign territory.
Haiti
= It means "mountainous."
Heretics = Opinion or doctrine contrary to the
church dogma.
Hougans = Religious leaders.
Iwa =
The Petro version of the Iwa, meanwhile, is rooted in the New World and
is characterized by impatience and anger. ("Petro" derives from a
certain Dom Pedro, who is supposed to have led a rebellion of runaway slaves in
the 18th century.)
Legba = Rada spirit is the guardian of
destiny and preserves the West African notion that the place of each person is
established at birth.
Manumission = To free somebody from slavery
(formal).
Maroons = Fugitive slaves who had escaped the
countryside to avoid the indignation of plantation bondage.
Mestizo = A person from a mixed marriage.
Mestizaje =
Interracial mixing between Africans, Spanish, and Taino people.
Mondegbuerias = African deli.
Monogenesis = Proponents of monogenesis
believed that Creole languages evolved from a single original language, thought
to be an original Portuguese pidgin.
Moroonage = Flight of servitude.
Mulatta = The term mulatta is a social construction
created by colonizers to signify the racial mixing of people of African and
European ancestry with the intent of "whitening" African physical and
cultural traits.
Mulattos = European and African descent.
Négritude = It represents a historic
development in the formulation of African diasporic identity and culture in
this century.
Ogu = Vodoo practice in Haiti.
Ounsis = Spiritual mediums.
Orgun = It is associated with resistance but
avoids over rebellion.
Oshun = The spirit of sweet water and rivers.
Peninsulares = European born.
Polygenesis = Supporters of polygenesis, on
the other hand, argued for multiple sources, claiming that different Creole
language families have different origins.
Rada =
Rooted version of the Iwa characterized by tranquility and
generosity. “Rada” derives from Arada, a kingdom in
Dahomey during Haiti's colonial period.
Rastafarianism = The members of a social movement,
established in Jamaica around 1930, that combines elements of religious
prophecy, specifically the idea of a black God and Messiah.
St Lauzurus = The Catholic who is the patron
of skin diseases.
Substrata = It refers to an African
foundation, or underlying layer.
Superstrata =
It carries with it the notion
that European languages were the basis and had African and indigenous elements
added to them as conquest and slavery progressed.
Shango = Vodoo practice in Trinidad.
Taino =
Aboriginal Indians named
Taínos, who called their island Boriquén (or Borinquén).
Umbanda =
Vodou =
Yeomanry = Attendant in a royal or noble
household; small farmer.
Yoruba = Cuban Santeria is based Yoruba
pantheon of deities or orishas.
Yemaya = It simplifies the virtues of
motherhood; and the spirit of the ocean and salt waters.
Zambos = Indian and African descent.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Jose
Marti Biography by
Carlos Dalmau Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2004. © 1993-2003
Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Women, Black, in
Colonial Hispanic Caribbean
Contributed By: Felix V. Matos Rodriguez, Encarta Encyclopedia.
Cuba-Slavery by Jean Strubs, Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference
Library 2004. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Carlos Dambau, Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library
2004. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Haitian
Revolution by Encarta
Encyclopedia.
Blackness in
Latin America and Caribbean by
Arlene Torres and Norman Whitten, Encara Encyclopedia.
Puerto Rico
Slavery by Mayda de Oro,
Encarta Encyclopedia.
Web Site: http://www.educationworld.com/a_lesson/lesson244.shtml
Origins of the Black Atlantic
World:
Web site: http://www.unc.edu/depts/afriafam/AnniversaryConference/baw.htm
The African Slave Trade and South
Carolina:
Web Site: http://sciway.net/hist/chicora/slavery18-2.html
The Capture of a Slaver-Web Site:
http://etex.lib.virginia.edu/toc/modeng/public/WooCapt.html
The Economics of Slavery:
Web Site: http://www.cghs.dade.k12.fl.us/slavery/index.htm
Web Site: http://genealogy.about.com/library/weekly/aa021101a.htm
Africans in America
Web Site: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aia/part1/index.html
(Prof. Pekka Masonen, Dept. of History, Univ. of Tampere, Finland;
African Timelines web contribution, 17 October 2002).
(Masonen, "Trans-Saharan Trade").
Civilizations
in Africa: Ghana
(Richard Hooker, World Civilizations, WSU):
http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/CIVAFRCA/GHANA.HTM
Timeline of Portuguese Activity
in East Africa, 1498-1700 (Prof.
Jim Jones, History Dept., West Chester Univ., 1998):
http://courses.wcupa.edu/jones/his311/timeline/t-port.htm
John Hope Franklin. From Slavery to Freedom. 8th
ed.,N.Y., Knopf, 2002.
From
Paul E. Lovejoy, "Volume of the Atlantic Slave Trade," Journal of
African History 23 (1982), 473-501.
Jose Marti, Cuban Liberator, Alan West.
Microsoft ® Encarta
® Reference Library 2004. © 1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights
reserved.
Rasatafarianism,
Contributed By: Roanne Edwards, Microsoft ® Encarta ® Reference Library 2004. ©
1993-2003 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
Women, Black, in
Colonial Hispanic Caribbean, Contributed by Felix V. Matos Rodriguez
