History Of Blacks In The Diaspora, Including America - Essay Example

History of Blacks in the Diaspora, including America The African Diaspora defined: Mass departure of large number of population is referred to as Diaspora. The African Diaspora points particularly to the exodus of Africans to the New World starting from the 16th century till the 19th century. But these exoduses was against the will of the Blacks implying that they were abducted and transported away from their original homes, rural areas and separated from their families through coercion and compelled to reside elsewhere. The Blacks were selectively chosen going for the Africans possessing the maximum knowledge and also the person having the highest skill inside the village. (The African Diaspora: Melfisher.org) The people who were detained were moved and in some case even made to travel on foot across hundred of miles to the coast of Africa wherein they were kept in confinement known as barracoons. The coast was the focal point of trade for both goods from Europe as well as their slaves. Ultimately, the people were dumped in one of the ships meant for the slaves and deported on a transatlantic journey unaware that they will be traded and locked up as laborers. In terms of numbers the African Diaspora is unbelievable. Close to 12 million people were coerced out of Africa and deported to the New World. The key to the African Diaspora was propelled by a thriving economy. The slave trade drew investors from a host of nations such as Portugal, Spain, Brazil, England, the United States, Holland, France, Sweden and Denmark which kept the slave trade alive for a more than hundred years. (The African Diaspora: Melfisher.org) The concept of the African Diaspora considers the worldwide dispersion of Africans throughout history; the surfacing of the cultural identity abroad based on origin and social condition; and the physiological return to their own homeland i.e. Africa. Thus the African presence in Asia, Europe, and the Americas is not a recent occurrence. It had happened in ancient Greece and Rome, and it subsisted in Arabia and also in other parts of Asia prior to the rise of Islam. The growth of the global trade in African slaves by the Arabs for more than a century and half years back and the much more severe business by the Europeans and Americas from the fifteen century made that presence basically global. (Harris 27) Background & History of Blacks in the Diaspora: Spanning a period of nearly four hundred years, more than 4 million Africans were deported to N. America and also to the Caribbean Islands in the Atlantic slave trade. They were imprisoned from their motherland and estranged from the members of their groups and families and they were led to lead lives of slaves in New World where the customs and traditions in the midst they spent their lives were completely absent. The African Diaspora is the account of the manner in which Africans even through scattered and isolated were able to retain their traditions, undergo changes in their identities in a New World. Essentials of African culture such as the religion, language, and folklore lasted and also the links to their previous lives. In the course of Americanization, Africans developed yet another culture that is known as African-Americans or Creolos. The forced migration leading to the transatlantic slave trade is considered to be the largest one in the world. In its effort, it created lasting permanent linkages between Africa and N. America. (African Diaspora: Colorado College) The African populations were transported from a lot of areas of Africa, however mainly from those areas along the coast. The Bantu, lined on the Guinea coast, had the biggest uniform culture after which comes Mande, hence the culture of African-Americans was impacted in a major part by the people of these areas. In these colonies, the demand of the slaves mainly for economic factors and the demographics of the slaves left a huge impact on the development of the Afro-American culture. There was a presence of more than one Afro-American culture, since every area possessed a distinct social, economic, and political flexibility on slavery that featured a distinctive slave culture. For instance, the regions that were dependent on plantation like the interior South and the Chesepeake were present a large number of slaves, whereas in comparison, the North had comparatively less slaves. (African Diaspora: Colorado College) The resulting outcome was that the southern colonies imported new African slaves on a more regular basis that regularly reinstated African traditions. Within each area in the colonies possessed the development of a typical Afro-American culture. Even though the African-American culture was precise to each region, a lot of general cultural themes were present which covered the Afro-American population in the colonies and among one of them was religion. Christianity constitutes a good example regarding the manner in which Africans enjoined their self beliefs with that of the present religion, and presented their own theology. (African Diaspora: Colorado College) Culture preservation amidst adversity: The history of Africans and their offspring's in Latin America starts with the atrocities of the slave ships and compulsory labor in the mines, plantation sites and affluent homes inside Latin America. Nevertheless, it is crucial to understand that the black people were not mute testimony to all these happenings. Truly, the account of Afro-Latin America is a tale of resistance and struggle and ruthlessness in opposition to slavery and authority that expressed itself at the time of slavery during slave revolts and the establishment of runaway slave communities. Concurrently with these revolts, some of them stood firm opposing the dehumanization of slavery system, impoverishment and marginalization by certain types of expressive culture which facilitated them to preserve their sense of their self humanity. There were others who managed to integrate themselves into the mainstream society through a process which continues to this day also. (Histories of Resistance: Culture of Resistance) Regardless of the significance of the Black experience in Latin America, it constitutes an account that has been hardly ever been revealed in official records or the history books. However, it goes on to be narrated in routine practices of the African-Latin American people, whose expressive culture, language, folklore, cooking trends, and manner of leading lives point a reference to their African roots and their means of leading lives enduring hundred of years of enslavement, discrimination and marginalization. This importance on the past is a vital constituent of the struggle of the African people - an indomitable denial to disregard their self and the history which they have lived. The political struggles of the present era entail the recounting of history to assert their privileges and their self in a world which has also forgotten and refused them. (Histories of Resistance: Culture of Resistance) On the other hand, the religions of the African Diaspora are distinct from one another in that each one possesses a distinct heritage from the African, European, Native American, and a lot of other sources. Nevertheless they are similar to one another in that everybody acknowledges the special priority of their African origins. The founders of Diasporean religions arrived from the Western and Central Africa in which some of the caucus of worship were obtained over extensive geographic regions. Every Diaspora tradition shares this heritage, and the resemblances and differences of their worship styles can be clarified, at least in part, by finding out the history of their transmission from Africa. Every tradition was revealed with distinctive challenges in its struggle for survival that in turn formed the development of its cultural heritage. (Murphy 12-14) African Diaspora in America: The African Diaspora was a compulsive dispersion of the Africans to the New World i.e. the whole of America including the North & the South America and also to the Caribbeans. The Whites of the New World witnessed Africans as instruments to provide low-cost or free labor, performing various tasks in the New World. The transatlantic slave trade was developed solely with this in mind. Africans numbering millions were deported to the various regions of the New World and more specifically, approximately half million Africans were brought to America in the span of two centuries. Whereas this transatlantic slave trade led to the loss of a lot of African political, social and economic establishments which created a threat to slavery, Africans were till capable enough to maintain several portions of their culture, especially religious traditions and beliefs. (The African Diaspora: Darthmouth) According to Joseph E. Holloway who states in Africianisms in American Culture, the history of the New World is a tale of cultural communication, amalgamation and absorption. The transatlantic slave trade set up a permanent link between Africa and N. America as Africans relocated their cultures to the New World. But it has often been debated by a lot of academicians that African cultures in N. America was unable to last. This argument was maintained by two scholars E. Franklin Frazier who maintained that slavery in its contemporary form was so demeaning in America that it damaged every African component among Black Americans. But Belville Herskovits, on the other hand debated that African customs had lasted with the black cultures in U.S. Through using New Orleans during the 18th century to the middle part of the 20th century it has been proven regarding the manner in which African religious customs, especially voodoo beliefs and practices were able to be retained by means of reinterpretation and accommodation as a method of self-expression and personal gratification for Blacks under the severe environment of slavery and coercion due to racial class. (The African Diaspora: Darthmouth) Nevertheless, the removal from its African origins and original myths changed voodoo in New Orleans that resulted to its corruption. Through analyzing the religious background of voodoo, the historical background of the New Orleans, and ultimately in New Orleans, it has been demonstrated that the extent to which generations together in New Orleans held African religious traditions and separated from these customs with the passage of time. As a constituent of their survival procedure, the Blacks had to be capable enough to unearth the real meaning of the culture of the new environment and make adjust their own culture to fit this compulsive setting which slavery had built. The Old World Europeans considered that a link is present between darkness of the African skin, slavery and sin. This striking stigma facilitated white colonial Americans to pressurize upon the Old World concept of the need to transform these sinful Black savages and to thus to enslave the Blacks such that they can remove the Blacks of their rash and lethargic characters. As a result, enslavement in colonial America involved a compulsive acculturation that endeavored to segregate the slaves from a feeling of self and bully the black race. (The African Diaspora: Darthmouth) Slave Masters endeavored to break down Africans from getting on to be outlandish Negroes, those who were being weird Negroes, who were held of late and nursed pure detestation for their white captors, to being rational Negroes who were given orders and comprehended the meaning of the slave game. Peculiar Negroes witnessed the accommodation as detrimental to being self and hence opposed by taking their own lives or trying to murder their masters; whereas rational Negroes accommodated by holding a check to their senses through rebelliousness. In Myth of the Negro past, Melville Herskovits tries to dismiss the concept that slavery destroyed the cultural path of Blacks and he also corroborates that African tradition had endured in Black cultures, thus proposing that there is a distinguishing African-American culture in America. He discovers the manner in which Africans with Europeans as also American Indians, cultural accommodation and also its integration has been attained. African-American groups have integrated ancient beliefs with new have resulted to the reinterpretation of the two so as to efficiently fulfill the psychological requirement of life. (The African Diaspora: Darthmouth) Therefore, the method of culture-change entailed the reinterpretation of and the accommodation to the dominant culture that spawned syncretisms. This process can be obviously witnessed with the syncretism among African Gods and the Catholic saints in the religious practice of voodoo in New Orleans. Even though a lot of African people are there having diverse cultures, traditions, customs and languages in the huge continent of Africa, they have in common the importance of religion. In African communities, religion happens to be an important part of the lives of the people, the community in its entirety and the family as well. Religion happens to be a way of life also for the people of Africa. (The African Diaspora: Dartmouth) With the explanation of Albert Raboteau in Slave Religion, African societies normally lay faith in a God of high level who is somewhat detached from and aloof from the behavior of men, particularly relative to the lesser god and ancestor spirits who are concerned with the routine life of the individual and the happenings of the society in general. According to Ira Berlin, the development of slave society depended on the character of the slave business and the demographic pattern of Blacks and also Whites. The form of the slave trade and the demographic patterns had a remarkable impact on the culture of Blacks. However the slaves were asked not to assemble due to the internal fear of the master that an uprising may be there. The master viewed these first generation slaves as savages who had a great deal of hatred for the whites. The masters desired to remove the fearless Blacks with sensible Blacks could accommodate themselves to the severe realities of slavery. (The African Diaspora: Dartmouth) References African Diaspora. Colorado College. Retrieved 17 April, 2007 from http://www.coloradocollege.edu/Dept/HY/HY243Ruiz/Research/diaspora.html Harris, Joseph E. Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. Howard University Press. 1993. Histories of Resistance: Culture of Resistance. The African Diaspora in the Americas. Retrieved 17 April, 2007 from http://www.latinamericanvideo.org/AfricanDiaspora/HTMLS/Histories_Culture.html Murphy, Joseph M. Working the Spirit: Ceremonies of the African Diaspora. Beacon Press, 1994. Shelton, Mia L. The African Diaspora. 1998. Retrieved 17 April, 2007 from http://www.dartmouth.edu/awilson/submissions/history_16.html The African Diaspora. Retrieved 17 April, 2007 from http://www.melfisher.org/henriettamarie/teacherguide/african.pdf Read More