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"Myth 5. Before the Civil War, all African Americans were slaves. —*
"In fact, about half a million African Americans were free in 1860 and about four million were slaves. The myth supports the notion that African-American ethnic traditions descend from the slave experience. But most of today’s African-American ethnic traits descend from the literate, civically active free Black communities of antebellum Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Such traditions include the AME church, church-centered neighborhood communities, ethnic self-identity and pride, even the term “African American” and the principles of hypodescent and the earliest one-drop rule. Those traditions were forged by such men as: Paul Cuffee, Prince Hall, Richard Allen, Martin Delaney, and Frederick Douglass, of whom only the latter was ever a slave. Many families of the Black communities of the Northeast had no slave ancestry, descending from colonial African indentured servants before slavery (lifelong hereditary forced labor) was adopted in British North America. In contrast, ethnic traditions in the Lower South, where most slaves were, resembled today’s Latin America, where most free citizens were mixed to some extent, almost everyone (slave or free) was of the same ethnic self-identity, and a single sharp color line did not exist."
And almost all of them have some European ancestry. Are them "European diaspora" too?
Have you ever heard of the term Jewish diaspora before? Would you say that Jewish Latin American and Latin American Jews are not part of a Jewish diaspora? It's not mutually exclusive. One could be part of more than one diaspora context and contexts diasporically. Don't forget intersectionality of labels and identities.
For example Latin Americans have travelled and settled abroad and form part of a Latin American diaspora if you will.
People from the Caribbean have been traveling the world abroad and settling all over for centuries and are apart of the Caribbean diaspora.
Same with European diasporas etc and Roma/Romani Gypsy diaspora etc.
It's the same with the Arab diaspora or Hugenot diaspora.
For example, Paula Abdul could claim to be part of multiple intersected diaspora contexts. Her father is a Syrian Jew and her mother is a Canadian Jew of Russian descent I believe. So she is part of the Arab diaspora, the Jewish diaspora, Middle Eastern diaspora, Canadian diaspora, U.S. American diaspora, Russian diaspora etc
Get a dictionary and look up the term diaspora. It even goes back to basic Greek and Latin term words and principles and even the Bible, Talmud, Torah and other sacred texts and books.
It's not a hard concept to comprehend or grasp. Sheesh.
Last edited by MelismaticEchoes; 01-10-2014 at 01:37 PM..
Black Latin Americans are not "African diaspora". Period.
Black Latin Americans are just Latin Americans, part of a Latin American culture.
The only "African diaspora" in Latin America are those few thousand individuals who where born in Africa, and migrated to Latin America in recent decades.
In addition some of those African born people residing in Brazil could be return back migrations whose ancestors once were living in Brazil and are part of the Brazilian diaspora and Latin American diaspora and/or the Cuban diaspora. Look up the Amparos and Amaros and look up the Tabom peoples.
Alot of African Americans do not know that there is is a African descended diaspora throughout Latin America. Henry Gates did a series called Black in Latin America. But he didn't touch up on a countries with other significant Black populations.
Many AAs and other Afrodiasporic people are considered white or not black or not African in many African countries when they go to visit Africa thinking that the motherland of Africa and it's people will be accepted and embraced with open arms. AAa and other Afrodiasporic peoples are in for a rude awakening when they travel to the African continent lmao.
And many African traditions brought to the Western Hemisphere had already been fused and mixed with heavy Arab, Muslim cultural traditions and influences as well as even Jewish and Roman influences since Arabs were and still are continuing to oppress and enslave Africans.
You with your usual banter about how Arab influenced West Africa is. 85% of blacks in the Americas are descended from coastal and near hinterland regions stretching from eastern Ivory Coast to Angola. There is very little if any Arab influence there. And to talk about Jewish and Roman gets even more far fetched. you might as well mention Indian and Chinese.
I am not sure that there is any region of the Americas where peoples from the Senegambia/Mali regions were a culturally dominant group among the slaves, even in the USA where heavy % of slaves did come from those regions.
Also Africans have no right to tell people of the Americas how to identify. If some wish to claim that they are of African descent then they have that right.
Africans are also full of the notion that we "don't have culture", largely because we cant locate a specific "tribal" origin. The implication being that we are a "damaged" people.
Well they cant have it both ways. We are either "damaged" because our memories of Africa are dim, and many of us want no part of it. Or we are "whites" and so completely different, so they have no need to bother with us.
Ask the average person walking around Brownsville, or South side Chicago whether they care the slightest about Africa. They don't and many are quite hostile to Africans when they meet them.
"Myth 5. Before the Civil War, all African Americans were slaves. —*
"In fact, about half a million African Americans were free in 1860 and about four million were slaves. The myth supports the notion that African-American ethnic traditions descend from the slave experience. But most of today’s African-American ethnic traits descend from the literate, civically active free Black communities of antebellum Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. Such traditions include the AME church, church-centered neighborhood communities, ethnic self-identity and pride, even the term “African American” and the principles of hypodescent and the earliest one-drop rule. Those traditions were forged by such men as: Paul Cuffee, Prince Hall, Richard Allen, Martin Delaney, and Frederick Douglass, of whom only the latter was ever a slave. Many families of the Black communities of the Northeast had no slave ancestry, descending from colonial African indentured servants before slavery (lifelong hereditary forced labor) was adopted in British North America. In contrast, ethnic traditions in the Lower South, where most slaves were, resembled today’s Latin America, where most free citizens were mixed to some extent, almost everyone (slave or free) was of the same ethnic self-identity, and a single sharp color line did not exist."
There was a black comedy movie which addressed this issue. Light skinned black woman from bougie black family (the type who summered in Martha's Vineyard in the pre Civil Rights era) is getting married to a black man, Ivy League lawyer, but from a working class background, mother being a post office worker.
Serious culture/class clash results. The one that has the room jumping was when the mother of the bride denied that her ancestors were slaves, to the incredulous reaction from the in-laws who thought that she was ashamed of being black. Her response was that she wasn't ashamed of being black, its just that her ancestors weren't slaves, they OWNED them.
Needless to say that a serious screaming match ensued as their "bougieness" was confirmed.
So yes many blacks (dark and mulato) weren't slaves, and some were slave owners. Some who owned slaves did so for the same reasons that others did. Others did so to keep the family together as in some states newly freed slaves were forced to leave.
I once heard a AA girl in college say "Oh you're puerto rican? That's like half Mexican half black huh?" Lol. Truth is the concept is very hard for a lot of Americans to understand very few know that the U.S received fewer slaves from the slave trade compared to other countries like Brazil.
The other thing that I think influences this is that the Spaniards never truly rejected the African descendants from being considered Spaniards, which I think is quite a novel idea considering what happened in the non-Spanish lands in this hemisphere.
The Spanish constitution of 1812 basically said that any man that was not a slave was a Spanish national. In most Spanish provinces in this hemisphere, most people of color were free (except in Cuba, even though most of the population was made up of whites and free people of color, just that the free people of color were outnumbered by the ones that were not free). Cuba was an exception not just in Latin America, but in the entire Spanish World. Cuba was heavily influenced by the arrival of the French that fled Haiti during the Haitian Revolution, so this probably explains Cuba's peculiar social situation vis-a-vis the rest of Spanish America.
All of this influences the way people see themselves. Add to this that after slavery was officially abolished, Spanish America didn't went down the road of racial segregation or reducing the value of a non-white vote to 1/3 of whites or any of the other peculiarities that became the modus operandi in English America and is the main reason for why African descended people in English-speaking America tend to suffer from more racial resentments than those of the Spanish-speaking America.
The Spanish even considered the Native Americans as legitimate Spanish nationals, which is another difference with what the British did to the Native Americans in the good ole US of A where most were restricted to reservations that were nations within the US nation.
Even in Asia, the Spanish considered all natives of the Philippines to be Spanish nationals, not quite what happened in the other European colonies in that part of the world.
A French writer, when Haiti was still a colony of France in the 1700's, tried to explain why French Santo Domingo became the richest colony in the history of the world while Spanish Santo Domingo, on the same island, was one of the poorest in the Spanish world and much poorer than French Santo Domingo. His conclusion? That the French did everything they could to keep their whiteness as pure as possible and that the government of French Santo Domingo did not suffered from "the horror" that afflicted the government in Spanish Santo Domingo (aka, modern Dominican Republic) where the Spanish allowed people of color and even free blacks in government positions. Keep in mind that this was in the 1700's.
The other thing that I think influences this is that the Spaniards never truly rejected the African descendants from being considered Spaniards, which I think is quite a novel idea considering what happened in the non-Spanish lands in this hemisphere.
The Spanish constitution of 1812 basically said that any man that was not a slave was a Spanish national. In most Spanish provinces in this hemisphere, most people of color were free (except in Cuba, even though most of the population was made up of whites and free people of color, just that the free people of color were outnumbered by the ones that were not free). Cuba was an exception not just in Latin America, but in the entire Spanish World. Cuba was heavily influenced by the arrival of the French that fled Haiti during the Haitian Revolution, so this probably explains Cuba's peculiar social situation vis-a-vis the rest of Spanish America.
All of this influences the way people see themselves. Add to this that after slavery was officially abolished, Spanish America didn't went down the road of racial segregation or reducing the value of a non-white vote to 1/3 of whites or any of the other peculiarities that became the modus operandi in English America and is the main reason for why African descended people in English-speaking America tend to suffer from more racial resentments than those of the Spanish-speaking America.
The Spanish even considered the Native Americans as legitimate Spanish nationals, which is another difference with what the British did to the Native Americans in the good ole US of A where most were restricted to reservations that were nations within the US nation.
Even in Asia, the Spanish considered all natives of the Philippines to be Spanish nationals, not quite what happened in the other European colonies in that part of the world.
A French writer, when Haiti was still a colony of France in the 1700's, tried to explain why French Santo Domingo became the richest colony in the history of the world while Spanish Santo Domingo, on the same island, was one of the poorest in the Spanish world and much poorer than French Santo Domingo. His conclusion? That the French did everything they could to keep their whiteness as pure as possible and that the government of French Santo Domingo did not suffered from "the horror" that afflicted the government in Spanish Santo Domingo (aka, modern Dominican Republic) where the Spanish allowed people of color and even free blacks in government positions. Keep in mind that this was in the 1700's.
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