Unit 1: Origins of the African Diaspora

African American Studies

An interdisciplinary field that combines scholarly inquiry with a community-centered approach to studying the history, culture, and politics of people of African descent in the U.S. and across the African diaspora.

Interdisciplinary

Using methods and insights from multiple academic fields (e.g., history, politics, anthropology, literature) to analyze a topic.

African diaspora

Communities of people of African descent living outside Africa due to movement and dispersal over time, especially shaped by the Atlantic slave trade and Atlantic World.

Atlantic World

A network of connections among Africa, Europe, and the Americas that expanded rapidly after transatlantic voyages, linking trade, migration, and power.

Racialized chattel slavery

A system in which enslaved people were treated as movable property, and enslavement was made hereditary and tied to racial categories (especially Blackness).

Primary source

Evidence produced during the time being studied (e.g., letters, inventories, laws) that provides direct historical testimony.

Secondary source

Later interpretation or analysis of the past (e.g., historians’ books/articles) based on primary evidence.

Causation (historical thinking)

Explaining why events happened by tracing the factors, incentives, and decisions that produced outcomes over time.

Continuity and change

A historical skill that identifies what stayed the same and what shifted over a period, and explains why.

Cultural retention

The continuation of cultural practices from earlier contexts (e.g., musical structures, spiritual practices, agricultural knowledge) within diaspora communities.

Creolization

The blending and creation of new cultural forms under new conditions (e.g., new languages, religions, cuisines) in diaspora societies.

New identities (diaspora formation)

Group identities shaped both by external imposition through slavery and by community-building within the diaspora.

Black Campus Movement (1965–1972)

Nationwide student protests that helped institutionalize African American Studies, demanding culturally relevant curricula and support for Black students and faculty.

Paleoanthropologists

Scientists who study human origins and early humans using fossil and archaeological evidence.

Homo habilis

An early human species associated in many summaries with early tool use and hunter-gatherer life; often linked (in course timelines) to fire use and shelter.

Homo erectus

An early human species associated in many summaries with migrations into Asia, crossing water, and speech.

Homo sapiens

Modern humans; commonly dated in course summaries to around 200,000 years ago.

Mitochondrial Eve hypothesis

A hypothesis emphasizing a shared maternal lineage tracing back to a single African woman (as a most recent common maternal ancestor).

Sahara

A major desert in North Africa covering close to the northern third of the continent, historically limiting contact with much of sub-Saharan Africa for long periods.

Sahel

A semiarid transition zone south of the Sahara that connected desert and savanna regions and supported commerce (including livestock trade).

Savanna

Broad grasslands across central and parts of southern Africa where agriculture and animal domestication supported major population centers.

Rainforest (African climate zone)

A climate zone concentrated in parts of West and Central Africa with distinct crops and trade (e.g., yams, kola, and gold trade in some regions).

Nile River Valley

An agriculturally rich region supporting dense settlement; central to the development of Egypt and Nubia/Kush.

Bilad es Sudan

A phrase meaning “land of the Black people,” associated with regions south of the Sahara.

Bantu expansion

Large-scale migrations (about 1500 BCE–500 CE) that spread Bantu languages and cultural practices across much of Africa.

Migration theory (Bantu expansion)

An explanation that Bantu-speaking peoples moved and used technological advantages to claim territory, spreading language and practices.

Diffusion theory (Bantu expansion)

An explanation that Bantu practices spread through contact as families moved alongside new groups rather than replacing them entirely.

Adoption theory (Bantu expansion)

An explanation that Bantu language and technologies spread even where large populations stayed in place, through uptake by local communities.

West Africa (Atlantic era relevance)

A broad region tied to early forced migrations to the Americas, linked to river systems (Senegal, Gambia, Niger) and the Atlantic coast.

West Central Africa

A broad region (including the Congo–Angola area) that became the largest source region in the transatlantic slave trade to the Americas.

Lineage

A kin-based structure (often a clan) claiming descent from a single ancestor, shaping identity and political alliances.

Matrilineal

A kinship system in which social rank and property pass through the female line (e.g., succession to a chief via a sister’s son).

Sande society

A secret society in parts of West Africa described as initiating girls into adulthood and providing forms of instruction (including sex education) and values.

Queen Idia

The first iyoba (queen mother) of Benin (late 15th century), remembered as a political advisor and leader associated with military victories.

Iyoba

A title meaning “queen mother” in the Kingdom of Benin, associated with political influence and leadership.

FESTAC (Second World Black Festival of Arts and Culture)

A 1977 festival where an ivory mask of Queen Idia was adopted as a symbol of Black women’s leadership across the diaspora.

Queen Njinga

A 17th-century ruler of Ndongo and Matamba (Angola) who led long resistance against Portuguese intrusion and used diplomacy and warfare to defend sovereignty.

Pawnship

A form of unfreedom in some African contexts where a person could be held as collateral for a debt, distinct from Atlantic chattel slavery.

Household incorporation (pre-Atlantic captivity)

A pattern in some African systems where captives could be absorbed into households or kin networks and, in some cases, see status shift over time.

Chattel (as a slavery category)

A legal-economic concept treating a person as movable property that can be bought, sold, mortgaged, and inherited.

Hereditary slavery

A system where enslaved status is passed to children through law (often tied to the mother in many colonies).

Mercantilism

Colonial-era policies aimed at increasing national wealth by controlling trade, securing colonies, and accumulating bullion; colonies were expected to serve metropolitan interests.

Plantation complex

A system of large-scale export agriculture (especially sugar) requiring intensive coerced labor, major capital investment, and long-distance trade.

Middle Passage

The ocean-crossing stage of the transatlantic slave trade characterized by extreme crowding, disease, brutality, and high mortality, alongside resistance.

Seasoning

The period after sale in the Americas when enslaved people were forced to adjust to new disease environments, labor regimes, and control systems.

Kingdom of Kongo

A major West Central African state that developed deep ties with Portugal; converted to Roman Catholicism in 1491 and became central to Atlantic slave trading pressures.

Afonso I (Nzinga Mbemba)

A Christian king of Kongo who corresponded about illegal enslavement and disorder linked to Portuguese slave trading in the early 1500s.

Syncretism

The blending of religious and cultural elements (e.g., African spiritual systems combining with Christianity or Islam in Africa and the Americas).

Griot

A prestigious historian/storyteller/musician in West Africa who preserves and transmits community history and tradition through oral performance.

Race (historical construction)

A set of ideas and practices created to categorize people and distribute power; in the Atlantic World it justified permanent enslavement and legal inequality tied to Blackness.