African Diaspora: Creating Blackness

Black Diaspora

• Black doesn’t denote color or race; rather describes ethnicity and culture(s)

• Diaspora

  • A group of people separated from their home

• Emerges in the mid 15th century

• Also known as the Transatlantic Atlantic Enslaver Trade

  • African people originally controlled this slave trade

Middle Passage (1460-1870)

• Kingdom of Portugal begins to pursue ships

• Begins in the east hemisphere

• 1863

  • Ship docked in Mobil(?) bay, and it had smuggled enslaved African people

  • 15-20 million people were trafficked along the seas

• “Floating Nightmares’

  • The ships weren’t designed to transport hundreds of people

    • Often packed and cramped with people being transported

Shared Trauma: Sub-Saharan Captives and the Creation of Blackness

• Social death and psychological trauma

• Commodification and physical trauma

  • Essentially made to be sold (trained to work)

• Negotiating with captors

• Revolts and death as resistance