African Diaspora 1

Modern African Diaspora:
The dispersion of Africans and their descendants across the globe—especially through forced migration during the transatlantic slave trade and later voluntary movements—shaping diverse cultural and social identities worldwide.

Affranchis:
Enslaved Africans who were granted freedom (especially in French colonies), yet still often faced social and legal limitations despite their free status.

Gens de Couleur:
A term meaning “people of color” used in French colonial societies to describe free individuals of mixed African and European ancestry who, while possessing some rights, were still subject to racial discrimination.

Jamaica:
A Caribbean island that became a major center for sugar plantations and the transatlantic slave trade, deeply influencing the region’s cultural and demographic history.

Code Noir:
A 1685 French decree that regulated the treatment, rights, and obligations of enslaved Africans in French colonies, aiming to govern slavery but often inadequately enforced.

Madeira:
A Portuguese island in the Atlantic that played an early role in the development of plantation agriculture and served as an experimental model for later colonial slave economies.

Sao Tome and Principe:
Two islands off the coast of Central Africa that became important centers for early Portuguese slave trading and plantation agriculture in the Atlantic.

Jamestown, 1619:
The site in Virginia where the first recorded Africans arrived in English North America, marking the beginning of institutionalized African slavery in what would become the United States.

Slavery in Colonial Virginia:
A system in which enslaved Africans were legally defined as property, characterized by codified racial hierarchies and a shift toward lifelong, hereditary servitude.

Differences between Slavery in Africa and the Americas:
In Africa, slavery often allowed for social mobility and integration into kinship systems, whereas in the Americas, slavery was a racially based, brutal, and hereditary system of chattel slavery.

What Caused the Rise of African Slavery in the Americas:
Factors include the drastic decline of Native American populations (often due to disease), the labor demands of plantation agriculture (sugar, tobacco, cotton), and emerging racial ideologies that dehumanized Africans.

Slavery and Racism in Portugal and Spain:
The legal and cultural frameworks developed by these Iberian empires to justify and regulate the enslavement of Africans, fostering racial hierarchies that devalued non-Europeans.

Why Native Americans Were Not the Main Labor Source in the Americas:
Due to rapid population declines from European diseases and differing economic practices, Native Americans were less available and less “amenable” to the demands of large-scale, plantation-based labor.

Why Africans Were the Main Labor Source in the Americas:
Africans were forcibly brought in large numbers because they were seen as more resistant to Old World diseases, had agricultural experience, and were deemed “eligible” under emerging racial ideologies for chattel slavery.

Triangular Slave Trade:
A trade network linking Europe, Africa, and the Americas, where European goods were exchanged for enslaved Africans, who were then transported to the Americas, and plantation products were sent back to Europe.

Middle Passage:
The notoriously brutal transatlantic journey during which enslaved Africans were transported under inhumane conditions to the Americas.

Distribution of Enslaved Blacks in the Americas:
The uneven allocation of enslaved Africans throughout the Caribbean, South America, and North America—often concentrated where labor-intensive cash crops (like sugar and coffee) drove plantation economies.

Slavery in the Caribbean and South America:
Systems of slavery in these regions characterized by extreme brutality, high mortality rates, and large-scale plantation agriculture, particularly in the sugar industry.

African Cultural Retention:
The preservation and adaptation of African cultural traditions, languages, and religious practices by enslaved Africans despite efforts at forced assimilation in the Americas.

Creole Slaves and Saltwater Slaves:
Creole slaves were those born in the Americas (often developing unique, hybrid cultures), while saltwater slaves were those directly transported from Africa, carrying distinct traditions from their homelands.

Four Forms of Resistance:
The various ways enslaved Africans opposed oppression:

1. Overt Revolts: Organized rebellions.

2. Everyday Defiance: Sabotage, work slowdowns, and subtle noncompliance.

3. Escape: Running away to form maroon communities.

4. Cultural Resistance: Maintaining and adapting African traditions and spirituality.

Three Eras of Slavery in the United States:
A general framework that includes:

1. Early/Colonial Era: A less rigid, more fluid system of enslavement with occasional manumission.

2. Antebellum Era: The period of entrenched, racially based chattel slavery driven by the cotton economy.

3. Post-Emancipation/Jim Crow Era: A time marked by legal segregation and systemic discrimination after the abolition of slavery.

Spirit Mediumship – “Horse of the God”:
A practice in certain African and Afro-diasporic religions where a medium serves as a conduit for a deity or spirit, often symbolically “riding” its power during rituals.

Divination:
The practice of seeking insight or guidance from supernatural forces or deities through ritualistic methods, symbols, or spiritual communication.

Candomblé:
An Afro-Brazilian religion that blends West African religious traditions (notably Yoruba, Fon, and Bantu influences) with elements of Catholicism, centered around the worship of orishas (deities) through dance, music, and ritual.

Santeria:
An Afro-Caribbean religion, particularly prominent in Cuba, that syncretizes Yoruba spiritual practices with Roman Catholicism, associating orishas with Catholic saints and involving ritual ceremonies, drumming, and divination.

Voodoo (Vodou):
A syncretic religion primarily practiced in Haiti that combines West and Central African spiritual traditions with Catholic elements, characterized by spirit possession, ancestor worship, and elaborate ritual practices.

Antebellum Era:
The period in United States history before the Civil War, marked by the entrenchment of slavery—especially in the Southern states—and the explosive growth of the cotton economy.

Cotton:
A key cash crop grown predominantly in the Southern United States, whose labor-intensive cultivation and processing (accelerated by the cotton gin) significantly fueled the expansion of slavery.