#Enslaved Africans

[yearningforunity]

Jamaican Obeah

Jamaican Obeah refers to the practice of Obeah, a spiritual and magical tradition rooted in West African and Caribbean cultures. Obeah has a significance presence in Jamaica and holds cultural and historical importance on the island. Obeah in Jamaica has its roots in the spiritual beliefs and practices brought to the Caribbean through the transatlantic slave trade. Enslaved Africans brought with them a rich tapestry of religious and spiritual traditions, and Obeah emerged as a distinct syncretic practice in Jamaica. Individuals who practice Obeah are often referred to as "Obeah men" or "Obeah women". These practitioners have a deep understanding of the spiritual realm and are sought after for their abilities in healing, protection, divination and other spiritual services.

It's crucial to approach discussions about Jamaican Obeah with cultural sersitivity, recognizing the diversity of beliefs and practices within the Afro-Caribbean spiritual landscape. Different individuals and communities may have variations in their practices, and interpretations may differ among practioners. Respect for cultural beliefs and traditions is essential and fostering understanding.

[ausetkmt]

I knew that the Catholic Church via the Pope had authorized slavery in the 1400s, but I didn’t know that they had authorized the eradication, subjugation, etc, of African people. Somehow I never connected the two.

“We grant you [Kings of Spain and Portugal] by these present documents, with our Apostolic Authority, full and free permission to invade, search out, capture, and subjugate the Saracens and pagans and any other unbelievers and enemies of Christ wherever they may be, as well as their kingdoms, duchies, counties, principalities, and other property […] and to reduce their persons into perpetual servitude.”

These clearly refers to the lands along the coast of West Africa. By these decree,  Pope Nicholas V conceded to the King of Portugal Afonso V and Prince Henry and all their successors, all their conquests of Africa, and reduction to perpetual servitude of all people deemed non-believers and enemies of Christ, and all their properties.

A significant subsequent concession given by Nicholas V in a brief issued to King Alfonso in 1454 extended the rights granted to existing territories to all those that might be taken in the future. Together with a second reference to some who have already been enslaved, this has been used to suggest that Nicholas sanctioned the purchase of black slaves from “the infidel”: “… many Guineamen and other negroes, taken by force, and some by barter of unprohibited articles, or by other lawful contract of purchase, have been … converted to the Catholic faith, and it is hoped, by the help of divine mercy, that if such progress be continued with them, either those peoples will be converted to the faith or at least the souls of many of them will be gained for Christ.”

This bull is currently conserved at the Institute of the National Archives of Torre do Tomba in Lisboa, Portugal, under the reference PT/TT/BUL/0007/29 and is fully translated to French in the book “le Péché du pape contre l’Afrique” (The Sin of the Pope against Africa) (éd. Al qalam, Paris, 2002) de Assani Fassassi, P. 10 – 21.

[shoshonecookhouse]

How Enslaved Africans Helped Invent American Cuisine

Lovely, fascinating, appetizing reading for the family here at SC. As we welcome more folx with African blood into our family, Juneteenth becomes an important rite.

LF found this article while researching African foods brought to America. We'll be using this piece to create our own traditional Juneteenth menu for next spring.

[jamaicahomescom]

The Link Between Ghana, Africa, and Jamaica: A Shared History, Culture, and Architectural Evolution

[panafrocore]

The Remarkable Reign of Miguel I of Buría: A Tale of Defiance and Freedom

Miguel I of Buría, also known as King Miguel, Miguel the Black, and Miguel Guacamaya, was a remarkable historical figure with a legacy that transcends time. His journey from enslavement in San Juan, Puerto Rico to becoming the King of Buría in modern-day Lara, Venezuela is a testament to his resilience, leadership, and unwavering spirit. It was in 1552 that Miguel’s reign began, a period of…

[bfpnola]

[reasoningdaily]

My family has a museum on River Road in Gonzalez Louisiana. the history will make you run through the fields running and crying. the bloody river road will never leave my memory..

[art-portraits]

Portrait of Emmanuel Rio

Artist: Albert Schindler (Austrian, 1805–1861)

Date: 1836

Medium: Oil on Panel

Collection: Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, Illinois, United States

DESCRIPTION

Previously known only as “a gardener and horn player,” recent research has identified the figure in this painting as Emmanuel Rio, an enslaved Brazilian man of African descent who was sent to Emperor Francis I in Vienna around 1820. About ten years old when he arrived in Vienna, Rio was enrolled in an elite private school, where he excelled in French, Italian, drawing, and especially music. Francis fostered his talent, gifting Rio a French horn on the occasion of his graduation. Despite his aptitude for music, Rio was assigned to work in the imperial garden.

In this portrait, produced a year after the emperor’s death, Rio holds his favored instrument while looking at an image of Francis, beneath which hangs a gold watch given to him by the monarch. The painting’s sentimentality does little to suggest the precariousness of its subject’s situation in Vienna, which only worsened after Francis died. For the rest of his life, Viennese officials moved Rio to various positions throughout Europe, threatened him with forced military service when he resisted, and, by the late 1840s, discussed sending him back to Brazil or to Africa.

[hussyknee]

"The forced migration of African slaves" motherfucker you mean the genocide of West Africans. Twelve and half million people forced out of their homeland or died before they ever left it. That is a goddamn Holocaust.

Genocide isn't just systematic killing, it's one group deliberately causing the death and displacement of another. It's why colonization and slavery is genocide. It doesn't hinge on whether or not they actually manage to get rid of everybody. We need to start punching assholes who'd rather split hairs and compare numbers instead of using the word.

[ausetkmt]

The Spectator: The fact that collapses the case for slavery reparations

The case for slavery reparations seems to be growing louder every day. This week, indigenous representatives from 12 Commonwealth countries called on King Charles to begin the process of paying reparations. The King has personally expressed sorrow for the suffering of slaves and Buckingham Palace has said that it is taking the issue of reparations ‘profoundly seriously’. Earlier this year, a former BBC journalist committed to sending £100,000 in aid to the Caribbean to atone for her own family’s historical links to the slave trade.  

The voluntary role that many Africans played in the transatlantic slave trade is ignored

The central thesis of slavery reparations is that white majority countries owe money to ethnic minorities as their ancestors may have enslaved others or benefited from a slave-system economy. 

There is a problem with this though: ultimately, the great evil of slavery was practised by all inhabited continents and all races. And there will be almost no one alive today in the world who doesn’t have an ancestral link to the slave trade. This fact collapses the modern-day reparations argument.  

Take the Afro-Omani slave trader Tippu Tip, who in 1895 was reported to have seven plantations and own 10,000 slaves. He was one of the largest slavers in all of East Africa.  

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The sad truth about Phillip Schofield

Long before the transatlantic slave trade began, slavery was commonplace in many parts of the globe. As Al-Tabari, the Muslim scholar, showed in the mid-ninth century, the Basra port at al-Ahwaz alone had about 15,000 enslaved workers. Even in New Zealand, Maori chiefs enslaved prisoners of war – occasionally going as far as eating them in tribal feasts. The further you go back in history the longer the list of slavers grows, including everyone from the Ancient Egyptians to the Shang dynasty in China.  

Given that many of the nations now calling for reparations also enslaved and sold others, the reparations argument when brought to its logical conclusion would have to demand that descendants of African slavers owe reparations to those who may have been the victims of slavery.  

This argument could even be applied to the white descendants of the victims of the Barbary slave trade. Though undoubtedly far smaller than the transatlantic slave trade, the Barbary trade still saw over one million Europeans captured by North African pirates in slave raids between the 16th and 18th centuries.  

So why is this devastating blow to the reparations argument often ignored? Politically, it seems that although we generally accept that slavery was universal in ancient history, we often pretend that only European powers practised slavery from the 16th century onwards, when this is clearly not the case. Meanwhile, the voluntary role that many Africans played in the transatlantic slave trade is also ignored.  

Generally the European powers, with the exception of Portugal, lacked the resources to delve deep into the African continent for slaves. They were instead met at the coast by willing traders looking to make a profit by selling their fellow man. Though it is undoubtedly true that the rise of the transatlantic trade encouraged the growth of African slavers, this does not excuse those who took part in the trade.  

Nor did slavery end in Africa when European colonialists were removed from the continent. When the Portuguese were forced off the East African Coast in 1699 by the Imam of the Omani Empire, he himself owned about 1,700 slaves.  

The same is true for colonies outside Africa. In the early 1820s, Brazil broke away from the Portuguese Empire. Despite its later anti-slavery treaties with the UK, Brazil would continue importing about 750,000 slaves between 1831-1850. In 1844 it refused to renew the Anglo-Brazilian anti-slave trade agreement. Brazil’s slave trade only effectively stopped after 1850 when the UK formed a naval blockade in its coastal waters. 

During the age of abolition led by Britain, the King of Dahomey (a West African Kingdom in modern day Benin) reportedly protested to a British officer that:  

‘The slave trade has been the ruling principle of my people. It is the source of their glory and wealth. Their songs celebrate their victories and the mother lulls the child to sleep with notes of triumph over an enemy reduced to slavery.’ 

Some independent African nations and empires continued to allow slavery well after abolitionism in Europe. This was especially true in the eastern side of Africa where it was more difficult for the British to influence local politics and for the Royal Navy to enforce abolition.  

From the 1860s onwards, Bemba chiefs in North-Eastern Zambia traded ivory and slaves for guns. As the supply of elephants for ivory depleted, the chiefs moved to selling even more slaves. In Barotseland, the monarch Lewanika was considered king of the Barotses, a South African ethnic group. From the beginning of his reign in 1878 until the region became a British protectorate, oral sources claim that up to a third of his subjects were slaves.  

There is no question that the Euro-American trade in slaves – which began with Portugal and later included other colonial powers like France and Britain – was huge in size. This evil should never be forgotten.  

But neither should we forget that people from all parts of the world, races and religions took part in what was one of the most horrid systems in human history.  

In many parts of the world today, slavery is still rife. Rather than trying to create division by blaming people for the sins of their ancestors, we should instead come together to try and solve the problems we face today. 

[transastronautistic]

i want to make a sewing piece with flowers from different liberation movements — e.g. lavender for queers, poppy for Palestine...

anyone have information on flowers linked to other movements / cultures? For instance, Black liberation or Latin American / Indigenous liberation?

[leroibobo]

the shrine of saint sarah in the church of the saintes-maries-de-la-mer in in the camargue in france. the church itself was built in the 9th century and named for and dedicated to the three marys. a popular french legend goes that they and their maid, sarah, landed on a camargue coast.

saint sarah, or sarah-e-kali (sarah the black, “the black” is a title sometimes given to black/dark-skinned saints) in romani, is the patron saint of roma people in latin catholicism, though she isn't recognized by the catholic church. she is also revered as a protector for marginalized and poor people in general. her origins are thought to lie in a syncretization of the hindu goddess kali, the story of sarah along with the three marys, and the tradition of black madonnas. (christian roma have historically venerated other black madonnas as well.) the church is her major shrine - she's venerated here annually on the 24th of may by roma pilgrims.