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With its legacy of brutality and of the horrific overseas passage, the transatlantic slave trade may be imagined as the kidnapping of Africans without regard to nationality or ethnicity. Based on his research, however, Michael A. Gomez suggests that Africans, upon arriving in America, were dispersed much more closely along ethnic and cultural lines than previously acknowledged. The underlying theme of his provocative work, Exchanging Our Country Marks, is that while blacks eventually replaced their African ethnic identities with new racial ones after arriving in the American South, they retained much of their original cultures far longer than was originally suspected. Some of his most interesting evidence of this comes in the form of runaway-slave advertisements, which identified the slaves by their ethnic roots ("Dinah, an Ebo wench that speaks very good English"). By scrutinizing ex-slave narratives, stories, music, and even the location and nature of slave rebellions, Gomez pieces together a genealogy of blacks in the American South, attempting to examine their notions of identity. Of course, much is based on significant speculation, a fact that only underscores the difficulty of such scholarship. Gomez manages to present a wide range of information clearly as he expands on a wealth of recent research regarding the slave trade and the history of blacks in America, making Exchanging Our Country Marks a vast and creative exploration of African identity in the United States from 1526 to 1830.
Book Description
The transatlantic slave trade brought individuals from diverse African regions and cultures to a common destiny in the American South. In this comprehensive study, Michael Gomez establishes tangible links between the African American community and its African origins and traces the process by which African populations exchanged their distinct ethnic identities for one defined primarily by the conception of race. He examines transformations in the politics, social structures, and religions of slave populations through 1830, by which time the contours of a new African American identity had begun to emerge.
After discussing specific ethnic groups in Africa, Gomez follows their movement to North America, where they tended to be amassed in recognizable concentrations within individual colonies (and, later, states). For this reason, he argues, it is possible to identify particular ethnic cultural influences and ensuing social formations that heretofore have been considered unrecoverable. Using sources pertaining to the African continent as well as runaway slave advertisements, ex-slave narratives, and folklore, Gomez reveals concrete and specific links between particular African populations and their North American progeny, thereby shedding new light on subsequent African American social formation.
Customer Reviews:
Excellent and Highly Educational!.......2007-03-08
This is an excellent book. I want every one of African descent to read this book. It is fantastic. This book is in my 10 list.
Early on the Africans were well aware of their ethnic identities, but over time, they were forgotten, and a new people emerged. Now this took generations. It was a slow and torturous process.
If you want to educate yourself about black folks in America and where they came from, and how they evolved, read this book.
Opening a new door to our history and our struggle.......2006-12-08
This book is of decisive importance, for by studying the convergence of an African American nationality out of the various nationalities and ethnicities that people were brought here from Africa, Michael Gomez underlines the function of the African-origins cultures and the construction of an African-American culture in a process of resistance and opposition to the inslavement, dehumanization, and degredation that Africans and their descendants have face.
Contrary to many popular assumptions, Gomez shows that in colonial and early independent America slave holders and slaves were quite aware of the different African cultures and ethnicities represented among the enslaved. Trade patterns, affinities of slave buyers for certain types of ethnicities, beliefs that some peoples were good for some tasks, others for others, led to many concentrations of slaves from the same culture and language groups in colonial America. This ensured that Africans in American tended to preserve very much of their native cultures, religions, and outlooks.
Indeed, Gomez illustrates that in language and religion large sections of the African American people in becoming retained their African religion, and at first retained their African languages, and then began our own African American language (Black English) precisely because the context of the dominant culture and its language and religion were hostile to the human dignity of Africans in America and their descendants.
Gomez's solid research and clear evaluation of massive amounts of original sources upsets many ideas on African American history that were assumptions and not facts. One of the most important is the lateness and difficulty that Christianity had in gaining seizable conversions among Africans in America and their descendants. He suggests that only by the time of the Civil War were African Americans substantially Christian. Gomez demonstrates that except for an overly assimilationist minority among "freed" slaves, Christianity only caught on where African religeous practices were mixed into it. More importantly, Gomez explains the reason for the final victory of Christianity is that it could be manipulated to provide a rationale and hope of liberation from racism and oppression both metaphysical and physical, that the individual African religions could not provide. Gomez illustrates that what occured was the development of an African American religion, rather than the adoption of a European religion.
In the process, the reader will learn new and more accurate views of whence and when Africans were brought to America during the period of slavery. The reader will learn the general political and religious outlooks of the different major groups of Africans who came here. The reader will learn a survey of the historical, economic, and political upheavals in AFrica wrought by the slave trade.
This is a serious and important book, written at the highest level of scholarship. Thus, it is sometimes not easy reading and certainly is not written as a popular entertainment. Yet, even the casual reader who sticks with this book and turns to Gomez's notes and bibliographic material for more to read will be vastly rewarded.
Excellent!.......2006-03-08
This book is excellent. Like someone said everyone of African ancestry needs to read this book. I had to buy my own copy.
A must read.......2000-10-29
A superb book that is a "must read" for every African African American man, woman and child. This book is the stuff of seminars, workshops and discussion groups at all levels. One of the fascinating positions exposed by Gomez was why it took the diverse ethnic Africans to achieve an African American consciousness. The depth of documentation was monumental. I always wondered why the color "red" had such significance in the African American "red clawt" tales. Gomez' book inspired me to research this aspect of African American tales. Thank you Mr. Gomez!
This work is a must read!.......1999-03-16
Gomez has done a tremendous service to the study of Africana by giving tangible evidence to what have heretofore been the answers rather than the questions on the who, what, where, when and WHY's of the African slave in America. Readers will be surprised at the degree to which something other than fact has helped form the base of their "knowledge". Suddenly the image of tobacco or rice will gain greater resonance than cotton. Virginia and Senegambia, for example, will have new and sharper meanings as we better ferret out who we were as Ghanaians, Senegambians, Angolans, etc. and how we became who we are as African-Americans.
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The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A History
James A. Rawley
Manufacturer: W W Norton & Co Inc
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ASIN: 0393014711 |
Book Description
The transatlantic slave trade played a major role in the development of the modern world. It both gave birth to and resulted from the shift from feudalism into the European Commercial Revolution. James A. Rawley fills a scholarly gap in the historical discussion of the slave trade from the fifteenth to the nineteenth century by providing one volume covering the economics, demography, epidemiology, and politics of the trade. This revised edition of Rawley's classic, produced with the assistance of Stephen D. Behrendt, includes emended text to reflect the major changes in historiography; current slave trade data tables and accompanying text; updated notes; and the addition of a select bibliography. James A. Rawley is Carl Adolph Happold Professor of History, emeritus, at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He is the author of several books, including Turning Points of the Civil War and Abraham Lincoln and a Nation Worth Fighting For, both available in Bison Books editions. Stephen D. Behrendt is a senior lecturer at Victoria University of Wellington. He has coauthored a data archive of 27,233 slave voyages, The Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Database on CD-ROM.
Book Description
This important book considers a number of different aspects of the slave trade: its social and economic basis, why many African leaders facilitated the slave trade, and how enslaved African Americans forged their own cultures and forever changed the Americas. The physical, social, and enduring emotional meaning of the Middle Passage is explored, as is the history and legacy of the abolitionist movement and the struggle for racial justice.
Book Description
This watershed study is the first to consider in concrete terms the consequences of Britain's abolition of the Atlantic slave trade. Why did Britain pull out of the slave trade just when it was becoming important for the world economy and the demand for labor around the world was high? Caught
between the incentives offered by the world economy for continuing trade at full tilt and the ideological and political pressures from its domestic abolitionist movement, Britain chose to withdraw, believing, in part, that freed slaves would work for low pay which in turn would lead to greater and
cheaper products. In a provocative new thesis, historian David Eltis here contends that this move did not bolster the British economy; rather, it vastly hindered economic expansion as the empire's control of the slave trade and its great reliance on slave labor had played a major role in its rise
to world economic dominance. Thus, for sixty years after Britain pulled out, the slave economies of Africa and the Americas flourished and these powers became the dominant exporters in many markets formerly controlled by Britain. Addressing still-volatile issues arising from the clash between
economic and ideological goals, this global study illustrates how British abolitionism changed the tide of economic and human history on three continents.
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The British Transatlantic Slave Trade
Manufacturer: Pickering & Chatto Publishers
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 1851967567 |
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For use in one semester/quart courses on The Transatlantic Slave Trade OR as a supplemental text in courses on African history.
Part of Prentice Hall's Connection: Key Themes in World History series.
Written based on the author's annual course on slave trade, Captives as Commodities examines three key themes: 1) the African context surrounding the Atlantic slave trade, 2) the history of the slave trade itself, and 3) the changing meaning of race and racism. The author draws recent scholarship to provide students with an understanding of Atlantic slave trade.
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- Contains Great Studies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
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Routes to Slavery: Direction, Ethnicity and Mortality in the Transatlantic Slave Trade (Studies in Slave and Post-Slave Societies and Cultures)
David Eltis
Manufacturer: Routledge
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Binding: Hardcover
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ASIN: 0714648205 |
Book Description
The scale of the Atlantic slave trade has been a central issue in recent debates over transatlantic slavery from 1500 to 1867. Research has generated a vast amount of data on slaving voyages. Containing records of some 25,000 slaving voyages between 1595 and 1867, this data set forms the basis of most of the papers included in this collection. These are complemented by other papers which embody quantitative analysis by examining issues relating to the ethnicity of slaves. In addition to presenting new evidence on mortality trends in the slave trade and on African influences on the history of American slave societies, the volume raises important questions about how slaves reconstructed their identities outside of their homeland.
Customer Reviews:
Contains Great Studies of the Transatlantic Slave Trade.......2000-06-19
This book contains a number of studies on various aspects of the Transatlantic slave trade. Studies include an examination of mortality rates on slave ships, among both slaves and crew. Other essays address how certain regions of Africa provided slaves for certain regions of America in different periods of the slave trade. Further studies debate the influence of particular African regional and ethnic cultures on various locales in the Americas.
This book offers insight into American, European and African developments over the course of the slave trade. This book should interest anyone studying African-American history, African history, the history of the slave trade, or immigration history.
Those interested should also consider Philip D. Curtin's The Atlantic Slave Trade: A Census, as well as the database on CD ROM edited by David Eltis and company, entitled, The Transatlantic Slave Trade. The information available on CD ROM provided much of the basis for the research in this book.
For more on the slave trade, consider works by Philip Curtin, John Thornton, Joseph Miller, James F. Searing, Boubacar Barry, Richard Roberts, Hugh Thomas, and Paul Lovejoy.
Book Description
Fifth Edition. The full and fascinating history of this remarkable community, from its beginnings in the early part of the 14th century until its virtual destruction during the Holocaust. The book deals with the movements and personalities that played a role in the formation of the community.
Customer Reviews:
Interesting but Not Compelling.......2002-03-15
THE JEWS OF LITHUANIA serves well as a general introduction to one of the most diverse, vibrant Jewish communities to have flourished anywhere at any time.
Unfortunately, the book is superficial, giving only a summary view of the 700 year history of Lithuanian Jewry. It fails to provide much in the way of depth or "color" in regard to the Jews who were such a vital part of Lithuanian history from it's beginnings.
Of particular note are the facts that Lithuanian Jewry had its roots in the slow dispersion of the Sephardim during the Reconquista of Iberia. It is instructive that in only two countries---Spain and Lithuania---were Jews permitted to be titled landholders. The author, Masha Greenbaum, fails to analyze these fascinating facts, or draw historical conclusions, of these, and many other elements, (though they are reported in passing), and thus fails to make an account of the earliest underpinnings of the community, or speak on its shared values as they developed.
There are better books on Lithuanian Jewish history, though this one is generally available, and is certainly readable. There are some historical errors which detract from the book's value as source material, but as a "starting point" for the investigation of Lithuanian Jewry, the book most definitely suffices.
For Jews tracing their families in Lithuania, the large number of localities named will be helpful, as will the discussion of the liquidation of those communities.
Given the vast scope of the subject, it is to be hoped that a better, more in-depth, and sensitive and sympathetic volume is in preparation somewhere.
This is a general History with a lot of errors........2000-03-28
This is a poorly written general History. The title of the book is misleading. The book concentrates on the modern era. There is alot of imformation on the old Kehilla era of Jewish History. This is a period from 1400 - 1700 at least. This book gives only the minimal description of this era. The authors idea of Jewish History in that pre-modern era, which in Lithuania extended until the mid 1800's was to tell about the relationship that the ruler of that area had with the Jews. The reason that I gave this book such a low rating is that it is full of Historical errors. For example she writes that the Decembrist revolution happened in 1827, it really happened in 1825. While many of her Historical errors are minor, like saying that the infamous, 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion', was written in 1928. When it comes to the History of the Orthodox and the Yeshivot, the book is full of gross errors and misunderstandings. As an exampe, her attempts to explain the reason why there was a rebellion in Slobodka against the 'Alter' and his form of Mussar is so wrong that it is comical. The 'Alter' had no official position in his own Yeshiva. A part of his form of Musar was allowing each student to develop on his own. Tight control was not part of this system. Saul Liberman, who later became the head of JTS - the Conservitive Seminary in the USA, learnt in Slobodka. Even though it was already known at that time that he had some liberal ideas. One of the Alter's most promenant students, R. Avrohom Elya Kaplen, later became head of the Rabbinical School in Berlin and was one the Rabbinical leaders of the Mizrachi movement. Another one of the Alter's students was R. Aharon Kotler who founded the most promenant 'Torah' only Yeshiva in the USA in Lakewood NJ. This is not the only gross error in the book. Another example is that she only gives the last un-official chief Rabbi of Vilna, Rabbi Chaim Ozer Grodzinsky only one comment, and it isn't a positive one. R. Chiam Ozer was once offered the official title, but turned it down. He was one of the leaders of Lithuanian Jewry for over 40 years, and a fascinating and brilliant man. You would think that he deserves more than one negitive comment.
A good introduction into the history of the Jews in Lithuani.......1999-11-24
I found this book to be a very good introduction into the history of the Jews in Lithuania. I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in the subject.
In addition to that this book represents a good example of the History of Lithuania through the Jewish eyes. I believe that the Jews have the same rights on Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Russia and some other countries to name a few, as the non-Jews do. Therefore, the books like this one have to be written about each and every country where the Jews used to live for any extended period of time, regardless of the fact if they are still living there today. That would allow the next generations of the Jews to clearly see that some of the local `heroes', whose statures are still standing tall in the main squares of some of the European cities and who themselves are considered to be the liberators of the local peoples, were in fact thugs and anti-Semitic pigs who slaughtered thousands of Jews during their reins in power (Bogdan Hmelnitskij -- the hero of the Ukrainian people whose name was mentioned by Masha Greenbaum in her book was one of them). That would clearly show to the Jews that some of the events in local history of those countries, that are considered to be good and progressive for the countries and the people that they affected, in fact adversely affected the Jewish population of those countries. The most recent example of them all would be "The Perestroika" and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. Although considered to be a very positive development by a lot of people, both Jews and non-Jews alike, it brought to the surface a rapid activation of the anti-Semitism all over the former Soviet Union that made the lives of the hundreds of thousands of the Jews there completely unbearable.
The conventionally written (mostly by the non-Jews) history books at best either do not usually pay much attention to the lives of the Jews in those countries, or at worst they paint the Jews of those countries in an untruthful and negative way. From my point of view, that not only represents an incorrect and incomplete approach to history, but also denies the Jews of a big part of their cultural and historical heritage. The books like The Jews of Lithuania: a history of a remarkable community, 1316-1945, if written about other countries, would highlight the truth about the Jews and their contribution to the countries they were living in.
Comprehensive research on the history of Lithuanian Jewry.......1999-04-12
This book is an amazing resource for anyone wanting to learn about the history of Lithuanian Jewry. It was fascinating reading, although not light reading. Greenbaum covers the rise of the various political, religous and zionist movements within the Jewish community, and most importantly, puts them within their historical context. The depth of her research is outstanding. I strongly recommend this book.
Must reading........1999-01-20
This book is must reading for any Jew,like myself, who had relatives that lived in one of the many small towns in Lithuania and are no more. The only thing we have to give our children that reminds them of their relatives is this book.
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