Nature of Slave Communities
Slavery is the situation of bondage. In this system, the main characteristics are the mistreatment of people, where they are considered as property and they are commanded to work against their will. In addition, the slaves are captured, bought or born from other slaves, and they are underprivileged from their rights as humans, and are never compensated for such work. From historical records, slaves has had continued existence in most cultures to the extent of the right of the slave masters to have the rights to kill slaves they feel or not effective in their work. In the modern world, there is still the practice of slavery especially debt slaves mostly in Southern Asia. Others are in form of human trafficking focusing on women and children for sex dealings.
Presence of slave cultures and communities
From texts in the course, slave communities existed in rural Brazil, as well as Latin America and the Caribbean. Amazingly, most of this slaves were Afro-Americans and Africans who had been captured at one point or the other, put in ships and ferried across the seas to these and other countries like Spain (Klein and Vinson 2007). The main function of the slaves in Latin America and Caribbean was to facilitate the complex international trade between the Americans and the Asians then. This brought about the Atlantic slave trade as the need for slaves increased in both America and Asia.
Slavery incorporated people from everywhere (Klein and Vinson (2007) and despite the presence of a multitude of languages, cultures and nationalities among the slaves, the common new world made prompted the need to have common culture and community. Nonetheless, some had few commonalities, like those from different parts of Africa that played a major role in binding them together. Another major factor that contributed to the formation of communities was the presence of a minimal knowledge of dialects and traditions and practices by neighboring communities from Africa whose formation was never disrupted by the transatlantic trade.
A third factor that contributed to communities and culture development in the new world among the slaves in the new world was their interaction with various communities during their transportation to the coast and their temporary settlements at the coast before transportations.
The formation cultures was contributed by the occupation where slaves from selectively chosen by masters for instance, those from mining regions were preferred by masters in Brazil and Colombia where mining was the major practice; those from Congo and other areas known for cultivation were preferred in places like Georgia (Klein and Vinson 2007). Other special events that led to the clustering of African slaves were for instance the decline in Wolof Empire in Guinea, and the collapse of the Oyo Empire in Yoruba, which increased their availability.
Such groupings of slaves were evident in Mexico and the Peru where slaves had a common origin of upper Guinea like the Wolof and the Biafara groups. Among the slaves was adapted a naming culture that they used to identify each other (Klein and Vinson 2007). Children were given names, and assigned nicknames by members of their families and friends. These names were legal as one could use the same to testify in a court of law.
These naming patterns are seen to have been an important part of the daily identification of slaves. However, not all African slaves were willing to adopt the African ethnicity in this new world and this made them carried away by the new world’s culture especially those who were brought in the new world as children who didn’t even know their country of origin (Klein and Vinson 2007).
Furthermore, the slaves in America did not carry with them any political classes and neither were there clan organizations as these had been brutally dismantled resulting to the difficulty of practicing all beliefs and customs associated with these traditions. Conversely, the practices and traditions associated with interpersonal relationships, personal health and welfare were easily transferred to the new world and remained strong (Klein and Vinson 2007).
Among the slaves, the main European belief that had the greatest impact was religion and Christianity dominated amongst all the slaves (Klein and Vinson 2007). As of agriculture, the Africans slaves started adopting the European tools and technologies for farming. Social stratification was one of the main causes of struggles among the slaves as they maneuvered their survival in the social classes given to them by their masters. Some norms played a part in the fortification of a dominant culture of African slaves though this was not without opposition.
Maintenance of semi-autonomous trade and cultural economies
Irony is cited where (Barrickman 1994), the slaves had access to land from their masters and this was common in all places where slaves had been taken. This played a major role in encouraging agriculture among them. These practices of agriculture not only provided them with food but also lead to the harvest of surpluses which encouraged semi-autonomous trade among the slaves in local markets. These garden provision practices therefore encouraged a wide range of independent production and marketing activities.
In the recent past, the issue of autonomous slave production and marketing practices has resulted to heated debates among historians interested in slavery in Brazil. One such provision garden to slaves in Brazil goes by the name of Rocas. This farm is seen as a hallmark in the establishment of the current state and economy in Brazil (Barrickman 1994).
Such a practice by masters is a way to show that despite remaining locked in and explorative association with their masters, it is true that slaves enjoyed some level of freedom that allowed them to do their own work like plant in their own farms and take the surpasses to the market for exchange with what they didn’t have. To the Brazilian historians, the point of interest is to the controversy brought about by the practice of providing gardens to the slaves.
Reconcavo was also another slave garden which provided evidence of slaves’ involvement in autonomous production and marketing practices where a little of the produce was used for sustenance while all other surplus was taken to the market place for sale (Barrickman 1994). Though the cane farmers had restricted use of the provision gardens, it is clear that these farmers managed to develop noteworthy economies for themselves.
By the late 18th century, this north eastern part of brazil inhabited by slaves already had a fully-grown colonial economy mainly from slave labor with the principle contributor to this economy being in the Reconcavo a 10,000 square kilometer fertile region surrounded by hundreds of other smaller farms where slaves also planted sugarcane, tobacco, cassava and other form of crops (Barrickman 1994).
This garden also had villages, small towns and hamlets and the Salvador city which served as the central point of both regional and global trade. From Salvador, European ships were loaded with hardware, textiles and other produces and from Africa landed thousands of newly enslaved women and men.
In Bahia, Reconcavo, sugar was the main contributor to the economy being the earliest and the most valuable export in agriculture (Barrickman 1994). The Portuguese were the first to discover the ability of the region to grow sugar and they developed mills to grid the sugarcane to sugar and the Brazil born offspring well responsible for the establishment of the Reconcavo garden for sugar production. The need for labor attracted need for slaves and this became one among the earliest centers of agriculture that was based on slaves as well the leading supplies of world market’s sugar demands (Barrickman 1994).
Maintenance of kinship and family networks
In the course of slaves’ shipment from Africa to Europe, lots of thing happened like sicknesses for instance dysentery, and death. There was a high demand for African women locally a factor that contributed to the low number of women entering the Atlantic slave trade and encouraged kinship and family networks (Klein and Vinson 2007). This was due to the belief in some African societies that women were the gateway to acquisition of a social status, family and kinship (Restall 149).
The main form of kinships in the West Africans countries was the matrilineal and matrilocal kinship systems. In such societies, polygamy was allowed and this contributed to the endurance of family and kinship. Another factor for less women slaves was the high prize of acquisition of women in polygamous societies (Klein and Vinson 2007).
Such and other reasons made women more expensive locally and men with lesser value were readily available for slave trade with the ratio being two is to one (Klein and Vinson 2007). Since women could perform the same work as men, retaining them and giving away the males was viewed equally. After all, it was women who were responsible for the continuation of a generation not men. In addition, local slave trade had more value for children than men and so children were less at the coast for slave trade compared to men. These reasons contributed to a decline in numbers of slaves in the new world and encouraged family bond and kinship within such societies.
African traditions and their melding with the new world
It is clear that, (Klein and Vinson 2007), some of the African cultures which involved interpersonal interactions, personal hygiene and health were maintained. In addition, others like religion were retained with the majority of the slaves adopting Christianity from the European culture. Most of the Christians were Catholics (Conrad 180) especially in Brazil and this was not in line with their religious practices. Other traditions were retained like mining and agriculture with is evident in the provision gardens as well as trade.
The only difference was in the tools and technologies used as this differed from those used in the African societies; instead the slaves adopted the European tools. On the other hand, kinship and family bonds for slaves in new world were dismantled and the political and social status was also forgotten. Instead, the slaves were to given a social class by their masters and it was not always the best thing for them.
Limitations on slave communities
The main limitation on the slave communities was the lack of freedom and the oppression of human rights. In other parts like Brazil, slaves had no freedom to cultivate own sugar farms and only were provided with little for sustenance and the rest was sold.
References
Barickman B., (1994). A bit of land. Duke University Press. Vol. 74, iss. 4
Conrad, (No date). Slavery and the Catholic Church. Hispanic American Historical review.
Klein H., and Vinson, (2007). African Slavery in Latin America.OxfordUniversity Press. United Kingdom: UK.
Restall, M, (insert reference)
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