African Culture In The Americas

Voodoo is a mix between African beliefs along with Roman Catholic rituals/practices. In the 1600s Europeans came to Africa to look for slaves to work in the New World. Voodoo rituals are very intricate as people

While traveling to the New World, slaves experienced the blending of different cultures within their own slave community. "When I looked around the ship... and [saw] a multitude of black people of every description chained together." (Document 6) This represents how slaves from differing parts of Africa came together because of slavery. Changed the way they lived by interacting with people from differing regions of the world.

He had much confidence that they were entitled just as white Americans to expand their homelands. Fusing an unusual blend of black self-determination with the contemporary black emigration movement, Delany favored the concept of “a nation within a nation.” One could argue that Delany favored a nation within a nation because white Americans felt that enslaved blacks could not own their own lands and expand. Blacks were separated from the white Americans during the antebellum era.

This song begins and ends with musical style of the Ba-benzele people of central Africa by refining African sounds into contemporary funk music. Berry also states that Hancock’s album Mwandishi (1971) was created by working with black activist James Mtume and giving himself the Swahili name, “Mwandishi” which means a composer to show that his advocacy toward Black nationalist

Equiano’s narrative not only open doors to ending slavery, but also gives us some clear insight about the many struggles the slaves had endured. Equiano Olaudah, who was born in 1745, was a member of the Eboe tribe who came from a village in Essaka (Benin) which is now southeastern Nigeria, West Africa. Part of his culture, was having a mark placed on a certain part of his body, which was significant to his culture. According to Equiano, “This mark conferred on the person entitled to it, by cutting the skin across at the top of the forehead, and drawing it down to the eyebrows; and while it is in this situation applying a warm hand, and rubbing it until it shrinks up into a thick weal across the lower part of the forehead” ( Equiano p. 5-6).

The three amendments deeply magnified the civil rights of Americans (Roark, 431-433). The Emancipation Proclamation had an impact in American history. Although it limited the roles in freeing slaves, it had an influence on the African American community. The Proclamation has been controversial, but it provided slaves with a sense of independence and liberty, transforming the Civil War into a fight for equality.

They used the food that was given to them, usually the worst of what was available, and turned it into something great that exemplified them. Soul food allows African Americans in today’s society to represent their roots and where they came from while music allows them to express their selves and their stances on today’s topics. For example, a lot of hip hop artists today are African American and their lyrics are derived from what they believe in and their opinions. However, today’s music and music from the slave era are different in many ways. Slaves made their music representations of their religions and used it to inspire them and give them hope.

In Marc Bamuthi Joseph’s “Molly” performance, I noticed that he performed it to a rhythm that is very unique to African culture. Many of the instruments that were played in conjunction with his performance in order to enhance his performance were instruments that are very popular in African culture. Joseph’s imitation of the African dances that he witness, prior to Molly asking him to distract the dancers they encountered, was very similar to the original dances that African’s would perform. Prior to being assimilated into American culture, many of the slaves of the past would dance like this at African religious ceremonies. However, these dances became more modified the longer Africans remained in America.

This week, we learn about how we all conceptualize “blackness” within the United States. Within the readings, we explore the different movements throughout history and how they have created the categories many African Americans find themselves contributing to today. These categories are known as Pan-africanism and Afrocentrism. Both movements challenged the way America was being taught and what traditions they were taught to value. Later, we come across another aspect known as ethno-racial mixture, and are conflicted in whether to include this area into the past two categories or create its own.

The triangular trade was a trade of goods and slaves between Africa, Europe, and the Americas. Africa’s main job in the triangular trade was producing slaves. African chieftains traded and own number of slaves. Europeans swapped goods like liquor, fabrics, gunpowder, spices, foods, fur for the slaves. Goods were also produced in american colonies by slaves.

African-Brazilian religions are represented, among other experiences, chiefly by Candomblé and Umbanda. They are characterized by spirit possession - the Orishas, or ancestors - who take possession of the body of a person, the medium, and meet the demands of subjects who seek their guidance. They are derived from the knowledge of African religious beliefs that came to Brazil with the black diaspora, and that brought a great amount of knowledge about how to treat disease and preserve health. This knowledge associate a comprehensive response to a series of somatic, psychological, social, spiritual and existential dissatisfactions, offering people explanations about the disease events generating pain and suffering. In this context, the aim of

The traditions of African-American slaves, from the earliest of times in colonial America, were acts and words that endowed the future of their race with the essence of their past. From the earliest of our rice crops to the females, who provided their masters through repeated sexual abuses, slaves laid ownership to their portion of colonial American history. The key to maintaining the heritage of the early African family was a combined version of their ancient tribal religion and their master’s Christianity. In order to maintain a peaceful accord with their masters, slaves learned that diversifying songs and actions from African shores with slight adjustments in order to abide by the beliefs of their Christian masters. Examples of this

They were traditions that were dissident and decentralized, representing that convergence and syncretism of the indigenous, African, and European influences. This connection is presented as the actual method of how they mixed working and living among people of different cultures and

After read the assignments I thinking different, in the following points: A) The African Americans in the Colonial Era, how the racial slavery had become a central feature of the Atlantic world. A lot of slaves arrived in the British mainland colonies, with higer demand for the sugar-producing regions. Also, I learned how the slavery was a brutal and exploitative labor system. They turned to violent resistance, and used economic sabotage pretending destroying tools, multilating livestock, sickness, running away, etc. B)

Santeria, meaning “Way of the Saints”, is a syncretic, Afro-Caribbean religion that grew out of slave trade in Cuba, and is based on Yoruba traditions and Roman Catholic incorporations (BBC). The initiation of Santeria can be dated to roughly the early sixteenth century during the bustling transatlantic slave trade, which involved Cuba. In this period, cultural diffusion was not uncommon, as African slaves from Nigeria and Benin were keen on maintaining the religious practices of their home country. The flexibility of the Christian missionaries allowed them to continue their belief systems, but they were still expected to embrace Christian beliefs, and so they did. Yoruba and Roman Catholic traditions were able to blend fairly easily due to