Alex Borucki, “Shipmate Networks and Black Identities in the Marriage Files of Montevideo, 1768–1803.” Hispanic American Historical Review 93, no. 2 (May 1, 2013): 205–238.

Abstract:

The experience of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic crossing redefined the meanings of the nomenclature emerging from the slave trade. Under violent conditions, captives developed networks with shipmates on board slave vessels. These ties survived for decades if shipmates stayed together in the same region, as they did in Montevideo. Shipmate ties represented a living connection for Africans not only with their experience in the Atlantic crossing but also with their homelands. Shipmates provided support to their fellows when they needed trusted associates, as the marriage files of Montevideo clearly demonstrate. Enslaved Africans commonly asked fellow shipmates to testify about their past when marrying into the Catholic Church. Marriage files contain data on the routes Africans took across the Atlantic and the Americas. They indicate the origins of the groom, bride, and witnesses, their shared itineraries, and how these itineraries changed over time. Thus they reveal patterns of geographical mobility and networks created by common experiences. Marriage files can be easily quantified, which allows us to track historical trends. At the same time, each file offers a unique story. A close reading of these stories contextualizes the experiences of slaves in the Catholic Americas and underscores common patterns in ways that lie beyond quantification.

Paul Lokken, “From the ‘Kingdoms of Angola’ to Santiago de Guatemala: The Portuguese Asientos and Spanish Central America, 1595–1640.” Hispanic American Historical Review 93, no. 2 (May 1, 2013): 171–203.
Abstract:

The evidence presented in this article establishes the era of the major Portuguese asientos (1595–1640) as a key moment in the history of African migration to Spanish Central America. Between 1607 and 1628 alone, Portuguese slave traders made at least 15 voyages from Angola to the Caribbean coast of Central America, landing in most cases “by accident” at the Honduran port of Trujillo while allegedly en route to Veracruz. Many of the West Central Africans carried on these voyages were subsequently marched inland by the same Portuguese merchants to be sold in Santiago de Guatemala, capital of the Audiencia of Guatemala. Their final destinations were often rural properties located in or near the Pacific lowlands of modern-day Guatemala and El Salvador, where the largest sugar and indigo plantations counted dozens of Angolans among their enslaved workers. A decided majority of these involuntary migrants were young men, most no doubt having departed from Luanda following misfortune in the wars that, with a good deal of Portuguese encouragement, wracked their homelands after 1575. Their migration experiences testify to a significant shift in the point of origin of Africans brought to Central America away from Senegambia and neighboring regions of West Africa, birthplace of the majority of Africans transported to Central America prior to 1595. The later-arriving and larger West Central African workforce played a more important role than heretofore understood in satisfying the demands for labor that arose in the early seventeenth century as commercial agriculture briefly boomed amid persistent indigenous population decline.

The early generations of enslaved and bonded Africans and Indians in Bermuda were essential to the functioning of the colony. But beyond their contributions to the colonial enterprise, they continued to practice the skills that connected them to spiritual entities whose power enabled them not only to comprehend their environment but also to affect it directly. In their initial approach to Bermudian shores, in fishing, processing manioc, thatching and weaving with parts of the palmetto tree, as well as making cords with cotton and palmetto fibers, they altered the spiritual landscape in ways that are perhaps less tangible toWestern scholarly inquiry but no less significant to investigating these individuals’ influence on the tiny archipelago in which they found themselves. Uncovering these multiple layers of meaning requires imagining the archive in an expansive, speculative way that moves beyond certain narratives of the documentary record to a fuller consideration of the process of making place in an early modern Atlantic colony.

From 1827 to 1841 the black newspapers Freedom’s Journal and the Colored American of New York City were venues for one of the first significant racial projects in the United States. To counter aspersions against their race, the editors of these publications renegotiated their community’s identity within the matrix of the Black Atlantic away from waning discourses of a collective African past. First, Freedom’s Journal used the Haitian Revolution to exemplify resistance, abolitionism, and autonomy. The Colored American later projected the Republic of Haiti as a model of governance, prosperity, and refinement to serve this community’s own evolving ambitions of citizenship, inclusion, and rights.

Recently rediscovered and never before published, Marc-Antoine Caillot’s buoyant memoir recounts a young man’s voyage from Paris to the port city of Lorient, across the Atlantic to Saint Domingue, and up the Mississippi River to New Orleans. Only twenty-one when he set sail as a clerk for the French Company of the Indies in 1729, Caillot was in many ways the ultimate company man. His descriptions of flora, fauna, and native peoples mirror the sentiments and literary conventions of his class and his era. He would spend his entire adult life in service to the company, rising high in its ranks before dying, at the age of fifty-one, in a shipwreck off the coast of India.

Yet in other ways Caillot was fully his own man, possessed of a voice both witty and prescient. An incorrigible rake—if not an outright rogue—he documents with gusto a string of pranks, parties, and romantic escapades. A persuasive self-promoter, he stakes narrative claim to New World terrain. And he speaks with immediacy across the centuries, illuminating racial and ethnic politics, environmental concerns, and the birth of New Orleans’s distinctive cultural mélange.

Brilliantly introduced and annotated by Erin Greenwald, translated by Teri Chalmers, and enlivened by Caillot’s own exquisite illustrations, A Company Man provides an intimate look at the early history of one of America’s most storied cities, placing New Orleans—and the fledgling colony it anchored—within the nexus of the French-Atlantic empire.

The original manuscript, Relation du voyage de la Louisianne ou Nouvelle France fait par le Sr. Caillot en l’année 1730, is housed in the Williams Research Center of The Historic New Orleans Collection, where it is a capstone of the institution’s rich archival holdings documenting life in French-colonial Louisiana.

Le vendredi 10 mai 2013 la France célèbre la 8e journée nationale des mémoires de la traite, de l’esclavage et de leurs abolitions.

A cette occasion, plusieurs manifestations importantes ont lieu sur l’ensemble du territoire, à Paris et en région parisienne, bien sûr, mais également à Nantes, à Bordeaux, à Lyon, à Toulouse, à Lille, à Nancy, à Pontarlier…

Le Président de la République prononcera une allocution à l’occasion de la cérémonie qui se déroule au Jardin du Luxembourg, à 11h, en présence du Président du Sénat, du président de l’Assemblée nationale, de la Garde des sceaux ministre de la Justice, de la ministre de la Culture et de la Communication et du ministre des Outre-mer.

A la veille de cette journée nationale, le gouvernement a officialisé le renforcement du CPMHE qui est devenu le 6 mai 2013 le Comité national pour la mémoire et l’histoire de la traite et de l’esclavage (CNMHE). Myriam COTTIAS, membre du CPMHE depuis 2009, prend la suite de Françoise VERGES et devient présidente du Comité national pour la mémoire et l’histoire de l’esclavage….

[An English-language summary via France.fr here.]

Commemoration ceremonies are happening all over the country; Visit the CPMHE website for more.

The law to commemorate and recognize the impact of slavery and the slave trade on France owes much to Christiane Taubira of Guyane, now Minister of the Justice of France, who proposed what would become the ‘Taubira law’ on December 22, 1998. The law was passed May 21, 2001:

Article 1er

La République française reconnaît que la traite négrière transatlantique ainsi que la traite dans l’océan Indien d’une part, et l’esclavage d’autre part, perpétrés à partir du xve siècle, aux Amériques et aux Caraïbes, dans l’océan Indien et en Europe contre les populations africaines, amérindiennes, malgaches et indiennes constituent un crime contre l’humanité.

Article 2

Les programmes scolaires et les programmes de recherche en histoire et en sciences humaines accorderont à la traite négrière et à l’esclavage la place conséquente qu’ils méritent. La coopération qui permettra de mettre en articulation les archives écrites disponibles en Europe avec les sources orales et les connaissances archéologiques accumulées en Afrique, dans les Amériques, aux Caraïbes et dans tous les autres territoires ayant connu l’esclavage sera encouragée et favorisée.

Article 3

Une requête en reconnaissance de la traite négrière transatlantique ainsi que de la traite dans l’océan Indien et de l’esclavage comme crime contre l’humanité sera introduite auprès du Conseil de l’Europe, des organisations internationales et de l’Organisation des Nations unies. Cette requête visera également la recherche d’une date commune au plan international pour commémorer l’abolition de la traite négrière et de l’esclavage, sans préjudice des dates commémoratives propres à chacun des départements d’outre-mer.

Article 4

Le dernier alinéa de l’article unique de la loi no 83-550 du 30 juin 1983 relative à la commémoration de l’abolition de l’esclavage est remplacé par trois alinéas ainsi rédigés :

« Un décret fixe la date de la commémoration pour chacune des collectivités territoriales visées ci-dessus ;

« En France métropolitaine, la date de la commémoration annuelle de l’abolition de l’esclavage est fixée par le Gouvernement après la consultation la plus large ;

« Il est instauré un comité de personnalités qualifiées, parmi lesquelles des représentants d’associations défendant la mémoire des esclaves, chargé de proposer, sur l’ensemble du territoire national, des lieux et des actions qui garantissent la pérennité de la mémoire de ce crime à travers les générations. La composition, les compétences et les missions de ce comité sont définies par un décret en Conseil d’Etat pris dans un délai de six mois après la publication de la loi no 2001-434 du 21 mai 2001 tendant à la reconnaissance de la traite et de l’esclavage en tant que crime contre l’humanité. »

Article 5

A l’article 48-1 de la loi du 29 juillet 1881 sur la liberté de la presse, après les mots : « par ses statuts, de », sont insérés les mots : « défendre la mémoire des esclaves et l’honneur de leurs descendants, ». [via LDH Toulon]

***

Article 1 -

The French Republic recognizes both the transatlantic and Indian Ocean Negro slave trade, on the one hand, and slavery itself, on the other, that were practiced from the 15th century, in the Americas, the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean, and Europe against African, Amerindian, Malagasy and Indian populations, as constituting crimes against humanity.

Article 2 -

School curricula and research projects in the fields of history and the human sciences will accord to the subjects of the Negro slave trade and slavery the important place they deserve. A spirit of cooperation will be encouraged and supported in order to make readily available the written archives in Europe, along with oral sources and archeological records that have accumulated in Africa, in the Americas, in the Caribbean and in all other territories subjected to slavery.

Article 3 -

A petition will be introduced in the European Council, international organizations, and the United Nations, requesting that the transatlantic and Indian Ocean Negro slave trades be acknowledged as crimes against humanity. This petition will also aim to establish one common date, on the international level, to commemorate the abolition of the Negro slave trade and of slavery, in such as way as not to conflict with commemorative dates already established in the overseas departments.

Article 4 – The last line of the sole article of law 83-550 dated June 1983 relative to the commemoration of the abolition of slavery is replaced by three lines as follows:

“A decree will establish the date for a commemoration for each of the territorial groups mentioned above;

“In continental France, the date of the annual commemoration of the abolition of slavery is to be determined by the government after an extensive consultation;

“A committee of qualified persons, among whom there will be representatives of associations dedicated to the memory of slaves, will be instituted and entrusted with the task of proposing, throughout French national territory, sites and actions that will guarantee the perpetuation of the memory of this crime to future generations. The composition, duties, and missions of this committee are to be defined by a decree in the Council of State within six months after the publication of law 2001-434 of May 21, 2001 relevant to the recognition of the slave trade as a crime against humanity.”

Article 5 -

Article 48-1 of the law of July 1881 on the freedom of the press will be amended thus: after the words, “by its statutes”, the words “to defend the memory of slaves and the honor of their descendants” will be inserted.

[English translation via GalliaWatch]

[Editor's Note: Taubira is known most recently as a champion of the marriage equality bill, passed April 23, 2013.]

H/T: Ana Lucia-Araujo