Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660

by John K. Thornton, Linda M. Heywood

This book shows that the first generation of Africans taken to English and Dutch colonies before 1660 were captured by pirates from these countries from slave ships coming from Kongo and Angola. This region had embraced Christianity and elements of Western culture, such as names and some material culture, the result of a long period of diplomatic, political, and military interaction with the Portuguese. This background gave them an important role in shaping the way slavery, racism, and African-American culture would develop in English and Dutch colonies throughout the Western Hemisphere.

Genres: History, Africa, Central Africa, Academic, Nonfiction

386 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

A specialist in the history of Africa, the African Diaspora and the Atlantic world, John K. Thornton is professor of African American Studies and History at Boston University.

Reviews

[Thom DeLair]

This book focuses on the trans-Atlantic slavery from 1585 - 1660, which was during the early colonial period for English and Dutch plantations in North America and the Caribbean. The authors reveal the significance of Central-Africa (Congo and Angola) as being the primary location of export of slaves during the period, meaning that the fledgling New Amsterdam and Virginia colonies' slaves were primarily from this region, such as the slaves brought to Virginia in 1619.

Central-Africa had gone through a period of Creolization by this time, which the authors state that the majority of slaves to arrive were already exposed to Christianity as well as other European influences that were a part of the creole culture in Central Africa. The authors also draw distinctions between a Charter Generation and a Plantation Generation. The Charter generation making up Central Africans that arrived at the colonies in the early period. This was a period before chattel slavery, and the authors state that about a third of blacks during this period earned their freedom. This early period did have a racist judicial system, such as punishing intermarriage and restricting firearms to blacks, but these were not universal aspects of the social-economic system. The chattel system made emancipation impossible for the Plantation Generations that made slavery central to the economic systems of these colonies.

Perhaps not the kind of book everyone would pick up for fun, but it does provide remarkable and vivid detail that explores the deep dimensions of the slave generations and the world they lived in.

[Grace Marr · Rating 1 out of 5]

Bad

[Alexander · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very educational

[Chris · Rating 3 out of 5]

Heywood and Thornton's (H & T's) Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles, and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585-1660 offers an extremely detailed—and at times tedious— argument in the debate over the significance of the "charter generation" of African slaves and their role in the lead up to plantation slavery, modern racism, and African-American culture. H&T argue that we need to understand there were discrete 'generations' of slavery and that slaves' origins (and histories) on the African continent matter. Where the debate rages, then, is how to understand the interplay of particular variables; where did the slave generations come from? To what extent does African interaction with Europeans matter, particularly in the charter generation, and how do these variables help the historian better understand the origins of African-American cultures as distinct from both African peoples and other American immigrants?

In H & T's view, African creolization of Central Africans, particularly the integration of Christian practices, permitted the charter generation of African slaves (of which Central Africans made up the majority) to integrate themselves to a higher degree within early North American societies than subsequent generations with more diverse origins on the continent. This conclusion is a reinterpretation of previous historical theories of how "societies with slaves" became "slave societies," which either posited some form of economic or racial determinism. H & T instead argue for a theory of cultural difference that mattered most, and imply that it was subsequent slave generations' lack of creolization that made possible the rise of modern slaving practices in the U.S.

[Joshua · Rating 3 out of 5]

Wonkish but solid.