Atlantic Creole
Atlantic Creole is a cultural identifier of those with origins in the transatlantic settlement of the Americas via Europe and Africa.[2][3][4]
History of Atlantic Creoles
Starting in the 15th century, Europeans, mainly the Portuguese, began to settle in regions of Africa such as Nigeria and Angola.[5] Soon an early Atlantic Creole culture began to form with cultural diffusion and admixing occurring. Some of these individuals would travel with Europeans in the exploration, colonization and settlement of the Americas in the late 15th century and early 16th century such as Juan Garrido and Juan Valiente. Later, when more European populations began to establish themselves in Africa and the trans-atlantic industrial kidnapping complex ramped up; genetic, cultural and political admixing took place. In the multicultural trading ports of 16th century West Africa, the Atlantic Creoles were frequently outcasts in both African and European cultures, but they were admired for their abilities to navigate between the two worlds, earning them reputations as expert traders and negotiators. Though their intercultural abilities allowed them to succeed in the changing West African societies, they could also be enslaved when they fell out of official favor or into debt or criminal activity while others were the children of African elites who were sent to Europe to study. These original indentured and enslaved creoles that experienced forced settlement in the Americas were joined by captive Africans that continued to admix genetically and culturally up to the 19th century which expanded and grew Atlantic Creole culture. With later migrations Atlantic creole culture can be found throughout the Americas and the world, as Jane Landers notes, the Atlantic Creoles were "merchants, enslavers, linguists, sailors, artisans, musicians, and military figures" who "interacted with a wide variety of European and Amerindian groups and helped shape a new Atlantic world system."[6][7]
US Atlantic Creoles
The historian Ira Berlin writes that Atlantic creoles were among what he called the 'Charter Generation' in the
According to the principle of partus sequitur ventrem, incorporated into colonial law in 1662, children born in the colony took the status of the mother; when the mothers were enslaved, the children were born into bondage, regardless of paternity, whether or not their fathers were free or enslaved. This was a change from common law tradition, which had asserted that children took the status of the father. Paul Heinegg and other twentieth-century researchers have found that 80% of the free people of color in the Upper South in colonial times were born to white mothers (thus gaining freedom) and African or Creole fathers.[13] Some male captive Creoles and Africans were freed in the early years as well, but free mothers were the predominant source of most of the free families of color.[14][15]
According to Berlin, most of the original admixed Atlantic Creoles were descended from Portuguese and Spanish fathers, primarily in the trading ports of West Africa; they had Iberian surnames such as Chavez, Rodriguez, and Francisco. In the Chesapeake Bay Colony, many of the Atlantic Creoles intermarried with their European neighbors, adopted Anglo-Saxon surnames, became property owners and farmers, and captured others in turn. The families became well-established, with numerous free descendants by the time of the American Revolution.
In 2007, Linda Heywood and John Thornton used "newly available data from the DuBois Institute and Cambridge University Press on the trade and transportation of enslaved people" in their new work on the relation of Central Africans to the Atlantic Creoles. They found strong support for Berlin's thesis that the Charter Generations of enslaved creoles, before 1660, came primarily from West Central Africa.[16]
They also noted that in the
Brunelle says that the enslaved Kongolese, rather than the small admixed communities around European trading posts, were the source of most early Atlantic Creoles with Iberian surnames in North America. Many were Christian, were admixed and multi-lingual, and familiar with some aspects of European culture. The Dutch colonies in New York were also populated by numerous enslaved Atlantic Creoles from the Kingdom of Kongo.[16]
Tidewater Creoles
The first Africans in Virginia were from parts of Angola that were settled by the Portuguese since the late 15th Century. Many were multilingual and baptized. This creolization is attributed as the possible reason why some were able to gain freedom in colonial Virginia and Maryland.[18]
One such person was Anthony Johnson who sailed to Virginia in 1621 aboard the James. The Virginia Muster (census) of 1624 lists his name as "Antonio not given," recorded as "a Negro" in the "notes" column.[19] Historians have some dispute as to whether this was the Antonio later known as Anthony Johnson, as the census lists several "Antonios." This one is considered the most likely.[20]
Johnson was sold as an
Gullah Creoles
Historically, the Gullah region extended from the Cape Fear area on North Carolina's coast south to the vicinity of Jacksonville on Florida's coast. The
Because of a period of relative isolation from whites while working on large
Louisiana Creoles
Melungeon Creoles
As the Color lines continued to evolve groups of free Creoles and White Europeans began to travel together forming small tribes or clans that didn't fit with the various White, Creole and Black African populations.
Free creoles are documented as migrating with white European-American neighbors in the first half of the 18th century to the frontiers of Virginia and
Historian Jack D. Forbes has discussed laws in South Carolina related to racialized classification:
In 1719, South Carolina decided who should be an "Indian" for tax purposes since American [Indian] slaves were taxed at a lesser rate than African slaves. The act stated: "And for preventing all doubts and scruples that may arise what ought to be rated on
Forbes said that, at the time, "mustees" and "mulattoes" were terms for persons of part-Native American ancestry. He wrote,
My judgment (to be discussed later) is that a mustee was primarily part-African and American [Indian] and that a mulatto was usually part-European and American [Indian]. The act is also significant because it asserts that part-American [Indians] with or without [emphasis added] African ancestry could be counted as Negroes, thus having an implication for all later slave censuses.[31]
Beginning about 1767, some of the ancestors of the Melungeons reached the frontier
Seminole Creoles
Seminole Creoles are descendants of the Seminole people and free or enslaved Creoles who allied with Seminole groups in Spanish Florida.
Historically, the Seminole creoles lived mostly in distinct bands near the Amerindian Seminole. Some were enslaved, particularly of Seminole leaders, but the Seminole creoles had more freedom than enslaved creoles in the South and by other Amerindian tribes.
Today, Creole Seminole descendants live primarily in rural communities around the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Its two Freedmen's bands, the Caesar Bruner Band and the Dosar Barkus Band,[33] are represented on the General Council of the Nation. Other centers are in Florida, Texas, the Bahamas, and northern Mexico.
Southern Atlantic Creoles
Those with Atlantic Creole heritage are most concentrated in the Southern US as they have been historically. A Southern Creole accent or dialect is still spoken by many and some historical traditions are still practiced there with cuisine being primary.[34]
Western and Northeastern Atlantic Creoles
Due to the Great migration Atlantic creole culture spread throughout the United States. A large portion of Atlantic Creole culture was able to become mainstream due to the music culture that sprung up in California and New York mainly via hip hop but also television broadcasting.[35] Some will speak in a Creole accent or dialect mixed with Western US American English, California English and Northeastern English or New York english.[36]
US Atlantic Creole culture
US Creole cuisine
US Atlantic creole cuisine originated from various US creole populations. The early cuisine originated from the merging of various cooking techniques, recipes, practices and produce from Africa with various European and Amerindian cooking cultures as well as substituting produce and meat indigenous to the Americas.[37] One root of the cuisine also stems from captives transforming less desired food or scraps into a palatable meal in creative or innovate ways.[38] There were also cases of captives or enslaved creoles working in households or free creoles homemaking or working various jobs that entailed cooking. Different Creole ethnic groups and populations contributed to distinct cuisine such as Louisiana creole food and soul food as well as other US American or regional cuisine such as Southern food.
US Creole language
Since the 1960s, when linguists began describing this language in great detail, it has gone through many name changes based on the social and political times in which it exists. Today most linguists refer to the distinctive speech of African Americans as 'Black English' or African American English (AAE). This language is a result of Atlantic creolization, with its own unique accent, grammar, vocabulary features, and dialects. We can find it spoken by some 30 million native speakers throughout the United States.
US Atlantic Creole or just US Creole, most commonly known as AAVE, was a dialect that formed in the early US. The presiding theory among linguists is that AAVE has always been a dialect of English, meaning that it originated from earlier English dialects rather than from
Linguist
However, a creole theory, less accepted among linguists, posits that AAVE arose from one or more
US Creole Music
Dozens of music genres and their subsequent subcultures originated or partly originated from US Atlantic creole culture including pop, rap, country, hip hop, EDM, rock and jazz. Many of these genres originate from early genres that were a blend of musical cultures from Africa, Europe and the Americas such as spirituals and blue grass. In the 20th century ragtime, the blues, and jazz would originate from Atlantic creole culture.[47][48]
Encompassing the earliest folk traditions to present day popular music [49] "Africans brought their own cultures and way of life to the Americas. As enslaved Africans they participated in African rituals and music-making events. They told stories, sang, danced, played African and African-derived instruments, and more broadly, celebrated life as they had done in Africa. In North America, their introduction to European culture and music came from participating in or witnessing the religious and social activities of slaveholders, which they reinterpreted to conform to their own cultural practices and musical values through processes of adaption and resistance. As freed people, Blacks and their descendants continued to create new and distinctive styles of Black music in the tradition of African music-making that defined their unique African-American identity."[50]
US Creole music speaks directly to the experience of African-American people, showing us the duality of both African and American identities, as well as their perseverance, which continues to shape their music today.
US Creole religion and spiritual practices
Louisiana Voodoo (French: Vaudou louisianais), also known as New Orleans Voodoo, is an Atlantic creole religion that originated in Louisiana, now in the southern United States. It arose through a process of syncretism between the traditional religions of West Africa, the Roman Catholic form of Christianity, and Haitian Vodou. No central authority is in control of Louisiana Voodoo, which is organized through autonomous groups.
Hoodoo is a set of spiritual practices, traditions, and beliefs which were created and concealed by Atlantic creoles in North America.
Creoles historically could be found in various Christian and Islamic religions and worship houses that were typically segregated from White identified populations though some White passing creoles could be found in either.[57]
Canadian Atlantic Creoles
Atlantic creoles arrived in Canada in several waves. The first of these came as free persons serving in the
Another group of over 800 free Blacks from California migrated to Vancouver Island between 1858 and 1860. Many creoles migrated to Canada in search of work and became porters with the railroad companies in Ontario, Quebec, and the Western provinces or worked in mines in the Maritimes. Between 1909 and 1911 over 1500 migrated from Oklahoma as farmers and moved to Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and Alberta.[58]
Caribbean Atlantic Creoles
Starting in the early 16th century the Modern colonization and settlement of the Caribbean began. Modern European and African cultures began to mix with the established Amerindian cultures. Later settlers from India and China would also contribute to the growing Caribbean Creole culture.[60]
Caribbean creole cuisine is a fusion of
Ingredients that are common in most islands' dishes are
Caribbean music genres are diverse and are each syntheses of African, European, Indian and Amerindian influences. Some of the styles to gain wide popularity outside the Caribbean include,
Several spiritual traditions also formed from Creole culture such as Santeria, Palo, or Obeah and some religions such as Rastafari.
Kreyòl" or "Kweyol" or "Patois" also refers to the
See also
- Africanisms
- Angolan Americans
- Atlantic World
- Atlantic history
- Chesapeake Colonies
- Children of the plantation
- Colonial South and the Chesapeake
- Gullah
- Jamaican Maroon Creole
- Maroons
- Seasoning (slavery)
- Tobacco colonies
- Transatlantic migrations
Notes
References
- JSTOR 2947401. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- ^ Ira Berlin, Many Thousands Gone: The First Two Centuries of Slavery in North America, Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1998 Pbk, p.39
- ^ "Individual Stories- Individual Heroes" Archived 2012-04-29 at the Wayback Machine, Slavery and the Making of America, WNET, accessed 30 September 2011
- ^ Berlin, Ira (May 19, 2015). "The Atlantic Creoles". Slate.com. Retrieved June 6, 2022.
- ^ Ross, Emma. "The Portuguese in Africa". Met Museum. Retrieved August 23, 2022.
- ^ Landers, Jane. "Atlantic Creoles". Oxford Bibliographies. Retrieved June 9, 2022.
- ^ Northrup, David (2002). Africa's Discovery of Europe, p. 125. Oxford University Press, New York.
- ^ Berlin (1998), Many Thousands Gone, pp. 29–33
- ^ "Indian Slaves in Colonial America". 16 May 2007.
- ^ "Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic by Wendy Wilson-Fall (Review)". African Studies Review. 62 (4): E30–E32. 2019.
- .
- ^ "Convict Labor during the Colonial Period – Encyclopedia Virginia".
- ^ Paul Heinegg Free African Americans of Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Maryland and Delaware (2005), accessed 15 Feb 2008
- ^ Taunya Lovell Banks, "Dangerous Woman: Elizabeth Key's Freedom Suit – Subjecthood and Racialized Identity in Seventeenth Century Colonial Virginia", 41 Akron Law Review 799 (2008), Digital Commons Law, University of Maryland Law School, accessed 21 Apr 2009
- ^ Linda Heywood and John Thornton, Central Africans, Atlantic Creoles and the Foundation of the Americas, 1585–1660 (Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
- ^ a b Gayle K. Brunelle, "Central West Africans in Diaspora", History-Net, July 2011, accessed 30 September 2011
- ^ a b John Thornton and Linda Heywood, "A Forgotten African Catholic Kingdom" Archived September 29, 2011, at the Wayback Machine, 'The Root, 12 August 2011, accessed 30 September 2011
- ^ "Mystery of Va.'s First Slaves Is Unlocked 400 Years Later – The Washington Post". The Washington Post.
- ^ Breen 1980, p. 8.
- ISBN 978-0807832349.
- ^ https://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/indentured-servants-in-the-us/, Indentured Servants In The U.S.
- ^ Horton (2002), p. 26
- ISBN 9780807861714.
- ISBN 978-0-8203-4274-0.
- ISBN 978-1-883199-14-2.
- ^ Low Country Gullah Culture, Special Resource Study: Environmental Impact Statement. National Park Service. 2003. p. 16.
- ^ NPS. "Gullah Geechee History, Language, Society, Culture, and Change". National Park Service. p. 1.
Geechee people in Georgia refer to themselves as Freshwater Geechee if they live on the mainland and Saltwater Geechee if they live on the Sea Islands.
- ^ "THE GULLAH GEECHEE – Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor".
- ^ Roberta J. Estes, Jack H. Goins, Penny Ferguson and Janet Lewis Crain, "Melungeons, A Multi-Ethnic Population" Archived 2016-05-31 at the Wayback Machine, Journal of Genetic Genealogy, April 2012, accessed 25 May 2012
- ^ Paul Heinegg, "Church and Cotanch Families" Archived 2022-08-20 at the Wayback Machine, Free African Americans (1995)
- ^ a b Jack D. Forbes, "The Use of Racial and Ethnic Terms in America: Management by Manipulation", Wíčazo Ša Review/The Red Pencil Review, Fall 1995, Vol. XI No. 2, pp. 55,58–59.
- Association of American Geographers43 (June 1953): 138–155, accessed 18 February 2013
- ISBN 978-0-8061-3865-7.
- ^ "Big Data and Black Twitter".
- ^ "Hip Hop History: From the Streets to the Mainstream | Icon Collective". 13 November 2019.
- ^ "A Brief History of AAVE".
- ^ "How Enslaved Chefs Helped Shape American Cuisine".
- ^ "Cuisines of Enslaved Africans: Foods That Traveled Along with the Slave Ships". 22 May 2021.
- ^ Poplack (2000), p. ?.
- ^ Poplack & Tagliamonte (2001), p. ?.
- ^ William Labov, in the Foreword to Poplack & Tagliamonte (2001), says "I would like to think that this clear demonstration of the similarities among the three diaspora dialects and the White benchmark dialects, combined with their differences from creole grammars, would close at least one chapter in the history of the creole controversies."
- ^ Ludden, Jennifer (September 6, 2010). "Op-Ed: DEA Call For Ebonics Experts Smart Move" Archived 2018-01-08 at the Wayback Machine. NPR.
- ^ Wolfram (1998), p. 112.
- ^ a b Bloomquist, Green & Lanehart (2015).
- ^ a b Dillard (1972), p. ??.
- ^ Read (1939), p. 247.
- ^ "African American Music History".
- ^ "The African musical influence in the world of bluegrass music". 30 May 2016.
- ^ "Timeline of African American Music". Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall.
- ^ "African Origins and Adaptations in African American Music". Carnegie Hall. Carnegie Hall.
- ISBN 978-0-19-802031-8.
- ^ "Hoodoo". The Free Dictionary.
- ISBN 9780252094460.
- ISBN 978-0-8071-3719-2.
- S2CID 144404308.
- ISBN 9781610692090.
- ^ "Passing for White".
- ^ a b "The Canadian Encyclopedia – Homepage".
- ISBN 978-0-8020-7402-7. Originally published by Longman & Dalhousie University Press (1976).
- ^ "The National Archives – Homepage".
- ^ "Caribbean Green Seasoning Recipe". Archived from the original on 2016-03-04. Retrieved 2022-08-11.
Sources
- Bloomquist, Jennifer; Green, Lisa J.; Lanehart, Sonja L., eds. (2015-07-01). The Oxford Handbook of African American Language. Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0-19-979539-0.
- Dillard, John L. (1972). Black English: Its History and Usage in the United States. Random House. ISBN 0-394-71872-0.
- Poplack, Shana (2000). The English History of African American English. Blackwell.
- Poplack, Shana; Tagliamonte, Sali (2001). African American English in the Diaspora. Blackwell.
- S2CID 150204787.
- Wolfram, Walter A. (1998). "Language ideology and dialect: understanding the Oakland Ebonics controversy". Journal of English Linguistics. 26 (2): 108–121. S2CID 144554543.
Further reading
Landers, Jane. Atlantic Creoles, Oxford Bibliographies.com
Chira, Adriana.Atlantic Creoles, Latin American Studies, Oxford Bibliographies.com