85 p., This thesis examines the practice of Obeah--an Afro-Caribbean system of healing, harming, and divination through the use of spiritual powers--within two slave communities in Berbice and Demerara (British Guiana). This study is based primarily on legal documents--including testimony from more than a dozen slaves--generated during the criminal trials of two men accused of practicing Obeah in 1819 and 1821-22. In contrast to most previous studies of Obeah, which have been based largely on descriptions provided by British observers, this project takes advantage of this complex, overlapping body of evidence to explore the social dynamics of Obeah as experienced by enslaved men and women themselves, including Obeah practitioners, their clients, and other witnesses. This study reveals that Obeah rituals could be extremely violent, that Obeah practitioners were feared as well as respected among their contemporaries, that the authority of Obeah practitioners was based on demonstrable success, and that slave communities in general were complex social worlds characterized by conflict and division as well as by support and unity--conclusions that combine to produce a fresh, humane vision of Afro-diasporan culture and community under slavery.
Kingston Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press
Location:
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
A collection of essays on the history of Christianity and the role of the Church in the processes of colonization and decolonization in the Caribbean. The work is a cross-cultural study of the Church and society in the Dutch, Spanish, French and English Caribbean. It looks at the relationships that existed among slavery, colonialism and Catholicism, Christianity and decolonization, and the church and military dictatorships. Contents: The beginnings of the Catholic Church in the Caribbean / Johannes Meier -- Protestantism and slavery in the British Caribbean / Keith Hunte -- Christianity and slavery in the Dutch Caribbean / Armando Lampe -- The Catholic Church and the state in Haiti, 1804-1915 / Laënnec Hurbon -- The Catholic Church and the state in the Dominican Republic, 1930-1960 / William Wipfler -- Protestantism in Cuba, 1868-1968 / Theo Tschuy
Just as dance forms originating from Saint-Domingue made their way into southern culture, religion also left its indelible marks. It is well documented that the Vodou religion in New Orleans began to blossom around 1800 with Sanite Dede, a free woman of color who arrived from Saint-Domingue. The Saint-Domingan Vodou priestess was replaced in 1820 by New Orleans's native Marie Laveau, who became legendary. Haitians were for the most part Catholic; their presence in the various U.S. cities where they settled gave rise to the establishment of a number of biracial congregations. In Baltimore, in 1829, four colored Saint-Domingan women--Elizabeth Lange, Marie Magdelene Baas, Marie Rose Boegue, and Marie Therese Duchemin--established the Oblate Sisters of Providence, the world's first Black religious community, and founded the School for Colored Girls.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
259 p, Reúne textos e ilustrações que propõem-se a comentar e mostrar certos aspectos do culto aos orixás em seus lugares de origem, na Africa (Nigéria, Angolo e Togo) e no novo mundo (Brasil e Antilhas), para onde foram levados, em séculos passados, pelos escravos.;
Obeah encompasses a wide variety of beliefs and practices involving the control or channelling of supernatural/spiritual forces, usually for socially beneficial ends such as treating illness, bringing good fortune, protecting against harm, and avenging wrongs. Although obeah was sometimes used to harm others, Europeans during the slave period distorted its positive role in the lives of many enslaved persons. In post-emancipation times, colonial officials, local white elites and their ideological allies exaggerated the antisocial dimensions of obeah, minimizing or ignoring its positive functions. This negative interpretation became so deeply ingrained that many West Indians accept it to varying degrees today, although the positive attributes of obeah are still acknowledged in most parts of the anglophone Caribbean. [PUBLICATION ABSTRACT];
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
309 p, Using the stories of ordinary people, Block illustrates how engaging with the powerful rhetoric and rituals of Christianity was central to survival. Isobel Criolla was a runaway slave in Cartagena who successfully lobbied the Spanish governor not to return her to an abusive mistress. Nicolas Burundel was a French Calvinist who served as henchman to the Spanish governor of Jamaica before his arrest by the Inquisition for heresy. Henry Whistler was an English sailor sent to the Caribbean under Oliver Cromwell's plan for holy war against Catholic Spain. Yaff and Nell were slaves who served a Quaker plantation owner, Lewis Morris, in Barbados. Seen from their on-the-ground perspective, the development of modern capitalism, race, and Christianity emerges as a story of negotiation, contingency, humanity, and the quest for community.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Notes:
216 p, A history of the Black Church as it developed both in the United States and the Caribbean after the arrival of enslaved Africans. Examines the parallel histories of these two strands of the Black Church, showing where their historical ties remain strong and where different circumstances have led them down unexpectedly divergent paths.
