370 p., Examines three general geographical areas in which people who originated in Africa were dispersed to the West during the Transatlantic Trade in Captured Africans. In Africa there was a process of inculcating cultural values while harnessing skills in an authentic education system called retreat schools. These schools were the original African lodges or secret societies that supported the communal system since they made people indigenous. Everyone in a village had an obligation to become initiated in order to learn the secrets of their society. Those individuals who were not indoctrinated were ostracized because they did not experience transformation and pledged an oath of loyalty. The purpose of this study is to investigate the elaborate infrastructure that was historically an integral part of early African institutional character, and aspects of its presentation among New World Africans.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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274 p., Explores a broad range of power relationships and struggles for authority in the early 19th century British Atlantic, focusing on the Caribbean colony of Berbice. I aim to understand how enslaved people and their enslavers negotiated their relationships and forged their lives within multiple, interconnected networks of power in a notoriously brutal society. Focuses on politics and culture writ large and small, zooming in to see the internal conflicts, practices, and hierarchies that governed individual plantations, communities, and families; and zooming out to explore the various ways that imperial officials, colonial administrators, and metropolitan antislavery activists tried to shape Caribbean area slavery during the era of amelioration-a crucial period of transformation in the Atlantic world. Sources used include travel narratives, trial records, missionary correspondence, and official government documents. Most important are the records of the Berbice fiscals and protectors of slaves, officials charged with hearing enslaved peoples' grievances and enforcing colonial laws.
The concept of the ghetto, referring to specifically urban experiences of sociospatial marginalization, has played a prominent role in black popular culture. This article explores the role of the ghetto as a discursive space of immobility and traces its global journey as a mobile imaginary.
280 p., Examines how Cubans mobilized the memory of their wars of independence as the symbolic and narrative foundations of their nationhood. Argues that the creation of a set of heroes, icons, and parables was crucial to consolidation of the Cuban republic and to the establishment of political and racial norms that sustained it. Cuban independence was threatened from its outset by the prospect of U.S. intervention. In this context, securing political stability and social unity became matters of national survival. The sanctification of national heroes enabled Cubans to demonstrate the historical legitimacy of their fragile republic, and Cubans circulated narratives emphasizing the cooperation of black and white Cubans in the anti-colonial struggle to deny and forestall conflicts over racial inequality.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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303 p, A book containing over 500 rare photographs which give a visual picture of a Caribbean society in the process of change in the years after Emancipation.
The article discusses the history of Santo Domingo (which was renamed the Dominican Republic) under the French General Jean-Louis Ferrand from 1804 through 1809. Particular focus is given to Ferrand's efforts, under the direction of the French Emperor Napoleon I, to re-enslave Santo Domingo and overthrow Haiti's ruler Toussaint Louverture. An overview of the slavery laws in Santo Domingo is provided. Ferrand's use of black Haitian captives as slaves, including the Haitians captured by the French who lived near the border with Santo Domingo, is provided.
African American Research Center, Library, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
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289 p., Traces expressions of both aesthetic and experiential transcolonial black politics across the Caribbean world, including Hispaniola, Louisiana and the Gulf South, Jamaica, and Cuba.
Seventy-two Jamaican migrants left yesterday afternoon on the Ascania for Britain. The majority are joining relatives in England. Others are going directly into jobs there. The Ascania arrived yesterday morning from England and docked at No 3 Pier. Two hundred and thirty-six Jamaicans, who had been resident in Britain, returned home on the ship yesterday morning.
From earthquakes, hurricanes and fires to Olympic glory and Independence, The Gleaner started chronicling Jamaica's roller-coaster history ride in 1834, and has had a front-row seat at every major event since. The Honourable Roy McNeill, minister of home affairs, announced yesterday that he has refused the application of the Reverend Clennon King, a United States citizen, for political asylum in Jamaica. McNeill, according to the official statement, considered King's application and reached the decision that his case is not one that qualifies for political asylum. King, of Albany, Georgia, arrived in Kingston last month and asked for political asylum from what he describes as insidious persecution and official harassment in the United States.
From earthquakes, hurricanes and fires to Olympic glory and Independence, The Gleaner started chronicling Jamaica's rollercoaster history ride in 1834, and has had a front-row seat at every major event since. BARCLAYS BANK DCO announced today that to mark the emergence of Jamaica as an independent nation in the Commonwealth, it was as a gift to the Caribbean island an X-ray machine, an electro-cardiograph machine and other equipment for a children's hospital. VARIOUS COMPLAINTS of unfair treatment by certain sections of the police have been lodged by Jamaicans with the London High Commission. One distinct case was brought to the attention of Jamaica's prime minister, Sir Alexander Bustamante, who immediately Save instructions to the amaican Migrant Service to engage legal representation, at a cost to the Jamaican Government, of up to three hundred pounds.