Daniel O. Sayers
- Published in print:
- 2014
- Published Online:
- May 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780813060187
- eISBN:
- 9780813050607
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- University Press of Florida
- DOI:
- 10.5744/florida/9780813060187.003.0003
- Subject:
- Archaeology, Historical Archaeology
In Chapter 3, a variety of well-recognized historical processes are discussed as being manifestations of alienation in the modern world. Phenomena such as modes of production, Diasporic exile, ...
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In Chapter 3, a variety of well-recognized historical processes are discussed as being manifestations of alienation in the modern world. Phenomena such as modes of production, Diasporic exile, maroonage, agency, and uneven development of modern world landscapes and geographies are all linked together through the concept of alienation. It is argued that various processes of alienation are directly related to the emergence of the social world that maroons and others created in the Great Dismal Swamp between 1607 and 1860. New concepts developed by the author, such as the “Capitalistic Enslavement Mode of Production” and “autexousia,” as an alternative to typically murky “agency” conceptualizations, are discussed in some detail. Finally, details on important regional historical developments are provided throughout.Less
In Chapter 3, a variety of well-recognized historical processes are discussed as being manifestations of alienation in the modern world. Phenomena such as modes of production, Diasporic exile, maroonage, agency, and uneven development of modern world landscapes and geographies are all linked together through the concept of alienation. It is argued that various processes of alienation are directly related to the emergence of the social world that maroons and others created in the Great Dismal Swamp between 1607 and 1860. New concepts developed by the author, such as the “Capitalistic Enslavement Mode of Production” and “autexousia,” as an alternative to typically murky “agency” conceptualizations, are discussed in some detail. Finally, details on important regional historical developments are provided throughout.
Kwasi Konadu
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390643
- eISBN:
- 9780199775736
- Item type:
- book
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390643.001.0001
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
Since the Herskovits‐Frazier debate of the 1940s, African diasporic research in the Americas has been marked not only by an uninterrupted focus on West Africa but also by an equally incessant neglect ...
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Since the Herskovits‐Frazier debate of the 1940s, African diasporic research in the Americas has been marked not only by an uninterrupted focus on West Africa but also by an equally incessant neglect of the Akan. Accounting for 10 percent of the total number of African captives who embarked for the Americas, the Akan diaspora not only shaped and brought into sharp relief the diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom but also complicated these themes in that the displaced Akan created their own social orders based on foundational cultural understandings. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never constituted a majority among other Africans in the Americas, yet their leadership skills in warfare and political organization, medicinal knowledge of plant use and spiritual practice, and composite culture as archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far surpassed what their actual numbers would suggest. The book argues that a composite culture calibrated between the Gold Coast (Ghana) littoral and the forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. That argument calls attention to the historic formation of Akan culture in West Africa and its reach into the Americas, where the Akan experience in the former British, Danish, and Dutch colonies is explored. There, those early experiences foreground the contemporary movement of diasporic Africans and the Akan people between Ghana and North America. Indeed, the Akan experience provides for a better understanding of how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still becoming.Less
Since the Herskovits‐Frazier debate of the 1940s, African diasporic research in the Americas has been marked not only by an uninterrupted focus on West Africa but also by an equally incessant neglect of the Akan. Accounting for 10 percent of the total number of African captives who embarked for the Americas, the Akan diaspora not only shaped and brought into sharp relief the diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom but also complicated these themes in that the displaced Akan created their own social orders based on foundational cultural understandings. Between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, the Akan never constituted a majority among other Africans in the Americas, yet their leadership skills in warfare and political organization, medicinal knowledge of plant use and spiritual practice, and composite culture as archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African diasporic life far surpassed what their actual numbers would suggest. The book argues that a composite culture calibrated between the Gold Coast (Ghana) littoral and the forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. That argument calls attention to the historic formation of Akan culture in West Africa and its reach into the Americas, where the Akan experience in the former British, Danish, and Dutch colonies is explored. There, those early experiences foreground the contemporary movement of diasporic Africans and the Akan people between Ghana and North America. Indeed, the Akan experience provides for a better understanding of how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still becoming.
Kwasi Konadu
- Published in print:
- 2010
- Published Online:
- May 2010
- ISBN:
- 9780195390643
- eISBN:
- 9780199775736
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Discontinued
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195390643.003.0004
- Subject:
- History, American History: early to 18th Century
This chapter explicates the lives of Akan persons and their roles in the development of a composite African culture shaped by diasporic experiences in the Dutch and Danish colonies of the Americas. ...
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This chapter explicates the lives of Akan persons and their roles in the development of a composite African culture shaped by diasporic experiences in the Dutch and Danish colonies of the Americas. It examines Akan culture and politics in the Danish Caribbean and pays specific attention to the colonial holdings of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John. In doing so, the Akan emerge as Maroons delimited by an uneasy coexistence within the same neo‐European social order they fought against, insurrectionists who, in the St. John revolt, overthrew the plantocracy in 1733–1734, and as runaways, conspirators, skilled laborers, and individuals known as (A)mina, who were situated between levels of emancipation and brutal enslavement. These thematic identities for the Akan in Danish America were also true for those in the Dutch colonies, where Akan‐based maroonage and culture left indelible marks on its colonial and postcolonial societies. Thematically, the Akan were thus Maroons, runaways, collaborators, forgers of culture, and seekers of polities of their own making on the Gold Coast and in the Americas.Less
This chapter explicates the lives of Akan persons and their roles in the development of a composite African culture shaped by diasporic experiences in the Dutch and Danish colonies of the Americas. It examines Akan culture and politics in the Danish Caribbean and pays specific attention to the colonial holdings of St. Croix, St. Thomas, and St. John. In doing so, the Akan emerge as Maroons delimited by an uneasy coexistence within the same neo‐European social order they fought against, insurrectionists who, in the St. John revolt, overthrew the plantocracy in 1733–1734, and as runaways, conspirators, skilled laborers, and individuals known as (A)mina, who were situated between levels of emancipation and brutal enslavement. These thematic identities for the Akan in Danish America were also true for those in the Dutch colonies, where Akan‐based maroonage and culture left indelible marks on its colonial and postcolonial societies. Thematically, the Akan were thus Maroons, runaways, collaborators, forgers of culture, and seekers of polities of their own making on the Gold Coast and in the Americas.
