What culture/country in the diaspora has the most African cultural retention?

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This is a nitpicking post which avoids the overall points and questions I raised.

I say that because the very last debate we were involved in, you did the same thing.
I believe I was debating you, Illmatic Delta, and the guy who is currently under fire for past self hating comments. In that thread, at some point I played an audio clip of an iconic musician making a comment (which supported my overall point). I was met with juelzing telling me that " he didn't mean what he said" , personal attacks against me, filibustering,etc.etc for several pages.
When I later posted the pages & quotes from that musician's biography confirming that he said exactly what he meant, neither of you guys conceded the point. In fact, in your response to the receipt post of mine, you highlighted a sentence that was unrelated to the overall point and avoided admitting that you were wrong.
I brought this up to Ill directly, so bringing it up to you also.
Call somebody out about something, man up when they prove their case.

Speaking of which, your point about the slave trade is correct, but it's a straw man to an extent. Unless you think that you are really explaining to me for the first time that the majority of the Africans in the mainland British colonies were brought here directly from slavers trading from West Africa .
Your reply was a reach.and I ask you to give me the benefit of the doubt if I write something in haste.

under spoiler is a book that I previewed and will probably buy in the future

It wasn't a strawman, because you made a generalized statement that "the Africans were acclimated/broken down at the first leg of the route....in the Caribbean. ....then shipped to ports North" without prefacing it with "a minority of" or even "some" implying that it was the general rule when in fact it was the exception to the rule even during the british colonial period.

And your imagination is quite vivid if that's your version of what took place during that conversation back then, because as I recall it you were making many erroneous claims by attributing quotes regarding cuban musical motifs to WC handy and Jelly roll morton and others which they never said in a transparent attempt attribute caribbean origins where there is none to many aspects of MY African-American culture, as you seem to love doing and were corrected and back tracked many times which you still seem to be triggered by to this day. And as long as you continue to attempt to misrepresent MY people's history to appropriate MY culture I'll continue to correct you just as I'm sure you would if I was attempting to appropriate Haitian and/or Caribbean culture, heritage, and history and insert an AA origin where there isn't any.

And the first ad homenin attack in our exchange came from you to me during that discussion. You should've kept it civil if you didn't want to go down the road of personal attacks.
 
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First thing is that, if you examine the history and development in that part of the continent.....New Orleans was trading with and to the other port cities in the Gulf/upper Caribbean area
US1800.jpg

EVERY other port city in the gulf was in Spanish hands, and below the area of the map is Cuba and the port city of Havana .
The trade ties, cultural ties, and family ties to (formerly Spanish controlled) Louisiana and New Orleans didn't vanish once the American flag flew over that region.

It was a two way exchange as the melting pot culture of New Orleans had different components than the islands in many instances
What I've seen in terms of New Orleans cuisine that is more like Caribbean fare than Southern US foods

red beans and rice
rice and congri
jambalaya(created in Louisiana but transported to and popular in former Spanish colonies)
hot sauce (Louis. version transported to and popular in former Spanish colonies)

Now, New Orleans seems to be the city that best represents the resistance to Anglicization that occurred once those former Spanish territories became part of America, but some of the remnants of that era and exchanges still exist in some of those other areas.

Again another gross misrepresentation of AA history and culture regarding a majority AA city. The ties between the New Orleans and the French Caribbean were even LESS than that of Charleston and British Caribbean as the Louisiana colonial officials explicitly BANNED trade with the french west indies so as not to be economically muscled out by the much richer island colonies.

First you tried to attribute the music of new orleans to the caribbean and disassociate it from the greater AA community and were completely shut down in that department so now I guess new orleans food is your target, but it's quite easy to shut that down as well.

Red Beans and Rice is a variation of the Hoppin John dish in the US southern soul food tradition.

Jambalaya is a variation of the Charleston Red Rice dish.

Dirty Rice is a variation of Rice Dressing in the US southern soul food tradition.

Gumbo is a variation of Okra Soup in US southern soul food tradition.

Not to mention all of the other typical soul food dish are present in new orleans cuisine as like cornbread, collard greens, dressing, oxtail, pork bones etc etc.

Family ties between New Orleans and other parts of the south are exponentially greater than anywhere in the caribbean. Even during the French colonial period New Orleans LA would've had strongest ties to Mobile AL and Biloxi(for white ppl) & Pascagoula(for black ppl) MS than the entire caribbean. You act like New Orleans was the only city in colonial louisiana just because that's probably the only one you know about and have a fascination with. lol And it would've been Richmond VA after the louisiana purchase. Again 200,000 black slaves alone from other states came to New Orleans during the domestic slaves trade(100,000 by sea, 100,000 by land). Cultural affinities are by far greater between AA creoles and AA non-creoles than the entire caribbean combined. No amount of reaching by you in an attempt to appropriate my culture is going to change that.
 
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im_sleep

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If he is trying to distinguish that then how could he explain the Gullah people that lived in North Carolina and Georgia? There was literally no distinction, which is why the Gullah corridor runs from North Carolina to Northern Florida; and corridor goes inland for many miles:

f6e61fe16194ba2be614700e1debbc57.jpg
When it comes to stuff like this, this is where having some Gullah folks on here who can give a little more perspective would be great.

Like where or exactly how do you draw the lines going inland? Even this map I’m sure is a rough estimate.
 

im_sleep

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My first post in this thread...and answering the thread question was "Maroons in Jamaica" and "Gullah in the Sea Islands"
Groups of Africans who have lived in relative isolation from both the "mainstream white culture" and from their FELLOW Africans/countrymen respectively for decades (centuries)

That type of isolation from outside influences is why those are the first groups that came to my head. Maroons separated from the rest of Jamaica by terrain/mountains and Gullah separated by water /terrain. In that kind of cultural isolation....those cultures were able to develop and "standardize" for lack of a better word.
==================
The absentee ownership made more sense on the Sea islands where there was little/no chance for escape during slavery. If it occurred on mainland Carolinas, slavers ran the risk of Africans trying escape.
Well I don’t think anyone is doubting the validity to the original answer to the question, at least I don’t remember doing so.
:yeshrug:

At what point do you draw the line between mainland and Sea Islands? Charleston, Beaufort, Savannah, etc are all coastal mainland, are they not Gullah?

Just trying to understand where your skepticism regarding Gullah culture having any overlap into greater AA culture and the possibility of it spreading inland, even out of the coastal region in some aspects.

And to my understanding absenteeism had just as much to do with health risks brought about by disease as the nature of rice growing were breeding grounds for mosquitos. Rice growing was defintely not exclusive to the sea islands.
 

get these nets

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It wasn't a strawman, because you made a generalized statement that "the Africans were acclimated/broken down at the first leg of the route....in the Caribbean. ....then shipped to ports North" without prefacing it with "a minority of" or even "some" implying that it was the general rule when in fact it was the exception to the rule even during the british colonial period.

And your imagination is quite vivid if that's your version of what took place during that conversation back then, because as I recall it you were making many erroneous claims by attributing quotes regarding cuban musical motifs to WC handy and Jelly roll morton and others which they never said in a transparent attempt attribute caribbean origins where there is none to many aspects of MY African-American culture, as you seem to love doing and were corrected and back tracked many times which you still seem to be triggered by to this day. And as long as you continue to attempt to misrepresent MY people's history to appropriate MY culture I'll continue to correct you just as I'm sure you would if I was attempting to appropriate Haitian and/or Caribbean culture, heritage, and history and insert an AA origin where there isn't any.

And the first ad homenin attack in our exchange came from you to me during that discussion. You should've kept it civil if you didn't want to go down the road of personal attacks.
the initial claim I made, your initial response

my receipt for the claim and your response

in spoiler
you cosigning another poster.......
Matta fact. Isn't Dizzy Gillespie, an Afr'Am, the father of Afro-Cuban Jazz, the pioneering latin jazz genre?:heh:
my post to illmatic
You posted later in this thread that jazz icon Dizzy Gillespie added elements of latin jazz into his music. By posting that, are you walking back this earlier post about how the exchange was always one way? If Dizz did it, I'm certain that lesser talents followed his lead and did it as well.

The cultural exchange was 99% of the time AA influencing the globe, but I think people are reluctant to concede that 1% where it's documented to have swung the other way.


For example
Blues legend Jelly Roll Morton


The cuban/jazz myth is basically the jamaican/hip hop myth of a by gone era.



Mississippi hill country fife and drum music contains heavy cross rhythms. Again, nothing to do with cuba.
instead of the University of Google

try reading this book that I posted in the Root section last month

Black Music History primer

from AFRICAN AMERICAN music scholar Samuel Floyd
How about we go straight to the words of the musicians themselves. Bo diddley himself claims that the he got the inspiration for the beat from listening to gospel music at the church. Red Saunders said he heard the beat from a children's song(hambone). James P Johnson Said he first heard it from dock workers from South Carolina in NY. NONE of them attest to a cuban origin of the rhythm, because it has since the time of slavery been apart of the african-american musical tradition in the form of the juba dance as a way to compensate for the ban on drums throughout the american colonies. It's an AFRICAN originated rhythm that made it's way to the US via the transatlantic slave trade. It has nothing to do with the cuban clave or habenera other than sharing a common african origin.

after pages of tangents I posted this
stamp-jelly.jpg



N.O. was unique in many ways, perhaps the most significant for this discussion was that it had the LARGEST community of FREE Blacks in the United States.Largest concentration of non-White (Black) wealth in the entire country in the 19th century.
In fact, I'm amazed at the details of the true wealth and land holdings that N.O. Creoles had, and how well educated their children tended to be because of that wealth. Including private instruction or being sent to Europe to study. Some of the Creoles who became musicians were taught how to read and write music across Europe or from the French and Spanish institutions in New Orleans.

Not surprising that a person from that social group, Jelly Roll Morton's mark in music history is being the first one to put jazz music in published form/composition . Having access to ALL of the musical influences that came into New Orleans..as well as the formal musical instruction .

I have pages of Jelly Roll's biography where he talks about the privileges that being part of the N.O. Creole community granted access to him , even not being from one of the more prominent families.
He details his family attending the local French opera house concerts, how he took private music lessons (from a Spaniard) at 6 years old , taking music lessons at St Joseph's University as a young man, and other private lessons from accomplished musicians/instructors as a young man. That wouldn't have been rare for a child born in that social circle, Morton was just an exceptional talent.

actual pages and link in the spoiler



So for the last time, when Morton writes of the Spanish tinge that HE believes is essential to playing jazz, it is not mis-speaking, it is not "he didn't know "....it's a man who has had access to all kinds of influences, training, performances, and music detailing DIRECTLY what he's talking about.

this is your full reply to me providing the receipt for the quote
*Third largest in in the south. But, the largest in the Deep south. Charleston SC comes next.

Upper south cities like Baltimore and DC had higher populations of free blacks.


Rich History Of Underground Railroad Runs Just Outside Of Washington | WAMU


South Carolina - Free Persons of Color Demographics in Charleston Before the Civil War

It goes:

1. Baltimore

2. DC

3. New Orleans

4. Charleston

Maryland had the highest of any state overall.
 

get these nets

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Well I don’t think anyone is doubting the validity to the original answer to the question, at least I don’t remember doing so.
:yeshrug:

At what point do you draw the line between mainland and Sea Islands? Charleston, Beaufort, Savannah, etc are all coastal mainland, are they not Gullah?

Just trying to understand where your skepticism regarding Gullah culture having any overlap into greater AA culture and the possibility of it spreading inland, even out of the coastal region in some aspects.

And to my understanding absenteeism had just as much to do with health risks brought about by disease as the nature of rice growing were breeding grounds for mosquitos. Rice growing was defintely not exclusive to the sea islands.

Ratio of Africans to whites in the Carolinas would have made absenteeism along coastal plantations problematic for the system of slavery there. By absenteeism, do you mean plantation owner isn't present or do you mean no overseers / slave drivers or whites in an area period?
Like I said, the system of slavery could allow the absence of no overseers/ slave drivers on the outward islands but not on the mainland.

The original point I was contending, I think ,was what is considered uniquely Gullah? I viewed Gullah as I view Maroons, so I never considered that mainland SC,GA was the same.
In answering the thread question I drew a line on the ones who have been able to live in cultural isolation and thereby retain/merge much the cultures their ancestors had when the were brought here. For the purpose of this thread, that's how I defined Gullah.
 

Samori Toure

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Ratio of Africans to whites in the Carolinas would have made absenteeism along coastal plantations problematic for the system of slavery there. By absenteeism, do you mean plantation owner isn't present or do you mean no overseers / slave drivers or whites in an area period?
Like I said, the system of slavery could allow the absence of no overseers/ slave drivers on the outward islands but not on the mainland.

The original point I was contending, I think ,was what is considered uniquely Gullah? I viewed Gullah as I view Maroons, so I never considered that mainland SC,GA was the same.
In answering the thread question I drew a line on the ones who have been able to live in cultural isolation and thereby retain/merge much the cultures their ancestors had when the were brought here. For the purpose of this thread, that's how I defined Gullah.

The Gullah were not like the Maroons. The Maroons were either free Black people or runaway slaves who formed settlements of their own. The Gullah were not runaway slaves; they were just left in isolation because White people could not live on the Sea Islands due to the heat and malaria. The Gullah had overseers, but they were typically other Black people so there was not absenteeism in the way you are thinking.

The Gullah were never just confined to the sea islands. They were also on the mainland in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. They were far inland which is why the National Park Service recognizes the Gullah Corridor for as much as 30 miles inland.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida: Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (U.S. National Park Service)

I am still not clear as to why you are trying to make some case that the Gullah people are different than African Americans, when just a little over 100 years ago 90% of African Americans lived in the South. Since you seem to be confused about who the Gullah were then you should send your questions to these people.
Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor | Where Gullah Geechee Culture Lives


Edit: Some of the Maroons in the USA were in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. Those were not Gullah people.

There were also Maroons in the swamps in North and Central Florida. Those were Gullah, who were later labeled as Black Seminoles.
 
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xoxodede

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The Gullah were not like the Maroons. The Maroons were either free Black people or runaway slaves who formed settlements of their own. The Gullah were not runaway slaves; they were just left in isolation because White people could not live on the Sea Islands due to the heat and malaria. The Gullah had overseers, but they were typically other Black people so there was not absenteeism in the way you are thinking.

The Gullah were never just confined to the sea islands. They were also on the mainland in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. They were far inland which is why the National Park Service recognizes the Gullah Corridor for as much as 30 miles inland.
North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida: Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor (U.S. National Park Service)

I am still not clear as to why you are trying to make some case that the Gullah people are different than African Americans, when just a little over 100 years ago 90% of African Americans lived in the South. Since you seem to be confused about who the Gullah were then you should send your questions to these people.
Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor | Where Gullah Geechee Culture Lives


Edit: Some of the Maroons in the USA were in the Great Dismal Swamp in Virginia. Those were not Gullah people.

There were also Maroons in the swamps in North and Central Florida. Those were Gullah, who were later labeled as Black Seminoles.


Maroons were all over the South. Basically, Maroon - means Runaway.

Updated:

Maroons:





Types of Maroon Societies:

Sylviane Diouf of Slavery’s Exiles describes the different types of maroons that were in the United States in great detail.

Borderland Maroonage:

  • Borderland maroons did not wonder off too far from where they escaped from. They made their maroon colonies close to the farms and plantations thus, their presence was known. [8]There were many reasons for staying close and risk being captured and returned to slavery, one being family connections. Escaping enslavement, but still wanting to see family members who were enslaved was crucial. Another instance would be for a slave to hover in the area of a different plantation where a spouse was sold. [9] In this case the a subcategory of maroonage called petit maroonage where slaves would runaway to see a loved ones, but eventually return.[10].
  • Violence was another reason slaves would escape to the borderlands. The violence that slaves were subjected to does not need explanation, but what is important is to note that many did not accept the violence from slaveowners. Many decided to flee in the face of violence instead of submitting to the humiliation and torture of a beating.[12] The opposite was also true, many would find themselves on the borderland because they had inflected violence on a white person. Borderland maroons would also be the source of much stealing of food and tools to to ensure their survival.
Hinterland Maroonage:
  • Another form of maroonage was hinterland maroonage, where the person or colony would enter deep into the woods where they could have a stronger sense of security and freedom. The hinterlands maroons unlike the borderland maroons were harder to track thus, providing mystery to the slavocracy. Usually found in communities for optimal survival, they were able to accomplish a lifestyle some would say was better than plantation life.

-------

Plantation Owners and Officials Knew of Maroon Communities:

Charles Manigault, owner of the Silk Hope plantation on the Cooper River near Charleston, commented that “no overseer, or Planter should speak on such subjects even before a small house boy, or girl, as they communicate all that they hear to others, who convey it to the spies of the runaways, who are still at home.”19 Indeed, it was rare for maroon settlements to be taken by surprise and far more common for attacking forces to find settlements abandoned because they had been forewarned of an assault.20 To those remaining enslaved we might anticipate that maroons became heroic, perhaps even mythic, figures. The retention and practice of African traditions (particularly religious ones) among maroon communities secured them a privileged position in slave societies with high proportions of Africans. Maroons who struck against planter authority and power were quite possibly fulfilling the secret desires of the oppressed, for while overt resistance could spell summary execution for slaves, maroons had the capacity to fight back.

Planters north of Charleston described how the success of one runaway in 1822 had resulted in another joining him in 1824 and a further five, parents with three children, “joined the same ring leader” in 1825.25
Source: http://latinamericanhistory.oxfordr...199366439.001.0001/acrefore-9780199366439-e-5

In November 1822 travelers in St. Andrew’s Parish just outside Charleston were being “continually robbed by a gang of armed runaway Negroes.” Among their victims were “several negroes [who] were stopped and money and clothes taken from them and their persons kept in custody ’till after night.”27 Targeting slaves was an obvious avenue whereby maroons could lose the support of the black community that remained enslaved. When maroons near Wilmington, North Carolina, were reported to be “frequently robbing slaves” and “threatening to perpetrate more atrocious crimes” it did not take long before “people of their own color informed against them.” A white posse swiftly captured all of these maroons as a direct result of the information given by slaves.28

--------

Maroons and Conflict with the White Community
  • For white planters, masters, militias, and governments, maroon communities posed a particular problem. Masters certainly did not want to lose valuable property to marronage, but the rewards of recapturing maroons had to be weighed against significant effort and risks. Maroon settlements were located in remote and deliberately inaccessible areas. Days spent hunting maroons were days lost from managing the plantation which might mean that remaining slaves were able to damage crops, and therefore profits, either through willful vandalism or, perhaps more likely, through simple inaction while unsupervised. Some slaves might even take advantage of the absence of the master to flee themselves. The swamps, woods, and mountains where maroons resided were formidable environments full of dangerous fauna that preyed on the unwary. It is doubtful that many whites ventured anywhere near these locales, except when they absolutely had to, and these zones in effect became spaces which were traversed and occupied only by Africans and African Americans.
  • New settlements could be constructed quickly: soldiers who oversaw the destruction of one maroon village near Savannah in October 1786 found an even larger settlement had been constructed just six months later a few miles further into the swamps.
  • Fighting was an option when the maroons outnumbered the attackers, but most often occurred when the maroons were either surprised, or when they had no choice. A military response could also buy vital time for the escape of women and children since if nothing else it gave the attackers pause for thought. Many whites grudgingly recorded their respect for maroon bravery, reporting that one maroon group just north of Mobile “fought like Spartans, not one gave an inch of ground, but stood and was shot dead or wounded, and fell on the spot.”35
  • A maroon group in North Carolina successfully deterred planters from joining patrols by singling them out for revenge attacks. A petition to the North Carolina General Assembly urging a reform of the patrol law lamented that “patrols are of no use on Account of the danger they Subject themselves to and their property. Not long since three patrols two of which for Executing their duty had their dwelling and Out houses burnt down, the Other his fodder stacks all burnt.” It took considerable determination, and an investment of both time and substantial amounts of money, for whites to completely destroy a maroon community.
-------

Maroon Colonies Traded in New Orleans and South Carolina

In the fall of 1827 a maroon colony in New Orleans was discovered where the cultivation of corn, sweet potatoes, hogs, and chicken were being raised.[15] Diouf makes it a point to establish that maroon colonies would trade, especially in South Carolina where maroons dominated the fishing business.[16] Although this was illegal because the maroons themselves were bandits, it was less illegal than, stealing goods and trading them which was also done.[17]

Source(s): Diouf, Slavery’s Exiles, 145 and Resistance to Slavery : Warfare and Maroonage
 

IllmaticDelta

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1. Cuba
2. Brazil

are the most because they also have the most, late african slave imports




From African to Creole

I will continue this discussion but in this post I will apply it more generally for Afro-descendants in the Americas and in more detail for African Americans. Starting with this chart taken from the slavevoyages database:



It shows the percentage of disembarked slaves from documented slavevoyages according to century of arrival. A couple of things standing out:




    • The Hispanic Americas received most of the earliest arrivals (1500’s/1600’s), relatively speaking and specifically the Dominican Republic (“Santo Domingo”) and Central America (incl. Mexico and Colombia).


    • Puerto Rico and especially Cuba however show a big share of late arrivals (1800’s). The same goes for Trinidad and southeast Brazil. Historians often assume that socalled African retention (the preservation of ethnically/regionally recognizably African cultural heritage) is most noticeable for places where slave imports continued the longest into the 1800’s while Creolization is assumed to be most pronounced for regions where slave imports were mostly in the 1600’s/1700’s.


    • Most of the English and French speaking Caribbean as well as the USA fall in between. Meaning that for Afro-descendants in these countries most of their African born ancestors can be traced to the 1700’s.
 
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