Different Colonists, Cultures, and Location
Abstract
African slaves in the Caribbean and the United States both eventually were emancipated. However, the lasting political and cultural effect of this African Diaspora are quite different in the Caribbean and American, much depending on the ruling colony and location.
Slavery in the Caribbean and the United States:
Different Colonists, Cultures, and Location
The arrival of slaves in the Caribbean and the developing country of the United States of America occurred at the beginning of the seventeenth century. Though slavery came to these places around the same time and both eventually decreed emancipation, the paths to which slaves became free and the resulting social implications were quite different. Some of these differences were influenced by the location, the Caribbean islands versus the continental USA, and some differences were influenced by the governments or colonists claiming control over those areas.
The number of African slaves in proportion to their white owners was very different in the Caribbean compared to the USA. For example, in 1745, there were around 60,000 slaves in Martinique and 16,000 white people (Scarboro). In 1756 in Virginia, there were one-hundred thousand slaves and one-hundred and fifty thousand white colonists (Becker). In an island setting like the Caribbean with such a high percentage of slaves and limited land in which to make an escape, it is not surprising that rather than fleeing to distant shores, slaves revolted against oppression where they lived. The “Maroons” of the Caribbean formed their anti-slavery uprisings on the very same islands where they themselves were forced into servitude. This concentration of slaves on small island locations eventually led to the founding of Haiti in 1804, as it gained independence as the first black republic on the island formerly known as Saint Domingue (Scarboro). No such republic was ever established in the continental USA.
The cultural influence of the slave-owning French colonists in the Caribbean has been long lasting. As Scarboro writes, “Until recently, all French Caribbean children, just like their counterparts in France, had to memorize the phrase "Our Ancestors the Gauls" as part of their schooling in history, whether their predecessors were African, East Indian, European or a combination thereof.” This denial of heritage fueled the former slaves’ resistance against assimilation. The attempts to separate slaves from the same African villages in order to disempower them already backfired for the French slaveholders, since it brought together different African groups in cooperation against them, and even “helped engender the Creole language” (Scarboro). Rather than losing their cultural backgrounds, the African Diaspora in the Caribbean and its concentration on the small islands brought a cultural camaraderie to the former slaves. The backlash against assimilation helped to create “a uniquely Caribbean cultural identity flourish[ing] in the works of most contemporary writers and artists” (Scarboro).
Both Caribbean and USA had black-led civil rights movements, yet the former slaves of the Caribbean resist assimilation, while their counterparts in the USA have not. Perhaps it is because the people of the United States themselves came from a variety of backgrounds to escape the rule of the British that the emancipated slaves of the USA were more likely to assimilate politically and culturally as citizens of their new country. The former slaves of the Caribbean had only the French to resist and only the other slaves of a variety of African ancestries to collude with in gaining emancipation and independence.
References
Scarboro, Ann Armstrong. About the French Caribbean and the African Diaspora. Retrieved January 29, 2012 from http://www.mosaicmediaarts.com/aboutCar.html
Becker, Eddie (ed.) 1999. Chronology on the History of Slavery. Retrieved January 29. 2012 from http://innercity.org/holt/slavechron.html
