Atlantic Slave Trade Research Paper

In Africa, the place of progeneration for those who traveled the Middle Passage, many of the original non-Christian indigenous beliefs and traditions exist still today. These quasi religions exist in the form of spoken word, handed down through oration often seeing embellishment or modification to fit the unique geographical demand. These beliefs are “spoken through tongue and written in hearts”.

Examples of these religions are seen with the peoples of Yoruba, Igbo, Ashanti, Fon, Ghana and Nigeria. There is no leader or hierarchy, only belief. These are many of the same beliefs and traditions that would have been carried through the Atlantic Slave Trade, only to be supplanted by religions given to these slaves by their masters (sometimes through

threat of death or as an offering of freedom).
On the Islands of Cuba, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, and through the interior of what is Latin America today -the Spanish suppressed indigenous religions citing them as primitive.

The Catholic Church labeled them as witchcraft. Remnants of these beliefs can readily be seen in places like Haiti and the Dominican Republic where African tradition is expressed through the once secretly practiced traditions of Santeria and Vodou. As City College of NY professor and popular Latina author Lyn Di Lorio notes “every Latino neighborhood boast a botánica, a store selling candles and other supplies for ceremonies.” This can be seen in the Afro-Latino cultural centers of New York, Miami, and sprawling American East Coast where decedents and recolonized Africans from Columbian, Peruvian, Spanish, and Cuba reside. These traditions are everywhere and often outlast the dominating sect and predate Christianity. These traditions and beliefs helped describe who these Africans were. Their cultures were defined by tradition, dance, art, communion with ancestors and earthly spirits. To maintain their identities, many of the newly adopted beliefs and iconography was coopted. The image of the Virgin Mary or Mater Dolorosa, for instance, became the Goddess of Love – Erzuli. For those in West Africa, the Fon and Yoruba, Erzuli remained untouched as the Goddess Oshun in the land of Dahomey which later became modern

Benin.
For the displaced Africans now in the West Indies, the struggle to maintain this identity and cultural coherence was set into motion. As the first stop for many of the Africans in route to the Americas, this unique entanglement of identity and religion would be repeated for hundreds of years from locale to locale. Many islands such as Cuba have a dichotomous relationship with identity, where nationalism dominates the identity, race is often secondary, with a general understanding that belief exists – but is not relevant to group membership.
In the US, where African Americans spent years fighting to define their identity, the struggle itself became part of their identity.

Enter the civil rights movement, where the Social Justice Warriors of old, trumpeted by prefixes of Rev., set the continuing standard of religious adhesion to Black identity. Where many mainland Africans can define their identity by geography or tribe, the African American coheres to a set of standards that has been self-selected by a movement. It is a significant contributing factor, but not the only. The role of the Black Church serves many central functions required for survival and community of those that still try to assert their voices at the table of the majority. The role of Black and Minority churches goes much further than providing the word of God or proselytization to those communities; they provide a vein into valuable social services not easily replaced. They feed the poor, provide financial routes to academic achievement, intercede when perceived or real injustices occur, and provide an invisible safety net to many people regardless of color should they falter. Many have leveled arguments that religion, faith, and the Black church are some of the worst hindrances to the Black community (I am one of those voiced) – it is a tool for moral control of slaves given to them by their slave masters, but it’s important to note that both Nat Turner and Denmark Vesey both cited the Bible and relevant passages to justify revolt and

self-claimed freedom. Within that song of freedom, these displaced people found their own definable identities where the idea of Christ is significant, but finding freedom together in something “greater” - I’d argue, supplants the theology.
People want to belong and tribalism is a very human. It is also a seemingly biologically transferrable (and learned) trait. It is easier to belong if you’re identifiable and conform. But what about the doubting non-conformist that we know have existed?