Birth and initiation on the Peers Plantation: the problem of creolization in seventeenth-century Barbados

A central debate within slavery studies centers on the question of whether enslaved Africans ‘retained’ their cultures or became ‘creolized’ in the Americas. Focusing on two enslaved women and the six children they bore by their master in late seventeenth-century Barbados, this paper suggests how creolization operated in the early modern English Caribbean. The women and children were baptized and provided for in their master’s will. Yet they were also part of the plantation’s 180 strong West African enslaved population. Contextualizing all of the influences that shaped their experiences on Barbados, this paper examines naming, baptism, and birthing rituals to provide an account of the women’s lives that does not privilege either European or West African cultural practices. It argues that creolization was not a marker of identity, nor a unidirectional process of Europeanization, but rather a multivalent and multidirectional negotiation of cultural exchanges.     

The Hunted: UDHR and Africans with Albinism

Across Africa, persons with albinism continue to be the main casualties of occult killings, yet very little intervention is provided by states to safeguard them from their persecutors. The year 2018 commemorates the 70th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR), which entreats governments to protect their citizens from such brutalities. Whereas the Declaration has inspired the adoption of many (international and regional) human rights treaties, all declaring protection for the rights of persons with albinism, it is evident that this group is yet to reap the fruit of the human rights revolution triggered by the UDHR over the last seven decades. The article argues that, although African governments remain the primary custodians of Africans with albinism, the burden of violence often visited on this group constitutes “persecution” under the UDHR and therefore the international community has a role to play in safeguarding this group.     

Conceived in violence: enslaved mothers and children born of rape in nineteenth-century Louisiana

ABSTRACT

Through the examination of testimony from formerly enslaved people who had been fathered by white men under slavery, this paper considers how enslaved women negotiated motherhood when their child had been conceived through rape. Evidence reveals that the relationship between enslaved mothers and their children remained strong, despite sexual violence and interference into childrearing by slaveholding families. Informants had close knowledge of the non-consensual nature of their conception, and their willingness to discuss sexual violence reflects the lack of stigma attached to rape victims in the slave community, and hints at the way that enslaved communities coped with sexual violence on an institutional level.     

The Ultimate Sin: Christianising Slaves in Barbados in the Seventeenth Century

My article traces the changing attitudes toward slave conversion in seventeenth-century Barbados – from hesitant discomfort in the mid-seventeenth century, to virulent rejection in 1680 – and argues that the attempted rebellion of 1675, which was widely blamed on Quaker proselytising efforts, played a pivotal role in the development of an antagonistic attitude toward missionaries in Barbados. The 1675 attempted rebellion, I suggest, linked slave conversion with slave rebellion in a new and decisive way that had repercussions throughout the British West Indies.     

The Persistence of the slave market in seventeenth-century Central Mexico

This study, based on an extensive notarial database, demonstrates the significance of slavery in Central Mexico during the seventeenth century. Thousands of bills of sale from Mexico City and Puebla – the largest and most lucrative slave markets in the region – show that the slave trade did not collapse with the end of the Portuguese asiento in 1640. A growing population of American-born creoles sustained the market during the subsequent decades, along with a modest number of new African arrivals. In 1700, slavery remained integral to Central Mexico's economy.     

Reassessing Brer Rabbit: friendship,altruism, and community in the folklore of enslaved African-Americans

This article examines the Brer Rabbit trickster tales of enslaved African Americans. It challenges earlier interpretations of scholars who view the world of Brer Rabbit as amoral and anarchic. Lawrence Levine, for example, claimed that friendship was portrayed as a ‘fragile reed’ in the Brer Rabbit tales. Instead, this article argues that Brer Rabbit did not live in an amoral world; rather, he lived in a world of ethical boundaries. Indeed, friendship, altruism, and commitment to vulnerable members of the community were prized – not derided. For enslaved people in the United States, these values were crucial for survival; yet historians have failed to pay sufficient attention to these themes in the tales.     

Finding dignity in a landscape of fear: enslaved women and girls at the University of Virginia

From its inception, the University of Virginia was a destination for enslaved men, women, and children who were forced to leave their families to build and sustain the needs of this newly founded institution. This article explores the unique experiences of the enslaved women and girls who labored at the University of Virginia, and highlights the distinct intersectionality of their oppression in terms of their race, class, and gender. Their stories showcase the particular challenges that arose while enslaved at a university filled with young privileged white men, bringing attention to the historic and continual struggles of black women throughout history.     

Bareback sex and the law: the difficult issue of HIV status disclosure

1. Unsafe anal intercourse (bareback sex) is on the rise within the gay community. 2. Barebacking constitutes a sexual practice with strong HIV-related legal implications. Nurses need to be aware of public health laws to be able to protect clients from undue legal prosecution. 3. Nurses need to be aware of the components of HIV pretest counseling. 4. Adopting a nonjudgmental, matter-of-fact approach is essential in establishing effective therapeutic relationships with clients who engage in bareback sex.     

Patterns of Sex-Union Formation in Barbados

Cette étude, basée sur un échantillon de 4199 femmes de bas statut socioéconomique interviewées en 1971 sur l'île des Barbades, examine les types de formation des unions entre sexes. Trois types d'unions entre sexes sont identifyées: les unions occasionnelles (visiting), les unions de type « loi commune >> (commonlaw) et les mariages.
La très grande majorité de toutes les unions commence et se termine comme des unions occasionnelles. Un grand nombre de partenaires passent d'un type d'union à un autre seulement, le passage le plus frequent était celui de l'union occasionnelle au type e « loi commune >> et celui de l'union occasionnelle au mariage. En général, lorsqu'ily a changement de type d'union entre partenaires, c'est dans le sens d'un type d'union plus stable. Les résultats de la recherché appuient ceux de l'étude de 1956 en Jamaique.
This study, based on a sample of 4 199 lower socioeconomic status women interviewed on the island of Barbados in 1971, examines patterns of sex-union formation. Three types of sex unions are identified - visiting, commonlaw, and married.
The overwhelming majority of all partnerships is initiated and terminated as a visiting union. A large number of partnerships progresses from one union type to only one other, with the most frequent being visiting to commonlaw and visiting to married. In general, when there is a change-of-union status within a partnership it is in the direction of a more stable type of union. The findings of this study support those of a 1956 study in Jamaica.     

US slavery,civil war,and the emancipation of enslaved mothers

ABSTRACT

In the United States, slavery’s destruction was a war-long process, shaped not only by Union military victories, legislation, and presidential proclamations, but also by contradictory, inconsistent and sometimes lethal policies enacted by the Union military and federal government toward refugees from slavery. The haphazard nature of those policies and their often deadly consequences were never more evident than in the experience of enslaved women, mothers, and the children under their care, who approached Union lines in pursuit of freedom, but encountered a gauntlet of conflicting and unevenly enforced military edicts and a humanitarian crisis still only superficially understood by many Civil War historians.     

The Socioeconomic Attainment Patterns of Africans in the United States1

Using data from the public use micro data sample of the 1990 U.S. census, we examine the socioeconomic attainment patterns of Africans in the United States, within the context of the assimilation and selectivity perspectives. Three primary findings emerge from this study. First, we find that white African men and men from English‐speaking Africa have higher net hourly earnings than their nonwhite and non‐English‐speaking counterparts. Second, we find that while South African men have higher net hourly earnings than men from a number of selected African countries, there is no statistically significant difference between the net hourly earnings of South African women and women from these selected African countries. Third, we find no statistically significant difference between the net hourly earnings of black African and black American men and women.     

Migration and Elderly Africans in the United States

Although population movements and migration across national borders have occurred throughout human history, the accelerated pace of human migration from Africa to the United States in recent decades is unprecedented. A distinct phenomenon of this trend is that in addition to young African immigrants, an increasing number of elderly Africans are joining the ranks of immigrants in the United States. This article explores prevailing factors that may explain migration among elderly Africans in late adult life. The article addresses the unique experience of African-born elders as they age in the United States. Implications for policy and practice are also discussed.     

Belonging in the land down under: Black Africans in Australia

Black African migrants have recently become a visible presence in Australia. Many arrived through the humanitarian resettlement programme, but far greater numbers come through the “skilled stream”. This paper explores recent research into these populations to tease out how material, social and existential elements of settlement intersect with belonging. As a heuristic, it uses Ager and Strang's ten markers and means of integration: material aspects (employment, housing, education and health); social connections internally and externally; facilitators (language, cultural knowledge, safety, stability); and rights and citizenship. A range of challenges to positive settlement and integration are identified, using these domains. However, Australian research has focused almost exclusively on African migrants of refugee background, with most sampling South Sudanese, making generalization impossible, even dangerous. The urgent need for research using wider samples, and more large-scale quantitative work, is called for and a range of policy recommendations suggested.     

Decolonization Immigrations and the Social Origins of the Second Generation: The Case of North Africans in France1

Immigrations resulting from decolonization challenge the ability of researchers to track accurately the incorporation of the second generation through classifications based on country of origin. This article considers a classic example of such an immigration - from North Africa to France at the time of and after the independence of Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia. This immigration was ethnically complex, composed - to take a rough cut - of the former colonists of European background (the pieds noirs) and low-wage laborers belonging to the indigenous population (the Maghrebins). A historical review indicates that the key to distinguishing these two groups lies in the exact citizenship status of the immigrants, for the former colonists were French by birth and the others generally were not. Analyzing micro-level data from the censuses of 1968, 1975, 1982, and 1990, we apply this distinction to the family origins of the second generation, born in France in the period 1958–1990. We show that the pied-noir population exhibits signs of rapid integration with the native French, while the Maghrebin population remains apart. A logistic regression analysis reveals that, based on a few characteristics of their parents, one can distinguish the Maghrebin from the pied-noir second generations with a high degree of accuracy. This finding demonstrates the sharp social distinction between the two groups and suggests a method for future research on their incorporation.     

The rights of Turkish migrants in Europe under international law and EU law

This paper investigates three issues concerning female immigration in the European Union during the past decade: 1) the sequence of labor migration and family reunification is assessed; 2) family migration is examined in detail; and 3) the implications of the diversification of contemporary female migration are studied. In addition, it presents arguments regarding the necessity of considering the reality of changing patterns of employment, households, and social structures to increase our knowledge of European immigration. Family reunion, as much as full-fledged labor migration, reveals the multiple personal and familial strategies involved in the process of migration. Theoretization of international migration emphasizes its diversification including the growing significance of minority skilled migrants. Absence of a sustained dialogue between feminist and mainstream researchers in the field of migration studies is one of the major problems in achieving change in the theoretical understanding of gender international migration in Europe. It was also observed that the communication between migrant women and mainstream European feminist movements has been poor. Lastly, it was proposed that migration theories and models should revolve around the multiple aspects of women's lives in order to catch up with the changes of the last few decades in employment, household and social structures.