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BarskileZawadiIyanjura2005 dr.pdf (5.4 MB)

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Carrying our Spirit with Us: Gold Coast Spiritual Continuities in Eighteenth-Century Suriname and North America

Barskile, Zawadi Iyanjura
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908329

Abstract Details

2005, Master of Arts, Ohio State University, African-American and African Studies.
The study of Africanisms, defined as elements of culture found in the Americas that are traceable to an African origin, began in 1941 with Melville Herskovits’ The Myth of a Negro Past which focused on significant African retentions and continuities in the United States, the Caribbean, and South America. Despite opposing views held by scholars such as E. Franklin Frazier, who argued that Blacks in America lost all elements of their African heritage during slavery, numerous studies followed documenting Africanisms. Many of the proponents of Africanisms however cite West Central Africa, particularly Bantu culture, as the primary origin of many aspects of African-American culture. Despite the data available from the Du Bois Institute Slave Trade Database showing a significant amount of importation from various locations in West Africa, the focus has largely centered on West Central Africa with some attention on West African regions—namely, Senegambia, Sierra Leone, and the Bight of Biafra. For the most part scholars have not addressed the cultural influences from the Gold Coast. This region has received some attention in the more general works on Africanisms by Herskovits, Sterling Stuckey, and Michael Gomez. Scholars such as David Barry Gaspar, Ray A. Kea, and Barbara Klamon Kopytoff have had a more narrow focus on the Gold Coast in their significant studies. This neglect in the relevant scholarship is nonetheless unfortunate since Gold Coast Africans comprised a significant portion of imports in the Americas. Therefore, in an effort to fill this important void, this thesis will focus on Gold Coast Akan culture, examining seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Akan spiritual practices that exist as continuities in eighteenth-century slave societies in Suriname and North America.
Walter C. Rucker (Advisor)
Reslie Alexander (Committee Member)
William Theodore McDaniel (Committee Member)
149 p.
African American Studies

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Citations

  • Barskile, Z. I. (2005). Carrying our Spirit with Us: Gold Coast Spiritual Continuities in Eighteenth-Century Suriname and North America [Master's thesis, Ohio State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908329

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Barskile, Zawadi. Carrying our Spirit with Us: Gold Coast Spiritual Continuities in Eighteenth-Century Suriname and North America. 2005. Ohio State University, Master's thesis. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908329.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Barskile, Zawadi. "Carrying our Spirit with Us: Gold Coast Spiritual Continuities in Eighteenth-Century Suriname and North America." Master's thesis, Ohio State University, 2005. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=osu1392908329

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

osu1392908329
396
© 2005, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by The Ohio State University and OhioLINK.