Slave Trade, Plantation Life
and the Presence of African
Languages in the Caribbean
Part Three
Preliminaries
The rise of plantation – moved from the
cultivation of crops like ginger, cotton,
tobacco to the labour intensive sugar.
Shortage of labour.
The need to have labour unrewarded to
increase profits for plantation owners.
Preliminaries
The supply of a source of labour
coerced and free.
Increasingly a reliance on African
slavery.
Portuguese trading slaves from as
early as 1479
Spanish started in 1503
Preliminaries
Dutch started in 1630’s.
English and French started in the 1640’s.
Trading was mainly done by private trading
companies (along the West Coast). For
e.g. Royal African Company’s trading post
was established in modern day Ghana at
Elmina.
Preliminaries
Slaves were: Prisoners of war
Criminal offenders
Debtors
Abductees
Principal Regions of African Origin
West Africa
area bounded by Senegal River in the
North to contemporary Angola in the
South
Includes countries such as Senegambia
(Senegal and Gambia), Sierra Leone,
Windward Coast, Gold Coast, Bight of
Benin, Bight of Biafra, West Central
Africa.
Map of West Africa
Principal Regions of Origin
Senegambia
Modern Senegal and Gambia
Largely dominated by the French after
the 1600’s.
Groups came from inland territories
(around upper Niger River).
Principal Regions of Origin –
Senegambia cont’d
Groups spoke mostly Bambara, Wolof
Mandingo slave traders brought them
down to ports and outposts
Slaves from interior preferred as they
were less likely to try to escape
Principal Regions of Origin –
Senegambia cont’d
General linguistic category – Mande
Very heterogeneous
Mostly Muslims and Animists
Principal Regions of Origin
Windward Coast
Trade along this part of the coast was
haphazard
The dominant languages in the area are
those of the Kru group.
Principal Region of Origin
Gold Coast
Modern day Ghana
Trading post dominated by Royal African
Company. The largest trading post was
Elmina
Dutch expelled the Portuguese in 1642.
Lexical items of Portuguese origin
survive in languages spoken there.
Principal Region of Origin—Gold
Coast cont’d
Main language groups –Ashanti,
Fante, Agni (all subsumed under the
name Akan)
Enslaved Africans from this area
would be more likely to form an
ethnolinguistic grouping.
Principal Region of Origin
Slave Coast
Area particularly important in early slave
trade, especially 1700’s
Area dominated by French by 1730’s
Africans sold to mostly British and
French traders.
Principal Regions of Origin – Slave
Coast cont’d
Language groups—Ewe, Ga
Dominance of this area in Atlantic Slave
Trade waned in 1790
A relatively homogeneous culture (the
Ewe) – the main variety of which is Fon
but the languages are closely related to
Akan languages in Morpho-syntactic
structure.
Principal Regions of Origin
Bight of Biafra
Bight of Benin
Collectively form the Niger Delta area
Modern day Benin and SE coast of
Nigeria respectively.
Main languages –Yoruba, Ijo, Ibo, Efik
(to a lesser extent Hausa, Fulani)
Principal Regions of Origin –Biafra
and Benin cont’d
Area dominated by the Yoruba in 17th
Century
LePage argues that this is an area of fair
linguistic diversity
Area became more important in the
latter part of the slave trade.
Principal Regions of Origin
West Central Africa
Modern day Cameroon
Main language— Kongo
Angola
Became important to the Caribbean in
the latter part of trading.
Principal Regions of African
Origin—Languages
By even conservative estimates, there are
more than 800 distinct languages in Africa.
The largest, most far-flung family is NigerKordofanian.
Kordofanian includes pockets of little
studied languages in Sudan
Niger-Congo includes all the West African
Coastal Languages as well as the Bantu
subgroup.
Principal Region of African Origin-Languages
There are at least 300 Bantu
languages (covering much of the
continent from Cameroon in the west
to the tip of South Africa).
There are several different subgroups
of Bantu languages.
Niger Congo Language Family
Niger Congo
Bantu
Kwa
Mande W/Atlantic
Kikongo
Luba
Lingala
Kimbundu
Akan(Twi)
Anyi
Ewe
Yoruba
Ibo
Mandingo
Bambara
Mande
Wolof
Serer
Fulani
Principal Region of Origin
West Africa is the most populous area
and it also has the most languages.
Nigeria alone is estimated to have
over 300 languages
Cultural and Linguistic Implications
of Regional Differentiation
The enslaved people were a
heterogeneous group.
Could linguistic dominance have been
established in spite of heterogeneity?
Cultural and Linguistic Implications
of Regional Differentiation
People were not homogenous in
terms of nation but were they
culturally and/or linguistically
homogenous?
Culturally Homogeneous Areas
Gold Coast
Slave Coast
Niger Delta
Akan (Twi)
Ewe (Fon)
Yoruba until 17th C.
Linguistic Homogeneity
Niger-Congo Languages have
common features: Morpho-Syntax
Copula, Serial Verbs, Negative concord,
Isolating, Predicate Adjectives, Plurals,
Reduplication.
Linguistic Homogeneity cont’d
Phonology
Open syllables, especially the inhibition
of consonant clusters for e.g. JC wa
‘what,’ simit ‘smith’
Tone languages
Palatalization
Linguistic Homogeneity
Lexicon/Semantics
Calques
Loan words
Semantic field (wood can refer to many
things in JC etc.)
Cultural and Linguistic Implications
of Different areas of Origin
Cultural --Upon arriving in the
Caribbean they would still be
enemies. Negated many efforts to
overcome oppressors by joining
forces.
Linguistic – some languages were
more closely related than others
Linguistic implications of different
regions of origin
There could have been
Lingua Franca at the trading posts.
Pidgin on Middle Passage
Social Context of African Language
Survival in the Caribbean
Retentions (full sentences) found
mostly in the African rituals/religious
practices. In Jamaica for example the
Maroons use(d) Kromanti to
communicate with ancestors (see
also Aub-Buscher pg7-8).
Dishes, amusements and customs.
(ibid)
Social Context of African Language
Retention
Past times. In TFC ninnin ‘riddle’ could
have come from Bambara nyini ‘to look for,
(Bazin 1906:470-1).’ Bèlè ‘a dance with
drums and singing’ from Nde, mbelése ‘I
dance.’
Customs relating to economic life
Carrying load on head JC Kata. Kata in Twi
means ‘to cover.’
Pathner (Savings) TFC susu in Igbo is esusu
Social context of African Language
survival cont’d
Intimate, possibly taboo subjects such
as certain parts of the body: TFC
tutun, JC tuntun, in Bambaa tununin
which means ‘private parts’
Designations of people and their
characteristics. TFC béké ‘white man.’
This form is used in this sense in Igbo
today.
Social contexts of African Survival
cont’d
A few terms designating creatures.
Survival cont’d
Lexical items – taken as they are or
with slight phonological changes.
Calques (loan translations) –
JC for e.g. Gad Aas (the preying mantis)
can be found in Hausa Dokim (horse)
Allah (God). Yai waata ‘tears’
TFC dlo zyé ‘tears,’ zo tèt ‘skull’
Berbice Dutch….
Survival cont’d
Morphological features – maintained
morphological features but lexical items
were not retained for e.g. in Berbice Dutch
Creole the demonstrative is formed by post
posing the definite article to the noun as in
Nembe (Ijo).
Nembe
BDC
mi wari mi
di wari
di
the house the
“this house”
Survival cont’d
Morphological features cont’d
Reduplication (lexical and/or
morphological) eg in JC poto-poto
‘muddy, miry, etc’ TFC toupatou –
everywhere but toupatou-toupatou ‘JC
aalbout aalbout’ Dou – sweet, doudou sweetheart
Compounding –JC kis-tiit, bata-bruuz
Socio-historic Context of Creole
Genesis
Life in plantation societies
The impact of the Caribbean plantation
context on language: Nature of crops (labour intensive vs tobacco,
coffee, cocoa, annatto)
Black to White ratio
Presence of European indentured labourers
working alongside enslaved Africans
(compare Barbados with Jamaica)
Socio-historic context of Creole
Genesis cont’d
Nature of European presence (compare
absentee planters in the société de
plantation with homesteads in the société de
habitation)
Size of holdings (acreage under cultivation
and the slave population required to
maintain that size holding) (related to types
of crops).
Stratification within the slave population
(again compare sugar with other crops)
Socio-historic Context of Creole
Genesis
Ethnic and linguistic diversity (vs.
homogeneity) within slave population.
Extent of networking between slave
populations of different plantations.
Geography of the plantations:physical
separation of Europeans and Africans.
Geography of the wider terrain:physical
separation of plantations.
Socio-historic Context of Creole
Genesis
Demographics
Origins of enslaved Africans over
different periods of the slave trade
Origins of enslaved Africans from
different ports
Differences between slave-trading
nations
Socio-historic Context of Creole
Genesis
Direct arrivals vs transshipments of
enslaved Africans
Life expectancy/rate of renewal of the
enslaved population
Birth rate and child mortality
Out-migration
Internal population shifts (e.g. from
plantations to maroon communities)
Origins of European population.
Conclusion
The presence of the Africans in the
Caribbean increased the number of
languages present in the region. They
brought new languages and coined new
ones (Creoles). Issues relating to the
formation of Creoles must necessarily the
sociohistoric context of the genesis, both
life in plantation societies and the
demographics of the population in each
territory.