Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770

by James H. Sweet

Overview

Exploring the cultural lives of African slaves in the early colonial Portuguese world, with an emphasis on the more than one million Central Africans who survived the journey to Brazil, James Sweet lifts a curtain on their lives as Africans rather than as incipient Brazilians. Focusing first on the cultures of Central Africa from which the slaves came--Ndembu, Imbangala, Kongo, and others--Sweet identifies specific cultural rites and beliefs that survived their transplantation to the African-Portuguese diaspora, arguing that they did not give way to immediate creolization in the New World but remained distinctly African for some time.

Slaves transferred many cultural practices from their homelands to Brazil, including kinship structures, divination rituals, judicial ordeals, ritual burials, dietary restrictions, and secret societies. Sweet demonstrates that the structures of many of these practices remained constant during this early period, although the meanings of the rituals were often transformed as slaves coped with their new environment and status. Religious rituals in particular became potent forms of protest against the institution of slavery and its hardships. In addition, Sweet examines how certain African beliefs and customs challenged and ultimately influenced Brazilian Catholicism.

Sweet's analysis sheds new light on African culture in Brazil's slave society while also enriching our understanding of the complex process of creolization and cultural survival.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807862346
Publisher:	The University of North Carolina Press
Publication date:	07/21/2004
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	320
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

James H. Sweet is assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

A fascinating collection of evidence.—The Americas

A fascinating book . . . of considerable importance. It not only contributes to a continuing debate about the nature of slavery, but is a powerful example of Atlantic history as it shows that the societies on both sides of the South Atlantic lived in a kind of spiritual intimacy that was not severed by the infamous middle passage.—History

Given its scope, conceptual claims, and the depth of archival research, this project warrants the broadest conceivable audience. . . . After reading this richly layered study, the critical importance of Central Africans in Latin America and the African diaspora will be more clear.—American Historical Review

[Sweet] examines his material from an original point of view—perceptive, sensitive, and supported by a solid bibliographic discussion. The result is a fine book.—African Studies Review

Among the best of the recent works on Africans in the Atlantic.—International Journal of African Historical Studies

Sweet has uncovered rich gems from the Inquisition records of the Luso-Atlantic world that are essential to historical reconstructions of Central African religious traditions in Brazil before 1770. He also creates vivid portraits of individual Africans living in Angola, Portugal, and Brazil. This important book includes outstanding narratives of slave religious practices in colonial Brazil that I have seen nowhere else. They are especially significant because they enable historians to document continuities over time with contemporary Afro-Brazilian religions. Highly recommended to all students of the African diaspora.—Mary Karasch, Oakland University

Sweet has mined an incredibly rich source of information in the Inquisition archives and produced an engaging study of the inner lives of Africans suffering under slavery in Brazil. His book will be a landmark in bringing Africa into the mix in Brazilian history.—John Thornton, Millersville University

Editorial Reviews

"A fascinating collection of evidence."
-- "The Americas"

Sweet has mined an incredibly rich source of information in the Inquisition archives and produced an engaging study of the inner lives of Africans suffering under slavery in Brazil. His book will be a landmark in bringing Africa into the mix in Brazilian history.(John Thornton, Millersville University, author of "Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800".)

"A fascinating book . . . of considerable importance. It not only contributes to a continuing debate about the nature of slavery, but is a powerful example of Atlantic history as it shows that the societies on both sides of the South Atlantic lived in a kind of spiritual intimacy that was not severed by the infamous middle passage."
-- "History"

This book will be a landmark in bringing Africa into the mix in Brazilian history. (John Thornton, author of "Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800")

"[This] book will be a landmark in bringing Africa into the mix in Brazilian history."

From the Publisher