Laurent the Hauza

Whilst perusing the corpus of runaway slave notices posted on the excellent Le marronnage dans le monde atlantique site, we came across another early appearance of Hausa maroons before the 1770s, in 1767 this time. In this case, it was a Laurent, of the "Hauza" nation, who fled from his owner in Port-au-Prince. So, even if one accepts the theory of Debien that the Gambary "nation" in Saint Domingue did not refer to the Hausa, one still has evidence for imports of "Hausa" people as early as 1767. As our aforementioned reference to Nupe captives, referred to by a Yoruba appellation for them, in Saint-Domingue also dates to around this time, we suspect the influx of Hausa, Nupe and northern captives, from areas beyond Oyo, began to increase by the 1760s. This period in Oyo was the emra of Gaha's usurpation, and one of expansion. Gaha and Abiodun, who retook effective power as alafin of the kingdom, appear to have favored the sale of northern captives to the coast. According to Robin Law's masterful analysis of Oyo, extensive trade links to the Nupe and Hausaland were in place, including Yoruba traders from Oyo with a quarter in Kano during the 18th century. In exchange for horses, natron, cloths, and slaves, Oyo reexported goods acquired from the coast. Again, according to Law, by the 18th century, many Hausa slaves were imported, some of whom were resold at Porto Novo. 

The Prince of Kashna (Katsina)

One of the most interesting narratives, presented by its publisher as a "true story" of a West African Muslim prince enslaved in Jamaica, is The Prince of Kashna: A West Indian Story. While there is ambiguity about the factual basis for the story, Camille Lefebvre has suggested viewing it through the lens of a topos of West African Muslims and royalty enslaved in the Americas. In that regard, it is also interesting to note how some stories of real cases of West African Muslims literate in Arabic probably influenced the author, Jane McManus Storm Cazneau. We suspect she was influenced by stories of West African royalty enslaved in the West Indies and the US, and perhaps by fictional accounts such as Aphra Behn's famous Oroonoko: or, the Royal Slave.

However, we endeavored to determine to what extent, if any, the narrative could be based on a true story of a Muslim slave from Katsina who arrived in Jamaica in 1806. According to the early chapters of the text, Sidi Mahmadee, the titular prince, was born to Abdalah, the ruler of Katsina, and a woman taken as a captive from an unspecified northern location. Sidi Mahmadee, who lost his father and mother at a young age and left Katsina while still a youth, believed she may have been of Arab extraction. While possible, the straight-haired Mahmadee was too young when he left and may have misidentified his mother, who was possibly Fulani or from a Tuareg background. His father, the Katsina king, was later described as a descendant of the Prophet, Muhammad, and ruled a Katsina that included "pagans" as well as Muslims in his court. The only ruler of Katsina during the late 1790s and early 1800s who may correspond with this figure was Gozo, a Katsina sarki killed in c.1801 (assassinated, according to Yusuf Bala Usman). From the narrative, we learn that Sidi Mahmud was rather young when his parents were killed (in a raid on Katsina). He was taken in by an Islamic holyman and teacher, Hadji Ali, who raised the boy after his parents died. Meanwhile, the next king of Katsina, an uncle of Mahmadee named Taleb Ben Abu, reigned in Katsina but maintained his court in a separate place. If Gozo was succeeded by Bawa Dan Gima, a name which bears no resemblance to that given in this narrative, this is further evidence for the fabrication of the account. Indeed, Usman has argued that Bawa Dan Gima came from a distinct sub-lineage of the ruling house of Katsina, and was therefore unlikely to be a sibling of Gozo.

While it is possible that Mahmadee provided Arabic names or other regnal names for these figures, it seems unlikely that he was indeed from Katsina. He did correctly identify the presence of "fetishists" and Muslims in the pre-jihad Katsina court and noted the presence of Muslim scholars in the city, including the man who later adopted him, the lack of concordance with the established kings of Katsina during this period is telling. Intriguingly, however, Sidi Mahmadee's account includes a story of a white man with a red beard who visited Katsina and gave medicine to his adoptive father. This white man is said to have spoken the language of Mahmadee's mother when he came to Katsina, and was feared as a 'sorcerer' by locals. In fact, by using the white man's medicine, Mahmadee's adoptive father became suspect in the eyes of the community, prompting him to move back to his homeland somewhere to the west (we suspect he was a Fulani from a western territory). This tale of a strange white man's appearance in Katsina brings to mind the traveler Friederich Hornemann, who may have reached Katsina sometime in the early 1800s. However, since we know so little about Hornemann's time in Katsina, and it is possible the author of The Prince of Kashna had read his journal or descriptions of him, we cannot use this story to corroborate the existence of Mahmadee. 

Besides the aforementioned vague descriptions of Katsina, the rest of the narrative is rather light on Mahmadee's African background. To be sure, if someone was kidnapped and sold into slavery while still an adolescent, they may not have the most profound or descriptive memories of their homeland when writing about it decades later. Nonetheless, we learn from his narrative that his adoptive father taught him to read the Koran, which appears to have been the limit of his Islamic education. When they left Katsina, which was done clandestinely since Mahmadee's uncle wanted him to stay, they appear to have traveled west. Somewhere in or around the fictitious Kong mountains, Mahmadee was kidnapped and sold into slavery. After being exchanged multiple times, he reached the coast, where he and other Hausa captives were sold to Europeans. This is another vague point in the narrative, since Mahmadee mentioned that there were many Mandingo captives on the slave ship. This would suggest that he had been sold on the coast of the Senegambian region, yet he mentioned several other Hausa captives alongside himself. Other inconsistencies abound in the text, but it is highly likely that Mahmadee's account of his voyage on the slave ship, where he was the recipient of special treatment and even helped the slave traders defeat French pirates, is a work of fiction. 

Once in Jamaica, Mahmadee, after an unfortunate experience running away (only to be captured and returned by Maroons), experienced a remarkable series of fortunate luck. His master, Mr. Davis, and his family, are presented as rather benevolent and supportive of his interest in education. The novelist, or author of the narrative, wants to present Mahmadee as a grateful slave who, deprived of his original noble status, learns to appreciate superior Western education. Nonetheless, the fact that he was a Muslim and a prince in Katsina serves as an elevating factor, one that brings him closer to Western civilization despite ongoing Orientalist and racist narratives. The fact that the character often expresses dissatisfaction with African phenotypes and wishes to be white seems to reflect a white author's biases, although it is certainly possible that an African slave in 19th century Jamaica thought similarly. His willingness to obediently serve his white masters leads to him playing a key role in preventing a slave conspiracy from erupting into outright rebellion in Westmoreland. By the novel's conclusion, Mahmadee is an educated man studying medicine, French, and European literature, successful and civilized to the point of asking to wed a mixed-race ward of a "quadroon" from Saint Domingue. There are hints that he did eventually travel back to Africa, although certainly not as a Christian missionary eager to spread civilization and end slave trading in Katsina. 

After reading the text in toto, we are convinced that it is almost certainly a work of fiction. While the author may have been inspired by tales of West African Muslims in Jamaica, such as Abu Bakr al-Siddiq, who was of partial Hausa heritage (linked to Katsina through his mother's family), it appears that Jane Cazneau wrote a fictional account that, while still racist, stressed the ability of some Africans to become assimilated to Western civilization and uplifted. Nonetheless, the elevation of the black African must be achieved through white tutelage, and slavery in early 19th century Jamaica is depicted as largely benign. None of the white slaveholders in the novel appear to abuse their slaves, and the ones most cruel to Mahmadee are enslaved overseers, Maroon slave-catchers or, in one case, a mixed-race engineer. Anyone looking for a work of fiction that honestly portrays the realities of chattel slavery in 19th century Jamaica will be disappointed. Yet, despite the occasionally racist narrative and dishonest depiction of slavery, this tale of an exotic West African Muslim does emphasize the perfectibility of the African, mediated via European tutelage. Interestingly, Mahmadee refuses to relinquish his Islamic identity, which may symbolize the author's recognition of Islam as a "legitimate" religion that elevated part of Black Africa before the inevitable European colonialism. To ascertain whether the character of Mahmadee was entirely invented, we would like to check 19th century Jamaican records, but our preliminary search has not led to an identification of any character from the narrative with a real person. 

An Overview of Adult Slave "Nations" in the Jacmel Quarter, 1740s

We continued our readings of the notarized records from Jacmel for the 1740s, featuring the same notary from the 1730s, Delorme-de-Boissy. Alas, some years are not represented well and we found fewer detailed records or inventories involving at least 10 adult slaves to draw our data from. Several documents were much harder to read, too, either for being too faded or the ambiguous or uncertain writing of African "nations" of enslaved persons. Nonetheless, we found enough records to draw a sample of about 178 adult slaves, and thought it worthwhile to focus on the total number for the various "nations" in the area during this period. 

One can see immediately a major Ibo component persisted in the 1740s. From our sample, they were the largest single "nation" in the region. While some habitations and slaveholders held majorities of Mine or other "nations" as property, this Ibo preponderance seems to match other patterns for the South of Saint Domingue. Next, the Congo, were a mainstay among the "nations" of slaves. We assume part of their high numbers was related to the expansion of coffee, a sector in which planters are said to have favored "Congo" slaves. What surprised us, although it probably should not have, was the large Mine, or Mina, numbers. 

Overall, the majority of captives came from the Slave Coast, Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa. Or, in other words, the Lower Guinea and Central African numerical dominance was clear. The "Upper Guinea" captives, represented by the Bambara, Poulard, Senegalois, were rather diminished compared to the Igbo, Arada, and Congo, who together comprised more than half of our sample drawn from different slaveholders in the Jacmel quarter. This majority increases even more when other Central African and Lower Guinea groups are added to the totals. In addition, some of our large number of "Unknown" or illegible nations probably fell into the Lower Guinea cluster, pointing more towards the Slave Coast, Bight of Biafra and West Central Africa as the major supplier of captives. Again, several of the Creoles may have had parents from other regions, and the population of enslaved children born in the colony (which would have boosted the Creole total) may have had parents from Upper Guinea. 

Bluesy Blues

We are not sure why, but we have been listening to Muhal Richard Abrams repeatedly. This particular blues number has been a favorite. It's always nice to see jazz artists drenching themselves in the blues and the roots of our music. The blues were perfected in big band jazz ensembles that mastered call and response, tonal variation, and that inexplicable quality of our music, "soul." 

Pacariqtambo, or Making Concrete Inca Origins

In our effort to familiarize ourselves with more scholarship on the Incas and precolonial Peru, we read Urton's The History of a Myth: Pacariqtambo and the Origins of the Inkas. A short study, Urton's work seems to follow more in the footsteps of Zuidema, opting for a more structuralist approach to the Spanish chronicles and sources on the pre-conquest past of Peru. In our understanding, Urton argues that the origin myth of the Incas from the caves of Pacariqtambo were "concretized" and "historicized" based on very specific conditions related to colonial society in the 1560s and 1570s, particularly the period of Viceroy Toledo's rule. In short, some of the Pacariqtambo area caciques (such as the Callapina family, on 3 different occasions in colonial Peru) argued their descent from Manco Capac and other Inca nobility through a "reworking" of the "mythohistorical" narratives/traditions of Pacariqtambo as containing the caves from which Manco Capac and the early ayllus of Cuzco first arose. His argument is plausible since Indians who could "prove" their noble descent were exempted from taxes and personal service to Spaniards. So some descendants of old kuraka and provincial Incas by privilege likely did engage in some "creative" genealogical reconstructions of their lineages. 

We, however, were a little lost or perplexed by some of Urton's additional arguments. For instance, when he tries to connect the widowed woman who helped Pachacuti defeat the Chancas and save Cuzco to an ancestor of the first Callapina who petitioned to have his noble status recognized in 1569. Is the evidence sufficient to link one of his named ancestors in that 1569 document to a woman who, assuming she did exist, lived in the 1400s and became part of the "mythohistorical" narratives of Pachacuti's victory over the Chancas? It is possible, but we increasingly enter into more uncertain terrain. The final chapters of the book explore the ethnographic present and modern ritual travel/pilgrimage, speculating on how the religiously syncretistic nature of today's Pacariqtambo ayllus and celebrations of the saints may reflect past ayllu-connected rituals regarding kinship and the origin of the Incas. Again we have less evidence to draw from, but it does appear that the ayllus of today's Pacariqtambo have rituals tied to the reworking of their pre-Hispanic past and Catholic saints, rituals. Moreover, Urton does seem to be right that the exact "location" of Pacaritambo and the modern area bearing that name didn't seem to become concrete until 1569-1571, and that some of the Cuzco Inca noble witnesses of the first Callapina were also informants of Sarmiento de Gamboa for his chronicle on the Incas. But without more familiarity with his more detailed ethnographic work on the indigenous peoples of Pacariqtambo today, it was a little harder to see how exactly it supports the earlier chapters in the text. 

Nevertheless, reading this has challenged us to finally engage the works of Zuidema and Urton on the Incan and precolonial past of Peru. Our own bias in favor the "Rowe" model has definitely precluded us from fully considering the colonial context in which the aforementioned "mythohistorical" narratives of Inca origins were first written down in the 1500s and 1600s. But if the traditions about Pachacuti's interest in history and consolidating a "standard" narrative are accurate, perhaps we are all in one form or another acolytes of the Pachacuti school of Inca history. The degree to which it is acceptable more as "myth" versus history depends on context and was probably always in flux, depending on the narrator and audience. Our misfortune today is we lack a full understanding of how amauta and quipu-readers conceived of historicity, although we suspect that the most recent of the Inca emperors were more definitively historical figures rather than mythologized ones like those recalled in the chronicle of Montesinos. 

An Overview of "Nations" in the Jacmel Quarter (1718-1739)

Although our amateurish attempts to tally the number of each "nation" among the enslaved in the Jacmel Quartier is only just beginning, here are our results from our perusal of the Saint Domingue Notariat, particularly the amazing resource, Minutes notariales, 1704-1803. We decided to focus on the years from 1718-1739 for now since that period covers the early transition to coffee in the region during the 1730s. Utilizing the archive's collection of records by the following notaries, Neys, Delorme-de-Boissy, Fouquet, and Laville, we scoured the digitized collection on the Family Search website. We would have loved to have begun earlier, but we do not know which records survive that would cover the slave imports in this part of the colony from c.1698-1718. Perhaps they would have been similar in origin to slaves in Grand-Goave and Leogane, where some of the early Bainet and Jacmel planters moved from. Or, alternatively, some were those imported by the Compagnie de Saint-Domingue via the Slave Coast and West Central Africa (as well as those smuggled via English or Dutch traders, as suggested by the appearance of a few English Creole slaves).

Furthermore, in our collection of the data, we focused on inventories, leases and documents naming at least 10 adult slaves. We also focused on documents that actually gave the "nations" of most of the enumerated bonded persons. Some notaries did not record this information, sadly, so we left the information out. It is a shame, since they sometimes recorded "exotic" slaves of "Indian" origin in 1719 but did not provide the "nations" of other captives.  Nonetheless, due to the difficulty of reading some documents and the occasional inclusion of slaves without a specified "nation" in other contracts, we still ended up with a rather large number (16) who are not of a clear "nation." For a similar reason, we omitted the number of children since their precise "nation" is either not provided, although we suspect that in several cases they were born in the colony or arrived at such a young age they would have been "Creolized" more quickly than adults. In addition, earlier records also use names for "nations" that disappear in the 1730s, perhaps reflecting changes in the pattern of slave imports or the complex creation of new "nations" within the colonial context. Last but certainly not least, we could not always precisely state what type of plantation the aforementioned captives labored at. Many of the records mentioned indigoteries, barrels of indigo and similar information about the specifics of the plantations, yet it is likely that some planters invested in indigo and other crops. 

Let us return to the numbers. Our sample of 243 adult slaves over a period of nearly around 20 years represents only a snapshot of what the "nations" of the quarter's 2532 slaves may have been in the 1739 census. Nonetheless, it is interesting to note that it already seems close to the patterns in Siguret's table of "nations" for the Jacmel quartier for the period 1757-1791. Already, the two largest "nations" may have been "Creole" and "Congo" by 1739. And one would suspect the Creoles, even larger when counting children, were often the children of captives from the Slave Coast, Senegambia and Congo brought to the colony in the early 1700s or late 1600s. We suspect the name Loango was dropped in favor of "Congo" to reflect what may have been additional sources of Central African captives in the colony. Furthermore, the increase in the Bambara population in Siguret's data might reflect the growth and decline of Bamana states like Segu over the course of the 18th century, producing additional "Bambara" captives sold on the Senegambian coast. We similarly imagine that the high number of Aradas was also connected with Dahomey's expansion and conquest of Ouidah and Allada, probably producing more "Arada" slaves (although "Arada" almost certainly encompassed many different peoples sold on the Bight of Benin) in the 1720s and perhaps, 1730s. The early appearance of the Barba (Bariba) also suggest some captives from areas north of Dahomey and Oyo were being sold on the coast.

When broken into larger regions of Upper Guinea, Lower Guinea and Central Africa, one sees that the "Upper Guinea" captives were a much smaller proportion of the slave population. The Bambara, Mandingue, Senegal, and other possible "Upper Guinea" nations represent only a small fraction of the total, probably less than 10%. Since some of the "unknown" nations and perhaps a decent fraction of the Creoles were children of slaves from Upper Guinea, their influence in the region might have been stronger than detectable from the limited data available. Nonetheless, they were clearly smaller in numbers than those from Central Africa and Lower Guinea. When reviewing the notarized records, some of the Senegal slaves may have retained their names (including one woman named Fatima) and aspects of their culture probably contributed to the formation of an early Creole "slave culture" in the region.

Central Africa, whose "Congos" produced the largest African "nation" in the quarter, were of major demographic importance. At least 61 were from Central Africa, meaning at least 25% were from this region of Africa. It was possibly higher if one considers some of the "unknown" or ambiguous "nations" to be Central Africa. Overall, the Congos were undoubtedly a major presence in the area. The expansion of coffee plantations in the 1730s may have favored an even larger increase of their numbers since coffee planters are said to have favored Congos, according to Geggus. Unfortunately, the lumping together of so many Central Africans (Congos) and the few Mondongue and Loango homogenizes them. Nonetheless, some were undoubtedly from the Kongo kingdom or nearby areas. One Congo was even named Miguel, while others retained their African names (Macaya, Zomby). As speculated by others, Kongo Catholicism may have been a factor here in spreading or at least shaping local Christian practices.

Last, but certainly not least, Lower Guinea. The majority of the enslaved population appears to have roots there, as seen in the high numbers of Mines, Ibos, and Aradas. Adding the few Nagos, Oueda and Jouda to this suggests a proportion of at least 37% of the total. Again, the Creoles likely included many whose parents hailed from this region, too. As several scholars have long noted, the predominance of a cultural influence from Aja-Fon peoples likely dates to this period era in the colonial slave trade. Like other parts of the colony, the Jacmel quarter seems to have also been very much populated by captives from the Slave Coast. In addition, a significant number of Ibo and Bibi also point to the Bight of Biafra as an important source of captive labor. Arada, Nago and other groups from this period remained an important part of the slave population in the period from 1757-1791, too. Siguret's study of indigo and coffee plantations found a pronounced Ibo and Arada presence, a pattern we have also noted in Bainet in 1791.

Unfortunately, much of ANOM's collection has not been digitized and we are missing pre-1790s Bainet notarized documents. We may continue this little project by reviewing Delorme-de-Boissy files from the 1740s, which could give us better insights into the nature of the coffee boom. Its impact on slave demographics and the patterns of "nations" in the colony may challenge or support our current thinking on this matter. Data from Grand-Goave and Leogane would also be worth reviewing for a broader regional approach, beyond the southeastern corner of the colony. 

A Snapshot of Bainet's Slave Population in 1739

Though only data from the Notariat covering part of Bainet, the breakdown in African "nations" may be illustrative of broader patterns in Bainet. The first table, with numbers from an act of retrocession by Julien Pierre Perronneau in 1739, lists slaves from the estate of the deceased Dumas. While only involving 17 slaves, 11 of them adults, this may have been representative of the enslaved workforce of small-scale indigo planters in Bainet. One is struck by the tiny Igbo and Congo presence, with no group enjoying an overwhelming majority. The children, some of whom were definitely born in the colony, would bump up the Creole population. One would imagine that on an estate like this, some of the Creoles and children may have inherited or been drawn to an already established slave culture in this part of Saint Domingue. This likely reflected earlier patterns in the slave trade for this part of the colony.

The other "snapshot" of what the origins of slaves in Bainet is derived from a bail of several to Perronneau, also from 1739. Louis Le Roy leased 21 adult slaves and 7 children to Perronneau, and the majority were Creoles. And after Creoles, the only African group who numbered more than one were Creoles. Again, we see in this Creole preponderance a similar pattern with the slaves of the estate of Robert Fleuret or Alexis Saugrain. Part of this surely reflects the longer length of time some planters had owned slaves in the colony. But it may also be related to the less destructive impact of indigo and coffee on slave mortality rates, leading to a larger Creole population in some cases. Indeed, another list of slaves owned by a Perronneau near the end of the century also possessed a Creole majority.