Africanisms in Haiti

Using Haiti as a case study of evaluating African cultural retentions or survivals in the New World is not a new endeavor. However, J.B. Romain's Africanismes Haitiens presents a short but useful overview of the various manifestations of African culture in Haiti. Names, folklore, arts, totemism, taboos, domestic architecture, language, Vodou, music, dance, herbal lore, proverbs, and conceptions of the soul and personhood all indicate traces of Africa. Of course, since we are overwhelmingly African in origin, none of this is a surprise. What's more interesting are the number of Africanisms that can be traced directly to specific African ethnic groups and cultures, such as Wolof words and phrases in Haitian Creole or the Gedevi people of Benin and the Gede spirits in Vodou. Romain knows very well that much of this heritage has changed or experienced modifications over time. Indeed, French and Catholic influences, rites, and allusion have undoubtedly shaped the formation of Haitian culture. But learning of the specific Fongbe expressions that survive in Vodou's langage or the Yanvalou dance in its Benin context is fascinating. The preemince of cultural survivals from the area of Benin, Togo and southern Nigeria is especially interesting since Haitians also descend from huge numbers of captives from West Central Africa.

The Slave Coast

Robin Law's The Slave Coast of West Africa 1550–1750: The Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade on an African Society offers a fascinating analysis of the Slave Coast during the era of a growing slave trade with Europe. Differing from scholars like Polanyi or Akinjogbin, Law focuses on the impact of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade as a stimulus to commercialization of the economy. The growth of European trade in the region appears to have fueled monetization and market forces through currencies (cowries), imported goods that reached local markets (not just elites or kings for redistribution), sources of iron and thread for smiths and weavers, foodstuffs trade (to provision slave ships), exports of textiles and akori beads for the Gold Coast, and the rise of mercenaries and soldiers for hire. While features of this commercial economy likely existed in the pre-Atlantic trade era, particularly the trade in salt from the coast or trade in textiles, beads, provisions, ivory, and slaves, the trade with Europeans fueled this process. 

In a sense, one could argue that the Atlantic trade did not hinder economic development of the Slave Coast. However, the unknown demographic impact and the necessity of violence to procure captives undoubtedly led to instability and conflict over access to European trade. This process, according to Law, favored the eventual emergence of a hinterland kingdom, Dahomey, as the dominant power due to its military ethos and ability to procure captives for the coastal ports. Dahomey, like Allada and Whydah, learned to combine a mixed position as middleman and supplier of captives yet ultimately failed to create a new kind of state or "revolution" in Slave Coast precolonial polities. Dahomey, despite some decline in the number of captives exported after the conquest of Whydah and Allada, eventually stabilized its exports and was certainly heavily influenced by the European trade. 

Indeed, besides being more autocratic and, eventually, integrating conquered peoples, Dahomey appears to have become rather similar to Allada and Whydah, the two earlier dominant states in the region. Allada, whose decline was already visible by the late 17th century, was once the paramount power in the region (despite also once being under the overlordship of Benin and Oyo). Like the future Dahomey, at least the Dahomey of Tegbesu, Allada and Whydah were ruled by kings who practiced some degree of ritual seclusion, patronized specific cults that were public festivals, engaged in trade with Europe, and competed with each other and subordinate coastal ports and regions for a share in the market of slaves. Women, unlike men, were favored for local slavery while occasional trade wars between Allada and Whydah destabilized both. The western Slave Coast was also impacted by Gold Coast refugees, mercenaries, and bandits who became an additional source of instability and conflict over control of the Slave Coast's lucrative trade. In fact, Dahomey inherited this as post-conquest Whydah rulers fled west for refuge and a branch of the Allada ruling family emerged in Porto Novo. The eastern portion of the Slave Coast increased in importance for the trade with Europe via towns like Badagry while Dahomey's rulers struggled to consolidate their hold over Allada and Whydah. Over time, the Dahomey kingdom seems to have created a provincial administration and endeavored to combine royal control and private share in the slave trade with a supplier and middleman role. 

Ultimately, despite acting as a stimulus to commercialization and economic exchange, the the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade's legacy in the Slave Coast appears to have created disastrous demographic impacts and a reliance on violence in one form or another to continue. Dahomey's catastrophic depopulation of Whydah, for instance, plus the raiding of various inland communities, must have, at best, neutralized the economic stimulation from trade with Europe. Nonetheless, history of Allada, Whydah and Dahomey during these pivotal centuries illustrates how the trans-Atlantic economic networks were deeply linked to interior African polities, such as Oyo. Through these links to Oyo and the Malais or Muslim traders active on the Slave Coast by the early 1700s, one can connect trans-Saharan, trans-Atlantic, and intra-West African trade networks that illustrate global connectivity. Through the trade of captives native to the Slave Coast, one can also detect their legacy in the Americas through religion, culture, and even, for a time, Allada textiles exported to Barbados. In the case of Haiti, one can detect elements of Whydah, Dahomey, Allada, and other Slave Coast polities and cultures to this day, showing how the complex history of the region and its various cults survive on the other side of the world.