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AFRICAN VOICES FROM THE CONGO COAST: LANGUAGES AND THE POLITICS OF IDENTIFICATION IN THE SLAVE SHIP JOVEM MARIA (1850)

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 August 2019

MARCOS ABREU LEITÃO DE ALMEIDA
MARCOS ABREU LEITÃO DE ALMEIDA*
Affiliation:
Northwestern University
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Abstract

Between 1845 and 1850, the Congo coast became the most important source of slaves for the coffee growing areas in the Brazilian Empire. This essay develops a new methodology to understand the making of the ‘nations’ of 290 Africans found on the slave ship Jovem Maria, which boarded slaves in the Congo river and was captured by the Brazilian Navy near Rio de Janeiro in 1850. A close reading of such ‘nations’ reveals a complex overlapping between languages and forms of identification that alters the historian's use of concepts such as ‘ethnolinguistic group’ and ‘Bantu-based lingua franca’ in the Atlantic world. Building on recent developments in Central African linguistics, the article develops a social history of African languages in the Atlantic that foregrounds how recaptives negotiated commonalities and boundaries in the diaspora by drawing on a political vocabulary indigenous to their nineteenth-century homes in Central Africa.

Keywords

Trans-Atlantic slave tradesouth Atlanticlower CongoBantu languageslinguistic contact
Type
Re-Interpreting Affiliations in 19th Century Records
Information
The Journal of African History , Volume 60 , Issue 2 , July 2019 , pp. 167 - 189
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019 

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Footnotes

The author wishes to thank Jan Vansina (in memoriam) for discussions on how to interpret the primary sources used in this article. I am grateful to Koen Bostoen, William FitzSimons, Jonathon Glassman, Joseph Miller, David Schoenbrun, James Sweet, and two anonymous reviewers for their valuable criticisms of earlier drafts. The usual disclaimers apply. Author's e-mail: [email protected]

References

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71 Silva, ‘Kimbundu’, 211.

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82 Miller, ‘Retention’, 87. Karasch, Slave Life, 18.

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87 National Historical Archive of Angola, Luanda, Caixa 2841, Requerimento do Missionário Capuchinho Bernardo Maria Cannecatim para o Príncipe Regente D. João, 1801.

88 Laman, Dictionnaire, 76; Visseq, Dictionnaire, 289.

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