Title Gold Coast diasporas : identity, culture, and power / Walter C. Rucker

Published Bloomington : Indiana University Press, [2015] ©2015

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Description 1 online resource Series Blacks in the diaspora Blacks in the diaspora. Contents Part One: Social Life and Death -- Gold Coast Backgrounds -- Making the Gold Coast Diaspora -- Slavery, Ethnogenesis, and Social Resurrection -- Part Two: Social Resurrection and Empowerment -- State, Governance, and War -- Obeah, Oaths, and Ancestral Spirits -- Women, Regeneration, and Power -- Postscript Summary "Although they came from distinct polities and peoples who spoke different languages, slaves from the African Gold Coast were collectively identified by Europeans as 'Coromantee' or 'Mina.' Why these ethnic labels were embraced and how they were utilized by enslaved Africans to develop new group identities is the subject of Walter C. Rucker's absorbing study. Rucker examines the social and political factors that contributed to the creation of New World ethnic identities and assesses the ways displaced Gold Coast Africans used familiar ideas about power as a means of understanding, defining, and resisting oppression. He explains how performing Coromantee and Mina identity involved a common set of concerns and the creation of the ideological weapons necessary to resist the slavocracy. These weapons included obeah powders, charms, and potions; the evolution of 'peasant' consciousness and the ennoblement of common people; increasingly aggressive displays of masculinity; and the empowerment of women as leaders, spiritualists, and warriors, all of which marked sharp breaks or reformulations of patterns in their Gold Coast past"--Provided by publisher Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index Notes Print version record Subject Akan (African people) -- America -- Social conditions Enslaved persons -- America -- Social conditions Black people -- America -- Ethnic identity -- History Africans -- America -- Ethnic identity -- History Power (Social sciences) -- America -- History African diaspora -- History Black people -- Race identity -- America -- History SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Discrimination & Race Relations. SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Minority Studies. African diaspora Akan (African people) -- Social conditions Black people -- Ethnic identity Emigration and immigration Ethnic relations Power (Social sciences) Enslaved persons -- Social conditions SUBJECT America -- Ethnic relations -- History Ghana -- Emigration and immigration -- History Côte d'Ivoire -- Emigration and immigration -- History Togo -- Emigration and immigration -- History Subject America Côte d'Ivoire Ghana Togo Genre/Form History Form Electronic book ISBN 9780253017017 0253017017

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