Igbo people in Jamaica

Last updated
Igbo people in Jamaica
Eboe
Total population
N/A
Regions with significant populations
Primarily Northwestern Jamaica, especially the ports of Montego Bay and Westmoreland [1]
Languages
English, Jamaican English, Jamaican Patois
Religion
Christianity
Related ethnic groups
Igbo people, Igbo Americans

Igbo people in Jamaica were trafficked by Europeans onto the island between the 18th and 19th centuries as enslaved labour on plantations. Igbo people constituted a large portion of the African population enslaved people in Jamaica. Jamaica received the largest amount of enslaved people from the biafra region than anywhere else in the diaspora during the slave trade. Some slave censuses detailed the large number of enslaved Igbo people on various plantations throughout the island on different dates throughout the 18th century. [2] Their presence was a large part in forming Jamaican culture, Igbo cultural influence remains in language, dance, music, folklore, cuisine, religion and mannerisms. In Jamaica the Igbo were often referred to as Eboe or Ibo. [3] There are a substantial number of Igbo language loanwords in Jamaican Patois. Igbo people mostly populated the northwestern section of the island.

Contents

History

Originating primarily from what was known as the Bight of Biafra on the West African coast, Igbo people were trafficked in relatively high numbers to Jamaica as a result of the Transatlantic Slave Trade, beginning around 1750. The primary ports from which the majority of these enslaved people were taken from were Bonny and Calabar, two port towns that are now in south-eastern Nigeria. [4] The slave ships arriving from Bristol and Liverpool trafficked enslaved people to the British colonies including Jamaica. The bulk of enslaved Igbo people arrived relatively late, between 1790 and 1807, when the British passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act which outlawed the slave trade in the British Empire. Igbo people were spread on plantations on the island's northwestern side, specifically the areas around Montego Bay and St. Ann's Bay, [5] and consequently, their influence was concentrated there. The region also witnessed a number of revolts that were attributed to people of Igbo origin. Slave owner Matthew Lewis spent time in Jamaica between 1815 and 1817 and studied the way enslaved people he claimed ownership of organised themselves by ethnicity and he noted, for example, that at one time when he "went down to the negro-houses to hear the whole body of Eboes lodge a complaint against one of the book-keepers". [6]

Olaudah Equiano, a prominent member of the movement for the abolition of the slave trade, was an African-born Igbo formerly enslaved person. On one of his journeys to the Americas as a free man, as documented in his 1789 journal, Equiano was hired by Dr. Charles Irving to recruit enslaved people for his 1776 Mosquito Shore scheme in Jamaica, for which Equiano hired enslaved Igbo, whom he called "My own countrymen". Equiano was especially useful to Irving for his knowledge of the Igbo language, using Equiano as a tool to maintain social order among his enslaved Igbo in Jamaica. [7]

Enslaved Igbo were known, many a times, to have resorted to resistance rather than revolt and maintained "unwritten rules of the plantation" of which the plantation owners were forced to abide by. [8] Igbo culture influenced Jamaican spirituality with the introduction of Obeah folk magic; accounts of enslaved "Eboe" being "obeahed" by each other have been documented by plantation owners. [6] However, there is some suggestion that the word "Obeah" was also used by enslaved Akan people, before Igbos arrived in Jamaica. [9] Other Igbo cultural influences include the Jonkonnu festivals, Igbo words such as "unu", "una", idioms, and proverbs in Jamaican patois. In Maroon music were songs derived from specific African ethnic groups, among these were songs called "Ibo" that had a distinct style. [10] Igbo people were hardly reported to have been Maroons.

Enslaved Igbo people were known to have committed mass suicides, not only for rebellion, but in the belief their spirits will return to their motherland. [4] [11] In a publication of a 1791 issue of Massachusetts Magazine , an anti-slavery poem was published called Monimba, which depicted a fictional pregnant enslaved Igbo woman who committed suicide on a slave ship bound for Jamaica. The poem is an example of the stereotype of enslaved Igbo people in the Americas. [12] [13] Enslaved Igbo were also distinguished physically by a prevalence of "yellowish" skin tones prompting the colloquialisms "red eboe" used to describe people with light skin tones and African features. [14] Enslaved Igbo women were paired with enslaved Coromantee (Akan) men by slave owners so as to subdue the latter due to the belief that Igbo women were bound to their first-born sons' birthplace. [15]

Archibald Monteith, whose birth name was Aniaso, was an enslaved Igbo man taken to Jamaica after being tricked by an African slave trader. Anaeso wrote a journal about his life, from when he was kidnapped from Igboland to when he became a Christian convert. [16]

After the abolition of slavery in Jamaica in the 1830s, Igbo people also arrived on the island as indentured servants between the years of 1840 and 1864 along with a majority Kongo and "Nago" (Yoruba) people. [17] Since the 19th century most of the population African Jamaicans had assimilated into the wider Jamaican society.[ citation needed ]

Rebellions and uprisings of enslaved people

Enslaved Igbo people, along with "Angolas" and "Congoes" were often runaways, liberating themselves from enslavement. In slave runaway advertisements held in Jamaica workhouses in 1803 out of 1046 Africans recorded, 284 were described as "Eboes and Mocoes", 185 "Congoes", 259 "Angolas", 101 "Mandingoes", 70 Coromantees, 60 "Chamba" of Sierra Leone, 57 "Nagoes and Pawpaws" and 30 "scattering". 187 were documentined as "unclassified" and 488 were "American born negroes and mulattoes". [18]

Some notable rebellions of enslaved people involving Igbo include:

"Mr. Wilberforce" was in reference to William Wilberforce a British politician who was a leader of the movement to abolish the slave trade. "Buckra" was a term introduced by enslaved Igbo and Efik people in Jamaica to refer to white slave owners and overseers. [25]

Culture

Among Igbo cultural items in Jamaica were the Eboe, or Ibo drums popular throughout all of Jamaican music. [26] Food was also influenced, for example the Igbo word "mba" meaning "yam root" was used to describe a type of yam in Jamaica called "himba". [27] [28] Enslaved Igbo and Akan people affected drinking culture among the Black population in Jamaica, using alcohol in ritual and libation. In Igboland as well as on the Gold Coast, palm wine was used on these occasions and had to be substituted by rum in Jamaica because of the absence of palm wine. [29] Jonkonnu, a parade that is held in many West Indian nations, has been attributed to the Njoku Ji "yam-spirit cult", Okonko and Ekpe of the Igbo. Several masquerades of the Kalabari and Igbo have similar appearance to those of Jonkonnu masquerades. [30]

Language

Much of Jamaican mannerisms and gestures themselves have a wider African origin, rather than specific Igbo origin. Some examples are non-verbal actions such as "sucking-teeth" known in Igbo as "ima osu" or "imu oso" and "cutting-eye" known in Igbo as "iro anya", and other non-verbal communications by eye movements. [31]

There are a few Igbo words in Jamaican Patois that resulted when enslaved people were restricted from speaking their own languages. These Igbo words still exist in Jamaican vernacular, including words such as "unu" meaning "you (plural)", [14] "di" meaning "to be (in state of)", which became "de", and "Okwuru" "Okra" a vegetable. [32]

Some words of Igbo origin are

Idiom such as, via Gullah "big eye" from Igbo "anya ukwu" meaning "greedy"; [35] [36] [37]

Proverbs

"Ilu" in Igbo means proverbs, [46] a part of language that is very important to the Igbo. Igbo proverbs crossed the Atlantic along with the masses of enslaved Igbo people. Several translated Igbo proverbs survive in Jamaica today because of the Igbo ancestors. Some of these include:

Jamaican: "Cow must know 'ow 'im bottom stay before 'im swallow abbe [Twi 'palm nut'] seed"; "Jonkro must know what 'im a do before 'im swallow abbe seed."
Jamaican "When plantain wan' dead, it shoot [sends out new suckers]."
Jamaican: "When you dig a hole/ditch for one, dig two."
Jamaican: "Sweet-mout' fly follow coffin go a hole"; "Idle donkey follow cane-bump [the cart with cane cuttings] go a [animal] pound"; "Idle donkey follow crap-crap [food scraps] till dem go a pound [waste dump]."
Jamaican: "Take sleep mark death [Sleep is foreshadowing of death]."

Religion

"Obeah" refers to spiritual folk practices that were derived from West African sources. The W. E. B. Du Bois Institute database [9] supports obeah being traced to the "dibia" or "obia" meaning "doctoring" [6] traditions of the Igbo people. [47] [48] Specialists in "Obia" (also spelled Obea) were known as "Dibia" (doctor, psychic) practiced similarly as the obeah men and women of the Caribbean, like predicting the future and manufacturing charms. [49] [50] In Jamaican mythology, "River Mumma", a mermaid, is linked to "Oya" of the Yoruba and "Uhamiri/Idemili" of the Igbo. [51]

Among Igbo beliefs in Jamaica was the idea of Africans being able to go back home to Africa. [52] There were reports by Europeans who visited and lived in Jamaica that enslaved Igbo believed they would return to their country after death. [53]

Notable Jamaicans of Igbo descent

Archibald Monteith's grave. He was an Igbo known as Aniaso and was trafficked to Jamaica for enslavement. Grave of Archibald Monteith, Carmel Moravian Church, Jamaica, 1968.png
Archibald Monteith's grave. He was an Igbo known as Aniaso and was trafficked to Jamaica for enslavement.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Atlantic slave trade</span> Slave trade – 16th to 19th centuries

The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people, mainly to the Americas. The outfitted European slave ships of the slave trade regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage, and existed from the 16th to the 19th centuries. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central and West Africa who had been sold by West African slave traders mainly to Portuguese, British, Spanish, Dutch, and French slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids; European slave traders gathered and imprisoned the enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Except for the Portuguese, European slave traders generally did not participate in the raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa was less than one year during the period of the slave trade.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igbo people</span> Ethnic group in Southern Nigeria

The Igbo people are an ethnic group in Nigeria. They are primarily found in Abia, Anambra, Ebonyi, Enugu, and Imo States. A sizable Igbo population is also found in Delta and Rivers States. Ethnic Igbo populations are found in Cameroon, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea, as migrants as well as outside Africa. There has been much speculation about the origins of the Igbo people, which are largely unknown. Geographically, the Igbo homeland is divided into two unequal sections by the Niger River—an eastern and a western section. The Igbo people are one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Junkanoo</span> Festive season which occurs on Boxing Day and New Years Day

Junkanoo is a festival that was originated during the period of African chattel slavery in British American colonies. It is practiced most notably in Jamaica, The Bahamas and Belize, and historically in North Carolina and Miami, where there are significant settlements of West Indian people during the post-emancipation era. In the present day, there are considerable variations in performance and spelling, but there are the shared elements of masquerade, drumming, dance, and parading.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Olaudah Equiano</span> Abolitionist and writer (c. 1745 – 1797)

Olaudah Equiano, known for most of his life as Gustavus Vassa, was a writer and abolitionist. According to his memoir, he was from the village of Essaka in modern southern Nigeria. Enslaved as a child in West Africa, he was shipped to the Caribbean and sold to a Royal Navy officer. He was sold twice more before purchasing his freedom in 1766.

Obeah, or Obayi, is a series of African diasporic spell-casting and healing traditions found in the former British colonies of the Caribbean. These traditions derive much from traditional West African practices that have undergone cultural creolization. There is much regional variation in the practice of Obeah, which is followed by practitioners called Obeahmen and Obeahwomen.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nanny of the Maroons</span> Leader of Windward Maroons in Jamaica

Queen Nanny, Granny Nanny, or Nanny of the Maroons ONH, was an 18th-century leader of the Jamaican Maroons. She led a community of formerly enslaved Africans called the Windward Maroons. In the early 18th century, under the leadership of Nanny, the Windward Maroons fought a guerrilla war over many years against British authorities in the Colony of Jamaica in what became known as the First Maroon War.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jamaican Patois</span> English-based creole language spoken in Jamaica

Jamaican Patois is an English-based creole language with West African, Taíno, Irish, Spanish, Hindi, Portuguese, Chinese, and German influences, spoken primarily in Jamaica and among the Jamaican diaspora. Words or slang from Jamaican Patois can be heard in other Caribbean countries, the United Kingdom and Toronto, Canada. The majority of non-English words in Patois derive from the West African Akan language. It is spoken by the majority of Jamaicans as a native language.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Slavery in the British and French Caribbean</span> Slavery in British and French possessions in the Caribbean

Slavery in the British and French Caribbean refers to slavery in the parts of the Caribbean dominated by France or the British Empire.

<i>The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano</i> 1789 autobiography of Olaudah Equiano

The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, Or Gustavus Vassa, The African, first published in 1789 in London, is the autobiography of Olaudah Equiano. The narrative is argued to represent a variety of styles, such as a slavery narrative, travel narrative, and spiritual narrative. The book describes Equiano's time spent in enslavement, and documents his attempts at becoming an independent man through his study of the Bible, and his eventual success in gaining his own freedom and in business thereafter.

Oyinbo is an early Yoruba word used to refer to Caucasians. In the 1470s, the first Portuguese birth occurred in Eko, in Yorubaland, later called Lagos. The word was first used by the Yoruba to describe the Portuguese. It would later extend to all Europeans. Many years later, the word became used for anyone influenced by European tradition, customs, and culture, especially once-enslaved returnees. Oyinbo is generally used to refer to a person of European descent, African perceived not to be culturally Yoruba, or to people of the Human race who are light-skinned. The word is generally understood by most Nigerians and many other Africans.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igbo Americans</span> Americans of Igbo birth or descent

Igbo Americans, or Americans of Igbo ancestry, are residents of the United States who identify as having Igbo ancestry from modern day Nigeria. There are primarily two classes of people with Igbo ancestry in the United States, those whose ancestors were taken from Igboland as a result of the transatlantic slave trade before the 20th century and those who immigrated from the 20th century onwards partly as a result of the Nigerian Civil War in the late 1960s and economic instability in Nigeria. Igbo people prior to the American Civil War were brought to the United States by force from their hinterland homes on the Bight of Biafra and shipped by Europeans to North America between the 17th and 19th centuries.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Igbo people in the Atlantic slave trade</span> History of the Igbo people in the Atlantic Slave Trade

The Igbo of Igboland became one of the principal ethnic groups to be enslaved during the Atlantic slave trade. An estimated 14.6% of all enslaved people were taken from the Bight of Biafra, a bay of the Atlantic Ocean that extends from the Nun outlet of the Niger River (Nigeria) to Limbe (Cameroon) to Cape Lopez (Gabon) between 1650 and 1900. The Bight’s major slave trading ports were located in Bonny and Calabar.

Coromantee, Coromantins, Coromanti or Kormantine is an English-language term for enslaved people from the Akan ethnic group, taken from the Gold Coast region in modern-day Ghana. The term was primarily used in the Caribbean and is now considered archaic.

Buckra or Backra is a term of West African origin. It is mainly used in the Caribbean and the Southeast United States. Originally, it was used by slaves to address their white owners. Later, the meaning was broadened to generally describe white people.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Colony of Jamaica</span> English/British colony in The Caribbean from 1655 to 1962

The Crown Colony of Jamaica and Dependencies was a British colony from 1655, when it was captured by the English Protectorate from the Spanish Empire. Jamaica became a British colony from 1707 and a Crown colony in 1866. The Colony was primarily used for sugarcane production, and experienced many slave rebellions over the course of British rule. Jamaica was granted independence in 1962.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Scramble (slave auction)</span> Form of slave auction that took place during the Atlantic Slave Trade

A scramble was a particular form of slave auction that took place during the Atlantic slave trade in the European colonies of the West Indies and the domestic slave trade of the United States. It was called a "scramble" because buyers would run around in an open space all at once to gather as many enslaved people as possible. Another name for a scramble auction is "Grab and go" slave auctions. Slave ship captains would go to great lengths to prepare their captives and set prices for these auctions to make sure they would receive the highest amount of profits possible because it usually did not involve earlier negotiations or bidding.

For a history of Afro-Caribbean people in the UK, see British African Caribbean community.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Afro-Barbadians</span>

Black Barbadians or Afro-Barbadians are Barbadians of entirely or predominantly African descent.

James Tobin (1736/7–1817) was a prominent merchant and planter based in Nevis. During his life, he became one of the most prominent proslavery activists from the West Indies.

References

  1. ↑ www/slavevoyages.org
  2. ↑ Mullin, Michael (1995). Africa in America: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean, 1736-1831. University of Illinois Press. p. 26. ISBN   0-252-06446-1.
  3. ↑ "Petticoat-Rebellion". Jamaica Observer. August 6, 2001. Archived from the original on April 11, 2016. Retrieved September 22, 2010.
  4. 1 2 Lovejoy, Paul E.; Trotman, David Vincent (2003). Trans-Atlantic Dimensions of Ethnicity in the African Diaspora. Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 85–86. ISBN   0-8264-4907-7.
  5. ↑ Eltis & Richardson (1997), p. 83.
  6. 1 2 3 Eltis & Richardson (1997), pp. 73–74.
  7. ↑ Lovejoy, Paul E. (December 2006). "Slavery and Abolition" (PDF). 27 (3). Routledge: 15–16.{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires |journal= (help)[ permanent dead link ]
  8. ↑ Besson, Jean (2002). Martha Brae's Two Histories: European Expansion and Caribbean Culture-building in Jamaica. UNC Press Books. p. 43. ISBN   0-8078-5409-3.
  9. 1 2 Rucker, Walter C. (2006). The River Flows On: Black Resistance, Culture, and Identity Formation in Early America. LSU Press. p. 40. ISBN   0-8071-3109-1.
  10. ↑ Lewin, Olive (2000). "Rock It Come Over": The Folk Music of Jamaica. University of the West Indies Press. p. 156. ISBN   976-640-028-8.
  11. ↑ M'Baye, Babacar (2009). The Trickster Comes West: Pan-African Influence in Early Black Diasporan Narratives. University Press of Mississippi. p. 214. ISBN   978-1-60473-233-7.
  12. ↑ Cavitch, Max (2007). American Elegy: The Poetry of Mourning from the Puritans to Whitman. University of Minnesota Press. p. 215. ISBN   978-0-8166-4893-1.
  13. ↑ Bruce, Dickson D. (2001). The Origins of African American Literature, 1680-1865. University of Virginia Press. p. 67. ISBN   0-8139-2067-1.
  14. 1 2 Cassidy & Le Page (2002), p. 457.
  15. ↑ Mullin (1995). Africa in America. p. 26. ISBN   9780252064463.
  16. 1 2 Warner Lewis, Maureen (2007). Archibald Monteath: Igbo, Jamaican, Moravian. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press. p. 400. ISBN   9789766401979.
  17. ↑ Monteith, Kathleen E. A.; Richards, Glen (2002). Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture. University of the West Indies Press. p. 90. ISBN   976-640-108-X.
  18. ↑ Phillips, Ulrich Bonnell (2010). American Negro Slavery - A Survey of the Supply, Employment and Control of Negro Labor as Determined by the Plantation Regime. Read Books. p. 44. ISBN   978-1-4455-3770-2.
  19. ↑ Korieh, Chima Jacob (2009). Olaudah Equiano and the Igbo World: History, Society and Atlantic Diaspora Connections. Africa World Press. p. 364. ISBN   978-1-59221-664-2.
  20. ↑ Bailey, Anne Caroline (2005). African Voices of the Atlantic Slave Trade: Beyond the Silence and the Shame. Beacon Press. p. 98. ISBN   0-8070-5512-3.
  21. ↑ Eric Eustace Williams (1952). Documents on British West Indian History, 1807-1833. Trinidad Pub. Co.
  22. ↑ Hart, Richard (2002). Slaves who Abolished Slavery: Blacks in Rebellion. University of the West Indies Press. p. 226. ISBN   976-640-110-1.
  23. ↑ Burton, Richard D. E. (1997). Afro-Creole: Power, Opposition, and Play in the Caribbean. Cornell University Press. p. 84. ISBN   0-8014-8325-5.
  24. ↑ Hayward, Jack Ernest Shalom (1985). Out of Slavery: Abolition and After. Routledge. p. 110. ISBN   0-7146-3260-0.
  25. ↑ Opie, Frederick Douglass (2008). Hog & Hominy: Soul Food from Africa to America. Columbia University Press. p. 17. ISBN   978-0-231-14638-8.
  26. ↑ Wilson, Amber (2004). Jamaica the Culture. Crabtree Publishing Company. p.  22. ISBN   0-7787-9332-X.
  27. ↑ Graddol, David; Leith, Dick; Swann, Joan (1996). English: History, Diversity, and Change. Routledge. p.  210. ISBN   0-415-13117-0.
  28. ↑ Lewis, Maureen Warner (1996). African Continuities in the Linguistic Heritage of Jamaica. African Caribbean Institute of Jamaica. p. 24.
  29. ↑ Garine, I. de; Garine, Valérie de (2001). Drinking: Anthropological Approaches. Berghahn Books. pp. 221–222. ISBN   1-57181-809-X.
  30. ↑ Chambers, Douglas B. (2005). Murder at Montpelier. p. 182.
  31. ↑ Monteith, Kathleen E. A.; Richards, Glen (2002). Jamaica in Slavery and Freedom: History, Heritage and Culture. University of the West Indies Press. p. 114. ISBN   976-640-108-X.
  32. 1 2 3 4 McWhorter (2000), p. 128.
  33. ↑ Cassidy & Le Page (2002 :4)
  34. ↑ Cassidy & Le Page (2002 :14)
  35. ↑ Cassidy & Le Page (2002 :41)
  36. ↑ Holloway (2005 :94)
  37. ↑ Bartens (2003 :150)
  38. ↑ Cassidy & Le Page (2002 :68)
  39. ↑ McWhorter (2000 :128)
  40. ↑ Rickford, Romaine & Sato (1999 :137)
  41. 1 2 Eltis & Richardson (1997 :88)
  42. ↑ Cassidy & Le Page (2002 :378)
  43. ↑ Menz (2008 :12)
  44. ↑ Huber & Parkvall (1999 :47)
  45. ↑ Cassidy & Le Page (2002 :457)
  46. ↑ Matzke, Christine, ed. (2006). Of Minstrelsy and Masks: The Legacy of Ezenwa-Ohaeto in Nigerian Writing. Rodopi. p. 147. ISBN   90-420-2168-3.
  47. ↑ "Obeah". Merriam Webster . Retrieved 2010-06-03.
  48. ↑ Chambers, Douglas B. (2009). Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Virginia. University Press of Mississippi. pp. 14, 36. ISBN   978-1-60473-246-7.
  49. ↑ Eltis & Richardson (1997), p. 88.
  50. ↑ J., M.; Desch-Obi, Thomas (2008). Fighting for Honor: The History of African Martial Art Traditions in the Atlantic World. University of South Carolina Press. p. 58. ISBN   978-1-57003-718-4.
  51. ↑ Higgs, Catherine; Moss, Barbara A.; Ferguson, Earline Rae (2002). Stepping Forward: Black Women in Africa and the Americas. Ohio University Press. p. 102. ISBN   0-8214-1455-0.
  52. ↑ Archer, Jermaine O. (2009). Antebellum Slave Narratives: Cultural and Political Expressions of Africa. Taylor & Francis. p. 67. ISBN   978-0-415-99027-1.
  53. ↑ Eltis & Richardson (1997), p. 73.
  54. ↑ Gates, Henry Louis (2010). Faces of America: How 12 Extraordinary People Discovered Their Pasts. NYU Press. p. 178. ISBN   978-0-8147-3264-9.

Bibliography

This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.