Description
Book SynopsisEssays recovering the forgotten and downplayed histories of blacks in Central America, demonstrating the centrality of African Americans to the regions history from the earliest colonial times to the present.
Trade Review“This enlightening collection is destined to become essential reading for all those interested in the history of race, particularly as it pertains to the black presence in Central America. With its meticulous research, rich interpretive frameworks, and broad chronological sweep from the early colonial period into modern times,
Blacks and Blackness in Central America will change how we think about racial mixture, nation-building, African survivals, black identity, and the development of society in Latin America. Thanks to this book, ‘Afro-Central America’ will become standard language in the vocabulary of the African Diaspora.”—
Ben Vinson III, author of
Bearing Arms for His Majesty: The Free-Colored Militia in Colonial Mexico“This important collection of essays puts Central America firmly on the African Diaspora map.
Blacks and Blackness in Central America is the one-stop volume that gathers together the leading scholars of the topic. They offer clear windows into their many years of research and discovery, collectively convincing the reader that Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica were far from marginal to the historical trajectories of people of African descent in the Americas.”—
Matthew Restall, author of
The Black Middle: Africans, Mayas, and Spaniards in Colonial Yucatan“... [T]aken together, the essays in the volume go a long way toward addressing the complicated and messy topic of the history of blacks in Central America, and they certainly have the potential to lead to studies that will indeed transform the ways we think about the Atlantic world, race in Central America, and the construction of national identities.” -- Elizabeth W. Kiddy * History: Reviews of New Books *
“A trailblazing effort, this volume represents an important contribution to Central American historiography and African diaspora studies. It should be considered required reading for students and specialists alike.” -- Andrew Fisher * H-LatAm, H-Net Reviews *
“All the essays in this excellent volume, whether in colonial or post-colonial contexts across Central America, offer a new vision of blacks and blackness in the region.” -- Dario A. Euraque * Ethnic and Racial Studies *
“[A] captivating addition to the growing historiographical discussion on race. Africans have populated the shores of Central America since the 1500s. Yet rarely has a single work brought together such diligent contributing authors who provide the depths of discussion in such fascinating, unraveling ways. -- Margery Coulson-Clark * Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians *
“[A] major contribution to the scholarly literature. . . .” -- Anne S. Macpherson * American Historical Review *
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments vii
Introduction / Lowell Gudmundson and Justin Wolfe 1
Part I. Colonial Worlds of Slavery and Freedom
Angolans in Amatitlán: Sugar, African Immigrants, and
Gente Ladina in Colonial Guatemala / Paul Lokken 27
Cacao and Slavery in Matina, Costa Rica, 1650-1750 / Russell Lohse 57
Race and Place in Colonial Mosquitia, 1600-1787 / Karl H. Offen 92
Slavery and Social Differentiation: Slave Wages in Omoa / Rina Cáceres Gómez 130
Becoming Free, Becoming Ladino: Slave Emancipation and
Mestizaje in Colonial Guatemala / Catherine Komisaruk 150
Part II. Nation Building and Reinscribing Race
"The Cruel Whip": Race and Place in Nineteenth-Century Nicaragua / Justin Wolfe 177
What Difference did Color Make? Blacks in the "White Towns" of Western Nicaragua in the 1880s / Lowell Gudmundson 209
Race and the Space of Citizenship: The Mosquito Coast and the Place of Blackness and Indigeneity in Nicaragua / Juliet Hooker 246
Eventually Alien: The Multigenerational Saga of British Western Indians in Central America, 1870-1940 / Lara Putnam 278
White Zones: American Enclave Communities of Central America / Ronald Harpelle 307
The Slow Ascent of the Marginalized: Afro-Descendents in Costa Rica and Nicaragua / Mauricio Meléndez Obando 334
Bibliography 353
Contributors 385
Index 389
