Handbook of Black Studies PDF

Sage Reference Handbook of Black Studies For the most optimal reading experience we recommend using our website. A free-to-view version of this content is available by clicking on this link, which includes an easy-to-navigate-and-sea...

Sage Reference Handbook of Black Studies For the most optimal reading experience we recommend using our website. A free-to-view version of this content is available by clicking on this link, which includes an easy-to-navigate-and-search-entry, and may also include videos, embedded datasets, downloadable datasets, interactive questions, audio content, and downloadable tables and resources. Author: Katherine Olukemi Bankole Pub. Date: 2010 Product: Sage Reference DOI: https://doi.org/10.4135/9781412982696 Keywords: African people, Afrocentricity, African diaspora, the afrocentric scholar, primary sources, black studies, diaspora Disciplines: Race & Ethnicity, Race, Ethnicity & Migration, Black Studies, Sociology Access Date: July 8, 2024 Publisher: SAGE Publications, Inc. City: Thousand Oaks Online ISBN: 9781412982696 © 2010 SAGE Publications, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Researching the Lives of the Enslaved: The State of the Scholarship Katherine OlukemiBankole Researching the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora is a complex yet rewarding commitment. Scholars have many important reasons for conducting research in this area. One of the primary reasons is to expand our knowledge of the historic events surrounding the enslavement of African people. Others seek to correct the scholarly record when new information becomes available. There are also scholars who identify and at- tempt to address specific research problems. Still others offer informed perspectives on the lives of enslaved Africans and the operational character of the institution of slavery. An important West African proverb states, Until Lions have their own historians, tales of the hunt will always glorify the hunter. Certainly, scholars have reckoned with this sentiment in researching the enslavement experience of Africans in the Diaspora. Some of the challenges to this research come from the creation and advancement of anti-African images, beliefs, myths, and ideas (Myers, 1988). Anti-African ideology is rooted in early Western European concepts relat- ed to the development of a homogeneous nationalism and established beliefs about other peoples (Gould, 1981). Anti-African ideas also come from the need to reconcile the moral implications of enslaving people of African descent. The European enslavement of Africans and other people was rooted in the cultural image they held of societies that they considered dissimilar to themselves (Ani, 1994, p. 294). Ani (1980) observed, “Within the setting of our enslavement, the ideology of white supremacy was systematically reinforced by a set of interlocking mechanisms and patterns that functioned to deny the validity of an African humanity” (p. 12). However, much of our information about the system of enslavement and questions about Black humanity comes from a variety of sources that are not scholarly. These sources transmit competing messages about the lives of enslaved Africans, and these messages often allude to biological and racial differences (Bankole, 1998, pp. 3–11). In addition, the mythology associated with enslaved Africans and the system of slavery as a whole, has re-created an idyllic picture for Whites, while rendering the African experience invisible (Bankole, 1999, p. 194). To the extent that when Ford (1999) wrote about the wisdom of African people, he decried the imposed chronicle: When I looked at the historical experience of African Americans, I saw a series of episodes, one slowly dissolving into the next: “Capture in Africa,” “Monstrous Transport Through the Middle Pas- sage,” “The Horrors of Slavery,” “Whispers of Rebellion and Revolt,” “Promises of Freedom Broken,” Handbook of Black Studies Page 2 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. “The entrenchment of Racism,” and “The Ongoing Struggle for Freedom and Justice,” what I failed to see was the larger story into which these episodes might fit. (p. vii) The scholarly materials on the lives of enslaved Africans are voluminous and ever expanding. However, it has been noted that the duration of the enslavement of African people does not equal the extent of available records (Blockson, 1991, p. 68), indicating that much more work still needs to be done. Certainly, the body of knowledge, which serves to correct racist assumptions about Africans during this time, is growing. Re- search in the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora offers students and scholars an excellent opportunity to expand and share global knowledge about the African canon. This opportunity exists because of the many limiting ideas about “slavery.” For example, Curtin, Feierman, Thompson, and Vansina (1978) stated in their text African History, “Historians in Europe and America have had a longstanding tendency to over-emphasize the importance of the slave trade as a factor in African history” (p. 213). This stress on “slavery as a trade” illustrates one of the many concerns with established concepts related to the study of the lives of enslaved Africans in North America. Researchers have responded to this as a collective affective need to deflect moral responsibility for the largest organized forced migration in human history and to minimize its implications as a holocaust within the global record of humankind (Karenga, 2002). To address this (and other issues of sig- nificance), researchers must gain a clear understanding of the subject matter and all the viewpoints associ- ated with the study of enslavement. This will include the economic challenges of Europe, the organizational processes of their enslavement of African people, the purpose of research and scholarship in the area of the enslavement, and the full explication of the lives of African people beyond the context of enslavement. There- fore, researching the lives of enslaved Africans in the United States includes (a) challenges to, and effects on, the scholarship; (b) understanding inventive paradigmatic scholarly concepts; (c) textbooks as evidence related to the lives of enslaved Africans; (d) primary sources; (e) secondary sources; (f) the examination of terms and concepts; and (g) the investigations into Africanisms. Challenges to, and Effects on, the Scholarship Researching the lives of enslaved Africans contains six areas that have challenged and affected the devel- opment of scholarship. First, the African past of enslaved African people has been dismissed and/or margin- alized. This is primarily due to the inability to conceptualize connections and lineages among African peo- ple. In addition, it includes the overarching racist logic that assumes no function, practicality, or value in the African past for African people. Second, researching enslaved Africans is challenging because in most world societies the lowest-caste members, the oppressed people, are not allowed to possess or use the skills of Handbook of Black Studies Page 3 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. recording their lives, nor do they have the leisure time required, to leave significant records of their existence. This automatically assumes and brings into view the inherent bias that is the root of the subjugation of hu- man beings. In the antebellum United States, many historical documents are from the point of view of the slave owners and others who benefited economically or socially from slave labor. Third, as interest in the lives of Africans developed in the postenslavement period, the focus included the perceived difference of African people juxtaposed to the Anglo population. This meant that research was driven by the desire to examine the assigned subordinate and “strange and exotic” view of the African. Therefore, the African could be ac- cepted in White society only as a model for the marginally tolerated person. During this time, written interest in enslaved persons by slave owners was found in the instructions developed to control and contain slaves (Scarborough, 2003). They were also a part of those laws that reinforced ideas that slavery was the only rel- evant social condition for people of African descent (Goodell, 1853). Fourth, early attempts to counter the scholarship that defined the African as a “problematic” in White society began to assert how Africans in America were more similar to persons of European descent than they were to one another. But principally, this thrust focused on how African people could “fit in” to the White society. Fifth, there were attempts at a “break through” literature in researching the lives of enslaved Africans, which included the antislavery works narrating the experiences of enslaved African people. Sixth, researching the lives of enslaved persons has moved away from satisfying the racial demands of a society, toward locating enslaved people within the contexts of their own history and culture. This is done with respect to the totality of the African's experience in the world, of which the period of enslavement was a small part. There are many approaches to the study of the lives of enslaved African people. Traditionally, there have been historical, soci- ological, econometric (mathematical analysis of economic problems), cliometric (statistical methods), demo- graphic (the use and study of vital and social statistics), and many other qualitative and quantitative methods. Scholars are tasked to demonstrate familiarity with comparative perspectives on the history of enslavement and to gain an understanding of a range of approaches to the study of Africana people. The Afrocentric ap- proach requires the capacity for critical thinking about the agency of African people. This involves important queries about the lives and abilities of enslaved persons within their own social, historical, and cultural con- texts. Thus, researching the lives of enslaved Africans requires theoretical assessments that do not assume a priori that those subjected to a violent migration and system of enslavement possessed no substantial in- volvement in their own liberation and the transformation of any given society. Handbook of Black Studies Page 4 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Understanding Inventive Paradigmatic Scholarly Concepts The goal of any researcher is to produce new knowledge or expand the prevailing scholarship. Scholars ac- complish this largely through the recovery of evidence (documents and materials), providing an original analy- sis from the extant sources, and bringing the information to the public view (dissemination). Therefore, re- searchers in Black Studies must be aware of three main enterprises taking place in Africalogy and the study of the lives of enslaved Africans. The first is Africalogical immersion and explication. This refers to the full en- gagement of the discipline of Africalogy, including the formal study of Africa, African people, and phenomena from an Afrocentric perspective (Asante, 1990; Karenga, 1999). This also reflects the synergistic relationship between African zamani (the past) and African sasa (the present). Second, the critical location of race—the important systematic evaluation of racism and the evolution of hierarchical discourse (ethnohegemony) within the scholarship (Asante, 2003). Third, research and scholarship that connects Africalogical immersion and explication with the critical location of race and racism (Ani, 1994; Mazama, 2003). The ability of scholars to grasp the nature of these three concerns will assist in the direction of their scholarship and contribution that the research will make to the lives of enslaved Africans. Among other considerations, the critique of racism involves the analysis of the practice of racism within historical events. It also includes the analysis of racist and biased scholarly interpretations of the past. A fundamental issue at this time, with respect to the full en- gagement of enslavement and the discipline of Africalogy, is expanding the Afrocentric analysis of Africana primary sources and the production of scholarship. Scholars make important decisions about the study of the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora. These decisions include specific questions: What does the researcher want to know? What is the complexity of the intended project? Where will the data (evidence) be gathered? How will the information be organized and interpreted? Who is the audience and what will be the mode of dissemination of the scholarship? These are a few basic preliminary research questions. However, they do not begin to address the character of bias, as either a detractor from a valid analysis or a tool to understand the location of the scholar and his or her use of a selected body of knowledge. Black Studies promulgated many debates about bias in scholarship. What is initially significant is that bias yields important information. The early foundations of White Western scien- tific inquiry did not fully address the inherent cultural bias of the researcher. Much later when contemporary discussions about objectivity/subjectivity began to emerge, they (a) diminished the core significance of the Western ethnohegemonic worldview as solely contextual or (b) cautioned Africans and other scholars of color about the potential abuses of subjectivity in their research analysis. Handbook of Black Studies Page 5 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. The overall work of the contemporary qualitative researcher is viewed as a promise to broaden the process and enhance the research. Marshall and Rossman (1991) noted, “The researcher's insights increase the like- lihood that she will be able to describe the complex social system being researched. However, the researcher must provide controls for bias in interpretation” (p. 147). What is significant about the efforts to forewarn schol- ars is that they do not fully discuss how culturally ingrained racial bias influences research, specifically the research involving the lives of enslaved Africans. In addition, they do not provide cogent countermeasures for addressing bias scholarship, in understanding the convergence of culture and their own bias or how bias differs significantly from nonracist forms of self-concept. Keto (1989) discussed the latter issue as a matter of cultural awareness and self-/group assessment: (1) researchers must clarify at the heuristic level, the preferred epistemological center on which the assumptions of their intellectual enterprise are predicted and the implicit limits of their universe of discourse; and (2) researchers should specify, at the level where they apply their chosen method- ology on concrete situations, the geographical and cultural location that they adopt as the primor- dial core from which they extrapolate values and priorities with which they observe and judge world events and human developments around them. (p. 1) In this analysis, bias is not confused with the recognition of a nonhegemonic worldview from which a scholar may approach research (Herskovits, 1973). For example, Eurocentrism has been defined as the “practice of domination and exclusion” (Karenga, 2002, p. 46), which is not the same as cultural relativity based on the European American experience (Beard, 1927). However, many would argue that racism is so ingrained in the collective psyche of society that it comprises a functional paradigm of Euro-American culture and values (Ani, 1994). Black Studies scholars not only challenged the issues of bias and made it a core subject of discourse; they also addressed the issue of bias in the field and across disciplines and offered correctives. Asante (1990) examined this in Kemet, Afrocentricity and Knowledge, in the discussion of “objectivity.” According to Asante, “What often passes for objectivity is a sort of collective European subjectivity…. The Afrocentricist speaks of research that is ultimately verifiable in the experiences of human beings, the final empirical authority” (pp. 24–25). As Abarry (1990) noted, The conceptual framework and the analytical procedure you adopt should be rooted in the history, traditions and culture of the object of your study. This will help make the outcomes of the research more reliable and satisfying than if you apply concepts, values and perspectives derived from a dif- ferent culture. (p. 46) Handbook of Black Studies Page 6 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. In Abarry's pedagogical work, on the research process, the attention is focused on skill building and the ability to make assessments about methods that will yield accurate information and compelling forms of analysis and interpretation. Furthermore, Afrocentricity is also viewed as a continuation of the long history of African intellectual thought (Asante & Abarry, 1996; Bekerie, 1994; Giddings, 2003; Gray, 2001). Therefore, scholars developed an Afrocentric model, “based on the traditions and cultural reality of African peoples” (Abarry, 1990, pp. 46–47) and continued to critique the method for its basis and effectiveness. Re- searching the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora requires an awareness of, and careful attention to, the research approach and the issues of bias, subjectivity, and centrality. According to Asante (1987), Afrocentricity is defined as “the most complete philosophical totalization of the African being-at-the-center of his or her existence…. it is above all the total use of method to effect psycholog- ical, political, social, cultural, and economic change” (p. 125). Keto (1989) defined the Afrocentric perspective as “Using historical Africa, including Kemet/Egypt, as a point of departure for (1) concept formation and (2) the discussion of social and cultural developments about Africans and people of African descent” (p. 51). In addition, Karenga (2002) offered the definition “From a Kawaida perspective, Afrocentricity is a methodology, orientation or quality of thought and practice rooted in the cultural image and interest of African people” (p. 47). In discussing any phenomena, we must be aware of the dominant perspective that prevails within any in- terpretation. In analyzing African phenomena, we must do so from the place of Africans as the point of origin. The vision of scholars to reject the view that the lives of enslaved Africans represented an endless narrative of victimization led many to consider new approaches to research. Walker (2001) defined the concept Afro- genic as a system “growing out of the histories, ways of being and knowing, and interpretations and interpre- tative styles of African and African Diasporan peoples” (p. 8). A search for, and recognition of, a transcendent Africanity, infused the scholarship from the 1970s throughout the 1990s. The widespread embrace and commitment of scholars to Afrocentric approaches to research in Black Studies provided intellectual space for the advancement of the analysis of enslaved African people (Asante, 1980, 1987). Although scholars in many disciplines use various approaches to the study of African people, it is in- teresting how the Afrocentric perspective, since the Asantian literature, has modified the discussion. Harris, Clark Hine, and McKay (1990) noted, “The shift in perspective from Eurocentrism to Afrocentrism [Afrocen- tric] required the recovery, organization, and accessibility of research materials that made black people, their lives, and their thoughts the center of analysis and interpretation” (p. 11). Countryman (1999), alluding to the proto-Afrocentric scholars, stated that Handbook of Black Studies Page 7 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. all understood and as most historians now appreciate, the subject has to be approached from the point of view that black Americans have been the subjects and the makers of their own history, rather than a “problem” with which whites had to contend. (pp. 11–12) Harris (2001) continued the thread of discussion: “Research and writing about African Americans has shifted from treating them as pawns swept by the course of historical events to appreciating them as actors, with voice and agency, capable of influencing the direction of historical developments” (p. xi). Textbooks as Evidence Related to Researching the Lives of Enslaved Africans Researching the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora includes (a) the extended history of African people on the African continent (prehistorical, ancient, and classical African civilizations), (b) the challenges to the continuity of the African experience and the African's response to the Holocaust of Enslavement (Middle Pas- sage, Maafa), and (c) the recent history of Africana people (which includes the impact of the enslavement experience, and contemporary life in the African Diaspora). Each area possesses clusters of evidence (pri- mary and secondary sources) and logical places where evidence can be found. Instructional arrangements using the evidence surrounding the lives of enslaved Africans are found in academic textbooks. Textbooks are important indicators of the state of knowledge of any given society. They reveal much about the perspec- tives on the enslavement of African people. As stated above, the goal of the scholar who produces an aca- demic text is the same as that of the researcher who produces other work (journal articles, monographs, re- ports)—to add new knowledge or expand the prevailing scholarship. Textbooks are significantly different from other forms of scholarship. In general, most academic textbooks rely heavily on secondary sources, but many use primary sources. However, they do not use tertiary sources (materials developed largely from the repeti- tion of secondary sources). Textbooks instruct by transmitting factual information and by explicitly motivating students to query the information provided. There are two widely regarded introductory collegiate texts used in the initial understanding and analysis of the system of enslavement. In the discipline of history, Franklin and Moss's (2000) From Slavery to Freedom, provides a detailed chronology of the enslavement of African people, through emancipation and to the 20th century. In the discipline of Black Studies, Karenga's (2002) Introduction to Black Studies thematically delineates the study of African people, including the enslavement experience and liberation, through the 20th century and provides analysis of the distinct theories and method- Handbook of Black Studies Page 8 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. ologies associated with the subject fields of the discipline of Black Studies. Textbooks are important to the discussion of the lives of the enslaved. They provide information about their own character and purpose through what they include and what they leave out. Taking large amounts of in- formation and sorting it into themes and topics is part of the analysis process and helps students to better understand the operating contexts. The historic periodization with reference to African people in North Amer- ica broadly includes the origin of humankind in Africa, African civilizations, Africans in the Americas, Colonial American slavery, the trans-Atlantic commercialization of slavery, African people before and after the North American Revolutionary war, the enslavement of Africans in the Northwest Territory, the movement to free African people, and Africans after the North American Civil War. Later 20th-century scholarship brought about a distinct change in textbooks that discuss the enslavement experience of African people. One major change was the inclusion and expansion of the African past of Black people. Another was the supplanting of racist treatments of African history and culture with scholarship that not only delineated the facts but also respected the humanity of African people. Finally, as noted above, Afrocentric analysis also contributed to fundamental and reformative change in the scholarship. For example, Karenga (2002) outlines several critical areas tra- ditionally ignored or diminished in scope by other scholars within the area of the Holocaust of Enslavement, by analyzing the “misconceptions and impact” of the enslavement of Africans; the “basis and system” of en- slavement, and the “resistance to enslavement” (see pp. 134–160). Although many scholars begin the opening of the European trade in enslaved Africans in the Americas, the subjugation of native peoples, and race relations with Columbus's 14th-century voyages (Cox, 1970), there have been three leading chronological time frames assigned to the study of enslaved African people in the Diaspora. Beginning in the 17th century, Africans were marginally engaged. There was the preponderance of studies attempting to provide evidence of European superiority and African inferiority. This overarching view positioned the African outside of history, advancing the study of a people without a specific time and space. By the 19th century, there emerged the idea that Africans, if studied at all, should be analyzed as alien peo- ple, beings said to possess strange natures derived from their African origins. Other studies during this time focused on the transformation of the African into an African American. By the 20th century, the prolific study of the enslaved African engaged the trans-Atlantic “slave trade” and other subjects, including the various exam- inations of “slave” culture and “slave” societies in the Caribbean and North and South America. These includ- ed comparative “slave” histories. In the latter half of the 20th century, scholars began the pursuit of African Diaspora and agency studies—essentially in the attempt to historicize African people but also to humanize their experience within their own time and space. However, throughout the historiography of the enslavement Handbook of Black Studies Page 9 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. of African people, the primary limitation to scholarly knowledge in this area has been the omission of the long past of African people prior to the advent of European slavery. Primary Sources and African Lives Researching the lives of enslaved African people begins with the recovery and analysis of the wide variety of primary source material. Primary sources are very important because they represent those documents, infor- mation, and evidence that originate from the period of experience. These are often called “firsthand” or “first- person” accounts of what occurred. Asante and Abarry (1996) clarify the issue for researchers, noting that sources involving Africa and African phenomena fall into two categories: “lost” and “undeciphered” sources (p. 1). Therefore, there are sources lost to us when people are not able to preserve material and memory against time and circumstance. Yet there are sources unknown to us—those that we have yet to uncover, interrogate, or decode. In North America aspects of the lives of the enslaved can be revealed through letters, ledgers, diaries, journals, deeds, wills, newspapers, accounts of sale, advertisements, manuscripts, drawings, photographs, manifests, and so on. Primary sources also include items such as “slave chains,” whips, and other punishment and containment devices. Items that reflect the material culture of the period and fall in- to the primary source category also include equipment used for slave labor and items designed by African people, such as mechanical inventions, musical instruments, and the like. For Africans, Native Americans, and many other people, primary source data also includes oral histories. However, in North America, much of the primary source data focuses on the lives of the enslaver. Records, especially those such as journals and diaries, are almost always presented from the perspective of the record keeper. And record keeping was a privileged (although necessary) activity in antebellum America. The African person in bondage was not a privileged individual who could leave evidence about his or her past. As Patterson (1982) recognized, among slave societies of the world, the enslaved person is considered socially dead and natally alienated. The sys- tem of slavery made it illegal for enslaved African people to possess knowledge of reading and writing. Other African forms of transmitting knowledge were also banned (such as drumming and the use of one's birth lan- guage). However, this did not overshadow the complex symbols and coded forms of communication found in language, songs whose theme was freedom, and the production of quilts (Tobin & Dobard, 1999). Written primary sources require critical examination. This is the beginning of the scholar's inquiry. In this ex- amination, the scholar determines the authenticity of the source, if it is indeed “primary” to the period. Then Handbook of Black Studies Page 10 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. there is the analysis of the meaning of the material: What does it reveal about the lives of enslaved African people in the Diaspora? What does the source say, suggest, and/or reveal about the lives of African people in North America? What do many similar sources—viewed as a body of knowledge—uncover about the lives of enslaved persons? What do African people say about themselves as a historic and cultural people and about their lives in the slaveocracy? These are key questions of the Black Studies scholar on the issue of research- ing the lives of the enslaved. For example, an announcement in a 17th-century newspaper about an African who escapes captivity can tell quite a bit about the individual. Yet a collection of announcements in a certain region may suggest the overwhelming activity of Africans in the act of freeing themselves. But where do you find primary sources? It was common to find long-forgotten materials in the attics of people's homes. Mate- rials deemed of great importance or value were handed down from generation to generation, such as post- bellum lynching photographs and cards (Allen, 2000). Manuscripts, pamphlets, and book-length documents were donated or sold to an archive or an interested college or university research center. In researching the lives of the enslaved in the United States, it is common to find persons who served as family historians or who were able to use preserved material from their own family's attics to support a relative or establish their own basis for academic and scholarly advancement. By the 20th century, most of the readily available material on the enslavement of African people in the United States could be found in the repositories of historical soci- eties. Some of these historical societies were state or locally sponsored endeavors, and others were under private authority. During the Jim Crow era of racial segregation, it would have been difficult for Black scholars to access many of these holdings. Yet Blacks had access to the archival holdings of historically Black col- leges and universities, churches, and service organizations. In addition, as Alford (2000) observed in his work “The Early Intellectual Growth and Development of William Leo Hansberry and the Birth of the Discipline of African Studies,” Black scholars grapple with the need to ensure the preservation of historical documents and other forms of primary source evidence. This includes acquisitions, codification, management, digitizing, and physically housing information. Although there are many published bound collections of primary source ma- terials, “new” materials on the lives of the enslaved are often uncovered. Finally, there is the concerted effort to digitize materials to preserve documents and make them accessible to a larger audience on the Internet (Bankole, 2001). An important primary source detailing the lives of the enslaved comes from the personal documentaries of enslaved persons. Labeled as “slave narratives,” these materials include the sponsored and dictated biohis- tories of individuals for use largely by antislavery organizations. These documents also include the postbel- lum narratives and interrogations of Africans undertaken by the United States government through the Works Handbook of Black Studies Page 11 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Progress Administration and the legal testimonies of formally enslaved persons. There are many scholarly critiques of this project, including Blassingame's (1977) analysis in Slave Testimony (pp. xlii–lxii). Some im- portant considerations in reviewing the personal documentaries of enslaved persons are these: (a) Aside from the illiteracy imposed on the masses of enslaved persons, exceptional circumstances allowed some to ac- quire education and the pursuit of knowledge. Some Africans found very creative ways to educate themselves and others in secrecy. Others gained knowledge of reading, writing, and reasoning from biblical studies, al- though the Bible was used for the coercive instruction of enslaved Africans by the slave owner. (b) Many of the interviews of formerly enslaved persons were designed, organized, and conducted by White individuals who had preconceived ideas about Africanity and who focused on issues and events of interests to non- African people. For example, some of the background notes of the Works Progress Administration interviews of Africans indicate that the interviewers were encouraged to focus on and highlight such themes as “voodoo” among the ex-slaves in to appeal to the view of Whites that Africans were foreign people. They also tend to highlight subservient role satisfaction and filial relationships with slave owners. (c) Personal documentaries that were sponsored, supported by, or even “ghostwritten” by Whites also overlook the value of the African past, Africanisms, history, culture, language, and the African's world contributions. (d) Another category of personal documentaries of formerly enslaved Africans comes from missionarian-ism and the formal mecha- nisms involved in the Christianization process of African people. (e) Interviews with African people were often conducted in an atmosphere of suspicion, because Blacks feared adverse government intervention in their lives if they spoke negatively about the enslavement experience. However, the oral histories of enslaved persons in the United States yield much useful information about the lives of African people and their struggle and victory over the system of slavery. Some of the personal doc- uments written by African people include extended biographies. Such individual accounts include Capitein's The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave, Jacobus Elisa Johannes Capitein, 1717–1747 Parker, 2000). Capitein was taken to Holland by his slave owner, freed, and then completed advanced edu- cation before becoming a missionary. More widely known is The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano (1814), which provides one of the most compelling accounts of Africans and the slave ship experi- ence. Gates's (1987) collection of The Classic Slave Narratives includes Equiano's account and these three documents: The History of Mary Prince, The Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, and Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. Other narratives of Africans held in bondage include Moses Roper's (1838/2003) Nar- rative of My Escape From Slavery; Nat Turner, Confessions of Nat Turner (Greenberg, 1996); William Wells Brown, Narrative of William Wells Brown, an American Slave (1849); and Solomon Northrup, Twelve Years a Handbook of Black Studies Page 12 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Slave. Narrative of Solomon Northup, a Citizen of New-York, Kidnaped in Washington City in 1841 and Res- cued in 1853, From a Cotton Plantation Near the Red River, in Louisiana (1853). Secondary Sources and the Lives of African People The use of secondary sources in researching the lives of the enslaved involves the body of knowledge making up a scholar's analysis and interpretation of the primary sources. The use of any material that is a system- atic investigation of the primary sources or a review of other scholars' interpretations of findings is the use of secondary sources. Secondary sources are important because they provide thoughtful examination of the primary source record. However, secondary sources are not the sole enterprise of the Black Studies scholar, who is mainly interested in the examination of the primary source record. Although useful, secondary sources can be problematic when the interpretation of the African record is conducted within the context of hierarchal discourse. With the use of secondary sources, the student or scholar trusts and relies on the observations, in- terpretation, and conclusions of researchers who have also demonstrated confidence in other scholars' use of secondary and primary sources, and so on. We often make the assumption that published books and manu- scripts are written by objective scholars who are also knowledgeable about the African world experience. This is not necessarily true. Therefore, secondary sources are always read and evaluated with critical attention. And the primary sources cited by a scholar, which you are particularly interested in, are always researched further. In secondary sources, you may find many other challenges, such as the selective use of materials, bias, and racist logic. Scholarly analysis of secondary sources is distinguished from other academic reports because this research indirectly uses the evidence to answer questions related to the subject matter and logical reasoning, theory building, and queries regarding relationship of data. Secondary sources include books (except books of pri- mary sources often called document or “source books”), general histories, newspaper articles, textbooks, scholarly articles, contemporary biographies of historical personages, audio, video, CD-ROMs, magazines, television, Internet Web sites, and conference proceedings. Generally, tertiary sources also include maga- zines, television, reference books, encyclopedias, and some Web sites. For students, they are useful tools to gain an immediate personal grasp of an unfamiliar concept or idea that will be researched later. Tertiary sources are not used in conducting scholarly research on the lives of enslaved Africans. If the intent is to use the primary source information directly, do not use and/or cite the secondary source it appears in. Acquire Handbook of Black Studies Page 13 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. the primary source (and other related primary sources that will assist your comprehension), study the source, and verify how it was used in the secondary source document. In researching the lives of enslaved Africans, secondary sources must be carefully evaluated. The Examination of Terms and Concepts with Respect to the Bondage of African People Black Studies scholars have looked closely at the loss of indigenous African languages through the Holocaust of Enslavement and the retention of structural communication forms found in African American culture (Daniel & Smitherman, 1976). They have also critiqued terms and concepts used to describe and explicate the African's experience in the Americas, and this ongoing analysis helped to lay the foundation for the two thrusts in understanding research on enslaved African people. Generally, the etymological aspect of the scholarship falls in one of two categories. One category of scholarship perceives slaves (chattel, subhuman, animalistic beings) having been brought out of Africa to a new world. These beings—who were said to teeter between being human and subhuman—were also thought to have nothing to give the world in terms of high culture and civilization. Often, the underlying subtext is that slaves not only deserved their treatment but also bear the brunt of the responsibility for the entire system of enslavement. The other category posits that African peo- plewere brought out of the continent of Africa and made into slaves by others through a developing system of racial control. In addition, not only did these people contribute to world society, they also offered unique cul- tural lessons on survival, adaptation, and creative progressive development. This is in addition to how African culture influenced and even changed the course of ancient civilizations (Bernal, 1987; Van Sertima, 1986) and the Americas. Attention to the African perspective and the issue of enslavement precipitates an ongoing analysis of language (terms and concepts), and how the dependence on certain words reveals racist logic, often promotes an anti-African history and humanity, and suffers the consequences of presentism (how his- toric terms clash with their contemporary meaning). Asante (1992) outlined terms and concepts that influence the researcher's cognitive processes. They include, but are not limited to, terms associated with enslaved African people, such as jungle, witch doctor, African slaves, mixed blood, primitive, African slave trade, and natives (p. 46). With respect to the latter, a word such as slave (evolved from a reference to Slavic peoples) became synonymous with African people, thus dimin- ishing their own complex and highly developed identity in world society. As noted earlier, of particular inter- Handbook of Black Studies Page 14 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. est to the researcher is the prolonged linking of enslaved African people with the terms, trade and slaves. Afrocentric scholars were among the first to challenge these terms and their import in our literature (Bankole, 1995). Although many scholars contributed to our understanding of the history of African people in bondage, few actually challenged these terms. Black scholars noted the difference between “a slave” and those “en- slaved,” by asserting ownership of the actions of aggression and power. The differentiation also spoke to the mythology of African docility in the face of the need for increasingly harsher slave codes. The basic idea of a slave also contradicted itself with respect to the “seasoning” process, which was largely a psychological apparatus (used in conjunction with arduous labor and physical punishment) and which could take years to break the human spirit. Finally, the difference between the slave and those people who were enslaved has to do with racial ethnohegemonic beliefs and themes about the social “place” of African people. The persistent use of the term slave to refer to Black people infused a mental link that suggested that African people de- served or otherwise should have been placed in a position of subordination and perpetual servitude to Whites (Walker, 2001, pp. 10–11). When Afrocentric scholars, studying the lives of enslaved Africans, called for the correct use of the term enslaved, it identified African people actors and agents of their own transformative experience in the face of exceedingly difficult circumstances. The Investigations into Africanisms and the Lives of En- slaved African People Verger (1978) stated that African culture was “brought across the Atlantic in the most painful conditions any- one could imagine, by people reduced to slavery and carried by force away from their country with no hope of return” (p. 79). There are several premises on the issue of Africanisms, African retentions in the Diaspo- ra, and the manifestation of Africanity in the Diaspora. The first premise is that they don't exist; the second is that they exist only in a syncretized form; and third, that they exist in everyday life. With few exceptions, Afrocentric scholarship supported and introduced the ideas about the need to query the research regarding the material and cultural legacy of people of African descent. Up to this point, Africans in North America were placed under the “static theory of alien kinship” (also referred to as “fictive,” and “pseudo” affinity), which in- fused the literature regarding the lives of enslaved persons. This theory served as a basis for the formal study of Africans … (and) is rooted in the racial objectification and identification of the peoples of the world; thus forcing a self-perpetuating rationale for a specific kind Handbook of Black Studies Page 15 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. of racial identity formation especially among people of African descent. (Bankole, 2003, p. 85) The theory presumed no historical, cultural, or filial relationship among enslaved Africans. This assertion be- came increasingly problematic for scholars whose academic interests lay in examining relationships among Africans. The study of Africanity has been cast as an extreme “controversy” among scholars who continue the anti-African thread of discussion that people of African descent have no historical or cultural connected- ness. Africana claims to Africanity are probably one of the most important underlying historical discussions in society and the academy (Bankole, 2000). Early scholars who initiated dialogues about Africanisms (African cultural survivals) in American culture did so in relative obscurity. Scholars and researchers who attempted to broach or advance the subject include J. A. Rogers, W. E. B. Du Bois, Carter G. Woodson, Cheikh An- ta Diop, Harold Courlander, Melville Herskovits, Yosef Ben-Jochannon, and John Henrik Clarke. Widely dis- cussed works on the subject often include Joseph Holloway's Africanisms in American Culture (1990), Linda James Myers's Understanding an Afrocentric World View (1988), and Wade Nobles's Africanity and the Black Family (1985). However, late 20th-century scholars postulated the existence of evidence of Africanisms, either lost or not yet recovered. They also noted the imposition of racism and how it impeded the rigorous study of the lives of en- slaved Africans. This directed scholarship away from the humanity of Africans, including their distinct ethnic, social, and cultural legacies and their interrelatedness as a people. These scholars maintain that manifesta- tions of African culture exist in the African Diaspora and that African people creatively and adaptively asserted their Africanity. More often, the issue of Africanity is one associated with the scholar's basic desire to look for data and information. The willingness to look is indicative of the scholar's ability to think outside the confines of established-order methods of research. In one example, a student is continuing her investigation into a found African artifact in West Virginia. This artifact is a banjo, which contains adinkra symbols (Domingue- Glover, personal communication, March 9, 2003). Given the provenance of the item (part of the holdings of a collection of items from enslaved Africans in the area) and the written and oral history related to the matter, additional research is warranted. There are many examples, which indicate that if an Afrocentric thrust was not considered as a possible mode of inquiry, the subject matter would not be earnestly approached (Bankole, 2003, pp. 71–75). This is one among numerous examples of how Afrocentric inquiry leads to interesting ques- tions and information about the legacy of Africans in North America. Handbook of Black Studies Page 16 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. Summary Researching the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora is a significant aspect of Black Studies. Re- searchers are required to grasp the primary characteristics of the subject matter, which include the enslave- ment of African people, the intent of research and scholarship about the enslavement of African people, and the full explication of the lives of African people. There are six areas that have influenced the research and scholarship on the lives of enslaved Africans. The six areas are as follows: (a) the marginalization of the African past of enslaved African people; (b) the challenge of research because of the inability of oppressed persons to leave detailed records of their existence; (c) the interest in the lives of the enslaved developed in the postenslavement period focused on the differences of African and Anglo people, with Africans being viewed as “strange and exotic,” scholars' principal attention on how Blacks could be accepted in White society and White society's need to develop social and legal tools to control and contain enslaved persons; (d) early attempts to debunk the scholarship that defined an entire population as a “problematic”; (e) “breakthrough” literature in researching the lives of enslaved Africans, including the body of work narrating the existence of enslaved African people; and finally, (f) research into the lives of the enslaved person that altered the “racial needs” scholarship and advanced analysis dedicated to locating the enslaved person within the contexts of his or her own history and culture. The latter, an Afrocentric approach, requires the capacity for critical think- ing about the agency of African people and the ability to conceptualize multiple queries about the lives and abilities of enslaved persons. Although the Afrocentric scholarship acknowledges and uses many approaches to the study of the lives of enslaved African people, the impetus toward authentic analysis remains. The lives of enslaved Africans require theoretical assessments that do not assume, as a point of departure, an abject victim status. Researchers participate in the production of new knowledge or the expansion of existing scholarship. Three main scholarly activities of Black Studies researchers have been the full commitment to the development of the discipline of Africalogy—the formal study of Africa, African people, and phenomena from an Afrocentric perspective, the critique of racism and ethnohegemonic scholarship, and the combination of the critique of racism and Africalogical research. When scholars actively review the nature of these concerns, the direction of scholarship contributes to the body of knowledge, which further unfolds the study of the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora. In doing so, scholars ask critical questions and make important decisions about the approach to research. In addition, the scholar analyzes the discourse on “objectivity/subjectivity” in the 20th century. Afrocentric scholars contributed to the advancement of Africans as agents of their own historical ex- Handbook of Black Studies Page 17 of 22 Sage Sage Reference © 2006 by Sage Publications, Inc. periences, rather than marginal players within the historical dramas of persons classified as White. In addition, researching the lives of enslaved Africans in the Diaspora includes three areas of observation: (a) the extended history of African people on the African continent, (b) the African Diaspora experience and the African's response to the Holocaust of Enslavement, and (c) the recent history of Africana people. Each area contains sets of primary and secondary source evidence and links to where evidence can be found. Such evidence is generally organized in the form of academic texts and other scholarly documents (journal arti- cles, monographs). The most referenced topics in historic periodization within such scholarship include the origins of humankind in Africa, African civilizations, Africans in the Americas, and so forth. Changes promoted by Afrocentric scholars and many Black Studies researchers include necessary critiques of racist scholarship and the explication of the African past. Furthermore, the scholarship from the 17th through the 20th century contains distinct ideas about the study of the lives of enslaved Africans. Therefore, researching the enslaved African in the United States includes (a) challenges to, and effects on, the scholarship; (b) understanding inventive paradigmatic scholarly con- cepts; (c) textbooks as evidence related to the lives of enslaved Africans; (d) primary sources; (e) secondary sources; (f) the examination of terms and concepts; and (g) the investigations into Africanisms. An African proverb that can be applied to the constancy of intellectual truth states, The truth that was lost in the morning will come home in the evening. Researching the lives of enslaved Africans has been moved by the urgency to critique racist discourse to get at the truth of the Africans' experience. 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