Enslavement transferred complete African ontological and social systems to the Americas

Evidence

At the very same moment European labor was being thrown off the land and herded into a newly formed industrial order, Robinson argues, African labor was being drawn into the orbit of the world system through the transatlantic slave trade. European civilization, either through feudalism or the nascent industrial order, did not simply penetrate African village culture. To understand the dialectic of African resistance to enslavement and exploitation, in other words, we need to look outside the orbit of capitalism—we need to look West and Central African culture. Robinson observes, “Marx had not realized fully that the cargoes of laborers also contained African cultures, critical mixes and admixtures of language and thought, of cosmology and metaphysics, of habits, beliefs, and morality. These were the actual terms of their humanity. These cargoes, then, did not consist of intellectual isolates or deculturated Blacks—men, women, and children separated from their previous universe. African labor brought the past with it, a past that had produced it and settled on it the first elements of consciousness and comprehension” (121). — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 20 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

As both this and the seventh chapter attempt to demonstrate, the record of resistance for four centuries or more, from Nueva Espana to Nyasaland, leaves in no doubt the specifically African character of those struggles. Resistances were formed through the meanings that Africans brought to the New World as their cultural possession; meanings sufficiently distinct from the foundations of Western ideas as to be remarked upon over and over by the European witnesses of their manifestations; meanings enduring and powerful enough to survive slavery to become the basis of an opposition to it. — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 119 (#corroborates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Planters’ integration practices inadvertently sustained African communities and homeland ties among slaves; The Portuguese era uniquely shaped African ethnic influence in the Americas — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 561; The Black radical tradition springs from a conserved African worldview under enslavement (+5 more)

Related

• African slaves carried their full cultures and consciousness into the New World (similarity 0.92)
• Slaves maintained an autonomous culture and consciousness apart from their rulers (similarity 0.91)
• African culture formed a shared shield against dehumanization in the New World (similarity 0.90)
• Enslaved Africans carried their cultures and consciousness into slavery, contradicting primitive accumulation (similarity 0.90)
• Enslaved Africans carried intact cultural systems, not deculturated minds, into slavery (similarity 0.89)
• African cultural meanings survived slavery and grounded resistance (similarity 0.89)
• Enslaved Africans carried complete cultural systems across the Atlantic (similarity 0.88)
• Enslaved Africans carried coherent cultures into the New World, not merely labor. (similarity 0.88)
• New World Africans favored spiritual preservation over violent confrontation (similarity 0.88)
• Slaves’ West and Central African roots shaped New World resistance to slavery. (similarity 0.87)
• African heritage, not slavery, defined the Black condition (similarity 0.86)
• Forced transport across the Atlantic made the colony the Africans’ new birthplace (similarity 0.85)
• Black mass culture evolved from resistance to slavery and a racial social order (similarity 0.85)
• Shared African culture, not tribal origin, is what resisted European dehumanization (similarity 0.85)
• African ontological and cosmological systems transferred intact with enslaved labor (similarity 0.85)

Broader Connections

• African slaves carried their full cultures and consciousness into the New World #corroborates (0.90) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 20
• The Black radical tradition springs from a conserved African worldview under enslavement #corroborates (0.85)
• African cultural meanings survived slavery and grounded resistance #corroborates (0.80) — Cedric J. Robinson, Black Marxism_ The Making of the Black…, 119
• Slaves maintained an autonomous culture and consciousness apart from their rulers #expands (0.65)
• African culture formed a shared shield against dehumanization in the New World #expands (0.60)
• Western ontology and African vitalogy can engage in reciprocal dialogue #expands (0.50)