Short Essay One - Thornton

           

            The idea that African culture was able to maintain itself and then continue to thrive in a new environment given all of the hardships that it had to overcome is a difficult one to grasp.  However, John Thornton's Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlantic World, 1400-1800 tackles the theory with ample evidence that many aspects of the African culture not only survived the arduous journey, but was able to adapt to its new surroundings. 

            Thornton's idea of African culture within Africa revolves around a people of cultural diversity that were completely self sustaining prior to European contact.  There was a complex structure inside of Africa that was the home to many diverse groups of people who each possessed unique cultural traits.  Language was so diverse in Africa, that a lingua franca was developed (Mandinga and Yoruba for example) to be able to communicate when interacting cross culturally (Thornton, 188-190).  Religious culture was vibrant with the concept of interpreting revelations through various means, yet was unique with the practices of augury or divination (235-238).  Politically, Africa was diverse with an adherence to a hierarchy with kings or rulers, where war and the concept of slavery was prevalent.  Thornton mentions that kinship and family structure details are fairly uncertain, but matrilineal and bilateral systems were used within the elite classes (Thornton, 207).  The material world in Africa (clothing, hair styles, tools, weaponry, musical instruments...etc) added to the unique flare within the African culture.  Thornton argues that the African culture not only survived the extrication from Africa, but was transmitted, adapted, and maintained in the New World, developing into a more homogenous culture compared to the more diverse African background (Thornton, 206). 

            Thornton suggests that the African culture was maintained in the New World through the idea that the Africans already had experience with intercommunication and cross-cultural contact back in Africa's diverse regional zones (Thornton, 204).  Thornton points out several reason that African culture was able to be maintained: national blocs, intermarriage, visiting each other, similar shipping patterns of slave ships, funeral gatherings, and work interactions (Thornton, 201-202, 228).  African culture was easier to maintain in certain environments, especially those where the owners would promote small self sustaining communities, or in the case of the French Caribbean, the system of labor dubbed, the "Fernambuco system" (Thornton, 174, 196). 

            African culture needed to adapt itself to the changing environment and situation.  A new lingua franca developed as communication in the new world was necessary (Thornton, 212).  Religion was able to undergo a form of Syncretism where it was seen fit as the revelation ideology found similarities in Christianity and an African Christianity developed (Thornton, 235).  Political mock offices were established in some situations, allowing some form of hierarchy to maintain itself (Thornton, 202).  The most important factor in the transmission of African culture to the New World, was the slaves' particular situation into what was "allowed." 

            According to Thornton, there were several commonalities and differences between the culture in Africa and the new Afro-American culture that emerged in the New World.  An important common aspect was the establishment of a lingua franca to be able to intercommunicate.  Africa's diverse linguistic heritage necessitating a lingua franca for cross-cultural contact paved the way for similarities in forming a new Creole language for communication in the New World.  Religion was a more complicated matter, but nonetheless a new  cosmology termed the "Afro-American Sacred Cosmos" developed in the New World (Thornton, 263).  Interestingly, Thornton mentions the reestablishment of an African military culture that was necessary to develop among runaways that formed their own villages.  These villages needed military defense, and slaves who were former warriors provided it (Thornton, 293).  Although the mock political offices that were developed to maintain a sense of African hierarchy were established in the New World, they did not carry over the same power as they once had on the African continent. 

            Thornton argues that African culture survived into the New World and was able to maintain and adapt itself given its certain situation.  Runaway villages had the most freedom, yet had to concern themselves over defense.  Some slave conditions allowed for free time with varying conditions, giving them the opportunity to converse and congregate with each other allowing preservation of culture.  If the original African culture was not as diverse as it had been, who knows if the transmission and updating would have been as successful.