Session Abstract

This panel examines how African-born individuals have shaped slave resistance and rebellions in Cuba and Jamaica from seventeenth century to the nineteenth century. The panel aims to understand how men and women of various African nations, pan-ethnic groups or groups of provenance--who were identified in different contexts as Yoruba, Akan, Congos, Lucumis, and Carabalis--rebuilt their identities by organizing rebellions and creating several other forms of association. By exploring archival documents on cabildos de nación and slave rebellions in Cuba (Banes uprising) and Jamaica (the so-called Tacky's revolt and the First Maroon War) the papers bring to light new elements to understand how African identities were maintained and recreated on Caribbean soil, very often challenging and subverting Spanish and British hegemony.