Kingship

For scholars of the African Diaspora in the Americas, “kingship” is a key concept. Yet, this translation of African and African-descended leaders as “kings” (and “queens”) of maroon settlements, cabildos, or other institutions in the Americas obscures key features of royalism in Africa, features best observed through the study of African lexicons of leadership preceding and coexisting with the contingent practice of kingship in Africa. Taking vocabulary from West Central Africa, Saint Domingue, a Brazilian mocambo (Palmares), and Cuban cabildos, this paper explores the practice of “kingship” in African and American contexts in the Atlantic era.