Cannibals, witches, and slave traders in the Atlantic world

William and Mary Quarterly

Volumn 60, Issue 2, 2003, Pages 273-294

  Thornton, John ^a  

^a NONE

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 24944548504     PISSN: 00435597     EISSN: 1933-769     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/3491764     Document Type: Review

References (34)

1. For an earlier version of the same analysis, see Piersen, "White Cannibals, Black Martyrs: Fear, Depression, and Religious Faith as Causes of Suicide among New Slaves," Journal of Negro History, 62 (1977), 147-59
2. For some interesting recent work in Africa, see Rosalind Shaw, Memories of the Slave Trade: Ritual and the Historical Imagination in Sierra Leone (Chicago and London, 2002)
3. For Kongo, see Wyatt MacGaffey, Modern Kongo Prophets: Religion in a Plural Society (Bloomington, 1983)
4. For a broader application to contemporary Africa see Peter Geschiere, The Modernity of Witchcraft: Politics and the Occult in Postcolonial Africa (Charlottesville, 1997)
5. for other parts of Angola and West Central Africa over a longer historical time, see Linda M. Heywood, "Towards an Understanding of Modern Political Ideology in Africa: The Case of the Ovimbundu of Angola," Journal of Modern African Studies, 36 (1998), 138-67
6. For the history and composition of the dictionary, see François Bontinck, "Le vocabularium Latinum, Hispanicum et congense: nouvelle notes marginales," Annales Aequatoria, 1 (1980), 529-35
7. For the various categories of tales in Kikongo, see the Kongolese Angolan anthropologist António Fonseca, Sobre os Kikongos de Angola (Lisbon, 1984), 85-87
8. Marcellino d'Atri, "Giornate Apostoliche fatte da me ...," in Carlo Toso, ed., L'anarchia congolese ne sec. XVII: La Relazione inedita de Marcellino d'Atri (Genoa, 1984), 138-39
9. For a fuller linking of this episode to witchcraft, see Thornton, The Kongolese Saint Anthony: Dona Beatriz Kimpa Vita and the Antonian Movement, 1684-1706 (Cambridge, 1998), 42-44
10. Makondekwa, "Ntsaasuka yenndongoka zamwisi-Koongo [The Upbringing and Education of a Kongo Child]," 3:17 (pp. 70-71 translation of Hazel Carter)
11. Bockie, Death and the Invisible Powers: The World of Kongo Belief (Bloomington, Ind., 1993), 43-47
12. Angel Valtierra, De Instauranda aethiopum salute: El mundo de la esclavitud negra en America (Bogotá, 1956), 107, a modern edition of Sandoval (Madrid, 1627)
13. Munzele, Bakulu Bèto ye Dièla Diâu, 9
14. For modern anthropological treatments of witchcraft and its connections to health, see MacGaffey, Religion and Society in Central Africa: The BaKongo of Lower Zaire (Chicago, 1986)
15. and John M. Janzen, The Quest for Therapy in Lower Zaire (Berkeley, 1978)
16. As recorded in a memorial composed in the court of José I, "Memoria de como vieo a nossa christianidade de Portugal ... com o Principe do Congo D. Affonso, no anno de 1494," Jan. 1, 1782, printed from a copy made in 1844 by Fr. Francisco das Necessidades in "Factos memoraveis da História de Angola," Boletim official do Governo Geral da provincia de Angola, No. 643 (1858), 3
17. for more background, see Thornton, Kongolese Saint Anthony, 192-93
18. For a fuller discussion of this imagery and its political significance, see Thornton, "'I Serve the King of Congo': African Political Ideology and the Haitian Revolution," Journal of World History, 4 (1993), 187-99
19. A convenient, if somewhat dated, history of these events is David Birmingham, Trade and Conflict in Angola: The Mbundu and their Neighbours under the Influence of the Portuguese, 1483-1790 (Oxford, 1966), 42-104
20. They were originally seen as a wandering ethnic group from the far interior of West Central Africa, based on modern tradition; see Miller, Kings and Kinsmen: The Imbangala Impact on the Mbundu of Angola (Oxford, 1976)
21. Miller, Way of Death, 28, 32, subsequently modified this position to see them as originating in the central highlands of Angola
22. For explanation of the traditions as they relate to migration and another plea for their central highlands origin, see Thornton, "Lunda Expansion to the West: Causes and Consequences, 1680-1852," Zambia Journal of History, 1 (1980), 1-16
23. Their name, Imbangala or Isinde, is the plural of Kimbangala or Kisinde, and these class prefixes generally are used to describe characteristics of people rather than ethnic membership in Kimbundu. See the discussion of the class in Amandus Johnson, Mbundu (Kimbundu) English-Portuguese Dictionary, with Grammar and Syntax (Philadelphia, 1930), 13-15
24. The best account of this period is Beatrix Heintze, "Das Ende des unabhängigen Staates Ndongo (Angola): Neue Chronologie und Interpretation," Paideuma, 27 (1981), 197-273
25. Miller, "Requiem for the Jagas," Cahiers d'études africaines, 13, no.49 (1973), 121-49
26. Francesco Pacconio, Gentio de Angola sufficiemente instruido nos mysterios de nossa-Santa Fé, ed. António do Couto (Lisbon, 1642)
27. Miller, Kings and Kinsmen, 176-257, still provides the best general description of Imbangala life in the mid-17th century
28. Thornton, "Religious and Ceremonial Life in the Kongo and Mbundu Areas, 1500-1700," in Heywood, ed., Central Africans and Cultural Transformation in the American Diaspora (Cambridge, 2001), 71-90
29. Cadornega, História geral das guerras angolanas, 3:223
30. For a detailed overview of the causes and course of the civil wars, see Thornton, The Kingdom of Kongo: Civil War and Transition, 1641-1718 (Madison, 1983)
31. For a description of the relation between the wars in Kongo and the slave trade, see Thornton, "African Dimensions of the Stono Rebellion," American Historical Review, 96 (1991), 1101-13, and "'I Serve the King of Congo.'"
32. For estimates and assessments of damage, see Thornton, "As guerras civis no Congo e o tráfico de escravos: a história e a demografia de 1718 a 1844 revisitadas," Estudos Afro-Asiáticos, 32 (1997), 55-74
33. and Miller, "Central Africa during the Era of the Slave Trade," in Heywood, ed., Central Africans and Cultural Transformations in the American Diaspora, 55-68
34. For a sober look at the role of witchcraft in pre-revolutionary Haiti, see Geggus, "Haitian Voodoo in the Eighteenth Century: Language, Culture, Resistance," Jahrbuch für Geschichte von Staat, Wirtschaft und Gesellschaft Lateinamerikas, 28 (1991), 24-32