Author: Dr. Shrout

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In chapter 5 of Exchanging Our Marks Michael Gomez examines the Sierra Leone and The Akan. Right in the beginning Gomez stated, “Africans from Sierra Leone and the Gold Coast, constituting some 28.9 percent of the total import estimate, transferred unique and significant qualities to emergent African American culture and society (pg, 88).” In this chapter, Gomez really place an emphasis on the role of women in Sierra Leone and the Akan societies. Whereas the most of the Europeans tend to be very patriarchal, many African societies tend to be more matriarchal. For example Gomez gives many examples of the roles of women in these West Africans societies. These women exercised not only political power but also holding religious significance.

To me, this reading tied really well into many of the theoretical interventions we’ve learned so far in class. For example the concepts of dual discovery and mutual misunderstanding. Gomez wrote on this chapter, “Westerners label whatever they do not understand about non-Western societies and cultures as secretive and mystical (pg, 94),” Europeans tend to view themselves as the superiors and disregard the non-western societies. Both of my classmates Allison Roberts and Diana Tran stated a similar view in their posts. The Europeans often to view Africans uncivilized savages and discredit their advancements. However, this chapter about the Sierra Leonians and the Akan proves that not only the Africans were civilized, they were able to create complex and sophisticated structures among their societies.

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The Atlantic Slave Trade seems to be a recurring topic of research in this class, regardless author Michael Gomez in his work Exchanging our Country Marks describes the vast amount of ethnic diversity that was present up and down the western coast of Africa that would later lead to the vast ethnic diversity of enslaved peoples in the Americas. He pays particular attention to the complex social structures of the various African peoples and how they were able to interact with each other despite those complexities. Gomez also describes the secret societies that were present in Sierra Leone that seemed to function similar to an organization like our CIA. These organizations took care of matters using very clandestine methods in order to keep secret “activies or information that was best kept out of the public domain” (pg 95).

As my fellow classmate Hunter pointed out Gomez describes these West African societies as egalitarian providing woman with a place in society. Parallels between this work and Brook’s work are easily drawn as they both deal with examples of African Tribes that were perceived as inferior by Europeans at the time accomplishing great things. This is true of both the ecological exploitation of the Mande people and the Secret Societies of the peoples of Sierra Leone.

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In this week’s reading of Michael Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks, Societies and Stools (Chapter 5) the people from Sierra Leone and Akan are put under the microscope as they were heavily pulled from their lands during the Atlantic slave trade. Given the term African slave, the knee-jerk reaction is to coin them all together as black and all alike. However, as this reading pointed out, that is clearly not the case. While Africans had “developed a shared identity” (89), there were many distinct tribes and groups that operated differently from one another. These distinct groups often sparked inter-group hostilities within the ties of the Atlantic slave trade, which led to group rulers renting out land for European groups like the Royal African Company to establish headquarters. The commercialization of their own people was just the surface layer in regards to the people of Sierra Leone.

The biggest concept was the people of Sierra Leone’s vast and intricate number of societies that were created among the different ethnic groups. It was important to note that “ethnicity was clearly operative for many of the principal groups” (89). The people formed their own strength as a society and had great political strength. The African people had a societal structure among tribes that far surpassed many European structures. These individual societies were very different, as women had roles of leadership and to them it was common. The community was often run by women as they were strong and exercised political power “on their own”. (93) It is important to note the societies willingness to give power over to women, where in other countries that is a subject where the bullet has yet to be bitten. Gomez even goes into detail about how because the women were such good agricultural farmers that in North America it transferred over as they cultivated rice primarily. (93) The importance of female leadership is stated very well by Kyle Kelsay, as he explains it to be the voice in both religion and community.

In the matters of religion that is where the Akans come in. They played a heavy role in death and the afterlife and their beliefs in where there ancestors would carry on. They carried on the belief in spiritual nature of human beings and the ancestral world. So although many would like to clump Africans slaves together as unintelligent and simply used as a labor force commodity. The people of Sierra Leone and Akan, clearly show that they were far more capable than what Europeans painted them out to be as they established many secret societies and strong roots of religion. Many of which did transfer across the Atlantic through the slave trade, although many were slightly altered due to the new conditions and freedoms allowed.

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The chapter opens by giving some basic information about the people of Sierrea leone, especially taking time to discuss social structures. The author then moves on to discuss the background of the people in the area in which they bring up the mande speaking people, who were discussed in past readings. After this, the author goes into discussions about the interactions of these people with Europeans while also bringing up slavery.

One thing that the Author brings up that I found absolutely fascinating is the talk about African religion in the area. The author talks about the local creation myth which I thought was very interesting. Allison pointed out in her post that many portray African cultures as being primitive. While she focuses on social structures in her post, I feel that the same can be said about Religous customs and beliefs. That often African societies are portrayed as being simple or less “civilized” but that by them having a complex set of beliefs this in a way goes against what is commonly thought. This article in a way reminded me of the Chapter 6 readings in the Atlantic world. It reminded me because of the maroon towns that were mentioned in it. These both showed how despite what people of the time thought about Native Americans or Africans, that they were in fact not primitive and could be capable of the same things that Europeans were capable of accomplishing?

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Michael Gomez’s book Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South discusses the transatlantic slave trade and how individuals from various parts of Africa were reduced to one identity in the South of the United States. One of the ideas that Gomez proves is when he shows that there is a connection between the African communities in America and their origins in Africa. The African communities had no choice but to sacrifice their individuality to only be generalized in America. Gomez shows how politics, social interactions, and religions changed for enslaved people. The main argument in Michael Gomez’s book is despite being “erased,” past cultures can be identified through culture and social interactions.
The idea of seeing past societies in the American slave culture is shown in “Chapter Five.” The idea of communities is very apparent throughout the chapter. In the beginning, Gomez talks about the people in the Sierra Leone and Gold Coast areas. The author gives a background about their cultures and societies in order to understand the enslaved people’s experiences. The political structures found in their societies followed them to the other country across the ocean. One aspect that stayed within the enslaved culture was the female leadership roles. Like mentioned in “Chapter Six” of The Atlantic Trade, young men and children were captured and traded the most due to their health and being able to live through months at sea (Egerton et al, 199). In Gomez’s book, he argues women were captured as slaves because they had skills as farmers as well as their cultivation as mentioned by Viktoriya Shalunova. Also, these female leadership roles are seen in the Sandogo societies (Gomez, 96). This idea is not new to just the slave trade. Generalizations of mass groups of native people have been undergoing that for centuries. One popular example is Native Americans, and despite being vastly different among one another, colonists generalized them as just the same, calling them simply as “Indians”. Spaniards also did this to the many different races in South America as well.

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In chapter 5 of “Exchanging our country marks” Michael Gomez analyzes societal and political structures of Sierra Leonians prior to the slave trade, and their influence on early African American practices in America. Conflict with neighboring communities also directly influenced the populations that would be involved in the African diaspora and customs that would find their way to colonial America. Akan speakers from the southern half of the Gold Coast shared traits more similar than the diverse populations in Sierra Leone and accounted for the majority of Gold Coast captives sold into the slave trade. Sierra Leonians and Gold Coast Akan speakers were sold strategically once commodified in the Atlantic slave trade. Demand for labor fluctuated in the Americas, and Akan speakers from the Gold Coast were participants in the slave trade as well as victims. The Asante Empire in Africa during the 18^th century were integrated into the Atlantic slave trade and sold both Sierra Leonians and Akan peoples from the gold coast. Under the Asante Empire previously egalitarian societies became patriarchal and traditional agricultural and hunting practices were replaced with seemingly more stable subsistence farming. Both Akan speakers and Sierra Leonians were held in high regard, at least in terms of production, due to their knowledge of, “rice, indigo, and cotton production.” (Gomez 104) Hunter Loya is correct when he writes, “These societies were comparable to European powers in their political organization.” Whether unified loosely by customs such as Sierra Leone, or under a more centralized authority such as the Akan people, these groups had complicated inter-communal relations that affected their response to expanding European colonization. A complex spiritual understanding of human relations to the earth, equal representation in their given societies and secrecy regarding, “the affairs of the organization,” were some of the influences the aforementioned African populations had once they reached destinations such as South Carolina, Georgia, and the West Indies.

-Vince Tursini

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The author attempts to essentially access a degree of power among the matriarchies that developed among West African societies. In an area manifested in Islamic-teaching assessments of socialized hierarchy that came from the Sahara, mixed with mercantile facilitations in the transatlantic slave trade, it becomes very circumstantial to understand how women with more social power or form of prestige were able to come around within their own respective hegemonies. Women in groups such as the Bundu and Sande of Sierra Leone contained their own pyramidal structure of social status and wealth (pg. 95, Societies and Stools). Wives and daughters were highly regarded among these societies spiritually, which instituted the way they reciprocated among marriage proposals.

I find this chapter in Michael A. Gomez’s Exchanging Our Country Marks to hold a lot of ambiguity to the account of women’s importance in these revolving societies. The Poro men groups in Sierra Leone, for instance, have their ways in personifying women’s lively power on earth to that of nature itself, like when they prescribe to shamanic rituals carried out by Senufo women who are the spiritual mediators. As my colleague Viktoriya mentioned in her post, most women who ended up in power were among skilled workers and crop farmers in these early settlements. These kind of women possessed skills at an almost equal pace to that of enslaved men, and led political roles acceptably within their own domain of social prowess, which sometimes evolved into a sense of prestige in the West African river systems of this time.

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At the very beginning of chapter 5, Michael Gomez states that 29 percent of the total Africans imported as slaves were taken from the Sierra Leone and Gold Coast. These peoples had very complex social structures and lived in polities and in addition to this had egalitarian tendencies as well. Gomez analyzes the social structures of the people of the Sierra Leone and Gold Coast, giving us context for the experiences that these people had while brought over as slaves to the Americas, (Gomez, 88). The notion of gender organization by gender as something that persisted after a transition into slavery gives us insight into how deeply rooted and powerful these social and political structures were.
Viktoriya Shalunova writes about this in her response: “In some of these societies women were in leadership roles. The capturing and enslaving of women may have been in consequence to the fact that they were often skilled farmers in cotton and other crops, also possessing many skills, and despite their lower physical capabilities then men, they were still incredibly useful to the cultivation of American crops.” These societies were comparable to European powers in their political organization. This is significant because while Europeans have naval exploration as a way of commanding the spaces around them, African peoples such as the Sierra Leone have not been considered as comparable. The widespread discussion about African societies in lower level education at the time when European demand for slavery increased still does not meet up with the current consensus in the field of Atlantic history. These political systems of the Sierra Leone are significant because they offer us a unique view of how these enslaved peoples operated under oppression.

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Chapter five of Michael A. Gomen’s book, “Exchanging our Country Marks,” discusses the different societies of Sierra Leone and the gold coast, which contributed to the trade of almost 29% of African slaves into the Americas. The Chapter examines the political and social structures of these individual societies and how they may have transferred the same structures across the Atlantic into the “New World”, during the Atlantic slave trade. In some of these societies women were in leadership roles. The capturing and enslaving of women may have been in consequence to the fact that they were often skilled farmers in cotton and other crops, also possessing many skills, and despite their lower physical capabilities then men, they were still incredibly useful to the cultivation of American crops. The Political systems of Sierra Leone were incredibly complex, comparable to European societies at the time. Yet, instead of one individual political system, these tribes were a part of many political parts to a whole who came together in order to seek alliances.

In Enrique Angulo’s post regarding Treacherous places he states, “These expeditions were established on the idea that travelling alongside the rivers of the African continent and the “New World” would prove to be lucrative as well as provide the opportunity for exploration.” The Europeans based their knowledge of rivers on the African rivers they had encountered. Yet, when they came to the Americas, there rivers were quite different. One example of river systems being a site of trade and wealth in Africa is when Gomen states in Chapter five, “Europeans dealt directly with hinterland groups arriving in the Rio Nunez- Rio Pongas area, a site featuring the convergence of several rivers and where, for example, the Fulbe directed their slave caravans.” Water ways where large trade avenues for Africans where moving slaves and other commodities.

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