The Akan Diaspora in the Americas

324 Pages·2010·1.13 MB·English

by  Kwasi Konadu

The Akan Diaspora in the Americas
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The Akan Diaspora
in the Americas
Kwasi Konadu
1

2010
1

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Konadu, Kwasi.
The Akan diaspora in the Americas / Kwasi Konadu.
p. cm.
Includes index.
ISBN 978-0-19-539064-3
1. Akan (African people)—America—History. 2. Akan (African people)—Migrations. 3. America—
Ethnic relations. 4. African diaspora. 5. Akan (African people)—Social conditions. 6. Akan (African
people)—Social life and customs. 7. Africa, West—Social life and customs. I. Title.
E29.A43K66 2010
305.896'3385—dc22 2009022954
9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
O ne proverb (in translation) says that A sase (Earth) is a market
where we come to do our transactions in life, but spirit is our
home. I dedicated this book to all of the Africans who forcibly
crossed temporal waters to the Americas and found resolve in the
spiritual side of those cultural transactions.
I also dedicate this book to our daughter, Yaa Sunkwa Akomaa.
May you walk the path to the river and fi nd spiritual-temporal
balance in all that you say and do.
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Mpaeε (Libation) and
Acknowledgments
Onyankopɔn, Asase Yaa, abosompem, meda mo ase bebree. Na monim sε mere-
sua; momma menhu . To my family in Ghana, Jamaica, and North America,
I thank you for your continued support and understanding. I am especially
grateful to Ronela (Amma), Bria (Abena), and Yaa for everything. To Nana
Kwaku Sakyi, Nana Kwabena Brown, Kwasi Bempong, Obadele (Kwame)
Kambon, Leslie Alexander, Solwazi and Fabiane, Kofi Sakyi, and wɔfa Kwasi
Odaaku, thank you for your encouragement and support. Both Dr. James
Turner and Dr. Kweku Agyeman have been and continue to be important
elders in my intellectual life, and here I want to record my deepest thanks.
T his research would not have been possible without the pioneering work
done by so many writers, whose interpretations I attempt to engage, and by
“local” historians in Ghana who collected and wrote histories—from the late
nineteenth century to the 1970s—of persons and communities we would
otherwise never have encountered. In this regard, the effort to collect oral
histories across a nascent Ghanaian landscape by the late Kwame Daaku
has been a key contribution and a source of inspiration. Though those oral
histories should be read critically, they have provided the archaeologist a
path to sites of cultural and historical value, provided the historian a window
through which to envision how Akan societies and culture moved through
Akan history, and confi rmed some of the fi ndings of both modes of
inquiry.
I began this project in 2001. Since then, several scholars have kindly
answered questions about sources, made suggestions, and even provided
copies of source materials. To them all, I say thank you once more. To Nancy
Toff at Oxford University Press, I thank you for your support of this project
and the expertise of your staff. I am also greatly indebted to friends and col-
leagues who assisted with translations and to the staff of repositories in
Europe, Ghana, the Caribbean, and North America. Your contributions
have helped to increase the book’s value. The usual disclaimers apply.
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Contents
Drum Lyric to River Tanɔ—The Path Crosses the River xi
Maps xiii
1 On Diaspora and the Akan in the Americas 3
2 Quest for the River, Creation of the Path: Akan Cultural
Development to the Sixteenth Century 27
3 History and Meaning in Akan Societies, 1500–1800 55
4 “The Most Unruly”: The Akan in Danish and Dutch America 93
5 The Antelope (A dowa ) and the Elephant (E sono ): The Akan
in the British Caribbean 122
6 “All of the Coromantee Country”: The Akan Diaspora
in North America 162
7 Diaspora Discourses: Akan Spiritual Praxis and
the Claims of Cultural Identity 202
Glossary 237
Notes 241
Index 283