Traces
of Africa: My Visit to Cartegena
African
Contributions to the New World in a Spanish Colonial City.
By
Emily Monroy
In January I took a trip to the city of Cartagena, Colombia. During
my stay there a friend wanted me to meet one of her former professors,
but our plan was foiled by a strike going on at the university. I
had to laugh at the incident; it reminded me of the many strikes I’d
encountered on visits to Italy. (Strikes, soccer, beauty contests
and tacky religious statues are among the things for which Italians
and Colombians seem to share a passion.)
I mentioned this to an Italian-Canadian friend at work. He however
insisted the people of Colombia were “Indians.” I explained
in response that while most Colombians have some Amerindian ancestry,
native traditions have largely disappeared from that country. (In
contrast, Indian culture is very much alive in other South American
nations like Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.) Furthermore, if there is
any non-European influence at all in Cartagena, it is African, not
Indian.
Cartagena lies on Colombia’s northern coast along the Caribbean
Sea. A beautiful city with colonial architecture and lovely beaches,
it draws thousands of tourists every year. When Spain ruled Colombia,
Cartagena served as a gateway to the rest of South America.
In his autobiography Stranger in Their Midst, Belgian sociologist
Pierre van den Berghe described Cartagena as “perhaps the most
African city in the Spanish Americas” The African presence was
evident to me in the appearance of the city’s people, even though
according to the Latin American color scheme most seemed to be mulatto
rather than Black. This was quite different from Colombia’s capital
Bogot·, where many people had Amerindian features. (A personal
observation on the people of Cartagena: just as van den Berghe said
in his autobiography that the Peruvian Andes were probably the only
place on earth where he could reconcile himself with celibacy, my
visit to Cartagena was the first time in a long while that I was tempted
to alter my current celibate state; the men there were almost uniformly
handsome and charming.)
____________________________
A beautiful city with colonial architecture and lovely beaches,
it draws thousands of tourists every year.
____________________________
But Africa’s presence in Cartagena went far beyond the physical.
It was apparent in the culture as well: the music, the dancing, and
other things. For example, many women wore their hair in cornrows,
a style of braiding that originated in Africa and is also common in
some of the Caribbean islands. (By the way, you don’t have to
be Black to wear cornrows; during my stay in Cartagena a very nice
young girl put cornrows in my hair for a mere $20.) I also had the
pleasure of listening to some very African-sounding music – with
emphasis on the drums – and watching a dance, performed very
skillfully by two little girls and a boy, that could have come straight
out of Africa.
Though the African contribution to Latin American history and culture
has often been overlooked, Blacks were present from the very beginning
of Spain and Portugal’s conquest of the region. Several Blacks
are believed to have accompanied Christopher Columbus on his voyages.
Others played a role in helping the Spaniards establish settlements
in the New World. In many cases, the first Blacks who went to the
Americas had been born or had lived in Iberia (Spain and Portugal)
and were more or less Westernized in terms of religion, language and
culture. However, the vast majority of Blacks who came to Latin America
did so as slaves transported directly from Africa. There in the New
World they interbred with Whites: as in North America and the Caribbean,
White male-Black female unions were a frequent combination, especially
on slave plantations. Africans also formed relationships with Indians,
producing a mixed group of people known as zambos. Many Black men
were motivated to pair off with Indian women because the resulting
children, unlike those of pure African descent, would not be born
into slavery.
____________________________
Several Blacks are believed to have
accompanied
Christopher Columbus on his voyages.
____________________________
Given this history, it’s not surprising to find large groups
of African-descended people (and by “African-descended”
I mean anyone with Black ancestry, mulattoes and zambos as well) in
various parts of Latin America. These include the northern coasts
of Colombia and Venezuela; the western parts of Colombia, Peru and
Ecuador; northeastern Brazil; Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican
Republic; and the Caribbean coast of Central America. In addition,
individuals of African origin formed a large percentage of the populations
of Uruguay and southern Brazil until the late nineteenth and early
twentieth centuries, when they were displaced by massive waves of
immigrants from Europe.
Of course people of African descent also make up a considerable portion
of the United States’ population. But the histories of Blacks
in the US and Latin America diverge substantially in one respect.
As Pierre van den Berghe explains in his book Race and Racism, while
Blacks in the former basically lost their original culture, African
customs still persist in the latter region. For instance, rituals
from Africa play an important role in the Santeria and macumba sects
of Cuba and Brazil, respectively. And I definitely saw traces of Africa
on my visit to Cartagena.
All this being said, I still consider Cartagena (and Latin America
in general) to be Western first and foremost. In going to Cartagena
I had no feeling of entering non-Western territory as I did to some
extent when I visited Cape Dorset in the Canadian Arctic. Cartagena
in fact reminded me in many ways of Palermo, Sicily, also a port city.
Still, if you want to enjoy the African experience in Latin America,
Cartagena may be the place to go.
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Emily
Monroy is a professional translator and is of Irish, Italian and
Norwegian descent. Born in Windsor, Ontario, she now resides in
Toronto. Her articles have appeared in several publications, including
Interracial Voice, Cats Canada, and Urban Mozaik. She welcomes
feedback on her articles.You can contact Emily at emonroy@beachestoronto.com
This
article was originally published in Interracial Voice Magazine. |
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