ABSTRACT
With its waters connecting the continents of Europe, Africa, North America, and South America, the Atlantic Ocean has facilitated a sustained movement and interaction among the peoples of these disparate lands. This chapter addresses the large question of the degree to which African-born slaves were able to reestablish and maintain ethnic ties and their ethnicity in the slave societies of the Americas. It argues that ethnicity informed spousal choices and that ethnic distinctions remained an important and enduring part of African life in the Americas. Whatever the size of the African population, it is certain that its members established a network of relationships based narrowly on their ethnicity but ultimately also on their phenotype and shared condition of servitude. Sterling Stuckey has observed that slavery created a cultural "oneness" or a common identity among blacks in North America. Ethnic ties, identities, and loyalties began to break down once the slave communities of the Americas became dominated by creoles.
