Comment

Comment by Neil Turner on July 6, 2014 at 12:05pm

An important yet overlooked event in the African Diaspora:

It is generally well-known that the first martyrs to lay down their lives for the abolition of slavery were the brave freedom fighters of the Haitian Revolution led by Toussaint l’Overture in 1791.

It is also generally well-known that the white Presbyterian minister, Elijah Parish Lovejoy was the first martyr to sacrifice his life for the abolishment of slavery in the United States in 1837.

However, it is not generally known that in Brazil, four men, Luiz Gonzaga, João de Deus, Lucas Dantas, and Manuel Faustino were sent to the gallows for their participation in an insurrection to free the slaves and bring democracy to Brazil in 1798.

This event constitutes an important, yet overlooked link in the history of the fight for freedom, the abolishment of slavery, and the African Diaspora in the Western hemisphere.

For more information see:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mDgAQdCbRY

www.perspectivesinanthropology.wordpress.com

Comments are welcome.

Comment by Louise de la Gorgendiere on April 21, 2014 at 9:03pm

Dear Neil

Welcome to our forum!

I am delighted to read about your research and potential contributions about scholarship on the African Diaspora in Brazil. perhaps with your inputs we will generate some discussion with this group forum, which has been dormant for quite some time. Like you, I have also been caught up with other matters, but I am happy to engage and hope others will as well.

With all good wishes
Louise

Comment by Neil Turner on April 21, 2014 at 3:00pm

Hello Louise and fellow members,

I have been a member of OAC since 2009. In the initial years, I was a much more active member but became terribly busy with my ethnographic fieldwork here in Brazil.  I have been living and working in Brazil for the past seven years and my wife is Baiana. As you know, the nature of research can often take us into directions we hardly expect and my research of the Baiano people of Bahia led me to the African Diaspora.

Recently, I contacted Keith to advise him of my new interests and research and asked if there were a forum to present some of my findings.  He suggested the forums or the blogs.  However, I was particularly happy to see that there also exists a group and have recently joined.

It is my intention to present a series of articles, cultural and historical, that have been locked away behind the wall of the Portuguese language barrier - literature that has never been translated into the English language. My associations with Brazilian anthropologists, historians and filmmakers has provided me with a tremendous amount of scholarship concerning the African Diaspora. I would like to present some of these selected findings for review and/or discussion.

Thank you.

Comment by Sheyma Buali on September 24, 2010 at 12:18pm

London anthropologists: please take a look at the events page: film screening: Living with the Invisibles followed by Q&A with Philip Hermans http://openanthcoop.ning.com/events/event/listUserEvents?user=0gos4...

Comment by Louise de la Gorgendiere on June 30, 2009 at 5:15pm

Hello to new Members -

If you have time, it would be great if you would provide a brief post of your interest or experience in African diaspora studies and research. That way, we might get a new discussion started here...

Louise