Introduction: The Atlantic, Its Migrations, And Their Scholars

Abstract

Black Atlantic—a concise, easily citable label—gained sudden prominence with the publication of Paul Gilroy's 1993 book, which was subtitled Modernity and Double Consciousness and thus fit well into the Cultural Studies surge of that decade. Migrations in the many-colored Atlantic World were interdependent, and Creole societies emerged from adaptations from cultural backgrounds as widely diverse as Scots and Mocambiques, or Christians, Animists, and Muslims. A periodization that acknowledges changes and differentiation within the Black Atlantic shows several distinct eras. In a fourth, segmented phase, of the Black or interactive Black-White Atlantic, major change continued. The slave trade was ended in a series of steps that continued until the 1870s. The first four decades of the twentieth century mark a further period of transition in the Black Atlantic. New and distinct migration regions emerged: Workers and soldiers moved from the African colonies to the metropoles of Britain and France. Keywords:African; Atlantic World; Black Atlantic; Christians; Creole Societies; Mocambiques; slave trade