RICE, RESISTANCE, AND FORCED TRANSATLANTIC COMMUNITIES: (RE)ENVISIONING THE AFRICAN DIASPORA IN LOW COUNTRY GEORGIA, 1750-1800

Abstract

[T]he Negro business is great object with us, it is to the Trade of this country, as the Soul to the Body, and without it no House can gain proper stability, the planter will as far as in his power sacrifice everything to attain [N]egroes and those who have the disposal of them, will always command their Crops, which is everything to Merchant; the prices with us are tempting to the adventurer, until importation takes place directly from the Coast, many will be sent in from the West Indies ... but this is not the [channel] we would wish to attain them though--tis from the Coast only we wish to receive them. --Joseph Clay, Savannah Merchant. (1) On 27 July 1768 the Georgia Gazette posted an advertisement from John Mullryne for two runaway enslaved Africans, Carolina and John. Both men had run away from the Thunderbolt province in Savannah. Carolina, newly imported African from the Guiney Country, had run away several times before and bore the mark of an old offender. (2) His co-conspirator John, a mulatto who spoke bad French, may have been forced labor immigrant who came to Savannah through the inter-Atlantic trade with the French Caribbean. (3) Both John and Carolina were very keen men whom Mullryne believed could pretend to be free. (4) Georgia's colonial slave codes were the main reasons enslaved Africans and mixed-race people of color would pretend to be free. The colony's 1765 slave code granted several citizenship privileges to immigrating free people of color and provided them measure of independence. The development of statutory restrictions on the free black and mixed race population evolved slowly in the years following the legalization of slavery in Georgia in 1750, but the colony lacked the organization for physically monitoring the increasing number of enslaved Africans. Moreover, Africans and mulattoes who ran away successfully transformed the inland areas of Savannah into havens for fugitives of the slave system. The Gazette's description of these two runaways provides important cultural and ideological insights into African origins and ethnicity, resistance, and freedom in Low Country Georgia. (5) The legalization of slavery in Georgia in 1750 and the concomitant emergence of the transatlantic slave trade shaped the evolution of communities among enslaved Africans and African Americans in the late 18th century. In Low Country Georgia, as well as in other parts of the Diaspora, enslaved Africans perceived themselves as part of cultural community that had distinct ethnic and geographical roots. Randomization was not function of the Middle Passage. Although slave ships traversed the coast of Africa to secure captives, in some instances their cargoes were drawn from only one port. Principal ports included Goree, Bonny, Calabar, Elmina, and those on the Biafaran coast; consequently, the ethnic and cultural composition of captive Africans transported to the Americas reflected great homogeneity. (6) Slave ships bound for Georgia included captive Africans who shared similar linguistic heritage such as the Malinke and Serer who spoke the Mande language. To large extent, the transatlantic Middle Passage defined and shaped the New World consciousness of captive Africans and informed their perceptions of kinship, ethnicity, and community. Unfortunately, given this context, the voices of captive Africans have been difficult to hear. (7) With but few exceptions, their words and thoughts are absent from extant archival records. However, commercial and business records on the transatlantic slave trade to Georgia reveal the geographical dimensions of the trade, and the ethnic groups dispersed throughout the region. We also learn much about the various forms of resistance recorded in these materials, thus providing an important historical frame of reference for hearing the voices of enslaved Africans. (8) Physical and cultural resistance to enslavement became an integral element in the formation of African diasporic communities. …