Rituals of Resistance: African Atlantic Religion in Kongo and the Lowcountry South in the Era of Slavery (review)

Abstract

Rituals of Resistance: Religion in Kongo and Lowcountry South in Era of Slavery. By Jason R. Young. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2007. Pp. 272. Cloth, $40.00.)Reviewed by Randy M. BrowneIn Rituals of Resistance, Jason R. Young examines relationship between religious beliefs and practices of precolonial Kongolese and enslaved men and women of Lowcountry South, two populations linked intimately by transatlantic slave trade for nearly two centuries. In four comparative case studies, Young details ways in which Kongolese people and their enslaved contemporaries and descendants in Lowcountry interpreted and modified theology and practice of Christianity as means of resisting slave trade and slavery. Although more captives transported to Americas - and particularly to South Carolina - came from West-Central Africa than from any other single region, only handful of Americanists have paid close attention to region. Yet, as Young shows, it is among best documented of all regions involved in transatlantic slave trade, and his use of Portuguese and other non-English sources created in Africa allows him to develop sophisticated analysis of precolonial Kongolese culture.One of most compelling aspects oi Rituals of Resistance is Young's approach to questions of cultural transmission and creolization. Beginning with pioneering work of Melville Herskovits more than halfcentury ago, many scholars have focused on documenting Africanisms or African survivals in Americas. At same time, scholars such as Sidney M. Mintz and Richard Price have criticized efforts to identify same cultural practices on sides of as simplistic or misguided. Although Young's work bears imprint of contemporary historians who have argued that American slaves were able to retain key aspects of their cultures intact, such as Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, Michael Gomez, and John K. Thornton, Rituals of Resistance moves beyond effort to identify formal cultural affinities between and American populations. Instead, Young argues that the cultures of are linked philosophically and theoretically (101-2). That is, ritual practices that looked very different aesthetically or formally could still be related through theoretical, cosmological, and symbolic meanings (184). For example, although conjure bags in Lowcountry contained different objects than those found in Kongolese conjure bags, Young argues that such differences should not be read as inability of Lowcountry blacks to replicate West-Central rituals in new environment, but instead as creative application of conjuring tradition that retained its cosmological essence while appropriating European and Native American objects (125). Equally important, Young's vision of religious practice as dynamic allows him to focus not on degree of similarity between and American rituals but instead on ways in which people on sides of creatively modified Christianity to serve different purposes. Historical change, Young contends, both in Africa as well as in plantation Americas, is central to his conception of cultural process (5).At heart of Young's study lies development of unique African Atlantic religious tradition that incorporated Christian and indigenous beliefs and rituals. Central to Young's argument is his understanding of conversion not as a clear and discrete movement from precessional realm of belief to successional one, but instead as process in which 'new' belief system is understood largely through context of 'old' (43). Although Young admits that many Kongolese and most Lowcountry slaves were at least nominally Christian, he argues that they practiced form of Christianity markedly different from theology of European missionaries or master class. …