ICONS Americas: Trans-Atlantic Connections

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ICONS Americas: Trans-Atlantic Connections

Colonial Legacies
One of the most significant commonalities between Africa and the Americas is their colonial heritage. Both regions were thoroughly colonized by European powers, the Americas beginning in the fifteenth century, and Africa in the sixteenth.

But within the two regions' colonial history lie a number of differences. In the Americas, one of the most significant were the colonial policies exercised by the mother countries. Those areas colonized by Portugal and Spain endured highly exploitive policies, marked by the rape of natural resources and the destruction of indigenous peoples--in effect, "wiping the slate clean" for white settler immigration. Latin American colonial administration was very autocratic, requiring the remission of wealth to the mother country and the suppression of local capital formation and industrialization. The British approach, on the other hand, involved a more indirect approach to colonial rule. British colonial policy sought to open up new (colonial) markets for the export of finished goods while creating a (colonial) source of food and resource inputs for British firms. This provided for greater development of colonial infrastructure and education. One of the most important outcomes of this difference in approach was the degree of industrialization--and above all, maritime industrialization--which took place in British North America. An interesting commonality is the relative success (in terms of standard of living and regional influence) of the major British colonies in the Americas (the United States and Canada) and the major British colony of Sub-Saharan Africa (South Africa).

In Africa, the pattern of colonial settlement was markedly different. The establishment of colonies in Africa were driven in large part by a fear of "encirclement" by hostile imperial powers. For example, Germany established a colony in West Africa (Togo) to block a British linkup between the Gold Coast (Ghana) and Nigeria, and a colony in East Africa (Tanzania) to prevent the completion of a British Cairo-Cape of Good Hope rail line. Because of this, the penetration of settlers from coastal areas inland led to a system of transport which isolated African territories from one another, but tied each to imperial markets overseas. As a result of this pattern of colonization, the international boundaries of present-day Africa bear little resemblance to the ethnic demographics on the continent. This has had particularly serious implications for post-colonial Africa, which continues to be marked by bitter ethnic warfare.

In the Americas, decolonialization--whether by revolution or by negotiation--began in the late eighteenth century and was largely completed by the twentieth century. The collapse of the Spanish empire was driven both from within--by local Spanish elites who wanted greater wealth, independence, and power--and from without, by the growth of U.S. power in the region. In Africa, decolonialization did not, for the most part, take place until after the Second World War--and much of that not until the 1960s. For this reason, most of Africa's post-colonial history has occurred in the shadow of the East-West Cold War. The ongoing warfare in Angola is, for example, partially a legacy of Cold War rivalries. Likewise, many of the anti-imperialist revolutionary movements of Latin America took on a distictly anti-U.S. character which allowed them to be co-opted by the Soviet Union (e.g., Nicaragua, Cuba).

The Slavery Connection
One of the first links between Africa and the Americas many note is the trans-Atlantic slave trade: the triangle of trade in slaves, molasses, and rum in the Atlantic region which lasted until the 19th century. The "Middle Passage" brought Africans to the Americas as slave laborers beginning in 16th century and continuing until the American Civil War in the 1860s. One of the first independent countries in the Americas was founded as a direct result of presence of African slaves: Haiti was established as an independent state in 1804, following a successful slave rebellion--the first black independent state. Another country founded as a result of the slave trade was Liberia, which was established by the American Colonization Society as a sanctuary for freed slaves.

The African Diaspora in the Americas numbers some 180 million, including 30 million in the United States. People of African descent, along with indigenous peoples, remain a population of special concern in many countries of the Americas. Lack of full participation in governmental, economic, and social institutions has left both groups disadvantaged vis-a-vis the decendents of European colonists and has often left them trapped in cycles of poverty, unemployment, social marginalization.

Ongoing Ties
Despite the achievement of independence, the countries of both Africa and the Americas remain closely tied to European and North American powers. France, Belgium, and other European powers intervened repeatedly in the affairs of their former African colonies, in some cases continuing to serve as de facto rulers even after independence (e.g., the French in the Central African Republic). Other less intrusive ties continue to bind former colonies with their mother country as well: the British Commonwealth, for example, includes former colonies of the British Empire around the globe. In the Americas, the emergence of the U.S. as first a regional and then a global power has meant that the imperial intervention of European empires has been replaced by U.S. interventionism.

Further Reading
Defiant Again: Indigenous Peoples and Latin American Security
The Black World Today: Profile Black Countries
Blacks in Latin America and the Caribbean: Selected Bibliographic Sources
Organization of Africans in the Americas
Africano: History of Slavery in the Caribbean
AfroCubaWeb
Religion in Africa and Cuba
Garifuna World
Black Mexico Home Page

Illustrations and maps from Grolier's Multimedia Encyclopedia (1997 ed.).

The Africa-Americas Classroom Technology Project is run by Project ICONS at the University of Maryland. For more information, please contact icons@gvpt.umd.edu. Copyright 1999, Project ICONS, University of Maryland