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246-409: Central to Obeah are ritual specialists who offer a range of services to paying clients. These specialists have sometimes been termed Obeahmen and Obeahwomen, although often refer to themselves in other ways, for instance calling themselves "scientists", "doctors", or "professors". Important in these ritual systems is engagement with the spirits and the manipulation of supernatural forces. A prominent role

492-512: A Christian belief in good forces aligned with God and evil forces aligned with the Devil . Early modern Europeans had also inherited the idea of the witch as a spiritually evil person. Paton noted that these European notions of witchcraft framed "European understandings of African spiritual work and ritual specialists in the Caribbean". In British colonial communities, aside from referring to

738-560: A dibia was a ritual specialist involved in healing and other practices. Other proposals trace the word obeah to the Edo language obi , often translated as "poison", or the Yoruba language obi , a term for a type of divination. In support of these non-Akan origins is the fact that captives taken from the Bay of Biafra constituted a major part of the population in those parts of the Caribbean where

984-494: A folk religion . Some practice Hoodoo as an autonomous religion, some practice as a syncretic religion between two or more cultural religions, in this case being African indigenous spirituality and Abrahamic religion . Many Hoodoo traditions draw from the beliefs of the Bakongo people of Central Africa . Over the first century of the trans-Atlantic slave trade , an estimated 52% of all enslaved Africans transported to

1230-510: A belief that ancestors and spirits could act on the physical world and thus should be respected and cared for. All these African societies also had ritual specialists, individuals who engaged in divination and were deemed to have knowledge of powerful substances that could be used to either heal of harm other people. The West Europeans who oversaw Atlantic transportation also believed in an unseen world that could influence humanity, but typically divided it more strictly along ethical lines, adhering to

1476-798: A bitter root and other charms for protection. Other Bantu-Kongo practices present in Hoodoo include the use of conjure canes. In the United States, these canes are decorated with specific objects to conjure spirits and achieve specific results. This practice was brought to the United States during the transatlantic slave trade from Central Africa. Several African American families still use conjure canes today. In Central Africa, Bantu-Kongo banganga ritual healers use ritual staffs called conjure canes in Hoodoo. These canes conjure spirits and heal people. The banganga healers in Central Africa became

1722-1000: A bundle to conjure a specific result for either protection or healing. These items were hidden inside enslaved people's dwellings. These practices were concealed from enslavers. In Darrow, Louisiana , at the Ashland-Belle Helene Plantation , historians and archeologists unearthed Kongo and Central African practices inside slave cabins. Enslaved Africans in Louisiana conjured the spirits of Kongo ancestors and water spirits using seashells . Other charms in several slave cabins included silver coins, beads, polished stones, and bones made into necklaces or carried in pockets for protection. These artifacts provide examples of African rituals at Ashland Plantation. Enlavers tried to stop African practices, but enslaved African Americans disguised their rituals by using American materials, applying African interpretations to them, and hiding

1968-596: A clause to the Danish West Indian slave code proscribing various ritual practices; rather than referring to this as Obeah , he used the word towernarye , probably derived from the Dutch word tovernery . It was in the aftermath of Tacky's War , a rebellion against the colonial authorities, that the Jamaican Assembly first passed laws that banned Obeah in 1760. This law took the term Obeah , which

2214-500: A cruel overseer on a plantation in St. Louis. Unlike other enslaved people, Dinkie never worked in the same way. He was feared and respected by both Black and white people. Dinkie was known to carry a dried snakeskin, frog, and lizard and sprinkled goofer dust on himself, speaking to the spirit of the snake to wake up its power against the overseer. Henry Clay Bruce, a Black abolitionist and writer, recorded his experience of enslaved people on

2460-472: A cursed people, Africa and slavery, which laid the ideological groundwork for justifying the transatlantic slave trade. The term "race" was used by the English beginning in the 16th century and referred to family, lineage, and breed. The idea of race continued to develop further through the centuries and was used as a justification for the continuation of the slave trade and racial discrimination. Slavery

2706-503: A developed factor for enslaving people; nonetheless, by the 15th century, Europeans used both race and religion as a justification to enslave sub-Saharan Africans. An increase of enslaved African people from Senegal occurred in the Iberian Peninsula in the 15th century. As the number of Senegalese slaves grew larger Europeans developed new terminologies that associated slavery with skin color. The Spanish city of Seville had

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2952-564: A family clan. In contrast, European slaves were chattel, or property, who were stripped of their rights. The cycle of slavery was perpetual; children of slaves would, by default, also be slaves." Millions of enslaved people from some parts of Africa were exported to states in Africa, Europe, and Asia prior to the European colonization of the Americas . The Trans-Saharan slave trade across

3198-527: A form of protection against enslavement. African resistance movements were carried out in every phase of the slave trade to resisting marches to the slave holding stations, resistance at the slave coast, and resistance on slave ships. For example, aboard the slave ship Clare, the enslaved Africans revolted and drove the crew from the vessel and took control of the ship and liberated themselves and landed near Cape Coast Castle in present-day Ghana in 1729. On other slave ships enslaved Africans sunk ships, killed

3444-521: A former slave plantation in South Carolina made by enslaved Africans, engraving the Kongo cosmogram onto the clay bowls. African Americans used these clay bowls for ritual purposes. The Ring shout in Hoodoo has its origins in the Kongo region from the Kongo cosmogram (Yowa Cross). Ring shouters dance in a counterclockwise direction that follows the pattern of the rising of the sun in the east and

3690-646: A former slave, Mary Middleton, a Gullah woman from the South Carolina Sea Islands, tells of an incident where an enslaver was physically weakened from conjure. An enslaver beat one of the people he enslaved badly. The enslaved person he beat went to a conjurer, and the conjurer made the enslaver weak by sunset. Middleton said, "As soon as the sun was down, he was down too, he down yet. De witch done dat." Bishop Jamison, born enslaved in Georgia in 1848, wrote an autobiographical account of his life. On

3936-631: A fort for the slave trade at the Bay of Arguin . In the Middle Ages , religion and not race was a determining factor for who was considered to be a legitimate target of slavery. While Christians did not enslave Christians and Muslims did not enslave Muslims, both allowed the enslavement of people they regarded to be heretics or insufficiently correct in their religion, which allowed Catholic Christians to enslave Orthodox Christians, and Sunni Muslims to enslave Shia Muslims; similarly both Christians and Muslims approved of enslaving Pagans , who came to be

4182-448: A glorious and advantageous trade this is ... It is the hinge on which all the trade of this globe moves." Meanwhile, it became a business for privately owned enterprises , reducing international complications. After 1790, by contrast, captains typically checked out slave prices in at least two of the major markets of Kingston, Havana, and Charleston, South Carolina (where prices by then were similar) before deciding where to sell. For

4428-493: A historic African American church called First African Baptist Church , the Kongo cosmogram symbol was found in the basement of the church. African Americans punctured holes in the basement floor of the church to make a diamond-shaped Kongo cosmogram for prayer and meditation. The church was also a stop on the Underground Railroad . The holes in the floor provided breathable air for escaped enslaved people hiding in

4674-420: A horseshoe. Enslaved African Americans put eyelets on shoes and boots to trap spirits. Archaeologists also found small carved wooden faces. The wooden carvings had two faces carved into them on both sides, interpreted to represent an African American conjurer who was a two-headed doctor. In Hoodoo, a two-headed doctor is a conjurer who can see into the future and has knowledge about spirits and things unknown. At

4920-477: A job, doing some good, practicing, clearing. In Jamaica, another term for Obeah is "iniquity," probably deriving from the repeated Protestant admonitions that Obeah was an iniquitous practice. Paton noted that, in encompassing a broad range of supernaturally-oriented practices, the term Obeah served a "roughly equivalent" role in the Anglophone Caribbean to the terms conjure and root work in

5166-583: A justification to Christianize them. In 1452, Pope Nicholas V issued papal bull Dum Diversas which gave the King of Portugal the right to enslave non-Christians to perpetual slavery. The clause included Muslims in West Africa and legitimized the slave trade under the Catholic church. In 1454, Pope Nicholas issued Romanus Pontifex . "Written as a logical sequel to Dum Diversas, Romanus Pontifex allowed

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5412-551: A maritime route to "the Indies" (India), where they could trade for luxury goods such as spices without having to obtain these items from Middle Eastern Islamic traders. During the first wave of European colonization , although many of the initial Atlantic naval explorations were led by the Iberian conquistadors , members of many European nationalities were involved, including sailors from Spain , Portugal , France , England ,

5658-500: A more profitable source of labour and encouraging their use. Historian David Eltis argues that Africans were enslaved because of cultural beliefs in Europe that prohibited the enslavement of cultural insiders, even if there was a source of labour that could be enslaved (such as convicts, prisoners of war and vagrants). Eltis argues that traditional beliefs existed in Europe against enslaving Christians (few Europeans not being Christian at

5904-531: A nekked tree. Dey calls hit hoodooin' de dogs". An enslaved conjurer could conjure confusion in the slave catchers' dogs, which prevented whites from catching freedom seekers. In other narratives, enslaved people made a jack ball to know if an enslaved person would be whipped or not. Enslaved people chewed and spat the juices of roots near their enslavers secretly to calm the emotions of enslavers, which prevented whippings. Enslaved people relied on conjurers to prevent whippings and being sold further South. A story from

6150-519: A new and larger market for the already existing trade. While those held as slaves in their own region of Africa could hope to escape, those shipped away had little chance of returning to their homeland. The Atlantic slave trading of Africans began in 1441 with two Portuguese explorers, Nuno Tristão and António Gonçalves. Tristão and Gonçalves sailed to Mauritania in West Africa and kidnapped twelve Africans and returned to Portugal and presented

6396-409: A plantation in Georgia, there was an enslaved Hoodoo man named Uncle Charles Hall who prescribed herbs and charms for enslaved people to protect themselves from white people. Hall instructed the enslaved people to anoint roots three times daily and chew and spit roots toward their enslavers for protection. Another slave story talks about an enslaved woman named Old Julie, who was a conjurer known among

6642-623: A plantation in Virginia who hired a conjurer to prevent enslavers from selling them to plantations in the Deep South. Louis Hughes, an enslaved man who lived on plantations in Tennessee and Mississippi, carried a mojo bag to prevent enslavers from whipping him. The mojo bag Hughes carried was called a "voodoo bag" by the enslaved community in the area. Former enslaved person and abolitionist Henry Bibb wrote in his autobiography, Narrative of

6888-418: A position to call the shots." The earliest known use of the phrase began in the 1830s, and the earliest written evidence was found in an 1836 published book by F. H. Rankin. Portuguese coastal raiders found that slave raiding was too costly and often ineffective and opted for established commercial relations. The colonial South Atlantic and Caribbean economies were particularly dependent on slave labour for

7134-498: A practitioner was for work related worries and aspirations; this was followed by attempts to deal with physical suffering, with court cases, and with relationship issues. Discussing the situation among Jamaicans and British Jamaicans in the 1970s, Venetia Newall noted that "respectable middle-class people" generally shunned Obeah but would sometimes turn to it during "times of stress". Obeah is often used for protection rather than for harm. The main social function of an Obeah practitioner

7380-906: A preferred and comparatively profitable target of the slave trade in the Middle Ages: Spain and Portugal were provided with non-Catholic slaves from Eastern Europe via the Balkan slave trade and the Black Sea slave trade . In the 15th century, when the Balkan slave trade was taken over by the Ottoman Empire and the Black Sea slave trade was supplanted by the Crimean slave trade and closed off from Europe, Spain and Portugal replaced this source of slaves by importing slaves first from

7626-465: A proto-racial law. It prevented people with Jewish and Muslim ancestry from settling in the New World. Limpieza de sangre did not guarantee rights for Jews or Muslims who converted to Catholicism . Jews and Muslims who converted to Catholicism were respectively called conversos and moriscos . Some Jews and Muslims converted to Christianity hoping it would grant them rights under Spanish laws. After

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7872-479: A result of being accused of malevolent obeah that caused the drivers at Op Hoop Van Beter plantation to fall ill. The man implicated in her death, a spiritual worker named Willem, conducted an illegal Minje Mama dance to divine the source of the Obeah, and after she was chosen as the suspect, she was tortured to death. Obeah practices largely derive from Ashanti origins. The Ashanti and other Tshi-speaking peoples from

8118-605: A role in their communities as midwives, healers, and conjure women for their clients. Cultural anthropologist Tony Kail conducted research in African American communities in Memphis, Tennessee, and traced the origins of Hoodoo practices to Central Africa . In Memphis, Kail interviewed Black rootworkers and wrote about African American Hoodoo practices and history in his book " A Secret History of Memphis Hoodoo. " For example, Kail recorded at former slave plantations in

8364-629: A scenario in which native English speakers in the British Caribbean, in Barbados or another early English colony, adopted the term from some African language[...] without being aware of its full meaning in that language group. The adopted term referred, or was related, to a type of slave healer who was involved with spiritual or magical practices, or the practices themselves which, although not fully understood by Europeans, were known to be of non-European origin. — Handler and Bilby Obeah

8610-485: A slave culture in the United States that was social, spiritual, and religious. Professor Eddie Glaude at Princeton University defines Hoodoo as part of African American religious life with practices influenced from Africa that fused with Christianity, creating an African American religious culture for liberation. A major West African influence in Hoodoo is Islam. As a result of the transatlantic slave trade, some West African Muslims who practiced Islam were enslaved in

8856-478: A slave narrative from Arkansas, enslaved people prayed under pots to prevent nearby white people from hearing them at such times. A formerly enslaved person in Arkansas named John Hunter said the enslaved people went to a secret house only they knew and turned the iron pots face up so enslavers could not hear them. They would place sticks under wash pots about a foot from the ground because "[I]f they'd put it flat on

9102-513: A snake in one hand. This reverence for snakes came to the United States during the slave trade, and in Hoodoo, snakeskins are used to prepare conjure powders. Puckett explained that the origin of snake reverence in Hoodoo originates from snake (serpent) honoring in West Africa's Vodun tradition. It was documented by a former slave in Missouri that conjurers took dried snakes and frogs and ground them into powders to "Hoodoo people." A conjurer made

9348-548: A spiritual organization called Brotherhood of Eulis in Tennessee. Through his travels, Randolph documented the continued African traditions in Hoodoo practiced by African Americans in the South. Randolph documented two African American men of Kongo origin who used Kongo conjure practices against each other. The two conjure men came from a slave ship that docked in Mobile Bay in 1860 or 1861. The mobility of Black people from

9594-529: A syncretization of African spiritual practices and beliefs with the Christian faith . Enslaved and free Africans learned regional indigenous botanical knowledge after they arrived in the United States. The extent to which Hoodoo could be practiced varied by region and the temperament of enslavers. For example, the Gullah people of the coastal Southeast experienced an isolation and relative freedom that allowed

9840-400: A varied range of traditions that are highly heterogenous and display much regional variation. The Hispanic studies scholars Margarite Fernández Olmos and Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert defined Obeah as "a set of hybrid or creolized beliefs dependent on ritual invocation, fetishes, and charms", while the historian Diana Paton termed it "a very wide range of practices that, broadly speaking, invoke

10086-458: A warm climate, no man will labour for himself who can make another labour for him. This is so true, that of the proprietors of slaves a very small proportion indeed are ever seen to labour." In a 2015 paper, economist Elena Esposito argued that the enslavement of Africans in colonial America was attributable to the fact that the American south was sufficiently warm and humid for malaria to thrive;

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10332-491: Is a Mande word. The words wanga and mooyo (mojo bag) come from the Kikongo language . Recent scholarly publications spell the word with a capital letter. The word has different meanings depending on how it is spelled. Some authors spell Hoodoo with a capital letter to distinguish it from commercialized hoodoo, which is spelled with a lowercase letter. Other authors have different reasons why they capitalize or lowercase

10578-399: Is a form of resistance against white supremacy . African American conjurers were seen as a threat by white Americans because slaves went to free and enslaved conjurers to receive charms for protection and revenge against their enslavers. Enslaved Black people used Hoodoo to bring about justice on American plantations by poisoning enslavers and conjuring death onto their oppressors. During

10824-418: Is a simple cross (+) with one line. The Kongo cosmogram symbolizes the rising of the sun in the east and the sun's setting in the west, representing cosmic energies. The horizontal line in the Kongo cosmogram represents the boundary between the physical world (the realm of the living) and the spiritual world (the realm of the ancestors). The vertical line of the cosmogram is the path of spiritual power from God at

11070-780: Is a symbol in West Africa and in African American spirituality. On another plantation in Maryland, archeologists unearthed artifacts that showed a blend of Central African and Christian spiritual practices among enslaved people. This was Ezekiel's Wheel in the Bible that blended with the Central African Kongo cosmogram. This may explain the connection enslaved Black Americans had with the Christian cross, as it resembled their African symbol. The cosmogram represents

11316-514: Is called Nganga. Some Kikongo words have an "N" or "M" at the beginning of the word. However, when Bantu-Kongo people were enslaved in South Carolina, the letters N and M were dropped from some title names. For example, in Central Africa, the word for spiritual mothers is Mama Mbondo. In the South Carolina Lowcountry and African American communities, the word for a spiritual mother is Mama Bondo. Additionally, during slavery, it

11562-697: Is documented in the Slave Trade Debates of England in the early 19th century: "All the old writers ... concur in stating not only that wars are entered into for the sole purpose of making slaves, but that they are fomented by Europeans, with a view to that object." People living around the Niger River would be transported from these markets to the coast and sold in European trading ports, in exchange for muskets and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol. The European demand for slaves provided

11808-473: Is done in Central Africa and the United States in African American communities. When drawn on the ground, the Kongo cosmogram is also used as a powerful protection charm. The solar emblems or circles at the ends and the arrows are not drawn, just the cross marks, which look like an X. A man named William Webb helped enslaved people on a plantation in Kentucky resist their oppressors using mojo bags. Webb told

12054-638: Is found primarily in the former British colonies of the Caribbean, namely Suriname, Jamaica, the Virgin Islands, Trinidad, Tobago, Guyana, Belize, the Bahamas, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Barbados. Aside from the common use of Obeah , other spellings that have been used include Obiya , Obey , Obi , and Obia , the latter common in Suriname and French Guiana. The term Obeah encompasses

12300-567: Is not known exactly how and when the term obeah came to be used in the Anglophone Caribbean. The earliest unambiguous use of it in the region was in a letter from Barbados from 1710, where it appeared as " Obia ", and the term was more widely extant in Barbadian English by the 1720s and 1730s. In contemporary scholarship, there is general agreement that the word obeah is of West African origin, although there remain different arguments as to which language it derives from. Paton noted that

12546-520: Is now Sierra Leone and took 300 people to sell in the Caribbean. In 1564, he repeated the process, this time using Queen Elizabeth's own ship, Jesus of Lübeck , and numerous English voyages ensued. Around 1560, the Portuguese began a regular slave trade to Brazil. From 1580 until 1640, Portugal was temporarily united with Spain in the Iberian Union . Most Portuguese contractors who obtained

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12792-486: Is often as a herbalist. To assist with healing a client's ailments, the Obeahman/woman will often utilise baths, massages, and mixtures of various ingredients. "Bush baths" are often applied to relieve fevers, and involve a range of different herbal ingredients placed within hot water. These often rely on a knowledge of the properties of various animal and herbal ingredients. Graveyard dirt may be employed to access

13038-503: Is often used as a general term for Afro-Caribbean religion as a whole. Bilby noted that in these cases it was "a monolithic signifier for African or neo-African forms of religiosity or spirituality still existing in the Caribbean". However, throughout the Caribbean, there is "considerable disagreement" about the meaning of the term obeah ; the term is malleable, and as Bilby notes, it has no "single, essential meaning". It has instead often been used in reference to several different things. It

13284-452: Is played by healing practices, often incorporating herbal and animal ingredients. Other services include attempts to achieve justice for a client or to provide them with spiritual protection. Cursing practices have also featured in Obeah, involving the making of objects to cause harm or the production of poisons. There is considerable regional and individual variation in the nature of the rituals that practitioners of Obeah have engaged in. Amid

13530-455: Is sometimes believed that an Obeah practitioner will bear a physical disability, such as a blind eye, a club foot, or a deformed hand, and that their powers are a compensation for this. Traditionally, it is often believed that being an Obeah practitioner passes hereditarily, from a parent to their eldest child. Alternatively, it is believed someone may become a practitioner following a traumatic event in their life. Once they have decided to pursue

13776-531: Is the origin of the bottle tree in Hoodoo. Throughout the American South, in African American neighborhoods, some houses have bottle trees and baskets placed at entrances to doorways for spiritual protection. Additionally, nkisi culture influenced jar container magic. An African American man in North Carolina buried a jar under the steps with water and string for protection. If someone conjured him,

14022-400: Is to spike a person's food. One recurring notion is that a woman can win a man from her love rival by placing her own menstrual fluid in his food. In the Caribbean, love spells such as this are often deemed immoral as they are intended to deny a person their free will . One method of lifting an Obeah curse, recorded from the Caribbean, involved a person crossing themselves and stating: "Bless

14268-586: The Nganga spiritual healer. The spiritual priests in Central Africa became the rootworkers and Hoodoo doctors in African American communities. In the American South , conjure doctors create mojo bags similar to the Ngangas' minkisi bags, as both are fed offerings with whiskey . Another Bantu-Kongo practice in Hoodoo is making a cross mark (Kongo cosmogram) and standing on it to take an oath. This practice

14514-519: The American South , archeologists found blue beads used by enslaved people for spiritual protection. Enslaved African Americans combined Christian practices with traditional African beliefs. Other Kongo influences at Congo Square were documented by folklorist Puckett. African Americans poured libations at the four corners of Congo Square at midnight during a dark moon for a Hoodoo ritual. Historians from Southern Illinois University in

14760-605: The Americas and enslave Native Americans and Africans. Inter Caetera also settled a dispute between Portugal and Spain over those lands. The declaration included a north–south divide 100 leagues West of the Cape Verde Islands and gave the Spanish Crown exclusive rights to travel and trade west of that line. In Portugal and Spain people had been enslaved because of their religious identity, race had not been

15006-538: The Atlantic slave trade of the 16th to 19th centuries, thousands of West Africans, many Ashanti or Efik, were transported to Caribbean colonies controlled by the British Empire . Here, traditional African religious practices assumed new forms, for instance being employed for the protection of Maroon communities. Enslaved Africans also absorbed British influences, especially from Christianity , and later from

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15252-928: The Black Lives Matter movement as one of many methods against police brutality and racism in the Black community. Black American keynote speakers who are practitioners of Hoodoo spoke at an event at The Department of Arts and Humanities at California State University about the importance of Hoodoo and other African spiritual traditions practiced in social justice movements to liberate Black people from oppression. African Americans in various African diaspora religions spiritually heal their communities by establishing healing centers that provide emotional and spiritual healing from police brutality. In addition, altars with white candles and offerings are placed in areas where police murdered an African American, and libation ceremonies and other spiritual practices are performed to heal

15498-641: The Fante coalition and fought African and European slave raiders and protected themselves from capture and enslavement. Chief Tomba was born in 1700 and his adopted father was a general from the Jalonke-speaking people who fought against the slave trade. Tomba became ruler of the Baga people in present-day Guinea Bissau in West Africa and made alliances with nearby African villages against African and European slave traders. His efforts were unsuccessful: Tomba

15744-590: The Gold Coast formed the largest group of enslaved people in the British Caribbean colonies. Obeah was first identified in the British colonies of the Caribbean during the 17th century. Enslaved Africans who were transported to the Caribbean during the 17th or 18th centuries came from societies where spiritual power played a prominent role. Although there was considerable variation in the religious beliefs and practices of these African societies, all generally shared

15990-650: The Guinea Coast and left with a few slaves. In 1564, Hawkin's son John Hawkins , sailed to the Guinea Coast and his voyage was supported by Queen Elizabeth I . John later turned to piracy and stole 300 Africans from a Spanish slave ship after failures in Guinea trying to capture Africans as most of his men died after fights with the local Africans. As historian John Thornton remarked, "the actual motivation for European expansion and for navigational breakthroughs

16236-470: The Hinduism and Islam introduced by indentured South Asian migrants. The colonial elites disapproved of African traditions and introduced laws to prohibit them, using the term Obeah as a general label for these practices from the 1760s on. This suppression meant that Obeah emerged as a system of practical rituals rather than as a broader communal religion akin to Haitian Vodou or Cuban Santería . After

16482-685: The Italian states , and the Netherlands . This diversity led Thornton to describe the initial "exploration of the Atlantic" as "a truly international exercise, even if many of the dramatic discoveries were made under the sponsorship of the Iberian monarchs". That leadership later gave rise to the myth that "the Iberians were the sole leaders of the exploration". European overseas expansion led to

16728-508: The Jamaican Maroons , free Africans who employed spiritual protection as an important part of their fighting strategy. Obeah ritual specialists had played a prominent role within these Maroon communities; one of the best known was the Akan woman Nanny of the Maroons described as an old 'witch' and a 'Hagg' by English soldier Philip Thicknesse in his memoirs. Colonial sources claimed she could quickly grow food for her starving forces, and to catch British bullets and either fire them back or attack

16974-409: The Kikongo word Kufwa , which means "to die." The mojo bag in Hoodoo has Bantu-Kongo origins. Mojo bags are also called toby , which is derived from the Kikongo word tobe . The word mojo also originated from the Kikongo word mooyo , which means that natural ingredients have indwelling spirit that can be utilized in mojo bags to bring luck and protection. The mojo bag or conjure bag derived from

17220-433: The Kongo cosmogram , Simbi water spirits, and Nkisi and Minkisi practices. The West African influence is Vodun from the Fon and Ewe people in Benin and Togo, following some elements from the Yoruba religion. After their contact with European slave traders and missionaries, some Africans converted to Christianity willingly. At the same time, other enslaved Africans were forced to become Christian, which resulted in

17466-433: The Levi Jordan Plantation in Brazoria, Texas , near the Gulf Coast, researchers suggest that plantation owner Levi Jordan may have transported captive Africans from Cuba back to his plantation in Texas. These captive Africans practiced a Bantu-Kongo religion in Cuba, and researchers excavated Kongo-related artifacts at the site. For example, archeologists found the remains of an nkisi nkondi with iron wedges driven into

17712-756: The Mamluk Sultanate (1258–1517). The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade from Africa; as Elikia M'bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique : The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from

17958-511: The Netherlands , the United States, and Denmark . Several had established outposts on the African coast, where they purchased slaves from local African leaders. These slaves were managed by a factor , who was established on or near the coast to expedite the shipping of slaves to the New World. Slaves were imprisoned in a factory while awaiting shipment. Current estimates are that about 12 million to 12.8 million Africans were shipped across

18204-454: The Saracens ", claimed that due to the curse imposed upon Black people , they would inevitably remain permanently subjugated by Arabs and other Muslims . He wrote that the fact that so many Africans had been enslaved even by the heretical Muslims was supposed proof of their inferiority. Through these and other writings, European writers established a hitherto unheard of connection between

18450-499: The Surinamese Interior War of the 1980s. Obeah has also been used by organised crime. When London gangster Mark Lambie was put on trial for kidnap and torture in 2002, both his victims and fellow gang members suggested that his powers of Obeah had made him "untouchable". One recorded method of divination in Obeah entails placing a key inside a Bible , tying and binding the book to a thread, and then observing how

18696-493: The asiento between 1580 and 1640 were conversos . For Portuguese merchants, many of whom were " New Christians " or their descendants, the union of crowns presented commercial opportunities in the slave trade to Spanish America. Until the middle of the 17th century, Mexico was the largest single market for slaves in Spanish America. While the Portuguese were directly involved in trading enslaved peoples to Brazil,

18942-499: The caravel , resulted in ships being better equipped to deal with the tidal currents, and could begin traversing the Atlantic Ocean; the Portuguese set up a Navigator's School (although there is much debate about whether it existed and if it did, just what it was). Between 1600 and 1800, approximately 300,000 sailors engaged in the slave trade visited West Africa. In doing so, they came into contact with societies living along

19188-602: The demarcation line between the Spanish and Portuguese empire, but this was against the WIC-charter". The Royal African Company usually refused to deliver slaves to Spanish colonies, though they did sell them to all comers from their factories in Kingston, Jamaica and Bridgetown, Barbados . In 1682, Spain allowed governors from Havana, Porto Bello, Panama , and Cartagena, Colombia to procure slaves from Jamaica. By

19434-408: The emancipation , housed spirits inside reflective materials and used reflective materials to transport the recently deceased to the spiritual realm. Broken glass on tombs reflects the other world. It is believed that reflective materials are portals to the spirit world. Simbi water spirits are revered in Hoodoo, originating from Central African spiritual practices. When Africans were enslaved in

19680-543: The era of slavery in the colonial history of the United States . A slave revolt broke out in 1712 in colonial New York , with enslaved Africans revolting and setting fire to buildings in the downtown area. The leader of the revolt was a free African conjurer named Peter the Doctor, who made a magical powder for the enslaved people to be rubbed on the body and clothes for their protection and empowerment. The Africans who revolted were Akan people from Ghana. Historians suggest

19926-563: The rural South to more urban areas in the North is characterized by the items used in Hoodoo. White pharmacists opened their shops in African American communities. They began to offer items both asked for by their customers, as well as things they felt would be of use. Examples of the adoption of occultism and mysticism may be seen in the colored wax candles in glass jars that are often labeled for specific purposes such as "Fast Luck" or "Love Drawing." Some African Americans sold hoodoo products in

20172-460: The sugar plantations on the Azores , Madeira , Canary, and Cape Verde islands . Europeans participated in African enslavement because of their need for labor, profit, and religious motives. Upon discovering new lands through their naval explorations, European colonisers soon began to migrate to and settle in lands outside their native continent. Off the coast of Africa, European migrants, under

20418-404: The transatlantic slave trade . The transatlantic slave trade to the United States occurred between 1619 and 1808, and the illegal slave trade in the United States occurred between 1808 and 1860. Between 1619 and 1860 approximately 500,000 enslaved Africans were transported to the United States. From Central Africa, Hoodoo has Bakongo magical influence from the Bakongo religion incorporating

20664-471: The " Old World " ( Afro-Eurasia ) and the " New World " (the Americas). For centuries, tidal currents had made ocean travel particularly difficult and risky for the ships that were then available. Thus, there had been very little, if any, maritime contact between the peoples living in these continents. In the 15th century, however, new European developments in seafaring technologies, such as the invention of

20910-526: The "discovery" of new lands across the Atlantic, Spain did not want Jews and Muslims immigrating to the Americas because the Spanish Crown worried Muslims and non-Christians might introduce Islam and other religions to Native Americans. The law also led to the enslavement of Jews and Muslims, prevented Jews from entering the country and from joining the military, universities and other civil services. Although Jewish conversos and Muslims experienced religious and racial discrimination, some also participated in

21156-444: The "element" of water has a role in African American spirituality. The Kongo cosmogram cross symbol has a physical form in Hoodoo called the crossroads , where Hoodoo rituals are performed to communicate with spirits and to leave ritual remains to remove a curse. The Kongo cosmogram is also spelled the "Bakongo" cosmogram and the "Yowa" cross. The crossroads is a spiritual supernatural crossroads that symbolizes communication between

21402-418: The 1620s. The Portuguese encroached onto Mbundu lands to expand their mission of trading slaves and establishing a settlement. Nzinga allowed sanctuary to runaway slaves in her nation and organized a military called kilombo against the Portuguese. Nzinga formed alliances with other rival African nations and led an army against the Portuguese slave traders in a thirty-year war. Historians have widely debated

21648-787: The 1690s, the English were shipping the most slaves from West Africa. By the 18th century, Portuguese Angola had become again one of the principal sources of the Atlantic slave trade. After the end of the War of the Spanish Succession , as part of the provisions of the Treaty of Utrecht (1713) , the Asiento was granted to the South Sea Company . Despite the South Sea Bubble , the British maintained this position during

21894-399: The 16th century that led to Africa being underdeveloped in his own time. These ideas were supported by other historians, including Ralph Austen (1987). This idea of an unequal relationship was contested by John Thornton (1998), who argued that "the Atlantic slave trade was not nearly as critical to the African economy as these scholars believed" and that "African manufacturing [at this period]

22140-516: The 1800s. Although there were African nations that participated and profited from the Atlantic slave trade, many African nations resisted such as the Djola and Balanta . Some African nations organized into military resistance movements and fought African slave raiders and European slave traders entering their villages. For example, the Akan , Etsi, Fetu, Eguafo, Agona , and Asebu people organized into

22386-405: The 1820s. The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of enslaved people from 1440 to about 1833. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. These included guns, ammunition, alcohol, indigo dyed Indian textiles, and other factory-made goods. The second leg of

22632-415: The 18th century, becoming the biggest shippers of slaves across the Atlantic. It is estimated that more than half of the entire slave trade took place during the 18th century, with the Portuguese, British, and French being the main carriers of nine out of ten slaves abducted in Africa. At the time, slave trading was regarded as crucial to Europe's maritime economy, as noted by one English slave trader: "What

22878-521: The African rulers to trade as slaves for European consumer goods. Also, Europeans shifted the location of disembarkation points for trade along the African coast to follow military conflicts in West-Central Africa. In areas of Africa where slavery was not prevalent, European slave traders worked and negotiated with African rulers on their terms for trade, and African rulers refused to supply European demands. Africans and Europeans profited from

23124-560: The Africana Studies Department documented that about 20 title words from the Kikongo language are in the Gullah language . These title words indicate continued African traditions in Hoodoo and conjure. The title words are spiritual in meaning. In Central Africa, spiritual priests and spiritual healers are called Nganga . In the South Carolina Lowcountry among Gullah people, a male conjurer

23370-670: The American South: "The beliefs and practices of African traditional religions survived the Middle Passage (the Transatlantic slave trade) and were preserved among the many rootworkers and healers throughout the South. Many of them served as healers, counselors, and pharmacists to slaves enduring the hardships of slavery." Sterling Stuckey , a professor of American history who specialized in the study of American slavery and African American slave culture and history in

23616-405: The Americas began in the 16th century, lasting through the 19th century. The vast majority of those who were transported in the transatlantic slave trade were from Central Africa and West Africa and had been sold by West African slave traders to European slave traders, while others had been captured directly by the slave traders in coastal raids. European slave traders gathered and imprisoned

23862-527: The Americas came from Central African countries that existed within the boundaries of modern-day Cameroon , the Congo , Angola , Central African Republic , and Gabon . Following the Great Migration of African Americans , southern Hoodoo spread throughout the United States, although Hoodoo was practiced everywhere that Black people settled, voluntarily or involuntarily. The first documentation of

24108-535: The Americas, bringing the practice to the United States. Enslaved people went to enslaved Black Muslims for conjure services, requesting them to make gris-gris bags ( mojo bags ) for protection against slavery. Hoodoo also has some Vodun influence. For example, snakeskins are a primary ingredient in goofer dust . Snakes (serpents) are revered in West African spiritual practices because they represent divinity. The West African Vodun water spirit Mami Wata holds

24354-432: The Atlantic over a span of 400 years. The number purchased by the traders was considerably higher, as the passage had a high death rate, with between 1.2 and 2.4 million dying during the voyage, and millions more in seasoning camps in the Caribbean after arrival in the New World. Millions of people also died as a result of slave raids, wars, and during transport to the coast for sale to European slave traders. Near

24600-462: The Atlantic slave trade through Futa Toro , present-day Senegal . Abdul Kader Khan and Futa Toro nation resisted French slave traders and colonizers who wanted to enslave Africans and Muslims from Futa Toro. Other forms of resistance against the Atlantic slave trade by African nations was migrating to different areas in West Africa such as swamps and lake regions to escape slave raids. In West Africa, Efik slave dealers participated in slave dealing as

24846-511: The Atlantic. From 1525, slaves were transported directly from the Portuguese colony of Sao Tomé across the Atlantic to Hispaniola . A burial ground in Campeche , Mexico, suggests enslaved Africans had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico in 1519. The graveyard had been in use from approximately 1550 to the late 17th century. In 1562, John Hawkins captured Africans in what

25092-686: The Bahamas, commonly used terms for a practitioner is Bush man or bush doctor ; in Jamaica an iniquity worker , and in Trinidad a common term is Wanga man . In Grenada they are sometimes called Scientists , and in Guyana as Professor , Madame , Pundit , Maraj , and work-man . Historical terms found in Jamaica include "doctors," "professors," "one-eyed men," "doctormen," "do good men," or "four eye men." Practitioners of Quimbois are referred to as quimboiseurs , sorciers , and gadé zaffés . A number of

25338-460: The Bantu-Kongo minkisi . The nkisi (singular) and minkisi (plural) are objects created by hand and inhabited by a spirit or spirits. These objects can be bags (mojo bags or conjure bags), gourds, shells, or other containers. Various items are placed inside a bag to give it a particular spirit or job to do. Mojo bags and minkisi are filled with graveyard dirt, herbs, roots, and other materials by

25584-459: The Black community. An African American woman, Mattie Sampson, was a salesperson in an active mail-order business selling hoodoo products to her neighbors in Georgia. Since the opening of Botanicas , Hoodoo practitioners purchase their spiritual supplies of novena candles, incense, herbs, conjure oils, and other items from spiritual shops that service practitioners of Vodou, Santeria, and other African Traditional Religions. Hoodoo spread throughout

25830-699: The British Caribbean colonies, Suriname, and the Danish Virgin Islands, all areas where large numbers of Akan speakers from the Gold Coast were introduced. A second possibility is that the word obeah comes from the Efik language . If so, it could derive from the Efik word for "doctor," or alternatively from the word ubio , often translated as "fetish". A third option traces it to the Igbo language , where

26076-548: The British abolition of slavery in the 1830s , new laws were introduced against Obeah, increasingly portraying it as fraud, laws that remained following the end of imperial rule. Since the 1980s, Obeah's practitioners have campaigned to remove these legal restrictions, often under the aegis of religious freedom . The term Obeah has been used for practices in the Caribbean nations of the Bahamas , Barbados , Belize , Grenada , Guyana , Jamaica , Saint Lucia , Saint Vincent and

26322-471: The British founder of the Institute of Jamaica , in 1908 Atlantic slave trade The Atlantic slave trade or transatlantic slave trade involved the transportation by slave traders of enslaved African people to the Americas . European slave ships regularly used the triangular trade route and its Middle Passage . Europeans established a coastal slave trade in the 15th century and trade to

26568-496: The Caribbean during the late 18th and early 19th centuries, so the term obeah was diffused through these colonies. This colonial suppression eradicated the African-derived communal rituals that involved song, dance, and offerings to spirits. In the British Caribbean, communal rituals oriented towards deities only persevered in pockets, as with Obeah in Jamaica and Orisha in Trinidad. The historian Diana Paton has argued that

26814-625: The Caribbean islands Curaçao , Jamaica and Martinique , as European nations built up economically slave-dependent colonies in the New World. In 1672, the Royal Africa Company was founded. In 1674, the New West India Company became deeper involved in slave trade. From 1677, the Compagnie du Sénégal , used Gorée to house the slaves . The Spanish proposed to get the slaves from Cape Verde , located closer to

27060-710: The Caribbean it is common for individuals to practise multiple religious traditions simultaneously. Many practitioners of Obeah attend Christian church services and do not see their practice as being at odds with Christianity . In Trinidad, various Obeah practitioners are also involved in the Orisha religion. In parts of the West Indies, South Asian migration has resulted in syncretisms between Obeah and Hinduism . In places with large South Asian communities like Guyana and Trinidad there are records of some Obeahmen being brahmins who also served as Hindu priests. One can imagine

27306-422: The Caribbean. In Jamaica, for example, new legal proscriptions against Obeah, which was to punished with hard labour and the lash, came in 1856. These new laws largely downgraded the severity with which Obeah was punished but also expanded the scope of what would be considered part of it; as Forde noted, Obeah became "an extremely inclusive and amorphous criminal category". In some cases authorities also prohibited

27552-520: The Christian religion against enslavers. This branch of Christianity among the enslaved was concealed from enslavers in " invisible churches ." Invisible churches were secret churches where enslaved African Americans combined Hoodoo with Christianity. Enslaved and free Black ministers preached resistance to slavery and the power of God through praise and worship, and Hoodoo rituals would free enslaved people from bondage. William Edward Burghardt Du Bois (W. E. B. Du Bois) studied African American churches in

27798-603: The Dutch who invested in the British West Indies and Dutch Brazil producing sugar. After the Iberian Union fell apart, Spain prohibited Portugal from directly engaging in the slave trade as a carrier. According the Treaty of Münster the slave trade was opened for the traditional enemies of Spain, losing a large share of the trade to the Dutch, French, and English. For 150 years, Spanish transatlantic traffic

28044-543: The European Catholic nations to expand their dominion over 'discovered' land. Possession of non-Christian lands would be justified along with the enslavement of native, non-Christian 'pagans' in Africa and the 'New World.'" Dum Diversas and Romanus Pontifex may have had an influence with the creation of doctrines supportive of empire building. In 1493, the Doctrine of Discovery issued by Pope Alexander VI ,

28290-482: The European mainland. A vast amount of labour was needed to create and sustain plantations that required intensive labour to grow, harvest, and process prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as "the Slave Coast "), Angola and nearby Kingdoms and later Central Africa , became the source for enslaved people to meet the demand for labour. The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour

28536-512: The Ewe language spoken in the West African countries of Ghana, Togo , and Benin. Hudu is one of its dialects. According to Paschal Beverly Randolph , the word Hoodoo is from an African dialect. The origin of the word Hoodoo and other words associated with the practice could be traced to the Windward Coast and Senegambia . For example, in West Africa, the word gris-gris (a conjure bag)

28782-627: The Grenadines , Suriname , Trinidad and Tobago , and the Virgin Islands . Caribbean migrants have also taken these practices elsewhere, to countries like the United States, Canada, and United Kingdom. In many Caribbean countries Obeah remains technically illegal and widely denigrated, especially given the negative assessment towards it evident in religions like Evangelical Protestantism and Rastafari . Obeah incorporates both spell-casting and healing practices, largely of African origin, although with European and South Asian influences as well. It

29028-605: The Indian Ocean to the Gulf of Aden . Others were carried across the Red Sea to Arabia and Aden , with sick slaves being thrown overboard, or they were marched across the Sahara desert via the Trans-Saharan slave trade route to the Nile , many of them dying from exposure or swollen feet along the way. However, estimates are imprecise, which can affect comparison between different slave trades. Two rough estimates by scholars of

29274-541: The Jamaican 18th and 19th century traditions of "doctresses", such as Grace Donne (who nursed her lover, Simon Taylor (sugar planter) ), Sarah Adams, Cubah Cornwallis , Mary Seacole , and Mrs Grant (who was the mother of Mary Seacole). These doctresses practised the use of hygiene and the applications of herbs decades before they were adopted by European doctors and nurses. As the British Empire expanded through

29520-533: The Kongo cosmogram engravings were used as a crossroads for spiritual rituals by the enslaved African American population in Kings County. Historians suggest Lott Farmstead was a stop on the Underground Railroad for freedom seekers . The Kongo cosmogram artifacts were used as a form of spiritual protection against slavery and for enslaved people's protection during their escape from slavery on

29766-469: The Kongo's minkisi and nkisi culture in the United States brought over by enslaved Africans. For example, archeologists found artifacts used by enslaved African Americans to control spirits by housing spirits inside caches or nkisi bundles. These spirits inside objects were placed in secret locations to protect an area or bring harm to enslavers. "In their physical manifestations, minkisi (nkisi) are sacred objects that embody spiritual beings and generally take

30012-478: The Kongolese King Afonso I seized a French vessel and its crew for illegally trading on his coast. In addition, Afonso complained to the king of Portugal that Portuguese slave traders continued to kidnap his people, which was causing depopulation in his kingdom. Queen Nzinga (Nzinga Mbande) fought against the expansion of the Portuguese slave trade into Mbundu people's lands in Central Africa in

30258-461: The Life and Adventures of Henry Bibb, An American Slave, Written by Himself , that he sought the help of several conjurers during his enslavement. Bibb went to these conjurers (Hoodoo doctors) in hopes that the charms they provided would prevent enslavers from whipping and beating him. The conjurers gave Bibb conjure powders to sprinkle around the bed of the enslaver, put in the enslaver's shoes, and carry

30504-929: The New World Europeans received tobacco, potatoes, tomatoes, and maize. Other items and commodities becoming important in global trade were the tobacco, sugarcane, and cotton crops of the Americas, along with the gold and silver brought from the American continent not only to Europe but elsewhere in the Old World. By the 15th century, slavery had existed in the Iberian Peninsula (Portugal and Spain) of Western Europe throughout recorded history. The Roman Empire had established its system of slavery in ancient times. Historian Benjamin Isaac suggests proto-racism existed in ancient times among Greco-Roman people . Racial prejudices were based on dehumanizing

30750-475: The North and South and provided conjure services in Black communities, such as card readings and crafting health tonics. However, Jim Crow laws pushed Black Herman to Harlem, New York's Black community, where he operated his own Hoodoo business and provided rootwork services to his clients. For some African Americans who practiced rootwork, providing conjure services in the Black community for African Americans to obtain love, money, employment, and protection from

30996-539: The Portuguese to "tap into" the "well-developed commercial economy in Africa ... without engaging in hostilities". "Peaceful trade became the rule all along the African coast", although there were some rare exceptions when acts of aggression led to violence. For instance, Portuguese traders attempted to conquer the Bissagos Islands in 1535. In 1571, Portugal, supported by the Kingdom of Kongo , took control of

31242-590: The Practice of Obeah or Witchcraft, in order to delude and impose on the Minds of others, shall upon conviction thereof, before two Magistrates and three Freeholders, suffer Death or Transportation. — 1760 Jamaican law against Obeah Fearing that Obeah's practitioners might incite anti-colonial rebellions, European colonial authorities increasingly saw Obeah as a threat to the stability on their plantations and criminalised it. In 1733, Governor Philip Gardelin issued

31488-867: The Sahara had functioned since antiquity, and continued to do so up until the 20th-century; in 652, the Rashidun Caliphate in Egypt enforced an annual tribute of 400 slaves from the Christian Kingdom of Makuria by the Baqt treaty, which was to be in effect for centuries. It supplied Africans for slavery in the Rashidun Caliphate (632–661), the Umayyad Caliphate (661–750), the Abbasid Caliphate (750–1258) and

31734-582: The Spanish Empire relied on the Asiento de Negros system, awarding (Catholic) Genoese merchant bankers the license to trade enslaved people from Africa to their colonies in Spanish America . Cartagena , Veracruz , Buenos Aires , and Hispaniola received the majority of slave arrivals, mainly from Angola . This division of the slave trade between Spain and Portugal upset the British and

31980-415: The Spanish king gave permission for ships to go directly from Africa to the Caribbean colonies, and they started taking 200–300 per trip. During the first Atlantic system, most of these slavers were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly. Decisive was the 1494 Treaty of Tordesillas which did not allow Spanish ships in African ports. Spain had to rely on Portuguese ships and sailors to bring slaves across

32226-535: The Underground Railroad. Archeologists also found the Kongo cosmogram on several plantations in the American South, including Richmond Hill Plantation in Georgia, Frogmore Plantation in South Carolina, a plantation in Texas, and Magnolia Plantation in Louisiana. Historians call the locations where crossroad symbols were possibly found inside slave cabins and African American living quarters 'Crossroads Deposits.' Crossroads deposits were found underneath floorboards and in

32472-484: The United States and the Quimbois of Francophone Caribbean islands Guadeloupe and Martinique. Fernández Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert suggested that Quimbois was essentially "a variation of Obeah". Obeah has both similarities and differences with other Afro-Caribbean religious traditions such as Haitian Vodou or Cuban Santería and Palo . Unlike them, it lacks communal rituals or a system of liturgy, and in contrast to

32718-770: The United States as African Americans left the delta during the Great Migration . As African Americans left the South during the Great Migration, they took the practice of Hoodoo to other Black communities in the North. Benjamin Rucker, also known as Black Herman , provided Hoodoo services for African Americans in the North and the South when he traveled as a stage magician . Benjamin Rucker was born in Virginia in 1892. Rucker learned stage magic and conjure from an African American named Prince Herman (Alonzo Moore). After Prince Herman's death, Rucker changed his name to Black Herman in honor of his teacher. Black Herman traveled between

32964-449: The United States during the slave trade came from Central Africa's Kongo region. Emory University created an online database that shows the voyages of the transatlantic slave trade . This database shows many slave ships primarily leaving Central Africa. Ancient Kongolese spiritual beliefs and practices are present in Hoodoo, such as the Kongo cosmogram. The basic form of the Kongo cosmogram

33210-621: The United States showed a blending of West and Central African spiritual practices among enslaved and free Black people. Conjure bags, also called mojo bags were used as a resistance against slavery. In the 1830s, Black sailors from the United States utilized conjure for safe sea travel. A Black sailor received a talisman from an Obi (Obeah) woman in Jamaica. This account shows how Black Americans and Jamaicans shared their conjure culture and had similar practices. Free Blacks in northern states had white and Black clients regarding fortune-telling and conjure services. In Alabama slave narratives, it

33456-785: The United States). The Bambara people, an ethnic group of the Mandinka people, influenced the making of charm bags and amulets. Words in Hoodoo about charm bags come from the Bambara language . For example, the word zinzin spoken in Louisiana Creole means a power amulet. The Mande word marabout in Louisiana means a spiritual teacher. During the slave trade, some Mandingo people were able to carry their gris-gris bags with them when they boarded slave ships heading to

33702-559: The United States, asserted that African culture in America developed into a uniquely African American spiritual and religious practice that was the foundation for conjure, Black theology , and liberation movements. Stuckey provides examples in the slave narratives , African American quilts, Black churches , and the continued cultural practices of African Americans. The Bakongo origins in Hoodoo practice are evident. According to academic research, about 40 percent of Africans shipped to

33948-405: The United States, they blended African spiritual beliefs with Christian baptismal practices. Enslaved African Americans prayed to Simbi water spirits during their baptismal services. In 1998, in a historic house in Annapolis, Maryland called the Brice House , archaeologists unearthed Hoodoo artifacts inside the house that linked to the Kongo people . These artifacts are the continued practice of

34194-479: The United States. Before they arrived in the American South, West African Muslims blended Islamic beliefs with traditional West African spiritual practices. On plantations in the American South, enslaved West African Muslims kept some of their traditional Islamic culture. They practiced Islamic prayers, wore turbans , and the men wore traditional wide-leg pants. Some enslaved West African Muslims practiced Hoodoo. Islamic prayers were used instead of Christian prayers in

34440-402: The abolition of slavery in the British Empire in 1834, Europeans in the West Indies continued to be troubled by the influence of Obeah within Afro-Caribbean communities. Existing laws against Obeah had typically applied only to enslaved people and so new laws to proscribe the practice were required. Between 1838 and 1920 a new raft of measures against Obeah and related practices appeared throughout

34686-411: The basement of the church. The Kongo cosmogram sun cycle also influenced how African Americans in Georgia prayed. It was recorded that some African Americans in Georgia prayed at the rising and setting of the sun. In an African American church on the Eastern Shore of Virginia, Kongo cosmograms were designed into the church's window frames. The church was built facing an axis of an east–west direction so

34932-431: The beginning of the 19th century, various governments acted to ban the trade, although illegal smuggling still occurred. It was generally thought that the transatlantic slave trade ended in 1867, but evidence was later found of voyages until 1873. In the early 21st century, several governments issued apologies for the transatlantic slave trade. The Atlantic slave trade developed after trade contacts were established between

35178-436: The book turns while Psalm 50 is read. This is very similar to the Bible and key divination method that had been used in Britain since at least the 17th century. In Guyana, South Asians have added chiromancy or palm reading to the styles of divination employed by Obeah practitioners. In various cases, a sudden death has been attributed to a bad spirit being set upon the deceased through Obeah. A common method of harming in Obeah

35424-414: The captain and the rest of the crew. The captain and crew made a deal with the Africans and promised them their freedom. The Africans took control of the ship and sailed back to Africa's shore. The captain and his crew tried to re-enslave the Africans but were unsuccessful. The Atlantic slave trade is customarily divided into two eras, known as the first and second Atlantic systems. Slightly more than 3% of

35670-524: The captive Africans as gifts to Prince Henry the Navigator . By 1460, seven hundred to eight hundred African people were taken annually and imported into Portugal. In Portugal, the Africans taken were used as domestic servants. From 1460 to 1500, the removal of Africans increased as Portugal and Spain built forts along the coast of West Africa. By 1500, Portugal and Spain had taken about 50,000 thousand West Africans. The Africans worked as domestic servants, artisans, and farmers. Other Africans were taken to work

35916-485: The cauldron. During the ceremony, spirit possession took place. Brown also recorded other conjure (Hoodoo) practices among the enslaved population. Enslaved Africans in America held on to their African culture. Some scholars assert that Christianity did not have much influence on some of the enslaved Africans as they continued to practice their traditional spiritual practices. Hoodoo was a form of resistance against slavery whereby enslaved Africans hid their traditions using

36162-467: The charms in their pockets or making them into necklaces to conceal these practices from their enslavers. In Talbot County, Maryland, at the Wye House plantation , where Frederick Douglass was enslaved in his youth, Kongo-related artifacts were found. Enslaved African Americans created items to ward off evil spirits by creating a Hoodoo bundle near the entrances to chimneys, believed to be where spirits enter. The Hoodoo bundle contained pieces of iron and

36408-462: The city. Herbs and roots needed were not gathered in nature but bought in spiritual shops. These spiritual shops near Black neighborhoods sold botanicals and books used in modern Hoodoo. After the American Civil War into the present day with the Black Lives Matter movement, Hoodoo practices in the African American community also focus on spiritual protection from police brutality. Today, Hoodoo and other African Traditional Religions are present in

36654-419: The classified advert columns of newspapers. Clients will typically pay for the services of an Obeah practitioner, the size of the fee often being connected to the client's means. This exchange of money for ritual services is long embedded. Part of this fee will be used to buy items necessary for the intended rituals, such as candles, rum, and fowl. There are a few examples of monetary payment being charged during

36900-523: The colour red is explained as countering the presence of duppies. Obeahmen and Obeahwomen are deemed to have the ability to bewitch and unwitch, to heal, charm, tell fortunes, detect stolen goods, reveal unfaithful lovers, and command duppies . The historian Diana Paton referred to them as "spiritual workers" and "ritual specialists". Obeah is practiced by both males and females, typically referred to as Obeahmen and Obeahwomen respectively. However, various practitioners avoid calling what they do Obeah . In

37146-650: The conjure doctors and herbal healers in African American communities in the United States. The Harn Museum of Art at the University of Florida collaborated with other world museums to compare African American conjure canes with ritual staffs from Central Africa and found similarities between them and other aspects of African American culture that originated from Bantu-Kongo people. Bakongo spiritual protections influenced African American yard decorations. In Central Africa, Bantu-Kongo people decorated their yards and entrances to doorways with baskets and broken shiny items to protect against evil spirits and thieves. This practice

37392-519: The conquered Canary Islands and then from mainland Africa, initially from Arab slave traders via the Trans-Saharan slave trade from Libya , and then directly from the African West coast through Portuguese outposts, which developed into the Atlantic slave trade and expanded significantly after the establishment of the colonies in the Americas in 1492. In the 15th century, Spain enacted a racially discriminatory law named limpieza de sangre , which translates as "blood purity" or "cleanliness of blood",

37638-420: The contact between the Old and New Worlds producing the Columbian exchange , named after the Italian explorer Christopher Columbus . It started the global silver trade from the 16th to 18th centuries and led to direct European involvement in the Chinese porcelain trade . It involved the transfer of goods unique to one hemisphere to another. Europeans brought cattle, horses, and sheep to the New World, and from

37884-548: The counterclockwise circle dance until someone was pulled into the center of the ring by the spiritual vortex at the center. The spiritual vortex at the center of the ring shout was a sacred spiritual realm where the ancestors and the Holy Spirit resided. The ring shout tradition continues in Georgia with the McIntosh County Shouters. At Cathead Creek in Georgia, archeologists found artifacts made by enslaved African Americans that linked to spiritual practices in West-Central Africa. Enslaved African Americans and their descendants, after

38130-440: The creation of charms. Enslaved Black Muslim conjure doctors' Islamic attire was different from that of other slaves, making them easy to identify and ask for conjure services regarding protection from enslavers. The Mandingo (Mandinka) were the first Muslim ethnic group imported from Sierra Leone in West Africa to the Americas. Mandingo people were known for their powerful conjure bags called gris-gris (later called mojo bags in

38376-401: The creations of art for some Black artists. In 2017, The Rootworker's Table is an art piece created by artist Renee Stout that showed the culture of Hoodoo portrayed as an altar with a collection of bottled tinctures and a chalkboard with Hoodoo herbal knowledge. The artist grew up in the Hill District of Pittsburgh and saw Hoodoo practitioners who were mainly Black women. Black women played

38622-515: The crew, and set fire to ships with explosives. Slave traders and white crewmembers prepared and prevented possible rebellions by loading women, men, and children separately inside slave ships because enslaved children used loose pieces of wood, tools, and any objects they found and passed them to the men to free themselves and fight the crew. According to historical research from the records of slave ship captains, between 1698 and 1807, there were 353 acts of insurrection aboard slave ships. The majority of

38868-808: The curse, the company and others following have never been able to build properties in the area, and the owner of the company had a heart attack. Locals from Frenier, Louisiana believe the Hurricane of 1915 that wiped out the town was predicted by a Hoodoo lady named Julia Brown who sang a song on her front porch that she would take the town with her when she die because the people in the area mistreated her after she helped them. Black women practitioners of Hoodoo, Lucumi , Palo and other African-derived traditions are opening and owning spiritual stores online and in Black neighborhoods to provide spiritual services to their community and educate African-descended people about Black spirituality and how to heal themselves physically and spiritually. The culture of Hoodoo has inspired

39114-465: The devil" or "assuming the art of witchcraft." Negative assessments, often reflecting racist attitudes, were also apparent in 18th century writings that discussed Obeah, such as Edward Long 's History of Jamaica (1774) and Bryan Edward 's History, Civil and Commercial, of the British Colonies in the West Indies (1793), which also emphasised the notion that it was not religion but witchcraft or magic. The practice of obeah with regards to healing led to

39360-508: The directions of the Kingdom of Castile , invaded and colonised the Canary Islands during the 15th century, where they converted much of the land to the production of wine and sugar. Along with this, they also captured native Canary Islanders, the Guanches , to use as slaves both on the Islands and across the Christian Mediterranean. After the success of Portugal and Spain in the slave trade other European nations followed. In 1530, an English merchant from Plymouth, William Hawkins , visited

39606-411: The disease had debilitating effects on the European settlers. Conversely, many enslaved Africans were taken from regions of Africa which hosted particularly potent strains of the disease, so the Africans had already developed natural resistance to malaria. This, Esposito argued, resulted in higher malaria survival rates in the American south among enslaved Africans than among European labourers, making them

39852-427: The early twentieth century. Du Bois asserts the early years of the Black church during slavery on plantations were influenced by Voodooism. Black church records from the late nineteenth century into the early twentieth century in the South recorded that some church members practiced conjure and combined Christian and African spiritual concepts to harm or heal members in their community. Known Hoodoo spells date back to

40098-529: The empire's civilising mission. Obeah, or as it is called in some of the islands Wanga, may be described as the art of imposing upon the credulity of ignorant persons by means of feathers, bones, teeth, hairs, cat's claws, rusty nails, pieces of cloth, dirt, and other rubbish, usually contained in a wallet. The obeah man is usually dirty and unkempt, with a slouching gait and averted face. The cult sometimes develops into poisoning, by means of ground glass, arsenic, or prepared vegetable extracts. — Frank Cundall,

40344-501: The engines behind the trade in the capital firms, the shipping and insurance companies of Europe and America, or the plantation systems in Americas. They did not wield any influence on the building manufacturing centres of the West. Sometimes trading between Europeans and African leaders was not equal. For example, Europeans influenced Africans to provide more slaves by forming military alliances with warring African societies to instigate more fighting which would provide more war captives to

40590-467: The enslaved at forts on the African coast and then brought them to the Americas. Some Portuguese and Europeans participated in slave raids. As the National Museums Liverpool explains: "European traders captured some Africans in raids along the coast, but bought most of them from local African or African-European dealers." Many European slave traders generally did not participate in slave raids because life expectancy for Europeans in sub-Saharan Africa

40836-491: The enslaved people exported from Africa were traded between 1525 and 1600, and 16% in the 17th century. The first Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans to, primarily, American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. Before the 1520s, slavers took Africans to Seville or the Canary Islands and then exported some of them from Spain to its colonies in Hispaniola and Puerto Rico, with 1 to 40 slaves per ship. These supplemented enslaved Native Americans. In 1518,

41082-409: The enslaved people on the plantation for conjuring death. Old Julie conjured so much death that her enslaver sold her away to stop her from killing people on the plantation with conjure. Her enslaver put her on a steamboat to take her to her new enslaver in the Deep South . According to the stories of freedmen after the Civil War, Old Julie used her conjure powers to turn the steamboat back to where it

41328-422: The enslaved people to gather some roots and put them in bags, then "march around the cabins several times and point the bags toward the master's house every morning." After following Webb's instructions, according to their beliefs, the enslavers would treat them better. Another enslaved African named Dinkie, known by the enslaved community as Dinkie King of Voudoos and the Goopher King, used goofer dust to resist

41574-470: The entire European continent, rendering it unthinkable to enslave a European since this would require enslaving an insider. Conversely, Africans were viewed as outsiders and thus qualified for enslavement. While Europeans may have treated some types of labour, such as convict labour, with conditions similar to that of slaves, these labourers would not be regarded as chattel and their progeny could not inherit their subordinate status, thus not making them slaves in

41820-659: The era of slavery, occultist Paschal Beverly Randolph began studying the occult and traveled and learned spiritual practices in Africa and Europe. Randolph was a mixed-race free Black man who wrote several books on the occult. In addition, Randolph was an abolitionist who spoke out against slavery in the South. After the American Civil War , Randolph educated freedmen in schools for formerly enslaved people called Freedmen's Bureau Schools in New Orleans, Louisiana, where he studied Louisiana Voodoo and Hoodoo in African American communities, documenting his findings in his book, Seership, The Magnetic Mirror. In 1874, Randolph organized

42066-404: The era of slavery. In an 1831 account from Jamaica, for instance, a slave named Polydore requested two dollars, a cock, and a pint of rum to heal a man he had made ill with his curse. Further evidence for the monetary nature of these transactions comes from the period after emancipation. Among the Trinidadian cases regarding Obeah recorded from 1890 and 1930, the main reason for clients approaching

42312-540: The evil works they ascribed to the Obeah men, and led public parades which resulted in crowd-hysteria that engendered violent antagonism against Obeah men. The public "discovery" of buried Obeah charms, presumed to be of evil intent, led on more than one occasion to violence against the rival Obeah practitioners. Such conflicts between supposedly “good” and “evil” spiritual work could sometimes be found within plantation communities. In one 1821 case brought before court in Berbice , an enslaved woman named Madalon allegedly died as

42558-410: The exact origins of the term were "unlikely to be definitively resolved". One argument is that it stems from Twi , one of the Akan languages . In this case, it may derive from obayifo , a Twi term generally translated as " witch ", or from bayi , the term for the morally neutral supernatural force employed by the obayifo . In support of this origin is the fact that the term obeah proved prominent in

42804-875: The eyes of Europeans. The status of chattel slavery was thus confined to non-Europeans, such as Africans. Hoodoo (spirituality) Hoodoo is an ethnoreligion that, in a broader context, functions as a set of spiritual observances, traditions, and beliefs—including magical and other ritual practices—developed by enslaved African Americans in the Southern United States from various traditional African spiritualities and elements of indigenous American botanical knowledge . Practitioners of Hoodoo are called rootworkers , conjure doctors , conjure men or conjure women , and root doctors . Regional synonyms for Hoodoo include rootwork and conjure . As an autonomous spiritual system it has often been syncretized with beliefs from Islam brought over by enslaved West African Muslims, and Spiritualism . Scholars define Hoodoo as

43050-440: The favored terms, such as "science-man," "scientist," "doctor-man" and "professor", emphasise modernity. In Obeah tradition, it is typically believed that practitioners will be born with special powers; they are sometimes referred to as having been "born with the gift". It is taught that possession of these powers may be revealed to the individual through dreams or visions in late childhood or early adolescence. In Caribbean lore, it

43296-478: The figure to activate its spirit in one of the cabins called the "curer's cabin." Researchers also found a Kongo bilongo , which enslaved African Americans created using materials from white porcelain to make a doll figure. In the western section of the cabin, they found iron kettles and iron chain fragments, suggesting that the western section of the cabin was an altar to the Kongo spirit Zarabanda. The word goofer in goofer dust has Kongo origins and comes from

43542-448: The first letter. According to Yvonne Chireau, "Hoodoo is an African American-based tradition that makes use of natural and supernatural elements in order to create and effect change in the human experience.." Hoodoo was created by African Americans, who were among over 12 million enslaved Africans from various Central and West African ethnic groups transported to the Americas from the 16th to 19th centuries ( 1514 to 1867 ) as part of

43788-566: The followers of these traditions, there is little evidence that Obeah's practitioners have regarded it as "their religion". Fernández Olmos and Paravisini-Gebert took the view that Obeah was not a religion per se, but is a term applied to "any African-derived practice with religious elements". Obeah exists at the borders of what both Christians and social scientists have typically recognised as " religion ," and as such it has historically often been classified not as religion but as "magic," "witchcraft," "superstition," or "charlatanism." Across much of

44034-448: The foreign peoples they conquered through warfare. Since the fall of the Western Roman Empire , various systems of slavery continued in the successor Islamic and Christian kingdoms of the peninsula through the early modern era of the Atlantic slave trade. In 1441–1444, Portuguese traders first captured Africans on the Atlantic coast of Africa (in what is today Mauritania ), taking their captives to slavery in Europe , and established

44280-591: The form of a container such as a gourd, pot, bag, or snail shell. Medicines that provide the minkisi with power, such as chalk, nuts, plants, soil, stones, and charcoal, are placed in the container." Nkisi bundles were found on other plantations in Virginia and Maryland. For example, nkisi bundles were found for healing or misfortune. Archeologists found objects believed by the enslaved African American population in Virginia and Maryland to have spiritual power, such as coins, crystals, roots, fingernail clippings, crab claws, beads, iron, bones, and other items assembled inside

44526-465: The ground the ground would carry the sound." Formerly enslaved person and abolitionist William Wells Brown wrote in his book, My Southern Home, or, The South and Its People , published in 1880, about the life of enslaved people in St. Louis, Missouri . Brown recorded a secret Voudoo ceremony at midnight in St. Louis. Enslaved people circled a cauldron, and a Voudoo queen had a magic wand. Snakes, lizards, frogs, and other animal parts were thrown into

44772-419: The largest African population . "The Treaty of Alcacuvas in 1479 provided traders the right to supply Spaniards with Africans." In addition, in the 15th century, Dominican friar Annius of Viterbo invoked the curse of Ham , from the biblical story of enslavement, to explain the differences between Europeans and Africans in his writings. Annius, who frequently wrote of the "superiority of Christians over

45018-415: The last sixteen years of the transatlantic slave trade, Spain was the only transatlantic slave-trading empire. Following the British Slave Trade Act 1807 and U.S. bans on the African slave trade that same year, it declined, but the period thereafter still accounted for 28.5% of the total volume of the Atlantic slave trade. Between 1810 and 1860, over 3.5 million slaves were transported, with 850,000 in

45264-420: The laws introduced to restrict African-derived practices contributed to the developing idea that these varied traditions could be seen as a singular phenomenon, Obeah. Afro-Caribbeans often concealed Obeah from Europeans. There were nevertheless Europeans who believed in Obeah's power; there are records of some plantation owners getting Obeah practitioners to cast spells over their fields to deter thieves. After

45510-420: The mark, and cross if off." Also reported in various 18th and early 19th-century sources was the notion that Christian baptism provided protection from Obeah. A continuing source of anxiety related to Obeah was the belief that practitioners were skilled in using poisons, as mentioned in Matthew Lewis 's Journal of a West India Proprietor . Many Jamaicans accused women of such poisonings; one case Lewis discussed

45756-403: The mid-16th century, the Spanish New Laws , prohibited slavery of the Indigenous people. A labour shortage resulted. Alternative sources of labour, such as indentured servitude , failed to provide a sufficient workforce. Many crops could not be sold for profit, or even grown, in Europe. Exporting crops and goods from the New World to Europe often proved to be more profitable than producing them on

46002-492: The middle of the 17th century, slavery had hardened as a racial caste, with African slaves and their future offspring being legally the property of their owners, as children born to slave mothers were also slaves ( partus sequitur ventrem ). As property, the people were considered merchandise or units of labour, and were sold at markets with other goods and services. The major Atlantic slave trading nations, in order of trade volume, were Portugal , Britain , Spain , France ,

46248-525: The most likely people to explore the Atlantic and develop its commerce". He identified these as being the drive to find new and profitable commercial opportunities outside Europe. Additionally, there was the desire to create an alternative trade network to that controlled by the Muslim Ottoman Empire of the Middle East, which was viewed as a commercial, political and religious threat to European Christendom. In particular, European traders wanted to trade for gold, which could be found in western Africa, and to find

46494-430: The nature of the relationship between these African kingdoms and the European traders. The Guyanese historian Walter Rodney (1972) has argued that it was an unequal relationship, with Africans being forced into a "colonial" trade with the more economically developed Europeans, exchanging raw materials and human resources (i.e. slaves) for manufactured goods. He argued that it was this economic trade agreement dating back to

46740-439: The ninth to the nineteenth) ... Four million enslaved people exported via the Red Sea , another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean , perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean. Slaves were marched in shackles to the coasts of Sudan, Ethiopia and Somali, placed upon dhows and trafficked across

46986-408: The northeast sections of cabins to conjure ancestral spirits for protection. Sacrificed animals and other charms were found where enslaved African Americans drew the crossroads symbols, and four holes were drilled into charms to symbolize the Bakongo cosmogram. Other West-Central African traditions found on plantations by historians include using six-pointed stars as spiritual symbols. A six-pointed star

47232-514: The numbers African slaves held over twelve centuries in the Muslim world are 11.5 million and 14 million, while other estimates indicate a number between 12 and 15 million African slaves prior to the 20th century. According to John K. Thornton , Europeans usually bought enslaved people who had been captured in endemic warfare between African states. Some Africans had made a business out of capturing war captives or members of neighboring ethnic groups and selling them. A reminder of this practice

47478-475: The outcome of a court case. A Jamaican case recorded in 1911 for instance involved the ritual specialist turning a key in a padlock while saying the name of an individual they wanted to prevent speaking in court. Another element of lore, recorded in 1978, maintained that holding a nutmeg in one's mouth while speaking on oath in court will help a person secure legal victory. These religious practices can also be used in times of war. Various Maroons turned to them amid

47724-458: The police was a way to help Black people during the Jim Crow era in the United States so Black people can gain employment to support their families, and for their protection against the law. As Black people traveled to northern areas, Hoodoo rituals were modified because there were not a lot of rural country areas to perform rituals in woods or near rivers. Therefore, African Americans improvised their rituals inside their homes or secluded regions of

47970-408: The possession of their worshippers. These spirits and deities can be "called" or summoned to assist the Obeah practitioner, but are not worshipped. These spiritual forces are often deemed essentially morally neutral. In various Caribbean cultures, it is believed that a spirit can attack someone either on its own initiative or because it has been sent to do so by an Obeah practitioner. In some contexts,

48216-448: The powder made by Peter the Doctor probably included some cemetery dirt to conjure the ancestors to provide spiritual militaristic support from ancestral spirits as help during the slave revolt. The Bakongo people in Central Africa incorporated cemetery dirt into minkisi conjuring bags to activate it with ancestral spirits. During the slave trade, Bakongo people were brought to colonial New York. The New York slave revolt of 1712 and others in

48462-742: The practice, a person typically becomes the apprentice of an established Obeahman or woman. According to folk tradition, this apprenticeship should take place in the forest and last for a year, a notion that derives from older African ideas. In practice, apprenticeships can last up to five or six years. A practitioner's success with attracting clients is usually rooted in their reputation. Older Obeahmen/women are usually regarded more highly than younger ones. They do not normally wear special clothing to mark out their identity. In many cases, they have practiced in secret, allowing them to operate even while their practices are illegal. In Trinidad and Tobago, 21st-century Obeah practitioners often advertise their services in

48708-403: The production of sugarcane and other commodities. This was viewed as crucial by those Western European states which were vying with one another to create overseas empires . The Portuguese, in the 16th century, were the first to transport slaves across the Atlantic. In 1526, they completed the first transatlantic slave voyage to Brazil , and other Europeans soon followed. Shipowners regarded

48954-562: The publication or circulation of written material pertaining to Obeah. Several of these laws, including those in Trinidad and Tobago, British Guiana, Barbados, and Jamaica, emphasised the idea that Obeah would be regarded as fraud. This contributed to the notion of Obeah practitioners as fraudsters and charlatans that became dominant among European-Caribbean elites. This approach was influenced by ongoing efforts in Britain to suppress fortune tellers and astrologers there; such prosecutions were thought to weed out "superstition" and thus seen as part of

49200-437: The rebellions by the Africans were defeated. Igbo slaves on ships committed suicide by jumping overboard as an act of resistance to enslavement. To prevent further suicides, white crewmen placed nets around slave ships to catch enslaved persons that jumped overboard. White captains and crewmen invested in firearms, swivel guns , and ordered ship crews to watch slaves to prevent or prepare for possible slave revolts. John Newton

49446-617: The retention of various traditional West African cultural practices. Among the Gullah people and enslaved African Americans in the Mississippi Delta , where the concentration of enslaved people was dense, Hoodoo was practiced under an extensive cover of secrecy. The reason for secrecy among enslaved and free African Americans was that slave codes prohibited large gatherings of enslaved and free Black people. Enlavers experienced how slave religion ignited slave revolts among enslaved and free Black people, and some leaders of slave insurrections were Black ministers or conjure doctors. The Code Noir

49692-418: The ritual manipulation of spiritual power". For the historians Jerome Handler and Kenneth Bilby it was "a loosely defined complex involving supernatural practices largely related to healing and protection". The historian Thomas Waters called Obeah a "supernatural tradition", and described how it "blended West African rituals with herbalism, Islam, Christianity and even a smattering of British folk magic". The term

49938-502: The root on his right side as instructed by Sandy and hoped the root would work when he returned to the plantation. The cruel slave-breaker, Mr. Covey, told Douglass to do some work, but as Mr. Covey approached Douglass, Douglass had the strength and courage to resist Mr. Covey and defeated him after they fought. Covey never bothered Douglass again. In his autobiography, Douglass believed the root given to him by Sandy prevented him from being whipped by Mr. Covey. Conjure for African Americans

50184-420: The set of spiritual practices, “Obeah” also came to refer to a physical object, such as a talisman or charm, that was used for evil magical purposes. The item was referred to as an Obeah-item (e.g. an 'obeah ring' or an 'obeah-stick', translated as: ring used for witchcraft or stick used for witchcraft respectively). Obeah incorporated various beliefs from the religions of later migrants to the colonies where it

50430-407: The setting of the sun in the west. The ring shout follows the cyclical nature of life represented in the Kongo cosmogram of birth, life, death, and rebirth. Through counterclockwise circle dancing, ring shouters build up spiritual energy that results in communication with ancestral spirits and leads to spirit possession by the Holy Spirit or ancestral spirits. Enslaved African Americans performed

50676-504: The slave trade of Africans. In Lisbon during the 16th and 17th centuries, Muslims financed by Jewish conversos traded Africans across the Sahara Desert and enslaved Africans before and during the Atlantic slave trade in Europe and Africa. In New Spain , Spaniards applied limpieza de sangre to Africans and Native Americans and created a racial caste system, believing them to be impure because they were not Christian. Europeans enslaved Muslims and people practicing other religions as

50922-435: The slave trade; however, African populations, the social, political, and military changes to African societies suffered greatly. For example, Mossi Kingdoms resisted the Atlantic slave trade and refused to participate in the selling of African people. However, as time progressed more European slave traders entered into West Africa and were having more influence in African nations and the Mossi became involved in slave trading in

51168-541: The slave-owners. Obeah revolves around one-to-one consultations between practitioners and their clients. Common goals in Obeah include attracting a partner, finding lost objects, resolving legal issues, getting someone out of prison, attracting luck for gambling or games, and wreaking revenge. Central to Obeah is the relationship between humans and spirits. Unlike other Afro-Caribbean religious traditions, such as Haitian Vodou and Cuban Santería , Obeah does not strictly centre around deities who manifest through divination and

51414-518: The slaves as cargo to be transported to the Americas as quickly and cheaply as possible, there to be sold to work on coffee, tobacco, cocoa, sugar, and cotton plantations , gold and silver mines, rice fields, the construction industry, cutting timber for ships, as skilled labour, and as domestic servants. The first enslaved Africans sent to the English colonies were classified as indentured servants , with legal standing similar to that of contract-based workers coming from Britain and Ireland. However, by

51660-439: The soldiers with a machete. Meanwhile, in Antigua in 1736, an alleged slave conspiracy to attack Europeans was exposed, its ringleaders arrested, and 47 people executed. Interrogations revealed that the conspirators engaged in religious ceremonies and offered religious oaths, in at least one case administered by an "Obiaman" named Quawcoo. According to this account, Quawcoo had also used divination to determine an auspicious time for

51906-475: The soul that died from racial violence. African Americans also use Hoodoo to protect their properties from gentrification in their neighborhoods and on sites that are considered sacred to their communities. On Daufuskie Island, South Carolina in the early twentieth century, a Hoodoo practitioner, Buzzard, placed a curse on a developing company that continued to build properties in Gullah cemeteries where Buzzard's ancestors are buried. According to locals, because of

52152-499: The south-western region of Angola in order to secure its threatened economic interest in the area. Although Kongo later joined a coalition in 1591 to force the Portuguese out, Portugal had secured a foothold on the continent that it continued to occupy until the 20th century. Despite these incidents of occasional violence between African and European forces, many African states ensured that any trade went on in their own terms, for instance, imposing custom duties on foreign ships. In 1525,

52398-462: The spirit world. In Obeah traditions, plants are believed to absorb cosmic properties from the sun, moon, and planets. At a 1755 trial in Martinique, there were reports of amulets incorporating incense, holy water, pieces of the Eucharist, wax from an Easter candle , and small crucifixes. Obeah bottles are much like the witch bottles that were used in early modern and modern Britain. In various cases, Obeah rituals are performed to try and affect

52644-451: The string would turn into a snake. The man interviewed called it inkabera. At Locust Grove plantation in Jefferson County, Kentucky , archeologists and historians found amulets made by enslaved African Americans that had the Kongo cosmogram engraved onto coins and beads. Blue beads were found among the artifacts; in African spirituality, blue beads attract protection to the wearer. In slave cabins in Kentucky and on other plantations in

52890-569: The sun rises directly over the church steeple in the east. The burial grounds of the church also show continued African American burial practices of placing mirror-like objects on top of graves. In Kings County in Brooklyn, New York, at the Lott Farmstead, Kongo-related artifacts were found on the site. The Kongo-related artifacts included a Kongo cosmogram engraved onto ceramics and nkisi bundles that had cemetery dirt and iron nails left by enslaved African Americans. Researchers suggest that iron nails were used to prevent whippings from enslavers. Also,

53136-542: The term Obeah also appeared among African-Americans in the South Carolina Lowcountry prior to the American Civil War . The term obeah seems to have been unknown in Francophone societies during the 17th and 18th centuries, but began to appear among French speakers in Martinique by the early 19th century. During the period of enslavement, Obeah was primarily directed to goals that the enslaved people would have deemed beneficial, such as healing, locating missing property, protecting against illness and misfortune, and targeting

53382-448: The term obeah is earliest attested. In many parts of the Caribbean, the word Obeah is reserved only for destructive ritual practices and regarded as a synonym for sorcery or witchcraft. In other places, the term is used in a fairly neutral manner to describe a form of spiritual power. This is the common understanding of the term among Maroon communities in Suriname and French Guiana, for example. Bilby noted that in this context, obeah

53628-422: The time) and those slaves that existed in Europe tended to be non-Christians and their immediate descendants (since a slave converting to Christianity did not guarantee emancipation) and thus by the 15th century Europeans as a whole came to be regarded as insiders. Eltis argues that while all slave societies have demarked insiders and outsiders, Europeans took this process further by extending the status of insider to

53874-428: The top, traveling to the realm of the dead below, where the ancestors reside. The cosmogram, or dikenga , however, is not a unitary symbol like a Christian cross or a national flag. The physical world resides at the top of the cosmogram. The spiritual (ancestral) world resides at the bottom of the cosmogram. At the horizontal line is a watery divide that separates the two worlds from the physical and spiritual, and thus

54120-403: The triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to the Americas and the Caribbean Islands. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum. Sir John Hawkins , considered the pioneer of the English slave trade, was the first to run

54366-410: The triangular trade, making a profit at every stop. The Atlantic slave trade was the result of, among other things, labour shortage , itself in turn created by the desire of European colonists to exploit New World land and resources for capital profits. Native peoples were at first utilized as slave labour by Europeans until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases. Furthermore, in

54612-452: The universe and how human souls travel in the spiritual realm after death, entering the ancestral realm and reincarnating back into the family. The artifacts uncovered at the James Brice House included Kongo cosmogram engravings drawn as crossroads (an X) inside the house. This was done to ward a place from a harsh enslaver. Also, the Kongo cosmogram is evident in Hoodoo practice among Black Americans. Archeologists unearthed clay bowls from

54858-436: The uprising. In various cases, Obeah rituals might encourage "courage and morale" during such rebellions. Be it therefore enacted ... that from and after the First Day of June (1760), any Negro or other Slave, who shall pretend to any supernatural Power, and be detected in making use of any Blood, Feathers, Parrots Beaks, Dogs teeth, Alligators Teeth, broken Bottles, Grave Dirt, Rum, Egg-shells, or any other Materials relative to

55104-405: The west African coast and in the Americas which they had never previously encountered. Historian Pierre Chaunu termed the consequences of European navigation "disenclavement", with it marking an end of isolation for some societies and an increase in inter-societal contact for most others. Historian John Thornton noted, "A number of technical and geographical factors combined to make Europeans

55350-450: The word "Hoodoo" in the English language appeared in 1870. Its origins are obscure. Still, some linguists believe it originated as an alteration of the word Voodoo – a word that has its origin in the Gbe languages such as the Ewe , Adja, and Fon languages of Ghana , Togo, and Benin – referring to divinity. Another possible etymological origin of the word Hoodoo comes from the word Hudu , meaning "spirit work," which comes from

55596-421: The worlds of the living and the world of the ancestors, divided at the horizontal line. Counterclockwise sacred circle dances in Hoodoo are performed to communicate with ancestral spirits using the sign of the Yowa cross. Communication with the ancestors is a traditional practice in Hoodoo that was brought to the United States during the slave trade originating among Bantu-Kongo people. In Savannah, Georgia, in

55842-415: Was a captain of slave ships and recorded in his personal journal how Africans mutinied on ships, and some were successful in overtaking the crew. For example, in 1730 the slave ship Little George departed from the Guinea Coast in route to Rhode Island with a cargo of ninety-six enslaved Africans. A few of the slaves slipped out of their iron chains and killed three of the watchmen on deck and imprisoned

56088-427: Was a concept akin to the Yoruba religious notion of aṣẹ , which is also found in Santería and Candomblé . He suggested that the positive use of the word obia here was because these Maroon communities had remained largely outside of European cultural domination. These Surinamese did believe in the negative use of supernatural power, but they called that wisi , a term derived from the English "witch". Variants of

56334-421: Was an African Art historian who found through his study of African Art the origins of African Americans' spiritual practices in certain regions in Africa. Former academic historian Albert J. Raboteau in his book, Slave Religion: The "Invisible Institution" in the Antebellum South , traced the origins of Hoodoo (conjure, rootwork) practices in the United States to West and Central Africa. These origins developed

56580-429: Was captured by African traders and sold into slavery. Dahomey King Agaja from 1718 to 1740, opposed the Atlantic slave trade and refused to sell African people and attacked the European forts built along the slave coast in West Africa. Donna Beatriz Kimpa Vita in Kongo and Senegalese leader Abd al-Qadir, advocated resistance against the forced exportation of Africans. In the 1770s, leader Abdul Kader Khan opposed

56826-444: Was docked, forcing her enslaver who tried to sell her to keep her. Frederick Douglass , a formerly enslaved person, abolitionist, and author wrote in his autobiography that he sought spiritual assistance from an enslaved conjurer named Sandy Jenkins. Sandy told Douglass to follow him into the woods, where they found a root that Sandy told Douglass to carry in his right pocket to prevent any white man from whipping him. Douglass carried

57072-420: Was documented that formerly enslaved people used graveyard dirt to escape from slavery on the Underground Railroad . Freedom seekers rubbed graveyard dirt on the bottom of their feet or put graveyard dirt in their tracks to prevent slave catchers' dogs from tracking their scent. Former slave Ruby Pickens Tartt from Alabama told of a man who could fool the dogs, saying he "done lef' dere and had dem dogs treein'

57318-412: Was documented that there was a Kikongo-speaking slave community in Charleston, South Carolina. Robert Farris Thompson was a professor at Yale University who conducted academic research in Africa and the United States and traced Hoodoo's (African American conjure) origins to Central Africa's Bantu-Kongo people in his book Flash of the Spirit: African & Afro-American Art & Philosophy. Thompson

57564-600: Was implemented in 1724 in French colonial Louisiana . It regulated the lives of enslaved and free people and prohibited and made it illegal for enslaved Africans to practice their traditional religions. Article III in the Code Noir states: "We forbid any public exercise of any religion other than Catholic." The Code Noir and other slave laws resulted in enslaved and free African Americans conducting their spiritual practices in secluded areas such as woods ( hush harbors ), churches, and other places. Slaves created methods to decrease their noise when they practiced their spirituality. In

57810-418: Was less than one year during the period of the slave trade because of malaria that was endemic in the African continent. An article from PBS explains: "Malaria, dysentery, yellow fever, and other diseases reduced the few Europeans living and trading along the West African coast to a chronic state of ill health and earned Africa the name 'white man's grave.' In this environment, European merchants were rarely in

58056-439: Was little more than to exploit the opportunity for immediate profits made by raiding and the seizure or purchase of trade commodities". Using the Canary Islands as a naval base, Europeans, at the time primarily Portuguese traders, began to move their activities down the western coast of Africa, performing raids in which slaves would be captured to be later sold in the Mediterranean. Although initially successful in this venture, "it

58302-437: Was more than capable of handling competition from preindustrial Europe". However, Anne Bailey, commenting on Thornton's suggestion that Africans and Europeans were equal partners in the Atlantic slave trade, wrote: [T]o see Africans as partners implies equal terms and equal influence on the global and intercontinental processes of the trade. Africans had great influence on the continent itself, but they had no direct influence on

58548-491: Was not long before African naval forces were alerted to the new dangers, and the Portuguese [raiding] ships began to meet strong and effective resistance", with the crews of several of them being killed by African sailors, whose boats were better equipped at traversing the west-central African coasts and river systems. By 1494, the Portuguese king had entered agreements with the rulers of several West African states that would allow trade between their respective peoples, enabling

58794-471: Was operating at trivial levels. In many years, not a single Spanish slave voyage set sail from Africa. Unlike all of their imperial competitors, the Spanish almost never delivered slaves to foreign territories. By contrast, the British, and the Dutch before them, sold slaves everywhere in the Americas. The second Atlantic system was the trade of enslaved Africans by mostly English, French, and Dutch traders and investors. The main destinations of this phase were

59040-745: Was originally used by Europeans, according to Handler and Bilby, as "a catch-all term for a range of supernatural-related ideas and behaviours that were not of European origin and which they heavily criticized and condemned." Throughout history, the term Obeah has rarely been used as a self-description of a person's own practices. In the Caribbean, practitioners of folk healing traditions are often reluctant to publicly describe what they do as Obeah; there are some people who will privately describe what they do as Obeah , but used other words publicly. Historically, those who were accused of practicing Obeah in criminal court rarely used that term itself. Some practitioners instead refer to it as "Science", or as working, doing

59286-418: Was present. Obeah also influenced other religions in the Caribbean, e.g. Christianity, which incorporated some Obeah beliefs. The notion that Obeah might be a force for generating solidarity among slaves and encouraging them to resist colonial domination was brought to the attention of European slave-owners due to several events in the 1730s. In Jamaica, the First Maroon War saw British forces fail to suppress

59532-522: Was prevalent in many parts of Africa for many centuries before the beginning of the Atlantic slave trade. An article from PBS explains the differences between African slavery and European slavery in the Americas . "It is important to distinguish between European slavery and African slavery. In most cases, slavery systems in Africa were more like indentured servitude in that the slaves retained some rights and children born to slaves were generally born free. The slaves could be released from servitude and join

59778-593: Was previously rarely used, and gave it a legal definition. During the rebellion, Tacky is said to have consulted an Obeahman who prepared for his forces a substance that would make them immune to bullets, which boosted their confidence in executing the rebellion. The European colonial fear of Afro-Caribbean traditions was furthered following the successful Haitian Revolution , in which various revolutionaries were allegedly practitioners of Vodou. Early Jamaican laws against Obeah reflected Christian theological viewpoints, characterising it as "pretending to have communication with

60024-489: Was that of a young woman named Minetta who was brought to trial for attempting to poison her master. Lewis and others often characterized the women they accused of poisonings as being manipulated by Obeahmen, who they contended actually provided the women with the materials for poisonings. They claimed that Obeah men stole people's shadows, and they set themselves up as the helpers of those who wished to have their shadows restored. Revivalists contacted spirits in order to expose

60270-453: Was that, with much cheap land available and many landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves relatively quickly, thus increasing the need for workers. Labour shortages were mainly met by the English, French and Portuguese with African slave labour. Thomas Jefferson attributed the use of slave labour in part to the climate, and the consequent idle leisure afforded by slave labour: "For in

60516-468: Was used as a justification by Spain to take lands from non-Christians West of the Azores . The Doctrine of Discovery stated that non-Christian lands should be taken and ruled by Christian nations, and Indigenous people (Africans and Native Americans ) living on their lands should convert to Christianity. In 1493, Pope Alexander VI issued a papal bull called Inter Caetera which gave Spain and Portugal rights to claim and colonize all non-Christian lands in

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