Home > Tipití > Vol. 3 > Iss. 1 (June 2005)
Abstract
Esmeraldas, Ecuador, became home to free African and Afro-Hispanic people in the mid 1500s. It is the only region in the Americas where self liberation— cimarronaje—of Afro-descendant people preceded slavery. It is also the region that soon gave birth to zambaje, the emergence of an African-Indigenous population. This article sets forth salient dimensions of historical and contemporary blackness before sketching the enduring and transforming cultural dynamics of this rain-forest littoral region of the neotropics by reference to cosmovision, the marimba dance, arrullos, chigualos, alabados, la tumba, and la tropa. Following this sketch I turn to political economy, cultural ecology, and globalization.
Esmeraldas, Ecuador, deviene un santuario para africanos libres y gente afrohispana a mediados del siglo 1600. Es la única región en las Américas donde la autoliberación —cimarronaje—de personas afrodecendientes precede la esclavitud. Es también donde surge el zambaje, el desarrollo de una población africanaindígena. Este artículo expone dimensiones sobresalientes de la negritud histórica y contemporánea. Explica dinámicas culturales persistentes y en transformación en este bosque lluvioso litoral neotrópico haciendo referencia a la cosmovisión, la danza de la marimba, los arrullos, los chigualos, los alabados, la tumba, y la tropa. Luego enfoca economía política, ecología cultural, y globalización.
Acknowledgments
Acknowledgments. In the spirit of sustained collaboration, a number of scholars have shared their manuscripts, ideas, and insights with me over many years, long before their material was published. I have learned much from their works, unpublished and published, and draw extensively from them here. For such collegiality I thank, in particular, Kris Lane, Diego Quiroga, Jean Muteba Rahier and Padre Rafael Savoia. For helping me conceptualize racialized systems of cultural representation in broad frameworks, I am indebted to Arlene Torres and Dianne Pinderhughes. I thank Kris Lane, Diego Quiroga, Jean Rahier, Sibby Whitten, and Michelle Wibbelsman for a constructive reading of this manuscript.
Recommended Citation
Whitten, Norman E. Jr.
(2005).
"Emerald Freedom: “With Pride in the Face of the Sun”",
Tipití: Journal of the Society for the Anthropology of Lowland South America:
Vol. 3:
Iss.
1.
DOI: https://doi.org/10.70845/2572-3626.1014
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.trinity.edu/tipiti/vol3/iss1/1
