Misconceptions (or lies?) about the trans-Atlantic slave trade (1500-18XX)

The recent (25th of March, 2026) “recognition” of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade - with enslavement of Africans - as “gravest crime against humanity” by the UN – after a Ghana-led initiative - was celebrated by some as a victory. This crime took place in the period 1500-1800, it states. In reality, it was until well in the 1860s that slavery as an institute was finally abolished in the Americas, but roughly the trans-Atlantic slave trade as such was around that period (1500-1800). This recognized declaration connected textually with the need for “reparations” and “compensation” for Africa and African descendants, increasing a sense of triumph.
See: (https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cvg06q36052o)

The problem with this UN recognition document, is only that it is not legally binding, so - for all intents and purposes – symbolic “window dressing”, or at best “increasing awareness”.

That awareness is what I will deal with in this post. The reactions on mainstream and social media were varied, and those critical repeated common misconceptions, mostly betraying lack of sufficient and proper knowledge. Or they consciously spread lies, that is also possible.

OWN STUDY

I think I can conclude that with some authority. I have worked for over 12 years in a scholarly institute on colonial history and present – specializing in Indonesia/South East Asia and the Caribbean, for its library, summarizing (“abstracting”) and indexing books and articles.

This was for the KITLV in Leyden, the Netherlands, explaining the geographical choices: the Dutch had colonies in those regions (Indonesia, Suriname, Netherlands Antilles).

I worked at the Caribbean department, having to study many books and articles about Caribbean history and present, in order to describe them well for the library catalogue.

Important for this post: a lot of these works were about slavery, and connected slave trade, being so crucial and formative for Caribbean development. The focus was on the (entire) Caribbean – not just the Dutch colonies, with some side steps to Africa, yet personally, later, I read some works about the African side of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, as well as the European side.

The KITLV, I then worked for, had a conservative image, as it started/was founded during the Netherlands’ colonial era, aiding such policies, but modernized over time, having a balanced library collection with different studies and viewpoints. (http://www.kitlv.nl)

OPEN DEBATE

There was also an open debate in Dutch slavery studies then, which I think is healthy in academic circles. Scholars deemed as too “apologist” debated with more postcolonial thinkers, and vice versa, including opposing stances, always beneficial for truth-finding. This open debate seems to have been lost a bit in academic circles now, according to critics, especially when “bigger interests” are at stake (the military industrial complex, "security"/control, corona, climate), open debate is avoided, and critics marginalized or “cancelled”. The slavery debate at that time only got similarly corrupted – I recall – when “reparations” by the state were called for (i.e. “money”): suddenly more the apologist, White scholars on slavery came then to lead the debate and could only speak in authoritative sources, but in time even these could be contradicted. I studied both sides.

From that professional, analytical context, I now recognize the misconceptions or lies about the slave trade and slavery in media expressions, by different commentators. Opponents of that UN, Ghana-led “gravest rime” declaration – especially – seemed to “invent” fictional histories, or repeated these. Apologist or not, but certainly not true.

Subjectivity of the term “gravest” aside, the declaration in itself makes sense: trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery were undoubtedly crimes against humanity, with tragic results (also over time) for Africans, and lacking up to the present proper compensation. What shape and form this compensation (reparation? Paid by who?) would take, is another issue.

Though not legally binding, it gave a moral message, that many critics sought to undermine. Predictably those on the Right politically, but also those with other ideological or material interests.

Main colonial powers of yesteryear – read: once involved/main culprits in the trans-Atlantic slave trade – Portugal, Spain, Britain, France, Netherlands, a.o. – “abstained” in that UN vote, while as could be expected, mostly African, Latin American, Asian, and other “third world” countries supported it (a total of 123 countries). Only the US, Israel, and Argentina bluntly opposed this "recognition declaration". Israel nitpicked on the word “gravest” in relation to Jewish history, also knowing dispersion and slavery.

The US and Argentina – at least their political leaders - just wanted to “diss” Blacks, I guess.

British conservative leader – Kemi Badenoch - of Nigerian descent! - showed her best “uncle tom” or “boasy slave” side, by claiming that Britain should have voted against the declaration, as Britain fought (later, as crucial addition) against slavery. One of those misconceptions, or repeated lies (or something in-between).

That’s one of those misconceptions.

These politicians or leaders, but also many commentators in the mainstream and social media repeated ideas – seeking to undermine the “gravest crime” argument, or that Europe did this to Africa and Africans.

I repeat: from all that I read professionally in an academic setting, and after – by white and black authors, including both postcolonial and conservative (even apologist and their opponents) ones, etc. – I knew immediately some of these ideas some spread in media in response to the UN-declaration, were mistaken misconceptions, not having any ground or basis in actually proven history.

I will discuss the main ones, based on my acquired, balanced knowledge.

“AFRICANS SOLD SLAVES THEMSELVES”

Slavery is as old as organized man, globally. That’s harsh, but true. Especially with larger scales after earlier “communal” stages among humans, hierarchies arose, with serfs and slaves. From ancient China, to Ancient Babylon, Ancient Egypt, Greece, ancient Rome, Aztec and Inca empires, but also among the Germanic and Celtic peoples of Europe there was slavery. The Germanic peoples, forefathers of many Northern Europeans, including in Germany and England, knew a class of slaves and semi-slaves, some would not imagine, seeing the image of “wild, communal” woodland societies surviving historically about the Teutonic/Germanic tribes. St Patrick, who would become the patron saint of Ireland, was ironically a slave of Celts in Ireland, though Patrick himself was also a Celt (albeit from what is now Wales).

And yes, also Africa, especially societies outgrowing the small-scale, family-based “communal” stages (that all societies go through), developed hierarchies with slaves, often as prisoners of war. Generally these slaves were absorbed if subdued locally, as societies became more large-scale and power-based, to different degrees.

This, however, was relatively limited and enshrined. The trans-Atlantic slavery – or African Holocaust – being the topic here, was a result of more global and modern European demands, disrupting African societies, even if depending first on existing practices. These local practices were aggrandized and corrupted in the European colonial interest, albeit aided by some African leaders or disunity/warring African nations. The Europeans made opportunistically use of intra-African divisions (between kingdoms/states), becoming the main (economic) impetus for enslaving more fellow-Africans, than would have been under normal, local “feudal “ developments, as selling slaves to Europeans became big business.

Several authors have shown this process, in my opinion convincingly.

“WHITES/EUROPEANS WERE SLAVES/ENSLAVED TOO”

This argument is repeated too, usually referring to Barbary (North African, Islamic) slave trade and slavery, occurring in parts of Northern Africa, the Middle East, and even Moorish Iberia.

Historians having studied this Islamic slavery since Islam’s spread after Muhammad’s death (7th and 8th c. AD and after), from Arabia to Northern Africa and the Middle East (and beyond), came to the conclusion that Muslims in earlier and later stages enslaved people of different races, with relatively many sub-Saharan Africans, Berbers, and, okay, in later stages also Europeans.

According to Islamic doctrine, all nonbelievers could be enslaved (until they converted), offering an unfortunate wide base. Slave raids among Europeans took place, but places along the Barbary coast (now roughly Algeria) were multiracial, also regarding the slave population (including Europeans, true, but also Africans, a.o.). Even Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes (of “Don Quixote” fame) was temporary enslaved there.

Much more Africans were enslaved, however, also by Arabs and other Muslims. African women for harems, as concubines, African men often as guards or servants, in many cases these were even castrated by their masters, decreasing their influence. Sources speak of millions of sub-Saharan Africans, thus enslaved and traded by Muslims, prior to European colonialism.

Most sensible conclusion: Whites/Europeans were not singled-out - or even dominant - among the Islamic-led slavery in North Africa, Spain and the Middle East.

Also in Spain and Portugal, the Moors had often sub-Saharan African slaves, cementing – according to some less-politically correct historians – the image of the ”the black as slave” In Portuguese and Spanish minds. This would then translate in Portuguese seafarers later enslaving Africans, as first Europeans, aided by sea traders from other European areas (Genoa, Venice, Catalonia, in present-day Italy and Spain). Areas with maritime traditions, that Castilian Spain had then still less.

However, with Spain’s own colonization of the Americas after 1492, the Spaniards at first made use of this Portuguese monopoly/specialization in African slaves, increasingly “racializing” trans-Atlantic slavery toward (imported) Africans, after Amerindian enslavement largely failed. Britain, France, and the Netherlands soon jumped on that bandwagon, with their colonization, even innovating this trans-Atlantic slave trade in enslaved Africans economically.

“BRITAIN FOUGHT AGAINST SLAVERY”

With modernized methods, Britain imported relatively many African slaves to its colonies in the Caribbean, aided by bases on African coasts. The profit (“blood money” one might say) or slavery gains were invested differently by and in England, than before were more chaotically by and in Portugal and Spain.

This is related to modern development, but also to cultural/religious factors, as Max Weber pointed out the role of Protestant values. Slavery profits were invested more in a productive, lasting economy, according to Protestant ethics in Britain, rendering the first industrial cities in the world – as such –, Birmingham and Manchester. This eventually led to capitalism.

Due to this modernization, by around 1800, slavery was no longer necessary or efficient, but has served its crucial purpose. Britain could therefore abolish the slave trade and slavery before other European nations. Modern tools required modern, moderate slavery/exploitation of labour, eventually developed in the West into dominant capitalist “wage labour”, some say “wage slavery”. Trans-Atlantic slavery helped shape and finance this very basis of modern Western society we all still live under now. There is thus a direct link between slavery and the Western, wage-based capitalist society of now. Many do not even know this.

The humanitarian goals of British abolitionists might have been there, but were not the dominant motivation, rather serving as hypocritical disguise, and self-righteous stances against economically more backward colonizers (Spain a.o.), which they were coincidentally also competing with. The main motivations for Britain leading the abolitionist movement were – behind the scenes – rather economical and of national interest, not humanitarian.

Conservative British leader Badenoch used this argument, which I hope to have showed is ultimately flawed.

“THOSE INVOLVED (OUR FOREPARENTS OR VICTIMS) ARE NO LONGER ALIVE”

This argument I hear or read here and there, coming down to “water under the bridge”. This is used very selectively, as historical epochs have of course lasting consequences up to the present. Besides: Germany and Japan are still paying “reparations” to European countries, Jews, or Asian countries for their roles during World War II, while most who have lived that period are by now deceased.

Moreover, it is about “lasting (generational) consequences”, which trans-Atlantic slavery surely had, such as on the African continent: population loss, economic decline and stagnation, as shown in Walter Rodney’s recommendable work ‘How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ (1972), the title saying it not all, but well. I wrote elsewhere on my blog about this work.

Walter Rodney, a Guyanese scholar, shows in this work not to be a bigoted activist, checking intelligently the veracity and neutrality of all sources (dismissing not just apologist White westerners, but also obviously pro-Black sources), before taking – in my opinion – just conclusions about the devastating effects of Europe’s imposing of the slave trade and later colonialism on and in Africa.

That colonialism in Africa started after Britain (and also France) outlawed slavery, but in reality built forth on the same structures of trade developed during slave trade. Walter Rodney shows that well too.

On the other side of the Atlantic, the African Diaspora in the Americas, the consequences of slavery are very evident. Slavery was dehumanization into work-horses, but also involved “deculturalization”, including the loss of family names, increasing the intense dehumanization.

This of course has lasting effects up to now, supporting the “gravest crime” argument, and with it making more sensible the “compensation” and “reparation” rationale.

Issues of “bodily integrity”, “dehumanization” and such, aligned with violence-based forced labour, combined with a cultural destruction or damage . You could – and I do – argue that all human beings have the right to know their family’s roots, being essential in this world.

Blacks in the African Diaspora – in the Americas – all have lost this, bearing now Portuguese, English (or Scottish), Spanish (or Catalan), Dutch, or French surnames – i.e. of their erstwhile European masters/owners -, with only vague family lore reminding them of their African roots.

An Afro-Cuban woman I befriended had Spanish surnames (two, as in Spanish tradition) – specifically both Catalan surnames, belonging to Barcelona elite families – referring to their erstwhile family owners, but with family stories reminding vaguely of “Congo” origins of their forebears, as many Afro-Cubans in Eastern Cuba (later confirmed with DNA tests, so accurate). Many Afro-Cubans know for instance of their Yoruba origins too, even with some tangible retentions of it, Jamaicans of their Ghanaian or Igbo roots, etcetera. Historical written records of the time itself (in e.g. colonial archives) can give some more specific insight of one’s family members, but are partly deficient.

The connection to their family history has been – however – systematically disrupted due to slavery, as regards to historical records, as they were assigned European names of their masters. DNA studies (which only arose since the 1950s) give now some more possibilities to trace one’s specific roots. Still, organic family ties (a basic human right) have been lost.

CULTURAL RESISTANCE

Within this overall tragedy, there is the beauty of cultural strength and survival. Enough African retentions and memories were kept alive to give birth to own cultural creations among Afro-Americans, including musical genres based on African principles. African principles also giving birth to folk belief systems, and other cultural expressions throughout the African Diaspora in the Americas, by necessity mixed with European culture.

Thus arose and were invented Samba, Salsa, Reggae, Calypso, Merengue, Jazz, Blues, Funk, and Soul.. just to name some known Afro-American musical genres, with elements that can be traced back to specific African principles and roots in what is now the Congo, Ghana, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa. A beautiful story of cultural survival and resilience, but amidst a tragedy of grave human rights abuse. Culture as resistance against dehumanization.

Depopulation in parts of Africa, already hinted at the “genocidal” effects of trans-Atlantic slavery, also need to be mentioned. Figures differ – I also recall from my own studying of slavery, professionally – but an estimated 15 million Africans died during the forced transport from Africa to the Americas – probably more, while those surviving had relatively short lives, due to the harsh, inhumane conditions of slave work. Population loss, genocide..

On top of this, they were enslaved, so had no property or income, to pass on to offspring, as other human groups in theory had. This kept them economically backward and dependent, up to the present. So, even if those directly involved no longer live now, it is present in the unequal socioeconomic position. In most American nations, Blacks – those of African descent - are at the bottom of the economic ladder.

“IT WAS AN ELITE THING”

This argument is somewhat more sensible, though not fully. The poor European people (the peasants, low-wage labourers, property-less) had indeed less stake in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery, of course started and benefitting the elite, moneyed classes: rich merchants, sometimes nobility, within European societies. They profited most of it, and in earlier stages, Portuguese and Spanish gains of slavery went to these elite families, building palaces, buying more grounds, gaining more political power in national affairs, with little “offshoots” benefiting poorer surrounding Portuguese or Spanish people: at most creating some extra, low-wage jobs in the margins of colonial activities (dockworkers, seamen, stores, sugar refining, housekeepers, etc.).

The “offshoots” became – however – more structural with the more investing, and overarching, Protestant approach of the British, redirecting colonial and slavery gains toward industrialization in England, and eventually capitalism. This created whole economic sectors – also indirectly - in British society, requiring many workers, and thus (albeit relative) wider economic prosperity.

The poor labourers in the factories in e.g. Birmingham or Manchester, that thus arose, were of course not from classes or families that ever had leading or decisive roles in colonialism or slavery within or by their country, but profited from it nonetheless. As known, Britain started the first “industrialization”, and left earlier colonizers like Spain and Portugal, economically behind as less-modern, while the Netherlands (with a Protestant ethic, but also a modern, financial strength) had more of these economically prosperous side-effects like Britain, as to a degree France.

Shortly, and somewhat simplistically put: slavery gains ended first up in some elite families in Portugal and Spain, but in time got invested more “smartly” in the entire economies in Britain, the Netherlands, and France, and with it wider Europe.

This has consequences - e.g. global inequalities between Europe and developing countries - up to today, aiding Europe’s and the West’s (also US) relative wealth in this world.

These are the cold, historical facts.

RACIALIZED

Important is also to add that it was “racialized” slavery. This increased racism. Race played a role in the initial starting of trans-Atlantic slavery by Portuguese and Spaniards around 1500, but in the early stage not even a dominant one. Principal motivations were at first economic: Amerindians could not handle the strain, and not enough Europeans wanted to migrate to the Americas, and Spanish colonizers then turned (as the Portuguese and Moors before them pioneered) to Africans.

Still, in time the dehumanization became cruelly racialized, with racist and discriminatory practices becoming the norm in colonial societies. Anti-Black racism, essentially.

Also this has consequences up to today. Economic and opportunity inequalities, persisting discrimination, racist policies globally (Apartheid ended only in 1990), but also inferiority complexes, are still realities of today, for who want to see them.

The Uncle Tom – or as put in Jamaican Patois “Boasy Slave” - syndrome: Black persons overly pleasing the White oppressor or boss, for some personal gain – of which the UK Conservative opposition leader Badenoch is now a particularly ridiculous example (at least in her response to the declaration), has been going on for centuries, also during slavery itself. In fact, many (for fear) compliant slaves kept the system working, but in still exploitation-based, albeit more moderate contexts, with less openly “brute” force, such as in present-day wage-based “modern slavery”, this phenomenon still shows, Badenoch only being a very noticeable example in higher circles.

Neoliberalism - modern, state-supported capitalism – stimulated since the 1990s “identity politics” to distract from economic inequality, benefitting the elite, and a part of the Blacks/people of African descent, seemed to have fallen in that trap, especially when taking a “politicized”, instrumental form within the system. Acting as “pro-Black” – even in a bully-like manner - to compensate for being a “boasy slave” elsewhere in their lives, occurs, showing the contradictory psychological disorders of people having lost touch with themselves and their history. That is the psychological dimension.

Even that is forgivable, as also many White people having to participate in this system likewise keep fooling themselves that it is their own free will (hiring and firing people, or on the low end: setting the alarm clock at 07:30 to go work for a boss), and maintaining the illusion that is not at all (labour, time, human) exploitation that they stimulate, or engage in. Just a job.

That is the unequal, make-believe world we are living in today.

Historically, this modern, moderate wage slavery of modern-day capitalism was financed by colonial slavery during the trans-Atlantic slavery period (1500-1800), which is historically both interesting and painful.

The African victims of that 1500-18XX trans-Atlantic slave trade and slavery period can be seen as sacrifices for this.

On the basis of this, I opine that it indeed can be seen sensibly as “of the gravest crimes against humanity”, and making calls for reparation or compensation not at all irrational. How this should be worked out in a good manner, is another issue.

The Uncle Tom phenomenon

In a professional “capacity” – as it is usually formulated – I have studied (also) Caribbean history, with much attention to the slavery past. It was for the (scholarly/academic) library and documentation of a historical, anthropological, and linguistic institute – the KITLV – in Leyden, the Netherlands. I worked there between 2001 and 2014, and learned a lot.

That KITLV institute had problematic, “tainted” origins with a national government-led founding in the 1850s, when the Netherlands in fact still had the institute of slavery in its colonies, such as Suriname. Indeed, especially in its early stages, the colonial, pro-European/Dutch interests of the KITLV institute’s research were barely disguised, and in later stages more disguised, but over time these were – well – criticized, corrected, and placed in a larger perspective.

Among some slavery and colonial scholars of Surinamese and other (non-“White”) origin, the KITLV institute was long (and is still) criticized for relatively pro-colonial, conservative stances, even if recognized as engaging in insightful historical research projects about especially former Dutch colonies (Suriname, Curaçao, Netherlands Antilles, Indonesia), and maintaining a large and useful scholarly/academic Caribbean and Indonesian collection.

Social changes and diversity – especially since the 1970s – made its library collection of works – in tandem with research themes – less pro-European or pro-colonial than before – allowing more other perspectives -, though accusations of “apologist” stances were still uttered, to degrees.

Either way, in the period I worked there (2001-2014), the collection of books and articles (old and new) were quite varied about the Caribbean past, including outside of Dutch colonies (Cuba, Jamaica, the Dominican Republic, Haiti..), focusing on the islands. Not just by Europeans or from the European perspective. I had to read a lot about it, which – as far as work goes – was not bad. Plus, it was very educational for me and my personal knowledge.

CARIBBEAN HISTORY

Somehow interested in the Caribbean, and in the slavery history - and world history in general - , and hearing it mentioned in Reggae lyrics, it was in fact a useful extension and deepening of my organically developed personal knowledge, already there. I thus even could avoid the psychological pitfalls of turning – and complicating - into “the realm of demeaning coercion” something I happened to like naturally as person.

The latter might sound “cryptic” in some ears, but I mean to say that work/jobs and economic gain in this system tend to “corrupt” human and natural things/desires for the elite, “money making” interests of some, coercing/forcing less fortunate ones (read: employees), due to privilege. Using their own urges against them, to say it in some way.

Perhaps the fact that it was a semi-public/governmental institute, the KITLV, where I worked, with no primary commercial goals (but rather scholarly/societal ones), - and only limited “political” goals - , reduced stress, and helped maintain the joy of studying and learning, without pressures and self-deprecation, while still getting my monthly pay at bachelor level (and for what I studied).

This was especially the case in the first part of my time there, up to around 2010, after which – as I sensed it – “the oppressive system" – urged the KITLV toward “reorganization” and efficiency, inevitably skewed toward a privileged few. Of course, the main researchers and scholars (doctors and professors, i.e. promoted) were spared, and kept their position. The library collection – which I worked with – was sourced out toward the broader Leyden University collection, so the KITLV lost its own Caribbean and Indonesian collection. About half of the library and documentation staff also lost their jobs with that, and had to find something else, by 2014. Harsh but true.

Regrettable, and unfortunately symptomatic of this centralizing system, but the knowledge I gained and things I learned in that period about, e.g. slavery in the Caribbean, can never be taken away. An important immaterial remnant for me as person, far beyond the employee I happened to be there then.

Especially the historical knowledge about slavery on the Caribbean islands was extremely instructive for me, even reaching “specialized” levels (in a relative sense). The theme of this specific blog post relates to this slavery knowledge I then gained, broadened with other world/social issues..

In the remainder of this post I will focus specifically on the “Uncle Tom” phenomenon. Now a term used metaphorically and colloquially – and derogatory -, but with origins in the history (American) slavery. A loaded, yet interesting term as a starting point, I find.

Interesting to analyze it therefore, based on solid knowledge (from different sources), alongside personal reflections.

UNCLE TOM

The term is of course based on the famous work by Harriet Bleecher Stowe, called Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a bestseller in the US, when it was released in 1852. That year is interesting: a year after that Dutch colonial institute the KITLV in Leyden, which I just mentioned, was founded.

By the way, slavery was abolished in the US in 1865, after the Civil War, and in 1863 (actually 1873, after a transition period) in Suriname.

Bleecher Stowe’s novel was popular after its release, spreading into popular culture in parts of the US, and even abroad. Stage plays were made from the book, for instance, later movies, other works.

Here some things went wrong. In the original novel, the character Uncle Tom, - based on a real slave in Maryland, called Josiah Henson – was in fact quite heroic, while at the same time a suffering, Christ-like figure. Suffering abuse after abuse by various slave owners, he in fact helped the other slaves, dying in the end after abuse by his slave owner, when he (Tom) refused to reveal where two female slaves were hiding. As he helped other slaves before this also, another slave overseer was “put on him” to keep him in check, called Sambo. This Sambo fits oddly enough more the stereotype of the compliant slave, collaborating with the white slave-owners.

A later minstrel show-adaptation of the Uncle Tom’s Cabin novel seems to be blamed for this confusion. In it, the character Uncle Tom was altered into indeed a submissive “sell out”, betraying other slaves to the masters for personal gain. It is in fact a misrepresentation, some say due to adaptations to other extant abolitionist anti-slavery writings of the time. Others argue it was due to racism, which in light of the “minstrel shows” image, seems probable. The climax of the novel, as Uncle Tom dies, being beaten to death (like a sacrifice) to save two enslaved women from the cruel (and sexually predatory) white master, was perhaps too heroic and positive for people deemed inferior.

Be that as it may – though good to correct it -, the reworked staged play that came later became the source among African Americans of the derogatory term “uncle tom” for a sell-out, all-too submissive black person (man) to the white oppressor, even at the cost of his own people.

This derogatory term - even if mistaken - “uncle tom”, reached popular culture as well, though largely within African American or “Black” genres: common speech, Hip-Hop (or other genre’s) lyrics, movies, series, novels, etcetera.

BOASY SLAVE

In Jamaica a similar phenomenon and “colloquial” or “derogatory” term can be found in the Jamaican patois (Creole English) term “Boasy slave”, originally referring to a slave thinking himself better and above the other slaves, while seeking favours of the white masters and helping them. So, a kind of a sell-out.

In common Jamaican parlance, and in e.g. Reggae song lyrics, “boasy slave” means more or less the same as “uncle tom” among Black Americans, with perhaps as difference the word “boas(y)” (from ”boasting”) implying more active wickedness, rather than the more passive amorality of “uncle tom” in US parlance.

Rastafari adherents – often dreadlocked – in Jamaica, tend to use the term “baldheads” for non-dreaded, common Jamaicans, with commonly cut and shaved (short) hair. It in fact arose as a counter-insult, after exclusion and discrimination of dreadlocked Rastas, implying also that those “baldheads” are- unlike them - no rebels against the system, and too “Westernized”. Indeed comparable to how “uncle tom” is meant among US Blacks, a bit more emphasizing passivity or ignorance, rather than the calculated wickedness of the “boasy slave”.

Comparable words for “sell outs” can be found elsewhere in the region, also in Spanish America. These are not even always just imitating the “uncle tom” US slang term, though sometimes partly. The term “Tio Taco” (Tio = Spanish for Uncle) is known with the same “submissive sell-out/betrayal” meaning, among Mexicans and others. In Puerto Rico a related derogatory term is “lagarto” (lizard) – for some reason (slippery?) –, while in Brazil, the term “preto velho” (old black man) is used with the same meaning as “uncle tom”: too submissive. Elsewhere in the Spanish-speaking word “vendido” is simply said of such a person, literally meaning “sold”.

Leaving terminology and linguistics aside for now, my time in studying Caribbean history taught me a lot about plantation slavery in e.g. Jamaica and Haiti, and similar or other slavery systems elsewhere. I also read a lot about slave rebellions in the regions, slaves escaping, alongside cultural resilience and African retentions in all this.

These can be deemed several manifestations of “rebellion” against oppression, and it is here that the term “uncle tom” with its meaning becomes relevant in the broader sense of the “uncle tom phenomenon”: submissiveness toward – and even compliance with – the oppressors of your own people.

Having read that “slavery literature” by Caribbean and non-Caribbean scholars, I cannot avoid the conclusion that slavery on the plantations could continue so much because of brute force – of course - , and intimidation, “numbing” the slave populations into submission, or maybe only some small-scale rebellion (lagging, stealing, trickery, etc.) within the system (plantation). Some larger-scale rebellions interrupted this, and some of the enslaved kept trying to escape (forming also the Maroons), throughout the whole slavery period. Still a minority, by definition, else the plantation could not continue. Several colonies, Jamaica, Suriname, Colombia, Cuba, and Brazil, knew “villages of escaped slaves”, mostly in mountainous or more inaccessible natural areas.

The rest of the enslaved on the plantations did not dare to rebel out of fear, but also character deformation developed. This is in fact quite tragic, and represents dehumanization at its ugliest and cruelest. Going to the slave life motions like a robot or zombie, not even knowing any better. Hence the famous quote by Harriet Tubman, who said she could have freed more slaves, if only they knew they were slaves. Dehumanization became over time normalized.

IMPLICATIONS

In the broader sense of “responding to your oppression”, the “uncle tom” or “boasy slave” term (or “sambo”), can be in my opinion seen as an archetype, recurring throughout other historical epochs, with different people and countries. “Numbed my systematical oppression” is a way to put it, but added to it, and more actively wicked: betrayal, selling out your own people, for personal gain, by siding/collaborating with oppressors.

This has recurred throughout history, in different gradations. Plantation slavery in the Americas serves as relevant model, I think, due to its harsh, dehumanizing conditions, based on brute force, and attempts of cultural annihilation, via racism. Sold like cattle, and losing one’s own name for that of the masters being examples of that, along with the whipping and other punishments for disobeying the masters/owners.

People of primarily African descent in the Caribbean therefore now have English/Scottish, French, Dutch/German, or Spanish/Portuguese/Catalan surnames. Smith, Williams, and Brown are common surnames among present-day Jamaicans, alongside Scottish surnames like Gordon or Duncan (or with Mc) for about 25% (the rest English). Among Afro-Cubans a Catalan surname Ferrer (in fact “Smith” in Catalan) is common, along with well-known Castilian names like Rodríguez, or even Basque names like Zuloaga, after (by force) a wealthy white Cuban slave-owner. An Afro-Cuban I knew well, and her family too, in Santiago de Cuba, Eastern Cuba, had two surnames (Spanish tradition) that were Catalonian/Catalan in origin, while not aware of too much “white blood” in her family (assuming only maybe a “Haitian mulatto” in the family tree somewhere).

These un-African surnames were attempts of dehumanization and humiliation , but it was a broader and longer process, persisting up to today. A rebellious spirit – and cultural resilience – also persisted though, often even competing within individuals, somewhat schizophrenically. This can have psychologically “unstable” effects, especially when trust and loyalty is concerned.

The Jamaican (Black Power) thinker and activist Marcus Garvey analyzed this very well, and heightened the consciousness among more Black people, also in the US, about the dangers of a passive, “uncle tom” disposition toward oppression. He called this “mental slavery”. Unfortunately, Marcus Garvey was not influential enough, though certainly on the Rastafari movement within Jamaica, and on early Black Power movements in the US.

The oppressive system remained too strong, and the modern economic conditions, with modern, “moderate” slavery, often had the same “numbing” effect of dependency, along with historical cultural inferiority complexes, still present in mainstream media and culture. De facto submissiveness, often combined with the more active wickedly “boasting” or betraying, as in the Jamaican “uncle tom”-like term “boasy slave”, for own personal gain.

REBELLION-RETREAT-SUBMISSION

Another layer to unpeel is also interesting. People can be partly “uncle toms” by that derogatory definition, and partly “rebellious”, or seeming that. Is it full-fledged schizophrenia, or is one of the two persona within one more a conscious, calculated “lie” or façade than the other? This of course does not always make stable, trustworthy personalities, though it can be used well artistically or culturally.

This is shown in recent cultural and popular history. Malcolm X was a street criminal wanting to be like Whites, before he became a Black Power advocate. Martin Luther King was a great personality, but was influenced by European Protestantism, even in his names, while the Nation Of Islam embraces a religion not from Africa, and also in other ways turn anyway from Africa.

That is the difference with the Rastafari movement from Jamaica, still upholding that repatriation to Africa idea (as ideal). Yet also, as Rastafari artist and radio host Mutabaruka pointed out: Rastafari based itself on the very European Bible and Christianity used to oppress them before, now just “Africanizing” the Bible’s content. Most Rastas, at the same time, have less favourable views about originally African spiritual movements, connected to nature and spirits, like Vodou and Obeah. This is deemed as wicked trickery, betraying a Protestant Christian bias, and a copying of White masters’ views, indeed submitting to it, like a hidden, generalized “uncle tom” tendency.

Also at an individual level, Rastas may differ in degrees of “African pride” – kind of odd in spite of its “cultural revival” origins -, some celebrate their roots more than others, but some insincerity or fakeness slips in, in personal priorities. This is deeper than “dietary” customs, some have less than others, and more about “human complexity” of having to balance the triple roles of rebellion-retreat-submission/adaptation within many Black persons, in a European-based system.

The author of Marcus Garvey’s well-written biography, “Negro With A Hat”, Colin Grant (a Brit of Jamaican descent) argues that those triple roles “rebellion-retreat-submission” remain within many Black people – also him personally -, due to their history.

It remains a balancing act, of seeming contradictions, also required today, within a larger, still totalitarian, oppressive system of now modern (moderate) slavery. The “Western capitalist” system, some call it, some “the powers that be”, some “the system” or “authorities”, and the Rastas call it “Babylon”, etcetera..

OVERCOMPENSATION

This “schizophrenia” or “duplicity” within one person can work out good and bad. It makes one flexible and accessible, when used with positive and open intentions. Yet, the psychological relationship between “insecurity” and an “inferiority complex” should neither be underestimated. The psychological term “overcompensation” applies when a Black person behaves as “uncle tom” sucking up to his white boss at his job, but compensates with pro-Black rhetoric, or even bullying random whites, or weaker whites, he encounters, but also fighting other black people (men, women), when socializing at other times. Fake Black Power you can say.

I have noticed the same phenomenon – selective feminism – among some women. Submissive and ego caressing with some men (with money?), but uncommunicative and bossy with other men. This opportunism should not be generalized, and depends on personal characters, but are really occurring examples of negative overcompensation.

Good to lose the childish naivité and overly politically correct notion that people are always cool just for being Black or female, but ultimately such negative overcompensation stems from – as responses to - social inequality within society, and from being too dependent on wealthy White men.

POLITICAL “CRISES” / HYPES

Somewhere between ignorance or wickedness, the “uncle tom phenomenon” showed further – in my personal opinion – when members of ethnic minorities responded to political crises in the Western world. The recent Corona pandemic – some say “plandemic” – being an example of this. The same powers that be as always talked about that pandemic but when shrewdly addressing deep fears of disease/viruses, also people of colour forgot that white men in suits represent an unequal order, and went along with it, at times even supporting harsh, undemocratic measures.

Most of what were ridiculed as “conspiracy theories” about Corona turned out to be true, we can by now conclude. It was a scam and hype, now continuing with other unproven hypes, such as climate change. Environmental problems do indeed exist, but “climate” problems not really, and serve other “elite” goals. Still, the “uncle tom” in many give trust to men in suits or “the powers that be”, just to be safe.

This went across races, but depended – again on personal characters: more or less “uncle tom” inclinations. Conscious Reggae music – known for its rebellion – had as one of the few genres some critique about for instance the corona pandemic. In fact, I first heard the term “plandemic” (the added “l” as wordplay) in an interview with Jamaica Reggae/Dancehall artist Buju Banton. It was indeed a plandemic.

OTHER RACES OR CONTEXTS?

Are there similarities in “White” (European) people’s responses to oppressive systems?: the poor, dependent groups within European populations, or those under Fascist or Communist dictatorships. We are all human, after all, with disadvantaged people within every group.

I definitely see similarities with the “uncle tom phenomenon”, even in recent European history. Collaborators with the Nazi German occupiers in the Netherlands, but even in areas with less that “Germanic superiority” lure or connection, like in Hungary, Croatia, South France, and Italy, some collaborated with the Nazi Germans. In Spain, dictator Franco sympathized with the powerful Nazi’s and Germans, but was too proud to “submit” to German demands, seeing Spain as equally important globally – if less potent – compared to Germany. This freezed further contacts between the two Fascist dictators. Hitler reportedly said after their meeting that “ he rather would have some teeth pulled out than meet Franco again”, and Franco reportedly said, “they have bad manners, those Germans”.

The case of Spain under dictator Franco I know relatively well, because of my Spanish mother, born (in the 1940s) in SW Spain, when Franco was a dictator, who had to live under that boss-friendly dictatorship, with limited rights for workers like she. She even felt “treated like a slave”, she told me. That, political repression she felt, and Spain’s dire economic situation, all made her migrate to the Netherlands in the 1960s. Franco remained dictator of Spain until as late as 1975.

She (my mother) didn’t often like to talk about politics or history, but she hardly said anything positive about Franco and his regime. “The only good thing was that he kept Hitler away”, she concluded.

In slave plantation terms, she would be on the partly adapting, partly rebellious (she spoke out even in Francoist Spain, - when not too risky - when she was wronged), but ultimately “escaping” by migrating, still connected to her Spanish culture and language. Adaptation-rebellion-retreat was thus the order in her case.

In fact, all migrations not merely “economic” – though hard to tell, at times - can have such “rebellion-retreat-submission” balances, such as by political refugees. It is also human nature and survival instinct, evidently.

What I heard from Communist dictatorships, or other ones, and noticed myself in Cuba, was that more illegal “parallel” realities (like black markets) developed, when possible hidden from state authorities, like “underground scenes”. Retreat, but with a hint of wider rebellion.

When I went repeatedly to Cuba in the period 2001-2006, I sensed the lack of freedom – much police and soldiers on the streets - , and even a horrible neighborhood political “snitching” system, increasing mistrust at the neighborhood level, and also corruption (bribing as needed solution). Such “snitches” were also known on slave plantations – slaves warning masters of planned rebellions or escapes. Definitely, these can be described as “uncle toms” or “boasy slaves” (or “pretos velhos”, “vendidos”, etc.), in that sense.

In today’s modern capitalist/neoliberal wage slavery, many companies show the same mechanisms and “archetypes”, as many may know from own experience at the workplace. Some “kiss up” more to the boss, even sometimes at the cost of other employees, with internal rivalry, while some show some rebellion (if not risky for job maintenance) or more when wanting to quit a job, and others do their job like an automatic pilot, escaping in their own head.

DOCUMENTARY FILM

Added to all this, I also finally include in this analysis of mine a film (rather: a documentary) I saw called “Uncle Tom: an oral history of the Black conservative ” (2020). It was directed by Justin Malone. It roughly represents views of “conservative”, Republican US Blacks going against what they call Left-wing Democrat, victimhood stances of most African Americans, for which they were accused of “race traitors”, “sell outs”, “house negroes”, and, yes, “Uncle Toms”.

While not entirely uninteresting, I found this documentary’s “conservative” stance quite politically biased, or maybe better said: “ideologically” biased. The makers and speakers take on a pro-Republican stance, criticizing the Democrats for keeping Black people in victimhood historically, despite the Democratic Party’s supposed “radical switch” in US history from supporting slavery to for and by minorities, since “welfare” and the 1960s. These conservative African Africans have the right to utter that opinion, and seem to have some valid arguments. Not all were though, and they were locked mentally in a rigid, pro-capitalist, US patriot worldview, which is quite Protestant and materialist.

I myself have seen some of the worse of both (and other) “-isms”, capitalism and communism, during my life, and found that both systems are (in the end) totalitarian and dehumanizing. Life is not about “business” and “working hard for money” – as modern-day Western capitalism and neoliberalism holds – that is in fact a cultural specific idea, historically stemming from European Protestantism, and neo-colonialist interests. That value system is Eurocentric by definition.

“Left-wing” movements seemed once humane responses to it, yet operated ultimately within the same Eurocentric mindset, centralizing materialism, and a centralized state control, likewise working against freedom.

All that is a genuine (African or other) cultural identity is ignored in this, only used politically. The whole political system of party politics is a charade to control the masses, that recent “corona hype” by the way also confirmed. It is about elite control.

My view is that “culture” and “honour” are important for people to assert one’s human individuality and freedom, against oppressive forces (calling themselves Left or Right), based in pride in your culture, roots and routes: “knowing where you’re from”.

Then, I think, with true self-love and self-knowledge, you will more easily “do what you need to do”, for yourself in freedom and joy. Not slave your life away just for money, neither – on the other hand – lazing about parasitically without ambitions because of ascribed victimhood, forgetting irrationally that “you have to give to get”.

So, I missed such deeper “systemic criticism” in that 2020 documentary ‘Uncle Tom’ by Justin Malone, lacking philosophical life questions like” what is our purpose in this world?”,or “how can we fulfill our human capability and be as happy as possible, also as cultural beings?”

The “deculturalization” efforts because of over 400 years of slavery in the Americas, among Afro-Americans, show here their heinous effects, also indirectly in this documentary. Many can only think in terms of US (European) capitalist value systems: money, Protestant “work ethos”, and fake “individualism”. The latter is fake, because exploitation and greed - and thus inequality – is inherent in all of this. We are in this system made dependent on money-supplying people above us, limiting our humanity and freedom. A far cry from communal, self-reliant, more humane and equal, “ubuntu”-like worldviews, Black people – and in my view the entire world population - needs more. More than “big economics”, and also more than big, power-based, established religions like Christianity or Islam.

The Rastafari movement seems to understand this better, I think. While one of Rastafari’s influencers – Marcus Garvey – by necessity had one leg in the same Western/colonial system, he still went beyond it – with his attention to Africa, self-reliance, and - to degrees - cultural revaluation. That link between own cultural pride and self-reliance seems self-evident to me, but got lost in “dependent” later Black emancipation movements in e.g. the US. Blacks there identify often as discriminated victims (however justly so, in some aspects) of a system, or identifying with a system that is not theirs. Both can be deemed “uncle toms”, in a certain sense.

Rastafari went another direction.

CONCLUDING

Culture is what you get when you leave people alone. Repressive forces and systems (clock, work) thus limit cultural development in freedom. Rebellion is thus intricately linked to an own culture, and pride in it, is my conclusion.

The attempts of cultural destruction of enslaved Africans in the Americas was therefore extra cruel, yet ultimately not achieved. Culture was damaged but retained and reworked, roughly put, and remained a source of strength and rebellion, for Afro-American peoples. Both in its “identity” and “values” dimensions, as in its “folk culture” expressions (music, dance, festivities, traditions).

Having studied – as mentioned – Caribbean history and slavery, I learned that this “culture” and (true) “African pride” always provided a base for more lasting and wider “rebellion”, as also the Rastafari movement shows, and aspects of genuine Black Power in e.g. the US, especially when leaving behind petty “party politics” or divisions. And own opportunistic insincerity.

Cuban and Dominican music: differences and similarities

The Dominican Republic consists of a large eastern part of the island of Hispaniola, in the Caribbean. A former Spanish colony, it has predictable similarities with a country like Cuba, which I personally have visited repeatedly, and studied the culture of. The Dominican Republic overall has a mixed African-European population – like Cuba - , as a result of African slavery, of course, but the economic intensity of plantation slavery was stronger (and longer) in Cuba. On the other hand, European (especially Spanish) added migration was during and after slavery stronger to Cuba, changing also the demographics.

ETHNIC BACKGROUNDS

Another difference is the more retained – or less diluted - Amerindian, indigenous Taíno “blood” within the Dominican Republic, more rarely noticeable (safe some rural areas) within the present Cuban population, mostly ranging from – simplifyingly said – Southern European to dark-skinned Africans, and all in between.

In a very general sense, this also applies to the Dominican Republic. This also has cultural connotations, and also musical ones. As a percussionist, and being interested in Caribbean music, I am very interested in that. This is also the case, because I studied Afro-Cuban music quite a lot, in a detailed manner for my percussion playing and songs. Dominican music, however, I studied less, for some reason. I have been several times to Cuba, but never to the Dominican Republic.

I heard Dominican genres Bachata and Merengue here and there, liked some songs, but never got the same “bug” as with Cuban music, notably Son, Changui, and Rumba. That could relate to the fact that I was simply already focusing on Cuba, so could contextualize Cuban music better, with less effort than having to delve in another culture and context (the Dominican one, in this case).

In some instances, I studied some Dominican rhythms for musical and percussive variation. It did not went much further than that, however. I kept focusing more on Cuba.

LIBRARY

Having worked in/for a scholarly library with many anthropological and socio-political works about wider Caribbean history and culture, I nonetheless acquired quite some knowledge about the Dominican Republic’s history, but more so more recent history, under dictator Trujillo (1930-1961), and later political developments. Politics got overall more attention in those scholarly historical works than popular culture (though there were some interesting works about culture too), which perhaps showed an elitist bias, I guess. There was also much attention in those works to cultural policies by the ruling classes, that can be characterized as pro-white/-European, and against the African heritage. The upper class (predictably mostly more of European descent than Amerindian or African) manifested in that sense a racist, pro-European, or Spanish, culture for the country, downplaying the African heritage at most to the merely folkloric, and even that at times reluctantly.

Also dictator Trujillo, ruling from 1930 until 1961 (partly as force behind puppet presidents), and himself a light Mulatto, promoted such policies during his strict, repressive and violent regime, albeit with some contradictions. The historical animosity with the neighboring, more African/”Blacker”, Haitians was in propaganda for instance stimulated.

Among the common population of the Dominican Republic this found some resonance, though not so much. Unlike what I noticed in parts of Northwestern Europe, Latin American people do not sense so much identification with their political leaders and their policies: there was and is much more distance with the political class, to be explained by historically lacking democracy and large social inequalities.

Studies also showed that despite that Trujillo or other leading Dominican political leaders promoted animosity to Haitian migrants in the Dominican Republic, in many places there was Dominican-Haitian cooperation, and even family ties. The somewhat pro-Spanish biased “Latino” identity the Dominicans seemed to favour over a “Black” or “African” one – or even instead of an appropriate Mulatto one – was not so widespread among all Dominicans, many simply recognizing African contributions as well, calling themselves “mixed”, with some African contributions.

Such African contributions are found in music, including in the well-known Merengue genre, having spread internationally over time to later also compete with Cuban-based Salsa in “Latin music” circles, as well as Bachata music, developing later in the Dominican Republic (on Eastern Cuban models).

Of both Merengue and Bachata it is clear – and recognized – that it somehow reflects the different legacies of Dominican culture: the Spanish one, the African one, and the indigenous, Amerindian one, showing in instrumentation. Guitar/string instruments – and song types – reflect the Spanish heritage, the drums and rhythmic patterns (e.g. common syncopation) the African heritage, whereas the scraper and shaker instruments (Guira) are connected to the indigenous heritage. In itself an interesting “triracial” mix, not dissimilar to what recent DNA studied showed about most inhabitants of the Dominican Republic, with European, African, but also indigenous DNA (more than previously assumed).

MUSICAL DIFFERENCES

I wonder then, though, as to a degree comparable “mixtures” (Spanish-African, Amerindian instruments) are also found in Afro-Cuban music genres – with different accents -, what are the differences between the best-known Dominican genres of today, being Bachata and Merengue, with Cuban genres like (mostly) Salsa, Son, Rumba, etcetera?

The remainder of this post is about that. How different are the music genres between these different parts of the “Spanish Caribbean”, after all, not so far away from each other geographically? What explains those differences? And also, why those differences?

Where there perhaps also interactions in historical epochs, between Cuba and the Dominican Republic?

Due to my personally acquired knowledge and experience by now, my starting point and base is Afro-Cuban music, comparing Merengue, Bachata, and other Dominican genres to that what I happen to know better the history and characteristics of: Cuban music.

MERENGUE

Merengue is faster than Salsa or (other) Cuban music. I noticed that soon enough. The dance to it is also faster (and simpler). Other musical differences are that Merengue tends to be in counted in 2/4 beat/time signature (Cuban Son/Salsa 4/4, Rumba often 6/8), shared with Brazilian Samba (also 2/4). The common instruments used in traditional Merengue include the typically Dominican double-sided Tambora drum, the Guira metal scraper, and the Accordion, that at one point replaced string instruments (since the 1880s).. The Accordion play repeated syncopated patterns, rendering often a danceable, lively groove. The Guira metal scraper bears similarities to the East Cuban Guaya scraper (in Son Changui, for instance), but plays faster patterns

The Accordion is by contrast not really used in Cuban music, neither is that (Dominican) Tambora drum type found much in Cuban music (mostly open-bottom drums). Rhythmically, Merengue has similar “swaying” characteristics as found in neighboring Haiti’s music (only faster), perhaps shaped as such originally (some Haitian influence), but denied with the later mentioned Dominican-Haitian tensions that arose. There is also a Haitian genre named Méringue, which shares similarities not just in name with Dominican Merengue (see my post about Haitian music), and has not coincidentally its origins in the same 19th-c. period (around 1850).

Later, more modern Merengue versions (such as “de orquesta”, orchestra-types) added more instruments, including wind instruments (notably the saxophone), other percussion (conga’s a.o.), often with influences from other parts of the region (including Cuba), and string instruments.

Dictator Trujillo actually promoted Merengue music as national music, related to his own humble origins (like Merengue), while at the same time contradicting his anti-African heritage stances regarding other aspects of Dominican culture. He used Merengue for his propaganda, and connection to the populace.

BACHATA

Bachata is a newer genre, of more recent origin (becoming known in the Early 1960s), like Merengue hailing from Northern parts of the Dominican Republic. It is less “local” in that it is influenced from the start by Cuban Bolero and Son, with an own touch over time, but maintaining a string-instrument base, unlike Merengue. From Cuban models, it developed into an own genre over time in the Dominican Republic, including Merengue influences, and a shift to steel and electric guitars, resulting in prominent guitar patterns, mixed with varied percussion, mostly including the (originally Cuban!) Bongos, as small, high-pitched hand drums. The syncopated, rhythmic interaction between the strings and bongo (and other percussion) still reflect its origins in Cuban Bolero and Son, albeit adapted.

One difference with the Cuban models are faster, own Bongo rolls and also “fuller” and electric guitar patterns, less “spacious” than in Cuban Son. It tends to be overall faster in tempo to Cuban Son or bolero.

PALO

Palo is a semi-religious, more sacred folk music genre in the Dominican Republic with more direct African retentions, centered on (Catholic) saints or ancestors and combined drums and call-and-response vocals of African origins. The drums are three open-bottom drums as in the Congo tradition, with the low-pitched drum providing steady beats, and the other drums variations. This has superficial similarities with Afro-Cuban Rumba types, while “heart-beat” like drum base rhythms reflect a Congo heritage, also found elsewhere in the African diapora in the Americas (Haiti, Jamaica, Colombia).

The three drums combine with different instruments in different parts of the country, with the Guira scraper recurring, but in some regions of the Dominican Republic also with e.g. tambourines.

Also a difference with Cuba, where bells are used more often, as well more shaker (maraca) types. It lacks a bit that “clave” (key beats) base of Cuban music, but further has similarities. Mainly of Congo origin, the similarities could be explained by the strong Congo influence of much Afro-Cuban music, including on Son, and (partly) on Rumba, and similar genres – also named Palo – in especially Eastern Cuba. Cuban Palo uses some other patterns and instruments, though, than its Dominican namesake.

EXPLAINING THE DIFFERENCES

What I find interesting in this case, is how these differences – and similarities - between the music genres of two “Spanish Caribbean” nations, with both (in general) a mixed Spanish-African population, geographically close to each other – Cuba and the Dominican Republic – can be explained. This explanation is mostly historically, of course.

SLAVERY

More intense and longer-lasting slavery of Africans in Cuba explains some differences. The historical conflicts of the Dominican Republic with neighbouring Haiti also some. After the Haitian Revolution (up to 1804), - and in the 1820s - Haiti occupied the bordering Dominican Republic for a period, even making some Dominican leaders prefer continued Spanish colonial rule, while border disputes were also long problematic. The animosity between more European-oriented Dominicans, and more African Haitians continued for long, including racist aspects in the Dominican Republic.

This went so far that dictator Rafael Trujillo (from 1930 to 1961) hid his part-Haitian ancestry (on his mother’s side) as part of his regime’s propaganda, inventing instead a vague personal Spanish nobility origin from colonial times, and lightening his mulatto skin tone.

POPULAR LEVELS

These kinds of sentiments were mostly political, and to a lesser degree “popular”, as Afro-Dominican culture was still kept alive, albeit sometimes diluted or denied.

This was somehow different in Cuba, where “Africanness” as cultural identity was by some parts of the population proudly asserted, even though it was deemed certainly problematic by elite, pro-European circles, and seen as vulgar, in several historical epochs, even postcolonial ones, It proved, however, impossible to deny or ignore, especially as music genres like Son (from “blacker” Eastern Cuba) and Afro-Cuban Rumba gained wider popularity also in Havana.

Interestingly, in both Cuba and the Dominican Republic, “white political elite” dogmas and preferences were largely ignored, or circumvented, on the popular levels, continuing the incorporation and even celebration of African cultural retentions.

In the case of Cuba, with more slave imports, up to a later time period (even up to the 1860s), there were more maintained sensed African identities among Afro-Cubans, and more direct African cultural retentions, even of a specific ethnic nature or geographical origin (Yoruba, Congo, Calabar/Efik), including spiritual and musical aspects.

This was simply too hard to repress, although in certain epochs it had to be hidden more in Cuba. Even during Castro’s communism – frowning on Afro-Cuban “religion”, like Santería (mostly Yoruba) or Palo Mayombe (mostly Congo), the spiritual rituals continued underground.

Such African identities were more fluid and mixed – or downplayed - in the case of Afro-Dominicans, though surviving in part in Palo music (mixed with Catholicism) and subtly in musical elements of Merengue and Bachata).

It resulted – however – in less types of hand drums and other African percussion in the Dominican Republic, when compared to Cuba, though Congo-type drums are present in Palo music,. Bachata, however, adopted the Afro-Cuban Bongó. The indigenous Amerindians left their mark in both Cuban and Dominican music, mostly in instruments like the scrapers (Guiro/guira, Guaya), and in some shakers.

AFRICAN ORIGINS

While close to each other, and despite the Spanish colonial connection, some musical differences thus arose in the local contexts. The normative Accordion use in Merengue relate to German traders and travelers to the Dominican Republic, related to the tobacco trade, bringing the (after all German-invented) instrument. This did not seem to have occurred in Cuba, where the accordion remained an oddity in its folk music, if present at all. It never replaced string or other “chording”/melodic instruments in Cuba, maintaining its tres or other guitar use.

The characteristics of the Accordion made Dominican Merengue more “swaying” than Cuban “straighter” rhythms, but also the early Haitian connection of Merengue, however denied by authorities. The irony of neighboring enemies, that nonetheless share more than with others.

The bells, and clave-patterns might relate to the Yoruba influence in Cuba, as well as some other instrument uses (like the Shekere bead shaker). Africans from various nations ended up in the Dominican Republic. Christopher Columbus himself brought some from the Senegambia area around 1500 (one of the first African slave transport to the Americas), while later Congo, Dahomey/Ewe (like in Haiti), and even Ghana, became sources for slaves to the Dominican Republic.

Yoruba were less represented in the Dominican Republic, as they were enslaved and sold in a later stage in what is now Nigeria, related to the “jihad” (religious war) attacks of the Islamic Hausa invading from north of Yorubaland, enabling their capture and sale to Europeans (Portuguese, Spanish) up to the 1840s. Britain by then has (formally) abolished the slave trade, but it continued to Brazil and Spanish colonies (and illegally by Britons), but the Dominican Republic had abolished slavery already by 1822 (under Haitian influence), Cuba only as late as the 1880s, still importing slaves (also illegally) up to the 1860s.

Quite some Congo/Central African/Bantu slaves ended up in Cuba (estimated at 40% of them), which does provide a cultural link with Afro-Dominicans, though with some differences. Scholars assert that Bantu-speaking slaves in the Dominican Republic, often came from other ethnic groups in the wider Congo-Angola region than those in Cuba, besides sometimes from the same region. Still shared similarities as a cultural region, but with regional differences. Just like you have, e.g., within countries like Spain or Italy.

EUROPEANS

Regarding the Spanish, or European side, there were similarities in migration between Cuba and the Dominican Republic, such as a shared input of Canary islanders (even on the Caribbean Spanish language accent), and further Andalusian/South Spanish and Catalan influences. The Catalonian influence became stronger with the slavery peak in Cuba after 1820, as many slave owners and investors in plantations came from more wealthy and industrialized Catalonia, and other northern Spaniards (like the Basque slave-owning family Zulueta). The famous Bacardi family (from the rum) was also Catalan in origin, and were also owners of many African slaves.

Yet, sources state that among the earlier Spanish (“White”) settlers in the Dominican Republic, there were also relatively many Catalans, alongside Canarians, and others. This still reflects in Catalan surnames in present-day Dominican Republic (Bosch, Balaguer).

The South Spanish influence was still there, as what we know as the early Spanish guitar was in fact Andalusian in origin. Some Cuban music genres (like Punta) show Andalusian and Flamenco elements, while the recurring string instruments and guitar patterns show this South Spanish influence in Cuba (soon mixed with African ones), perhaps stronger than in the Dominican Republic, where guitars nonetheless were known too.

In fact, a French influence (via Haiti) might have had some effect on the European side of the mixed music in the Dominican Republic.

POLITICS

A final influence relate to political differences. Trujillo supported Merengue music for his propaganda, as pre-Castro leaders sometimes supported (selectively) Afro-Cuban aspects, despite a stronger pro-European/Spanish bias. Fidel Castro’s communism in name supported Afro-Cuban culture, yet its policies and dogmas sometimes limited it. The Marxist and Communist formal atheism was at first strongly adhered to under Castro, working also against popular Afro-Cuban faiths and folk religions like Santería, obliging practitioners even to secrecy in periods.

While music education was stimulated and is conveniently state-paid – supporting musicianship – under Cuban communism, the general cultural focus was more European/Western. This was noted also by Carlos Moore, who became a Cuban refugee and opponent of Castro, after first sympathizing and working some time for Fidel Castro. Moore - in exile - critiqued Castro’s dictatorial tendencies, but also his cultural bias and close-mindedness, restricted to Castro’s own “White”, Hispanic ethnicity. Castro was not in touch with Afro-Cuban culture, Moore argued, forming after all a substantial part of Cuban society: a majority (estimated at 80%) is at least partly of African descent, with over 25% of Cuba even mainly of African descent. Add to this around 50% of Cubans being mixed-raced.

Trujillo was unlike “Hispanic White” Fidel Castro (who was of Galician Spanish and Canarian descent), rather a light Mulatto, with some African blood, but was in denial about it, resulting in the psychological complexities and contradictions common to self-hatred and troubled identity issues. What Black Americans dubbed as the “Uncle Tom” effect. Later presidents – from 1961 to now - (often mostly White) continued the pro-European, anti-Haitian cultural focus of Dominican politics.

Like in Cuba, though, the popular culture could not be shaped or altered so easily by politicians, maintaining a strength by itself among common folk, showing in subtle yet noticeable African retentions in main Dominican genres as Merengue and Bachata (syncopation, percussion, call-and-response), and even more direct African retentions in Congo-derived Palo music in the Dominican Republic.

More recent allowance of social commentary lyrics in Merengue (also by famous Juan Luis Guerra) and Bachata (beyond romantic or party themes) affirm these genres all the more as truly nonelite and popular.

INTRA-CARIBBEAN

And yes, there were relations between the Dominican Republic and Cuba, historically (through Cuban Son and Bolero) by shaping the Bachata genre, and also on Afro-Cuban influences on later Merengue styles (“de orquesta”).

The other way around less, confirming Cuba’s special place as musical hotbed in Latin America, not unlike Jamaica for the rest of the Anglophone Caribbean. Dominican radio stations – on the other hand - reach Eastern Cuba (around Santiago de Cuba, Son’s heartland), making Bachata and Merengue songs quite popular there as well, as varying foreign influence. There are by now also Cuban artists making Bachata, like Kirenia, Michel Felix, Meyita, and Verónica Velázquez, found on a compilation “Bachata from Cuba” to be found online.

Funny how the Domincan touches that later adapted Cuban Son and Bolero (electric steel guitar, faster bongo rolls, a.o.) to form Dominican Bachata, actually came back to Cuba as well. Not the “purist” approach, let’s say, but open and creative, accepting “what they did with it”. Something comparable happened with what in New York became known as Salsa in the 1980s, but was largely Cuban Son-based.

Merengue is of course known in present-day Cuba, but as Dominican and foreign genre, and sometimes appreciated or played on the radio or in clubs (as international, foreign “Latin” hits). Yet it seemed less “absorbed” by Cuban musical artists, as few Merengue artists as such in Cuba are known (some experiment with it).

There is a traditional, percussive Haitian Merengue known with that name in Eastern Cuba, due to historical Haitian influence, but this derived from Haitian Méringue. Interestingly, yet not surprisingly, it has some rhythmic, “swaying” similarities even with modern Dominican Merengue, showing original Haitian-Dominican connections on Hispaniola, shaping Merengue.

Bongo: an etymological journey

I admit: I like to play with language. I even am intrigued by the intricacies, the history and adaptability of different languages. It’s not the same, but this attitude helps when you want to study different languages: you stay interested, even through boring and technical (grammar) parts. Language has for me, though, to be connected to history, and actual meaning, since history and culture interest me even more. Language as such is the result and instrument of history and culture, you can say.

LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Basic anthropology lessons also taught me that there is a direct link between language and culture, in the history of mankind. Not everyone might be aware of that. One notable fact is that the use of “double meanings” or “metaphor” through language, is how culture – and cultural differences – took shape. A conscious linguistic creation, or “word power”, less so the other way around (first culture then words?).

POSSIBILITY AND REFLECTION

Because of all this I always was interested in etymology: the origins of certain terms or words, in the own or other languages, the historical origins and changes. “What’s in a name?”, Shakespeare wrote. He meant of course that in itself is not “truth”.. good to remember. Words are certainly not necessarily “truth” , I even argue that words conceal more “truth” than they reveal. What words always are, however: possibility, as well as reflections. Also in light of its role in cultural formation.

BONGO

From this last angle (possibility and reflection), I am going to focus in the remainder of this post on the etymology of a word I studied, with relevance for my personal interests and passions: the word “bongo”.

For this blog I wrote a lot about Cuban and Jamaican music, as well as other interests of mine, such as Africa, and international developments. Of course I discussed already on some posts the Afro-Cuban musical instrument, the drum the Bongos, more correctly in Cuban Spanish, the singular: Bongó (for both attached drums). That might be internationally the best known meaning of Bongo, among most people.

Yet there’s more to it.

DRUMS

Bongó as term for the small attached drums appeared in the mountainous East of Cuba, the regions of Guantanamo and Santiago de Cuba, first around the Late 19th c.. Local music forms, such as the Son Changüí and the Son, used initially a combination of instruments, including guitars, a thumb piano as bass (marimbula), shakers, and the bongo drums. Earliest drums called “bongó” go back to the late 19th c., and were called “del monte” (from the hills).

A bit later, as Son developed (from Changüí, around Santiago de Cuba), the Bongó changed somewhat in playing style (small drum on other site, tuning pegs). This adapted “son” form of Bongó travelled later to Havana (and beyond).

(Photo above: a photo I took of a local (Son-style) Bongó player in Los Dos Abuelos, a patio-based music club in Santiago de Cuba.)

There is a strong Congo/Central African influence among the Afro-Cubans in Eastern Cuba, and the instrument the Bongó (as well as the marimbula) shows this Bantu influence (open bottoms, e.g.). Also the name, according to some historians. Cuban anthropologist Fernando Ortiz traces it back to a few words in the Bantu and Congo area in Africa, such as “Mgombo”, simply meaning drum, but probably mixed with other words meaning something like “cultural”.

Ortiz also noted that similar early "bongó-like" drums had another name in the province Holguín, in the NE of Cuba (and North of Guantanamo and Santiago), namely "Tahona". This sounds more European than bongó, and indeed the province Holguín is ethnically much more "Whiter" than Santiago de Cuba and Guantanamo, as I also noticed when I once travelled from Holguín to friends in Santiago de Cuba. Incidentally, I also passed by Birán in Holguín where Fidel Castro (indeed also a White Cuban) came from. His Galician (N-Spain)-born father had a plantation there, employing a.o. Haitians. But I digress, haha.

Historian Farris-Thompson concluded that the African origins of slaves in the Americas did differ from region to region, but that the “Congo” area united them almost all, as slaves from Central Africa were relatively widespread throughout the whole Americas. Indeed, culturally it left legacies in various countries and folk traditions. From Argentina to the US South.

Relatively much in Cuba and Brazil (where an estimated 40% of the enslaved Africans were from Congo/Central Africa). Interestingly, historians points at some difference between these once Iberian colonies, as to Brazil went more slaves from the Angola area, and to Cuba more from what is now DR Congo.

Yet, in several colonies “Congo” or “Bantu” slaves made up quite a percentage among the Africans. In Jamaica, about 20%.

JAMAICA

In Jamaican speech, especially the local Creole (Patois) or variants of Jamaican English, the word “bongo” is used regularly, and not just for drums.

Bongo is used for drums in Jamaica too, to be sure, not even always the mentioned Cuban drums, but often as a colloquial term for all drums, even if more correctly having own names (conga, kete, djembe, etc.). Culturally more intriguing is its other uses in Jamaica, notably among some spiritual movements, including the Rastafari. While vague, it is deeply cultural.

In Jamaican speech a “bongo” is even a word for, simply, a “black man” or a “dark-skinned African” ("backra" is then white man, "coolie" an East Indian), but goes beyond appearance. Among the Rastafari, “Bongo” is a kind of honorary title for an elder: someone with a long, founding history among the Rastas, keeping the culture alive. A term of “authenticity”, you might say. Rastafari elders (older men) - or other "key" tradition keepers, are thus often called “Bongo”, as in Bongo Joe, Bongo Jerry, or Bongo Herman (a well-known Reggae percussionist). Often there is a link with their drumming (Nyabinghi or otherwise).

An intriguing use, also because of how Jamaican historians define it, such as in the Dictionary of Jamaican English (ed. By F.G. Cassidy and R.B. Le Page). “Bongo” or also “bungo”’s original meaning, also in some Bantu languages (around Cameroon and Congo) partly “country bumpkin”, is asserted in this dictionary. Actually, they mention a non-Bantu language, N-Nigerian Hausa where “bongo” is used for “country bumpkin”. Thus somewhat derogatory as “backward” peasants, named as such by more urban, modernized people, in some parts of Africa.

This odd mix of uses, further mixed with the inferiority complex due to Jamaica’s colonial past, as “bongo” was often used derogatory for “country” people, but also for someone looking very Black or African, thereby upholding European, rather than own beauty standards.

This makes the positive use and meanings among the Rastafari adherents of “Bongo” – i.e. a true, “cultural” Rastaman, a wise elder, cultural safeguard of tradition -, rebellious and assertive. A proud reaffirmation of the African cultural heritage. Language, - here the term “Bongo” -, as “possibility” or “word power”.

KUMINA

There is another spiritual tradition in Jamaica, though, where Bongo is used, one of largely African (Congo) origin: Kumina. Kumina is especially found in Eastern Jamaica, the mountainous parish of St Thomas and around. It originated among Africans of mainly Congo origin, becoming in time a bit more pan-African, with references to Yoruba, Igbo, or Akan cultures, also present among African slaves. The main cosmology and vocabulary of Kumina remained Congo/Bantu, however. Spirit possession dances, aimed at ancestors passing knowledge, or on “healing”, form core rituals whereby good drumming and chants – with even remnants of the Congo language – invoke the right spirits. This relates to chants and drum patterns.

Well now, these Kumina-initiated families get the title ‘Bongo’. So also honorary as name/title in that sense, with special “safeguarding” functions in the Kumina tradition.

In the collective volume ‘Chanting down Babylon: the Rastafari reader’ (several authors, ed. by N.s. Murrell, W.D. Spencer, and A.A. McFarlane, 1998), authors point out that in fact Rastafari was partly influenced by Kumina, as early Rastas knew about Kumina and had connections with them. In percussion there is a direct influence, such as through known percussionists like Count Ossie, said to be connected to Kumina. The “heartbeat” rhythm of the big drums in Congo-based Kumina influenced Rastafari Nyabinghi drum patterns, though somewhat simplified and slowed when compared to Kumina.

In the above volume, the term “bongo” is mostly used when referring to Kumina terminology, but thus with an influence on Rastafari. Kumina has a longer history (19th c., while Rastafari as such since the 1930s).

SPIRITUAL

The term Bongó in Eastern Cuba for the drums, seemed more practical, though not meaningless. It might on some level denote “African” as Bongo in Jamaican colloquial speech, distinguishing it from other instruments from other continents (Spanish/Canarian guitars, notably) in Cuban Son music, while partly also meaning, simply: drum.

Interestingly, originally the Bongó in earliest forms of Son and Changüí were called “bongó de monte” (bongo from the hills/mountains), referring to a rural origin, and the rural reference the term Bongo has in some African languages.

While many well-known early Bongo players in Cuba, also after it spread to Havana, had links with Afro-Cuban spirituality and faiths (Santería, Abakuá, or Palo), the Bongos themselves became part of popular music, first in the rural East.

When the Son genre moved to Western Cuba, the White colonial establishment at first discouraged and even forbade such “African” drums – yet in time, the Bongos joined the increased acceptance of Afro-Cuban music, later also internationally, finding a way in US-developed Salsa and other Latin genres, as may be more known.

The “spiritual” got somewhere in the back behind amusement, it seems, in the Cuban case, but not lost. Several of the early pioneers of Bongo playing in Cuba incorporated Afro-Cuban spiritual drumming aspects (from e.g. Yoruba-based Santería), but translated them for popular music. It therefore cannot be separated fully.

In Jamaica, the very word “Bongo” came to mean both “earthly” as “spiritual”. This fitted with the “natural livity” part of the Rastafari faith. Spirit possession was accepted less, due to the Christian influence on Rastafari, but some aspects of Kumina and similar African traditions found a way – as said - in Rastafari. The relationship between drumming and “spirituality” (healing, community) is shown more abstractly in Nyabinghi sessions, where often the word “bongo” is used too, though the drums have own names (kete, fundeh, repeater), from yet other (Akan) African traditions. So, like in Cuba, there were (reworked) pan-African influences at play.

BANTU

The connection to specifically the Bantu-speaking area and the Congo region of the word “Bongo” was never questioned, though. The term’s early appearance in Eastern Cuba and Kumina confirm that Congo origin, even beyond the superficial fact that the word just “sounds” Bantu: such as more words, like the “mb” and “ng” combination, but that is no guarantee.

Some words with “ng” or “mb” sound and are Bantu/Congo in origin, also in the African diaspora (“mambo” in Cuban music, “makamba” for White man in Curaçao, some even say "tango"), but more African language groups have e.g. the “ng” sound (from the Kwa and Mande languages), or even have “bongo”-like words that have another origin. Just coincidence, as in some Mande-languages (Guinea area), “kongo” means “hunger”, but has nothing to do with the river or territory in Central Africa.

It is true, though, that “ng” and “mb” are common sounds in several Bantu languages, and many retained African words in Caribbean creole languages with “mb” and “ng” are indeed of Bantu/Congo origin , also in Jamaican and other English-based creoles (“gunga” for pea, for instance).

Also the word “Kaya” (for marijuana/weed) in Jamaican patois, known from the Bob Marley & Wailers album and song, is of Congo/Bantu origin, meaning something like “ leaves” or “plants”. This is significant as Africans of Congo region origin tended in several parts of the Americas be relatively knowledgeable about “healing plants” or herbs, probably due to the(rain) forested character of the Congo basin of their African roots. Slaves from the Guinea are came from more Savanna or steppe/Sahel environments, and those from Southern Nigeria, Ghana etc. somewhere in between (partly forested too, savannah’s).

In Jamaica, therefore, the term “Bongo” is at times also used for a natural healer through plants, often at the same time an authentic Rasta man. Also, colloquially, I heard the mentioning of “Bongo” locks, apparently in reference to specific, thick dreadlocks on a Rasta man. So the term “Bongo” has gotten quite some use in Jamaican speech. A broad use, as well: used to refer to drums, as well as “a black man/African” or “Rasta man”.

This translates in several Reggae lyrics of course: by Bob Marley and many others, often in combination with Natty (Bongo Natty).

This use is also found in other English Creole languages, such as in Trinidad.

In Cuba, the term Bongó refers mostly – also in lyrics – to the well-known instrument (other terms exist to denote very Black or African people), although a similar word is found for another drum, in the Abakuá tradition: the Bonkó Enchemiya. This drum is a lot longer (and more conical) than the bongo drums – sounds therefore deeper -, but the name (as general term for “drum) might be related, the Abakuá tradition in Cuba stemming mostly from the Calabar region (border area Nigeria/Cameroun), close to Bantu-speaking areas.

NAMES IN AFRICA

“Bongo”, thus, refers to Africa, but how concretely? The name of drums in Bantu languages (even if adapted), okay, but also ethnically and geographically?

In fact, there are several geographic or ethnographic names of “Bongo” in Africa, in different countries. Sometimes a town and region, in N-Ghana, Ivory Coast, Angola, or a mountain range (CAR), and even a people in South Sudan, called the Bongo, speaking – you guessed it -the Bongo language. Again, this can be coincidence.

Studies are as yet inconclusive, so it is hard to prove a direct link between, say, the provincial town Bongo (or Mbongo, but so pronounced) in Angola – unfortunately a main “ slave source” for especially the Portuguese and Dutch. It is probable, anyway.

Bongo, a town and region in the far NE of Ghana - or the Bongo commune in SE Ivory Coast - could maybe have influenced its use in Jamaica, where many Akan/Ghanaian slaves ended up, though the enslaved Akan came from more to the South in Ghana, and had a different language family.

Even the remaining possible origins are less improbable than one would think: stories and legends can travel far away between peoples, so possibly also about the Bongo people, related to Sudanic-speaking people like the Sara and Dinka, in South Sudan and Uganda, but not far from the DR Congo. Their culture is clearly African, and drum-rich.

Sadly, the Bongo are as a culture and nation presently “endangered”.

Likewise, a Pygmy-related people in Gabon is also called Bongo, and are surrounded by Bantu. Bongo in Gabon are known as “forest people”, and speak the Bantu languages of their neighbours. They are also knowns as BaBongo, but the Ba-prefix means “people” in Bantu, similar to BaKongo.

Fittingly, the BaBongo have a percussion-rich culture, and extra remarkable for this post, know instruments comparable to those known traditionally in Cuba, such as a clay jug blown within (a wind instrument), a lamellophone (like the marímbula in Cuba) and a friction instrument similar but lower than the Brazilian cuica (also rubbed from within the drum, as the cuica), similar in sound to one known historically among Afro-Cubans of Congo descent and in Palo, as well as to the Ekue in Abakuá.

Thus, while descending from original “pre-Bantu” pygmy Africans – and not known whether some of them were enslaved and brought to the West, like their Bantu neighbours (not impossible), the Babongo culture surely is part of the Bantu cultural complex, also influential in Eastern Cuba.

Further possible links, are the common ancestor name Mbongo in the oral tradition in (Bantu) Cameroon Sawa peoples, as well as a toponym in northern inland DR Congo.

If these are direct links is unsure, the ones about the Mbongo town in central Angola (Huambo), or the ancestor name in Cameroon, seem somewhat more plausible, but regardless, the fact that the term Bongo recurs as name throughout Central Africa is telling. It is a very African word in sound, haha.

Not surprisingly, the surname or family name “Bongo” or very similar ones (like Mbongo) are common in some African countries as well (Angola, DR Congo,Congo-Brazzaville, Gabon a.o.).

AFRICAN LANGUAGES

Looking at linguistic use, apart from names, it becomes even more doubtful. There it is much more coincidence in certain cases, and maybe some historical/language family connection in other cases.

The Bongo people in South Sudan call themselves that, with “Bongo” meaning simply “people” or “men”. They speak a Sudanic – not a Bantu language.

Regarding the latter, that “bongo” means in Swahili – a widespread language mixing Bantu and Arab – “the brain”, is interesting. Again: an eventual link with the African Diaspora in the West is hard to tell, however, though not impossible. The new Tanzanian music genre Bongo Flava – actually a mix of local and international influences - is named after this, as Dar Es Salaam urban residents are known as “clever”, and the city as Ubongo: “brainland”. Some outside Tanzania call even the country as a whole (U)bongo, all from the Swahili for “brain”. Ubongo or Bongo thus became a kind of nickname among some for Tanzania.

A link with drumming seems not apparent. Among the Yoruba people of SW Nigeria/Benin, also influential culturally through enslavement in Cuba, in music the “head” is associated with bell sounds, not drums. The latter represent “bodies”, perhaps due to the skin. The Bongó was, on the other hand, used musically as time-keeper in early Son in Eastern Cuba (the counting head?).

In a relevant Bantu language, Lingala (DR Congo) , “bongo” means “exact”, which also raises questions, since Lingala is spoken in areas of Congo where many slaves came from.

Perhaps relatedly, the meaning of “Bongo” in the Zulu language (a southern Bantu language) is "that’s it”.

ANTELOPE

Finally, there is another known meaning of Bongo, even internationally, also prominent in Wikipedia, but here not mentioned yet. “Bongo” is the name for an animal, an African antelope (in Central, West, and parts of East Africa). Again, this can be a coincidence, but the name came supposedly from the Kele language in Gabon, a Bantu language.

A possible quite indirect link is with the fact that antelope skin was and is used for drums in surrounding African cultures, but also skin of other animals. I have played an antelope-skinned drum once (the Kpanlogo drum from Ghana is an example), but these are thinner - with a softer sound - than those used for Bongos. For bongos the skin was originally calf or goat, donkey, later water buffalo (German bongo manufacturer Meinl uses buffalo skin, for instance), producing a different (harder) sound than possible with antelope skin.

So at most there is just an indirect link with e.g. the Cuban bongó.

Even if these were mainly indirect links - but still links! - with the African Diaspora uses, the common, widespread use of the “bongo” term in Africa, makes it as term distinctly and typically African, and thereby proving the point of its use in Cuba, Jamaica, or elsewhere. Asserting an own cultural identity, through word power.

At the same time, it reflects the struggle against colonial indoctrination as well as historical – and current! – Eurocentric ideological and technological dominance.