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No More, No More Slavery and Cultural Resistance in Havana and New Orleans Daniel E. Walker |
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$60.00 Cloth |
An illuminating look at the festival performances of slaves in Havana and New Orleans. However urban slave societies might have differed from their rural counterparts, they still relied on a concerted assault on the psychological, social, and cultural identity of their African-descended inhabitants to maintain power and control. This ambitious book looks at how people of African descent in two such societies—Havana and New Orleans in the nineteenth century—created and maintained their own forms of cultural resistance to the slave regime’s assault and, in the process, put forth autonomous views of self and the social landscape. In Havana’s annual Día de Reyes festival and in the weekly activities that took place at New Orleans’s Congo Square, author Daniel Walker identifies specific cultural beliefs and activities that Africans brought to the New World and modified in order to withstand and contest the dehumanizing effects of oppression. No More, No More crosses disciplinary boundaries as well, elucidating the economic, social, cultural, and demographic operations at work in two cities and the wide-scale efforts at cultural resistance embodied in public performances. “An important contribution. A compelling cross-cultural narrative that tackles a number of important questions for students of race relations in general and comparative slave societies in particular.” —American Historical Review “Excellent research. Walker achieves his goal of showing the reality of the institution of slavery with his use of poetry, pictures, and other quotes.” —Material Culture “Innovative, ingenious, and backed by a thorough investigation . . . Overall No More, No More is a well researched, very motivating academic work. Comparative studies such as this one are not frequent and a fresh, more profound examination of the forms of cultural slave resistance in New Orleans and Havana would be a welcomed addition to those interested slavery in the Greater Caribbean.” —Caribbean Studies Daniel E. Walker is an independent scholar and founding director of the Center for Public History and the Arts, a division of the Black Voice Foundation. His articles have appeared in CLA Journal, Griot, Western Journal of Black Studies, and Journal of Caribbean History. 294 pages | 21 halftones, 7 line art, 4 tables | 5 7/8 x 9 | 2004 |
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$20.00 Paper