98 Atlantic African, American, and European Backgrounds to Contact, Commerce, and EnslavementSeasoning
As part of the process of the Atlantic slave trade, seasoning
would follow the sale of captives to owners in the Western
Hemisphere. Th roughout the Caribbean and coastal Brazil,
owners normally separated slaves into two categories: Cre-
oles and “Bozales” or salt-water Negroes. Creoles were slaves
born in the Americas and were much more highly valued
than newly enslaved and imported Africans due to their
knowledge of a European language and the development
of a useful skill set; they were, in this regard, “seasoned”
slaves. Bozales, also referred to as salt-water Negroes, New
Negroes, or Guinea-birds, were newly imported, had dif-
fi culties communicating with Creoles and white owners,
and had to be “broken-in” in order to become eff ective and
effi cient laborers. Th us, seasoning was a process by which
Bozales became more like Creoles.
In the process of seasoning, new Africans would serve
as “apprentices” for Creoles in learning the work regimes
and social norms of the plantation. In addition to the ap-
prenticeship, seasoning also implied a process by which
new Africans acclimated to the new disease environment
and plantation discipline. Many, as a result, died during sea-
soning. In Brazil, 15 percent of all new Africans died during
the fi rst year of seasoning. On Caribbean sugar plantations,
about half of all new arrivals died within the fi rst three years
of their arrival. Roughly, one in four of all slaves arriving in
18th-century Virginia died within their fi rst year. Likewise,
33 percent died within a year in Carolina. Since seasoning
sought to “create” a slave, it was intended as a mechanism of
behavior modifi cation. In some cases, new Africans would
be worked until exhaustion and beaten with the intent of
forcibly making them more pliable and less resistant. More
typically, seasoning meant the creation of new names, the
introduction to European languages and Christianity, and
an attempt at complete creolization (or acculturation).
Despite overt attempts to force cultural changes through
seasoning, new Africans did not completely forget their
cultures of origin. Cultural mixing certainly occurred, both
between African groups and between Africans and their
new European host culture. However, new Africans viewed
new cultural formulations through the lens of their cul-
tural backgrounds. When they spoke European languages,
they transformed and Africanized them, creating a num-
ber of Creole dialects that had distinctive African linguistictrade, enslaved males were typically used as eunuchs and
enslaved females were generally placed in harems. Many
times, those persons traded were traded for horses brought
down from the north.
Some of the people that inhabit the area known as the
Sahel live nomadic lives as pastoralists. Many raise live-
stock, including sheep and goats. Th e livelihood of these
people depends heavily on rainfall, as there have been many
droughts over the years that have created devastating fam-
ines. Th e land area that the Sahel covers is vast, but the cli-
mate of that land area is fairly consistent. Th is consistency
means that when one area is suff ering from drought, all of
the areas are normally suff ering the same. During times of
drought, some move father south toward the forest region,
where water may be in more abundance.
Th ere is food cultivation in some areas of the Sahel.
Rice is grown around the western coastline of the region,
and sorghum along with other grains that require little
moisture are grown throughout the Sahel. Th e soil through-
out most of the Sahel is not conducive for agriculture, as it
is very sandy and lacks the nutrients necessary for many
large-scale crops. Weather conditions and rainfall aff ect the
aspirations for productivity, and the Sahel has fallen victim
to drought many times in the 20th century. Th ese droughts
created detrimental conditions for those who live in this
region, and, unfortunately, during those times, many per-
ished because of malnutrition and disease. Major droughts
aff ected the Sahel in 1914, from 1968 to 1974, from 1982 to
1983, and again from 1984 to 1985.
See also: Ghana; Mali; Rice Cultivation; Senegambia; Song-
hai; Sudanic Empires; Timbuktu; Trans-Saharan Slave Trade
Dawn MilesBibliography
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