222 Summary report of the meeting of experts
on the African slave trade
experts attending the meeting. Special attention should be given to Brazil,
which probably constitutes a useful example.^8
Evidence noted in the Caribbean islands is no less interesting. In the
Dominican Republic, in Haiti, in Guadeloupe, in the Guianas and in Brazil,
relations between Amerindians and blacks were neither as infrequent nor as
bad as the colonists would have it believed. The role of the Amerindians in
the early stages of the presence of blacks would seem to have been greater
than had long been thought. In Cuba, even today, the vestiges of this prejudice
are so strong that it is still stated that the population is entirely Afro-Cuban,
and that the Amerindians have quite disappeared. The same was said to be the
case in Guyana, whereas there are still Amerindians surviving today, in both
cases. It would be of interest to make a study of the real relations of the blacks
with the Amerindians.
An avenue of research could be opened up by using the apparently
tenuous vestiges of African languages in the social, military or religious life
of the diaspora. However, this should not lead to neglecting study of the various
creóle languages of Central America and the Indian Ocean.^9
Stories having great similarities with African stories have been found in
the Caribbean, Réunion and Mayotte. It would be interesting to undertake a
systematic and careful analysis of them, particularly to note the differences
between non-African and African versions.
It is undoubtedly thanks to the maroons, of whom there are particularly
large numbers in the Spanish colonies, but who also exist in other Caribbean
regions, and in the islands of the Indian Ocean, that a large proportion of
African cultural tradition has been preserved. The existence of marronage as
a social, political and military phenomenon should thus be studied along with
its cultural implications.^10
The official cultural doctrine of the Dominican Republic, based on
' Indian-ness ' and excluding reference to Africa would seem to put this country
in the opposite category from Haiti. History obviously explains this paradox.
Haiti, born of a slave insurrection on the part of those who arrived in
great numbers at the end of the eighteenth century, derives the force of its
political cohesion from a basic choice made on 14 August 1791 at Bois Caiman.
To the careful observer, Voodoo would still appear today to be the focal point
of Haitian cultural life.
This people sprang from ethnic groups that were faced with the same
problem of freeing themselves from slavery but who had been at loggerheads
among themselves until then. Voodoo, as reinterpreted and integrated into the
Caribbean situation, is the best preserved heritage of African religious and
cultural traditions.^11 On this ground, it deserves careful study. In Haiti, it
has taken on a value different from that which it has in Africa where it origi-
nated, or in other regions of Central America.