192 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the PresentMoreover, he states that slaves in the Montpelier commu-
nity were mainly Igbo and that although there were slaves of
other ethnic groups, the Igbo infl uence was strong enough
to infl uence them. So rather than the infl uence of the white
slave owners creolizing the slaves, Chambers states that it
was Igbo culture that was the dominant infl uence on en-
slaved people in that region.
Further, Chambers argues that creolization—the pro-
cess of adapting to new physical and social conditions and
the basic process of cultural change—was in fact a histori-
cal process as opposed to anthropological, as advanced by
Mintz and Price. Chambers posits that the slave trade was
more systematic and ordered than Mintz and Price want to
admit. He argues, therefore, that it is plausible to state that
particular ethnic groups did have the numbers enabling
them to contribute signifi cantly in the formation of African
American identities.
See also: African Diaspora; Africanisms; Atlantic Slave TradeKaren W. NgonyaBibliography
Chambers, Douglas. Murder at Montpelier: Igbo Africans in Vir-
ginia. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2005.
Littlefi eld, Daniel. Rice and Slaves: Ethnicity and the Slave Trade in
Colonial South Carolina. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State Uni-
versity Press, 1981.
Mintz, Sidney, and Richard Price. Th e Birth of African Ameri-
can Culture, An Anthropological Perspective. Boston: Beacon
Press, 1976.
Th ornton, John. Africa and Africans in the Making of the Atlan-
tic World, 1 400– 1 800. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1992.Evangelism
Evangelism, the work of spreading religious belief, was a
popular and infl uential form of religious conversion among
African Americans in the 18th and 19th centuries. In the
Americas, evangelism was originally focused on the most
glaring nonbelievers, namely the Native Americans and
enslaved Africans. British colonists argued over the right
tactics of slave evangelization. Should religious instruction
for slaves be mandatory? Th is posed a serious dilemma
to Christian slave owners. English law clearly forbade the
enslavement of Christians; once slaves were converted,
must they be freed? Most Anglican leaders countered suchgather as many slaves as quickly as possible to reduce ex-
penses and to keep down mortality rate. He states that once
slaves were on board, in one location, the captain had little
choice but to keep them on board, even if he went to other
points of the coast. But if the slaves were gathered in one
place, he could keep them on shore until he had to depart.
Th ornton further states that not only did this improve the
health of slaves, but it also allowed the captain to shuffl e
some of the loss from death onto the sellers.
Ethnic randomization also assumes ignorance on the
part of slave owners as to the identity and points of origin of
slaves. Daniel Littlefi eld in his book Rice and Slaves shows
that the slave owners in diff erent regions in North Amer-
ica were very keen to bring in slaves of particular ethnic
groups because of specifi c skills. He says that to argue that
the white slave owners thought all slaves were the same, and
therefore it did not matter where they came from, would
be quite misleading. Littlefi eld writes about rice-growing in
South Carolina and shows how some ethnic groups were
preferred over others. He demonstrates that the plantation
owners deliberately searched for slaves from Gambia who
had rice-growing skills. If, therefore, slaves had actually
been “randomized,” it defi nitely would have presented a
problem for the slave traders.
Further, Littlefi eld shows that the slave owners not only
searched for slaves from particular regions in Africa, but
also were able to identify the ethnicity of slaves by certain
characteristics. Although not conclusively, they seem to have
been generally able to identify origin of slaves in question.
Th is shows that it was highly unlikely that the slave owners
would be deceived as to the ethnicity of their slaves.
Additionally, the theory of ethnic randomization has
infl uenced the debate on the formation of African Amer-
ican identity. Mintz and Price argue that because the en-
slaved Africans were ethnically mixed, they were forced to
form new identities very early in their experience in the
New World. Th ey maintain that enslaved Africans became
a community only as much as they experienced their new
environment. Instead of drawing from their African experi-
ence, they formed new identities based on the people that
surrounded them.
Douglass Chambers’s book Murder in Montpelier ad-
dresses this issue by looking at the slave community in
Montpelier in Virginia. He advances the argument that
enslaved Africans reacted to crisis they encountered in
the New World as Atlantic Africans as opposed to Creoles.