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Periodical article | Leiden University catalogue | WorldCat |
Title: | Ethnicities of Enslaved Africans in the Diaspora: On the Meanings of 'Mina' (Again) |
Author: | Law, Robin |
Year: | 2005 |
Periodical: | History in Africa |
Volume: | 32 |
Pages: | 247-267 |
Language: | English |
Geographic terms: | America Ghana Benin Togo |
Subjects: | slaves ethnological names Mina Akan Ewe history 1600-1699 1700-1799 1800-1899 History and Exploration Labor and Employment Peoples of Africa (Ethnic Groups) Urbanization and Migration |
External link: | http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/history_in_africa/v032/32.1law.pdf |
Abstract: | The term 'Mina', when encountered as an ethnic designation of enslaved Africans in the Americas in the 17th to 19th centuries, has commonly been interpreted as referring to persons brought from the area of the Gold Coast (modern Ghana), who are further presumed to have been speakers of an Akan language. Gwendolyn Hall (2003), however, questions this conventional interpretation, and suggests instead that most of those called 'Mina' in the Americas were actually from the Slave Coast to the east (modern southeastern Ghana, Togo and Benin) and hence speakers of the languages nowadays generally termed 'Gbe' (formerly Ewe). The present paper argues that, in its original meaning in West Africa, the name 'Mina' did indeed relate specifically to the Gold Coast, or at least to persons who originated from the Gold Coast even if settled elsewhere, though these included speakers of the Ga-Adangme languages of the eastern Gold Coast, as well as Akan; and that in the Americas, although the term was sometimes used with an extended reference that included speakers of Gbe languages, it is questionable whether it ever denoted Gbe-speakers as distinct from speakers of Akan or Ga-Adangme. Notes, ref. [ASC Leiden abstract] |