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Afro-Latin America, 1800-2000

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From the first page of the Introduction George Reid Andrews sets the tone of his latest work, Afro-Latin America: 1800 - 2000. The book looks at the Latin-American world focusing on the mostly overlooked fact that the African population south of Central and South America far exceeded in numbers its North American counterparts. "During the period of slavery," Andrews writes, "ten times as many Africans came to Spanish and Portuguese America (5.7 million) as to the United States (560,000). By the end of the 1900s, Afro-Latin Americans outnumbered Afro-North Americans by three to one...[making it] obvious that we need histories of Latin America's Diaspora comparable to those of the United State's African Diaspora. This book is an effort to provide such a history." Andrews then continues to expound on the problem of "how...do we know who in Latin America is of African ancestry and who is not?" Explaining the problems previous historians and social scientists have had with relative terms such as "black," or "brown." For the purposes of his book, Andrews simply states that for his study, "any individual described...as black...or brown, or mulatto will be considered...to be of known African ancestry."

The book is divided into six chapters, beginning with a section of Maps before the Introduction and ending with Population Counts, a Glossary, End Notes and a detailed Bibliography. Each chapter covers a specific topic and time period, and is presented is a straightforward narrative format. The first chapter presents an overview of Afro-Latin America in 1800. In describing the diversity of the population Andrews points out that one could find in the region, "slaves working at the lowest level of the urban economy, slaves and free blacks working as independent street vendors, free black men entrusted with arms and wearing the king's uniform, and a free black man officiating as a Catholic priest." He also goes on to describe how these displaced people kept their culture alive. "Slaves' acceptance of Christianity," Andrews states, "did not necessary imply their abandonment of African religion...as slaves added Christian saints and deities to African pantheons and even invested them with attributes of African gods."

The second chapter describes The War for Freedom, 1810 - 1890, and concentrates on the effect the liberal revolutions of the late 1700, early 1800s had on the region. "The Atlantic revolutions affected Latin America not just by the force of their example but by their geopolitical impact as well. Just as the American Revolution indirectly triggered its French counterpart, so did the French Revolution indirectly trigger the independence struggles in Latin America." Andrews focuses on the impact of the Haitian Revolution, and while not considered by the author as part of Latin-America (being a French colony), the rippling effect it caused impacted the fight for liberty throughout the region. The "bitter civil wars [that] would rage on in much of the region...as in Haiti...would provide Spanish American slaves with opportunities to escape slavery and to fight for their emancipation." Andrews then describes the conflicts brought about by the colonial powers against their mother countries in the fight for freedom, and how slaves used these fights to gain their own liberty. Beginning with the Hidalgo rebellion in Mexico in 1810, and continuing through the fighting between rebels and royalists in Venezuela, to multiparty wars in Uruguay, Andrews explores the opportunities these "revolutions" gave slaves to cast off their oppressive lives and declare war on their former owners. One example of this is provided in the description of the rebel uprising in Chile of the 1820s. Joining the bands of guerrillas that had sprouted throughout out the countryside Andrews describes how, "fearing for their lives, hacendados and plantation owners...fled their estates. In their absence, those slaves who remained behind converted their living quarters into liberated territory, in which slaves began to exercise a certain measure of self-determination over their lives."

In chapter three, The Politics of Freedom, 1810 - 1890, Andrews describes the struggles by former slaves to end the Caste system. In claiming citizenship, and building a Middle Class, Andrews also describes how these new found "citizens," found themselves taking part in sometimes bloody uprising as, "liberal parties" in their attempts to out maneuver their conservative counterparts, "drew support...[from] middle- and lower-class nonwhites, who had suffered social and political exclusion on the basis of...their class [and racial] status." The fourth and fifth chapters, Whitening, 1880 - 1930, and Browning and Blackening, 1930 - 2000, explore the regions struggle to cope with its mixed racial heritage. "In all the countries of the region, writers, politicians and state planners wrestled with the problem of Latin America's racial inheritance." For the peoples in nations such as Venezuela, Cuba and Brazil, the answer to their "blackness" was simple (and based on 300 years of pro-slavery rhetoric); encourage an infusion of "white" settlers into the regions to "Europeanize Latin American societies."

To achieve this Andrews points out, it was not only necessary to encourage white settlement of the region, but also transform the physical nature of the region itself. In that respect downtown areas of major cities were to be torn down, only to be rebuilt based on their European counterparts. It was hoped that this "modernizing" of the cities, complete with sewage and water systems, electrical power, trolley lines, subways and multi-storied buildings, would encourage "the present blacks...to constitute themselves as civilized peoples." However these efforts met with failure, and as Andrews points out in the latter chapter, the end of the export boom after the 1930s became of time of nation building and economic moderation. "Instead of denying and seeking to obliterate the region's history of racial mixing," Andrew writes, the new national identities, "embraced it as the essence of being Latin American (cultural browning)."

In the final chapter, 2000 and Beyond, Andrews asks the question "what new challenges are likely to confront Afro-Latin Americans?" The answers are not simple ones, and depend, according to the author, on social/economic, as well as democratic concerns. How it affects the people of Afro-Latin America mostly depends on what segment of the black population one is talking about. As Andrew himself puts it, "the consequences of growth will be very harsh...for the black peasants," who to this very day, still "face the loss of their land to large, highly capitalized...enterprises."

Andrews ends his work with a comprehensive Appendix listing the "Population Counts" from 1800 until 2000. Used in conjunction with the three maps at the front of the book, the Appendix helps illustrate the growth and assimilation of the African population. In support of his narrative, Andrews provides hundreds of endnotes, broken down to correspond with the book's introduction and six chapters as well as a comprehensive bibliography, listing all of Andrew's sources. In addition the 15 illustrations serve to help the reader visualize "Afro-Latin Americans" as real people.

Overall Andrews accomplishes exactly what he sets out to do. In tackling this subject, Andrews provides the first history of the African Diaspora in Latin America from emancipation to the present. By bringing into the light the struggles of "blacks" within Latin America, Andrews fills a void that dearly needed to be filled. By covering Spanish America, Brazil, and the Caribbean, Andrews brings to the public how African-descended people fought their way out of slavery and how once free, they helped shape, and responded to the political, economic, and cultural changes that built the democracies of their societies.

As the economies of both North and South America are brought ever closer by Globalization, the history of America's closets neighbors, and the largest "African" population in the Western Hemisphere, needed to be told. Franklin W. Knight of Johns Hopkins University can best sum up the importance of this work, "This highly accessible, magisterially authoritative account fills a long-standing void in the bibliography for Latin American Studies, American Cultures and the history of the Americas in general. Insightful, intellectually provocative, and engagingly written, this book should find a wide audience among both specialists and non-specialists."

John Rocco Roberto

History Department, The Nelson A. Rockefeller School

I recommend this book to everyone interested in studies of social sciences, global history, anthropology, the study of "race", and the trans-Atlantic slave trade/African-diaspora outside the USA. Most the time the study of slavery is emphasized only on the USA when in actuality other countries had slavery longer and "imported" more Africans like Brasil. This book can help you draw commonalities and differences in the experiences of slavery, Africans and their descendants had in the Americas.This book presents knowledge that otherwise has been kept esoteric and unapplied to society. In USA schools students are only taught about slavery in the U.S. and U.S. history in a very Eurocentric form, but this book should be read by these students so they can learn the truth about how the countries of the western hemisphere were born and the large part Africans and their descendants had to do with it. This book introduces you to Black history of other countries: Black Brazilian history, Black Colombian history, Black Cuban history, Black Venezuelan History, Black Dominican history, Black Puerto Rican history, etc.

One of the best sources of information on the anthropology in the region, Afro-Latin America 1800-2000 is a well written and detailed account of the experience, and influence, the African people have had in the former Spanish and Portuguese colonies. While Americans can often explain the course of African-American History in the United States, the experience of Africans in Latin America is often a mystery if not all together unheard of. An irony considering that this region now has the highest population of Africans outside of Africa itself.

The strengths of the book are found in chapters 1, which covers the early days of slavery, and chapters 4 and 5 where Andrews explains how the African population experienced both a "whitening" and a "blackening" in terms of trying to understand and create an identity that was both acceptable to themselves and to the greater Caucasian and mixed population around them. The problem of course was where the lines could be drawn considering that unlike with the American experience where a dividing line could be easily found, the Afro-Latin slave existence was one of complexity in that slaves and free men and women could be see at various different class and political levels in the region. The mixtures of Europeans, Native Americans, and Africans, giving birth to creation of a multiracial people, only made the issue more difficult. Blacks would find that they were discriminated against by those of mixed blood who themseleves would also be discriminated against by those who were more European in their heritage. If anything, the question of whether or not "race" is a social or biological concept becomes more difficult to answer for those who support the latter in that the region has seen the greatest racial mixture in recent centuries.

The cultural impact of the Africans was also felt culturally in aspects such as religion, music, and dance. Andrews goes into some depth explaining how the African culture was at first seen as "barbaric" by those of European descent and then, during the 20th century, became a form of popular nationalist expression. Capoeira, Candomble, and Carnaval are only three of the major cultural expressions that have roots in African tradition and belief. Africa is indeed very much alive in these modern forms of culture and the irony is again that European descendents have also adopted these as a form of identity. The core strengths of the book is focused on these subjects and it is unfortunate that more time was not given in covering them further in depth. Andrews could have spent an entire chapter alone on these subjects but instead left them to separate parts in separate chapters which was unfortunate considering that he at times focuses more on political and economic development.

The African-Latin American experience is one that is more complex then that in the states and will be the source of continuing problems, and solutions, for the region. Afro-Latin America 1800-2000 is both a good introduction and continuing eduction for those who have an interest in the anthropology of the region.

This is an extraordinary book is only because it sheds light on this fascinating topic. The topic is broad and covers almost every country south of the American border, with the exception of Surinam and Guyana and French Guyana. It ignores the English speaking Caribbean. It mostly looks as the biggest countries with large Black populations, such as Cuba, Brazil and the Dominican Republic. But it is the sweeping idea of this history that is so important, an examination of an entire continent and its African minorities and sometimes majorities. In 1800 Argentina was more than 30% African slaves. By 2000 it was only 1%. What is fascinating is to see the degree to which the racial composition of countries has changed and the degree to which intermarriage and the understanding of `Blackness' has changed. In Brazil race has always been a factor, even if a muted one at times. In other places such as Argentina the governments have pursued a blatant policy of whitening by bringing in European migrants to offset the black population. A place such as Mexico once had a sizable black minority which today is all but invisible. The author separates the process of whitening by showing that after 1930 there has been a `blackening' of the continent. The book examines the freeing of the slaves, the creation of black middle classes, the fights over race on the island of Hispaniola and the question of intermarriage and the creation of mixed people. Multi-racial countries such as Cuba and Brazil, despite appearances, do not seem, on the basis of census, to have undergone a great deal of mixing. In 1890 mixed `mulattos' accounted for 32% of Brazil and in 2000 they were 38%. In Cuba they went from 17% in 1899 to 21% in 1981. This is a fascinating and important book that examines an immensely deep topic. Anyone interested in African history, the African Diaspora, slavery, the Americas or Latin-America will be interested.

Seth J. Frantzman

So much for another boring textbook - George Reid Andrews writing is very informative and delightfully laced with interesting facts and quotations.

Recently I took a three week course on Afro Latin America and we used this text along with relevant movies and other media. The text provided a solid frame from which to gain a broader view of the society and the culture.

I imagine this book would be a little boring for a casual read, but in a classroom setting it was great.

I think the first reviewer, the one who only gave this book one star, meant to give it five - s/he says s/he is recommending it to everyone s/he knows, and really likes it, says nothing negative. I agree, I like it too.

I have been waiting for this book even before the author wrote it. Thank you! This book should be on the reading list for all schools in all countries of the Americas, and definitely required reading in university programs of African-American, Latin, and African-Diaspora studies. The author descriptively spells out the facts of the intimate relationship and undeniable impact of African people and culture throughout Latin America, while providing the reader with an extensive notes and bibliography section. This book will become a cornerstone in leading readers to other literature on the subject. I'm recommending it to everyone I know.