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Exchanging Our Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South

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Prof. Gomez has used a wealth of sources, many of which have been underutilized or neglected, to write a rich and nuanced meditation on the evolution of identity among Africans and their progeny in North America. His use of folklore points the way for new research in a field that oddly fails much too often to consider the voices of people of African descent. Every student at every level with interests in African-American studies or African Diaspora Studies must know this work.

This book is of decisive importance, for by studying the convergence of an African American nationality out of the various nationalities and ethnicities that people were brought here from Africa, Michael Gomez underlines the function of the African-origins cultures and the construction of an African-American culture in a process of resistance and opposition to the inslavement, dehumanization, and degredation that Africans and their descendants have face.

Contrary to many popular assumptions, Gomez shows that in colonial and early independent America slave holders and slaves were quite aware of the different African cultures and ethnicities represented among the enslaved. Trade patterns, affinities of slave buyers for certain types of ethnicities, beliefs that some peoples were good for some tasks, others for others, led to many concentrations of slaves from the same culture and language groups in colonial America. This ensured that Africans in American tended to preserve very much of their native cultures, religions, and outlooks.

Indeed, Gomez illustrates that in language and religion large sections of the African American people in becoming retained their African religion, and at first retained their African languages, and then began our own African American language (Black English) precisely because the context of the dominant culture and its language and religion were hostile to the human dignity of Africans in America and their descendants.

Gomez's solid research and clear evaluation of massive amounts of original sources upsets many ideas on African American history that were assumptions and not facts. One of the most important is the lateness and difficulty that Christianity had in gaining seizable conversions among Africans in America and their descendants. He suggests that only by the time of the Civil War were African Americans substantially Christian. Gomez demonstrates that except for an overly assimilationist minority among "freed" slaves, Christianity only caught on where African religeous practices were mixed into it. More importantly, Gomez explains the reason for the final victory of Christianity is that it could be manipulated to provide a rationale and hope of liberation from racism and oppression both metaphysical and physical, that the individual African religions could not provide. Gomez illustrates that what occured was the development of an African American religion, rather than the adoption of a European religion.

In the process, the reader will learn new and more accurate views of whence and when Africans were brought to America during the period of slavery. The reader will learn the general political and religious outlooks of the different major groups of Africans who came here. The reader will learn a survey of the historical, economic, and political upheavals in AFrica wrought by the slave trade.

This is a serious and important book, written at the highest level of scholarship. Thus, it is sometimes not easy reading and certainly is not written as a popular entertainment. Yet, even the casual reader who sticks with this book and turns to Gomez's notes and bibliographic material for more to read will be vastly rewarded.

Gomez has done a tremendous service to the study of Africana by giving tangible evidence to what have heretofore been the answers rather than the questions on the who, what, where, when and WHY's of the African slave in America. Readers will be surprised at the degree to which something other than fact has helped form the base of their "knowledge". Suddenly the image of tobacco or rice will gain greater resonance than cotton. Virginia and Senegambia, for example, will have new and sharper meanings as we better ferret out who we were as Ghanaians, Senegambians, Angolans, etc. and how we became who we are as African-Americans.

This is an excellent book. I want every one of African descent to read this book. It is fantastic. This book is in my 10 list.

Early on the Africans were well aware of their ethnic identities, but over time, they were forgotten, and a new people emerged. Now this took generations. It was a slow and torturous process.

If you want to educate yourself about black folks in America and where they came from, and how they evolved, read this book.

A superb book that is a "must read" for every African African American man, woman and child. This book is the stuff of seminars, workshops and discussion groups at all levels. One of the fascinating positions exposed by Gomez was why it took the diverse ethnic Africans to achieve an African American consciousness. The depth of documentation was monumental. I always wondered why the color "red" had such significance in the African American "red clawt" tales. Gomez' book inspired me to research this aspect of African American tales. Thank you Mr. Gomez!

An intresting book. The authors shows that there are several connections and cultural retentions between the African American community and their African forberers. Also attempts to trace when Africans began to stop being identified by ethnicity and started to identify by race. Makes the point that what started to be the largest divider amongs African Americans was class. A long but intresting book.

The theme of slave trade dominates the book.
However, it is neither monotonous nor depressing.
In fact, it was necessary to do so, because the book did clearly explain the political factors and social rules of an influential white society that has forged the irrevocable fate of slaves.
After reading the book, one might wonder what decisive role, did the Africans in Africa play in the slave trade?
The book also addresses the issue of the effects of religion on African slaves brought to the United States.
It is fascinating to read about how ethnic African traditions and deep rooted religious beliefs got mixed up with the teachings of a White Church in America.
We see here two divergent Christianities: A white Christianity and a black Christianity.
Equally fascinating is how African slaves tried to preserve their ethnic language, traditions and way of life, later to adopt a new form of linguistic expression stranger and incoherent to both the American white society and the oppressed black community.
The book is a chronicle of the human drama and social conflict; a conflict that one day will explode to create a new identity for African American in a capitalistic and threatening society.

This book is excellent. Like someone said everyone of African ancestry needs to read this book. I had to buy my own copy.