Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441-1770

by James H. Sweet

Exploring the cultural lives of African slaves in the early colonial Portuguese world, with an emphasis on the more than one million Central Africans who survived the journey to Brazil, James Sweet lifts a curtain on their lives as Africans rather than as incipient Brazilians. Focusing first on the cultures of Central Africa from which the slaves came--Ndembu, Imbangala, Kongo, and others--Sweet identifies specific cultural rites and beliefs that survived their transplantation to the African-Portuguese diaspora, arguing that they did not give way to immediate creolization in the New World but remained distinctly African for some time.

Slaves transferred many cultural practices from their homelands to Brazil, including kinship structures, divination rituals, judicial ordeals, ritual burials, dietary restrictions, and secret societies. Sweet demonstrates that the structures of many of these practices remained constant during this early period, although the meanings of the rituals were often transformed as slaves coped with their new environment and status. Religious rituals in particular became potent forms of protest against the institution of slavery and its hardships. In addition, Sweet examines how certain African beliefs and customs challenged and ultimately influenced Brazilian Catholicism.

Sweet's analysis sheds new light on African culture in Brazil's slave society while also enriching our understanding of the complex process of creolization and cultural survival.

Genres: History, Africa, Nonfiction, Brazil

312 pages, Paperback

First published September 29, 2003

About the author

James H. Sweet is Vilas-Jartz Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Wisconsin. His book Recreating Africa won the American Historical Association's 2004 Wesley Logan prize for the best book on the history of the African diaspora.

Reviews

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 stars. Great read! Thesis challenges the idea that Africans were not able to re-establish any of their own religions in the Americas.

[Michael · Rating 5 out of 5]

Really good work of scholarship and reads remarkably well in comparison to other similar books I have read.

[Garret Shields · Rating 3 out of 5]

Argument: From the earliest colonial efforts thru 1770, the society that formed in Brazil was NOT a creolization of various nations and peoples. It was a recreation of the religion, values, and ways of life that these slaves had practiced in Central Africa. Some really good sections of the book and some more dry. The middle section is the best, a deep dive into the elements of African cosmology that transitioned to Brazil. Good stuff!

[Derrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had to read this book for my class on colonial Latin America. The book is a decent read and worth reading for anyone interested in the subject of the African diaspora in the Portuguese empire. Many of the topics covered are interesting, exploring the aspects of religion, culture, witchcraft, and family ties. Each chapter is filled with sufficient examples of the highlighted topics and the book makes a great argument overall. If I was more interested in the subject, this would have been a five star book, but I found myself bored with a few of the chapters, many of which I cannot remember even though I completed the book yesterday. A lot of the parts of the book about religious aspects and African influences over the Portuguese were interesting and memorable and well deserving of a read for someone even minorly interested in the topic.

[Doris Raines · Rating 4 out of 5]

NICE BOOK LETS REMEMBER GOOD PEOPLE S LETS REMEMBER THERE WAS ALL COLORS OF SLAVES BACK THEN SO LETS NOT PUT THE AFRICAN AMERICANS IN FRONT OF THE FOLK. THERE WAS BLACK WHITE MANY COLORS. GOD CREATED ALL COLORS I ALL WAYS SAY. IF ANY ONE HAS A PROBLEM WITH GOD CREATES THEN ASK GOD THAT WOULD BE THE FRIST START ME MY SELF AND I LOVE ALL COLORS GODS WORLD WE ARE NOT SURPOSE TO JUDGE. 👌🇺🇸🍿😇♥️🗣

[Beth · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting points, but tends to be quite repetitive. It feels this could all be summarized in a 10 page essay.

[Adina · Rating 4 out of 5]

Novel use of inquisition sources. Many fascinating examples and well-constructed arguments.

[Keaton Miller · Rating 2 out of 5]

“How transvested homosexuals became powerful religious figures in central Africa is an interesting question, but that is not our primary concern here.” (Pg. 56) WELL ITS DEFINITELY MY CONCERN NOW

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Well-written and excellent use of sources. Had I not already had a course where we discussed the importance of examining Africa in order to understand the African diaspora, this book would have been more groundbreaking for me. Still, the argument is a good one - especially his discussion of the Portuguese adopting African practices. His last two chapters where he shows the existence of "parallel religions" are very important and should appear earlier in the book, before he sets up Christianity and African religions as polar opposites. In stressing his point that African cosmologies remained intact, he isolates them in boxes. But, as his last two chapters show, there was obviously much more fluidity (and commonalities) between these ideas and Christianity.

[Zoë · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his book James H. Sweet questions, “To what extent were specific African cultural practices transferred across the broader diaspora, and how were these practices transformed?” Sweet argues that religious syncretism rarely occurred between Portuguese Catholics and Africans, that it was the Portuguese that experienced “Africanization” in colonial Brazil and that Central African culture in colonial Brazil was “never creolized.” When changes in African religion occurred, it was not forced by colonialism, instead it was a change that kept with African customs, adjusting to the conditions of slavery. Religion, Sweet maintains, was the weapon African’s used to resist slavery.

[Rob · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting examination of influence and mutation of various aspects of African religious practices on Catholicism in Brazil. Components of work have off-shoots in other works, specifically discussion of ethnic-based clubs/kin societies. Intriguing examination of adoption of African religious practice by Catholic priests also included, though curious if these are one-offs or normative to the Brazilian experience.

[Sowande' · Rating 4 out of 5]

By far an interesting/must read on slavery in the early Afro-Portguese world. He raises issues on the realities of Brazilian slavery unseen in North America. A much appreciated work that raises eye brows! My kind of read.