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Àrokò, Mmomomme Twe, Nsibidi, Ogede, and Tusona

2005; SAGE Publishing; Volume: 36; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1177/0021934704274065

1552-4566

Tolagbe Ogunleye,

African history and culture studies

For approximately 150 years, Africans fled enslavement on Southern plantations and lived autonomously in Florida, using discrete African art forms, traditions, and sensibilities in their modes of communications, rituals, subsistence strategies, and battle plans to prosper and achieve and sustain their freedom and autonomy. This article reconstructs the ways cultural forms and practices, such as àrokò, nsibidi, tusona or sona (ideographic writing systems), and mmomomme twe and ogede (incantations), functioned in these self-emancipated Africans’ stratagems to escape from Spanish, British, and American plantations; thrive socially and economically in the autonomous settlements they established; elude recapture; and defeat their former enslavers and other foe militarily despite their adversaries’ incessant onslaughts, advanced artillery, manpower, and economic advantages.