[img]https://tracingafricanroots.files./2015/06/cuban-slave-market-1790-1880.jpg[/img]

“Puerto Rico’s Yoruba population was disproportionally small. A handful appeared in runaway notices in the 1820’s, but neither they nor any other slaves from the Lower Guinea coast were ever identified as participants in Puerto Rico’s slave revolts.” (Dorsey, 2003, p.169)

“Cuba always outdistanced Puerto Rico in slave acquisitions. As a result, independent Puerto Rican access to African captibves was limited to Gallinas, Sherbro and the Pongo in Upper Guinea (which yielded Mande speakers – some Vai, but mainly Soninke, Susu, Manding and especially Gangá); the Niger delta in Lower Guinea (some Ibibio, according to records from the Temerario, but mainly Ibo, called jointly “Carabali”; and ill-defined areas on both sides of the Congo but few from Angola. Thus Cuba (and Brazil), not Puerto Rico, received large numbers of Yoruba (“Lucumi”) captives from the Bight of Benin.” (Dorsey, 2003, pp.135-136)

“Santeria, also known as regla de Ocha, derived from Yoruban regligion with an overlay of Spanish Catholocism, is very strong in Puerto Rico today. According to scholars, modern Santeria was introduced into Puerto Rico by Cuban migrants during the 1940’s, 1950’s and 1960’s.” (Religions of the world: a comprehensive encyclopedia of beliefs and practices, p.2341)

” Mira que tu madre es conga,
Tu padre es carabalí
Tanto tiempo en Puerto Rico
y no puedes hablar asi”
(Bomba lyrics)

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“Nigeria” was shown as the main region for the subgroup of my samples with higher African ancestry. Any attempt to find out which exact ethnic origins are being pinpointed by the various AncestryDNA regions is of course going to be speculative at this stage. Also obviously unique family trees will ensure some individual variation. But just very generalizing and based on whatever’s been documented we might already come to some preliminary conclusions. According to the Slave Voyages Database (see chart above) a far greater part of Nigerian slaves arriving in Puerto Rico would have been brought over from the Bight of Biafra (39,6%) and not the Bight of Benin (2%). This already suggests that they were mostly Igbo (“Carabali”) and not Yoruba. Slave voyages for Puerto Rico are however greatly underreported because of widespread smuggling and intercolonial trading with surrounding Caribbean islands. So any full coverage should not be expected, especially the early slave voyages to Puerto Rico during the 1500’s/1600’s are seriously underestimated in the Slave Voyages Database. Still the main patterns of Bight of Biafra predominating together with Central Africa and Sierra Leone in third place might still be valid enough atleast for the late 1700’s and 1800’s judging from additional indications.

Puerto Rico’s slave suppliers were from various nationalities (Portuguese, Danish, Dutch, French). But it’s probably the English who sold the most slaves in between 1765-1808, when Puerto Rico’s sugar economy was in full expansion again after almost 2 centuries of stagnation. Looking at the main slave trade patterns of the English during the last decades before Abolition, it’s apparent that the Bight of Biafra and Central Africa were the leading places of origins of African captives in the late 1700’s. This can also be verified by the consistent prominence of people identified as “Ebo” and “Congo” in the slave registers compiled in the early 1800’s throughout the English ruled West Indies, see also this overview.

But also in Cuba and to a lesser degree the Dominican Republic a similar pattern can be observed. For example the “Carabali” are shown to be three times more numerous in Cuba than the “Lucumi”, a.k.a. Yoruba, in the last chart above. We should be careful however in assuming that all people labeled as “Carabali” or Lucumi” would indeed be just Igbo or Yoruba. When applying a more detailed classification of ethnic origins for Liberated Africans in Cuba no less than 51 subgroups were mentioned for the Carabali and 29 subgroups for the Lucumi (see this excellent webpage).

As a final consideration we should also keep in mind that documented references to the Yoruba in Puerto Rico are apparently rare to find. Going by the research of Dorsey (2003) it seems this can be explained by a relative absence of Puerto Rican slave trade with the Bight of Benin also continuing into the 1800’s. A search in Puerto Rico’s slave census of 1872 also doesn’t produce any matches for either “Lucumi” or “Ollu” which would be how the Yoruba would have been known as in colonial Puerto Rico. This census is available also on ancestry.com via this link. According to Dorsey (2003, p.118) the most frequent African surnames documented in Puerto Rico (derived from their “nacion”) in the late 1800’s were: Congo, Cangá, Mandinga, Carabali and Mina. Doing an online search in the 1872 slave census (which would have records on about 31.000 slaves of whom only 3000 were foreign born though), the greatest number of search results is obtained for the Cangá (32x), followed by Congo (17x), Mandinga (2x) and Carabali (3x).

Finding the exact origins of African retentions in the New World isn’t always easy and sometimes the cultural exchange taking place in the post-slavery era might confuse things. For example according to the third quote above some current day practices in Puerto Rico associated with the Yoruba might actually have been recent imports via Cuba. (see also this book: Cubans in Puerto Rico: Ethnic Economy and Cultural Identity). Not all scholars are in agreement about this however. A definite answer to this question can probably only be given after more historical research as well as more refined DNA testing.

https://tracingafricanroots./puerto-rican-results/

cc YourNemesis, Lushore, Laudate, Lawani

Interesting