displaying their political sentiments. >> sunday night at 9:00, george mason university professor rose marie zagari on the role of women during the revolutionary war. part of american history tv this weekend on c-span3. history bookshelf features popular american history writers of the past decade and airs on american history tv every saturday at noon eastern. this weekend on history bookshelf, howard dodson discusses jubilee, the emergence of african-american culture. the book examines how africans suffered a cultural identity. contributors to the book, annette gordon reid and janelle buckley join the discussion. this is an hour and 20 minutes. >> good evening, ladies and gentlemen. it's my pleasure to welcome you here this evening for the

official launching of a new publication from the shamburg center entitled "jubilee." this publication has been a while in the making, about three years ago the shamburg center organized and presented major exhibition entitled left we forget the triumph over slavery as part of its 75th anniversary celebration. this, to the best of our knowledge, was the first major exhibition on the subject of slavery and the united states. we did not do a catalog to the show. and the show was so very well received that we extended it for about nine months. and people continued to come back asking for additional opportunities to see the show.

and usually built into their conversations, but that was a question, when are you going to do the book? we took that as not just a request but a challenge for ourselves. as many of you know, quite frankly no one, no other publisher that i know handles visual material better than the national geographic press. and the exhibition had been based very heavily on visual material. and while it was essentially text driven, we had the feeling that we needed to have a book that would be able to present the images and interesting and informative and compelling ways along with the text. and so we were able to partner

with national geographic and thanks to their very hard work and diligent work as well as that of the members of the shamberg center staff, we basically produced this book in about a year. so before i do anything else, i want to thank the staffs of national geographic press. i think alice son reeves is here from national geographic. is kevin here? kevin melroy, the editor in chief of national geographic is here as well as allison reeves and the members of my staff, chris moore and jackie dowdel and row berta yancy worked most diligently in helping us get this material together. we want to thank them as well. [ applause ] my personal interest in this subject dates back three decades.

i was a graduate student at the university of california berkeley back in the late '60s and early 1970s. i had been very reluctant up to that point in time to frankly read anything about slavery. because i, like most people who grew up with me and with my generation from the time we were in grade school spent considerable amount of time avoiding that subject of slavery. indeed, every time it came up for that period in our history and social studies courses, we would either put a handle on the table or want to go under the table and hope that that part of the lesson get over quick. because the basic feeling that was communicated to us in the ways in which slavery and the slave trade were interpreted during that period of time was that this was something that we should be ashamed of. that people of african dissent should be ashamed of. and that we as somehow or another were less than human

because we had put up with it. had endured it. i was troubled by that kind of approach and interpretation throughout my formal academic years at berkeley. and then in the years that i've been working both here and in other places, the issue of how do we rethink our understanding of this institution of slavery and the slave trade? in way that's can become sources of empowerment rather than sources of shame? and so i continue to do my own reading and my own study. the opportunity to present the results of my approach to this came when we did the exhibition, lest we forget the triumph over slavery. what are we doing in the course of the next few minutes is presenting the major thesis and highlights of the book. i will then be joined by two of

the contributors to the book who are with us this evening and we'll carry on a brief dialogue about some of the things that they touched on in their essays. we will allow about 15 or 20 minutes for you to come to the microphone to my left to ask any questions you might have. and then we'll adjourn to the atrium outside where some food has, in fact, been prepared for you. and where we invite you as you share in our food and drinks to go up stairs and get a copy of the book at the gift shop. no sense in being pretentious, the reason we do these things is to sell books. but we're in this one attempting to sell books not just because we think we need to, if you

will, make some money. the real intent is that we think there is something in this book that is worthy of your attention. we think there is something in the book that is worthy of your consideration. next to me is ajet jordan reid. she is co-author with vernon jordan of "vernon can read: a memoir." she has a collection of 12 original essays and she edited and we're pleased she could goin us for tonight's program. to her immediate right is journalist gale buckley who has written for "los angeles times,"

"voeg "vogue" magazine and is daughter of leana horn and author of "the horns" which became an american masters documentary. her most recent book, american patriots, traces the history of the black american military experience from the american revolution to desert storm. her essay in "jubilee" talks about the roots of that experience in slavery and miss gordon reid's essay speaks to our experiences as family. let me go forth and make this general presentation and then we'll be coming back to sit with them to talk about these other things. over the last four decades, scholarship on the transatlantic and slavery has experienced something of a renaissance. scholars in europe, africa and the americas and caribbean have made the slave trade and slavery the objective of new historical,

economic, political and cultural studies. gradually they have gone to assess the far reaching impact of slavery on the slave trade on their respective societies, nations and continents as well as the global political economy. what i propose to do in this brief presentation is suggest some of the ways the intended and unintended consequences of the slave trade as well as the slavery experience in the americas shaped the modern world as we knew it and laid the foundations for the development of the african-american community in this country. there is no general agreement in the academic circles and -- or among the public at large about what constitutes the modern world and when it began. some traces orginals back to the 13th century. others to the late 19th century whether european colonial powers consolidated the economic and political hold over people's of african dissent and those in asia. for my purposes, within the

context of this presentation, i've chosen to date the origins of the modern world from the first of the colombian transatlantic voyage as. said another way, the modern world began with columbus' first voyage to the americas for it was that voyage that ushered in the european colonial expansion that resulted in, among other things, the organization of the transatlantic slave trade. the slave trade in turn fostered the development of new levels of communication, trade, culture exchange and economic and political interdependence between the peoples of europe, after kashgs a africa, and the americas. the continental relations is what in my mind distinguishes the modern era the predecessors. now over the 400-year history of the trade, upwards of 12 million africans survived the middle passage and were distributed throughout the americas north, central and south america and the caribbean. estimates of the total number of

african lives lost were impaired by the process of warfare, capture and enslavement that fueled the trade ranged from 50 to 100 million people. the slave trade and all of its facets capture in africa, transshipment across the atlantic, sail to the americas took place in a market driven, uneven fashion over this period of 400 years. it was uneven in terms of the time, when the migrations occurred, the places from which the african captors were taken and the islands, couldn't nents and colonies in which they were enslaved. upwards of 40% of the africans sold in the western hemisphere went to brazil. 4.5% to 5% ended up in the continental united states. jamaica almost doubled the numbers. upwards of 50% of the survivors of the passage were transported to the americas during the 18th century. 90% of the africans involved in

the trade were from the west and central african coast. the demographics of the slave trade take on more sictignifica. for contrary to popular opinion, african people's constituted the majority of people who migrated from the old world to the new world during the formative stages of european colonial expansion in the americas. this suggested a cultural role for african peoples in the colonial involvement than we've even begun to imagine. several sources state, for instance that, between 1492 and 1776 or roughly the first 300 years of what we understand to be the colonial period of american history, 6.5 million people crossed the atlantic from africa and europe and settled in the americas north, central, south america and the caribbean

only 1 million were european. the others were african. i know you all studied that in your history books. the overwhelming majority of the people involved in the making of colonial america, not just the united states, central america, south america and the caribbean, the overwhelming majority of the people involved in that were aft africans. the ratio of africans to europeans would come from the old world to the new was still three to one.

so those of us involved in the study are faced with two sets of intellectual challenges. the first, s. to set the record straight about the african experience in the western hemisphere. but we're faced with the challenge of rewriting in a fundamental way the history of the americas, all of the americas. because if indeed it appears to be the case, two-thirds or more of the people actually 5/6th of the people have not been included in the history that has been written. we don't know very much about the history of the western hem hemisphe

hemisphere. we would like to rethink the nature of the african-american in this hemisphere and what is the impact of the african presence and african political and economic and social activity in shaping all of the americas as we know it. what has been the impact of african peoples in the making of the americas and the modern world? it should be clear that one of the major consequences of the slave trade for the americas was the people of the americas. african people form the foundation on which the societies and cultures on the americas were built moreover if there's any truth to the notion that the americas should be called the "new world," it was the african people's in the americas who made the americas new. said another way, if the concept of the new world has any real meaning, it is a direct consequence of the presence and activities of african peoples in the hemisphere, again, the

majority of the immigrant population during the formative period of the development of the nations, communities, and societies of the americas, especially in the caribbean, central and south america and the southern part of the united states. let's begin with the people themselves. there's been a tendency among some sectors of the academic and educational community to think of africa as a country rather than a continent. to think of african peoples as a homogenous group. the african people involved in the slave experience were diverse, frequently as much strangers to themselves as they were to the european captors. africa is a continent with a multiplicity of ethnic, national and religious groups and this culture and religious diversity was represented in the population that's were involved in the slave trade.

they brought their ga and cultural attributes with them but these facets of each of their individual identities were interconnected and intertwined with the cultural and ethnic experiences of other african that's they met here as well as with the indigenous peoples and the peoples of the various european colonial powers. they were transformed into new people in this new world. these neoafrican people were bu different from the other people. i'm criticized for saying but i think i'm right that given the fact that all of americas people are part of the african-american

community -- the most american community in america is the african-american community. come on y'all. huh? that because we have been willing and able to embrace those who were not embraced in the white community, we have within our midst representatives of virtually all of the peoples of the americas. so my argument and my position is that the most american community in america is likely the african-american community. in the process of re-creating themselves, there are new languages and the languages that have served them well did not serve them well in their new environment. you couldn't speak -- if you

spoke ebo, most of the africans could not understand. so what happened? most of the time people talk about black folks speaking bad english in the united states. guess what? using the same criteria, we speak bad french, bad portuguese and bad spanish. but it's not bad anything. people in the context of slavery have to figure out how to handle each other and simultaneously how are they going to communicate with the respective political power. they appropriate as much of the colonial vocabulary as they need. based on the syntax and sometimes the tone of their traditional african languages and just create some new language. and that new language becomes

the foundation for new forms of group formation within the african community and means of beginning to create the bridge across these ethnic and religious and other dividing lines that were there at the time of their arrival. so throughout the western hemisphere, wherever african people settled in significant numbers, they created new language system that is version of the language that they spoke. the new languages use parts of the language and structures and vocabularies but the new languages are indeed something that is qual take theively new and invented here by these people. the secondary that i want to speak of in terms of this invention has to do with religion. traditional african societies

were relidgion based societies. and traditional african people were not by their nature but by their culture spiritual people. that was central to virtually everything that they practiced in the way of organizing their lives and functioning. those -- many of those qualities were brought to the americas. and in some instances, some of the traditions were, in fact, sustained. some of the tradition that's were so characteristic of the peoples that came to that particular geographical area were, in fact, able to sustain themselves in modified form in bra zig.

virtually every other place there were these efforts to bring two or three or four different traditional african religions into some new form of religious practice in that geographical area. and so a number of new world african religions were invented in these americas. these religions ranged from others and some new world forms and in parts of brazil. but there were also new world forms of christianity that were invented here. and in many of the spanish speaking where catholicism dominated, people would end up practicing the catholic religion but continuing to practice some of the traditional religions as

well. in the united states, something new happened. black folk here simply appropriated the christian gospel. just took it away. had slave preachers who read the bible and found the passages in the bible that repute yated the teachings of the masters and their preachers. christianity was a liberating gospel. and on the basis of that liberating gospel in the woods and in the quarters began to fashion their unique form or brand of christianity. one that empowered them and forced the struggle rather than one that sought to keep them in bondage. so we have this new world religion created here. it's all a product of that new

creation fashioned by these enslaved africans during the slavery experience. new world african people also created new foods, new literature, new music and new forms of dance. african cultural forms gave birth to jazz and blues in the united states. the tango in argentina, the somba in brazil, kacarnivals ar embodied with african rhythms. gumbo is one of the thousands of new african new world african foods created here. indeed, few if any american popular cultural forms were influenced by the presence of africans in these americas. so as i said before, if there's any truth to the notion that the americas was a new world, african peoples were central to the creation of the new forms of

human expression as well as economic political and social relations. the slave trade we need to put in this context as well, because we frequently think of it almost exclusively in terms of the middle passage experience, it's a much more complex thing than that. slave trade had a significant impact on the development of modern europe. they had to reorganize their social and economic institutions in order to carry out this vast trade moving 12 million and more people across the world as well as moving the goods produced by these people back to europe involved reorganizing the economic infrastructure of european societies.

they exploit the products being produced in the colonial industries. in the economic and the political activities are virtually every major european power were shaped and reshaped by the wars and economic struggles that they waged with one another to gain control of and exploit the slave trade and their respective slave based colonial economies. you remember as you read through the earlier american history, it goes from one war to the next throughout the hemisphere. they were too small to govern all of the western hemisphere. as spain started bringing the gold from the americas, the gold and silver back to europe, it

changed the economic balance of power in europe, obviously elevating the status of spain. it also created envy among the rest of the european powers. so i think they wanted a piece of the action. they can gain control of different parts of the americas. the english with that which we call north america, as you know, and the french were up to the north in canada for a period of time. each of the major powers trying to carve out a piece of these both new lands and this new trade in order to advance their economic, political and social interests.

if the slave trade provided the foundation for the development of europe during modern era, there was also the root cause of the underdevelopment of africa during the same period of time. there are at least two or three aspects of that underdevelopment that we might point to. first was the loss of human capital. 50 to 100 million disrupted lives and 12 million people removed from the continent has to have a devastating impact on the continent. of equal significance, as the slave trade and slavery expanded, so did slavery expand as the social institution inside africa. one of the things we need to -- one of the troubling things we have to deal with is the fact that europeans did not control the slave trade in the interior of africa. europeans did not gain control of the interior of africa until

well into the 1880s. and the slave trade was fueled by interlacing wars between these diverse ethnic and religious and other groups in africa, exploited by the europeans but nonetheless a product of the internal contradictions on the african continent as much as it was a product of the greed and pursuit of slaves on the party of the europeans. one of the consequences was economic life in africa was completely distorted. as the slave trade grew, the political and economic infrastructure of africa had to be reorganized in order to accommodate this new kind of economic activity. entire societies were transformed from traditional ways of functioning to slave catching societies and the entire lives of people were organized around making war and capturing people to sell in the sl