In early 2003 I took a trip to the city of Cartagena, Colombia. During my stay there a friend wanted me to meet one of her former professors, but our plan was foiled by a strike going on at the university. I had to laugh at the incident; it reminded me of the many strikes I’d encountered on visits to Italy. (Strikes, soccer, beauty contests and tacky religious statues are among the things for which Italians and Colombians seem to share a passion.)
I mentioned this to an Italian-Canadian friend at work. He however insisted the people of Colombia were “Indians.” I explained in response that while most Colombians have some Amerindian ancestry, native traditions have largely disappeared from that country. (In contrast, Indian culture is very much alive in other South American nations like Peru, Bolivia and Ecuador.) Furthermore, if there is any non-European influence at all in Cartagena, it is African, not Indian.
Cartagena lies on Colombia’s northern coast along the Caribbean Sea. A beautiful city with colonial architecture and lovely beaches, it draws thousands of tourists every year. When Spain ruled Colombia, Cartagena served as a gateway to the rest of South America.
In his autobiography Stranger in Their Midst, Belgian sociologist Pierre van den Berghe described Cartagena as “perhaps the most African city in the Spanish Americas.” The African presence was evident to me in the appearance of the city’s people, even though according to the Latin American color scheme most seemed to be mulatto rather than Black. This was quite different from Colombia’s capital Bogotá, where many people had Amerindian features. (A personal observation on the people of Cartagena: just as van den Berghe said in his autobiography that the Peruvian Andes were probably the only place on earth where he could reconcile himself with celibacy, my visit to Cartagena was the first time in a long while that I was tempted to alter my then-celibate status; the men there were almost uniformly handsome and charming.)
But Africa’s presence in Cartagena went far beyond the physical. It was apparent in the culture as well: the music, the dancing, and other things. For example, many women wore their hair in cornrows, a style of braiding that originated in Africa and is also common in some of the Caribbean islands. (By the way, you don’t have to be Black to wear cornrows; during my stay in Cartagena a very nice young girl put cornrows in my hair for a mere $20.) I also had the pleasure of listening to some very African-sounding music — with emphasis on the drums — and watching a dance, performed very skillfully by two little girls and a boy, that could have come straight out of Africa.
Though the African contribution to Latin American history and culture has often been overlooked, Blacks were present from the very beginning of Spain and Portugal’s conquest of the region. Several Blacks are believed to have accompanied Christopher Columbus on his voyages. Others played a role in helping the Spaniards establish settlements in the New World. In many cases, the first Blacks who went to the Americas had been born or had lived in Iberia (Spain and Portugal) and were more or less Westernized in terms of religion, language and culture. However, the vast majority of Blacks who came to Latin America did so as slaves transported directly from Africa. There in the New World they interbred with Whites: as in North America and the Caribbean, White male-Black female unions were a frequent combination, especially on slave plantations. Africans also formed relationships with Indians, producing a mixed group of people known as zambos. Many Black men were motivated to pair off with Indian women because the resulting children, unlike those of pure African descent, would not be born into slavery.
Given this history, it’s not surprising to find large groups of African-descended people (and by “African-descended” I mean anyone with Black ancestry, mulattoes and zambos as well) in various parts of Latin America. These include the northern coasts of Colombia and Venezuela; the western parts of Colombia, Peru and Ecuador; northeastern Brazil; Cuba, Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic; and the Caribbean coast of Central America. In addition, individuals of African origin formed a large percentage of the populations of Uruguay and southern Brazil until the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, when they were displaced by massive waves of immigrants from Europe.
Of course people of African descent also make up a considerable portion of the United States’ population. But the histories of Blacks in the US and Latin America diverge substantially in one respect. As Pierre van den Berghe explains in his book Race and Racism, while Blacks in the former basically lost their original culture, African customs still persist in the latter region. For instance, rituals from Africa play an important role in the Santeria and macumba sects of Cuba and Brazil, respectively. And I definitely saw traces of Africa on my visit to Cartagena.
All this being said, I still consider Cartagena (and Latin America in general) to be Western first and foremost. In going to Cartagena I had no feeling of entering non-Western territory as I did to some extent when I visited Cape Dorset in the Canadian Arctic. Cartagena in fact reminded me in many ways of Palermo, Sicily, also a port city. Still, if you want to enjoy the African experience in Latin America, Cartagena may be the place to go.
“Many Black men were motivated to pair off with Indian women because the resulting children, unlike those of pure African descent, would not be born into slavery.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That is an interesting fact and lends a clue to why half of Brazilian blacks are “mixed”. Normally with blacks in the Americas the only type of mixing until the last part of teh 1900s was white with black because that had gone on since slavery….but this piece of info is helping me get a better picture of the south American side of the story.
I have planned for a while to get down there and experience Afro-Brazilian culture….the city of Salvador de Bahia in the north is supposed to be the best place to go. Its nice to know some other countries have cities where the culture is still very present. I worry about going to Columbia though. Maybe that is me being ignorant….but I know there are many South American countries …including Brazil, where bad things can happen if someone thinks you have something they need (you as a hostage, your money, what ever).
Anyways…..good post!!!!
B
Dear B,
Thank you for your comment. Sorry to be late getting back to you; my computer was being repaired.
Regarding racial combinations in Latin America, the most common combinations were a.) White men – Indian women; b.) White men – Black women; c.) Black men – Indian women. White women were not really in the picture because there were too few of them who emigrated to Spanish (or Portuguese) America, while the Indian men already there often saw their own women desert them for European or African men.
Colombia is fairly safe if you stick to the Cartagena area. But I wouldn’t go to the interior where there is more tension. I really wouldn’t know about Brazil. But if you want to ask me questions about Colombia, please feel free to contact me at emilia_e_murphy@yahoo.ca.
Emilia
hi!
i know that you are wrong about one thing, colombia’s
indian people have not vanished, there are still traditional practices, lik the Yagua, tribe, the Kogi
tribe, Wayuu tribe, the Nukak-Macu, the Kunas
the Guambiano natives, i have known poeple from colombia
who have a really good strong indian characteristics
and many of them are not proud of it, what a shame!
have a nice day!
from chibcha
Dear Chibcha,
Yes, I know that there are Indians in Colombia who practise their traditional lifestyle. I suppose that in Colombia, as in other Latin American countries, some people with partial Indian ancestry don’t identify as Indians because a.) they have European ancestry as well, and b.) culturally they are completely Westernized. The father of my daughter is one of them. But I would be interested in knowing more about Colombian Natives who practise their traditional lifestyle, so I’ll look at your site.
Emilia
Sorry, I thought your name connected to a site, but I guess it does not.
Hi ya’ll !
it’s a lot of bullshit the dude who wrote this article that indians in colombia have vanished,
it so happens that i am a part of the indian population, i am indigenous! my parents always made me aware of
my indian heritage, i live in the u.s.a. most people think i’m an indian chick from the u.s.a.
i live in florida, i work with the seminole indians, and i’m proud of hell of it!
at the pow-wow, my friend who is seminole indian is lucky as hell to have me to work with her, many people who work with seminole indians are not indian,
wherever i go when i meet other indians, on the street, the pow-wow, the bus, etc.
they ask me about my native heritage. i’m from the chibcha people
have a nice day!
bye fly!
Dear Chibcha,
I did not say that Indians in Colombia had vanished, only that about 2% of the Colombian population consists of Indians who practise their traditional lifestyle. Of course there are many other people in Colombia – the majority – who have partial Indian ancestry, but they are completely Westernized and almost never consider themselves Indian. There are some who still follow an Indian lifestyle, i.e. speak an Indian language, perhaps adhere formally to Christianity but practise some native religious customs. But these are, as mentioned above, a small percentage of Colombia’s population.
Emilia
this is a very interesting article as it has given me some idea about the life of black people in Colombia. I really did not know – until a few weeks ago when I read this article- that there was a Black population out there. This has made to do some research on Colombia and I am thinking about going there someday. So I want to thank you for your post and I hope that you are going to come up with many more like this one. Do you really think that black men paired up with Indian women because they wanted their children to be born out of slavery? If that was the sole reason there wouldn’t be any real black looking person in Colombia today. I think they were simply attracted to each other; that is how i see it. I have notes here that tell me that Indians were enslaved as well so I really what kind of freedom a half breed Indian could have at that time. Nevertheless I want to thank you for the post and would appreciate anything from you that deals with race and Africa.
I made a mistake on my email: luckyhendry@yahoo.fr
Thank you for the comments. Most of the Black population in Colombia and other South American countries live along the coast – the Atlantic coast, in the case of Brazil, the northern in the case of Colombia and Venuzuela and the west coast in the case of Peru and Ecuador. On the other hands there are fewer blacks in the interior of these countries, though some from the coastal areas have migrated to cities like Bogota and Medellin for work.
Indians in many cases were not legally enslaved in Latin America. Rather they were put to work on “encomiendas,” which were like plantations. Their position was similar to that of “serfs” in Europe in the Middle Ages. Legally they were not slaves, but for all intents and purposes they were unlikely to ever leave the place in which they were born.
On the other hand, a child born to a Black father but an Indian mother would inherit his mother’s status, so he or she would most likely be a “serf” as opposed to a slave.
Hey,
I absolutly agree, i visited Cartagena and Bogota last summer and i could easily see the difference. Cartagen clearly has an african influence while people in Bogota look to me much more European, Spaniards to be exact. In Cartagena there was mostly blacks and it similirized it African customs while in Bogota, people were much whiter and with European feautures and were all “civilized”. Both were great citiess, and in Bogota my blond hair and blue eyes stood out much less, many thought of me as another “rola”.
Dear Mary,
Thank you for your comments.
I had a similar experience visiting Caracas, Venezuela. There you have a mixture of all races, with a near even split between “Whites” (though not all of them are 100% Caucasian) and mulattoes, with few really black-skinned people and almost no one with unmixed Native Indian features.
I didn’t stand out at all there (I have brown hair and green eyes), whereas in Cartagena I was regarded as a tourist and often approached by people who wanted to sell me something or braid my hair for money.
Emilia