acculturation – the process of social transformation that an individual undergoes after arriving in a new location or community

“If urban life allowed slaves to meet more frequently and enjoy a larger degree of social autonomy than did slavery in the countryside, the cosmopolitan nature of cities speeded the transformation of Africans to Afro-Americans. Acculturation in the cities of the North was a matter of years, not generations.” (49)

• This is a long and complicated shift that occurs on multiple levels at different rates: physical, psychological, emotional, linguistic, and spiritual.
• Perhaps a new focus for Black and American Studies is to emphasize the acculturation of white settlers to Indigenous and African ways, redefining direction of influence and highlighting black and brown contributions to North American society and civilization.
• I’d like to know more about how the private nature of acculturation functioned in both black and white societies, as Europeans were also becoming Euro-Americans and establishing a new culture; what were the habits that each ethnic group maintained away from the public eye? (Of course this will be severely limited due to publishing history and recovery of colonial black archives.)

Janelle Poe

fecundity – female fertility and ability to give birth to many offspring

“Because of the general shortage of space, masters discouraged their slaves from establishing families in the cities. Women with reputations for fecundity found few buyers, and some slaveholders sold their domestics at the first sign of pregnancy.” (Ira Berlin, “Time, Space and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on Mainland British North America.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, Feb. 1980, p 48.)

• This might be one of the strongest points that demonstrates Berlin’s thesis on time and space as the boundaries influencing the development of black society in North America, since it highlights the restrictions of housing in Northern cities and the major difference from the South where enslaved offspring were seen as extremely profitable and encouraged.
• This quote seems to indicate the foundations of the persistent geographic and racial discrimination against black women and their reproductive rights.
• Interesting to consider whether any of these sales were influenced by secret and forced sexual relations, which was not addressed in Berlin’s article.

Janelle Poe

autonomy – an individual’s ability to have control over their mind, body, and freedom to make decisions and move around on their own.

“Living scattered throughout the countryside on the largest farms and working in the house as often as in the field, blacks enjoyed neither the mobility nor the autonomy of slaves employed i the provisioning trade.” (Ira Berlin, “Time, Space and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on Mainland British North America.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, Feb. 1980, p 47.)

• Critical term when discussing social stratification, especially slavery.
• Difficult to tell just how much “autonomy” the enslaved actually felt when the laws and social norms, and physical realities of their conditions were entirely based on limiting their freedom and keeping it subject to white preferences on a nearly universal basis within the colonies.
• Berlin does a good job making this an ongoing focus of his research and analysis, highlighting even the smallest examples of black self determination and the ways in which the enslaved made the most of their conditions that allowed for equality through separation or integration.

Janelle Poe

provisioning trade – economic sector based on farming and manufacturing goods to fulfill needs of plantations and societies in European colonies of the West Indies and Americas; usually involves stock-herding, transport, metal and leatherwork.

“But, whatever the aspirations of this commercial gentry, the provisioning trade could not support a plantation regime.” (Ira Berlin, “Time, Space and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on Mainland British North America.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, Feb. 1980, p 47.)

• Interesting to note how connected the colonies were, as local outposts and “factories” with businesses created to satisfy each other’s capitalist needs.
• Would like to know more about the colonial timeline and just how much “Mainland British North America” was indebted to the earlier colonies established in the Caribbean.
• Slightly surprising that the trade wasn’t more lucrative, but limitations in transportation/shipping, economic development, and early trade laws probably had some influence on why profits were minimal.

Janelle Poe 

Creole – a term of racial identity usually designated for black people of mixed African and European heritage with colonial roots in the West Indies; can also represent any person of African descent born and raised in colonial lands, first generation offspring and beyond.

“Thus while cultural differences between newly arrived Africans and second and third generation Afro-Americans or creoles everywhere provided the basis for social stratification within black society, African-creole differences emerged at different times with different force and even different meaning in the North, the Chesapeake region, and the low country.” (Ira Berlin, “Time, Space and the Evolution of Afro-American Society on Mainland British North America.” The American Historical Review, Vol. 85, No. 1, Feb. 1980. p 45)

• Appreciate that Berlin has expanded this concept beyond the usual British West Indies or Euro-American colonial influence because it highlights a larger diasporic experience among colonial blacks
• Highlights the biological and cultural aspects of social transformation
• Not sure how this term works on a larger scale, because of the historical connection to particular regions and ethnic origins that privileges European descent; i.e. French creoles of Louisiana and cultural practices, including cuisine. Does it work both ways, in multiple directions, or does it serve to uphold colonialism?

Janelle Poe