Afro-Caribbean and Afro-Brazilian Religions

Abstract

The slave trade brought Africans by force to work in the United States, the Caribbean, Brazil, and also in Venezuela and Colombia. It marked the history of the Americas in a distinctive way. The slaves were captured from different parts of Africa, and came to the New World with their languages, cultures, and religious systems. For various reasons, which it would be out of place to develop here, slaves that came directly from Africa—called bozales in Cuba, bossales or nèg Guinen in Haiti—and, subsequently, their descendants managed to maintain a piece of their religious culture of origin while adapting it to a new socioeconomic context. Thus, three major African American systems of religious syncretism gradually emerged: Santería in Cuba, Candomblé in Brazil, and Voodoo in Haiti. Other African-inspired religions developed in the Americas, but they were never as influential as these three.¹ All three systems have an undeniable kinship because all are tied to neighboring African civilizations, the Yoruba of Nigeria and Benin (former Dahomey) in the case of Candomblé and Santería, and the Fon from the ancient Kingdom of Dahomey for Voodoo. This does not preclude other influences, as it will soon be demonstrated.