Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic
Ohio University Research in International Studies
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Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic
Wendy Wilson-Fall
Foreword by Michael A. Gomez
Ohio University Research in International Studies
Global and Comparative Studies Series No. 14
Ohio University Press
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Wilson-Fall, Wendy, author.
Memories of Madagascar and slavery in the Black Atlantic / Wendy Wilson-Fall ; foreword by Michael A. Gomez.
pages cm. — (Ohio University research in international studies, global and comparative studies series ; No. 14)
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-8214-2192-5 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-2193-2 (pb : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-4546-4 (pdf)
1. Slavery—United States—History. 2. Slavery—Madagascar—History. 3. Slave trade—United States—History. 4. Slave trade—Madagascar—History. 5. United States—Relations—Madagascar. 6. Madagascar—Relations—United States. 7. African diasphora. I. Title.
E446.W69 2015
306.3'6209691—dc23
2015030042
Contents
Foreword by Michael A. Gomez
INTRODUCTION. A Particular Ancestral Place
CHAPTER THREE. History and Narrative: Saltwater Slaves in Virginia
CHAPTER FOUR. After the American Revolution: Undocumented Arrivals
CHAPTER FIVE. Free, Undocumented Immigrants
CHAPTER SIX. The Problem of the Metanarrative
APPENDIX. Jeremiah Mahammitt’s Malagasy Words
Illustrations
Maps
3.1. Plantations on the Rappahannock River
3.2. Plantations on the York and James Rivers
Foreword
To name a thing is a powerful act, with implications and consequences far reaching in nature, conveying for the named both meaning and purpose. Insofar as it concerns the human condition, it is a transformative event, by which the unknown travels a circuit of discovery, of intelligibility. But such a process also constitutes a beginning, at times in a literal sense, while always in a cognitive one. To name a thing is equally transactional, conveying import for both the one who names and the one who is named. To the degree that the name endures, the former achieves recognition as progenitor, a causal source in at least some sense, while the latter is given visibility. To these aspects of naming must be added its spatial quality, locating the one naming and the one named in mutual social relation. But such pursuit of nomenclature is also directional, as the name bestowed, whatever its meaning, provides a level of orientation. And direction, by its very definition—and notwithstanding its capaciousness—also has boundaries, a certain terminality, situating the one named relative to all and anyone else, delimiting the universe of possible permutations of experience.
Wendy Wilson-Fall’s incisive book Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic is about the social and cultural properties and implications of naming and demonstrates that the more specific the naming, the more powerful and consequential the act. In following the story of the Malagasy in what becomes the United States, she succeeds in continuing to dismantle, piece by piece, the formerly unassailable notion of the improbable, the implausible, and the far-fetched as it relates to the originating experiences of African Americans. And in advancing our understanding of those origins, she simultaneously underscores their heterogeneity, effectively making the point that the African American community issues from an array of geophysical points of departure.
Memories