The Mina were a community of well-organized, enslaved Black people in Louisiana who spoke a common language, most likely a dialect of Ewe that may have been related to Fon.[1]
The Mina
editThough some historians include the Mina with enslaved Africans sold from Elmina on the Gold Coast, other historians believe they were Ewe people from the Bight of Benin.[1] As part of how some Louisiana slave-holders managed enslaved people at the time, the maintenance of African linguistic–ethnic communities was tolerated and even encouraged.[1] The Pointe Coupée Mina community arose following their enslavement and importation into Louisiana following 1782.[2] Among enslaved Africans whose ethnicity was recorded in official documents between 1719 and 1820, Mina were the third-largest enslaved ethnic group in Louisiana.[3]
Many Mina took part in the Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1791.
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b c Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo (1992). Africans in Colonial Louisiana. Louisiana State University Press. pp. 319–321. ISBN 9780807119990. Retrieved August 3, 2012.319-321&rft.pub=Louisiana State University Press&rft.date=1992&rft.isbn=9780807119990&rft.aulast=Hall&rft.aufirst=Gwendolyn Midlo&rft_id=https://books.google.com/books?id=mYz_THytJ38C&q=Mina+%28Louisiana%29&pg=PA319&rfr_id=info:sid/en.wikipedia.org:Mina (Louisiana)" class="Z3988">
- ^ Speedy, Karin (1995), "Mississippi and Tèche Creole: two separate starting points for Creole in Louisiana", in Baker, Phillip (ed.), From Contact to Creole and Beyond, London: University of Westminster Press, p. 106, ISBN 9781859190869
- ^ Hall, Gwendolyn Midlo (2005). Slavery and African Ethnicities in the Americas: Restoring the Links. Chapel Hill, North Carolina: University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 978-0-8078-2973-8. OCLC 646875495.