Atlantic slave trade
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The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the Transatlantic slave trade, was the trade of African slaves by Europeans that occurred in and around the Atlantic Ocean. It lasted from the 15th century to the 19th century. Most slaves were shipped from West Africa and Central Africa and taken to the New World. Some slaves were captured through raids and kidnapping, although most were obtained through coastal trading by the Europeans.[1] Most contemporary historians estimate that between 9.4 and 12 million[2][3] Africans arrived in the New World, although the number of people taken from their homestead is considerably higher.[4][5] The slave-trade is sometimes called the Maafa by African and African-American scholars, meaning "holocaust" or "great disaster" in Kiswahili. The slaves were one element of a three-part economic cycle—the Triangular Trade and its Middle Passage—which ultimately involved four continents, four centuries and millions of people.
Beginnings and the Atlantic systems
When the first Africans were shipped to the New World, relying on African slaves to keep a plantation economy running wasn’t new to the Europeans. Most prominently, Portuguese islands off the African coast, like Madeira, had already established this system.
There are two main eras of the Atlantic system.
The First Atlantic system was the trade of African slaves to mostly South American colonies of the Portuguese and Spanish empires. It started (on a significant scale) in about 1502[6] and lasted until 1580, when Portugal was occupied by the Spanish empire. While the Portuguese traded slaves themselves, the Spanish empire relied on the asiento system, awarding merchants (mostly from other countries) the license to trade slaves to their colonies. During the first Atlantic system most of these traders were Portuguese, giving them a near-monopoly during the era, although some Dutch, English, Spanish and French traders also participated in the slave trade.[7] After the occupation, Portugal stayed formally autonomous, but was weakened, with its colonial empire being attacked by the Dutch and English.
The Second Atlantic system was the trade of African slaves by mostly English, Brazilian, French and Dutch traders. The main destinations of this phase were the Caribbean colonies and Brazil, as a number of European countries built up economically slave-dependent colonial empires in the New World.
Only slightly more than 3 percent of the slaves exported were traded between 1450 and 1600, 16% percent in the 17th century. More than half of them were exported in the 18th century, the remaining 28.5% in the 19th century.[8]
[edit] Triangular trade
See main article, the Triangular Trade.
European colonists initially practiced systems of both bonded labour and Indian slavery, enslaving many of the natives of the New World. For a variety of reasons Africans replaced Indians as the main population of slaves in the Americas. In some cases, such as on some of the Caribbean Islands, disease and warfare eliminated the natives completely. In other cases, such as in South Carolina, Virginia, and New England, the need for alliances with native tribes coupled with the availability of African slaves at affordable prices (beginning in the early 18th century for these colonies) resulted in a shift away from Indian slavery. It is often falsely claimed that Indians made poor slaves compared to Africans, explaining the shift to using Africans. The reasons had more to do with economics and politics.
"The Slave Trade" by Auguste Francois Biard, 1840
"The Slave Trade" by Auguste Francois Biard, 1840
A burial ground in Campeche, Mexico, suggests slaves had been brought there not long after Hernán Cortés completed the subjugation of Aztec and Mayan Mexico. The graveyard had been in use from about 1550 to the late 1600s [9].
The first side of the triangle was the export of goods from Europe to Africa. A number of African kings and merchants took part in the trading of slaves from 1440 to about 1900. For each captive, the African rulers would receive a variety of goods from Europe. Many of them were confronted with the dilemma of trading with Europe or becoming slaves themselves. The second leg of the triangle exported enslaved Africans across the Atlantic Ocean to South America, the Caribbean islands, and North America. The third and final part of the triangle was the return of goods to Europe from the Americas. The goods were the products of slave-labor plantations and included cotton, sugar, tobacco, molasses and rum.
However, Brazil (the main importer of slaves) manufactured these goods in South America and directly traded with African ports, thus not taking part in a triangular trade.
[edit] Labour and slavery
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Category:Slave trade
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An antislavery medallion of the early 19th century.
An antislavery medallion of the early 19th century.
Shortage of labour was one of the issues the Atlantic Slave Trade was made to deal with. Native peoples were the first used by Europeans as slaves until a large number died from overwork and Old World diseases.[10] Later, African slaves were available in quantity at affordable prices. Other incentives, such as indentured servitude also failed to provide a sufficient workforce.
Many crops could not be sold for profit or even grown in Europe. It was also cheaper to import many crops and goods from the New World than from regions in Europe. Huge amounts of Labour were needed for the plantations in the intensive growing, harvesting and processing of these prized tropical crops. Western Africa (part of which became known as 'the Slave Coast') and later Central Africa became the new source for slaves to meet the demand for labor.
The basic reason for the constant shortage of labour was that, with large amounts of cheap land available and lots of landowners searching for workers, free European immigrants were able to become landowners themselves after relatively short time, thus increasing the need for workers. [11]
[edit] African slave market
The Atlantic slave trade was not the only slave trade taking a toll on Africa, although the largest in volume and intensity. As Elikia M’bokolo wrote in Le Monde diplomatique: "The African continent was bled of its human resources via all possible routes. Across the Sahara, through the Red Sea, from the Indian Ocean ports and across the Atlantic. At least ten centuries of slavery for the benefit of the Muslim countries (from the ninth to the nineteenth). ... Four million slaves exported via the Red Sea, another four million through the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, perhaps as many as nine million along the trans-Saharan caravan route, and eleven to twenty million (depending on the author) across the Atlantic Ocean."[12]
Europeans usually bought slaves who were captured in tribal wars between African kingdoms and chiefdoms, or from Africans who had made a business out of capturing other Africans and selling them. Europeans provided a large new market for an already-existing trade, and while an African held in slavery in his own region of Africa might escape or be traded back to his own people, a person shipped away was sure never to return. People living around the Niger River were transported from these markets to the coast and sold at European trading ports in exchange for muskets and manufactured goods such as cloth or alcohol.
The Atlantic slave trade peaked in the late 18th century, when the largest number of slaves were captured on raiding expeditions into the interior of West Africa. These expeditions were typically carried out by coastal African kingdoms, such as the Oyo empire (Yoruba) and the kingdom of Dahomey.[13][14]
Europeans rarely entered the interior of Africa, due to fear of disease and moreover fierce African resistance.[15] The slaves would be brought to coastal outposts where they would be traded for goods. Enslavement became a major by-product of war in Africa as nation states expanded through military conflicts in many cases through deliberate sponsorship of benefiting Western European nations. During such periods of rapid state formation or expansion (Asante or Dahomey being good examples), slavery formed an important element of political life which the Europeans exploited: As Queen Sara's plea to the Portuguese courts revealed, the system became "sell to the Europeans or be sold to the Europeans". In Africa, convicted criminals could be punished by enslavement and with European demands for slaves, this punishment became more prevalent. Since most of these nations did not have a prison system, convicts were often sold or used in the scattered local domestic slave market.[16]
The majority of European conquests occurred toward the end or after the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. One exception to this is the conquest of Ndongo in Angola where warriors, citizens and even nobility were taken into slavery after the fall of the state.
[edit] African versus European slavery
Further information: African slave trade
Slavery in African cultures was generally more like indentured servitude: slaves were not made to be chattel of other men, nor enslaved for life.[citation needed] In Africa, as elsewhere, slaves were subject to torture, sexual exploitation, and arbitrary death.[17] African slaves were paid wages and were able to accumulate property.[citation needed] They often bought their own freedom and could then achieve social promotion — just as freedmen in ancient Rome — some even rose to the status of rulers (e.g. Jaja of Opobo and Sunni Ali Ber). Similar arguments were used by Western slave owners during the time of abolitionism, for example by John Wedderburn in Wedderburn v. Knight, the case that ended legal recognition of slavery in Scotland in 1776. Regardless of the legal options open to slave owners, rational cost-earning calculation and/or voluntary adoption of moral restraints often tended to mitigate.
[edit] Slave Market Regions
There were eight principal areas used by Europeans to buy and ship slaves to the Western Hemisphere.
* Senegambia: Senegal, the Gambia and Guinea-Bissau
* Upper Guinea: Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia
* The Windward Coast: Present day Cote d'Ivoire
* The Gold Coast: Ghana
* The Bight of Benin or the Slave Coast: Togo, Benin and Nigeria west of the Benue River
* The Bight of Biafra: Nigeria south of the Benue River, Cameroon and Equatorial Guinea
* West Central Africa (sometimes called Kongo in slave ship logs): Gabon, Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
* Southeast Africa: Mozambique and Madagascar.
[edit] Region Participation
The number of slaves sold to the new world varied throughout the slave trade. As for the distribution of slaves from regions of activity, certain areas produced far more slaves than others. Between 1650 and 1900, 10.24 million African slaves arrived in the Americas from the following regions.[18]
* Senegambia: 4.7%
* Upper Guinea: 4.1%
* Windward Coast 1.8%
* Gold Coast 10.4%
* Bight of Benin 19.7%
* Bight of Biafra 4.3%
* West Central Africa 40.8%
* Southeast Africa 4.6%
[edit] African kingdoms of the Era
There were over 173 city-states and kingdoms in the African regions affected by the slave trade between 1502 and 1853, when Brazil became the last Atlantic import nation to outlaw the slave trade. Of those 173, no fewer than 68 could be deemed "nation states" with political and military infrastructures that enabled them to dominate their neighbors. Nearly every present-day nation had a pre-colonial forbear with which European traders had to barter and eventually battle. Below are 29 nation states by country that actively or passively participated in the Atlantic Slave Trade:
* Senegal: Jolof Empire, Denanke Kingdom, Kingdom of Fouta Tooro, Kingdom of Khasso and Kingdom of Saalum
* Guinea-Bissau: Kaabu
* Guinea: Kingdom of Fouta Djallon and Mali Empire
* Sierra Leone: Koya Temne and Kpaa Mende
* Cote d'Ivoire: Gyaaman Kingdom and Kong Empire
* Ghana: Asante Confederacy and Mankessim Kingdom
* Benin: Kingdom of Dahomey
* Nigeria: Aro Confederacy, Kingdom of Benin, Igala, Nupe and Oyo
* Cameroon: Bamun and Mandara Kingdom
* Gabon: Orungu
* Equatorial Guinea: Otcho
* Republic of Congo: Kingdom of Loango and Kingdom of Tio
* Angola: Kingdom of Kongo, Kingdom of Ndongo and Matamba
[edit] Ethnic groups
The different ethnic groups brought to the Americas closely corresponds to the regions of heaviest activity in the slave trade. Over 45 distinct ethnic groups were taken to the Americas during the trade. Of the 45, the ten most prominent according to slave documentation of the era are listed below.[19]
1. The Gbe speakers of Togo, Ghana and Benin (Adja, Mina, Ewe, Fon)
2. The Akan of Ghana and Cote d'Ivoire
3. The Mbundu of Angola (includes Ovimbundu)
4. The BaKongo of the Democratic Republic of Congo and Angola
5. The Igbo of Nigeria
6. The Yoruba of Nigeria
7. The Mandé speakers of Upper Guinea
8. The Wolof of Senegal
9. The Chamba of Cameroon
10. The Makua of Mozambique
[edit] Human toll
The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade resulted in a vast and as yet still unknown loss of life for African captives both in and outside of America. Approximately 8 million Africans were killed during their storage, shipment and initial landing in the New World.[20] The amount of life lost in the actual procurement of slaves remains a mystery but may equal or exceed the amount actually enslaved.[21] If such a figure is to be believed, the total number of deaths would be between 16 and 20 million.[citation needed]
The savage nature of the trade, in which most of the slaves were prisoners from African wars, led to the destruction of individuals and cultures. The following figures do not include deaths of African slaves as a result of their actual labor, slave revolts or diseases they caught while living among New World populations.
A database compiled in the late 1990s put the figure for the Transatlantic Slave Trade at more than 11 million people. Estimates as high as 50 million have been floated.[citation needed] For a long time an accepted figure was 15 million, although this has in recent years been revised down. Most historians now agree that at least 12 million slaves left the continent between the fifteenth and nineteenth century, but 10 to 20% died on board ships. Thus a figure of 11 million slaves transported to the Americas is the nearest demonstrable figure historians can produce.[22]
[edit] African conflicts
According to David Stannard's American Holocaust, 50% of African deaths occurred in Africa as a result of tribal wars between native kingdoms, which produced the majority of slaves.[23] This includes not only those who died in battles, but also those who died as a result of forced marches from inland areas to slave ports on the various coasts.[24] The practice of enslaving enemy combatants and their villages was widespread throughout Western and West Central Africa, although wars were rarely started to procure slaves. The slave trade was largely a by-product of tribal and state warfare as a way of removing potential dissidents after victory or financing future wars.[25] However, some African groups proved particularly adept and brutal at the practice of enslaving such as Kaabu, Asanteman, Dahomey, the Aro Confederacy and the Imbangala war bands.[26] By the end of this process, no less than 18.3 million people would be herded into "factories" to await shipment to the New World.[citation needed]
Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.
Diagram of a slave ship from the Atlantic slave trade. From an Abstract of Evidence delivered before a select committee of the House of Commons in 1790 and 1791.
[edit] Port factories
After being marched to the coast for sale, Africans waited in large forts called factories. The amount of time in factories varied, but Milton Meltzer's Slavery: A World History states this process resulted in or around 4.5% of deaths during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade.[20] In other words, over 820,000 people would have died in African ports such as Benguela, Elmina and Bonny reducing the number of those shipped to 17.5 million.[20]
[edit] Atlantic shipment
After being captured and held in the factories, slaves entered the infamous Middle Passage. Meltzer's research puts this phase of the slave trade's overall mortality at 12.5%.[20] Around 2.2 million Africans died during these voyages where they were packed into tight, unsanitary spaces on ships for months at time. Measures were taken to stem the onboard mortality rate such as mandatory dancing above deck and the practice of force-feeding any slaves that attempted to starve themselves.[24] The conditions on board also resulted in the spread of fatal diseases. Other fatalities were the result of suicides by jumping over board by slaves who could no longer endure the conditions.[24] Before the shipping of slaves completely outlawed in 1853, 15.3 million "immigrants" had arrived in the Americas.
[edit] Seasoning camps
Meltzer also states that 33% of Africans would have died in the first year at seasoning camps found throughout the Caribbean.[20] Many slaves shipped directly to North America bypassed this process; however most slaves (destined for island or South American plantations) were likely to be put through this ordeal. The slaves were tortured for the purpose of "breaking" them (like the practice of breaking horses) and conditioning them to their new lot in life. Jamaica held one of the most notorious of these camps. All in all, 5 million Africans died in these camps reducing the final number of Africans to about 10 million.[citation needed]
[edit] European competition
Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
Reproduction of a handbill advertising a slave auction in Charleston, South Carolina, in 1769.
The trade of enslaved Africans in the Atlantic has its origins in the explorations of Portuguese mariners down the coast of West Africa in the 15th century. Before that, contact with African slave markets was made to ransom Portuguese that had been captured by the intense North African Barbary pirate attacks to the Portuguese ships and coastal villages, frequently leaving them depopulated.[27][28] The first Europeans to use African slaves in the New World were the Spaniards who sought auxiliaries for their conquest expeditions and laborers on islands such as Cuba and Hispaniola, where the alarming decline in the native population had spurred the first royal laws protecting the native population (Laws of Burgos, 1512-1513). After Portugal had succeeded in establishing sugar plantations (engenhos) in northern Brazil ca. 1545, Portuguese merchants on the West African coast began to supply enslaved Africans to the sugar planters there. While at first these planters relied almost exclusively on the native Tupani for slave labor, a titanic shift toward Africans took place after 1570 following a series of epidemics which decimated the already destabilized Tupani communities. By 1630, Africans had replaced the Tupani as the largest contingent of labor on Brazilian sugar plantations, heralding equally the final collapse of the European medieval household tradition of slavery, the rise of Brazil as the largest single destination for enslaved Africans and sugar as the reason that roughly 84% of these Africans were shipped to the New World.
Merchants from various European nations were later involved in the Atlantic Slave trade: Portugal, Spain, France, England, Scotland, Brandenburg-Prussia, Denmark, Holland. As Britain rose in naval power and settled continental north America and some islands of the West Indies, they became the leading slave traders, mostly operating out of Bristol and Liverpool. By the late 17th century, one out of every four ships that left Liverpool harbour was a slave trading ship.[29] Other British cities also profited from the slave trade. Birmingham, the largest gun producing town in Britain at the time, supplied guns to be traded for slaves. 75% of all sugar produced in the plantations came to London to supply the highly lucrative coffee houses there.[30]
[edit] Slavery and Christianity
See the fuller discussion in the article Christianity and Slavery.
In general, early Christians, such as Paul, St. Augustine, or St. Thomas Aquinas did not oppose slavery. Pope Nicholas V even encouraged enslaving non-Christian Africans in his Papal Bull Romanus Pontifex of 1454. Since then other popes stated that slavery was against Christian teachings, as is now generally held. Even earlier, in 1435, Pope Eugene IV condemned the enslavement of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands. A list of papal statements against slavery (and also claims that the popes nonetheless owned and bought slaves) is found in the discussion Christianity and Slavery.
Most Christian sects found some way to soothe the consciences of their slave-owning members. One notable exception was the Society of Friends (Quakers), who advocated the abolition of slavery from earliest times.
[edit] New World destinations
African slaves were brought to many different regions first starting in 1441 with the Portuguese kidnapping of Africans from what is now Mauritania. The first slaves to arrive as part of a labor force appeared in 1502 on the island of Hispaniola (now Haiti and the Dominican Republic). Cuba received its first four slaves in 1513. Slave exports to Honduras and Guatemala started in 1526. The first African slaves to reach what would become the US arrived in January of 1526 as part of a Spanish attempt at colonizing South Carolina near Jamestown. By November the 300 Spanish colonist were reduced to a mere 100 accompanied by 70 of their original 100 slaves. The slaves revolted and joined a nearby native population while the Spanish abandoned the colony altogether. Colombia received its first slaves in 1533. El Salvador, Costa Rica and Florida began their stint in the slave trade in 1541, 1563 and 1581 respectively.
The 17th century saw an increase in shipments with slaves arriving in the English colony of Jamestown, Virginia in 1619. Irish immigrants brought slaves to Montserrat in 1651. And in 1655, slaves arrive in Belize.
Distribution of slaves (1450-1900) [31]
Destination Percentage
Brazil 35.4%
Spanish Empire 22.1%
British West Indies 17.7%
French West Indies 14.1%
British North America and future United States 4.4%
Dutch West Indies 4.4%
Danish West Indies 0.2%
[edit] Economics of slavery
Slavery was involved in some of the most profitable industries in history.[citation needed] 70% of the slaves brought to the new world were used to produce sugar, the most labour intensive crop. The rest were employed harvesting coffee, cotton, and tobacco, and in some cases in mining. The West Indian colonies of the European powers were some of their most important possessions, so they went to extremes to protect and retain them. For example, at the end of the Seven Years' War in 1763, France agreed to cede the vast territory of New France to the victors in exchange for keeping the minute Antillean island of Guadeloupe.
Slave trade profits have been the object of many fantasies. Returns for the investors were not absurdly high (around 6% in France in the 18th century), but they were considerably higher than domestic alternatives (in the same century, around 5%). Risks — maritime and commercial — were important for individual voyages. Investors mitigated it by buying small shares of many ships at the same time. In that way, they were able to diversify a large part of the risk away. Between voyages, ship shares could be freely sold and bought. All these made the slave trade a very interesting investment.[32]
By far the most successful West Indian colonies in 1800 belonged to the United Kingdom. After entering the sugar colony business late, British naval supremacy and control over key islands such as Jamaica, Trinidad, and Barbados and the territory of British Guiana gave it an important edge over all competitors; while many British did not make gains, some made enormous fortunes, even by upper class standards. This advantage was reinforced when France lost its most important colony, St. Dominigue (western Hispaniola, now Haiti), to a slave revolt in 1791[33] and supported revolts against its rival Britain, after the 1793 French revolution in the name of liberty (but in fact opportunistic selectivity). Before 1791, British sugar had to be protected to compete against cheaper French sugar.
After 1791, the British islands produced the most sugar, and the British people quickly became the largest consumers. West Indian sugar became ubiquitous as an additive to Indian tea. Nevertheless, the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution in the latter half of the 1700s.[34]
[edit] Effects
World historic populations[35] Year 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 1999 2050 2150
World 791 978 1,262 1,650 2,521 5,978 8,909 9,746
Africa 106 107 111 133 221 767 1,766 2,308
Asia 502 635 809 947 1,402 3,634 5,268 5,561
Europe 163 203 276 408 547 729 628 517
LatinAmericaandtheCaribbean 16 24 38 74 167 511 809 912
NorthernAmerica 2 7 26 82 172 307 392 398
Oceania 2 2 2 6 13 30 46 51
World historic populations by percentage distribution Year 1750 1800 1850 1900 1950 1999 2050 2150
World 100 100 100 100 100 100 100 100
Africa 13.4 10.9 8.8 8.1 8.8 12.8 19.8 23.7
Asia 63.5 64.9 64.1 57.4 55.6 60.8 59.1 57.1
Europe 20.6 20.8 21.9 24.7 21.7 12.2 7.0 5.3
Latin America and the Caribbean 2.0 2.5 3.0 4.5 6.6 8.5 9.1 9.4
NorthernAmerica 0.3 0.7 2.1 5.0 6.8 5.1 4.4 4.1
Oceania 0.3 0.2 0.2 0.4 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Walter Rodney argues that at the start of the slave trade in 16th century, even though there was technological gap between Europe and Africa, it was not very substantial. Both were using Iron Age technology. The major advantage that Europe had was in ship building. During the period of slavery the populations of Europe and the Americas grew exponentially while the population of Africa remained stagnant. This he contends that the profits from slavery were used to fund economic growth and technological advancement in Europe and the Americas. Based on earlier theories by Eric Williams, he asserts that the industrial revolution was at least in part funded by agricultural profits from the Americas. He cites examples such as the invention of the steam engine by James Watt, which was funded by plantation owners from the Caribbean[36].
Other historians have attacked both Rodney's methodology and factual accuracy. Joseph C. Miller has argued that the social change and demographic stagnation (which he researched on the example of West Central Africa) was caused primarily by domestic factors. Joseph Inikori provided a new line of argument, estimating counterfactual demographic developments in case the Atlantic slave trade had not existed. Patrick Manning has shown that the slave trade did indeed have profound impact on African demographics and social institutions, but nevertheless criticized Inikori’s approach for not taking other factors (such as famine and drought) into account and thus being highly speculative.[37]
[edit] Effect on the economy of Africa
Cowrie shells were used as money in the slave trade
Cowrie shells were used as money in the slave trade
No scholars dispute the harm done to the slaves themselves, but the effect of the trade on African societies is much debated due to the apparent influx of capital to Africans. Proponents of the slave trade, such as Archibald Dalzel, argued that African societies were robust and not much affected by the ongoing trade. In the 19th century, European abolitionists, most prominently Dr. David Livingstone, took the opposite view arguing that the fragile local economy and societies were being severely harmed by the ongoing trade. This view continued with scholars until the 1960s and 70s such as Basil Davidson, who conceded it might have had some benefits while still acknowledging its largely negative impact on Africa.[38] Historian Walter Rodney estimates that by c.1770, the King of Dahomey was earning an estimated £250,000 per year by selling captive African soldiers and even his own people to the European slave-traders.
[edit] Effects on Europe’s Economy
Eric Williams has attempted to show the contribution of Africans on the basis of profits from the slave trade and slavery, and the employment of those profits to finance England’s industrialization process. He argues that the enslavement of Africans was an essential element to the Industrial Revolution, and that European wealth is a result of slavery. However, he argued that by the time of its abolition it had lost its profitability and it was in Britain's economic interest to ban it. Most modern scholars disagree with this view. Seymour Drescher and Robert Anstey have both presented evidence that the slave trade remained profitable until the end, and that reasons other than economics led to its cessation. Joseph Inikori has shown elsewhere that the British slave trade was more profitable than the critics of Williams would want us to believe. Nevertheless, the profits of the slave trade and of West Indian plantations amounted to less than 5% of the British economy at the time of the Industrial Revolution.[39]
[edit] Demographics
The demographic effects of the slave trade are some of the most controversial and debated issues. More than 10 million people were removed from Africa via the slave trade, and what effect this had on Africa is an important question.
Walter Rodney argued that the export of so many people had been a demographic disaster and had left Africa permanently disadvantaged when compared to other parts of the world, and largely explains the continent's continued poverty.[40] He presents numbers that show that Africa's population stagnated during this period, while that of Europe and Asia grew dramatically. According to Rodney all other areas of the economy were disrupted by the slave trade as the top merchants abandoned traditional industries to pursue slaving and the lower levels of the population were disrupted by the slaving itself.
Others have challenged this view. J. D. Fage compared the number effect on the continent as a whole. David Eltis has compared the numbers to the rate of emigration from Europe during this period. In the nineteenth century alone over 50 million people left Europe for the Americas, a far higher rate than were ever taken from Africa.[41].
Other scholars accused Rodney of mischaracterizing the trade between Africans and Europeans. They argue that Africans, or more accurately African elites, deliberately let European traders join in an already large trade in slaves and were not patronized.[42]
As Joseph E. Inikori argues, the history of the region shows that the effects were still quite deleterious. He argues that the African economic model of the period was very different from the European, and could not sustain such population losses. Population reductions in certain areas also led to widespread problems. Inikori also notes that after the suppression of the slave trade Africa's population almost immediately began to rapidly increase, even prior to the introduction of modern medicines.[43] Shahadah also states that the trade was not only of demographic significance, in aggregate population losses but also in the profound changes to settlement patterns, epidemiological exposure and reproductive and social development potential.[44]
[edit] Legacy of racism
Maulana Karenga states that the effects of slavery were "the morally monstrous destruction of human possibility involved redefining African humanity to the world, poisoning past, present and future relations with others who only know us through this stereotyping and thus damaging the truly human relations among peoples." He states that it constituted the destruction of culture, language, religion and human possibility.[45]
There have been a number of organizations and individuals who have downplayed or denied the occurrence of the transatlantic slave trade. A number of these groups are loosely affiliated with the Moorish Science Temple and the Nuwaubian nation of Moors (Nuwaubianism) led by Malachi Z. York.
They argue that African-Americans, whom they refer to as "Moors" or "Moorish-Americans," are actually the indigenous peoples of the Americas, and did not arrive on slave ships in large numbers, if any came by ship at all.
[edit] End of the Atlantic slave trade
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Main article: Abolitionism
In Britain and in other parts of Europe, opposition developed against the slave trade. Led by the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) and establishment Evangelicals such as William Wilberforce, the movement was joined by many and began to protest against the trade, but they were opposed by the owners of the colonial holdings. Denmark, which had been active in the slave trade, was the first country to ban the trade through legislation in 1792, which took effect in 1803. Britain banned the slave trade (but not slavery itself) in 1807, imposing stiff fines for any slave found aboard a British ship. The Royal Navy, which then controlled the world's seas, moved to stop other nations from filling Britain's place in the slave trade and declared that slaving was equal to piracy and was punishable by death. The United States outlawed the importation of slaves on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the constitution for such a ban.
On Sunday 28 October 1787, William Wilberforce wrote in his diary: “God Almighty has set before me two great objects, the suppression of the slave trade and the Reformation of society.” For the rest of his life, William Wilberforce dedicated his life as a Member of Parliament to opposing the slave trade and working for the abolition of slavery throughout the British Empire. On 22 February 1807, twenty years after he first began his crusade, and in the middle of Britain’s war with France, Wilberforce and his team’s labours were rewarded with victory. By an overwhelming 283 votes for to 16 against, the motion to abolish the slave trade was carried in the House of Commons.[46]
With peace in Europe from 1815, and British supremacy at sea secured, the Navy turned its attention back to the challenge and established the West Coast of Africa Station, known as the ‘preventative squadron’, which for the next 50 years operated against the slavers. By the 1850s, around 25 vessels and 2,000 officers and men were on the station, supported by nearly 1,000 ‘Kroomen’, experienced fishermen recruited as sailors from what is now the coast of modern Liberia. Service on the West Africa Squadron was a thankless and overwhelming task, full of risk and posing a constant threat to the health of the crews involved. Contending with pestilential swamps and violent encounters, the mortality rate was 55 per 1,000 men, compared with 10 for fleets in the Mediterranean or in home waters.[47] Between 1807 and 1860, the West Africa Squadron seized approximately 1,600 ships involved in the slave trade and freed 150,000 Africans who were aboard these vessels.[48]. The last recorded slave ship to land on American soil was the Clotilde, which illegally smuggled a number of Africans into the town of Mobile, Alabama. The Africans on board were sold as slaves, however slavery was abolished 5 years later following the end of the civil war. The last survivor of the voyage was Cudjoe Lewis who died in 1935.[49]
Action was also taken against African leaders who refused to agree to British treaties to outlaw the trade, for example against ‘the usurping King of Lagos’, deposed in 1851. Anti-slavery treaties were signed with over 50 African rulers.[50]
Although the slave trade had become illegal, slavery remained a reality in British colonies. Wilberforce himself was privately convinced that the institution of slavery should be entirely abolished, but understood that there was little political will for emancipation. In parliament, the Emancipation Bill gathered support and received its final commons reading on 26 July 1833. Slavery would be abolished, but the planters would be heavily compensated. Thank God, said William Wilberforce, that I have lived to witness a day in which England is willing to give twenty millions sterling for the Abolition of Slavery.
The last country to ban the Atlantic slave trade was Brazil in 1888.[51]
[edit] Apologies
At the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa, African nations demanded a clear apology for the slavery from the former slave-trading countries. Some EU nations were ready to express an apology, but the opposition, mainly from the United Kingdom, Spain, Netherlands, Portugal, and the United States blocked attempts to do so. A fear of monetary compensation was one of the reasons for the opposition. Apologies on behalf of African nations, for their role in trading their countrymen into slavery, also remains an open issue.
On January 30, 2006, Jacques Chirac said that 10 May would henceforth be a national day of remembrance for the victims of slavery in France, marking the day in 2001 when France passed a law recognising slavery as a crime against humanity.[52]
On November 27, 2006, Tony Blair made a partial apology for Britain's role in the African slavery trade. However African rights activists denounced it as "empty rhetoric" that failed to address the issue properly. They feel his apology stopped shy to prevent any legal retort.[53] Mr Blair again said sorry on March 14, 2007.[54]
On February 24, 2007 the Virginia General Assembly passed House Joint Resolution Number 728[55] acknowledging "with profound regret the involuntary servitude of Africans and the exploitation of Native Americans, and call for reconciliation among all Virginians."
With the passing of this resolution, Virginia becomes the first of the 50 United States to acknowledge through the states governing body their state's negative involvement in slavery. The passing of this resolution comes on the heels of the 400th anniversary celebration of the city of Jamestown, Virginia, which was the first permanent English colony in what would become the United States to survive, Jamestown is also recognized as one of the first slave ports of the American colonies.
On May 31, 2007, Alabama Governor Bob Riley signed a resolution expressing "profound regret" for Alabama's role in slavery and apologizing for slavery's wrongs and lingering effects. Alabama is the fourth Southern state to pass a slavery apology, following votes by the legislatures in Maryland, Virginia and North Carolina.[56]
On August 24, 2007, Mayor Ken Livingstone of London, England apologized publicly for England's role in colonial slave trade. "You can look across there to see the institutions that still have the benefit of the wealth they created from slavery," he said pointing towards the financial district. He claimed that London was still tainted by the horrors of slavery. Jesse Jackson praised Mayor Livingstone, and added that reparations should be made.[57]
Sunday, September 16, 2007
Santeria II
Santeria
| Group Profile | History | Beliefs | Controversy | Links | Bibliography |
I. Group Profile
1. Name: Santeria (also known as La Regla Lucumi and the Rule of Osha)
2. Founders: The Yoruba Slaves of the Carribean (from Western Africa -- current day Nigeria and Benin)
3. Date of Birth: N/A
4. Birth Place: Western Africa or Cuba
5. Year Founded: 1517 1
6. History:
Santeria orginated in Cuba as a combination of the Western African Yoruba Religion and Iberian Catholicism 2 . "It is one of the many syncretic religions created by Africans brought to the Caribbean islands as slaves." 56 . It was developed out of necessity for the African slaves in order to continue practicing their native religion in the New World. As in all countries where the African slaves were taken, Cuban slave masters discouraged and sometimes prohibited the practice of their native religions 40 .
The slaves in Cuba were forced to follow the practices of the Catholic Church, which went against the beliefs of their native religions. Noticing the parallels between their native religion and Catholicism, and in order to please their slave-masters and fulfill their own religious needs, they created a secret religion. Santeria uses Catholic saints and personages as fronts for their own god and Orishas (spiritual emissaries). Thus, when a slave prayed to an Orisha, it looked as if they were praying to a saint. 3
After some slaves had been freed in Cuba, "the genre de color (free people of color) created Santeria on the basis of old Yoruba beliefs and practices. African religious traditions were reinvented and fused with elements of the Spanish culture, an example of assimilation -- the fusion, both culturally and socially, of groups with distinctive identities. In the 1880's the syncretism was further embellished by the addition of Kardecian Spiritist traditions brought from France." 57 . These had an influence on Santeria by incorporating the aspect of spirit enlightenment in its practices. This process of seeking light has been incorporated in worshiping the Orisha 41 . Santeria spread quickly in the New World among the slaves who originated from Western Africa. When slave trade was abolished, the practice of Santeria carried on.
The religion was practiced in secret, because people frowned on the bizarre traditions of the African natives. Although today the necessity for keeping the religion secret has mostly vanished, it is practiced today out of a strong sense of tradition. Santeria now lives on in small numbers in many countries around the world: the U.S. (New York, Florida), South American countries, and Europe. It is still mostly practiced in secret, but a few churches have emerged, giving the people a place to practice Santeria freely. One in particular, The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye , was formed in the early 1970's in Southern Florida. It unites many Cuban Americans in this region, and allows them to practice Santeria freely and publicly. But this did not occur without a struggle. As we shall see below , the church's practice of animal sacrifice was outlawed by the city of Hialeah only to be restored in a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
There are several other churches in the United States that practice Santeria. The African Theological Archministry, in South Carolina, founded by Walter Eugene King, now has approximately 10,000 members 4 . The Church of Seven African Powers, also in Florida, was founded in the 1980's, and focuses on the ebo (spells) and instructs members how to use them in their lives 5 .
7. Sacred or Revered Texts: Santeria has no written canon or formal texts of their religion. It is passed on orally to the initiates. This is because of the thick tradition of stories being told to convey the beliefs and ways of worship of the religion.
8. Cult or Sect: Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and "sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures, we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional links to related issues.
9. Size of Group: "It is estimated that the number of practitioners of Lukumi Orisha Worship in the United States surpasses five million." 6 .
II. Beliefs of the Group
Cosmology
Santerians have five different levels of power in the Yoruba cosmology: Olodumare , the Orisha, human beings, human ancestors, and the lowest group (which includes plants, animals, natural entities, and manufactured items) 7 . They believe in one supreme god, Olodumare (also known as Olorun ). He is the supreme source of ashe , the spiritual energy that makes up the universe, all life, and material objects. He coincides with Jesus Christ in the Catholic religion 8 .
Orisha
Olurun interacts with the world through emissaries called Orisha. Orisha rule over every force of nature and every aspect of human life. They can be approached through prayer, ritual offerings, and trance possession, and can be counted on to come to the aid of followers and guide them to a better life and spirituality. Each Orisha is attributed a special number and color, among other "favorite things," such as a food or day of the week. The member utilizes the colors by making beaded necklaces according to which Orisha they wish to worship. These distinguish the Orisha from one another when someone wants to make an offering to a certain one 9 .
Each Orisha is guardian over a certain aspect of human life. The significant Orisha are listed below, as there are literally thousands of Orisha 10 . The first three Orisha listed - Elegba, Ogun, and Oshosi - are guardians over battle affairs and are called the Guerreros or Warriors 11 .
Elegba (Eleggua) - the owner of the roads and doors in this world. He stands at the crossroads of humanity and the divine, the intermediary between Olorun and the Orisha and humans. When one wants to pray, they call on Elegba first, as he opens the doors of communication between this world and the Orisha 12 . Nothing can be done in either world without his permission. The Catholic saint he represents is Saint Anthony 13 . His colors are red and black and his number is 3 14 .
Ogun - the god of iron, war, and labor. He clears the roads with his machette after Elegba opens them. He embodies violence and creativity, yet also integrity. He is the only Orisha with the right to control life and death 15 . He depicts St. Peter 16 . His colors are green and black and his number is 7 17 .
Ochosi - the hunter, scout, and protector of the warriors. He is in a close relationship with Obatala, and is the translator for him. He is the provider of direction to human life -- he advises humans to follow the rules of the social institutions in which they find themselves. He represents St. Norbert. His colors are blue and yellow and his numbers are 3 and 7 18 .
Obatala - father of the Orisha and all humanity. He is the creator of the world and enforces justice in the world. He is the source of all that is pure, wise, peaceful, ethical, moral, and compassionate 19 . The saint he stands for is Our Lady of Mercy. His color is white, as he contains all colors, but is above them all; his number is 8 20 .
Chango - ruler of lightning and thunder. He is also a warrior, like the three above, and is well known for his many wives 21 . He demands involvement in life and living life to its fullest. He deals with the day to day challenges. He is attributed to St. Barbara. His colors are red and white and his numbers are 4 and 6 22 .
Oya - ruler of winds and whirlwinds. She rules over the dead and the gates of the cemeteries. She is a fierce warrior and was once the wife of Chango 23 . She represents Our Lady of the Presentation of Our Lord and St. Theresa 24 . Her colors are maroon and white, and her number is 9 25 .
Oshun - rules over the water of the world -- rivers, streams, and brooks. She embodies love, beauty, and fertility. She represents the blood flowing through and creating human life. She is also associated with culture and the fine arts. She is the youngest of the Orishas and the messenger to the house of Olorun. Her saint is Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's Patron Saint. Her colors are yellow and gold and her number is 5 26 .
Yemaya - rules over seas and lakes. She is the Mother of all and the root of all riches. She is deep and unknowable, like the waters which she rules. She is also the queen of witches and of secrets. She is considered the Orisha of mercy, while she never turns her back on her children. Her saint is Our Lady of Regla, the patron Saint of Havana's port. Her colors are blue and white and her number is 7 27 .
Babalu Aye - associated with disease (specifically smallpox). The sick pray to him in hope of recovery. He has simple tastes and does not expect much 28 . He is associated with St. Lazarus. His colors are white and light blue and his number is 17 29 .
Orishaoco - rules over crops and agriculture. Thus, he is in charge of all the tools of the gardeners. He settles fights among the Orisha, especially those between Chango and his wives. His saint is St.Ysidro. His color is lilac 30 .
Osain - the doctor of the Orishas. He controls all the medicinal and magical herbs. The drums used in ceremonies are consecrated to him. He represents St. John (when in the city) and St. Ambrose (when in the country). His colors are white, red, and yellow 31 .
The Ibeyi - children of Oshun and Chango. They are identical in many ways and are the so-called children of the Orishas. They are associated with the acquisition of material property 32 . Their saints are St. Cosme and St. Damian. They have the same colors as their parents -- yellow and gold (Oshun), red and white (Chango) 33 .
Orunmila - encompasses wisdom and divination; makes our destinies. He is the only Orisha who witnessed the creation of the universe, and is essentially next in line to Olodumare. He is the Orisha of the priests (Babalawos), whom he manifests himself to only intellectually 34 . They abide by the Table of Ifa, where the secrets of the universe and our lives are held. Oshun is knowledge while Orunmila is wisdom. These two must work together for "wisdom without knowledge is useless -- one who has knowledge without wisdom is a danger to themselves and others" 35 . He respresents St. Francis of Assisi. His colors are green and yellow and his number is 16 36 .
Communication with the Orisha is accomplished through several means, including prayer, ritual divination, and offerings (ebo - sacrifice) 37 . Although ebo sometimes refers to the practice of animal sacrifice, it encompasses a larger definition. Animal sacrifice is usually only used in important situations, such as death, sickness, or misfortune. Offerings can be made to the Orisha, with items such as candy, candles, and fruits, to name a few. The individual characteristics of each Orisha are important, as they give the people a way to distinguish how they contact the Orisha they wish to pray to. A person wears a beaded necklace with elaborate patterns of beads of the colors of the Orisha they wish to pray to. The numbers, colors, and also certain animals instruct the person on how to sacrifice to each Orisha. Because each Orisha represents a different aspect of life, a person can selectively pick an Orisha or several Orisha to pray to, depending on their needs. A participant can give up things, such as a Roman Catholic would for the season of Lent. They can also heed advice given by the Orisha in this manner.
Human Beings
After Olodumare created the earth, he created the eleven commandments, and handed them down to Obatala. These he created to ensure that the people would not succumb to evil, and that they would live prosperous lives in union with the Orisha. The eleven commandments are:
1. You will not steal
2. You will not kill, except in self-defense and for your sustenance
3. You will not eat human flesh
4. You will live in peace among yourselves
5. You will not covet your neighbor's properties
6. You will not curse my name
7. You will honor your father and mother
8. You will not ask more than I can give you and you will be content with your fate
9. You will neither fear death nor take your own life
10. You will teach my commandments to your children
11. You will respect and obey my laws 42
Traditions are strictly observed in Santeria. They have been preserved for almost 500 years. Prerequisites to a deep involvement in the religion include full knowledge of the rites, songs, and language. The participants must follow a strict regimen, and answer to Olorun and the Orisha for their actions. When initiated into the religion, the participant becomes a member of their Godparents house (or Ile), and a member of that extended family, as well. These people oversee that the participant is continuing the traditions and wishes of the Orisha.
The magic of the religion is based on knowledge of the mysteries of the Orisha and how to interact better with them. This correct interaction helps to better the lives of the participants and those around them. Santerians believe the world is magical, but in a natural sense, rather than the supernatural. "The most basic spell in Santeria will always require a plant, an herb, a stone, a flower, a fruit or an animal. The belief in the power of herbs is an intrinsic part of the religion." 52
Ebo contains many categories of sacrifice and offering to the Orisha. "There are offerings such as addimú which can include candles, fruits, candy, or any number of items oractions that may be appreciated by the deities or orishas in the religion. In divination, the orishas may ask for a favorite fruit or dish, or they may call for the person to heed advice given. At times they may ask that a person give up drinking or other practices that are unwise for that individual. They may request a person to wear certain jewelry, receive initiations or any number of other things. Or they may request an animal, usually a chicken or a dove, so the orisha will come to that person's aid. As a rule, animal sacrifice is called for only in major situations such as sickness or serious misfortune. Animals are also offered when a new priest is consecrated in service of her or his orisha during the birthing process of initiation. In every birth there is blood" 38 . Animal Sacrifices are essential to winning favor with the gods, and must be performed by a santero (priest) 39 .
Trance possession plays an integral part in the religious life. This occurs during a drumming party known as a bembe . "The purpose of a bembe is to honor the Orisha by playing specific drum rhythms, performing specific dance postures, and acting out in pantomime of the behavior of the Orisha." 53 An Orisha may be persuaded to enter the body of a priest, if enticed by the proper drum rhythms associated to that spirit. The songs, rhythms, and dances are calculated to entreat the specific Orisha. "The drum rhythms and the dance postures are not ends in themselves, but are utilized to attain a sacred state of consciousness, manifested as a trance state or spirit possession. Spirit possession is desirable because it opens the channels of ashe as the dancers merge with divine rhythms." 54 This bembe to Elegua demonstrates the typical songs and drum beats utilized for the trance possession.
Santeria and Voudoo
It must be stressed that Santeria and Voudoo are similar, but not the same thing. "Their similarities come from their origins in contiguous parts of West Africa, while the differences stem from their historical developments in the Americas." 55 Both recognize the existence of a higher, supreme being, and the fulfillment of destinies with the help of what Santeria calls Orisha. Both also believe in the trance possession and choosing a specific Orisha to call upon. But, with reference to the Orisha, Santerians believe Catholic saints and Orisha are interchangeable. There is no division between Santeria and Catholicism. Voudoo, on the other hand, worships the same spirits as Santeria, but there is a separateness to Catholicism and Voudoo, thus they are not worshiping the same gods.
| Group Profile | History | Beliefs | Controversy | Links | Bibliography |
III. Controversy - Animal Sacrifice
Sacrifice, as stated earlier, is a type of Ebo. "Animal sacrifice is one of the most controversial aspects of this religion. Sacrifice, the giving of natural and manufactured items to the Orisha or ancestors, is viewed by practitioners as essential for human well-being. Through sacrifice, it is believed, one restores the positive life processes and acquires general well-being. To fulfill the wants and needs of the Orisha and the ancestors, practitioners make sacrifices to them. In return, the Orisha and ancestors are expected to meet the needs of the practitioners. This is believed to be the mutual exchange of ashe." 43
"When the religion requires the sacrifice of an animal, it is offered to the Orisha or the ancestor with respect. It is killed quickly and with as little pain as possible." 44 The meat is usually eaten by the participants of the sacrifice. "Sometimes an animal is sacrificed as part of a ritual cleansing. It is believed that such animals absorb the problems and negative vibrations of the person being cleansed. In such cases, the animal carcass is disposed of without being eaten." 45
It was on this aspect of the sacrifice that the >The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye received much criticism from the city of Hialeah. The city was concerned that by disgarding these carcasses from the ritual sacrifices, the church was creating a public health hazard. "In the early 1990's, the city of >Hialeah, Florida , passed a series of ordinances that made it illegal to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate and animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption." 46 From the onset, it appeared that the ordinance was targeted at the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye for their practice of killing the animals for sacrifice. Other forms of killing animals, such as an owner tiring of caring for the animal, were permissible.
Ernesto Pichardo, founder of the church, decided to fight the ordinances, claiming it was a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. He claimed that animal sacrifice was an integral part of the religion. 47 The church took the city to the Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of the church. The brief of the case of The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah explains the proceedings in great detail. A summary of this brief can be found on The Religious Freedom Page . One justice, Justice Anthony Kennedy, was quoted, saying, "Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, religious belief need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection." 48
Another concern brought up about the method of sacrifice of Santeria, is presented by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals . "They argue that Santeria is less humane than methods used in licensed slaughterhouses. They note that animals die slowly and painfully and that they are often kept in filthy conditions before ceremonies." 49 "Protection of public health and prevention of cruelty to animals could have been addressed with less sweeping ordinances. General standards for the disposal of organic garbage and for the humane slaughter of animals might have been imposed, but they were not." 51 Practitioners claim that the methods they use during sacrifice are no more cruel than the legal types of slaughter. They die quickly and painlessly and are generally eaten afterwards, like any animal killed for food.
"Despite the oddity of animal sacrifice to most Americans, mainstream religious groups have weighed in to support the Lukumi Babalu Aye church. Jewish organizations feared that Hialeah's law might have ruled out kosher slaughtering. Christian groups like the Presbyterian Church and National Association of Evangelicals want to prevent the Supreme Court from further restricting religious rights." 50
| Group Profile | History | Beliefs | Controversy | Links | Bibliography |
I. Group Profile
1. Name: Santeria (also known as La Regla Lucumi and the Rule of Osha)
2. Founders: The Yoruba Slaves of the Carribean (from Western Africa -- current day Nigeria and Benin)
3. Date of Birth: N/A
4. Birth Place: Western Africa or Cuba
5. Year Founded: 1517 1
6. History:
Santeria orginated in Cuba as a combination of the Western African Yoruba Religion and Iberian Catholicism 2 . "It is one of the many syncretic religions created by Africans brought to the Caribbean islands as slaves." 56 . It was developed out of necessity for the African slaves in order to continue practicing their native religion in the New World. As in all countries where the African slaves were taken, Cuban slave masters discouraged and sometimes prohibited the practice of their native religions 40 .
The slaves in Cuba were forced to follow the practices of the Catholic Church, which went against the beliefs of their native religions. Noticing the parallels between their native religion and Catholicism, and in order to please their slave-masters and fulfill their own religious needs, they created a secret religion. Santeria uses Catholic saints and personages as fronts for their own god and Orishas (spiritual emissaries). Thus, when a slave prayed to an Orisha, it looked as if they were praying to a saint. 3
After some slaves had been freed in Cuba, "the genre de color (free people of color) created Santeria on the basis of old Yoruba beliefs and practices. African religious traditions were reinvented and fused with elements of the Spanish culture, an example of assimilation -- the fusion, both culturally and socially, of groups with distinctive identities. In the 1880's the syncretism was further embellished by the addition of Kardecian Spiritist traditions brought from France." 57 . These had an influence on Santeria by incorporating the aspect of spirit enlightenment in its practices. This process of seeking light has been incorporated in worshiping the Orisha 41 . Santeria spread quickly in the New World among the slaves who originated from Western Africa. When slave trade was abolished, the practice of Santeria carried on.
The religion was practiced in secret, because people frowned on the bizarre traditions of the African natives. Although today the necessity for keeping the religion secret has mostly vanished, it is practiced today out of a strong sense of tradition. Santeria now lives on in small numbers in many countries around the world: the U.S. (New York, Florida), South American countries, and Europe. It is still mostly practiced in secret, but a few churches have emerged, giving the people a place to practice Santeria freely. One in particular, The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye , was formed in the early 1970's in Southern Florida. It unites many Cuban Americans in this region, and allows them to practice Santeria freely and publicly. But this did not occur without a struggle. As we shall see below , the church's practice of animal sacrifice was outlawed by the city of Hialeah only to be restored in a landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court.
There are several other churches in the United States that practice Santeria. The African Theological Archministry, in South Carolina, founded by Walter Eugene King, now has approximately 10,000 members 4 . The Church of Seven African Powers, also in Florida, was founded in the 1980's, and focuses on the ebo (spells) and instructs members how to use them in their lives 5 .
7. Sacred or Revered Texts: Santeria has no written canon or formal texts of their religion. It is passed on orally to the initiates. This is because of the thick tradition of stories being told to convey the beliefs and ways of worship of the religion.
8. Cult or Sect: Negative sentiments are typically implied when the concepts "cult" and "sect" are employed in popular discourse. Since the Religious Movements Homepage seeks to promote religious tolerance and appreciation of the positive benefits of pluralism and religious diversity in human cultures, we encourage the use of alternative concepts that do not carry implicit negative stereotypes. For a more detailed discussion of both scholarly and popular usage of the concepts "cult" and "sect," please visit our Conceptualizing "Cult" and "Sect" page, where you will find additional links to related issues.
9. Size of Group: "It is estimated that the number of practitioners of Lukumi Orisha Worship in the United States surpasses five million." 6 .
II. Beliefs of the Group
Cosmology
Santerians have five different levels of power in the Yoruba cosmology: Olodumare , the Orisha, human beings, human ancestors, and the lowest group (which includes plants, animals, natural entities, and manufactured items) 7 . They believe in one supreme god, Olodumare (also known as Olorun ). He is the supreme source of ashe , the spiritual energy that makes up the universe, all life, and material objects. He coincides with Jesus Christ in the Catholic religion 8 .
Orisha
Olurun interacts with the world through emissaries called Orisha. Orisha rule over every force of nature and every aspect of human life. They can be approached through prayer, ritual offerings, and trance possession, and can be counted on to come to the aid of followers and guide them to a better life and spirituality. Each Orisha is attributed a special number and color, among other "favorite things," such as a food or day of the week. The member utilizes the colors by making beaded necklaces according to which Orisha they wish to worship. These distinguish the Orisha from one another when someone wants to make an offering to a certain one 9 .
Each Orisha is guardian over a certain aspect of human life. The significant Orisha are listed below, as there are literally thousands of Orisha 10 . The first three Orisha listed - Elegba, Ogun, and Oshosi - are guardians over battle affairs and are called the Guerreros or Warriors 11 .
Elegba (Eleggua) - the owner of the roads and doors in this world. He stands at the crossroads of humanity and the divine, the intermediary between Olorun and the Orisha and humans. When one wants to pray, they call on Elegba first, as he opens the doors of communication between this world and the Orisha 12 . Nothing can be done in either world without his permission. The Catholic saint he represents is Saint Anthony 13 . His colors are red and black and his number is 3 14 .
Ogun - the god of iron, war, and labor. He clears the roads with his machette after Elegba opens them. He embodies violence and creativity, yet also integrity. He is the only Orisha with the right to control life and death 15 . He depicts St. Peter 16 . His colors are green and black and his number is 7 17 .
Ochosi - the hunter, scout, and protector of the warriors. He is in a close relationship with Obatala, and is the translator for him. He is the provider of direction to human life -- he advises humans to follow the rules of the social institutions in which they find themselves. He represents St. Norbert. His colors are blue and yellow and his numbers are 3 and 7 18 .
Obatala - father of the Orisha and all humanity. He is the creator of the world and enforces justice in the world. He is the source of all that is pure, wise, peaceful, ethical, moral, and compassionate 19 . The saint he stands for is Our Lady of Mercy. His color is white, as he contains all colors, but is above them all; his number is 8 20 .
Chango - ruler of lightning and thunder. He is also a warrior, like the three above, and is well known for his many wives 21 . He demands involvement in life and living life to its fullest. He deals with the day to day challenges. He is attributed to St. Barbara. His colors are red and white and his numbers are 4 and 6 22 .
Oya - ruler of winds and whirlwinds. She rules over the dead and the gates of the cemeteries. She is a fierce warrior and was once the wife of Chango 23 . She represents Our Lady of the Presentation of Our Lord and St. Theresa 24 . Her colors are maroon and white, and her number is 9 25 .
Oshun - rules over the water of the world -- rivers, streams, and brooks. She embodies love, beauty, and fertility. She represents the blood flowing through and creating human life. She is also associated with culture and the fine arts. She is the youngest of the Orishas and the messenger to the house of Olorun. Her saint is Our Lady of Charity, Cuba's Patron Saint. Her colors are yellow and gold and her number is 5 26 .
Yemaya - rules over seas and lakes. She is the Mother of all and the root of all riches. She is deep and unknowable, like the waters which she rules. She is also the queen of witches and of secrets. She is considered the Orisha of mercy, while she never turns her back on her children. Her saint is Our Lady of Regla, the patron Saint of Havana's port. Her colors are blue and white and her number is 7 27 .
Babalu Aye - associated with disease (specifically smallpox). The sick pray to him in hope of recovery. He has simple tastes and does not expect much 28 . He is associated with St. Lazarus. His colors are white and light blue and his number is 17 29 .
Orishaoco - rules over crops and agriculture. Thus, he is in charge of all the tools of the gardeners. He settles fights among the Orisha, especially those between Chango and his wives. His saint is St.Ysidro. His color is lilac 30 .
Osain - the doctor of the Orishas. He controls all the medicinal and magical herbs. The drums used in ceremonies are consecrated to him. He represents St. John (when in the city) and St. Ambrose (when in the country). His colors are white, red, and yellow 31 .
The Ibeyi - children of Oshun and Chango. They are identical in many ways and are the so-called children of the Orishas. They are associated with the acquisition of material property 32 . Their saints are St. Cosme and St. Damian. They have the same colors as their parents -- yellow and gold (Oshun), red and white (Chango) 33 .
Orunmila - encompasses wisdom and divination; makes our destinies. He is the only Orisha who witnessed the creation of the universe, and is essentially next in line to Olodumare. He is the Orisha of the priests (Babalawos), whom he manifests himself to only intellectually 34 . They abide by the Table of Ifa, where the secrets of the universe and our lives are held. Oshun is knowledge while Orunmila is wisdom. These two must work together for "wisdom without knowledge is useless -- one who has knowledge without wisdom is a danger to themselves and others" 35 . He respresents St. Francis of Assisi. His colors are green and yellow and his number is 16 36 .
Communication with the Orisha is accomplished through several means, including prayer, ritual divination, and offerings (ebo - sacrifice) 37 . Although ebo sometimes refers to the practice of animal sacrifice, it encompasses a larger definition. Animal sacrifice is usually only used in important situations, such as death, sickness, or misfortune. Offerings can be made to the Orisha, with items such as candy, candles, and fruits, to name a few. The individual characteristics of each Orisha are important, as they give the people a way to distinguish how they contact the Orisha they wish to pray to. A person wears a beaded necklace with elaborate patterns of beads of the colors of the Orisha they wish to pray to. The numbers, colors, and also certain animals instruct the person on how to sacrifice to each Orisha. Because each Orisha represents a different aspect of life, a person can selectively pick an Orisha or several Orisha to pray to, depending on their needs. A participant can give up things, such as a Roman Catholic would for the season of Lent. They can also heed advice given by the Orisha in this manner.
Human Beings
After Olodumare created the earth, he created the eleven commandments, and handed them down to Obatala. These he created to ensure that the people would not succumb to evil, and that they would live prosperous lives in union with the Orisha. The eleven commandments are:
1. You will not steal
2. You will not kill, except in self-defense and for your sustenance
3. You will not eat human flesh
4. You will live in peace among yourselves
5. You will not covet your neighbor's properties
6. You will not curse my name
7. You will honor your father and mother
8. You will not ask more than I can give you and you will be content with your fate
9. You will neither fear death nor take your own life
10. You will teach my commandments to your children
11. You will respect and obey my laws 42
Traditions are strictly observed in Santeria. They have been preserved for almost 500 years. Prerequisites to a deep involvement in the religion include full knowledge of the rites, songs, and language. The participants must follow a strict regimen, and answer to Olorun and the Orisha for their actions. When initiated into the religion, the participant becomes a member of their Godparents house (or Ile), and a member of that extended family, as well. These people oversee that the participant is continuing the traditions and wishes of the Orisha.
The magic of the religion is based on knowledge of the mysteries of the Orisha and how to interact better with them. This correct interaction helps to better the lives of the participants and those around them. Santerians believe the world is magical, but in a natural sense, rather than the supernatural. "The most basic spell in Santeria will always require a plant, an herb, a stone, a flower, a fruit or an animal. The belief in the power of herbs is an intrinsic part of the religion." 52
Ebo contains many categories of sacrifice and offering to the Orisha. "There are offerings such as addimú which can include candles, fruits, candy, or any number of items oractions that may be appreciated by the deities or orishas in the religion. In divination, the orishas may ask for a favorite fruit or dish, or they may call for the person to heed advice given. At times they may ask that a person give up drinking or other practices that are unwise for that individual. They may request a person to wear certain jewelry, receive initiations or any number of other things. Or they may request an animal, usually a chicken or a dove, so the orisha will come to that person's aid. As a rule, animal sacrifice is called for only in major situations such as sickness or serious misfortune. Animals are also offered when a new priest is consecrated in service of her or his orisha during the birthing process of initiation. In every birth there is blood" 38 . Animal Sacrifices are essential to winning favor with the gods, and must be performed by a santero (priest) 39 .
Trance possession plays an integral part in the religious life. This occurs during a drumming party known as a bembe . "The purpose of a bembe is to honor the Orisha by playing specific drum rhythms, performing specific dance postures, and acting out in pantomime of the behavior of the Orisha." 53 An Orisha may be persuaded to enter the body of a priest, if enticed by the proper drum rhythms associated to that spirit. The songs, rhythms, and dances are calculated to entreat the specific Orisha. "The drum rhythms and the dance postures are not ends in themselves, but are utilized to attain a sacred state of consciousness, manifested as a trance state or spirit possession. Spirit possession is desirable because it opens the channels of ashe as the dancers merge with divine rhythms." 54 This bembe to Elegua demonstrates the typical songs and drum beats utilized for the trance possession.
Santeria and Voudoo
It must be stressed that Santeria and Voudoo are similar, but not the same thing. "Their similarities come from their origins in contiguous parts of West Africa, while the differences stem from their historical developments in the Americas." 55 Both recognize the existence of a higher, supreme being, and the fulfillment of destinies with the help of what Santeria calls Orisha. Both also believe in the trance possession and choosing a specific Orisha to call upon. But, with reference to the Orisha, Santerians believe Catholic saints and Orisha are interchangeable. There is no division between Santeria and Catholicism. Voudoo, on the other hand, worships the same spirits as Santeria, but there is a separateness to Catholicism and Voudoo, thus they are not worshiping the same gods.
| Group Profile | History | Beliefs | Controversy | Links | Bibliography |
III. Controversy - Animal Sacrifice
Sacrifice, as stated earlier, is a type of Ebo. "Animal sacrifice is one of the most controversial aspects of this religion. Sacrifice, the giving of natural and manufactured items to the Orisha or ancestors, is viewed by practitioners as essential for human well-being. Through sacrifice, it is believed, one restores the positive life processes and acquires general well-being. To fulfill the wants and needs of the Orisha and the ancestors, practitioners make sacrifices to them. In return, the Orisha and ancestors are expected to meet the needs of the practitioners. This is believed to be the mutual exchange of ashe." 43
"When the religion requires the sacrifice of an animal, it is offered to the Orisha or the ancestor with respect. It is killed quickly and with as little pain as possible." 44 The meat is usually eaten by the participants of the sacrifice. "Sometimes an animal is sacrificed as part of a ritual cleansing. It is believed that such animals absorb the problems and negative vibrations of the person being cleansed. In such cases, the animal carcass is disposed of without being eaten." 45
It was on this aspect of the sacrifice that the >The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye received much criticism from the city of Hialeah. The city was concerned that by disgarding these carcasses from the ritual sacrifices, the church was creating a public health hazard. "In the early 1990's, the city of >Hialeah, Florida , passed a series of ordinances that made it illegal to unnecessarily kill, torment, torture, or mutilate and animal in a public or private ritual or ceremony not for the primary purpose of food consumption." 46 From the onset, it appeared that the ordinance was targeted at the Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye for their practice of killing the animals for sacrifice. Other forms of killing animals, such as an owner tiring of caring for the animal, were permissible.
Ernesto Pichardo, founder of the church, decided to fight the ordinances, claiming it was a violation of their First Amendment right to freedom of religion. He claimed that animal sacrifice was an integral part of the religion. 47 The church took the city to the Supreme Court, who ruled in favor of the church. The brief of the case of The Church of the Lukumi Babalu Aye, Inc. v. City of Hialeah explains the proceedings in great detail. A summary of this brief can be found on The Religious Freedom Page . One justice, Justice Anthony Kennedy, was quoted, saying, "Although the practice of animal sacrifice may seem abhorrent to some, religious belief need not be acceptable, logical, consistent, or comprehensible to others in order to merit First Amendment protection." 48
Another concern brought up about the method of sacrifice of Santeria, is presented by the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals . "They argue that Santeria is less humane than methods used in licensed slaughterhouses. They note that animals die slowly and painfully and that they are often kept in filthy conditions before ceremonies." 49 "Protection of public health and prevention of cruelty to animals could have been addressed with less sweeping ordinances. General standards for the disposal of organic garbage and for the humane slaughter of animals might have been imposed, but they were not." 51 Practitioners claim that the methods they use during sacrifice are no more cruel than the legal types of slaughter. They die quickly and painlessly and are generally eaten afterwards, like any animal killed for food.
"Despite the oddity of animal sacrifice to most Americans, mainstream religious groups have weighed in to support the Lukumi Babalu Aye church. Jewish organizations feared that Hialeah's law might have ruled out kosher slaughtering. Christian groups like the Presbyterian Church and National Association of Evangelicals want to prevent the Supreme Court from further restricting religious rights." 50
Santería
Santería also known as "La Religión" or "The Way of the Saints," is an Afro-Caribbean religion derived from traditional beliefs of the Yoruba people of Nigeria. The Santería/Yoruba religion is comprised of a hierarchical structure according to priesthood level and authority. Orisha "ile" or temples are usually governed by Orisha Priests known as Babalorishas "father of orisha" or Iyalorishas "mothers of orisha", and serve as the junior Ile or second in the hierarchical religious structure. The Babalorishas and Iyalorishas are referred to as "Santeros(as)" and if they function as diviners of the Orishas they can be considered Oriates. The highest level of achievement for males is to become a priest of IFA (eee-fah). IFA Priests receive Orunmila who is the Orisha of Prophecy, Wisdom and all Knowledge. Ifa Priests are known by their titles such as "Babalawo" or "Father Who Knows the Secrets". Ifa Ile or Temples of Ifa serve as the senior to all Orisha Ile in the Traditional Orisha-Ifa / Santeria Community. The Sacred Oracle of Ika-Fun or Ika Ofun serves as confirmation.
History
Santería is one of the many syncretic religions created in the New World. It is based on the West African religions brought to the new world by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. These slaves carried with them their own religious traditions, including a tradition of possession trance for communicating with the ancestors and deities, the use of animal sacrifice and the practice of sacred drumming and dance. Those slaves who landed in the Caribbean, central and south America were nominally converted to Catholicism. However, they were able to preserve some of their traditions by fusing together various Dahomean, baKongo (Congo) and Lukumi beliefs and rituals and by syncretizing these with elements from the surrounding Catholic culture. In Cuba this religious tradition has evolved into what we now recognize as Santería. Today hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in this ancient religion.[citation needed] Some are fully committed priests and priestesses, others are "godchildren" or members of a particular house-tradition, many are clients seeking help with their everyday problems. Many are of Hispanic and Caribbean descent but as the religion moves out of the inner cities an into the suburbs a growing number are of African-American and European-American heritage. As the Ifá religion of Africa was recreated in the Americas it was transformed. Today as it moves into mainstream America we can expect further transformation.
"The colonial period from the standpoint of African slaves may be defined as a time of perseverance. Their world quickly changed. Tribal kings and families, politicians, business and community leaders all were enslaved in a foreign region of the world. Religious leaders, their descendants, and the faithful, were now slaves. Colonial laws criminalized their religion. They were forced to become baptized and worship a god their ancestors had not known who was surrounded by a pantheon of saints. The early concerns during this period seem to indicate a need for individual survival under harsh plantation conditions. A sense of hope was sustaining the internal essence of what today is called Santería, a misnomer for the indigenous religion of the Lukumi people of Nigeria.
In the heart of their homeland, they had a complex political and social order. They were a sedentary hoe farming cultural group with specialized labor. Their religion based on the worship of nature was renamed and documented by their masters. Santería, a pejorative term that characterizes deviant Catholic forms of worshiping saints has become a common name for the religion. The term santero(a) is used to describe a priest or priestess replacing the traditional term Olorisha as an extension of the deities. The orishas became known as the saints in image of the Catholic pantheon." (Ernesto Pichardo, CLBA, Santeria in Contemporary Cuba: The individual life and condition of the priesthood)
As mentioned, in order to preserve their authentic ancestral and traditional beliefs, the Lukumi people had no choice but to disguise their orishas as Catholic saints. When the Roman Catholic slave owners observed Africans celebrating a Saint's Day, they were generally unaware that the slaves were actually worshiping their sacred orishas.[2] In Cuba today, the terms "saint" and "orisha" are sometimes used interchangeably. The term Santería (also known as "the Way of the Saints"), was originally a derisive term applied by the Spanish to mock followers' seeming overdevotion to the saints and their perceived neglect of God. It was later applied to the religion by others. This "veil" characterization of the relationship between Catholic saints and Cuban orisha, however, is somewhat undermined by the fact that the vast majority of santeros in Cuba today also consider themselves to be Catholics, have been baptized, and often require initiates to be baptized. Many hold separate rituals to honor the saints and orisha respectively, even though the disguise of Catholicism is no longer needed.
The traditional Lukumi religion and its Santería counterpart can be found in many parts of the world today, including but not limited to: the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain, Canada, Venezuela, Panama and other areas with large Latin American populations. A very similar religion called Candomblé is practiced in Brazil, which is home to a rich array of other Afro-American Religions. This is now being referred to as "parallel religiosity" (Perez y Mena, SSSR paper 2005) since some believers worship the African variant that has no devil fetish and no baptism or marriage and at the same time they belong to either Catholic Churches or Mainline Protestant Churches, where there is a devil fetish. Lukumi religiosity works toward a balance here on earth (androcentric) while the European religions work toward the hereafter. Some in Cuban Santería, Haitian Vodun or Puerto Rican Spiritualism (Afro-Latin Religions) do not view a difference between the saints and the orishas, the ancestor deities of the Lukumi people's Ifa religion.
There are now individuals who mix the Lukumí practices with traditional practices as they survived in Africa after the deleterious effects of colonialism. Although most of these mixes have not been at the hands of experienced or knowledgeable practitioners of either system, they have gained a certain popularity.
[edit] Deities
Olóffi (Father/Creator) / Olórum (Son) / Olod-dumare (Spirit)
* Elegguá
* Obbatalá
* Babalú Ayé
* Aggayú
* Ochosi
* Oduduwa
* Oggun
* Olokun
* Yemaya
* Changó
* Orúla
* Osaín
* Ochún
* Oyá
* Xenaoth
* Yewá
Each orisha has its specific nickname, symbols, offerings, music, archetype, etc..
[edit] Beliefs and rituals
The sacred belief system of the Lukumi prevent non-adherents from participating in ceremonial rites. Nearly all Lukumi ceremonies are reserved for priests and the newly initiated.
Santería was traditionally transmitted orally, although in the last decade a number of books have been published on the tradition. Practices include animal offering, dance, sung invocations to the orishas, and sprinkling elemental mercury around a home.[1] Of these the most controversial is animal sacrifice. Followers of Santería point out that the killings are conducted in a safe and humane manner. The priests charged with doing the sacrifice are trained in humane ways to kill the animals. Furthermore, the animal is cooked and eaten afterwards by the community. In fact, chickens, a staple food of many African-descended and Creole cultures, are the most common sacrifice; the chicken's blood is offered to the orisha, while the meat is consumed by all. The practice of animal sacrifice was historically common in many religions, most notably Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. In Judaism, for example, Mosaic Law requires altar sacrifices of three kinds: sin offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings.
Trees are also offered to the orisha. Drum music and dancing are a form of prayer and will sometimes induce a trance state in an initiated priest, who become possessed and will channel the orisha, giving the community and individuals information, perform healing etc. (see Yoruba music). One's ancestors (egun) are held in high esteem in Lukumí. All ceremonies and rituals in the Lukumi religion begin with paying homage to one’s ancestors.
The Yoruba believe in a creator who is called Oloffi (God). There is no specific belief in a devil since the Yoruba belief system is not a dualistic philosophy - good versus evil, God versus a devil. Instead the universe is seen as containing forces of expansion and forces of contraction. These forces interact in complex ways to create the universe. All things are seen to have positive aspects, or Iré, and negative aspects, or Ibi. Nothing is seen as completely good or completely evil but all things are seen as having different proportions of both. Similarly no action is seen as universally as wrong or right but rather can only be judged with the context and circumstances in which it takes place. In this context the individual is seen as made up of both positive/constructive impulses as well as negative/destructive impulses. Similarly, an individual's talents and facilities are seen as having a potential of both positive and negative expression. Therefore, there is a great deal of attention and focus on each individual striving to develop good character and doing good works. Good character, or Iwapele, is defined as doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of retribution or as a way of seeking rewards, but simply because it is right. All humans are seen as having the potential of being good and blessed people (no original sin), although they have a potential to make evil choices, and the universe is seen as benevolent.
[edit] Persecution
African spirituality was actively suppressed and outlawed during slavery. On the African continent, native traditions were viewed as inherently backward and primitive by the European colonizing forces who set out to actively 'civilize' the natives through a number of mechanisms including torture and execution[citation needed]; kidnapping the young and putting them in boarding schools; and bribery or other material incentive. Intimately implicated and complicit in this process were Christian missionaries, who charged themselves with saving the souls of the native peoples by converting them from their millennia-old traditional spiritual practices to one of several forms of Christianity.
Within the European and North American Christian culture, African spirituality has been historically demonized, sensationalized, and distorted. Hollywood’s portrayal of African traditions has been mired with gross distortions and exaggerations. The historic repression of African spirituality in the context of slavery has as well as racism, cultural imperialism and supremacy have also played significant roles. The notion that a legitimate, sophisticated spiritual philosophy could have originated in Africa flew in the face of widespread distortions in Europe and North America of that time about the backwardness of African culture.
[edit] Controversies and criticisms
* Some animal rights activists take issue with the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice, claiming that it is cruel. In 1993, this issue was taken to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. The Supreme Court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Yoruba were unconstitutional;[2] the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice has seen no significant legal challenges since then.
* There have been a few highly publicized cases where injuries allegedly occurred during Lukumi rituals. One such case reported by The New York Times took place on January 18, 1998 in Sayville, New York, where 17-year-old Charity Miranda was suffocated to death with a plastic bag at her home by her mother Vivian, 39, and sister Serena, 20, after attempting an exorcism to free her of demons. Police found the women chanting and praying over the prostrate body. Not long before, the women had embraced Lukumi. The mother in question, Vivian Miranda, was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and is currently confined in a New York State psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.[3]
* There have been some wildly inaccurate movies about the religion as well, such as the 1987 movie, The Believers, and the 1997 Spanish-Mexican-American movie Perdita Durango, which depicts a couple who follow fantasized Santeria beliefs and practice human sacrifice and the consumption of aborted fetuses.
[edit]
History
Santería is one of the many syncretic religions created in the New World. It is based on the West African religions brought to the new world by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations. These slaves carried with them their own religious traditions, including a tradition of possession trance for communicating with the ancestors and deities, the use of animal sacrifice and the practice of sacred drumming and dance. Those slaves who landed in the Caribbean, central and south America were nominally converted to Catholicism. However, they were able to preserve some of their traditions by fusing together various Dahomean, baKongo (Congo) and Lukumi beliefs and rituals and by syncretizing these with elements from the surrounding Catholic culture. In Cuba this religious tradition has evolved into what we now recognize as Santería. Today hundreds of thousands of Americans participate in this ancient religion.[citation needed] Some are fully committed priests and priestesses, others are "godchildren" or members of a particular house-tradition, many are clients seeking help with their everyday problems. Many are of Hispanic and Caribbean descent but as the religion moves out of the inner cities an into the suburbs a growing number are of African-American and European-American heritage. As the Ifá religion of Africa was recreated in the Americas it was transformed. Today as it moves into mainstream America we can expect further transformation.
"The colonial period from the standpoint of African slaves may be defined as a time of perseverance. Their world quickly changed. Tribal kings and families, politicians, business and community leaders all were enslaved in a foreign region of the world. Religious leaders, their descendants, and the faithful, were now slaves. Colonial laws criminalized their religion. They were forced to become baptized and worship a god their ancestors had not known who was surrounded by a pantheon of saints. The early concerns during this period seem to indicate a need for individual survival under harsh plantation conditions. A sense of hope was sustaining the internal essence of what today is called Santería, a misnomer for the indigenous religion of the Lukumi people of Nigeria.
In the heart of their homeland, they had a complex political and social order. They were a sedentary hoe farming cultural group with specialized labor. Their religion based on the worship of nature was renamed and documented by their masters. Santería, a pejorative term that characterizes deviant Catholic forms of worshiping saints has become a common name for the religion. The term santero(a) is used to describe a priest or priestess replacing the traditional term Olorisha as an extension of the deities. The orishas became known as the saints in image of the Catholic pantheon." (Ernesto Pichardo, CLBA, Santeria in Contemporary Cuba: The individual life and condition of the priesthood)
As mentioned, in order to preserve their authentic ancestral and traditional beliefs, the Lukumi people had no choice but to disguise their orishas as Catholic saints. When the Roman Catholic slave owners observed Africans celebrating a Saint's Day, they were generally unaware that the slaves were actually worshiping their sacred orishas.[2] In Cuba today, the terms "saint" and "orisha" are sometimes used interchangeably. The term Santería (also known as "the Way of the Saints"), was originally a derisive term applied by the Spanish to mock followers' seeming overdevotion to the saints and their perceived neglect of God. It was later applied to the religion by others. This "veil" characterization of the relationship between Catholic saints and Cuban orisha, however, is somewhat undermined by the fact that the vast majority of santeros in Cuba today also consider themselves to be Catholics, have been baptized, and often require initiates to be baptized. Many hold separate rituals to honor the saints and orisha respectively, even though the disguise of Catholicism is no longer needed.
The traditional Lukumi religion and its Santería counterpart can be found in many parts of the world today, including but not limited to: the United States, Cuba, the Caribbean, Mexico, Puerto Rico, Argentina, Colombia, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Great Britain, Canada, Venezuela, Panama and other areas with large Latin American populations. A very similar religion called Candomblé is practiced in Brazil, which is home to a rich array of other Afro-American Religions. This is now being referred to as "parallel religiosity" (Perez y Mena, SSSR paper 2005) since some believers worship the African variant that has no devil fetish and no baptism or marriage and at the same time they belong to either Catholic Churches or Mainline Protestant Churches, where there is a devil fetish. Lukumi religiosity works toward a balance here on earth (androcentric) while the European religions work toward the hereafter. Some in Cuban Santería, Haitian Vodun or Puerto Rican Spiritualism (Afro-Latin Religions) do not view a difference between the saints and the orishas, the ancestor deities of the Lukumi people's Ifa religion.
There are now individuals who mix the Lukumí practices with traditional practices as they survived in Africa after the deleterious effects of colonialism. Although most of these mixes have not been at the hands of experienced or knowledgeable practitioners of either system, they have gained a certain popularity.
[edit] Deities
Olóffi (Father/Creator) / Olórum (Son) / Olod-dumare (Spirit)
* Elegguá
* Obbatalá
* Babalú Ayé
* Aggayú
* Ochosi
* Oduduwa
* Oggun
* Olokun
* Yemaya
* Changó
* Orúla
* Osaín
* Ochún
* Oyá
* Xenaoth
* Yewá
Each orisha has its specific nickname, symbols, offerings, music, archetype, etc..
[edit] Beliefs and rituals
The sacred belief system of the Lukumi prevent non-adherents from participating in ceremonial rites. Nearly all Lukumi ceremonies are reserved for priests and the newly initiated.
Santería was traditionally transmitted orally, although in the last decade a number of books have been published on the tradition. Practices include animal offering, dance, sung invocations to the orishas, and sprinkling elemental mercury around a home.[1] Of these the most controversial is animal sacrifice. Followers of Santería point out that the killings are conducted in a safe and humane manner. The priests charged with doing the sacrifice are trained in humane ways to kill the animals. Furthermore, the animal is cooked and eaten afterwards by the community. In fact, chickens, a staple food of many African-descended and Creole cultures, are the most common sacrifice; the chicken's blood is offered to the orisha, while the meat is consumed by all. The practice of animal sacrifice was historically common in many religions, most notably Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and Islam. In Judaism, for example, Mosaic Law requires altar sacrifices of three kinds: sin offerings, burnt offerings, and peace offerings.
Trees are also offered to the orisha. Drum music and dancing are a form of prayer and will sometimes induce a trance state in an initiated priest, who become possessed and will channel the orisha, giving the community and individuals information, perform healing etc. (see Yoruba music). One's ancestors (egun) are held in high esteem in Lukumí. All ceremonies and rituals in the Lukumi religion begin with paying homage to one’s ancestors.
The Yoruba believe in a creator who is called Oloffi (God). There is no specific belief in a devil since the Yoruba belief system is not a dualistic philosophy - good versus evil, God versus a devil. Instead the universe is seen as containing forces of expansion and forces of contraction. These forces interact in complex ways to create the universe. All things are seen to have positive aspects, or Iré, and negative aspects, or Ibi. Nothing is seen as completely good or completely evil but all things are seen as having different proportions of both. Similarly no action is seen as universally as wrong or right but rather can only be judged with the context and circumstances in which it takes place. In this context the individual is seen as made up of both positive/constructive impulses as well as negative/destructive impulses. Similarly, an individual's talents and facilities are seen as having a potential of both positive and negative expression. Therefore, there is a great deal of attention and focus on each individual striving to develop good character and doing good works. Good character, or Iwapele, is defined as doing the right thing because it is the right thing to do, not out of fear of retribution or as a way of seeking rewards, but simply because it is right. All humans are seen as having the potential of being good and blessed people (no original sin), although they have a potential to make evil choices, and the universe is seen as benevolent.
[edit] Persecution
African spirituality was actively suppressed and outlawed during slavery. On the African continent, native traditions were viewed as inherently backward and primitive by the European colonizing forces who set out to actively 'civilize' the natives through a number of mechanisms including torture and execution[citation needed]; kidnapping the young and putting them in boarding schools; and bribery or other material incentive. Intimately implicated and complicit in this process were Christian missionaries, who charged themselves with saving the souls of the native peoples by converting them from their millennia-old traditional spiritual practices to one of several forms of Christianity.
Within the European and North American Christian culture, African spirituality has been historically demonized, sensationalized, and distorted. Hollywood’s portrayal of African traditions has been mired with gross distortions and exaggerations. The historic repression of African spirituality in the context of slavery has as well as racism, cultural imperialism and supremacy have also played significant roles. The notion that a legitimate, sophisticated spiritual philosophy could have originated in Africa flew in the face of widespread distortions in Europe and North America of that time about the backwardness of African culture.
[edit] Controversies and criticisms
* Some animal rights activists take issue with the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice, claiming that it is cruel. In 1993, this issue was taken to the United States Supreme Court in the case of Church of Lukumi Babalu Aye v. City of Hialeah. The Supreme Court ruled that animal cruelty laws targeted specifically at Yoruba were unconstitutional;[2] the Yoruba practice of animal sacrifice has seen no significant legal challenges since then.
* There have been a few highly publicized cases where injuries allegedly occurred during Lukumi rituals. One such case reported by The New York Times took place on January 18, 1998 in Sayville, New York, where 17-year-old Charity Miranda was suffocated to death with a plastic bag at her home by her mother Vivian, 39, and sister Serena, 20, after attempting an exorcism to free her of demons. Police found the women chanting and praying over the prostrate body. Not long before, the women had embraced Lukumi. The mother in question, Vivian Miranda, was found not guilty by reason of insanity, and is currently confined in a New York State psychiatric hospital for the criminally insane.[3]
* There have been some wildly inaccurate movies about the religion as well, such as the 1987 movie, The Believers, and the 1997 Spanish-Mexican-American movie Perdita Durango, which depicts a couple who follow fantasized Santeria beliefs and practice human sacrifice and the consumption of aborted fetuses.
[edit]
Voodoo
Voodoo is a derivative of the world’s oldest known religions which have been around in Africa since the beginning of human civilization. Some conservative estimates these civilizations and religions to be over 10 000 years old. This then identify Voodoo as probably the best example of African syncretism in the Americas. Although its essential wisdom originated in different parts of Africa long before the Europeans started the slave trade, the structure of Voodoo, as we know it today, was born in Haiti during the European colonization of Hispaniola. Ironically, it was the enforced immigration of enslaved African from different ethnic groups that provided the circumstances for the development of Voodoo. European colonists thought that by desolating the ethnic groups, these could not come together as a community. However, in the misery of slavery, the transplanted Africans found in their faith a common thread.
They began to invoke not only their own Gods, but to practice rites other than their own. In this process, they comingled and modified rituals of various ethnic groups. The result of such fusion was that the different religious groups integrated their beliefs, thereby creating a new religion: Voodoo. The word "voodoo" comes from the West African word "vodun," meaning spirit. This Afro-Caribbean religion mixed practices from many African ethnics groups such as the Fon, the Nago, the Ibos, Dahomeans, Congos, Senegalese, Haussars, Caplaous, Mondungues, Mandinge, Angolese, Libyans, Ethiopians, and the Malgaches.
The Essence of Voodoo
Within the voodoo society, there are no accidents. Practitioners believe that nothing and no event has a life of its own. That is why "vous deux", you two, you too. The universe is all one. Each thing affects something else. Scientists know that. Nature knows it. Many spiritualists agree that we are not separate, we all serve as parts of One. So, in essence, what you do unto another, you do unto you, because you ARE the other. Voo doo. View you. We are mirrors of each others souls. God is manifest through the spirits of ancestors who can bring good or harm and must be honored in ceremonies. There is a sacred cycle between the living and the dead. Believers ask for their misery to end. Rituals include prayers, drumming, dancing, singing and animal sacrifice.
The serpent figures heavily in the Voodoo faith. The word Voodoo has been translated as "the snake under whose auspices gather all who share the faith". The high priest and/or priestess of the faith (often called Papa or Maman) are the vehicles for the expression of the serpent's power. The supreme deity is Bon Dieu. There are hundreds of spirits called Loa who control nature, health, wealth and happiness of mortals. The Loa form a pantheon of deities that include Damballah, Ezili, Ogu, Agwe, Legba and others. During Voodoo ceremonies these Loa can possess the bodies of the ceremony participants. Loa appear by "possessing" the faithful, who in turn become the Loa, relaying advice, warnings and desires. Voodoo is an animist faith. That is, objects and natural phenomena are believed to possess holy significance, to possess a soul. Thus the Loa Agwe is the divine presence behind the hurricane.
Music and dance are key elements to Voodoo ceremonies. Ceremonies were often termed by whites "Night Dancing" or "Voodoo Dancing". This dancing is not simply a prelude to sexual frenzy, as it has often been portrayed. The dance is an expression of spirituality, of connection with divinity and the spirit world.
Voodoo is a practical religion, playing an important role in the family and the community. One's ancestors, for instance, are believed to be a part of the world of the spirits, of the Loas, and this is one way that Voodoo serves to root its participants in their own history and tradition. Another practical aspect of Voodoo ceremonies is that participants often come before the priest or priestess to seek advice, spiritual guidance, or help with their problems. The priest or priestess then, through divine aid, offer help such as healing through the use of herbs or medicines (using knowledge that has been passed down within the religion itself), or healing through faith itself as is common in other religions. Voodoo teaches a respect for the natural world.
Unfortunately, the public’s perception of voodoo rites and rituals seems often to point to the evil or malicious side of things. There are healing spells, nature spells, love spells, purification spells, joyous celebration spells. Spirits may be invoked to bring harmony and peace, birth and rebirth, increased abundance of luck, material happiness, renewed health.The fact is, for those who believe it, voodoo is powerful. It is also empowering to the person who practices it.
Voodoo and its fight to survive.
Despite Voodoo's noble status as one of the worlds oldest religions, it has been typically characterized as barbaric, primitive, sexually licentious practice based on superstition and spectacle. Much of this image however, is due to a concerted effort by Europeans, who have a massive fear of anything African, to suppress and distort a legitimate and unique religion that flourished among their enslaved Africans. When slavers brought these peoples across the ocean to the Americas, the African's brought their religion with them. However, since slavery included stripping the slaves of their language, culture, and heritage, this religion had to take some different forms. It had to be practiced in secret, since in some places it was punishable by death, and it had to adapt to the loss of their African languages. In order to survive, Voodoo also adopted many elements of Christianity. When the French who were the colonizers of Haiti, realized that the religion of the Africans was a threat to the colonial system, they prohibited all African religion practices and severely punished the practitioners of Voodoo with imprisonment, lashings and hangings. This religious struggle continued for three centuries, but none of the punishments could extinguished the faith of the Africans. This process of acculturation helped Voodoo to grow under harsh cultural conditions in many areas of the Americas.
Voodoo survives as a legitimate religion in a number of areas of the world, Brazil where it is called "Candomblé" and the English speaking Caribbean where it is called “Obeah”. The Ewe people of southern Togo and southeastern Ghana -- two countries in West Africa -- are devout believers. In most of the United States however, white slavers were successful in stripping slaves of their Voodoo traditions and beliefs. Thus Voodoo is, for most African Americans, yet another part of their heritage that they can only try to re-discover.
The Power of Voodoo
The strength that the Africans in Haiti gained from their religion was so strong and powerful, that they were able to survive the cruel persecution of the French rulers against Voodoo. It was in the midst of this struggle that the revolution was conspired. The Voodoo priests consulted their oracle and learned how the political battle would have to be fought in order for them to be victorious. The revolution exploded in 1791 with a Petr— ritual and continued until 1804 when the Haitians finally won independence. Today the system of Voodoo reflects its history. We can see the African ethnic mixture in the names of different rites and in the pantheon of Gods or Loas, which is composed of deities from all parts of Africa.
They began to invoke not only their own Gods, but to practice rites other than their own. In this process, they comingled and modified rituals of various ethnic groups. The result of such fusion was that the different religious groups integrated their beliefs, thereby creating a new religion: Voodoo. The word "voodoo" comes from the West African word "vodun," meaning spirit. This Afro-Caribbean religion mixed practices from many African ethnics groups such as the Fon, the Nago, the Ibos, Dahomeans, Congos, Senegalese, Haussars, Caplaous, Mondungues, Mandinge, Angolese, Libyans, Ethiopians, and the Malgaches.
The Essence of Voodoo
Within the voodoo society, there are no accidents. Practitioners believe that nothing and no event has a life of its own. That is why "vous deux", you two, you too. The universe is all one. Each thing affects something else. Scientists know that. Nature knows it. Many spiritualists agree that we are not separate, we all serve as parts of One. So, in essence, what you do unto another, you do unto you, because you ARE the other. Voo doo. View you. We are mirrors of each others souls. God is manifest through the spirits of ancestors who can bring good or harm and must be honored in ceremonies. There is a sacred cycle between the living and the dead. Believers ask for their misery to end. Rituals include prayers, drumming, dancing, singing and animal sacrifice.
The serpent figures heavily in the Voodoo faith. The word Voodoo has been translated as "the snake under whose auspices gather all who share the faith". The high priest and/or priestess of the faith (often called Papa or Maman) are the vehicles for the expression of the serpent's power. The supreme deity is Bon Dieu. There are hundreds of spirits called Loa who control nature, health, wealth and happiness of mortals. The Loa form a pantheon of deities that include Damballah, Ezili, Ogu, Agwe, Legba and others. During Voodoo ceremonies these Loa can possess the bodies of the ceremony participants. Loa appear by "possessing" the faithful, who in turn become the Loa, relaying advice, warnings and desires. Voodoo is an animist faith. That is, objects and natural phenomena are believed to possess holy significance, to possess a soul. Thus the Loa Agwe is the divine presence behind the hurricane.
Music and dance are key elements to Voodoo ceremonies. Ceremonies were often termed by whites "Night Dancing" or "Voodoo Dancing". This dancing is not simply a prelude to sexual frenzy, as it has often been portrayed. The dance is an expression of spirituality, of connection with divinity and the spirit world.
Voodoo is a practical religion, playing an important role in the family and the community. One's ancestors, for instance, are believed to be a part of the world of the spirits, of the Loas, and this is one way that Voodoo serves to root its participants in their own history and tradition. Another practical aspect of Voodoo ceremonies is that participants often come before the priest or priestess to seek advice, spiritual guidance, or help with their problems. The priest or priestess then, through divine aid, offer help such as healing through the use of herbs or medicines (using knowledge that has been passed down within the religion itself), or healing through faith itself as is common in other religions. Voodoo teaches a respect for the natural world.
Unfortunately, the public’s perception of voodoo rites and rituals seems often to point to the evil or malicious side of things. There are healing spells, nature spells, love spells, purification spells, joyous celebration spells. Spirits may be invoked to bring harmony and peace, birth and rebirth, increased abundance of luck, material happiness, renewed health.The fact is, for those who believe it, voodoo is powerful. It is also empowering to the person who practices it.
Voodoo and its fight to survive.
Despite Voodoo's noble status as one of the worlds oldest religions, it has been typically characterized as barbaric, primitive, sexually licentious practice based on superstition and spectacle. Much of this image however, is due to a concerted effort by Europeans, who have a massive fear of anything African, to suppress and distort a legitimate and unique religion that flourished among their enslaved Africans. When slavers brought these peoples across the ocean to the Americas, the African's brought their religion with them. However, since slavery included stripping the slaves of their language, culture, and heritage, this religion had to take some different forms. It had to be practiced in secret, since in some places it was punishable by death, and it had to adapt to the loss of their African languages. In order to survive, Voodoo also adopted many elements of Christianity. When the French who were the colonizers of Haiti, realized that the religion of the Africans was a threat to the colonial system, they prohibited all African religion practices and severely punished the practitioners of Voodoo with imprisonment, lashings and hangings. This religious struggle continued for three centuries, but none of the punishments could extinguished the faith of the Africans. This process of acculturation helped Voodoo to grow under harsh cultural conditions in many areas of the Americas.
Voodoo survives as a legitimate religion in a number of areas of the world, Brazil where it is called "Candomblé" and the English speaking Caribbean where it is called “Obeah”. The Ewe people of southern Togo and southeastern Ghana -- two countries in West Africa -- are devout believers. In most of the United States however, white slavers were successful in stripping slaves of their Voodoo traditions and beliefs. Thus Voodoo is, for most African Americans, yet another part of their heritage that they can only try to re-discover.
The Power of Voodoo
The strength that the Africans in Haiti gained from their religion was so strong and powerful, that they were able to survive the cruel persecution of the French rulers against Voodoo. It was in the midst of this struggle that the revolution was conspired. The Voodoo priests consulted their oracle and learned how the political battle would have to be fought in order for them to be victorious. The revolution exploded in 1791 with a Petr— ritual and continued until 1804 when the Haitians finally won independence. Today the system of Voodoo reflects its history. We can see the African ethnic mixture in the names of different rites and in the pantheon of Gods or Loas, which is composed of deities from all parts of Africa.
Diamante 25 kilates
El diamante de 25 kilates, valorado en 25.000 pesos de la época, fue embutido en el piso de granito del salon de los pasos Perdidos, justo en centro mismo de la cúpula. Según se cuenta, el diamante pertenció al último zar de Rusia, Nicolas II, y se le otorgaban poderes curativos. El punto que marca el diamante es el punto kilometrico cero de las carreteras cubanas.
Protegido por un cristal el diamante fue robado en 25 de marzo de 1946 y recuperado el 2 de junio del año siguiente (dicenq ue aparecio encima de la mesa del presidente de la república Ramón Grau San Martín). Nunca se supo quien lo robo auqnue la rumología popular, apoyada en las declaraciones del investigador Rolando Aniceto Ramos, asegura que fue un teniente de la policía especial del Ministerio de Educación llamado Abelardo Fernández González y apodado El mosquito. Cuentan que se ofreció una recompensa de 5.000 pesos y la que se iban a tomar represalias contra el ladróny que de ta forma se pudo recuperar la piedra que fue entregada al comandante del ejército Pablo Suárez, ayudante del presidente Grau San Martín.
En 1973 se sustituyó el diamante por una réplica por cuestiones de seguridad y se guardo en la caja de seguridad del Banco Central de Cuba.
La leyenda [editar]
Dicen que en el Salón de los Pasos Perdidos tiene un fantasma. El espíritu de Clemente Vázquez Bello que murió en un atentado perpetrado por la oposición anti-machadista en setiembre de 1932, se pasea por él todas las noches.
Protegido por un cristal el diamante fue robado en 25 de marzo de 1946 y recuperado el 2 de junio del año siguiente (dicenq ue aparecio encima de la mesa del presidente de la república Ramón Grau San Martín). Nunca se supo quien lo robo auqnue la rumología popular, apoyada en las declaraciones del investigador Rolando Aniceto Ramos, asegura que fue un teniente de la policía especial del Ministerio de Educación llamado Abelardo Fernández González y apodado El mosquito. Cuentan que se ofreció una recompensa de 5.000 pesos y la que se iban a tomar represalias contra el ladróny que de ta forma se pudo recuperar la piedra que fue entregada al comandante del ejército Pablo Suárez, ayudante del presidente Grau San Martín.
En 1973 se sustituyó el diamante por una réplica por cuestiones de seguridad y se guardo en la caja de seguridad del Banco Central de Cuba.
La leyenda [editar]
Dicen que en el Salón de los Pasos Perdidos tiene un fantasma. El espíritu de Clemente Vázquez Bello que murió en un atentado perpetrado por la oposición anti-machadista en setiembre de 1932, se pasea por él todas las noches.
Sunday, September 2, 2007
Bacardi 2
In 1843 Facundo married a young woman named Amalia, the daughter of a French Bonapartist fighter, and soon began a family. Around this time his rum experiments had paid off and he offered samples of his newfangled light rum to relatives and friends. Facundo's secret formula enabled him to ferment, distill, and blend from molasses a rum one could drink straight, almost like wine, without mixers or additives. Since molasses was a byproduct of processing sugarcane, Cuba's largest export, there were ample quantities around the island. On February 4, 1862, Facundo, his brother Jose, and a French wine merchant joined forces to buy Nunes' tin-roofed distillery for $3,500. The facility had the necessities (a still of cast-iron, fermenting tanks, and aging barrels) for creating and selling a Bacardi brand of rum. Buying the old distillery lock, stock, and barrel, Facundo also received an added bonus in the deal--a colony of fruit bats that later came to represent the Bacardi name.
The Bacardi enterprise was a family affair. As Facundo's three sons--Emilio, Facundo (Jr.), and Jose--came of age, they joined the company and learned their father's secret formula for making what was fast becoming the Caribbean's finest rum. Emilio, the oldest, worked in the office; Facundo Jr. worked in the distillery; and Jose, the youngest, eventually sold and promoted his father's products. Facundo Jr., in honor of his father and to celebrate the new family business, planted a coconut palm tree just outside the distillery. As the Bacardi boys learned their father's trade, a young man named Enrique Schueg y Chassin, who was born in 1862, the same year Don Facundo purchased the Santiago distillery, was maturing and would soon join both the business and the family, by marriage. In the ensuing years, as the business thrived, young Facundo's coconut palm did, too. The tree became an enduring symbol of the Bacardi family and its spirits operation.
Not long before Don Facundo and his partners bought the Nunes distillery, an Australian named T. S. Mort had perfected the first machine-chilled cold storage unit. Three years after Bacardi was established, Thaddeus Lowe debuted the world's first ice machine. Although these two inventions seemed completely unrelated to Don Facundo's premium rum, they later helped Bacardi conquer the social drinking marketplace by making ice and cold mixers commonplace. Yet such thoughts were far from Don Facundo and his family's minds, for they had no idea how widespread the appeal of their smooth, fine rum would one day become. Instead, they greeted Bacardi's increasing popularity in Santiago and the neighboring villages as a pleasant surprise.
As was the custom of the day, customers brought their own jugs and bottles to the distillery; the Bacardi family members promptly filled and returned them. With business booming, Don Facundo decided the current method of distribution was not good enough and set out to find an alternative. Meanwhile, back in Spain, Queen Isabella, who ascended the throne in 1843 at the age of 13, was deposed. For Bacardi and his family, as with most Catalans living on the Spanish-controlled colony of Cuba, the insurrection mirrored their own growing unrest. As civil war raged in Spain in 1872, Emilio, who had become a Cuban freedom fighter, was caught and exiled to an island off the coast of Morocco. During his absence, hostilities grew and a rebellion swept through Cuba, although the family business was unharmed. Emilio returned to Cuba four years after his capture and learned Bacardi rum had earned a gold medal at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876.
A Changing Landscape: 1877 to 1931
As the 1880s dawned, Don Facundo retired and turned Bacardi over to Emilio, Facundo Jr., Jose, and Enrique, who was now his son-in-law. The company's distribution problems had been solved with the suggestion from Dona Amalia that Bacardi products be sold with a distinctive, easily recognized label. As many of Santiago's residents could not read, Dona Amalia recommended using a symbol to represent Bacardi. The Bacardi logo was then born, sporting a most unlikely mascot, the fruit bat.
Before the turn of the century, as Bacardi flourished, Cuba was again engaged in battle to gain its independence from Spain. Emilio, fighting for his country, was banished a second time and Enrique went with him into exile. The United States joined the fray after a mysterious explosion on the U.S. battleship Maine sparked the Spanish-American War in 1898. After the defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila, the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, which ceded Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the U.S. for $20 million. In 1901 Cuba became an independent republic, and Emilio returned home to the Bacardi family and business.
Emilio was elected mayor of Santiago while Bacardi continued buying sugarcane fields and expanding its operations through several bottling facilities. In 1906 Emilio was elected to the Cuban Senate and the next year Jose, the youngest Bacardi son, who had represented the company's interests in Havana, died. Though the family mourned his loss, the business continued to prosper and in 1910 Emilio returned to his father's homeland to begin Bacardi's first international venture: a new bottling facility in Barcelona, Spain. Less than a decade later, on May 2, 1919, Compania Ron Bacardi, S.A. was incorporated with Emilio as president, and Facundo Jr. and Enrique as vice presidents.
As Bacardi set out to conquer the world--especially the United States--with its premium rum, a roadblock called Prohibition stood in its way. Though temperance had been gaining ground for several years, the Prohibition amendment was officially ratified less than four months earlier on January 16, 1919. However, although Bacardi could not sell their spirits to the U.S., nothing stopped Americans from coming to Cuba for liquor. Havana soon became known as "the unofficial U.S. saloon" and Bacardi rum was one of its biggest attractions. Bacardi's international sales were also strong in a world whose population topped 1.8 billion by 1922. This same year, both the family and the business suffered the loss of patriarch Emilio, followed two years later by Facundo Jr. Enrique, though not a family member by blood, took the reins of the burgeoning company and served as its president.
The dawn of the 1930s brought further international expansion for Bacardi as its bottling operation in Spain was a huge success. Realizing that Bacardi rum could be distilled and sold from any facility with the appropriate equipment, Enrique began to open what soon became a network of distribution points. In 1931 came the establishment of a new subsidiary in Mexico, which was nearly bankrupt through a severe recession. Enrique's son-in-law, Jose Bosch, intervened and kept the operation afloat until the economy improved and the small company turned profitable.
After Prohibition
When Prohibition was repealed in the United States in December 1933, Bacardi was ready to start serving the thirsty market. Enrique promptly sent his son-in-law Jose to New York City to pave the way for Bacardi's distribution in the United States. Back in Cuba the political climate was once again boiling as Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, the country's army chief of staff, became Cuba's de facto ruler after a military coup. Unfettered by its tropical roots, Bacardi entered the U.S. marketplace in a bang--selling over 80,000 cases in 1934. To save the company the United States' expensive import duty tax (nearly $1 per bottle), Jose Bosch decided to open another Bacardi facility in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Under American control since the Treaty of Paris in 1901, Puerto Rico was considered U.S. soil and its exports duty free. Under the name Bacardi Corporation, the new company soon moved to larger accommodations across the bay in Catano.
The 1940s brought several milestones for Bacardi, both in expansion and brand recognition. Much of the company's U.S. business had begun through word-of-mouth praise from visitors to the Caribbean, especially those flying Pan American Airways, which used Bacardi in some of its ads, "Fly Pan Am to Cuba and you can be bathing in Bacardi in hours." To capitalize on Bacardi's growing reputation and enhance its brand at the same time, Enrique and Jose initiated advertising that focused on Bacardi's excellent qualities as a mixer. Two of the more popular variations were the Daiquiri, named after a Cuban village where an American mining engineer mixed Bacardi, crushed ice, and lime juice in 1896; and the Cuba Libre or Rum & Coke, created by an American army lieutenant in honor of Cuba's new independence. The latter concoction gained widespread attention when the Andrews Sisters made "Rum & Coca-Cola" a hit in 1944.
The same year "Rum & Coca-Cola" sailed up the charts, Bacardi Imports was established in New York City to coordinate the increasing demand for Bacardi, and both Cuba and the United States joined the Allied war effort. By the end of the decade, however, challenges loomed for Bacardi. In the United States, where whisky was reintroduced in 1947, rum sales plummeted 47 percent in a one-year period. Next came the death of Enrique Schueg in 1950, at which time Jose Bosch assumed the role of CEO. By 1953, drinkers had become concerned over the caloric content of liquor. In response to consumer concerns, Bosch introduced a new advertising campaign, comparing the calories of a Daiquiri with those in a glass of milk. This successful spin was soon followed by ad campaigns directed toward blacks and Hispanics, and in 1956 the company broke cultural gender barriers by featuring a woman in its ads, advising homemakers to serve a Daiquiri with the evening meal.
It was around this time (there were two dissenting versions) that the first Pina Colada was mixed in Puerto Rico, using Bacardi rum, varied fruit juices, and coconut milk. As the 1950s came to an end, Cuba was once again seized by revolution--this time to unseat Batista, who had returned to power in 1952. Regarded by many as a puppet of the United States, whose continued interference in Cuban affairs spawned guerrilla uprisings, Batista ruled until 1959 when rebels led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrew his dictatorship.
The New Bacardi: 1960-1989
Bosch, no fan of Batista, was shocked when the new Castro government seized Bacardi's assets, valued at $76 million, in 1960. Luckily for Bacardi, it not only had its Mexican, Puerto Rican, New York, and recently established Brazilian operations to fall back on, but its registered trademark, as well, which Castro tried to seize, to no avail. Bacardi's shareholders, all descendants of Don Facundo, reconstituted the company in 1960 as Bacardi & Company Limited, headquartered in Nassau, the Bahamas. Another company, Bacardi International Limited, was also formed and headquartered in Bermuda. In 1962 the company sold 10 percent of its shares in an IPO (initial public offering).
Trying to stave off competitors with Bacardi's reputation as a mixer, the company launched a new advertising campaign once again expounding its rum's versatility. "Enjoyable always and all ways" was supposed to be taken literally, to use Bacardi's light-colored rum as a substitute for anything, even vodka in heavyweight drinks like highballs. The formula worked and Bacardi's sales grew by 10 percent annually throughout the 1960s, when the company finally broke into the top ten of distilled spirits brands. In 1964 Bacardi sold over one million cases of rum; this figure doubled by 1968.
During 1970, 2.6 million cases of Bacardi were sold. Aiming to further dominate the U.S. spirits market, Bacardi aggressively campaigned its rum as the mixer of choice, featured in joint promotions with Coca-Cola, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Dr. Pepper, 7Up, Pepsi, Perrier, and Schweppes' tonic water. In a well-played game of one-upmanship, Bacardi won the battle against Smirnoff vodka as the nation's biggest-selling distilled spirit. After a dispute with the Bacardi family, Jose Bosch resigned as president of the company in 1976. The following year Bosch and a group of his supporters sold their company stock (amounting to 12 percent or so) to an outsider, Hiram Walker. Unfortunately, this break with family tradition was the first in a series of squabbles that rocked the Bacardi empire over the next decade-and-a-half.
Bacardi's rums sold just shy of 8 million cases in 1978 and by 1980 Bacardi reigned as the number-one liquor brand in the United States. During this period, consumers were once again weight-conscious and accordingly, Bacardi relaunched its status as a low calorie diet drink mixer. By 1985 Bacardi was selling over 18 million cases a year, with old rival Smirnoff selling less than 14 million. In 1986, three years after Bacardi Capital was created to manage and invest company funds, a group of inexperienced brokers lost $50 million speculating in the bond market. Regrouping, Bacardi chairman Alfred O'Hara and president Manuel Luis Del Valle (non-family members brought in to run the company in the 1970s) commenced a controversial stock buyback, which divided the company and inspired a storm of controversy. Many of the 500 family shareholders cried foul, several Bacardi family members were ousted, and O'Hara and Del Valle--despite the ruckus--succeeded. Spending more than $241 million, they bought back or converted shares from Bacardi's IPO in 1962 as well as those sold to Hiram Walker in 1977.
The Bacardi of the 1990s
When the 1990s began Bacardi was once again a private company. Having weathered the Bacardi Capital scandal and increasing family discord, the company was faced with falling market share and sales. In an effort to jazz up its image, the company introduced Bacardi Frozen Tropical Fruit Mixers and Bacardi Breezers to wide acclaim. Two years later came Rum & Coke in a can, and a majority interest in Martini & Rossi for $1.4 billion. Bacardi hoped the diversification would help its European operations; as a result of the purchase, Bacardi became the fifth largest wine-and-spirits company in the world. Before the Martini & Rossi acquisition, Bacardi was bringing in close to $500 million annually, yet was nowhere near complacent. Its next new product launch, Bacardi Limón, was aimed at younger drinkers of flavored liquors like Absolut's Citron and Stoli's Limonaya. Introduced in 1995 with an $11 million advertising campaign, Bacardi Limón took off and was considered one of the hottest high-proof new brands of the year.
By the mid-1990s Bacardi had bottling facilities located in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, while its spirits were still manufactured in the Bahamas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain--with Brazil, Canada, Martinique, Panama, and Trinidad added to the list. The company's brands, of which Bacardi Breezers and Bacardi Limón were the latest newcomers, had grown to accommodate virtually all tastes. First and foremost were Bacardi's four premium rum blends: Bacardi Light, the original, comparable to gin and vodka as a mixer; Bacardi Dark (full-bodied, its amber color achieved by blackening the inside of wooden aging barrels) and Bacardi Black (charcoal-filtered just once before extended aging; later renamed Bacardi Select), which competed with whisky and bourbon; Bacardi Anejo, a golden rum blend named for the Castillian word meaning "aged" that appealed to upscale brown spirits-drinkers; and Bacardi Reserve, a twice-filtered blend for brandy and cognac drinkers.
By 1996 all of Bacardi's products were given a more hip look with updated labels and bottle caps as Bacardi Spice (to compete with Seagram's Captain Morgan) made its way to the market with several more prototypes in the works. By now, Bacardi was once again a family-run empire, with Don Facundo's heirs calling the shots. Manuel Jorge Cutillas and brother Eduardo occupied the top posts, while the company created alliances with partners in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and Thailand to introduce its products. Another global project was the debut of Club Bacardi, the company's web site. Well-positioned for the future, the name Bacardi conjured up far more than a refined, dry rum; Bacardi was not just a premium spirit but an institution here to stay.
Bacardi Heads into the New Millennium
As Bacardi headed into the 21st century, the company continued to expand its business in the highly competitive liquor industry. In 1998 it added Dewar's Scotch whisky and Bombay gin to its arsenal. Bacardi then set its sights on Seagram Company's alcohol beverage segment, which was up for sale as a result of the impending Seagram and Vivendi SA merger. In 2000, Bacardi teamed up with Brown-Forman Corp. of Louisville, Kentucky, to bid for Seagram's prized liquor business that included brands such as Chivas Regal Scotch whisky, Crown Royal Canadian whisky, and Captain Morgan. A bidding war ensued and in the end, Bacardi and Brown-Forman lost out to Diageo PLC and Pernod Ricard S.A.
Undeterred, Bacardi forged ahead with its growth plans. In 2002, the company purchased Tequila Cazadores, a premium reposado tequila. Bacardi also added tequila infused rum Ciclon, Turi vodka, and malt beverage Bacardi Silver to its brand portfolio that year. Bacardi chairman Ruben Rodriguez commented on the cut-throat nature of the liquor industry in a December 2002 Calgary Herald newspaper. "It's a very competitive environment, and we have to get bigger in order to be able to effectively compete," claimed Rodriguez. He went on, "It's important to be the first one in the marketplace giving consumers what they want. If you don't do it, your competition is going to do it for you." Indeed, this mind-set remained at the forefront of Bacardi's strategy. In 2004, the company acquired Grey Goose vodka. It continued to launch new products and also redesigned some of its packaging.
Despite the company's successes, family squabbling, management changes, and failed plans to take the company public were taking a toll on morale at company headquarters. At the same time, Pernod Ricard's takeover of Allied Domecq left Bacardi well behind competitors Diageo and Pernod Ricard. The company reported a 21 percent drop in net profits for 2004 due in part to falling demand for its ready-to-drink cocktails.
Facundo L. Bacardi, great-great grandson of the founder, was named chairman in 2005. Under his leadership, the company took steps to secure its position in the industry. In 2006, Bacardi launched a new marketing strategy designed to take advantage of online social networks and blogs. It also launched Bacardi B-Live, an online and mobile radio station, and offered a sweepstakes on its Web site that tied in with the 2006 debut of the Miami Vice movie. Later that year, Bacardi U.S.A. relaunched its Havana Club brand in limited supply after winning a decade-long legal battle with the Cuban government and Pernod Ricard concerning the rights to market the brand. Back in 1960, Castro had seized Arechabala's Havana Clubs assets. The rum was then exported by the Cuban government's Cubaexport company and Pernod Ricard--but was not sold in the U.S. due to the embargo on Cuban products. In the mid-1990s, Bacardi bought the family recipe and the Havana Club name from the Arechabala family. The Havana Club product was pulled from store shelves however, after Pernod Ricard and the Cuban government cried foul. Havana Club's reinstatement in the United States in August 2006 was a sweet victory for not only the Arechabala family, but for Bacardi as well.
Principal Subsidiaries
Bacardi & Co. (Bahamas); Bacardi Corporation (Puerto Rico); Bacardi U.S.A. Inc.; Bacardi y Compania (Mexico); Bacardi-Martini Ltd. (United Kingdom).
The Bacardi enterprise was a family affair. As Facundo's three sons--Emilio, Facundo (Jr.), and Jose--came of age, they joined the company and learned their father's secret formula for making what was fast becoming the Caribbean's finest rum. Emilio, the oldest, worked in the office; Facundo Jr. worked in the distillery; and Jose, the youngest, eventually sold and promoted his father's products. Facundo Jr., in honor of his father and to celebrate the new family business, planted a coconut palm tree just outside the distillery. As the Bacardi boys learned their father's trade, a young man named Enrique Schueg y Chassin, who was born in 1862, the same year Don Facundo purchased the Santiago distillery, was maturing and would soon join both the business and the family, by marriage. In the ensuing years, as the business thrived, young Facundo's coconut palm did, too. The tree became an enduring symbol of the Bacardi family and its spirits operation.
Not long before Don Facundo and his partners bought the Nunes distillery, an Australian named T. S. Mort had perfected the first machine-chilled cold storage unit. Three years after Bacardi was established, Thaddeus Lowe debuted the world's first ice machine. Although these two inventions seemed completely unrelated to Don Facundo's premium rum, they later helped Bacardi conquer the social drinking marketplace by making ice and cold mixers commonplace. Yet such thoughts were far from Don Facundo and his family's minds, for they had no idea how widespread the appeal of their smooth, fine rum would one day become. Instead, they greeted Bacardi's increasing popularity in Santiago and the neighboring villages as a pleasant surprise.
As was the custom of the day, customers brought their own jugs and bottles to the distillery; the Bacardi family members promptly filled and returned them. With business booming, Don Facundo decided the current method of distribution was not good enough and set out to find an alternative. Meanwhile, back in Spain, Queen Isabella, who ascended the throne in 1843 at the age of 13, was deposed. For Bacardi and his family, as with most Catalans living on the Spanish-controlled colony of Cuba, the insurrection mirrored their own growing unrest. As civil war raged in Spain in 1872, Emilio, who had become a Cuban freedom fighter, was caught and exiled to an island off the coast of Morocco. During his absence, hostilities grew and a rebellion swept through Cuba, although the family business was unharmed. Emilio returned to Cuba four years after his capture and learned Bacardi rum had earned a gold medal at the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876.
A Changing Landscape: 1877 to 1931
As the 1880s dawned, Don Facundo retired and turned Bacardi over to Emilio, Facundo Jr., Jose, and Enrique, who was now his son-in-law. The company's distribution problems had been solved with the suggestion from Dona Amalia that Bacardi products be sold with a distinctive, easily recognized label. As many of Santiago's residents could not read, Dona Amalia recommended using a symbol to represent Bacardi. The Bacardi logo was then born, sporting a most unlikely mascot, the fruit bat.
Before the turn of the century, as Bacardi flourished, Cuba was again engaged in battle to gain its independence from Spain. Emilio, fighting for his country, was banished a second time and Enrique went with him into exile. The United States joined the fray after a mysterious explosion on the U.S. battleship Maine sparked the Spanish-American War in 1898. After the defeat of the Spanish fleet at Manila, the U.S. and Spain signed the Treaty of Paris, which ceded Cuba, Guam, the Philippines, and Puerto Rico to the U.S. for $20 million. In 1901 Cuba became an independent republic, and Emilio returned home to the Bacardi family and business.
Emilio was elected mayor of Santiago while Bacardi continued buying sugarcane fields and expanding its operations through several bottling facilities. In 1906 Emilio was elected to the Cuban Senate and the next year Jose, the youngest Bacardi son, who had represented the company's interests in Havana, died. Though the family mourned his loss, the business continued to prosper and in 1910 Emilio returned to his father's homeland to begin Bacardi's first international venture: a new bottling facility in Barcelona, Spain. Less than a decade later, on May 2, 1919, Compania Ron Bacardi, S.A. was incorporated with Emilio as president, and Facundo Jr. and Enrique as vice presidents.
As Bacardi set out to conquer the world--especially the United States--with its premium rum, a roadblock called Prohibition stood in its way. Though temperance had been gaining ground for several years, the Prohibition amendment was officially ratified less than four months earlier on January 16, 1919. However, although Bacardi could not sell their spirits to the U.S., nothing stopped Americans from coming to Cuba for liquor. Havana soon became known as "the unofficial U.S. saloon" and Bacardi rum was one of its biggest attractions. Bacardi's international sales were also strong in a world whose population topped 1.8 billion by 1922. This same year, both the family and the business suffered the loss of patriarch Emilio, followed two years later by Facundo Jr. Enrique, though not a family member by blood, took the reins of the burgeoning company and served as its president.
The dawn of the 1930s brought further international expansion for Bacardi as its bottling operation in Spain was a huge success. Realizing that Bacardi rum could be distilled and sold from any facility with the appropriate equipment, Enrique began to open what soon became a network of distribution points. In 1931 came the establishment of a new subsidiary in Mexico, which was nearly bankrupt through a severe recession. Enrique's son-in-law, Jose Bosch, intervened and kept the operation afloat until the economy improved and the small company turned profitable.
After Prohibition
When Prohibition was repealed in the United States in December 1933, Bacardi was ready to start serving the thirsty market. Enrique promptly sent his son-in-law Jose to New York City to pave the way for Bacardi's distribution in the United States. Back in Cuba the political climate was once again boiling as Fulgencio Batista y Zaldivar, the country's army chief of staff, became Cuba's de facto ruler after a military coup. Unfettered by its tropical roots, Bacardi entered the U.S. marketplace in a bang--selling over 80,000 cases in 1934. To save the company the United States' expensive import duty tax (nearly $1 per bottle), Jose Bosch decided to open another Bacardi facility in Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. Under American control since the Treaty of Paris in 1901, Puerto Rico was considered U.S. soil and its exports duty free. Under the name Bacardi Corporation, the new company soon moved to larger accommodations across the bay in Catano.
The 1940s brought several milestones for Bacardi, both in expansion and brand recognition. Much of the company's U.S. business had begun through word-of-mouth praise from visitors to the Caribbean, especially those flying Pan American Airways, which used Bacardi in some of its ads, "Fly Pan Am to Cuba and you can be bathing in Bacardi in hours." To capitalize on Bacardi's growing reputation and enhance its brand at the same time, Enrique and Jose initiated advertising that focused on Bacardi's excellent qualities as a mixer. Two of the more popular variations were the Daiquiri, named after a Cuban village where an American mining engineer mixed Bacardi, crushed ice, and lime juice in 1896; and the Cuba Libre or Rum & Coke, created by an American army lieutenant in honor of Cuba's new independence. The latter concoction gained widespread attention when the Andrews Sisters made "Rum & Coca-Cola" a hit in 1944.
The same year "Rum & Coca-Cola" sailed up the charts, Bacardi Imports was established in New York City to coordinate the increasing demand for Bacardi, and both Cuba and the United States joined the Allied war effort. By the end of the decade, however, challenges loomed for Bacardi. In the United States, where whisky was reintroduced in 1947, rum sales plummeted 47 percent in a one-year period. Next came the death of Enrique Schueg in 1950, at which time Jose Bosch assumed the role of CEO. By 1953, drinkers had become concerned over the caloric content of liquor. In response to consumer concerns, Bosch introduced a new advertising campaign, comparing the calories of a Daiquiri with those in a glass of milk. This successful spin was soon followed by ad campaigns directed toward blacks and Hispanics, and in 1956 the company broke cultural gender barriers by featuring a woman in its ads, advising homemakers to serve a Daiquiri with the evening meal.
It was around this time (there were two dissenting versions) that the first Pina Colada was mixed in Puerto Rico, using Bacardi rum, varied fruit juices, and coconut milk. As the 1950s came to an end, Cuba was once again seized by revolution--this time to unseat Batista, who had returned to power in 1952. Regarded by many as a puppet of the United States, whose continued interference in Cuban affairs spawned guerrilla uprisings, Batista ruled until 1959 when rebels led by Fidel Castro and Che Guevara overthrew his dictatorship.
The New Bacardi: 1960-1989
Bosch, no fan of Batista, was shocked when the new Castro government seized Bacardi's assets, valued at $76 million, in 1960. Luckily for Bacardi, it not only had its Mexican, Puerto Rican, New York, and recently established Brazilian operations to fall back on, but its registered trademark, as well, which Castro tried to seize, to no avail. Bacardi's shareholders, all descendants of Don Facundo, reconstituted the company in 1960 as Bacardi & Company Limited, headquartered in Nassau, the Bahamas. Another company, Bacardi International Limited, was also formed and headquartered in Bermuda. In 1962 the company sold 10 percent of its shares in an IPO (initial public offering).
Trying to stave off competitors with Bacardi's reputation as a mixer, the company launched a new advertising campaign once again expounding its rum's versatility. "Enjoyable always and all ways" was supposed to be taken literally, to use Bacardi's light-colored rum as a substitute for anything, even vodka in heavyweight drinks like highballs. The formula worked and Bacardi's sales grew by 10 percent annually throughout the 1960s, when the company finally broke into the top ten of distilled spirits brands. In 1964 Bacardi sold over one million cases of rum; this figure doubled by 1968.
During 1970, 2.6 million cases of Bacardi were sold. Aiming to further dominate the U.S. spirits market, Bacardi aggressively campaigned its rum as the mixer of choice, featured in joint promotions with Coca-Cola, Canada Dry Ginger Ale, Dr. Pepper, 7Up, Pepsi, Perrier, and Schweppes' tonic water. In a well-played game of one-upmanship, Bacardi won the battle against Smirnoff vodka as the nation's biggest-selling distilled spirit. After a dispute with the Bacardi family, Jose Bosch resigned as president of the company in 1976. The following year Bosch and a group of his supporters sold their company stock (amounting to 12 percent or so) to an outsider, Hiram Walker. Unfortunately, this break with family tradition was the first in a series of squabbles that rocked the Bacardi empire over the next decade-and-a-half.
Bacardi's rums sold just shy of 8 million cases in 1978 and by 1980 Bacardi reigned as the number-one liquor brand in the United States. During this period, consumers were once again weight-conscious and accordingly, Bacardi relaunched its status as a low calorie diet drink mixer. By 1985 Bacardi was selling over 18 million cases a year, with old rival Smirnoff selling less than 14 million. In 1986, three years after Bacardi Capital was created to manage and invest company funds, a group of inexperienced brokers lost $50 million speculating in the bond market. Regrouping, Bacardi chairman Alfred O'Hara and president Manuel Luis Del Valle (non-family members brought in to run the company in the 1970s) commenced a controversial stock buyback, which divided the company and inspired a storm of controversy. Many of the 500 family shareholders cried foul, several Bacardi family members were ousted, and O'Hara and Del Valle--despite the ruckus--succeeded. Spending more than $241 million, they bought back or converted shares from Bacardi's IPO in 1962 as well as those sold to Hiram Walker in 1977.
The Bacardi of the 1990s
When the 1990s began Bacardi was once again a private company. Having weathered the Bacardi Capital scandal and increasing family discord, the company was faced with falling market share and sales. In an effort to jazz up its image, the company introduced Bacardi Frozen Tropical Fruit Mixers and Bacardi Breezers to wide acclaim. Two years later came Rum & Coke in a can, and a majority interest in Martini & Rossi for $1.4 billion. Bacardi hoped the diversification would help its European operations; as a result of the purchase, Bacardi became the fifth largest wine-and-spirits company in the world. Before the Martini & Rossi acquisition, Bacardi was bringing in close to $500 million annually, yet was nowhere near complacent. Its next new product launch, Bacardi Limón, was aimed at younger drinkers of flavored liquors like Absolut's Citron and Stoli's Limonaya. Introduced in 1995 with an $11 million advertising campaign, Bacardi Limón took off and was considered one of the hottest high-proof new brands of the year.
By the mid-1990s Bacardi had bottling facilities located in Australia, Austria, France, Germany, New Zealand, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States, while its spirits were still manufactured in the Bahamas, Mexico, Puerto Rico, and Spain--with Brazil, Canada, Martinique, Panama, and Trinidad added to the list. The company's brands, of which Bacardi Breezers and Bacardi Limón were the latest newcomers, had grown to accommodate virtually all tastes. First and foremost were Bacardi's four premium rum blends: Bacardi Light, the original, comparable to gin and vodka as a mixer; Bacardi Dark (full-bodied, its amber color achieved by blackening the inside of wooden aging barrels) and Bacardi Black (charcoal-filtered just once before extended aging; later renamed Bacardi Select), which competed with whisky and bourbon; Bacardi Anejo, a golden rum blend named for the Castillian word meaning "aged" that appealed to upscale brown spirits-drinkers; and Bacardi Reserve, a twice-filtered blend for brandy and cognac drinkers.
By 1996 all of Bacardi's products were given a more hip look with updated labels and bottle caps as Bacardi Spice (to compete with Seagram's Captain Morgan) made its way to the market with several more prototypes in the works. By now, Bacardi was once again a family-run empire, with Don Facundo's heirs calling the shots. Manuel Jorge Cutillas and brother Eduardo occupied the top posts, while the company created alliances with partners in Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Russia, Taiwan, and Thailand to introduce its products. Another global project was the debut of Club Bacardi, the company's web site. Well-positioned for the future, the name Bacardi conjured up far more than a refined, dry rum; Bacardi was not just a premium spirit but an institution here to stay.
Bacardi Heads into the New Millennium
As Bacardi headed into the 21st century, the company continued to expand its business in the highly competitive liquor industry. In 1998 it added Dewar's Scotch whisky and Bombay gin to its arsenal. Bacardi then set its sights on Seagram Company's alcohol beverage segment, which was up for sale as a result of the impending Seagram and Vivendi SA merger. In 2000, Bacardi teamed up with Brown-Forman Corp. of Louisville, Kentucky, to bid for Seagram's prized liquor business that included brands such as Chivas Regal Scotch whisky, Crown Royal Canadian whisky, and Captain Morgan. A bidding war ensued and in the end, Bacardi and Brown-Forman lost out to Diageo PLC and Pernod Ricard S.A.
Undeterred, Bacardi forged ahead with its growth plans. In 2002, the company purchased Tequila Cazadores, a premium reposado tequila. Bacardi also added tequila infused rum Ciclon, Turi vodka, and malt beverage Bacardi Silver to its brand portfolio that year. Bacardi chairman Ruben Rodriguez commented on the cut-throat nature of the liquor industry in a December 2002 Calgary Herald newspaper. "It's a very competitive environment, and we have to get bigger in order to be able to effectively compete," claimed Rodriguez. He went on, "It's important to be the first one in the marketplace giving consumers what they want. If you don't do it, your competition is going to do it for you." Indeed, this mind-set remained at the forefront of Bacardi's strategy. In 2004, the company acquired Grey Goose vodka. It continued to launch new products and also redesigned some of its packaging.
Despite the company's successes, family squabbling, management changes, and failed plans to take the company public were taking a toll on morale at company headquarters. At the same time, Pernod Ricard's takeover of Allied Domecq left Bacardi well behind competitors Diageo and Pernod Ricard. The company reported a 21 percent drop in net profits for 2004 due in part to falling demand for its ready-to-drink cocktails.
Facundo L. Bacardi, great-great grandson of the founder, was named chairman in 2005. Under his leadership, the company took steps to secure its position in the industry. In 2006, Bacardi launched a new marketing strategy designed to take advantage of online social networks and blogs. It also launched Bacardi B-Live, an online and mobile radio station, and offered a sweepstakes on its Web site that tied in with the 2006 debut of the Miami Vice movie. Later that year, Bacardi U.S.A. relaunched its Havana Club brand in limited supply after winning a decade-long legal battle with the Cuban government and Pernod Ricard concerning the rights to market the brand. Back in 1960, Castro had seized Arechabala's Havana Clubs assets. The rum was then exported by the Cuban government's Cubaexport company and Pernod Ricard--but was not sold in the U.S. due to the embargo on Cuban products. In the mid-1990s, Bacardi bought the family recipe and the Havana Club name from the Arechabala family. The Havana Club product was pulled from store shelves however, after Pernod Ricard and the Cuban government cried foul. Havana Club's reinstatement in the United States in August 2006 was a sweet victory for not only the Arechabala family, but for Bacardi as well.
Principal Subsidiaries
Bacardi & Co. (Bahamas); Bacardi Corporation (Puerto Rico); Bacardi U.S.A. Inc.; Bacardi y Compania (Mexico); Bacardi-Martini Ltd. (United Kingdom).
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