Afro-Jamaicans are Jamaicans of predominantly African descent, bearing a rich and complex history shaped by the transatlantic slave trade and cultural exchange. This article explores the connections between Jamaicans and their ancestral roots in Nigeria, highlighting the impact of the slave trade and the enduring cultural influences that have shaped the island's identity.
Based on slave ship records, enslaved Africans brought to Jamaica primarily came from the Akan people (notably those of the Asante Kotoko alliance of the 1720s: Asante, Bono, Wassa, Nzema, and Ahanta), followed by the Igbo people. Other enslaved people came from Kongo people, Fon people, Ewe people, Yoruba, and Ibibio people, to a lesser extent.
Originally in earlier British colonization, the island before the 1750s was in fact mainly Akan imported. However, between 1663 and 1700, only six per cent of slave ships to Jamaica listed their origin as the Gold Coast, while between 1700 and 1720 that figure went up to 27 per cent. The number of Akan slaves arriving in Jamaica from Kormantin ports only increased in the early 18th century.
Due to frequent rebellions from the then known "Coromantee" that often joined the slave rebellion group known as the Jamaican Maroons, other groups were sent to Jamaica. The Akan population was still maintained, since they were the preference of British planters in Jamaica because they were "better workers", according to these planters.
According to the Slave Voyages Archives, though the Igbo had the highest importation numbers, they were only imported to Montego Bay and St. The majority of the house slaves were mulattoes. In 1871 the census recorded a population of 506,154 people, 246,573 males, and 259,581 females.
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Genetic studies further support these historical accounts. More detailed results stated: "Using haplogroup distributions to calculate parental population contribution, the largest admixture coefficient was associated with the Gold Coast with most of the samples taken from the Asante-Akyem area of the Ashanti region of Ghana(0.477 ± 0.12 or 59.7% of the Jamaican population with a 2.7 chance of Pygmy and Sahelian mixture), suggesting that the people from this region may have been consistently prolific throughout the slave era on Jamaica. Modern day Jamaicans and the Asante people, both share the MTDNA haplogroup of L2a1."
When admixture coefficients were calculated by assessing shared haplotypes, the Gold Coast also had the largest contribution, though much less striking at 0.196, with a 95% confidence interval of 0.189 to 0.203. When haplotypes are allowed to differ by one base pair, the Jamaican matriline shows the greatest affinity with the Bight of Benin, though both Bight of Biafra and West-central Africa remain underrepresented. The aforementioned results apply to subjects whom have been tested.
Routes of the Transatlantic Slave Trade
Results also stated that black Jamaicans (that make up more than 90% of the population) on an average have 97.5% of African MtDNA and very little European or Asian ancestry could be found. Pub Med results were also issued in the same year (2012): "Our results reveal that the studied population of Jamaica exhibit a predominantly South-Saharan paternal component, with haplogroups A1b-V152, A3-M32, B2-M182, E1a-M33, E1b1a-M2, E2b-M98, and R1b2-V88 comprising 66.7% of the Jamaican paternal gene pool.
The cultural impact of these African roots is profound. Kumfu (from the word Akom the name of the Akan spiritual system) was documented as Myal and originally only found in books, while the term Kumfu is still used by Jamaican Maroons. The priest of Kumfu was called a Kumfu-man. In 18th-century Jamaica, only Akan gods were worshipped by Akan as well as by other enslaved Africans. The Akan god of creation, Nyankopong was given praise but not worshipped directly. They poured libation to Asase Ya, the goddess of the earth. "Myal" or Kumfu evolved into Revival, a syncretic Christian sect.
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Kumfu followers gravitated to the American Revival of 1800 Seventh Day Adventist movement because it observed Saturday as god's day of rest. This was a shared aboriginal belief of the Akan people as this too was the day that the Akan god, Nyame, rested after creating the earth. Jamaicans that were aware of their Ashanti past while wanting to keep hidden, mixed their Kumfu spirituality with the American Adventists to create Jamaican Revival in 1860. Revival has two sects: 60 order (or Zion Revival, the order of the heavens) and 61 order (or Pocomania, the order of the earth). 60 order worships God and spirits of air or the heavens on a Saturday and considers itself to be the more "clean" sect. 61 order more deals with spirits of the earth.
This division of Kumfu clearly shows the dichotomy of Nyame and Asase Yaa's relationship, Nyame representing air and has his 60 order'; Asase Yaa having her 61 order of the earth. Also the Ashanti funerary/war colours: red and black have the same meaning in Revival of vengeance. Other Ashanti elements include the use of swords and rings as means to guard the spirit from spiritual attack. A festival was dedicated to the heroism of the Akan king 'John Canoe' an Ahanta from Axim, Ghana, in 1708.
Jamaican Patois, known locally as Patwa, is an English creole language spoken primarily in Jamaica and the Jamaican diaspora. It is not to be confused with Jamaican English nor with the Rastafarian use of English. The language developed in the 17th century, when enslaved peoples from West and Central Africa blended their dialect and terms with the learned vernacular and dialectal forms of English spoken: British Englishes (including significant exposure to Scottish English) and Hiberno English. Jamaican Patwa is a post-creole speech continuum (a linguistic continuum) meaning that the variety of the language closest to the lexifier language (the acrolect) cannot be distinguished systematically from intermediate varieties (collectively referred to as the mesolect) nor even from the most divergent rural varieties (collectively referred to as the basilect).
As they do everywhere, the large number of Jamaicans who migrated to Nigeria left their mark on the society. “While many of these migrants came to work in Nigeria in the 19th and 20th centuries and stayed back, some others got married to Nigerians and naturalised. Amos Shackleford, originally from Buff Bay, Portland, stands out because he retained close ties with Jamaica over the years.
He is remembered for starting a bakery to school his 30 children from many wives. Kalango tells an interesting story of Lucius Scott, a preacher, educator and agriculturalist, who went to work in Lagos in 1949, and traced his maternal home to Ubiaja in present-day Edo State. The book also made much of the fact that with pan-Africanism rife in the 1960s, many Jamaicans decided to relocate to Mother Africa. One of them is Lindsay Barrett, now 88, a media professional, who arrived in 1966 hoping to stay for only two weeks, but made Nigeria his permanent home.
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