The Akan Diaspora in the Americas

Research on the African diaspora in the Americas has an uninterrupted focus on West Africa, and an equally incessant neglect of the Akan in comparison to the Yoruba, Igbo, or Kongo-Angola diasporas. In his groundbreaking study of the Akan diaspora, Konadu demonstrates how this cultural group originating in Central West Africa both participated in and went beyond the familiar diasporic themes of maroonage, resistance, and freedom. Between the sixteenth
and nineteenth century, the Akan never constituted a majority among other Africans in the Americas. But their leadership skills in war and political organization, efficacy in medicinal plant use and spiritual practice, and composite culture archived in the musical traditions, language, and patterns of African
diasporic life far outweighed their sheer numbers. Konadu argues that a composite Akan culture calibrated between the Gold Coast littoral and forest fringe made the contributions of the Akan diaspora possible. He first calls attention to the historic formation of Akan culture in West Africa and its reach into the Americas. Then, the author examines the Akan experience in Guyana, Jamaica, Antigua, Barbados, former Danish and Dutch colonies, and North America, and how those early experiences
foreground the contemporary engagement and movement of diasporic Africans and Akan people between Ghana and North America. Locating the Akan variable in the African diasporic equation allows scholars and students of the Americas to better understand how the diasporic quilt came to be and is still
evolving.