Papers by Tiffany Ruby Patterson
On the eve of the Civil War, a small schooner landed on Mobile Bay. Though hardly a remarkable oc... more On the eve of the Civil War, a small schooner landed on Mobile Bay. Though hardly a remarkable occurrence in itself, the captain of the ship, Bill Foster, took great pains in unloading his cargo on shore as quickly as possible, before unceremoniously burning and scuttling the boat in the Alabama bayou. That boat, the Clotilda, subsequently earned the dubious distinction of being the last slave ship to arrive on American soil, more than fifty years after authorities outlawed the transAtlantic Slave Trade. 1 Decades later, as folklorists, ethnographers, journalists and others became increasingly interested in documenting black culture on the eve of its presumptive demise, the survivors of the Clotilda garnered no small measure of attention. Among those who took a keen interest in the matter was novelist and folklorist Zora Neale Hurston who, in 1927, interviewed Cudjo Lewis, the last living survivor of that voyage. In a heart-piercing narrative of loss and nostalgia, Hurston detailed the experiences of more than one hundred Africans captured and sold to Bill Foster, before being shipped across the Atlantic to Mobile, Alabama in 1860. 2 That article, "Cudjo's Own Story of the Last African Slaver," appeared in the Journal of Negro History (JNH) and represented quite a boon to Hurston's budding academic career, establishing her as a key player in an emerging body of reportage aimed at preserving and recovering the fast fading elements of authentic black life and culture. 3 But it was also a patent lie. Some thirteen years earlier, Emma Langdon Roche published Historic Sketches of the South, a book-length description of the voyage of the Clotilda, its human cargo and their subsequent lives in post-bellum Alabama. Hurston relied heavily on Roche's work, at times plagiarizing full passages and pages without the slightest nod to its original source. To take but one example, Roche reported that, in discussing his deep longing for home, Cudjo Lewis-also known by his African name, Kazoola-recounted a conversation he had with plantation owner Tim Meaher: "If you give Kazoola all Mobile, that railroad, and the banks of Mobile Kazoola does not want them for this is not home." When the old man tells this his face
African Studies Review
This article engages the very definition/meaning of diaspora as a concept at a moment when schola... more This article engages the very definition/meaning of diaspora as a concept at a moment when scholars are rushing to embrace the field of diaspora studies. Much of the current discussion continues to suggest that diaspora is merely a logical manifestation of dispersion, no matter how the diaspora was created or how long it had been in existence. This essay argues that linkages that tie the diaspora together must be articulated and are not inevitable, and that the diaspora is both process and condition. As a process it is always in the making, and as condition it is situated within global race and gender hierarchies. However, just as the diaspora is made, it can be unmade, and thus scholars must explore the moments of its unmaking. Indeed, the efforts to unravel the constituent elements of the diaspora(s) raise significant questions concerning how Africa is conceptualized in relation to its diaspora. These efforts also underscore the need to examine overlapping diasporas from many historical locations. Resume: Cet article explore la definition et le sens meme de diaspora en tant que concept a un moment ou les chercheurs se pressent tous pour embrasser le domaine des etudes sur les diasporas. Une grande part des debats actuels continue a suggerer que la diaspora est tout simplement une manifestation logique de la dispersion, qu'importe la maniere dont cette diaspora ait ete creee ou depuis combien de temps elle existe. Cet article tente de demontrer que les relations qui lient la
Journal of American Studies, 2006
CJO Search Widget (Journal of American Studies) What is this? ... Download a branded Cambridge Jo... more CJO Search Widget (Journal of American Studies) What is this? ... Download a branded Cambridge Journals Online toolbar (for IE 7 only). What is this? ... Add Cambridge Journals Online as a search option in your browser toolbar. What is this? ... Tiffany Ruby Patterson, Zora Neale ...
Agricultural History, 2006
Gender & History, 1999
eds), More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Indiana University Press, Bloom... more eds), More Than Chattel: Black Women and Slavery in the Americas (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, 1996), pp. ix + 341, $39.95 and $18.95. ISBN 0 253 33017 3 (hb) and 0 253 21043 7 (pb). Maggie Montesinos Sale, The Slumbering Volcano: American Slave Ship Revolts and the Production of Rebellious Masculinity (Duke University Press, Durham and London, 1997), pp. x + 264, $49.95 and $16.95. ISBN 0 8223 1983 7 (hb) and 0 8223 1992 6 (pb).
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Papers by Tiffany Ruby Patterson