Assembling an Afro-Brazilian Economy

Abstract

It is as if one had taken a cutting of Africa and rooted it in Brazilian soil, where it bloomed again.-Roger Bastide, 1960 1African oil palms (Elaeis guineensis Jacq.) have thrived in rainforest communities in West and Central Africa for millennia. In biodiverse forests, dense groves, and isolated stands, traditional oil palm landscapes stretch from the Senegambia to Angola and deep into the Congo Basin.Africans began extracting and processing oils from the palm's fruit at least five thousand years ago, and when transatlantic slave traders began stealing away people for profit and colonization, the African oil palm joined an immense human and botanical diaspora. 2 The enslaved Africans that survived the brutalities of the Middle Passage arrived in the New World with diverse and sophisticated knowledge systemsincluding those related to the African oil palm and other tropical plantswhich they relied on to survive in, and reshape, colonial environments. 3 Palm Oil Diaspora describes how partnerships of people and palms transformed an Atlantic World connecting western Africa to South America, from prehistory to the present, and offers insights for building healthier and more viable relationships within and among human societies and earthly environments.