African Diaspora

The term African Diaspora is generally understood to refer to the forced migration of African peoples to the Americas, Europe, the Caribbean, and Latin America in the modern period from the 15th to the 19th centuries. The Atlantic slave trade, also known as the transatlantic slave trade, was a major conduit for the forced transportation of peoples from the African continent. An estimated 12–15 million Africans were captured and transported by slave traders across the Atlantic Ocean regularly over a period of about 400 years. The majority were taken to the Caribbean, Latin America, and the United States to work as slaves on agricultural plantations. African men were the majority of those captured and sold in the transatlantic slave trade. Ratio by gender is estimated to have been two men for every female. The uprooting of African women disrupted traditional African family life. However, under slavery, certain African child rearing practices, such as community parenting, other mothering, and fictive kin networks, were reinforced and became essential to the survival of the black family in the African Diaspora.

In precolonial West African societies, motherhood accorded the African woman a high degree of prestige and influence within the community. In both matrilineal and patrilineal African societies, the bond between mother and child was regarded as the foundation of all social and community life. In addition, within these African societies, the concept of mothering extended beyond an individual's biological offspring. Children belonged to the community and women as well as men were responsible for the day-to-day nurturing and well-being of every child. Mothering was an activity to ensure the health and continuance of the society. Under slavery, however, family life and mothering were directed toward the production of capital for the landed class of slave owners. Black women from Africa were valuable for their labor production as agricultural workers and also for their capacity to reproduce slave labor.