2008 Woodie Awards
Heritage revealed in book
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By DONELL OSBORNE Staff Writer
Historians have spent decades untangling the roots of African-American heritage, but now the search for identity is one step closer to completion.
Michael Gomez, a University history professor, used sources from Africa, runaway-slave advertisements, ex-slave narratives and folklore to research the lost histories and origins of African Americans.
Gomez's research recently was published in a book titled "Exchanging Country Marks: The Transformation of African Identities in the Colonial and Antebellum South."
"The book looks at the relationship between the African antecedent and what developed into the African culture," Gomez said.
His research revealed that a large number of African Americans are descendants of the Igbo people, from what is now southeast Nigeria.
The Republic of the Congo, Angola and other West African countries also lost many people to the slave population.
"I can say without question, however, that one-fourth of the Africans imported into what became the U.S. were from southeastern Nigeria," Gomez said.
Because South Carolina and Georgia were major areas of African settlement and influence in the United States, Gomez was able to research at local libraries containing slave documents.
Gomez's research extends through 1830, because after then African influences and memories began to fade as the slaves became more mobile and were removed from Africa, Gomez said.
