Locating 'Africa' Within the Diaspora: The Significance of the Relationship Between Haiti and Free Africans of Philadelphia Following the Haitian Revolution

Abstract

The purpose of this study is to produce an Africological model that lends attention to epistemological questions in African diaspora research through theoretical and culturally based analysis, ultimately to aid the historical and psychological restoration of Africans in diaspora. This work reflects the theoretical and historic stream of scholarship that centers geographic Africa as the adhesive principle of study in shaping and understanding the cultural and political ally-ship between different African diasporic communities. My aim is to illustrate what Africa represents in diaspora and how it was shaped in the conscious minds and actions of early Africans in diaspora from their own vantage point. Secondly, through a case study of the intra-diasporic relationship between Haiti and free Africans of Philadelphia following the Haitian Revolution, this work lays precedence for the expansion of an African diasporic consciousness. The significance of the intra-diasporic relationship is in the mutual recognition that Haitians and Africans in North America considered themselves a common people. Moreover, they developed an international relationship during the early 19th century to serve their mutual interest in African freedom and autonomous development despite Western expansion. My research locates Africa as the place of origin for dispersed and migrating African diasporic communities, operating as a binding source. In this study Africa is explored as a cognitive and geo-political cultural location for African people in diaspora. I support that African diasporic communities exist as extended African cultural locations of awareness which can and have been negotiated by communities depending on their agency, support, and circumstance to achieve collective goals.