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Book Review
Comparative/World
| Daniel E. Walker. No More, No More: Slavery and Cultural Resistance in Havana and New Orleans. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press. 2004. Pp. xiv, 188. Cloth $59.95, paper $19.95.
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| This engaging monograph by Daniel E. Walker makes an important contribution to comparative slave studies. The field has a long and contentious history going back to the travel writers of the nineteenth century and includes scholarly voices such as those of pioneering North American scholar Frank Tannenbaum. Students of comparative history are well aware of the challenges and pitfalls of contrasting the dynamics of two distinct societies with different political, economic, and social systems. Walker wisely utilizes a variety of traditional and nonconventional sources available to scholars of the African diaspora to supplement his archival research in Cuba and the United States. He also uses two institutionalized public festivals as a springboard into a wider discussion about cultural resistance of enslaved Africans and their progeny. |
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Slavery relied on physical and psychological control to subjugate peoples of African descent across the Americas, yet the enslaved found ways to assert their cultural identities and to resist the processes that sought to rob them of their dignity. Walker convincingly shows that while participating in the sanctioned festivities and performances of the annual Día de los Reyes (Three Kings' Day) festival in Havana and in the weekly activities that took place at New Orleans's Congo Square, people of African descent often contested racial oppression and celebrated their cultural heritage in spite of the restrictions that governed their lives. |
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