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      Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic

       Ohio University Research in International Studies

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       Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic

      Wendy Wilson-Fall

       Foreword by Michael A. Gomez

      Ohio University Research in International Studies

      Global and Comparative Studies Series No. 14

      Ohio University Press

      Athens

      © 2015 by the Center for International Studies

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      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Wilson-Fall, Wendy, author.

      Memories of Madagascar and slavery in the Black Atlantic / Wendy Wilson-Fall ; foreword by Michael A. Gomez.

      pages cm. — (Ohio University research in international studies, global and comparative studies series ; No. 14)

      Includes bibliographical references and index.

      ISBN 978-0-8214-2192-5 (hc : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-2193-2 (pb : alk. paper) — ISBN 978-0-8214-4546-4 (pdf)

      1. Slavery—United States—History. 2. Slavery—Madagascar—History. 3. Slave trade—United States—History. 4. Slave trade—Madagascar—History. 5. United States—Relations—Madagascar. 6. Madagascar—Relations—United States. 7. African diasphora. I. Title.

      E446.W69 2015

      306.3'6209691—dc23

      2015030042

       Contents

       List of Illustrations

      Foreword by Michael A. Gomez

       Acknowledgments

       INTRODUCTION. A Particular Ancestral Place

       CHAPTER ONE. Madagascar

       CHAPTER TWO. Shipmates

       CHAPTER THREE. History and Narrative: Saltwater Slaves in Virginia

       CHAPTER FOUR. After the American Revolution: Undocumented Arrivals

       CHAPTER FIVE. Free, Undocumented Immigrants

       CHAPTER SIX. The Problem of the Metanarrative

       APPENDIX. Jeremiah Mahammitt’s Malagasy Words

       Glossary

       Notes

       Bibliography

       Index

       Illustrations

       Maps

       1.1. Madagascar

       3.1. Plantations on the Rappahannock River

       3.2. Plantations on the York and James Rivers

       Foreword

      To name a thing is a powerful act, with implications and consequences far reaching in nature, conveying for the named both meaning and purpose. Insofar as it concerns the human condition, it is a transformative event, by which the unknown travels a circuit of discovery, of intelligibility. But such a process also constitutes a beginning, at times in a literal sense, while always in a cognitive one. To name a thing is equally transactional, conveying import for both the one who names and the one who is named. To the degree that the name endures, the former achieves recognition as progenitor, a causal source in at least some sense, while the latter is given visibility. To these aspects of naming must be added its spatial quality, locating the one naming and the one named in mutual social relation. But such pursuit of nomenclature is also directional, as the name bestowed, whatever its meaning, provides a level of orientation. And direction, by its very definition—and notwithstanding its capaciousness—also has boundaries, a certain terminality, situating the one named relative to all and anyone else, delimiting the universe of possible permutations of experience.

      Wendy Wilson-Fall’s incisive book Memories of Madagascar and Slavery in the Black Atlantic is about the social and cultural properties and implications of naming and demonstrates that the more specific the naming, the more powerful and consequential the act. In following the story of the Malagasy in what becomes the United States, she succeeds in continuing to dismantle, piece by piece, the formerly unassailable notion of the improbable, the implausible, and the far-fetched as it relates to the originating experiences of African Americans. And in advancing our understanding of those origins, she simultaneously underscores their heterogeneity, effectively making the point that the African American community issues from an array of geophysical points of departure.

      Memories

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