Beauty.

Beauty is not race neutral. It is a racialized category/ perception which emerged through centuries of European colonization, Indigenous genocide, African/Black enslavement and indenture resulting in an aesthetic hierarchy with Blackness at the bottom. The coloniality of aesthetics means that still today hair perceived as Black in texture and styling and darker skin on African descent bodies are the repositories of anti-Blackness. However, Black women, children and men continue to fight back by (re)creating Black antiracist aesthetics focused on valorizing Black skin and hair.

Anthropological genetics perspectives on the transatlantic slave trade.

During the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade (TAST), around twelve million Africans were enslaved and forcibly moved from Africa to the Americas and Europe, durably influencing the genetic and cultural landscape of a large part of humanity since the 15th century. Following historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists, population geneticists have, since the 1950's mainly, extensively investigated the genetic diversity of populations on both sides of the Atlantic. These studies shed new lights into the largely unknown genetic origins of numerous enslaved-African descendant communities in the Americas, by inferring their genetic relationships with extant African, European, and Native American populations. Furthermore, exploring genome-wide data with novel statistical and bioinformatics methods, population geneticists have been increasingly able to infer the last 500 years of admixture histories of these populations. These inferences have highlighted the diversity of histories experienced by enslaved-African descendants, and the complex influences of socioeconomic, political, and historical contexts on human genetic diversity patterns during and after the slave trade. Finally, the recent advances of paleogenomics unveiled crucial aspects of the life and health of the first generation of enslaved-Africans in the Americas. Altogether, human population genetics approaches in the genomic and paleogenomic era need to be coupled with history, archaeology, anthropology, and demography in interdisciplinary research, to reconstruct the multifaceted and largely unknown history of the TAST and its influence on human biological and cultural diversities today. Here, we review anthropological genomics studies published over the past 15 years and focusing on the history of enslaved-African descendant populations in the Americas.

Ancestry, health, and lived experiences of enslaved Africans in 18th century Charleston: An osteobiographical analysis.

OBJECTIVES: In 2013, the burials of 36 individuals of putative African ancestry were discovered during renovation of the Gaillard Center in downtown Charleston, South Carolina. The Charleston community facilitated a bioarchaeological and mitogenomic study to gain insights into the lives of these unknown persons, referred to as the Anson Street Ancestors, including their ancestry, health, and lived experiences in the 18th century. METHODS: Metric and morphological assessments of skeletal and dental characteristics were recorded, and enamel and cortical bone strontium stable isotope values generated. Whole mitochondrial genomes were sequenced and analyzed. RESULTS: Osteological analysis identified adults, both females and males, and subadults at the site, and estimated African ancestry for most individuals. Skeletal trauma and pathology were infrequent, but many individuals exhibited dental decay and abscesses. Strontium isotope data suggested these individuals mostly originated in Charleston or sub-Saharan Africa, with many being long-term residents of Charleston. Nearly all had mitochondrial lineages belonging to African haplogroups (L0-L3, H1cb1a), with two individuals sharing the same L3e2a haplotype, while one had a Native American A2 mtDNA. DISCUSSION: This study generated detailed osteobiographies of the Anson Street Ancestors, who were likely of enslaved status. Our results indicate that the Ancestors have diverse maternal African ancestries and are largely unrelated, with most being born locally. These details reveal the demographic impact of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Our analysis further illuminates the lived experiences of individuals buried at Anson Street, and expands our understanding of 18th century African history in Charleston.

Skin-Tone Trauma: Historical and Contemporary Influences on the Health and Interpersonal Outcomes of African Americans.

Empirical evidence demonstrates that racism is a source of traumatic stress for racial/ethnic minorities, particularly African Americans. Like race and racism, skin tone and experiences of colorism-an often overlooked form of discrimination that privileges lighter skinned over darker skinned individuals, although not uniformly, may also result in traumatic stress. This article proposes a new conceptual model of skin-tone trauma. The model depicts how historical and contemporary underpinnings of colorism lead to colorist incidents that may directly and indirectly, by eliciting traumatic stress reactions, lead to negative effects on the health and interpersonal relationships of African Americans. Key tenets of critical race and intersectionality theories are used to highlight the complexities of skin-tone trauma as a result of intersectional identities on the basis of existing social hierarchies. Last, we present suggestions for researchers, as well as recommendations and strategies for practitioners, to unmask "skin-tone wounds" and promote healing for individuals, families, and communities that suffer from skin-tone trauma. Skin-tone trauma should be acknowledged by researchers, scholars, and practitioners to better understand and assess the widespread scope of trauma in the African American community.

Black Nurse, White Milk: Breastfeeding, Slavery, and Abolition in 19th-Century Brazil.

Brazil imported more enslaved Africans than any other slave-owning society in the Americas, and it was the last country in the western hemisphere to abolish the institution. Whereas many enslaved persons toiled on plantations and in mines, urban slavery was also prominent, with enslaved men carrying coffee through the streets and enslaved women washing clothes. One gendered aspect of urban slavery in 19th-century Brazil included slave owners renting out enslaved women as wet nurses to breastfeed the children of elite families. This article reviews medical dissertations, debates, and journal articles, as well as advertisements for wet nurses, showing that physicians believed that enslaved women's milk was both nutritionally and morally inferior to white women's milk. In the latter half of the 19th century, physicians viewed abolition as the only answer to what they deemed the increasingly "dangerous" practice of enslaved wet nursing, which they believed was the root cause of high infant mortality rates across races and classes. Readers should consider the ethical dilemmas of the practice of enslaved wet nursing, which often resulted in the violent separation of mother and child.

"There Were Rapes!": Sexual Assaults of African American Women and Children in Jim Crow.

Using data from 92 interviews, this article examines the narratives of African Americans' experiences as children and young adults during Jim Crow in the Southeast and Southwest. It gives voice to the realities of sexual assaults committed by ordinary White men who systematically terrorized African American families with impunity after the post-Reconstruction south until the 1960s. The interviewees discuss the short- and long-term impact of physical, mental, emotional, and sexual assaults in their communities. We discuss the top four prevalent themes that emerged related to sexual assault, specifically (a) the normalization of sexual assaults, (b) protective measures to avoid White violence, (c) the morality of African American women, and (d) the long-term consequences of assaults on children.

Control de la lepra y contagionismo en suriman / No disponible

La lepra, aunque actualmente está desapareciendo, no ha sido derrotada todavía en Surinam. En la época colonial fue un gran problema para el gobierno colonial y la población, siendo la mayoría de pacientes (en la época pre-abolicionista) esclavos. En el siglo XVIII se estableció un sistema de control que ya incluía la en la legislación la detección y el confinamiento como métodos importantes. Los médicos holandeses que ejercían en Surinam durante el siglo XVIII y primera mitad del siglo XIX propusieron modelos contagionistas de contención que sugieren que la lepra era causada por una mezcla de factores, siendo la infección uno de ellos. Pero durante la primera mitad del siglo XIX, los investigadores europeos rechazaron mayoritariamente la infección y prevaleció el anti-contagionismo, considerando la herencia y los factores medioambientales como su causa. Al mismo tiempo, en Surinam - puesto que la lepra estaba incontrolada - la lucha contra la lepra se reforzó promulgando leyes implacables para perseguir e identificar a los leprosos. A su vez, Charles Louis Drognat-Landré defendió el punto de vista (tesis Utrecht) de que solamente la infección es la causa de la lepra. Su argumento sobre el contagionismo fue rechazado en Holanda, pero posteriormente publicó sus ideas en francés y así llegaron a ser más conocidas internacionalmente e influyeron en el noruego Hansen. Este descubrió algunos años después el microorganismo causal. Se afirma que hay una relación entre el desarrollo de una forma de contagionismo típico surimanés, un sistema de control de la lepra brutal y la estructura política autocrática, no liberal (hacia los esclavos) de la colonia holandesa de Surinam

Leprosy is nowadays a disappearing but not yet defeated disease in Suriname. In colonial times it was a burden for colonial government and people, the majority of patients (in preabolition times) being slaves. In the 18th century a control system was established, with detection and isolation, anchored in legislation, as major methods. Dutch physicians working in Suriname in the 18th and first half of the 19th century proposed contingent contagionistic models, according to which leprosy was caused by a mixture of factors, infection being one of them. But in the first half of the 19th century European researchers generally denied infection as the cause of leprosy and the paradigm of anti-contagionism prevailed, considering heredity and environmental factors as its cause. At the same time in Suriname - because leprosy appeared uncontrollable - the fight against the disease was reinforced by promulgating more relentless laws to hunt and identify lepers. In line with this, the Suriname born Charles Louis Drognat-Landré defended the view (thesis Utrecht) that infection is the one and only cause of leprosy. His extreme contagionism was sharply rejected in The Netherlands, but then he published his ideas in French and so could reach the international scene and influence the Norwegian Hansen. The latter discovered the culpable micro-organism a few years later. We claim a correlation between the development of a typical Surinamese form of contagionism, the brutal leprosy control system and the autocratic, non-liberal (towards the slaves) political structure of the Dutch colony Suriname

On slaves and genes: "origins" and "processes" in genetic studies of the Brazilian population.

In this article I examine how contemporary geneticists investigating the history and configuration of the Brazilian population engage with other academic disciplines. To do so I use as a case study some articles published by geneticists researching the presence of hemoglobin S variants in Brazil, in which there is a clear pretension to contribute to the analysis of issues such as slavery or Brazil's ethnic identity. By contrasting these studies with contemporary works from history and the social science, the explanatory centrality of "origin" in the genetic studies analyzed is problematized, as is the lack of interaction with the epistemological characteristics of other areas of knowledge.

Arqueologia da escravidão em fazendas jesuíticas: primeiras notícias da pesquisa / The archeology of slavery on Jesuit fazendas: first research notes

Nesta nota de pesquisa apresentamos questões teóricas e metodológicas sobre uma investigação em arqueologia histórica iniciada recentemente, que visa analisar o cotidiano da escravidão, regimes demográficos, práticas culturais etc. Um levantamento de sítios arqueológicos em antigas senzalas e fazendas escravistas do Vale do Paraíba e norte fluminense está sendo realizado. Com a cooperação de historiadores, arqueólogos e antropólogos, registros da cultura material de populações escravas de origem indígena e depois africana estão sendo localizados nas escavações iniciadas na fazenda jesuítica do Colégio em Campos dos Goytacazes (RJ), administrada por religiosos e depois leigos nos séculos XVII, XVIII e XIX.

These preliminary research notes present theoretical and methodological questions regarding a recently inaugurated investigation in historical archeology that intends to analyze daily life under slavery, demographic regimes, cultural practices, and so on. A survey of archeological sites on former 'senzalas' (slave quarters) and slave-owning fazendas in the Paraíba Valley and northern part of the state of Rio de Janeiro is currently in progress. With the cooperation of historians, archeologists, and anthropologists, records of the material culture of slave populations, which originally comprised indigenes and later Africans, are being located at excavations underway on the fazenda that is part of the Jesuit school in Campos dos Goytacazes, Rio de Janeiro, first run by the clergy and later by members of the laity in the seventeenth, eighteenth, and nineteenth centuries.