Enslaved Swimmers And Divers & Servants Of Allah

            Enslaved swimmers and divers refer to a group of West Africans who were taken into slavery and later exhibited their ability to swim, and this helped in shaping generations of their leisure and occupational activities. This practice of swimming was known to them because they grew up near lakes, along river banks and close to oceans, and this made them to become skillful (Dawson, 2006). Even so, Africans transmitted their skills and practices to the Americas and this was an expression of cultural retention.

            Cultural retention can be defined as an act where people of a given community retain their culture while living in a foreign land especially if there are reasons for losing that culture. The first example of cultural retention by Africans is how they carried swimming and diving to America. Africans used skills to improve their spiritual, psychological and social status. To begin with, this demonstrated the African origin of swimming abilities. Africans incorporated swimming in America’s recreation (Dawson, 2006). Additionally, through this skill of swimming, Africans were used in lucrative occupations and this was for their own benefits. This is because occupational diving required exceptional skills which only Africans had and this was to their advantage. Africans also demonstrated many forms of African culture for instance dance, religion, music and art. This culture was beneficial to Africans in that in spite of the fact that they were slaves, they had their own identity. However, their being proficient swimmer affected them to a certain extent. They were compared to animals to the extent that their genitals were compared to those of animals thus contending that Africans engaged in lascivious and bestial intercourse (Dawson, 2006). And because Africans did not suffer labor pains, they were not regarded as the same creation like white women.

References

Dawson, K. (2006). Enslaved Swimmers and Divers in the Atlantic World. The Journal of American History; Mar 2006; 92, 4; Research Library Core pg. 1327