The Cultural History of the Black African Diaspora in Early Modern Spain

Introduction

What were the cultural creations of black women and men in early modern Spain? How did black women and men shape the cultural productions of the period? More than four hundred texts in early modern Spanish literature include black characters in a variety of literary genres, such as drama and poetry.

Historical Context

The vast corpus of literary narratives on blackness has not fully engaged with the fact that Spain had the second-largest black African diaspora in early modern Europe — second only to Portugal. Black women and men during this period were producers and contributors of cultural creations.

Project Focus

With a focus on Spain and in connection with the Iberian World, BADEM will investigate three intertwined areas:

1. Cultural History
2. Literature
3. Linguistics

The project aims to provide a new scholarly framework to challenge our understanding of Europe’s past and its people.

Cultural Heritage

BADEM will narrate an untold story of both the tangible and intangible cultural heritage that black Africans created, primarily but not exclusively as:

• Singers
• Dancers
• Actors
• Storytellers
• Painters

Contributions to Cultural Narratives

The project will explore the way black Africans refashioned and contributed to the production of early modern cultural narratives on blackness. It will also investigate the African cultural traits and multilingual practices of black women and men, particularly in relation to their cultural mediations.

Goals and Objectives

In this way, BADEM will promote an understanding of the experiences of survival through creativity, the making of blackness, and the processes of identity-building and creolization. The project will accomplish its goals in three domains of research:

1. Conducting the first systematic locating of black cultural creators.
2. Building a unique open-access Archive of Black Creators.
3. Producing an interdisciplinary narrative about the contributions of black women and men to the literary and linguistic culture of Spain in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.