Africans and their descendants constituted the majority of the population of the Americas for most of the first three hundred years. Yet their fundamental roles in the creation and definition of the new societies of the Onew world, O and their significance in the development of the Atlantic world, have not been acknowledged. This multidisciplinary volume highlights the African presence throughout the Americas, and African and African Diasporan contributions to the material and cultural life of all of the Americas, and of all Americans. It includes articles from leading scholars, and from cultural leaders from both well-known and little-known African Diasporan communities. Privileging African Diasporan voices, it offers new perspectives, data, and interpretations that challenge prevailing understandings of the Americas. Its fundamental premise is that the story of the Americas can only be accurately told by including the story of the foundational roles played by Africans and their descendants in the Americas

Plantation membership, an important association that continues to carry meaning in today's African-American communities on the Sea Islands, depends on one's residence between the ages of two and 12. This is the time when one "catches sense," or learns the difference between right and wrong and the meaning of social relationships. Plantation membership confers rights and duties to its members for life, particularly in the areas of dispute settlement, adjudication, and status confirmation. The praise house system, which was the focal point of plantation life, is analyzed historically and in terms of the ethnographic present. Guthrie, an African-American anthropologist, believes that much of what she witnessed on St. Helena during her field research was a response to the experience of slavery when identity was derived from plantation residency rather than from mother, father, or place of birth.