The World полностью

‘God has brought us where we are,’ said Oliver, ‘to consider the work we may do in the world as well as at home’ – and providence had never denied him a victory. Over 25,000 white settlers had already flocked to the colony of Barbados with its new, lucrative sugar plantations, which were worked by white indentured workers (many of them deported Irish Catholics, others impoverished children), but they were now replaced by African slaves. The English planters were soon outnumbered and now confronted a fear of slave rebellions, along with the problem that slavery did not exist under English law. Their answer was the Act for Better Ordering and Governing of Negroes, which would be the cruel basis for all American and Caribbean slave legislation, stating that ‘being brutish slaves’, they had no rights; punishment for disobedience would be whipping for a first offence, nose-slitting, whipping and branding for a second; and if ‘any Negro under punishment by his master unfortunately shall suffer in life or member, no person shall be liable to any fine therefore’.

As he planned his Western Design, Oliver found himself at war with his Catholic enemies, the Spanish, but also with his traditional Protestant allies, the Dutch, over trade and the support for the Stuarts from Charles II’s brother-in-law William, prince of Orange. Keen to make peace with these fellow Protestants, he proposed a political union with the United Provinces, then, forming an alliance with Cardinal Mazanin of France, he unleashed his fleet against the Spanish. Now he dispatched his ‘Invincible Armada’ under the joint command of an irascible republican, Robert Venables, and a vigorous young gentleman, William Penn. The timing was good: the Habsburgs were struggling as English troops landed on the rich sugar isle Hispaniola.

GANGA ZUMBA – KING OF PALMARES

The invasion was a fiasco. The soldiers fought ‘in a most sad and miserable manner’, admitted General Venables, ‘tormented with heat, hunger and thirst’. Instead in May 1655 they seized Santiago (Jamaica), which was still owned by the Columbuses. As the Spanish resisted and the local Maroons supported the English, the first governor invited the Brethren of the Sea, English pirates, to base themselves in Jamaica and raid Spanish ports. Led by a Welsh adventurer, Henry Morgan, they turned their headquarters, Cagway (soon Port Royal), into the world’s sleaziest, gaudiest, deadliest stew.

The English now started to accelerate the import of African slaves for their Jamaican and Barbadian plantations.^* But at home the failure of the godly empire stunned Oliver: God had withdrawn his blessing from this nation of sinners. Cromwell sought to correct the moral venality of his people, ruling through his major-generals, who closed taverns and banned ungodly dancing, cockfighting, football, bear-baiting. Christmas remained cancelled. But England was about to receive an opportunity thanks to the modest new king of Portugal, João IV, who struck back against the Dutch. Their Groot Desseyn had won them an Atlantic nexus from Elmina and Luanda to Manhattan and Brazil, where the brutal efficiency of the Calvinist Dutch slave masters had alienated white nobles and mixed-race Amerindians, Catholic slave masters and slave hunters who led an insurrection in Pernambuco. The war, fought in Brazil and Angola, was viciously multi-ethnic: both sides recruited Amerindians and Afro-Lusitanian auxiliaries; the Portuguese recruited slaves, who were promised freedom in return for service.

In February 1649, João’s multiracial army, led by an Afro-Brazilian called Henrique Dias, a freed son of slaves, entitled Governor of all Creoles, Blacks and Mulattoes, and a Potiguaran Amerindian, Felipe ‘Poti’ Camarão,^* defeated the Dutch at Guararapes. Then the Afro-Brazilians sailed across the Atlantic to restore Portuguese rule in Africa under an Afro-Lusitanian commander, Salvador Correia de Sá. During fifteen years of war, the Dutch, their Kongo ally Garcia and Queen Nzinga of Ndongo fought back, both sides fielding cannibal Imbangala militias. The Portuguese retook Luanda; retreating into the interior, Garcia of Kongo and Nzinga of Ndongo survived, both dying peacefully, while the Imbangala under a jaga (king) named Kasanje formed their own kingdom which lasted for two centuries. But now came a settling of scores.

In 1665, at Mbwila, Garcia’s son, Manikongo António, backed by the Dutch, fought the Portuguese. Among his commanders was a royal princess, Aqualtune, two of her sons, Ganga Zumba and Ganga Zona, and her daughter Sabina. The Bakongo were routed, António killed, the princess and family enslaved and sent to Brazil. But that was not the end of the story, for they would become the rulers of America’s biggest rebel slave kingdom.