Making Culture
The Histories of Anastácia and Tahro
Enslaved and colonized people refused dehumanization. They asserted their humanity and resisted oppression through spirituality, artistry, and ritual.
The stories of Anastácia and Tahro illustrate how culture was made and remade across time, shaping societies in the Americas.
New Cosmologies
Enslaved and colonized people created and reconfigured belief systems to understand and assert their place in the world. These practices often blended different cultures and religions, incorporating African spiritual and ritual practices with those of their captors, creating new religions like Santería, Vodou, and Candomblé.
These belief systems, or cosmologies, provided guidance and comfort for enslaved people, opening worlds beyond the harsh physical and mental realities of enslavement. Spirituality was a means to assert agency, create community, and maintain a sense of self and identity. These spiritual cosmologies continue to shape the cultural landscape of our world today.
Anastácia
Hero, Guardian, and Black Saint
Altar to Anastácia at the Church of Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos in Salvador, Bahia, Brazil
Anastácia has guided Brazilians past and present. Originally depicted as an enslaved African person silenced by an iron torture device, her image has traversed history, moving from illustrating the plight of the enslaved to representing the resilience of contemporary Afro-Brazilians.
Although little is known about Anastácia as a historical figure, her cultural impact is undeniable. Every day, people of the Afro-Catholic and Umbanda faiths pray to Anastácia. Through shrines and prayer cards, they evoke her spirit for protection and call on her strength in turbulent times.
A Monument to Anastácia
Monumento à Voz de Anastácia, Yhuri Cruz, 2019
Illustration of an enslaved person wearing torture devices, 1790
Artist Yhuri Cruz creates a modern monument to Anastácia, reimagining her historic image and emphasizing the importance of her voice, or voz. Freed from the iron device covering her face, a liberated Anastácia smiles in the face of oppression and assumes a new type of power. In a reimagined prayer card, Cruz asks for her protection: “Anastácia, you are free, we implore you . . . intercede for us, shield us, enshroud us in your benevolent grace.”
Spiritual Vessels
Edgefield face cup possibly made by Tahro, ca. 1861
Kongo nkisi (plural: minkisi)
Face vessels created by enslaved potters in Edgefield, South Carolina, may have held similar meaning as ritual objects created in West Central Africa. Scholars have connected the Edgefield vessels to minkisi, physical objects that hold spiritual elements for protection and healing.
Like minkisi, Edgefield face vessels utilized kaolin clay, a sacred material in Kongo culture facilitating communication between the living and the deceased. It is possible these Edgefield vessels helped their makers traverse Kalûnga, a spiritual threshold in Bakongo cosmology. Objects like these may have bridged the realms of the living and the dead, connected the past with the present, and assisted in the creation of new lives on the other side of the Atlantic crossing.
Tahro
Making Culture Across Oceans
Cilucängy (Ward Lee), Pucka Geata (Tucker Henderson), and Tahro (Romeo), three of the nearly 500 captives illegally trafficked on the Wanderer, ca. 1930
In 1858, the Wanderer, an illegal slaving vessel, smuggled more than 400 captive Africans to the southern United States. Among the captives was Tahro, a native of the Kongo kingdom.
Tahro worked alongside other Wanderer survivors as an enslaved potter in the stoneware industry of Edgefield, South Carolina. Edgefield potters also produced works for personal use, including ceramic vessels with facial features. These face vessels have been linked to Kongo ritual objects, suggesting that this artistic practice was one way enslaved people in Edgefield adapted and reconfigured African beliefs in America.
Artist Spotlight
Pola Maneli Illustrates Agency
South African illustrator Pola Maneli
Illustration of the Saba Marrons, Pola Maneli, 2024
Much of the history of enslavement was recorded by enslavers and European observers. Historical illustrations, paintings, and photographs of enslaved people were crafted through a colonial perspective. These renderings are often incomplete and offensive, and some enslaved communities have no surviving visual record at all.
For this exhibition, South African artist Pola Maneli worked carefully to create a set of illustrations that address these gaps in the visual archive. Using historical research, Maneli brought his unique interpretation and approach to visualizing the actions of enslaved people and their fight for freedom.
Kongo in the Americas
More than five million people trafficked through the Transatlantic Slave Trade came from West Central Africa. This region included present-day Republic of Congo, Democratic Republic of Congo, Angola, and Gabon, and was the homeland of powerful states such as the Kingdom of Kongo.
Kongo culture expanded across the Atlantic, shaping a variety of practices in the Americas, from religion and language to music and combat. Enslaved Africans of all backgrounds met the daunting challenge of creating new lives and communities by blending their heritages with Indigenous and European cultures.
Artist Pola Maneli illustrates Kongo influence on the Americas.