The People of the Land

The People are the West Africans, mainly Mandingo, transported to the New World from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century, and the Land at various times is either the New World or their West African homeland.
The author avoids the occasionally narrow academic approach by assembling his evidence from anthropology, linguistics, ethnomusicology and history. Before following the West Africans to the New World, he establishes them within their indigenous culture, and demonstrates how this instilled in them, the resilience required for survival in an alien land surrounded by unfriendly people. Admittedly, he revisits some previously-travelled territory such as the West African claim to having discovered America, but he also outlines the role of West African soldiers in Germany’s defeat in both World Wars, and breaks new ground by supporting the claim to American discovery by citing DNA and archaeological evidence.
The book is subtitled ‘Individual Personality and the National Character….’ In the final chapter the author suggests that the often uncompromising reaction to authority in today’s youth may have its roots in Mandingo intransigence during the Atlantic Slave Trade.