The Americans of Samaná
The Americans of Samaná
1998 - 2001
audio archive
image not available online
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Photographers Andrea Robbins and Max Becher give visibility and voice to the community of Samaná, a peninsula in the northeast of the Dominican Republic, and home to the descendants of freed African- American slaves. In 1824, some 34 families arrived there from Haiti, which had recently achieved independence, encouraged by Haiti’s new president and the American Colonisation Society, which, for supposedly humanitarian reasons, promoted the expulsion of freed slaves. Although they live in a Spanish-speaking Caribbean country, today's 8,000 descendants have preserved the English language of the nineteenth century, together with the music, customs, gastronomy and the Protestant religion. A succession of dictatorial governments has banned English, but despite their linguistic and religious isolation, they continue to maintain their group identity. Excluded from economic development and  condemned to poverty, many still identify as Americans and wait for repatriation or to be reunited with branches of their families in the United States.

The texts of the MACBA web draw on previous documentation. Please let us know if you find any errors.
original title
The Americans of Samaná
year of acquisition
2003
type of object
Audiovisual recording
credits
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium. Gift of Amics dels Museus de Cataluña
registration number
R.2185
date
1998 - 2001
fonds
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium
media
Single-channel video, colour, sound, 60 min
Copyright
© Robbins / Becher
original title
The Americans of Samaná
registration number
R.2185
date
1998 - 2001
year of acquisition
2003
fonds
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium
type of object
Audiovisual recording
media
Single-channel video, colour, sound, 60 min
credits
MACBA Collection. MACBA Consortium. Gift of Amics dels Museus de Cataluña
Copyright
© Robbins / Becher
Colonization
Group identity
African American
Slaves
Santa Bárbara de Samaná (Dominican Republic)
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