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The Afro-Nicaraguans (Creoles) a Historico-Anthropological Approach to Their National Identity

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The Afro-Nicaraguans (Creoles) a Historico-Anthropological Approach to Their National Identity MARIÁN BELTRÁN NÚÑEZ ] The Afro-Nicaraguans (Creoles) A Historico-Anthropological Approach to their National Identity WOULD LIKE TO PRESENT a brief historico-anthropological ana- lysis of the sense of national identity1 of the Nicaraguan Creoles, I placing special emphasis on the Sandinista period. As is well known, the Afro-Nicaraguans form a Caribbean society which displays Afro-English characteristics, but is legally and spatially an integral part of the Nicaraguan nation. They are descendants of slaves who were brought to the area by the British between the seventeenth and nineteenth centuries and speak an English-based creole. 1 I refer to William Bloom’s definition of ‘national identity’: “[National identity is] that condition in which a mass of people have made the same identification with national symbols – have internalized the symbols of the nation – so that they may act as one psychological group when there is a threat to, or the possibility of enhancement of this symbols of national identity. This is also to say that national identity does not exist simply because a group of people is externally identified as a nation or told that they are a nation. For national identity to exist, the people in mass must have gone through the actual psychological process of making that general identification with the nation”; Bloom, Personal Identity, National Identity and International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1990): 27. © A Pepper-Pot of Cultures: Aspects of Creolization in the Caribbean, ed. Gordon Collier & Ulrich Fleischmann (Matatu 27–28; Amsterdam & New York: Editions Rodopi, 2003). 190 MARIÁN BELTRÁN NÚÑEZ ] For several hundred years, the Creoles have lived in a state of permanent struggle. The history of the Atlantic Coast has been one of constant ethno- cultural conflict with the hinterlands, exemplified by the dispute between the Catholic and Protestant religions, between the Spanish and the Amerindian and English languages, and between the mestizos and the ethnic minorities. For these reasons, the Atlantic Coast has remained almost totally isolated from the Pacific Coast. On the other hand, the Nicaraguan Creoles have his- torically had constant contact with other British Caribbean countries and their Creole peoples, with whom they share culture, language and phenotypes. An identification with them has been created, to the extent that transnational Creole identity seems stronger today than Nicaraguan identity. One of the first concerns of the Revolution of 1979, which led to eleven years of the Sandinista government, was to end this isolation, and to bring the costeños2 into contact with the rest of the country. I will analyse how this isol- ation has affected the national identity of the creoles and how the Sandinistas approached the issue. The Creoles make up approximately 30,000 people (about nine percent of the Coast population), chiefly settled in the main urban areas.3 The Atlantic Coast is ethnically diverse, with Ramas, Sumus, Miskitu, Garifuna and mes- tizos sharing the area with the Creoles. Being a Creole in Nicaraguan means having African phenotypes, speaking a creole language, and sharing specific cultural characteristics. All of these elements differentiate the Creoles from other ethnic groups on the Coast and contribute to their distinctive identity. Historical context The history of the Nicaraguan Creoles goes back to 1630, when the British began to bring slaves from Africa to work on the sugar-cane plantations they had in the area. For the next 150 years, African slaves continued to arrive on the Miskito Coast, and the British presence progressively reaffirmed itself in a territory which was under Spanish jurisdiction. The number of blacks increa- sed when the new production of coconut and bananas, and a boom in the extraction of timber, promoted the arrival of Jamaican Creoles and free slaves, who emigrated to the Coast from the coastal islands. 2 The costeños are inhabitants of the Atlantic coast. 3 CIDCA (Centro de Investigación y Documentación de la Costa Atlántica de Nicaragua), Demografía Costeña: Notas sobre la historia demográfica y población actual de los grupos étnicos de la Costa Atlántica Nicaragüense (Managua: CIDCA, 1982). .
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