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“The Middle Passage did not strip Angolans, Biafrans, or other Africans of their combat traditions. Rather, they carried this valuable legacy with them in their minds and bodies. Not only did they keep hope of a return journey alive in their souls; they also remembered the martial traditions that could be called upon in times of need. In places where the trade tended to settle large numbers of Biafrans together in a region, Biafran-derived war dances and closed societies continued to act as vehicles for paramilitary actions in the Americas. These traditions can be seen in the Abakuá societies of Cuba and the ‘Igbo’ war dance, which was taken as a call for rebellion, performed in early nineteenth-century Trinidad. Similarly, as John Thornton has shown, elements of the Angolans’ military heritage appear to have reverberated throughout the Americas, including war dances and military patterns that were evidenced in numerous rebellions from the Stono Rebellion to the Haitian Revolution.”
-T.J. Desch Obi, Fighting for Honor: The History of African Martial Art in the Atlantic World
