Black Gods and Monarchs: Priests and Practices of the Afro-Atlantic Religions

Surveys the spiritual, political and economic experience of those who worship African gods—West and Central Africans, Cubans, Brazilians, Haitians, and North Americans. The gods as sources of power, organization and healing amid local political dominance of Muslims and Christians and seismic expansion of international capitalism. West African Yoruba religion, West-Central African Kongo religion, Brazilian Candomblé and Umbanda, Cuban Santería and Palo Mayombe, Haitian Vodou, and African American Pentecostalism are examined as belief systems, and contextualized to the trans-Atlantic slave trade, long-distance commerce and pilgrimage by free people.