Tabom People
Tabom People ("Tabom people" or "Tabom people") are the members of the Afro-Brazilian community in Accra , the capital of West African Ghana . The Tabom are descendants of released Portuguese- speaking slaves from Brazil . The name "Tabom" probably comes from the Portuguese greeting "Ta bom" (it goes well), which is used as an answer to the question "Como esta?" (how are you?) takes place.
history
The Tabom arrived in Accra in 1836 on the British ship SS Salisbury. There were about 70 people from seven families. The ship had brought them from Lagos in the neighboring British colony in what is now Nigeria . It is not known whether they had been in Lagos for any length of time or whether they had left Brazil a year earlier in the wake of the so-called Male Revolt . This "male revolt" was the bloodiest of a series of slave revolts in Brazil and was mostly carried out by Muslim slaves.
In response to this revolt, several slaves from Brazil were deported to Africa to reduce the risk of further uprisings. Reprisals in Brazil against free blacks (i.e. freed former slaves or those who had bought themselves freely) also led to a wave of emigration by these free black Brazilians to West Africa, especially to Lagos, Porto-Novo and Widdah in what is now Benin . There the Afro-Brazilians formed whole "Brazilian quarters", compared with a small number who came to Accra.
The Tabom were received with open arms by the ruler Nii Ankrah of the native Ga . They were given land in privileged areas of the city because they did not come as poor people and also brought with them some manual skills as blacksmiths, goldsmiths, house builders or tailors, which from then on had a beneficial effect for Accra. For example, it was Tabom who opened the country's first commercial tailor shop in 1854 and later provided uniforms for the Ghanaian army. The leader of the Tabom was a certain Nii Azumah Nelson , whose descendants still play an important role in the Tabom today.
Traces of the Tabom in the cityscape of Accra
In the North Ridge neighborhood there is another street called Tabon Street. Many Tabom people now live in the "James Town" district, where the first house built and used by the Tabom people can be found, the so-called "Brazil House" in "Brazil Lane".
The tabom today
The Tabom still exist today as a group with their own sense of identity and cultural peculiarities. The current head of Tabom is Nii Azumah the Fifth , a direct descendant of the above-mentioned mythical leader of the first Tabom group from 1836. In addition to Islam, many Tabom cling to "Brazilianized" gods of African origin, such as B. the Shango of the Yoruba : exported from the area of today's Nigeria to Brazil and changed there many times, the Tabom deities "re-imported" to Africa. Despite this continued identity, the Tabom are now fully integrated into Ghanaian society, no longer speak Portuguese and are regarded as part of the Ga people.
Famous descendants of the Tabom People
- Sylvanus Olympio , 1st President of Togo
- Azumah Nelson , boxer