In 1739, during the visit of the Count Nicolaus von Zinzendorff, two letters were written by enslaved members of the community of the Moravian Brethren. In the first letter, which was addressed to the Danish king, a group of enslaved people complained about their position in the Christian community. Despite being baptized, they were looked down upon by the colonists.
The second letter was written by Damma, also known as Marotta and Madlena. It consisted of two texts: one of them was written in an African language that was unknown to us until recently and the other was a translation of it into Virgin Islands Dutch Creole. In 1742 these letters were published and these were probably the first examples of texts in which enslaved people expressed their emotions in non-European languages.
The African letter of Damma remained a mystery and several scholars tried to unravel parts and pieces, using the Creole translation. Indications of possible West African languages were presented and published, but unfortunately, an undisputed language variant was lacking.
Version 1 of Damma’s letter. Courtesy of the Unitätsarchiv der Evangelischen Brüder-Unität, R.15.B.a.03.61_a-b
Two years ago Katharine Gerbner, assistent professor History of Religion at the University of Minnesota, formed a research group in which she, five linguists specialized in West African languages and Virgin Islands Dutch Creole and a historian specialized in the history of female enslaved in the Danish Westindies, worked together to translate the text, but also to portrait the writer of it.
The website which was constructed looks beautiful and consists of several related essays. The African letter is translated and Damma turned into a real person.
Please visit this website: http://www.newtermsfortheuniverse.org.
die creol taal 