The Angolares Maroons in São Tomé and Principe: To Live Free on an Island of Slaves (16th-19th Centuries)

Jacques Aymeric-Nsangou's academic journey began at the University of Yaoundé I (Cameroon), where he obtained a Bachelor's degree in Archaeology and then a Master's degree in Archaeology and Cultural Heritage Management. In Cameroon, he also conducted a research project on defensive structures in the Bamun kingdom. Benefiting from an Excellence scholarship from the Swiss Confederation, he continued his thesis at the University of Geneva to study how the communities of eastern Senegal  defended themselves against various existential threats between the 17th and 19th centuries, including the slave trade. Published under the title Les fortifications endogènes du Sénégal Oriental, his monograph is available in open access thanks to the support of the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Beyond defensive issues, he has been interested in other aspects of the material culture of African inland communities between the 15th and 19th centuries, notably by studying ceramics during his various postdocs at the Deutsche Historische Institut (Rome), the Harvard University Center Villa I Tatti (Florence),as well as the Ceramic Technology Lab of the University of Manitoba (Winnipeg), where he participated in ongoing inquiries on the Islamization of Old Buipe (Ghana). Continuing his research to understand the survival strategies of communities in the face of the slave trade, he is now working to reconstruct the material culture of the Angolares of the island of São Tomé, one of the first maroon community at the time of the transatlantic slave trade. This project is funded by an Ambizione grant of the Swiss National Science Foundation.