Secret Societies and Other Mutual Aid Societies: A Triangular Investigation of Africa, the West Indies and the United States of America, 1775--1950

Secret Societies and Other Mutual Aid Societies: A Triangular Investigation of Africa, the West Indies and the United States of America, 1775-1950, examines three general geographical areas in which people who originated in Africa were dispersed to the West during the Transatlantic Trade in Captured Africans. In Africa there was a process of inculcating cultural values while harnessing skills in an authentic education system called retreat schools. These schools were the original African lodges or secret societies that supported the communal system since they made people indigenous. Everyone in a village had an obligation to become initiated in order to learn the secrets of their society. Those individuals who were not indoctrinated were ostracized because they did not experience transformation and pledged an oath of loyalty.;The purpose of this study is to investigate the elaborate infrastructure that was historically an integral part of early African institutional character, and aspects of its presentation among New World Africans. The study considers some of the mechanisms applied by West Africans to make inhabitants indigenous as opposed to a parallel approach used by Europeans to indoctrinate people into fraternalism. Since African descended people had original ideas of fraternal association the study wanted to understand why many Diaspora Africans sought societal equality in European forms of fraternalism. Thus, the question "Where does equality end and originality begin?" gave agency to the hypothesis: The practical appeal of Freemasonry and other groups with secret dealings was based on a variety of needs that were perceived to be addressed adequately by fraternal connections. This hypothesis was examined by the study's methodology which was based on an augmented Abraham Maslow Hierarchy of Needs Pyramid. There was also a heavy oral history component to capture the experiences of informants.;The study showed that many New World Africans accepted European fraternalism because it was their path to security and upward social mobility while some accepted various aspects of West African forms of fraternalism with relatively less notoriety. Equality was preferred over originality among those who became members of elitist secret societies. Although initiation meant acceptance, originality meant isolation amongst relatively less empowered communities.