There are two subtribes of Kenya’s Kamba community still thriving in the South American nation of Paraguay: Kamba Cua and the Kamba Kokue.
They were among the first slaves forced into the country during Spanish-colonial rule. When the Spanish took over in 1524, the first African slaves arrived shortly after in 1556.
According to Argentine historian José Ignazio Telesca, some slaves entered Paraguay “legally” through Buenos Aires, Montevideo, and Córdoba, Argentina. He says those who gained access illegally came from Brazil.
Telesca adds the population of Paraguay continued to increase and by 1811, 50 percent of the population identified as African descent, whether enslaved or free.
General Jose Gervasio Artigas of Uruguay was the first to recognize the Kamba tribe for their agility and military skills with spears, bows, and arrows when sought exile in Paraguay’s Itapua area.
They were eventually given 100 hectares of land in Campamento Loma, a suburb of the capital by then Paraguay ruler Jose Gaspar Rodriguez in an effort led by General Artigas. This area came to be known as Kamba Cua and those who settled there became farmers.
The community thrived and remained true to their Kenyan cultural roots until general Higinio Morinigi came to power in 1940. The Kamba Cua were stripped of their land and only had three of the original 100 hectares left.
Shortly after his rule, a new policy of defining Paraguay as completely “white” was adopted, and interracial marriage was encouraged to gradually dilute the presence of Black residents.
An informal census in 2009 estimates there are roughly 422 Kamba Cua and 385 Kamba Kokue families left.
They have guarded their culture for close to 200 years and still practice dairy farming and agriculture on their small plots of land as well as perform traditional dances.
Today, the Kamba Cua are using their dances and cultural practices to draw attention to their plight in public performances, advocating for equal economic and social rights while building an African identity.
how did the spanish reach kambaland and enslave them to south america? in history the recorded colonisers who engaged in slave trade were the portuguese in brazil, the french in haiti, the british in the carribean and the us. hii ya spanish sijaiskia.
Most likely Oman and the Yemen Arabs trading in Mombasa were trading in slaves as well. Easy for them to move into the interior of Kenya from the coast, capture Kamba tribesmen whose lands are close to the coast anyway and transport them to Portuguese ships waiting at Fort Jesus. Kumbuka the portuguese had a longstanding presence at the coast. Vasco Da Gama’s pillar is there in Malindi. Tayari there’s ranchowners in Uruguay with massive plantations eager to pay for African slaves.
If an hekaya narrated to me by an acquaintance i knew back in the day be true then there might be a Kamba speaking tribe in Nigeria too. The guy was well known mtaani. We all knew him to have emigrated to Germany in the early 90s, got married over there, had kids. Came back to Kenya opened a car dealership selling used cars from Europe that did well.
Then he started having affairs huku Kenya, eventually married a Kenyan wife as wife number two and had kids with her as well. Then he started spending more and more time in Kenya with his new family and eventually the jungu wife found out. She intentionally destroyed his business. He had a nigga moment.
Beat the sense out of the jungu woman Congo style, got arrested and held in a German prison. Eventually with a criminal record, the jungu wife got him deported back to Kenya. Landed at the airport with his clothes in a jwala toka Europe msee.
If you thought that was interesting, well there’s more, that was just the premise. He told me that while he was locked up in a German cell after battering his jungu wife, he was held in the same cell with two Nigerians that had been arrested the same night for peddling drugs. He said the two Nigerians were in a heated conversation like they were blaming each other and he swore that if a fellow Kenyan were in the cell with him at that point in time, he too would have agreed that the language the two Nigerians were speaking as they argued was kiKamba!.