The Mina were a well-organized African-American community of people in Louisiana enslaved from the Bight of Benin and sharing a common language, most likely a dialect of Ewe or Gen.[1]
As part of how some Louisiana slave-holders managed enslaved people at the time, the maintenance of African linguistic–ethnic communities was tolerated and even encouraged.[1] The Pointe Coupée Mina community arose following their enslavement and importation into Louisiana following 1782.[2] Among enslaved Africans whose ethnicity was recorded in official documents between 1719 and 1820, Mina were the third-largest enslaved ethnic group in Louisiana.[3]
Many Mina took part in the Pointe Coupée Slave Conspiracy of 1791.