Renowned Brazilian sociologist, cultural anthropologist and historian Gilberto Freyre once stated that when African slaves arrived in the New World' they ceased being African. Instead, they were 'West Indian Blacks' - battered, broken and moulded into what the Europeans required. This work draws from history, anthropology, sociology, economics, literature and culture to examine Freyre's contention. It also looks at the methods used by the Europeans in what the author calls the 'de-Africanisation of the Africans' and the creation of the West Indians.'