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Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture
Advisory Board Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, University of Cologne Allison Blakely, Boston University Robert A. Cordery, Pitney-Bowes, Inc. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Dartmouth College Sue Peabody, Washington State University at Vancouver Tyler Edward Stovall, University of California at Berkeley
Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture Volume 1: A–J Edited by Eric Martone
GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of Blacks in European history and culture / edited by Eric Martone. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34448–0 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34450–3 (v. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34452–7 (v. 2 : alk. paper) 1. Blacks—Europe—History—Encyclopedias. I. Martone, Eric. D212.2.B53E53 2009 940'.0496—dc22 2008030542 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2009 by Eric Martone All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008030542 ISBN: 978–0–313–34448–0 (set) 978–0–313–34450–3 (Vol. 1) 978–0–313–34452–7 (Vol. 2) First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
VOLUME 1 Preface
vii
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction
xi
Chronology
xvii
Alphabetical List of Entries
xxxi
Topical List of Entries
xxxvii
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA, A–J
1 VOLUME 2
Chronology
vii
Alphabetical List of Entries
xxi
Topical List of Entries
xxvii
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA, K–Z
305
Resource Guide
573
Index
583
About the Editor and Contributors
605
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Preface
The idea for this encyclopedia evolved from my experiences as a high school teacher in an urban district in Connecticut. With the increasing cultural diversity in modern American classrooms, teachers and professors in the humanities and social sciences must incorporate material that reflects the diversity of their students to meet their students’ educational needs. In my school district, we were encouraged to incorporate minority studies into the curriculum, especially during Black History Month. Numerous encyclopedias and reference works address African Americans’ contributions in history and literature, and some even connect African American culture to African culture. As a teacher of European and world history, I always found myself at a loss for similar materials on blacks in Europe. In fact, although the field of black European studies is gaining popularity in academia, the very idea of blacks in European history and culture is still a foreign concept to many secondary school teachers, students, and the general public. Therefore this encyclopedia is the first of its kind to introduce this topic to general audiences and schools. This encyclopedia focuses on the depictions and contributions of blacks in European history, literature, and popular culture. A work this ambitious cannot be all things to all people or cover all conceivable topics relevant to the purpose and scope of this encyclopedia. At the very least, however, this encyclopedia will open the doors to the subject of blacks in Europe, emphasizing the scope and massiveness of their contributions and role in European history and culture, for educators, students, and the general public. This encyclopedia, therefore, fills an important gap in multicultural education. Furthermore, it develops increased awareness that the black presence in Europe is not merely a contemporary phenomenon, for blacks have played a significant part in European history and culture during ancient, medieval, and modern times. In addition to informing general readers, this encyclopedia hopes to be of use for a variety of high school and undergraduate courses. It serves as a starting point for
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Preface educators to incorporate black studies in their curricula beyond American history and literature. For secondary and undergraduate institutions, this encyclopedia is meant primarily for use with foreign language, literature, and social sciences courses (including European history, world history, and global cultures courses). In addition to the alphabetical list of entries in the front matter, there is also a topical list of entries meant to assist educators and students, as well as interested readers. The entries are grouped by country or subregion (as in the case of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and Scandinavia) to assist departments of history and foreign languages and cultures and their students, as well as interested readers. Most of the other categories are subjects, such as literature, art, music, and sports. For the purposes of this encyclopedia, “black” refers to individuals from Africa, the Diaspora (Caribbean, continental North America, South America, Oceania, Europe), and of mixed parentage. There are 360 entries covering a variety of topics. The coverage attempts to touch on a wide geographical and sequential scope, focusing on key individuals, terms, concepts, organizations, incidents, institutions, laws, influential works, theories, movements, and cases associated with blacks in European history and culture. Entries in the encyclopedia are arranged in alphabetical order. Cross-references are in bold and additional related entries are at the end of each entry. Each entry explains the term, provides an overview, and describes its significance to the topic of the encyclopedia. For those seeking additional information, there is a chronology of key events in the front matter. Each entry has “further reading,” and there is a Resource Guide with suggested reading, Web sites, and films in the back matter. The encyclopedia focuses on the countries of Britain, Spain, Portugal, France, Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Russia (although there are entries on Central Europe, Scandinavia, and Eastern Europe). For the countries or subregional areas of focus, there are several anchor entries, including individual historical overviews of the country’s or subregion’s presence and contributions of blacks, its role in the African slave trade and abolition, its colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, its literature, and the role/contributions of blacks in contemporary European society. There are individual entries for significant European political, literary, and cultural figures of black descent from ancient times to the present; major historical interactions between Europe and Africa that resulted in the settling of blacks in Europe; white European individuals and organizations that contributed to the development of black political and social rights in Europe; significant legislation or codes concerning blacks in Europe; significant literary works by black authors and major literary works that had a substantial impact on European perceptions of blacks; representations of blacks in European art and cultural symbols; black holidays and festivals in Europe; European intellectual and scientific theories on blacks; fields in Europe in which blacks played a prominent role; the struggle for civil equality for blacks in Europe; issues concerning black immigration to Europe; black European identity; and entries pertaining to the role and influence of blacks in contemporary European popular culture. There are also some entries on African Americans who either spent long periods of time in Europe or made an impact on European society.
Acknowledgments
Many people worked to bring this book to fruition. I would like to thank Wendi Schnaufer, my editor at Greenwood Press, who helped get this book approved by the publisher when it was in its developing stages and who offered help throughout the process of its completion. I would also like to thank Jennifer Boelter and Mark Kane, who helped throughout the production process, and Elizabeth Kincaid, who secured the artwork for this book. I would like to express my gratitude to the members of my advisory board—Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, Allison Blakely, Robert Cordery, Gretchen Gerzina, Sue Peabody, and Tyler Stovall—for their enthusiasm, support, and advice. I would particularly like to thank Sue Peabody, who was especially helpful and encouraging. I would also like to thank Pierre Boulle, who served as a sort of unofficial advisory board member during this book’s early stages and as an emergency translator. I would also like to thank Werner Sollors, who provided recommendations for numerous contributors. A reference work like this is the product of academic collaboration. I would like to thank all of my contributors, some of whom wrote multiple entries and volunteered to write last-minute entries to help get this book completed on time. I have enjoyed corresponding with all of them. I would particularly like to thank Justin Corfield, who wrote a record number of entries and without whom I am sure this book would never have been completed on time, and Charlotte Szilágyi, who contributed an illustration for her entry. I would also like to thank Lawrence Hundersmarck, one of my former (and favorite) undergraduate professors, for taking the time to contribute to this book. Last, but certainly not least, I would like to thank my family for their love and support. I would like to thank my brother, Mark, for helping me with some of the entries. This book, combined with my regular teaching duties and doctoral work, occupied a large portion of my time. I would like to express my gratitude to my wife, Nicole, for her love, support, and understanding while keeping the house in order
x
Acknowledgments as I worked in my office/library located in our basement, or, as she prefers to call it, my “dungeon.” When I was writing the proposal for this book in 2006, I was preparing for my wedding. Later, as the deadline for this book was approaching in 2008, my wife and I received a new addition to our family when our son, Domenic, was born. It is, therefore, to both of them—my wife and our new son—that this book is dedicated.
Introduction
Scholars have focused increasingly on the role of minority groups in European history and culture. One of the minority groups that have gained scholarly attention is blacks. Blacks have been in Europe since ancient times and have contributed to the development of European society. They have become increasingly relevant to European studies as the result of the postwar processes of European decolonization and immigration to Europe of peoples from its former colonies, primarily in Africa and the Caribbean. Yet, this longstanding European “black presence” remains relatively unknown among the general public and has only recently gained the attention from scholars that it deserves. Why have blacks remained invisible to previous scholars in European studies? What difficulties do scholars face in approaching the history and contributions of blacks in European history and culture? How is studying blacks in European history and culture similar to studying other minority groups? It has been argued that one of the major problems in studying blacks in European history and culture is that there is no universal definition of what it means to be “black.” Generally speaking, in the European context, the term black was used in reference to individuals who were dark in color. During the course of time, as a result of interracial marriages, the subsequent descendants of a “black” person in Europe would no longer be identified as black. Until the twentieth century, class was more important than race in determining one’s social status. Conversely, in the United States, the “one-drop” rule has dominated American racial classification, leading individuals with any percentage of black ancestry to be regarded as black.1 Decolonization and labor shortages in parts of Europe resulted in the mass influx during the postwar era of people from Africa and the Caribbean of black descent. As a result of this population shift, blacks in Europe became increasingly diversified in terms of origin, customs, and social identities. As immigrants’ children are raised in European society, they feel “European.” For example, are the children of black Caribbean immigrants to Britain still Caribbean? Are they black? Are they European? Are
xii
Introduction they Afro-European? Are individuals whose families have a longstanding presence in Europe “black”? Since the late nineteenth century, historians have shown how notions of PanAfricanism and black unity have had a large impact on black identity in Europe.2 In response to earlier conceptions of the African Diaspora, which developed among African American intellectuals and incorporated notions of the struggle and dispersion of the Jews, scholars such as Paul Gilroy have highlighted hybrid identities, that being European and black necessitates forms of “double consciousness,” which gives new meaning to a term coined by W.E.B. Du Bois in reference to individuals whose identities are divided into different facets.3 The contemporary concept of an African Diaspora furthers the idea that regardless of cultural variations, all individuals of black African descent have an emotional connection with each other and to the African continent. Furthermore, blacks are united in the common fight against racism and in defining their identities. In studying blacks in European history and culture, contemporary European conceptions of “black” are complicated by the dominance of American culture. The different conceptions of race in America and Europe have even led to scholarly debate over how to name people of black African descent in Europe.4 Such debate has led to some groups adopting names derived from the African American model, such as AfroGermans or Afro-Caribbeans. Yet, the term black is in widespread use, particularly in Britain, where the term black British is common.5 For the purposes of this encyclopedia, “black” is used in a broader, more American context and can refer to individuals who are from Africa, the African Diaspora (Caribbean, continental North America, South America, Oceania, and Europe), and of biracial descent. Viewing the European past in a more American outlook will naturally draw criticism, but such is the difficulty in presenting this material to American audiences. Such a view does run the risk of taking individuals who would not have considered themselves black and using them as examples of a minority “black presence.” Furthermore, it clouds the fact that such labels as “black” and “white” did not (and in to some extent still do not) necessarily define one’s identity to the same extent as in the United States. Many European countries do not even take social racial labels into account, and not all individuals of black descent in Europe identify with being “black.” Many individuals of black descent in Europe did not inherit this sort of identity or were socialized in this way. Therefore in Europe, being of black African descent does not automatically equate to being “black.” In applying a more American conception of race to Europe, by broadening the lens to see how theories of racial inferiority are absurd, however, we can see how race has been interpreted throughout the course of Western history and its significance. This approach will allow us to question our own American preoccupation with race. Similar complexities are faced when studying other minority groups in which selfidentity and social perception play a large role in defining the minority group’s existence. In his significant study of homosexuals in New York before 1960, for example, George Chauncey was able to find evidence of a “gay New York” that was not supposed to have existed in part because the modern definition of “gay” was not applied to this earlier period, for sexual normality was not defined by exclusive heterosexuality. Should individuals who practice what we would today interpret as homosexual acts be
Introduction classified as homosexuals even if the individuals in question would not perceive themselves as members of this group?6 In yet another example, is being “Jewish” a religious identity or an ethnic one? Is it both? For example, are European Jews who convert to another faith or are raised in another faith still “Jews”? Such are the questions facing Jewish historians, particularly in periods of Spanish history, in which many Jews converted (or ostensibly converted) to Christianity to avoid persecution.7 Another problem in studying blacks in European history and culture is that data recording race are scarce during earlier periods of history, making attempts to trace their presence difficult. Furthermore, blacks who became successful in earlier periods did so by following conventional paths and were often of biracial descent; thus the fact that they were “black” is obscured. The limited studies and records on blacks in earlier European history seem to support the notion that blacks in Europe were generally integrated into European society.8 The sexual exploitation of black women in the colonies led to a number of biracial individuals in all levels of society. Some of them received recognition from their white fathers and returned to Europe. Two of the most famous examples are the Chevalier de Saint-Georges and Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, both biracial French aristocrats born in the French colonies who became military commanders in France during the French Revolution. European (and Western) history has frequently been perceived as the accomplishments of a white majority. Even in the stricter European sense, blacks, who have contributed to European political, social, and cultural development have often been ignored in standard European and Western civilization textbooks and there are relatively few studies. Only recently have works by such black intellectuals as Jacobus Capitein, a former slave who became a European professor in the eighteenth century, aroused scholarly interest. A recent collection of essays has studied the influence of European blacks during the Renaissance, including studies on the great Spanish humanist Juan Latino and Alessandro de Medici, whose mother was a black slave.9 The invisibility of blacks in European history and culture suggests the possibility of a conscious or unconscious attempt to ignore or minimize the influence of a minority group. In highlighting the role of blacks (in a broad sense) in European history and culture, therefore, scholars have been attempting to counter the notions about blacks that have led to their conscious or unconscious marginalization in the historical memory and the elements of racism that have run current in European thought. Like many minority groups in European history, such as Jews or Roma, blacks were believed to have negative influences on society. In earlier European thought, it was believed that blacks had dark skin because they were “cursed” by God. Two different variations of this curse existed (and were often conflated) that derived from the Hebrew Scriptures (or Old Testament). One stemmed from the curse of Cain and the other the curse of Ham. Europeans used this interpretation to find a biblical justification to segregate and regulate blacks in European society. Thus racism, bans on interracial marriage, and the enslavement of Africans were all justified.10 Belief in the curse of Ham or the mark of Cain later gave way to “Enlightenment” and “scientific” studies that justified divisions between races.11 Despite the times that blacks were able to integrate into European society, they were periodically the victims of efforts to regulate their presence in European society
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Introduction to preserve the “safety” of the “native” population. Such efforts were widespread throughout Europe and there are many examples. In 1596, and again in 1601, Queen Elizabeth I of England responded to the growing number of “divers blackmoores” with deportation orders. Both France and Spain issued decrees to limit the presence of blacks in their countries and to mark those of black descent. The French Royal Declaration of August 9, 1777 prohibited the arrival of any new “black, mulatto, or person of color of either sex” into France. A subsequent decree on April 5, 1778 prohibited mixed marriages and punished couples who violated the law with expulsion to the colonies. Such legislation sought to protect the “native” white French population from being “polluted” by blacks.12 In the twentieth century, Nazis persecuted mixed-race children, who were the victims of a mass sterilization program and were also victims of the Holocaust, as threats to German racial and cultural purity. Even after World War II, mixed race children (many fathered by African American soldiers) were subject to state attempts to remove them from the country.13 In European and American history, other minority groups, in addition to facing persecuting regulations, have been segregated or forced to remain in a spatial designation for the “benefit” of the majority. For example, many studies have focused on Jewish ghettos in Italy.14 Even some studies on African Americans have shown how socially constructed barriers forced African Americans into modern ghettos.15 Studies of blacks in connection to the spatial organization of society that persevered in maintaining blacks’ presence to the margins of society have yet to be completed and are only just developing.16 Studies focusing on blacks and spatial segregation have focused on the subject from a legal or political viewpoint.17 Most scholarship on blacks in Europe has focused on the postwar era and the ability (or lack of ability) of European society to assimilate diversity.18 There are several reasons for this focus. First, as a result of decolonization and immigration, blacks have never had such a visible presence in Europe before the twentieth century. Second, race is more clearly a relevant concept to twentieth-century Europe. Third, more data are available to analyze. Fourth, the recent immigration experience has created a good example of the “double consciousness” prevalent in black studies. In his introduction to a special issue of the Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies, for example, Ralph Grillo provides an outline of the African migrant presence in Europe since the 1960s and highlights the “double engagement” of the migrants with both Africa and Europe.19 Blacks have had an impact on European history and culture far greater than the size of their population would lead some to believe. Studies have focused on the depiction of blacks in European art, religious imagery, and heraldry.20 By combating the imagined notion of a white Europe historically composed of “pure” nation states, and perceiving that European interactions with other continents were pushing Europe into a “global age” long before the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, we can see how blacks have contributed to the advancement of Europe for centuries. NOTES 1. Allison Blakely, “Problems in Studying the Role of Blacks in Europe,” Perspectives (May/ June 1997). Available: http://www.historians.org/Perspectives/index.cfm. 2. Timothy Murithi, The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development (Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005).
Introduction 3. Paul Gilroy, The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness (London: Verso, 1993). 4. P. J. Aspinall, “The Categorization of African Descent Populations in Europe and the USA: Should Lexicons of Recommended Terminology be Evidence-Based?” Public Health 122:1 (Jan. 2008): 61–69. 5. For examples: Stephen Bourne, Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television (London: Continuum, 2001); Alison Donnell, ed., Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture (London: Routledge, 2002); Dilip Hiro, Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain, Rev. ed. (London: Grafton Books, 1991); Sarita Malik, Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television (London: Sage Publications, 2001); Kwesi Owuso, Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader (New York: Routledge, 1999). 6. George Chauncey, Gay New York: Gender, Urban Culture, and the Making of the Gay Male World, 1890–1940 (New York: Basic Books, 1994). 7. Jane Gerber, Jews of Spain (New York: Free Press, 1994). 8. See: Hans Debrunner, Presence and Prestige, Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918 (Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1979); Peter Mark, Africans in European Eyes: The Portrayal of Black Africans in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Europe (Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1974); David Northrup, Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1650–1850 (New York: Oxford University Press, 2002). 9. Jacobus Capitein, The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave, trans. Grant Parker (Princeton: Markus Wiener, 1999); T. F. Earle and K.J.P. Lowe, eds., Black Africans in Renaissance Europe (New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005). 10. Cain Felder, Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2002); David Goldenberg, The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003). 11. Emmanuel Eze, ed., Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader (Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997); John Jackson and Nadine Weidman, Race, Racism, and Science: Social Impact and Interaction (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004). 12. Pierre H. Boulle, “Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France,” The Journal of the Historical Society 6:1 (March 2006): 19–46. 13. Tina Campt, Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender and Memory in the Third Reich (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004); Heide Fehrenbach, Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Post-war Germany and America (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005); Clarence Lusane, Hitler’s Black Victims (London: Routledge, 2002); Patricia Mazon and Reinhild Steingrover, eds., Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000 (Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005). 14. Richard Sennett, “Chapter Seven—The Fear of Touching: The Jewish Ghetto in Renaissance Florence,” Flesh and Stone: The Body and the City in Western Civilization (New York: W. W. Norton, 1994), 212–251; Kenneth Stow, Theater of Acculturation: The Roman Ghetto in the Sixteenth Century (University of Washington Press, 2001). 15. Thomas Segrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar Detroit, rev. ed. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2001). 16. For example: Allan Pred, Even in Sweden: Racisms, Racialized Spaces, and the Popular Geographic Imagination (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000). 17. Examples: Sue Peabody, “There are No Slaves in France”—The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996); Dwain Pruitt, “‘The Opposition of the Law to the Law’: Race, Slavery, and the Law in Nantes, 1715–1778,” French Historical Studies 30:2 (Spring 2007): 147–174.
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Introduction 18. Examples: Carol Blackshire-Belay, ed., The African-German Experience: Critical Essays (Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996); Colin Brock, The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France, and the Netherlands (London: Routledge, 1986); Steven Colatrella, Workers of the World: African and Asian Migrants in Italy in the 1990s (Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001); Ira Katznelson, Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the United States, 1900–1930, and Britain, 1948–1968 (London: Institute of Race Relations/Oxford University Press, 1973); Kathleen Paul, Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997); Dominic Thomas, Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006). 19. Ralph Grillo, “Africa< >Europe: A Double Engagement,” Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 34:2 (March 2008): 175–198. 20. Examples: Lucia Birnbaum, Black Madonnas: Feminism, Religion, and Politics in Italy (Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993); Malgorzata Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe, Tradition and Transformation (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007); Ladislas Bugner, ed., The Image of the Black in Western Art (New York: William Morrow and Harvard University Press, 1976–1989); Paul Kaplan, The Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art (Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985); Jean Devisse and Michel Mollat, The Image of the Black in Western Art (New York: Morrow, 1979).
Chronology
500s B.C.E.
Aesop, who might have been of African origin, creates his fables on the Greek island of Samos.
300s B.C.E.
Clitus “the Black,” one of the Macedonian commanders under Alexander the Great, may have been of black African descent.
219 to 202 B.C.E.
During the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, Carthaginian general Hannibal invades Italy with many African soldiers, many of whom are black African.
200s B.C.E. to 476
The ancient Roman army uses African troops, which are stationed throughout Western Europe.
100s
African playwright Terentius Afer writes several pieces for the theater of the ancient Roman Empire.
100s to 200s
Five emperors from Africa rule ancient Rome: Septimius Severus, Geta, Caracalla, Marcus Opellius Macrinus, and Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus; the exact race of each of these emperors is often debated.
100s to 400s
Ancient Rome incorporates Africa into its empire; Africans become members of the Roman government.
600s to 900s
Muslims from Africa launch attacks and eventually occupy parts of Italy.
700s
Muslims from Africa begin to launch attacks and occupy parts of the Iberian peninsula; Muslims retain control over parts of the Iberian peninsula until 1492.
xviii
Chronology 1000s to 1400s
Development of the Black Madonna tradition in Europe, which depicts Mary, the mother of Jesus, with dark skin tones.
1099
Nugaymath Turquia leads a contingent of 300 female Moorish archers, called “Amazons” during the Almoravid siege of Valencia, which led to the death of the Spanish hero El Cid.
1100s
Prester John, a mythical figure, is thought by Europeans to rule over a distant Christian empire beyond the Islamic world; over time, this empire is believed to be in Africa.
1194
Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI is accompanied by turbaned black trumpeters on his entry into Sicily.
1200
Feirefiz is a courtly knight and the biracial half-brother of the main character Parzival in the Middle High German epic poem Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach.
1200s
Sir Morien, a black Moorish knight, is the subject of a romantic epic poem written in medieval Dutch set in the mythical era of King Arthur of England and the Knights of the Round Table.
1200s
Mourana Gil, a Moor, becomes the mistress of King Afonso III of Portugal.
1200s to 1300s
Black Africans are used frequently in the iconography of the Holy Roman Empire to express the desire of particular emperors to extend their sovereignty beyond Europe.
1240s
Earliest surviving image of Maurice, the important soldier and Catholic saint, as a black African is made in Magdeburg, Germany.
Late 1200s
The Romance of Palamedes is written. Palamedes, a Moorish knight, is a member of the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend and a prominent character in the tale of Tristan and Isolde.
Late 1200s
The heraldic symbol of the Moor’s head, which depicts the profile of a black African Muslim, begins to appear on the traditional flags of many southern European regions.
Late 1200s
Many coats of arms in Europe begin to feature black Africans.
1300s
The Muslim community in Lucera in southern Italy, which included many black Africans, is suppressed by Charles II of Anjou.
Chronology 1300s
One of the Three Magi who worshipped the infant Jesus of Nazareth begins to be shown as black in European art.
1300s to 1400s
Black Death results in the increase of slaves in Europe, many of whom come from Africa.
1400s to 1600s
The Age of Exploration takes place.
1400s to 1500s
Renaissance art features many representations of black African slaves and domestic servants and their often manumitted descendants in Europe.
1400s to 1800s
African pirates known as Barbary pirates or Ottoman corsairs attack southern European cities and ships in the Mediterranean.
1450s
Pope Nicholas V issues papal bulls granting the right to reduce pagans, Muslims, and other non-Christians to slavery.
1490s to early 1500s
The Kingdom of the Kongo converts to Christianity and begins to send delegations to Portugal.
1492
Pedro Alonso Niño, a Spanish navigator of black African descent, pilots the Niña during Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas.
Early 1500s
Bartolomé de las Casas encourages the use of black African slaves in the New World instead of the native population.
1500s
The trans-Atlantic slave trade begins.
1500s
Leo Africanus, a former slave of Pope Leo X, publishes a multivolume survey of African geography.
1500s
John Blanke, a “Moor,” has a long career as a trumpeter at the Tudor Court in England.
1513
Nuflo de Olano, a black slave, accompanies explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa when his expedition sights the Pacific Ocean.
1526
Benedict the Moor, the son of African slaves and patron saint of Palermo, is born in Sicily.
1537
Alessandro de Medici, whose mother was a black servant, dies; he was the last of the senior branch of the Italian Medici family to rule Florence and the first to become a hereditary duke.
1574 to 1585
Juan Latina, a black Spanish poet, publishes three volumes of poetry in Latin.
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Chronology 1590s
Luce Negro, a famous black courtesan who ran a brothel in London, may have been the inspiration for the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Early 1600s
Leonardo Ortíz works as an Afro-Spanish lawyer of the Royal Court in Spain.
1600s
Henrique (or Enrique) Dias, a black African soldier from Brazil, serves in the Portuguese army during several colonial campaigns.
1603
William Shakespeare writes Othello.
1603
Andrés de Claramonte publishes El Valiente Negro de Flandes (“The Valiant Negro of Flanders”).
1640s
António Vieira, a biracial Jesuit missionary and Portuguese diplomat during the seventeenth century, becomes an advisor to the king of Portugal.
Mid-1600s
Sebastian Gomez, a former slave, becomes a student of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, a famous Spanish painter.
Mid-1600s
Juan de Pareja, a slave of African descent who worked in the household of Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, eventually earns his freedom and becomes a noted painter.
1665
Nabo the Moor, a favorite at the court of Queen Marie-Teresa of France, disappears; he is speculated to be the infamous Man in the Iron Mask.
1685
The Code Noir is adopted in France to regulate the status of slaves and freemen.
1687
Aniaba (or Aniabi), a young African man, is presented at the court of French King Louis XIV.
1688
Aphra Behn publishes Oroonoko or, the Royal Slave.
Late 1600s to 1700s
Enlightenment philosophers develop theories on race and slavery.
1700s
Jacobus Capitein, a former African slave, earns a doctorate from a university in the Netherlands; he becomes famous for his defense of the institution of slavery.
1700s
Francis Barber, a former slave from Jamaica, works in England as an assistant to the famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson.
1701
The Free Soil Principle is recognized in England by Lord Holt.
Chronology 1707
Tsar Peter the Great of Russia serves as godfather to Abraham Hannibal, a former black African slave who would become a noted Russian general, military engineer, and governor.
1723
Slavery is abolished in Russia.
1736
Anton Wilhelm Amo, a former African slave and first subSaharan African to attend any university in Europe, becomes a lecturer at a university in Germany.
1767
The case of Jonathan Strong is heard in England.
1770
James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw publishes his slave narrative in England.
1772
The Somerset Case suggests that slavery is inconsistent with English common law.
1773
African American slave Phillis Wheatley publishes her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in England.
1773
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre publishes Journey to Mauritius, which criticizes slavery.
1777
Bill Richmond, the slave who executed American Revolutionary war hero Nathan Hale, arrives in England, where he becomes a famous boxer.
1777
A French Royal Declaration prohibits the arrival of any new “black, mulatto, or person of color of either sex” into metropolitan France.
1778
A French Council of State arrêt prohibits interracial marriages and punishes the offending couples with expulsion to the colonies; all registered blacks are to carry identification cards.
1778
The Royal Pragmatic is issued in Spain to curb unacceptable interracial marriages.
1780
Ignatius Sancho, a former slave, dies; he was the first black African prose writer to publish his work in England and the first black Briton known to have voted in an election.
1786
Jean-Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy, a French scientist and the son of a former African slave, becomes the first person of African descent elected to the Academy of Science in Paris.
1786
Abolitionist Thomas Clarkson publishes the English version of An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African.
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Chronology 1787
The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in England.
1787
Sierra Leone is founded through English efforts as a home for emancipated slaves.
1787
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano publishes Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.
1788
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks is founded in France.
1789
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African is published.
1789
Black servant Ignatius Fortuna dies in Germany as a wealthy and respected man.
1790
Vincent Ogé, a biracial merchant from Saint-Domingue, returns to the Caribbean to initiate a doomed rebellion after unsuccessfully petitioning the French National Assembly to give free gens de couleur the right to vote.
1790s
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the son of a black slave and a French aristocrat, becomes a general in France during the French Revolution.
1790s
Black and biracial deputies from Saint-Domingue arrive in France during the French Revolution.
1791
The Haitian Revolution begins.
1792
During the French Revolution, a legion composed of all black soldiers is created and placed under the command of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the son of a black African slave and a French aristocrat.
1794
The French Revolutionary government abolishes slavery.
1795
Madame de Staël publishes Mirza.
1796
After the death of Angelo Soliman, a former African slave popular at the Habsburg court, the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of Austria, claims the former slave’s body and has it flayed and stuffed to be put on display in his private museum.
1800s
A series of revolutions for independence in Latin America and the Caribbean against European countries take place; many revolutionary leaders and soldiers are of black African descent.
1800s
Scientific racism is developed in Europe.
Chronology 1800s to early 1900s
Many African American intellectuals, artists, and writers travel to Europe.
Early 1800s
Joseph Emidy, a former black African slave, becomes a celebrated violinist and composer in Georgian England.
Early 1800s
John Edmonstone, a free black in nineteenth-century England, teaches the young naturalist Charles Darwin the art of taxidermy.
Early 1800s
African American actor Ira Aldridge becomes a success in European theaters, performing many of Shakespeare’s plays.
1802
Napoleon reintroduces slavery in the French colonies.
1802
Louis Delgrès leads a group of ex-slaves in Guadeloupe to resist the French forces returning and reintroducing slavery.
1802
George Bridgetower, a biracial musician dubbed “the Abyssinian Prince,” becomes an acquaintance of composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
1807
Britain passes the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.
1808 to 1815
Joachim Murat, a renowned cavalry leader of Moorish descent who was made a grand marshall of France by Napoleon Bonaparte, rules as king of Naples.
1811
The German writer Heinrich von Kleist publishes The Engagement in San Domingo about the Haitian Revolution.
1818
Nathaniel Wells, the son of a Welsh merchant and his black slave who inherited his father’s Caribbean estates, becomes Britain’s first black sheriff.
1820s
Nancy and Nero Prince, both African Americans, move to Russia and work for Tsar Alexander I and Tsar Nicholas I.
1820
William Davidson, a biracial radical activist, is a member of the infamous 1820 Cato Street Conspiracy in England.
1820s
Billy Waters, a black African sailor in the British navy, becomes famous as an eccentric street musician and actor in London.
1820s to 1840s
Cyrille Bissette, a man of biracial descent from Martinique, becomes known for his fiery writings in France that exposed the discrimination against free people of color in the French Caribbean and argues for the abolition of slavery.
1823
The British Anti-Slavery Society is founded.
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Chronology 1823
Madame de Duras publishes Ourika, the first full-fledged representation of a black person’s interiority in European literature.
1824
Radical biracial abolitionist Robert Wedderborn publishes his autobiography, The Horrors of Slavery.
1825 to 1830
Eugene Onegin, written by the Russian literary icon Alexander Pushkin, descended from an African slave, is published serially.
1830s
Jean-Louis Michel, a famous swordsman and duelist in Napoleonic France, opens a fencing school in Montpellier.
1830s
Biracial children from well-to-do families in New Orleans are often sent to France to receive a formal education.
1831
The Brown Privilege Bill is passed.
1833
Slavery is outlawed in all British colonies.
1834
French Society for the Abolition of Slavery is founded.
1835 to 1840
Alexis de Tocqueville publishes his Democracy in America, which greatly influences European opinion of the United States and its inhabitants, including blacks.
1836
Victor Séjour migrates to Paris, where he writes Le Mulâtre (The Mulatto, 1837), the first known piece of fiction by an African American writer.
1840s
Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass publishes a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and tours Europe for the first time.
1840s
Samuel Crowther, a native Nigerian, becomes ordained in England as an Anglican minister.
1844
Alexandre Dumas père, the grandson of a black slave, publishes The Three Musketeers.
1847
Sweden abolishes slavery after the slaves’ freedom was bought by the state.
1848
Denmark and France abolish slavery.
1848
William Cuffay, a black British tailor and leader in the Chartist movement, is arrested in connection with a planned uprising.
1850s
Arthur de Gobineau, a French diplomat and writer, publishes his Essay on the Inequality of the Races.
Chronology 1854
Mary Seacole is refused by British War Offices the right to serve as a nurse because of her ethnicity; she pays her own way to Crimea and becomes an independent nurse for the British army.
1860s
Famous Afro-Brazilian composer and abolitionist Antônio Carlos Gomes studies music in Italy.
1860s
Black British doctor James Africanus Beale Horton becomes an early advocate of African nationalism.
1860s to 1901
Afro-Cuban violinist Claudio Brindis de Sala becomes a sensation in Europe and German Kaiser Wilhelm II’s official violinist.
1863
The Netherlands abolishes slavery, including in its colonies.
1869
Portugal abolishes slavery in its colonies.
1870
Spain passes the Moret Law.
1871
The Rio Branco Law of Free Birth takes effect in Brazil.
1870s
The European “Scramble for Africa” begins.
1881
Pierre Loti publishes Le Roman d’un Saphi.
1884–1885
Germany and France host the Berlin Conference to discuss European imperialism in Africa.
1887
John Mensah Sarbah becomes the first black barrister in England.
Late 1800s
W.E.B. Du Bois pursues graduate studies in Germany and becomes an advocate of Pan-Africanism.
1896
Josephine Bakhita, a former African slave, becomes a permanent member of the Canossian Sisters in Italy. She is later made a Catholic saint.
1897
After the death of José de Sousa Martins, a revered biracial doctor in Portugal, a quasi-cult forms around him followed by people looking to his spirit to intervene in their recovery of a medical condition.
1898
Black British musician Samuel Coleridge-Taylor composes Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
1900
First Pan-African Congress is held in London.
Early 1900s
Germany bans interracial marriages in its African colonies.
xxv
xxvi
Chronology Early 1900s
Blaise Diagne, deputy for Senegal in the French National Assembly, becomes the first black African to serve in the French Chamber of Deputies.
1902
A delegation of Duala chiefs arrives in Germany to attempt to make complaints about the ongoing oppression and mistreatment by the German colonial administration.
1904
Mary Church Terrell is the only black woman to attend the Berlin International Congress of Women in Germany.
1906
John Archer becomes one of the first people of black African descent to hold public office in Britain.
1908
Leopold II transfers control of the Congo to the Belgian government amid protest by white European and black intellectuals over the Congo’s administration.
1914
Rudolf Duala Manga, a Duala king and paramount chief educated in Germany, is executed as a resistance leader against the German colonial authorities.
1914–18
Black colonial troops and labor are used in World War I.
1916
Sosthene Mortenol, whose parents were former black slaves, is a French naval captain appointed commander of the Air Defenses of Paris during World War I.
1919
Race disturbances occur in Glasgow.
1920s
Several mixed race children are born to black colonial occupational troops and white German women in the German Rhineland. They are later persecuted by the Nazis.
1920s
African American jazz takes Europe by storm.
1920s
African American Josephine Baker first emerges as a European superstar.
1921
René Maran, a French writer of Guyanese descent, becomes the first black recipient of the prestigious Prix Goncourt.
1926
Bakary Diallo writes of his experiences as a tiralleur in the French colonial army in World War I.
1929
The German Section of the League for the Defense of the Negro Race is formed.
1930s
Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed, a German colonial soldier in Africa during World War I, becomes a university teacher and actor in Germany before being persecuted by the Nazis.
Chronology 1930s
Nicolás Guillén Batista, a noted Afro-Cuban poet, goes to Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
1930s
Many African American volunteers fight against Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
1930 to 1940s
The Nazis persecute blacks in Germany and other parts of Europe, including Josef Nassy and Valaida Snow, performing forced sterilizations and sending them to concentration camps.
1930s to 1940s
Larbi Benbarek becomes an African sports celebrity in Europe.
1931
Harold Moody establishes the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) in Britain.
1933
Hilarius Gilges, a young Afro-German dancer and communist from Dusseldorf, Germany, is murdered by the Nazis.
1935
The “L’Etudiant Noir,” the forerunner of the Negritude Movement, is created in France.
1935
The International African Service Bureau is founded in England by C.L.R. James and George Padmore.
1938
Italy bans marriage between citizens and colonial subjects.
1939–1945
Black colonial troops and labor are used in European military forces in World War II; many African Americans are stationed and fight in Europe.
1940s to 1950s
Several biracial children are born to German mothers and African American servicemen stationed in Europe.
1943
The Imperial Hotel refuses to grant lodgings to the famous black British cricketer, Learie Constantine.
1945
The European decolonization of Africa begins.
1948
The Empire Windrush brings 500 Afro-Caribbean migrants to Britain, marking the beginning of an immigration boom.
1948
Jean Genet, a black French writer, is convicted of theft for the tenth time and several French writers successfully petition for a “pardon in advance.”
1949
Félix Éboué, the first black French colonial governor and hero of World War II, becomes the first black French citizen to have his remains placed in the Panthéon, a mausoleum reserved for the greatest figures in French history.
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Chronology 1952
Frantz Fanon publishes Black Skin, White Masks.
1954
The French government selects African American Eugene Bullard, who served with distinction in the French military during World War I and as a spy during World War II, to light the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe.
1956
First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists is held in France.
1958
Notting Hill Race Riot takes place in London.
1959
Claudia Jones, a Trinidadian activist and journalist, introduces the Notting Hill Carnival.
1959
The Africa Institute is founded in the Soviet Union for research on Africa.
1960s
Lumumba University opens in the Soviet Union to bring students from Africa study to the U.S.S.R.
1960s
African American Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X travel to Europe to encourage blacks to stand up for social equality.
1960s to 1970s
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) is launched as a protest initiative in Britain to eliminate racism.
1965
Britain passes the Race Relations Act.
1970s
The Notting Hill Carnival in London is transformed into a celebration of Caribbean identity.
1970s to 1980s
Brendon Batson becomes one of the first high-profile black British footballers.
1976
The Notting Hill Carnival Riot occurs in London.
1981
The Brixton race riots occur in England.
1982
Black Briton Val McCalla founds The Voice.
1983
David Dabydeen edits The Black Presence in English Literature.
1983
Léopold Sédar Senghor is elected a member of the prestigious French Academy.
1985–1986
The Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD) and Afro-German Women (ADEFRA) are founded.
Chronology 1986
Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out is published.
1987
Diane Abbott becomes the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons in the United Kingdom.
1987
Britain adopts the American concept of Black History Month, which in Britain is celebrated in October.
1987 to 2006
Martin Bernal published his three-volume Black Athena, a controversial work posing the argument that European classical civilization was primarily rooted in African and Asian cultures, and that previous scholars obscured the influences of these civilizations because of racism and anti-Semitism.
1990s
Afro-German entertainer Cherno Jobatey hosts a morning German television show.
1992
Afro-Caribbean writer Derek Walcott wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1993
Lennox Lewis becomes the first British world heavyweight champion in the twentieth century.
1994 to 2004
Arabella Kiesbauer hosts the daily talk-show Arabella, modeled on African American Oprah Winfrey’s show Oprah, on German television.
1995
Scholar Julia Markus published her book arguing that famous English poet Elizabeth Barrett and her future husband, Robert Browning, were of biracial descent.
1996
Calixthe Beyala is awarded the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française.
2001
The French Senate adopts a law recognizing slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity.
2002
Penguin Classics publishes a collection of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poetry, Mi Revalueshanary Fren, making him the second living poet to receive such an edition.
2002
The remains of Saartjie (Sara) Baartman, derogatorily known as the “Hottentot Venus,” who was exhibited and exploited in Europe as an attraction of the grotesque in the nineteenth century, are returned to South Africa by a French museum.
2002
Paul Boateng, a British Labour politician active in the black community for many years, becomes the first black cabinet minister in Britain.
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Chronology 2005
Black and Arab youths riot in the suburbs of Paris.
2005
The Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) is established in France.
2006
May 10 is designated a French national holiday to commemorate the abolition of slavery in France and its colonies.
2006
Harry Roselmack becomes the first black lead news anchor on French television.
2007
Adebari Rotimi is elected the first black mayor in Ireland.
2007
Black Briton Patricia Scotland becomes the first woman attorney general.
2007
African and European enforcement agencies increase surveillance of the coastline to reduce illegal African immigration to Europe.
2007
Black European Women’s Congress held in Vienna.
2008
Aimé Césaire, one of the founders of the Francophone Negritude movement, dies.
2008
Noah Snow, who founded the first antiracist media watchdog organization in Germany, publishes a book on racism in Germany.
Alphabetical List of Entries
Abbott, Diane
Authors in Europe, African American
Abolition of Slavery, British
Ayim, May
Abolition of Slavery, European
Baartman, Saartjie
Abolition of Slavery, French
Baker, Josephine
Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese
Bakhita, Josephine
Abolition of Slavery, Russian
Baldwin, James
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish
Balzac, Blacks in the Works of
Adebari, Rotimi
Barber, Francis
Aesop
Batson, Brendon
Afonso I
Bechet, Sidney
African Diaspora
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Africanus, Leo
Belley, Jean-Baptiste
Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain
Benbarek, Larbi
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Afro-Germans
Berlin Conference
Age of Exploration
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri
Aida
Besatzungskinder
Alcindor, John
Biassou, Georges
Aldridge, Ira
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Bissette, Cyrille
Amos, Valerie Ann
Black Athena Controversy
Aniaba
Black British
Archer, John
Black History Month
Art, Blacks as Represented in European
Black Madonna Tradition
Artists in Europe, African American
Blanco, Roberto
xxxii
Alphabetical List of Entries Boateng, Ozwald
Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch
Boateng, Paul
Colonies in the Caribbean, French
Boer War
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish
Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu
Congo Free State, Protest Against the
Bridgetower, George Briggs, Cyril
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Brindis de Sala, Claudio
Conquistadors, Black
Britain, Blacks in
Constantine, Learie
British Anti-Slavery Society
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
British Army, Blacks in the
Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and
Brown, James Jackson Brown Privilege Bill Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Bubonic Plague and Blacks Bug-Jargal Bullard, Eugene
Crowther, Samuel Adjai Cuffay, William Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah Dabydeen, David Da Gama, Luis
Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from
D’Aguiar, Fred
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD)
Damas, Léon Damingue, Joseph
Campbell, Naomi
Davidson, William
Capitein, Jacobus
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
Castro Alves, Antônio de
Delafosse, Maurice
El Celoso Extremeño
Delgrès, Louis
Central Europe, Blacks in
Des inconnus chez moi
Césaire, Aimé
Diagne, Blaise
Le Chat maigre
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Diallo, Bakary
Christophe, Henri
Dias, Henrique
Cinqué, Joseph
Le Docteur noir
Civil Rights Movement in TwentiethCentury Great Britain
Douglass, Frederick
Clitus of Macedonia
Du Chaillu, Paul
Code Noir
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Dumas fils, Alexandre
Colonies in Africa, British
Dumas père, Alexandre
Colonies in Africa, Dutch
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Colonies in Africa, French
Éboué, Félix
Colonies in Africa, German
Edmonstone, John
Colonies in Africa, Italian
Ellington, Duke
Colonies in Africa, Portuguese
Emidy, Joseph
Colonies in Africa, Spanish
English Common Law, Slavery and
Colonies in the Caribbean, British
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race
Du Bois, W.E.B
Alphabetical List of Entries Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the
Equiano, Olaudah
Horton, James
Europe, Mary L.
Howells, Rosalind
Fanon, Frantz
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Film, Blacks in European
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Fortuna, Ignatius
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD)
France, Blacks in Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Free Soil Principle
Ireland, Blacks in
French Army, Blacks in the
Italy, African Invasions of
French Ministry of the Marine
Italy, Blacks in
French Revolution, Blacks in the
Jackson, Colin
Gall, Franz Josef
James, C.L.R.
Garrison, Len
Jazz, European Reception of
Genet, Jean
Jobatey, Cherno
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Georges
Jones, Claudia
Germany, Blacks in
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Gil, Mourana
Kincaid, Jamaica
Gilges, Lari
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Gilroy, Beryl
Ladinos, Black
Glasgow Race Disturbances
Laine, Cleo
Gobineau on Races and Slavery
Larsen, Nella
Gomes, A. Carlos
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Gomez, Sebastian Goytisolo, Juan
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Goytisolo, Luis
Latino, Juan
Grant, Bernie
Le Bon, Gustave
Grégoire, Abbé
Levy, Andrea
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Lewis, Lennox
Guillén, Nicolás
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Literature, Blacks in British
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Literature, Blacks in French
Hall, Stuart
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Hamitic Myth
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Hannibal, Abraham
McCalla, Val
Hemings, Sally
McDonald, Trevor
Henry, Thierry
McGrath, Paul
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María
Hill, Richard
McKay, Claude
xxxiii
xxxiv
Alphabetical List of Entries Magi, Representations of the
Olympics of 1936
Malcolm X in London
Oroonoko
Man in the Iron Mask
Ortíz, Leonardo
Maran, René
Othello
Marché Dejean
Ourika
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen
Ourika, Charlotte
Matheus, John
Padmore, George
Maurice, Saint
Palamedes, Sir
May 10 Holiday
Pamoja
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Pan-Africanism
Medici, Alessandro de
Pareja, Juan de
Meneses, Cristóbol de
Parzival, Feirefiz in
Merida, Juan de
Phillips, Caryl
Michel, Jean-Louis
Piar, Manuel Carlos
Mirsky, D. S.
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Mirza
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Missionaries in Africa, European
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Moody, Harold Moors
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European
Moor’s Head Symbol
Popes, African
Moret Law, Spanish
Portugal, Blacks in
Morien, Romance of
Prester John
Morris, Bill
Prince, Mary
Mortenol, Sosthene
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Mpundu Akwa Murat, Joachim
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Music, African Influences on European
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Music Industry, Blacks in the European
Punic Wars
Musicians in Europe, African American Classical
Pushkin, Alexander
The Mysterious Island
Race Riots in Europe
Nassy, Josef
Rastafarianism
Nazis and Black POWs
Remond, Sarah Parker
Nazis and Blacks in Europe
Renaissance, Blacks in the
Négritude Netherlands, Blacks in the
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN)
New Imperialism
Rhineland Blacks
Notting Hill Carnival
Richmond, Bill
Ogé, Vincent
Riley, Joan
Oguntoye, Katharina
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Okri, Ben
Roar
Oldfield, Bruce
Robeson, Paul
Quassia
Alphabetical List of Entries Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the
Spain, Blacks in
Roman Army, Africans in the
Spanish Army, Blacks in the
Roman Emperors of African Origin
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
Roman Empire in Africa
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell
Le Roman d’un Spahi
Storm, Theodor
Roselmack, Harry
Strong, Jonathan
Roumain, Jacques
Tanner, Henry Ossawa
Russia, Blacks in
Television, Blacks in European
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de
Terentius Afer
Salvador, Henri
Terrell, Mary Church
Sancho, Ignatius
Thompson, Daley
Sarbah, John Mensah
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Scandinavia, Blacks in
Tombouctou
Scientific Racism
Trouillot, Hénock
Scotland, Patricia
Turquia, Nugaymath
Seacole, Mary
Tuskegee Airmen
Séjour, Victor
Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London
Senghor, Léopold Sédar
Ustinov, Peter
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of
Vieira, António
Shinebourne, Janice
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Sierra Leone
Von Kleist, Heinrich
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Walcott, Derek
Slave Trade, British
Waters, Billy
Slave Trade, Dutch
Wedderburn, Robert
Slave Trade, French
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the
Slave Trade, Italian
Wells, Nathaniel
Slave Trade, Portuguese
Wharton, Arthur
Slave Trade, Spanish
Wheatley, Phillis
Snow, Valaida
Wilberforce, William
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Woodson, Carter G.
Society of the Friends of the Blacks
World War I, Black Participation in
Soliman, Angelo
World War II, Black Participation in
Somerset Case
Wright, Richard
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de
Young Africans in Norway (AYIN)
Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and
Zulu War
Spain, African Invasions of
Zwarte Piet
xxxv
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Topical List of Entries
Art Art, Blacks as Represented in European Artists in Europe, African American Black Madonna Tradition Film, Blacks in European Gomez, Sebastian Heraldry, Blacks in European Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the Magi, Representations of the Moor’s Head Symbol Nassy, Josef Pareja, Juan de Tanner, Henry Ossawa
Belgium Abolition of Slavery, European Berlin Conference Black Madonna Tradition Congo Free State, Protest Against the Film, Blacks in European Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female Heraldry, Blacks in European Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Missionaries in Africa, European Moors New Imperialism Prester John Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and Race Riots in Europe Television, Blacks in European Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Central Europe Abolition of Slavery, European Black Madonna Tradition Central Europe, Blacks in Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic Film, Blacks in European Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female Heraldry, Blacks in European Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the Immigration to Europe, Illegal African Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
xxxviii
Topical List of Entries Kiesbauer, Arabella
France
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Abolition of Slavery, French
Maurice, Saint
Aniaba
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Moors Pamoja Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution Prester John Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and Race Riots in Europe Soliman, Angelo Television, Blacks in European Tuskegee Airmen Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Events
Age of Exploration Authors in Europe, African American Baker, Josephine Baldwin, James Balzac, Blacks in the Works of Bechet, Sidney Belley, Jean-Baptiste Benbarek, Larbi Berlin Conference Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri Biassou, Georges Bissette, Cyrille Black Madonna Tradition Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu Bug-Jargal
Age of Exploration
Bullard, Eugene
Berlin Conference
Césaire, Aimé
Black History Month
Le Chat maigre
Boer War
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Bubonic Plague and Blacks
Christophe, Henri
Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain
Code Noir
Congo Free State, Protest Against the
Colonies in the Caribbean, French
Glasgow Race Disturbances
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Damas, Léon
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Damingue, Joseph
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
May 10 Holiday
Delgrès, Louis
New Imperialism
Des inconnus chez moi
Notting Hill Carnival
Diagne, Blaise
Olympics of 1936
Diallo, Bakary
Punic Wars
Le Docteur noir
Race Riots in Europe
Du Bois, W.E.B
Renaissance, Blacks in the
Du Chaillu, Paul
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Dumas fils, Alexandre
World War I, Black Participation in
Dumas père, Alexandre
World War II, Black Participation in
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Zulu War
Éboué, Félix
Colonies in Africa, French
Delafosse, Maurice
Topical List of Entries Fanon, Frantz
Ogé, Vincent
Film, Blacks in European
Ourika
France, Blacks in
Ourika, Charlotte
Free Soil Principle
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
French Army, Blacks in the
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
French Ministry of the Marine
Prester John
French Revolution, Blacks in the Genet, Jean
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Georges
Race Riots in Europe
Gobineau and Race
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN)
Grégoire, Abbé Haitian Revolution for Independence
Roman d’un spahi
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Roselmack, Harry Roumain, Jacques
Hemings, Sally
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de
Henry, Thierry
Salvador, Henri
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Séjour, Victor
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Senghor, Léopold Sédar
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Slave Trade, French
Le Bon, Gustave
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste
Television, Blacks in European
Literature, Blacks in French
The Mysterious Island
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Man in the Iron Mask
Tombouctou
Maran, René
Trouillot, Hénock
Marché Dejean
World War I, Black Participation in
Matheus, John
World War II, Black Participation in
May 10 Holiday
Wright, Richard
McKay, Claude
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Society of the Friends of the Blacks
Michel, Jean-Louis
Germany
Mirza
Abolition of Slavery, European
Missionaries in Africa, European
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Moors
Afro-Germans
Moor’s Head Symbol
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Morien, Romance of
Ayim, May
Mortenol, Sosthene
Berlin Conference
Murat, Joachim
Besatzungskinder
Négritude
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub
New Imperialism
Black Madonna Tradition
xxxix
xl
Topical List of Entries Blanco, Roberto
Terrell, Mary Church
Colonies in Africa, German
Tuskegee Airmen
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Von Kleist, Heinrich
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the
Du Bois, W.E.B
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Film, Blacks in European Free Soil Principle
Great Britain
Gall, Franz Josef
Abbott, Diane
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Abolition of Slavery, British
Germany, Blacks in
Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain
Gilges, Lari
Age of Exploration
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Alcindor, John
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the
Aldridge, Ira
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Archer, John
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Baartman, Saartjie
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD)
Barber, Francis
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Batson, Brendon
Jobatey, Cherno
Berlin Conference
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Black British
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Boateng, Ozwald
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen
Boer War
Maurice, Saint Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Missionaries in Africa, European Moors Mpundo Akwa Nassy, Josef Nazis and Blacks in Europe Nazis and Black POWs
Amos, Valerie Ann
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Boateng, Paul Bridgetower, George Britain, Blacks in British Anti-Slavery Society British Army, Blacks in the Brown, James Jackson Brown Privilege Bill Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Oguntoye, Katharina
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD)
Olympics of 1936
Campbell, Naomi
Parzival, Feirefiz in Prester John
Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Race Riots in Europe
Colonies in Africa, British
Rhineland Blacks
Colonies in the Caribbean, British
Snow, Valaida
Common Law, Slavery and English
Storm, Theodor
Constantine, Learie
Television, Blacks in European
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Topical List of Entries Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and
McKay, Claude
Crowther, Samuel Adjai
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Cuffay, William
Missionaries in Africa, European
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
Moors
Dabydeen, David
Morien, Romance of
D’Aguiar, Fred
Morris, Bill
Davidson, William
New Imperialism
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Notting Hill Carnival
Douglass, Frederick
Okri, Ben
Du Bois, W.E.B
Oldfield, Bruce
Edmonstone, John
Oroonoko
Emidy, Joseph
Othello
Equiano, Olaudah
Padmore, George
Film, Blacks in European
Palamedes, Sir
Fortuna, Ignatius
Phillips, Caryl
Free Soil Principle
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Garrison, Len
Prester John
Gilroy, Beryl
Prince, Mary
Glasgow Race Disturbances Grant, Bernie
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Hall, Stuart
Race Riots in Europe
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Rastafarianism
Hill, Richard
Remond, Sarah Parker
Horton, James
Renaissance, Blacks in the
Howells, Rosalind
Richmond, Bill
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Riley, Joan
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Robeson, Paul
Jackson, Colin
Sancho, Ignatius
James, C.L.R.
Sarbah, John Mensah
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Scotland, Patricia
Jones, Claudia
Seacole, Mary
Kincaid, Jamaica
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Shinebourne, Janice
Laine, Cleo
Sierra Leone
Levy, Andrea
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Lewis, Lennox
Slave Trade, British
Literature, Blacks in British
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
McCalla, Val
Somerset Case
McDonald, Trevor
Strong, Jonathan
Malcolm X in London
Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the
xli
xlii
Topical List of Entries Television, Blacks in European
Scientific Racism
Thompson, Daley
Woodson, Carter
Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London Ustinov, Peter
Ireland
Walcott, Derek
Adebari, Rotimi
Waters, Billy
Douglass, Frederick
Wedderburn, Robert
Film, Blacks in European
Wells, Nathaniel
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Wharton, Arthur
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Wheatley, Phillis
Ireland, Blacks in
Wilberforce, William
McGrath, Paul
World War I, Black Participation in
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
World War II, Black Participation in
Prester John
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Zulu Wars
Roar Television, Blacks in European
Groups Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
British Anti-Slavery Society
Italy
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD)
Abolition of Slavery, European
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD)
Age of Exploration
Pamoja
Aida
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN)
Bakhita, Josephine
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Black Madonna Tradition
Africanus, Leo
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Society of the Friends of the Blacks
Bubonic Plague and Blacks
Young Africans in Norway (AYIN)
Colonies in Africa, Italian
Intellectual History/Concepts
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic Damingue, Joseph
African Diaspora
Film, Blacks in European
Black Athena Controversy
Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily
Black History Month
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery Hamitic Myth
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Gall, Franz Josef
Italy, African Invasions of
Gobineau on Races and Slavery
Italy, Blacks in
Négritude
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Pan-Africanism
Medici, Alessandro de
Rastafarianism
Missionaries in Africa, European
Topical List of Entries Moors
Le Chat maigre
Moor’s Head Symbol
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
New Imperialism
Dabydeen, David
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
D’Aguiar, Fred
Popes, African
Damas, Léon
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Da Gama, Luis
Punic Wars
Des inconnus chez moi
Race Riots in Europe
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Roman Army, Africans in the
Diallo, Bakary
Roman Emperors, African
Le Docteur noir
Roman Empire in Africa
Douglass, Frederick
Slave Trade, Italian
Dumas fils, Alexandre
Television, Blacks in European
Dumas père, Alexandre
Terentius Afer
El Celoso Extremeño
Tuskegee Airmen
Equiano, Olaudah
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Fanon, Frantz Genet, Jean
Law
Georges
Brown Privilege Bill
Gilroy, Beryl
Code Noir
Goytisolo, Juan
Common Law, Slavery and English
Goytisolo, Luis
Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Guillén, Nicolás
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Moret Law, Spanish
James, C.L.R.
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Somerset Case
Kincaid, Jamaica
Strong, Jonathan
Larsen, Nella
Literature
Latino, Juan Levy, Andrea
Aesop
Literature, Blacks in British
Authors in Europe, African American
Literature, Blacks in French
Ayim, May Baldwin, James
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Balzac, Blacks in the Works of
McKay, Claude
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Maran, René
Bug-Jargal
Matheus, John
Castro Alves, Antônio de
Merida, Juan de
Césaire, Aimé
Mirsky, D. D.
xliii
xliv
Topical List of Entries Morien, Romance of
Ellington, Duke
Négritude
Emidy, Joseph
Oguntoye, Katharina
Europe, Mary L.
Okri, Ben
Gilges, Lari
Oroonoko
Gomes, A. Carlos
Othello
Jazz, European Reception of
Ourika
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Palamedes, Sir
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Parzival, Feirefiz in
Laine, Cleo
Phillips, Caryl
Music, African Influences on European
Prester John
Music Industry, Blacks in the European
Prince, Mary
Musicians in Europe, African-American Classical
Prince, Nancy and Nero Pushkin, Alexander Riley, Joan Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the Roman d’un spahi
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European Salvador, Henri Snow, Valaida
Roumain, Jacques
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Sancho, Ignatius
Netherlands
Séjour, Victor Senghor, Léopold Sédar Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of Shinebourne, Janice Storm, Theodor Terentius Afer The Mysterious Island Tocqueville, Alexis de Tombouctou Trouillot, Hénock Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London Von Kleist, Heinrich Walcott, Derek Wheatley, Phillis Wright, Richard
Music Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain Bechet, Sidney Blanco, Roberto Bridgetower, George Brindis de Sala, Claudio Campbell, Naomi
Abolition of Slavery, European Age of Exploration Black Madonna Tradition Capitein, Jacobus Colonies in Africa, Dutch Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch Film, Blacks in European Free Soil Principle Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female Heraldry, Blacks in European Immigration to Europe, Illegal African Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Missionaries in Africa, European Moors Morien, Romance of Netherlands, Blacks in the Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic Prester John Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Topical List of Entries Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Boateng, Ozwald
Race Riots in Europe
Boateng, Paul
Slave Trade, Dutch
Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu
Television, Blacks in European
Bridgetower, George
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Briggs, Cyril
Zwarte Piet
Brindis de Sala, Claudio
People
Brown, James Jackson Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Abbott, Diane
Bullard, Eugene
Adebari, Rotimi
Campbell, Naomi
Aesop
Capitein, Jacobus
Afonso I
Castro Alves, Antônio de
African Diaspora
Césaire, Aimé
Africanus, Leo
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Afro-Germans
Christophe, Henri
Alcindor, John
Cinqué, Joseph
Aldridge, Ira
Clitus of Macedonia
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Amos, Valerie Ann Aniaba
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Archer, John
Conquistadors, Black
Artists in Europe, African American
Constantine, Learie
Authors in Europe, African American
Crowther, Samuel Adjai
Ayim, May
Cuffay, William
Baartman, Saartjie
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
Baker, Josephine
Dabydeen, David
Bakhita, Josephine
Da Gama, Luis
Baldwin, James
D’Aguiar, Fred
Barber, Francis
Damas, Léon
Batson, Brendon
Damingue, Joseph
Bechet, Sidney
Davidson, William
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Delafosse, Maurice
Belley, Jean-Baptiste
Delgrès, Louis
Benbarek, Larbi
Diagne, Blaise
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri
Diallo, Bakary
Besatzungskinder
Dias, Henrique
Biassou, Georges
Douglass, Frederick
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub
Du Bois, W.E.B
Bissette, Cyrille
Du Chaillu, Paul
Black British
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf
Blanco, Roberto
Dumas fils, Alexandre
xlv
xlvi
Topical List of Entries Dumas père, Alexandre
Larsen, Nella
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Éboué, Félix
Latino, Juan
Edmonstone, John
Le Bon, Gustave
Ellington, Duke
Levy, Andrea
Emidy, Joseph
Lewis, Lennox
Equiano, Olaudah
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste
Europe, Mary L.
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Fanon, Frantz
Machado de Assis, Jaoquim Maria
Fortuna, Ignatius
McCalla, Val
Gall, Franz Josef
McDonald, Trevor
Garrison, Len
McGrath, Paul
Genet, Jean
McKay, Claude
Gil, Mourana
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María
Gilges, Lari
Magi, Representations of the
Gilroy, Beryl
Malcolm X in London
Gomes, A. Carlos
Man in the Iron Mask
Gomez, Sebastian
Maran, René
Goytisolo, Juan
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen
Goytisolo, Luis
Matheus, John
Grant, Bernie
Maurice, Saint
Grégoire, Abbé
Medici, Alessandro de
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Meneses, Cristóbol de
Guillén, Nicolás
Michel, Jean-Louis
Hall, Stuart
Mirsky, D. S.
Hannibal, Abraham
Missionaries in Africa, European
Hemings, Sally
Moody, Harold
Henry, Thierry
Moors
Hill, Richard
Morris, Bill
Horton, James
Mortenol, Sosthene
Howells, Rosalind
Mpundu Akwa
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Murat, Joachim
Jackson, Colin James, C.L.R.
Musicians in Europe, African American Classical
Jobatey, Cherno
Nassy, Josef
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Nazis and Blacks in Europe
Jones, Claudia
Nazis and Black POWs
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Ogé, Vincent
Kincaid, Jamaica
Oguntoye, Katharina
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Okri, Ben
Ladinos, Black
Oldfield, Bruce
Laine, Cleo
Ortíz, Leonardo
Topical List of Entries Ourika, Charlotte
Terrell, Mary Church
Padmore, George
Thompson, Daley
Pareja, Juan de
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Phillips, Caryl
Trouillot, Hénock
Piar, Manuel Carlos
Turquia, Nugaymath
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Tuskegee Airmen
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Ustinov, Peter
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Vieira, António
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Popes, African
Walcott, Derek
Prince, Mary
Waters, Billy
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Wedderburn, Robert
Pushkin, Alexander
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the
Quassia
Wells, Nathaniel
Remond, Sarah Parker
Wharton, Arthur
Rhineland Blacks
Wheatley, Phillis
Richmond, Bill
Wilberforce, William
Riley, Joan
Woodson, Carter G.
Robeson, Paul
Wright, Richard
Von Kleist, Heinrich
Roman Emperors, African Roselmack, Harry
Portugal
Roumain, Jacques
Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de Salvador, Henri Sancho, Ignatius Sarbah, John Mensah Scotland, Patricia Seacole, Mary Séjour, Victor
Afonso I Age of Exploration Berlin Conference Black Madonna Tradition Castro Alves, Antônio de Colonies in Africa, Portuguese
Senghor, Léopold Sédar
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Shinebourne, Janice
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Snow, Valaida
Da Gama, Luis
Soliman, Angelo
Dias, Henrique
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Film, Blacks in European
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
Gil, Mourana
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell
Gomes, A. Carlos
Storm, Theodor
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Strong, Jonathan
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Tanner, Henry Ossawa
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Terentius Afer
xlvii
xlviii
Topical List of Entries Ladinos, Black
Du Bois, W.E.B.
Machado de Assis, Joaquim
Film, Blacks in European
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Hannibal, Abraham
Missionaries in Africa, European
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Moors
James, C.L.R.
Moor’s Head Symbol
McKay, Claude
New Imperialism
Mirsky, D. S.
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Moors
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Padmore, George
Portugal, Blacks in
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Prester John
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Race Riots in Europe
Race Riots in Europe
Robeson, Paul
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Russia, Blacks in
Slave Trade, Portuguese
Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Pushkin, Alexander
Television, Blacks in European Vieira, António
Scandinavia
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Abolition of Slavery, European
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Religion
Film, Blacks in European Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Bakhita, Josephine
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Benedict the Moor, Saint Black Madonna Tradition
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Crowther, Samuel Adjai
Larsen, Nella
Magi, Representations of the
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Maurice, Saint
Moors
Missionaries in Africa, European
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Popes, African
Race Riots in Europe
Rastafarianism
Scandinavia, Blacks in
Russia and Eastern Europe
Television, Blacks in European Quassia
Abolition of Slavery, Russian
Young Africans in Norway (AYIN)
Aesop
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Aldridge, Ira Black Madonna Tradition
Slavery
Briggs, Cyril
Abolition of Slavery, British
Clitus of Macedonia
Abolition of Slavery, European
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Abolition of Slavery, French
Topical List of Entries Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese
Conquistadors, Black
Abolition of Slavery, Russian
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
Afonso I
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
African Diaspora
Delgrés, Louis
Age of Exploration
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Aldridge, Ira
Dias, Henrique
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Douglass, Frederick
Aniaba
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Bakhita, Josephine
English Common Law, Slavery and
Barber, Francis
Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Equiano, Olaudah
Belley, Jean-Baptiste
Fortuna, Ignatius
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Free Soil Principle
Biassou, Georges
French Ministry of the Marine
Bissette, Cyrille
French Revolution, Blacks in the
Bridgetower, George
Georges
British Anti-Slavery Society
Gobineau on Races and Slavery
Brown Privilege Bill
Gomez, Sebastian
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Grégoire, Abbé
Bubonic Plague and Blacks
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Bug-Jargal
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from
Hamitic Myth
Capitein, Jacobus
Hannibal, Abraham
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Hemings, Sally
Christophe, Henri Cinqué, Joseph
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Code Noir
Ladinos, Black
Colonies in Africa, British
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Colonies in Africa, Dutch Colonies in Africa, French
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Colonies in Africa, German
Latino, Juan
Colonies in Africa, Italian
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Colonies in Africa, Portuguese
May 10 Holiday
Colonies in Africa, Spanish
Medici, Alessandro de
Colonies in the Caribbean, British
Mirza
Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch
Moret Law
Colonies in the Caribbean, French
Ogé, Vincent
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish
Oroonoko
Common Law, Slavery and English
Ourika
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Ourika, Charlotte Pareja, Juan de
xlix
l
Topical List of Entries Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Film, Blacks in European
Prince, Mary
Free Soil Principle
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Gomez, Sebastian
Quassia
Goytisolo, Luis
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Guillén, Nicolás
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Sancho, Ignatius Sierra Leone
Goytisolo, Juan
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Slave Trade, British
Ladinos, Black
Slave Trade, Dutch
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Slave Trade, French Slave Trade, Italian
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Slave Trade, Portuguese
Latino, Juan
Slave Trade, Spanish
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Meneses, Cristóbol de
Society of the Friends of the Blacks
Merida, Juan de
Soliman, Angelo
Missionaries in Africa, European
Somerset Case
Moors
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Moor’s Head Symbol
Strong, Jonathan
Moret Law
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Ortíz, Leonardo
Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London
Pareja, Juan de
Waters, Billy
Piar, Manuel Carlos
Wells, Nathaniel
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Wheatley, Phillis
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Wilberforce, William
Prester John
Spain
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Age of Exploration
Race Riots in Europe
Benbarek, Larbi
Slave Trade, Spanish
Black Madonna Tradition
Spain, African Invasions of
Brindis de Sala, Claudio
Spain, Blacks in
Cinqué, Joseph
Spanish Army, Blacks in the
Colonies in Africa, Spanish
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell
Conquistadors, Black
Television, Blacks in European
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Turquia, Nugaymath
El Celoso Extremeño
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Topical List of Entries Sports
Michel, Jean-Louis
Batson, Brendon
Mortenol, Sosthene
Benbarek, Larbi
Murat, Joachim
Brown, James Jackson
Nazis and Black POWs
Constantine, Learie
Nazis and Blacks in Europe
Henry, Thierry
Ogé, Vincent
Jackson, Colin
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Lewis, Lennox
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
McGrath, Paul
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Olympics of 1936
Punic Wars
Richmond, Bill
Race Riots in Europe
Thompson, Daley
Roman Army, Africans in the
Wharton, Arthur
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
War and Conflict
Spain, African Invasions of
Biassou, Georges
Spanish Army, Blacks in the
Boer War
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
British Army, Blacks in the
World War I, Black Participation in
Bullard, Eugene
World War II, Black Participation in
Christophe, Henri
Zulu War
Clitus of Macedonia Conquistadors, Black
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Damingue, Joseph
Abbott, Diane
Delgrès, Louis
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Des inconnus chez moi
Amos, Valerie Ann
Diagne, Blaise
Ayim, May
Diallo, Bakary
Baartman, Saartjie
Dias, Henrique
Baker, Josephine
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Bakhita, Josephine
Éboué, Félix
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
French Army, Blacks in the
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
French Revolution, Blacks in the
Campbell, Naomi
Guillén, Nicolás
Europe, Mary L.
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Gil, Mourana
Hannibal, Abraham
Gilroy, Beryl
Italy, African Invasions of
Hemings, Sally
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Howells, Rosalind
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Merida, Juan de
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
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Topical List of Entries
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Kincaid, Jamaica
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Laine, Cleo
Remond, Sarah Parker
Larsen, Nella
Riley, Joan
Levy, Andrea
Seacole, Mary
Oguntoye, Katharina
Shinebourne, Janice
Ourika, Charlotte
Snow, Valaida
Prince, Mary
Terrell, Mary Church
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Turquia, Nugaymath
Jones, Claudia
Wheatley, Phillis
A Abbott, Diane (1953–) Diane Julie Abbott, a British Labour Party politician, was the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons after winning the seat of Hackney North and Stock Newington in the 1987 general election in the United Kingdom. Abbott was born on September 27, 1953, in Paddington, London, England. Both her parents were immigrants from Jamaica. She was educated at Harrow County School of Girls and Newnham College, University of Cambridge, where she studied history and gained a master’s degree in history. On leaving the university, Abbott joined the Home Office and then became a race relations officer at the National Council for Civil Liberties (1978–1980). There she worked alongside Paul Boateng, Harriet Harman, and Patricia Hewitt, who all later became cabinet ministers. From 1980 to 1983, Abbott was a researcher and reporter at Thames Television and then worked as a researcher and reporter for TV AM, the breakfast television company, until 1985. She then became a press officer at the Greater London Council (GLC) serving under Ken Livingstone until the GLC was abolished in 1986. Abbott then worked as the head of press and public relations at Lambeth Council from 1986 to 1987. In 1982, Abbott was one of the first black women elected onto Westminster City Council. Five years later, in the general election of June 11, 1987, she was elected as Member of Parliament for Hackney North and Stoke Newington, in the north central of London, later being elected to the National Executive of the Labour Party. Although on the left of the Labour Party and a member of the Socialist Campaign Group, Abbott has many friends in the present Conservative Party. She worked alongside former Conservative leadership aspirant Michael Portillo, and her son’s godfather was Jonathan Aitken, another former Conservative politician who had been her boss at TV AM.
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Abolition of Slavery, British In Parliament, Abbott has been a member of the Treasury Select Committee in the House of Commons, which has resulted in her traveling extensively to Washington, DC, New York, and Frankfurt. She has also served on the Foreign Affairs Select Committee. Her work on this committee has resulted in travel to many European countries, as well as Kenya, Uganda, and China. In 2000, Abbott became the member responsible for equality and women’s issues for the Mayor of London’s Cabinet. See also: Black British; Boateng, Paul; Britain, Blacks in; Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD); Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Grant, Bernie. Further Reading: The Official Web site of Diane Abbott. www.dianeabbott.org
Justin Corfield
Abolition of Slavery, British The bid to end slavery in the British colonies came most consistently and most doggedly from English religious dissenters, especially Quakers and Baptists, although many notable Evangelicals also exerted pressure on Parliament. Numbering less than 20,000 in England, Quakers were fundamentally opposed to both the slave trade and slavery in general on religious and moral grounds. What Quakers called the “Inner Light” of God’s love and illumination had been imparted to all human beings by their maker regardless of class, race, or religion. Many Evangelicals, such as Granville Sharp, Thomas Clarkson, and William Wilberforce, however, also figured prominently. As an influential member of Parliament, William Wilberforce campaigned tirelessly in the House of Commons, drafting many antislavery resolutions, many of which were supported by Prime Minister William Pitt. Yet it would take decades before the slave trade was abolished in 1807, another quarter of a century before slavery was outlawed in 1833, and another five years for actual freedom in 1838. The British slave trade centered on the Caribbean, where sugar, the empire’s most lucrative trade and industry, was produced, refined, or turned into molasses and rum. It was exhausting, hot, and lethal. Before slavery was ended in the American South in 1865, the 400,000 slaves that had been imported reproduced and grew 10-fold to a population of 4 million. The Caribbean imported nearly 2 million slaves. When slavery ended there, the remaining slave population was less than 800,000. One-third of all Africans died within three years of coming to the West Indies (Caribbean). Ironically, survival meant that the slave was deemed fit enough to carry out more onerous work. Skilled jobs, such as operating and maintaining mills, went to men. Therefore the most odious aspects of sugar production, such as harvesting and pressing, went to women, which adversely affected their fertility. High mortality, coupled with low birthrate, drove a continued demand for fresh slaves from Africa. One of the earliest rumblings of agitation against slavery came from Granville Sharp, a would-be Anglican cleric, who suddenly took up the cause of the slave Jonathan Strong. Strong had been beaten so severely by his master that he could barely walk. No longer able to carry on onerous work, he was abandoned. Sharp helped nurse the 17-year-old back to health and found him a job running errands; however, Strong’s
Abolition of Slavery, British
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Shipwrecked sailors repay their rescuers by enslaving them. The man on the right may be an African middleman. This print, likely used in support of the abolitionist cause, was based on a pair of paintings by George Morland. Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY.
former master eventually found him and sold him back into slavery to a Jamaican planter. Sharp dedicated himself to the case, discovering that English common law made no provisions for slaves or slavery in England. Sharp believed this meant that once a slave was brought to England, all bonds between master and slave were nullified. In 1767, however, the courts ruled against Strong, claiming that slaves were the chattel of their masters, no matter where those slaves go. In 1771, Sharp took up the similar Somerset Case, which revolved around James Somerset, an escaped slave who had been recaptured and was about to be resold into slavery. This time, Sharp won the case, setting an important legal precedent. It now became illegal for masters to take slaves out of the country against their will. The issue of the legal status of slaves was raised again during the American Revolution for Independence. The British offered freedom to any American slave who escaped a rebel colonist and joined the British Army. The offer was meant to hurt the American rebels economically, and freedom was eventually promised to any slave who
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Abolition of Slavery, British simply escaped a colonial rebel into British territory. A large group of these former slaves were held up in British-occupied New York. After the war, despite American General George Washington’s loud protestations, slaves were not returned to their former masters. Instead, they were evacuated to the closest British colony, Nova Scotia, where the 3,000 former slaves formed the largest community of free blacks in British North America. Thus Britain was put in the awkward position of maintaining slavery and the slave trade in the West Indies while protecting and maintaining a colony of freed slaves in Canada. Sensing the contradiction and inconsistency in common law, in 1783, the Quakers formed a committee to expressly agitate, educate, and petition Parliament against slavery and the slave trade. This committee was also formed as a result of the Zong incident in 1782. The Zong was a slave ship commanded by Captain Luke Collingwood. As a result of incompetence and bad weather, the Zong was at sea longer that it should have been. Consequently, many slaves died and many more were likely to follow suit. Collingwood’s remedy was essentially an insurance scam. He and his crew tossed the sickest slaves overboard, claiming that it was essential in order to maintain enough potable water for the remaining slaves and crew. Insurance would cover the amount of lost revenue of slaves that died at sea as a result of uncontrollable “perils.” Although the ship had been out at sea for nearly four months, however, it could not run out of water, given the accompanying rains. The subsequent trial was to determine fraud and liability only; it was not a murder trial. Although the trial failed to generate much public interest, it served as a lightening rod to committed abolitionists. Prominent clergymen referenced the case in their sermons, and Granville Sharp engaged in a tenacious letter-writing campaign, so that the event gradually gained notoriety. Perhaps one of the most renowned newer members of the committee was the famed potter and Unitarian Josiah Wedgwood. Potter to the queen of England and also commissioned by Russian Empress Catherine the Great, Wedgwood played his fame and artistic medium to promote the abolitionist message. One of his most famous, wellcirculated, and reproduced pieces was a seal for stamping wax to close envelopes. It depicted a shackled African slave with bound hands extended upward, imploring the viewer with the heart-wrenching question inscribed in a circle, “Am I Not a Man and a Brother?” Abolitionist Thomas Clarkson had the inscription made into a medallion and distributed 500 to friends, acquaintances, and random people that he met. It became something of a fashion statement among the abolitionists, as it found its way onto the ornamentation on bracelets and hairpins. Three years later, Clarkson, a Cambridge scholar and a would-be clergyman, was competing for a prize for the best essay in Latin. The essay subject was entitled: Is it lawful to enslave the unconsenting? Before he wrote his essay, Clarkson researched the subject by interviewing those involved, visiting the docks and ships at Bristol, and reading firsthand accounts. The result was an appalling awakening to what he saw as unchristian barbarism and cruelty. No other single source related the total horrors of the slave trade and bondage. Clarkson’s Latin essay won first prize and, in 1786, was published in English as An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African. The essay gained a wider audience and galvanized the
Abolition of Slavery, British abolitionist movement around Clarkson. He had become what poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge called “a moral steam-engine.” Finally, on May 22, 1787, the energies of so many antislavery crusaders, such as Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and William Wilberforce, were brought together to form the most significant abolitionist group to date: the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade. In 1791, Wilberforce’s most sweeping motion was to abolish the slave trade altogether, but he was defeated by a vote of 163 to 88. Nevertheless, opposition to slavery eventually became widespread, with an abolition committee existing in most cities and towns. By 1792, more than 300,000 Britons were refusing to eat sugar grown by slaves. An apparent remedy, advanced by Sharp, was to resettle willing blacks living in England to a free colony in Sierra Leone. This plan, however, only underscored the problem of the slave trade, as blacks involved in the resettlement scheme demanded written guarantees that they would not be taken captive and again enslaved. They further demanded arms to ensure their freedom. In April 1787, 459 settlers set sail aboard the Nautilus for Sierra Leone; but the settlement was a disaster. As crops failed, the settlement had to be evacuated. Independent of the antislavery society, a riveting attack on slavery came from a former slave living in London, Quobna Ottobah Cugoano. His book, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, published in 1787, briefly relates his experience of being captured and the horrendous conditions of the Middle Passage. In 1789, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African was published by the former slave, turned British seaman, Olaudah Equiano. A strongly abolitionist autobiography, the book became a bestseller. Both books furthered the cause of antislavery because they showed the literacy, resourcefulness, and ingenuity of former slaves, putting blacks on an equal footing with whites. Moreover, the slave revolt on the French colony of Saint Domingue in 1792, the largest revolt to date and which evolved into the Haitian Revolution for Independence, shocked Britain. It demonstrated to many that slaves were willing to fight and die for their freedom, and that perhaps slavery was not part of the natural order to be accepted with fatalistic docility. During the French Revolution, the National Assembly in Paris officially outlawed the slave trade in 1794. War between France and Britain, however, made the Caribbean a major theater of operation, as each nation tried to control the sugar trade. Britain’s attempt to conquer Saint Domingue met with disaster, as British troops succumbed to disease. Similarly, French Emperor Napoleon’s bid to overturn the National Assembly’s manumission and retake Saint Domingue (Haiti) was equally fruitless. The dawning of an independent Haiti in 1804, however, spelled a new course of action for Britain. There was clear advantage to recognizing an independent Haiti against French interests while securing important trade concessions from the new government. Such changes in foreign policy interests gave further momentum to the abolitionist cause in Britain, culminating in the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act on March 25, 1807. Ships found in violation would be fined £100 for each slave discovered aboard.
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Abolition of Slavery, British The act, however, did not free slaves who were already captive. Abolitionists understood that slaves would be in demand as long as the institution continued. Indeed, the trade continued illicitly. In 1827, Parliament passed a law declaring that smuggling captives was piracy and a capital offense. Meanwhile, in the British colony of Jamaica, rumor of manumission and the reinvigorated abolitionist movement in Parliament stirred discontent. Many followers of the charismatic Baptist missionary, Thomas Burchell, believed that he would return from England with the authority of the king and strength of the army to end slavery. When the slaves discovered that this was not the case, the so-called Baptist War, one of the most violent slave rebellions ever, broke out on December 25, 1831. Led by the slave and Baptist deacon, Samuel Sharpe, the revolt had to be put down by massive force. Sharpe and more than 400 slaves were executed. Many white missionaries suffered similar fates. Nevertheless, it now became clear to the most recalcitrant opponents to manumission that the white community in Jamaica had been lucky and that the only way to prevent similar outbreaks was to end slavery. The tenacity of Wilberforce finally bore fruit in Parliament. The Slavery Abolition Bill passed both houses of Parliament and was given Royal Assent by King William IV. On August 29, 1833, slavery was outlawed in all British colonies, but it took until August 1, 1834 for the ban to take full effect. Plantation owners received £20 in government bonds as compensation, equaling nearly 40 percent of the entire budget of Britain. Moreover, indentured servitude continued in what was known as the apprenticeship system. Now, former slaves would be required to work for their former owners, usually for six years, without compensation. After a vigorous extra-parliamentary campaign led by nearly 500,000 British women in opposition, coupled with widespread strikes by former slaves, the length of servitude was shortened to four years. Thus ultimate manumission was not realized until August 1, 1838, when more than 750,000 former slaves became completely free. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Britain, Blacks in; British Anti-Slavery Society; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Free Soil Principle; Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Prince, Mary; Sancho, Ignatius; Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean. Further Reading: Carey, Brycchan, Markman Ellis, and Sara Salih, eds. Discourses of Slavery and Abolition: Britain and its Colonies, 1760–1838. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2004; Carey, Brycchan, and Peter Kitson, eds. Slavery and the Cultures of Abolition: Essays Marking the Bicentennial of the British Abolition Act of 1807. Rochester, UK: Boydell and Brewer, 2007; Carretta, Vincent. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth-Century. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996; Crayton, Michael, James Walvin, and David Wright. Slavery, Abolition, and Emancipation: Black Slaves and the British Empire. London: Longman, 1976; Oldfield, J. R. Popular Politics and British Anti-slavery: The Mobilisation of Public Opinion against the Slave Trade, 1787–1807. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1995; Reddie, Richard. Abolition! The Struggle to Abolish Slavery in the British Colonies. Oxford: Lion, 2007; Whyte, Iain. Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756–1838. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
Thomas Martin
Abolition of Slavery, European
Abolition of Slavery, European The European abolitionist movement, which sought to end the use of slaves in Europe and its colonies as well as the eradication of the global slave trade, emerged during the Enlightenment and gained momentum during the nineteenth century. Some European countries had passed measures in medieval and early modern times against slavery, but resumed the practice later on when they had overseas territories. By the time of the 1274 Land’s Law in Norway, for example, the practice of slavery had already been abolished. In 1335, both Sweden and Finland outlawed the slavery of Christians. Certain countries in Central and Eastern Europe also abolished slavery during medieval times. King Stephen I of Hungary, in around 1000, declared that any slave within his lands would become free. Lithuania also abolished slavery in 1588. Even Russia was relatively progressive in combating slavery, abolishing the practice in the eighteenth century (although serfdom would last until 1861). During the eighteenth century in Europe, Enlightenment thought directed progressive ideology against the practice of slavery. As a result, many Europe countries, at least officially, outlawed the practice of slavery within their own borders. For examples, Portugal abolished slavery in 1761, England and Wales in 1772, Scotland in 1776 (although serfdom was not completely abolished until 1799), Madeira in 1777, France in 1794, Prussia in 1807, and Spain in 1811. Denmark abolished the slave trade in 1792 and the Netherlands in 1814. Nevertheless, slavery and the slave trade continued, particularly in European overseas territories in Asia, Africa, and the Americas. The major Western European power that pushed for the abolition of the global slave trade was Britain, which took on the cause with a vengeance. During the nineteenth century, Britain outlawed the slave trade in its empire (1807) and became the strongest overseas power. Britain used its position to close down slave trading by other European powers. In 1827, the British government declared that any ships engaging in slave trading were committing acts of piracy and by 1834 had outlawed the use of slaves in the British Empire. Spain had continued to use slavery in its Caribbean colonies (Cuba, Puerto Rico, and Santo Domingo), and the Portuguese were also highly involved in the African slave trade. In 1815, the British paid the Portuguese to stop slave trading. In 1817, a similar agreement was negotiated with Spain. Subsequently, in 1818–1819, Britain signed treaties with Spain, Portugal, and the Netherlands to abolish the slave trade (although Portugal did not officially abolish the trans-Atlantic slave trade until 1836). In 1827, Britain signed a similar agreement with Sweden. In 1835, Britain signed an agreement with France, which, under Napoleon had reinstated slavery in its colonies in 1802 to abolish the slave trade. Finally, in 1841, the European powers of England, France, Russia, Prussia, and Austria agreed to coordinate efforts to suppress the slave trade. The remaining European powers that still had slaves in its overseas territories began to outlaw the practice. In 1847, Sweden abolished slavery after the slaves’ freedom was bought by the state. In 1848, Denmark and France abolished slavery. In 1863, the Netherlands abolished slavery, including its colonies. Finally, in 1869, Portugal abolished slavery in its colonies.
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Abolition of Slavery, French Wallachia and Moldavia (now Romania) maintained slavery within their borders until the middle of the nineteenth century. The Ottoman Empire, which occupied parts of Eastern Europe, did not abolish slavery until 1876, although women slaves were still sold throughout the empire during the early twentieth century. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, French; Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Abolition of Slavery, Russian; Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, French; Slave Trade, Italian; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975; Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; Gould, Philip. Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003; Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia: 1450–1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982; Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains, Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Wilmington, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004; Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Kolchin, Peter. Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987; Marques, Joao Pedro. The Sounds of Silence: Nineteenth-Century Portugal and the Abolition of the Slave Trade. trans. Richard Wall. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006; Murray, David R. Odious Commerce: Britain, Spain, and the Abolition of the Cuban Slave Trade. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981; Sherwood, Merika. After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007; Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997; Whyte, Iain. Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756–1838. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006.
E. Agateno Mosca
Abolition of Slavery, French The French abolition of slavery was a long, slow, and painful process that was influenced by revolution and political upheaval in both France and its slave-holding territories. France never distinguished as clearly as the British between the abolition of the trade in slaves and the institution itself, but tended to combine the two issues. Slavery in its entirety was first abolished as a result of revolutionary politics in 1794 but was reinstated by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1802. The French trade in slaves was never effectively halted until slavery itself was finally and irrevocably abolished in French law and governance in 1848. REVOLUTIONARY EVENTS AND ABOLITION. French abolition was influenced by diplomatic, economic, and military considerations in metropolitan France, but the actions of slaves in the Caribbean territories also played a part in the process. Slavery was initially abolished in France on February 4, 1794, when the First
Abolition of Slavery, French Republic voted for the abolition of slavery in all French colonies. This decree was partly a response to events in Haiti, where slaves who had heard of the French Revolution and had been inspired by the idea of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” began to revolt. Historian Laurent Dubois shows how this decree created a conflict of interest within Revolutionary ideals, for the Declarations of the Rights of Man and the Citizen in 1789 was intended to protect both the right of freedom, but also to protect the right to property. In the Caribbean, plantation owners’ “property” included human slaves. Thus a debate ensued over the nature and meaning of such rights. The French initially granted full rights of citizenship to free men of color in the Caribbean, but this act was unpopular with wealthy white planters, and it did not extend to slaves, who rebelled. The French government tried to accommodate the political desires of the planter class, yet also keep the slave rebellions under control, but this task proved impossible. Revolutionary leader Robespierre was a member of the Society of Friends of the Blacks and he advocated abolition. Eventually, wealthy white (and some biracial) planters in St. Domingue began to ally with the English in opposition to him. At this point, Légér Félicité Sonthonax, who had been sent to enforce equality for free Caribbean men of color, suggested the radical step of freeing the slaves to aid in the French revolutionary effort against the planters. The National Convention supported him and decreed the abolition of slavery in 1794. The leader of the black forces on St. Domingue, Toussaint L’Ouverture, then declared his undying allegiance to the French Republic. L’Ouverture himself, however, modified the abolition decree in the constitution of St. Domingue (now Haiti), written in 1801, so as to force black inhabitants to remain on plantations and serve the agricultural needs of the French state. The granting of abolition was contested both during and after the French Revolution and Haitian Revolution for Independence. Planters who had fled St. Domingue and wealthy businessmen in France were quick to publicize the violence committed against white settlers by the revolutionary black forces. They also pointed out to the French government the dangers abolition presented to the sugar trade. Who would work the plantations if slaves were made free? When Napoleon came to power, these arguments combined with wider military concerns and Napoleon’s fear of black republican sympathies. He invaded Haiti on January 29, 1802 with the intent of reinstating slavery and resuming control of the lucrative sugar trade. His forces captured L’Ouverture and Napoleon renounced abolition throughout all French territories in April 1802. The inhabitants of Haiti revolted against this new decree and won their independence, but this left the rest of France’s overseas possessions still subject to slavery. ABOLITION CAMPAIGNS, ECONOMICS, AND OPPOSITION (1802–1848). Jacque Pierre Brissot founded the Society of the Friends of the Blacks, to which Robespierre belonged, in 1788. He was inspired by the British abolition movement. The English abolitionist Thomas Clarkson gave the fledgling group practical advice and guidance. It was a small and select group and members included the Comte de Mirabeau, the Marquis de Condorcet, Légér-Félicité Sonthonax, the Abbé Grégoire, and General La Fayette. The society also suffered from its association with the English abolition lobby owing to strong anti-British sentiment in France. French resentment of the English was a sticking point for the French abolition campaign right up until the final abolition decree in 1848. The Society of the Friends
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Abolition of Slavery, French of the Blacks encountered other problems and was virtually nonexistent by 1793. It reemerged in 1796, strengthened by the first French abolition decree, only to be harassed and then suppressed by the regime in 1799. The tide of government and public opinion had swung against the slave uprisings in the Caribbean. Robespierre’s demise also affected the abolition cause. Abbé Gregoire kept advocating for black French throughout all territories and published a patronizing, but well-intentioned book, On Black Literature. This work, however, along with most antislavery material, was subject to censorship after 1812. Furthermore, by 1814, the abolition movement in France consisted of three competing factions: Grégoire and his group; a loosely unified group of liberal Protestants led by author Madame de Staël and the Duc de Broglie; and then a disparate set of random individuals, all of whom expressed antipathy to slavery but could not unite under one banner. This situation was compounded by France’s internal economy and politics. Louis XVIII had been restored to the throne, but in 1815 was still too insecure to risk angering the powerful merchant and planter groups that worked against abolition. The colonial proslavery lobby, however, had ample funds to spend on journalistic propaganda that told horror stories of slave violence against white masters, and painted a grim portrait of a weakened France limping economically behind its European rivals as a result of losing both sugar and slave trade profits. Colonists, merchants, and manufacturers called the slave trade a lifeline, and nationalists hailed it as a demonstration of French power and resistance to Britain. In this context, the French abolition movements struggled to achieve their goal. They were elite groups that did not have a popular base. They were divided among themselves and much smaller in number than the British abolition groups. They also faced the reality of a widespread French perception that the British were promoting abolition as part of a subtle economic strategy designed to weaken the French economy. There was some truth behind the “British economic sabotage” theory. Britain was exerting pressure on the French to abolish slavery for both ethical and economic reasons. They genuinely believed slavery was evil, but they also wanted to level the European economic playing field once Britain itself had lost her slave trade profits. The British were trying to persuade every other European power to abolish the slave trade in the Act of Vienna. France did agree to limit its slave trade on March 29, 1815 in a decree issued by Napoleon, which was confirmed later that year by Louis XVIII. In practice, however, the government dragged its heels on implementing the decree until 1830. It was not simply French merchants and manufacturers and Caribbean planters who opposed abolition but also local African merchants and rulers in the French territories of Bourbon, Senegal, and Goree, who saw their livelihood and prosperity threatened if their principal trade and economic activity was cut off. During the 1820s, abolitionists did begin to make headway, however, and the scene was set for the young and enthusiastic abolitionist Victor Schoelcher to shift the abolition campaign’s approach from “gradual” to “immediate” by 1840. IMMEDIATISTS VERSUS GRADUALISTS AND VICTOR SCHOELCHER (1820–1848). A new abolition group, the French Society for the Abolition of Slavery, was formed in 1834. As in previous incarnations, it was a small and elitist group and was attacked by planters for not understanding the “natural limitations” of
Abolition of Slavery, French slaves. The members of this group, under the leadership of the Duc de Broglie, advocated moderate reform and a “gradual” approach to ending slavery. Broglie presented the call for gradual emancipation in his address to the chamber of peers on March 28, 1822. He and fellow abolitionists proposed a variety of “preparatory” measures between 1822 and 1848, such as education for slaves, freeing children but not parents, or simply dealing with the slave trade, rather than the institution of slavery itself. In 1833, however, the abolitionist Victor Schoelcher came up with his first demand for “immediate” action. He had traveled to the Americas and visited plantations. He became increasingly active in the abolition movement throughout the 1830s and 1840s. In 1833, he published a book entitled De l’esclavage des noirs et de la Legislation colonial and from that point onward, the abolition campaign in France shifted toward a more “immediatist” policy. Schoelcher is often credited with energizing this final campaign, but he worked with, and for, Ledru-Rollins’s journal, La Reforme, and his efforts were complemented at the popular petition level by the less visible Cyrille Bissette, a biracial former proprietor from Martinique. Yet again, both internal and external events combined to secure the final abolition decree. The abolition cause had slowly won favor with the wider public, who submitted a series of antislavery petitions in 1844 and 1847. These petitions may have been circulated in part because beet sugar production was increasing in France, and manufacturers and their working-class French laborers wanted to undercut Caribbean sugar production. The Revolution of 1848 was instrumental in the final stages of abolition. In the wake of the revolution, Schoelcher was appointed undersecretary of the navy and acted immediately to effect emancipation, taking advantage of the willingness of the new regime and his position within it. He wrote the decree on April 27, 1848. It was to take effect in two months, thus ending slavery. Slaves in the Caribbean participated in the final moves toward abolition. As news of the revolution in France reached Guadeloupe and Martinique, the slaves launched a wave of protests and revolts in anticipation of being freed, as they had been in the 1789 French Revolution. In response to their protests, the governors of the French Antilles put the decree into action well before the two months were up. Abolition was passed, but it remained controversial. Planters expressed dismay long after the decree went into effect. After emancipation, the laboring population of the Caribbean was supplemented by immigrant labor from China and India, and although they were technically free, they, as well as many of the former slaves or immigrants from Africa who worked on plantations, continued to suffer low pay, high death rates, and poor working conditions. The involvement of slaves in their own emancipation deserves a greater place in history than it has traditionally been accorded. It has recently been argued that democracy could actually be viewed as a gift of the Caribbean to the West by virtue of the revolutions, struggles for rights, and political actions undertaken by Caribbean men and women of color in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. See also: Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Delgrès, Louis; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; France, Blacks in; Free Soil Principle; Mirza; Ourika.
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Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese Further Reading: Dubois, Laurent. A Colony of Citizens: Revolution and Slave Emancipation in the French Caribbean, 1787–1804. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004; Federini, Fabienne. L’Abolition de l’Esclavage de 1848. Paris: Harmattan, 1998; Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Kielstra, Paul M. The Politics of Slave Trade Suppression in Britain and France, 1814-48. London: Macmillan, 2000.
Rachel Gillett
Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese Portugal was the first country to establish the basis for the creation of the Atlantic slave trade. It was also one of the last countries among the European imperial powers to comply in ending slavery in its colonies, along with Spain, with a decree in 1869. This was 5 years after the Americans and 36 years after the British had done so. Slavery became an institution ingrained in all levels of administrative and societal life of the Luso-Empire at both sides of the Atlantic. As a result, it does not require much to understand the set of pressures and social actors willing to take the risk of maintaining it in operation at all costs. Contradictory enough, the Portuguese did not have an organized slave code working in conjunction with a civil law. The few references to anything resembling something of the kind date from 1603, and it originated from a compilation of earlier codes that referred to Moors and non-Christians. The events that led to the abolition of slavery by Portugal started with an agreement with Britain in 1810 for a gradual reduction of the trade on both sides of the South Atlantic. It is important to note that Portugal’s largest slave colony, Brazil, became independent in 1822. Its independence, however, in practical terms, cannot change the fact that this new country was still ruled by a member of the Portuguese royal family. For that reason, even though slavery in Brazil is often treated as a different subject, it can be included as part of the general Portuguese slave trade; however, the slave trade involving Brazil was highly resilient and difficult to eradicate. Many Brazilians violently opposed British abolition of slavery and alleged that the abolitionists were not motivated by humanitarian or moral reasons. Rather, many Brazilians argued that such abolitionists were motivated by commercial reasons, particularly once the products of the British colonies could not compete with those made in Brazil with the support of slave labor. Eventually, the end of the slave trade was enforced in Brazil in 1850, but that did not result in a total interruption of this market and the agricultural practices supported by it. The end of the slave trade established the beginning of the end of slavery itself. Brazil, cornered with Spain as the only countries to still sustain slavery in its colonies, was targeted from all sides by abolitionists, both from abroad and from within its frontiers. Abolitionists often received financial and organizational support from the British themselves. Despite the clear fact that there was now an international understanding that slavery was an immoral and outdated commercial endeavor, planters and slave owners were still buying slaves to the bitter end of slavery during the last quarter of the nineteenth century.
Abolition of Slavery, Russian This confidence, or hope, from planters that slavery should, or at least could, last into the twentieth century was frustrated by a gathering momentum of pressure for the manumission of slaves throughout Latin America. After the 1860s, the number of slaves freed in Brazil and in Cuba, for example, was comparable to the number of slaves born in these countries. By the 1880s, the number of free Afro-Brazilians was larger than the number of slaves. Along with manumission, several other factors contributed to the decrease in the number of slaves available in an already illegal market. One factor was the war Brazil led against Paraguay from 1864 to 1870. Brazil needed to free and arm slaves or risk losing several important areas of its territory. Another factor was the 1871 Rio Branco Law of Free Birth, which gave freedom to all newborns of slaves after 1871. That same legislation, however, also determined that the sons and daughters of slaves had to work for the master of their mothers until they reached the age of 21. Portugal abolished slavery in its colonies in 1869, but for decades an illegal slave trade still operated. Slavery was still a reality south of the equator, mainly in Brazil. On May 13, 1888, Princess Regent Isabel signed a law that emancipated all slaves on Brazilian soil. There were several days of public celebrations and even a Catholic mass to stamp the Church’s approval on the royal act. Freeing the slaves in Brazil brought up two problems, however. First, the abolition of slavery was not accompanied by any measures to compensate planters for the loss of their slaves. This generated an angry response from planters, who, along with longtime republicans, seized power through a coup d’état and expelled the monarchy. Second, freed slaves would now face exclusion and resistance at all levels in rural and urban life in republican Brazil. There were simply no structures in place to absorb them. In the meantime, European immigration in Brazil boomed and several skilled or semiskilled workers became available, making survival even harder for the new “citizens” of Brazilian society. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Portugal, Blacks in; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; Hart, Richard. Slaves Who Abolished Slavery, Vol. 1 Blacks in Bondage. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1980; Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade, New Approaches to the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Schwartz, Stuart B. “The Manumission of Slaves in Colonial Brazil: Bahia, 1684–1745.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 54 (1974): 603–635.
Augusto Ciuffo
Abolition of Slavery, Russian Although slavery, for the most part, had disappeared in Western Europe by the later Middle Ages, it persisted in Russia. Slavery remained a significant institution in Russian society until 1723, when Tsar Peter the Great converted household slaves into
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Abolition of Slavery, Russian house serfs. Agricultural slaves had already been formally converted to serfs in 1679. The 1861 abolition of serfdom (i.e., modified slavery) in Russia indeed signified the single most significant event in nineteenth-century Russian societal evolution. Imperial Russia was predominantly a society of peasants. They constituted about four-fifths of the entire population. There were two basic types of peasants: those occupying state lands and those occupying feudal lands. Aside from honoring their obligations to the state, the serfs (peasants living on private lands) were also responsible to the landowners, who exercised immense influence over their existence. The communities were organized on the basis of dvory (households), interwoven as derevni/selo (villages) and administered by the mir (the village community). Landed resources were distributed within the mir. Yet the land was not in any way the possession of the mir. It legitimately belonged to the dvoryanstvo (the landowners), who numbered 100,000 individuals. The serfs (occupying about 20 million dvory, which averaged 8 inhabitants), however, were not allowed to leave the property of their birth. They were primarily duty bound to make intermittent remittances in labor and produce for the landowners. During the reign of Tsar Alexander I, the Russian Empire was poised to play a major political leadership role in post-Napoleonic Europe. Nevertheless, the prevalence of serfdom hindered the socioeconomic and military transformations that the Russian Empire needed. Subsequently, nineteenth-century Russian society was aware of the need for genuine social reform. Of all the reforms institutionalized during the reign of Tsar Alexander II, however, the Emancipation Reform of 1861, which ensured freedom for the serfs, was regarded as the most significant. Meanwhile, serfdom had been abolished earlier in (Russian) Poland by Napoleon in 1807. Serfdom had also been abolished in other parts of the empire, such as Estonia in 1816 and Livonia in 1819. Generally, slavery in Russia was distinctively internalized, unlike what was obtainable in most Western countries that engaged in slavery. Notable liberal political leaders who worked for the formation of the 1861 Emancipation Manifesto, such as Yokov Rostovtsev and Nikolay Milyutin, conceived that the Russian Empire was one of the last feudal states in Europe. Also, the disgraceful display by Russian forces in the Crimean War (1855) exposed the decay and weakness of the Russian Empire. Thereafter, relevant drastic reforms were put in place. As an integral part of such reforms, the abolition of serfdom was considered. It was believed that abolition would pave the way for the dissolution of the mir into personal land-ownership and the commencement of a free market economy. Unlike his predecessors, Alexander II was interested in tackling the challenges posed by the phenomenon of serfdom in Russia. Taking action on a petition from the provinces of Lithuania, Alexander II instituted the committee “for ameliorating the condition of the peasants” to consider abolition. Debates centered on whether serfs should remain dependent on their landowners or whether they should be developed into a distinct group of independent communal proprietors. As expected, the landowners were willing to grant the serfs freedom but not land. Alexander II, conscious of the implications of facilitating the emergence of a proletariat (as earlier projected in the Communist Manifesto of 1848) and the possible unrest that this could cause, decided on the second option, although with some restrictions.
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish Giving the serfs both freedom and land must hinder landowners’ ability to manage their estates cost-effectively. The Emancipation Manifesto of March 3, 1861 provided the legal basis for the abolition of serfdom in Russia. The manifesto was accompanied by a series of legislative acts under the general name Regulations Concerning Peasants Leaving Serf Dependence. The legislation was established to reduce the possibility of the peasants’ economic self-sufficiency. A transitional period of two years was set up, during which freed serfs were obligated to serve their landlords as they had done previously. Substantial segments of communal land were given to established landowners as otrezki ( “cut off lands”). This policy resulted in the payment of fees by the freed serfs in order to access most fertile lands, roads, and rivers. Serfs also had to pay their landowners for their allocation of land in a series of payments. Such payments were used to compensate landowners with bonds. The government would advance the complete sum to the landowner, and the peasants would then reimburse the government (with interest) over a period of 49 years. Such payments were cancelled in 1907. Despite abolition of serfdom under Alexander II, revolutionary agitation refused to cease. The terms of the manifesto were unacceptable to many peasants who urged for reform. The landowners and the nobility received government bonds. Their debts were removed from the money before it exchanged hands. The bonds, however, decreased in value, as the landowners were generally incompetent managers. The legislation did not truly free peasants from their excessive external obligations. Nor did it dramatically change their economic or social conditions. The manifesto served as an impetus to the creation of transformational elements that eventually facilitated the fall of the Russian Empire. Liberal industrial and noble personalities had called earlier for nonviolent social reforms and a constitutional monarchy. The soviets (“council of workers”), however, insisted that only a redistribution of lands among those who actually worked it (i.e., the workers) would be tenable. See also: Hannibal, Abraham; Russia, Blacks in; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and. Further Reading: Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia: 1450–1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982; Kolchin, Peter. Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987; Moss, Walter G. Alexander II and His Times: A Narrative History of Russia in the Age of Alexander II, Tolstoy, and Dostoevsky. London: Anthem Press, 2002; Radzinsky, Edward. Alexander II: The Last Great Tsar. New York: The Free Press, 2005.
Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish By the time Britain spearheaded the campaign against slavery in the first decade of the nineteenth century through the abolition of trans-Atlantic slave trade in 1807, slavery had lasted for about 400 years. By 1870, the trans-Atlantic slave trade had resulted in the forced export of millions people from the African coast. Spain was an active player while the slave trade lasted. Starting with the export of African slaves to Spanish
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Abolition of Slavery, Spanish America to work on mining fields and agricultural plantations in 1532, Spain eventually emerged as the fourth largest supplier of slaves. Nevertheless, Spanish efforts at the abolition of the slave trade were not unconnected to British efforts and Britain’s subsequent lobbying of other governments in Europe and America to sign treaties to abolish the slave trade and provide the necessary legal framework for enforcement. In its quest to abolish slave trade worldwide, Britain signed treaties with the governments of the major slave-trading countries. Its treaty with Spain came into effect on September 23, 1817. The treaty allowed warships of either country, if equipped with search warrants, to stop and search merchant vessels suspected of carrying slaves. The treaty also established Mixed Commissions comprising representatives of Britain and Spain, which would adjudicate cases of suspected slave ships. Although the decision of the commission could not be appealed, it did not have jurisdiction over the owners, captains, or crews of captured/condemned vessels. Rather, they were to be handed over to their governments for prosecution. The Anglo-Spanish Mixed Commission was inaugurated in Havana, Cuba in 1819. The governments of Great Britain and Spain agreed that one should sit in the British Colony of Sierra Leone. Each country was supposed to appoint a commissary judge and an arbitration commissioner, and the host government was to appoint the secretary or registrar. Nevertheless, more often than not, Spain, similar to other governments who were signatories of the Mixed Commission treaty, hardly had any representatives in the Mixed Commission. Appointed representatives often declined their appointments or failed to report on time. Thus, the Mixed Commission in Sierra Leone was rather dominated by British officials, whose navy captured about 95 percent of the suspected slave ships brought before the Mixed Commission. By the 1840s, however, British forces, acting in line with the treaty, had destroyed several Spanish slavery bases and captured many vessels. By 1844, about 25 of every 100 Spanish ships that sailed to West Africa were captured by the British antislavery naval squad. Likewise, between 1819 and 1845, the combined cases brought before the Anglo-Spanish Mixed Commissions in Sierra Leone and Havana, Cuba numbered more than 290. This caused a great uproar among Spanish slave merchants and plantation owners, who resisted and protested to the Spanish government. Nevertheless, in spite of the 1817 ban on slavery by the Spanish government, Spanish nationals still continued with the trade, especially in Cuba and Puerto Rico, up to the late nineteenth century. The resistance of Spanish nationals to the abolition of slavery was not unconnected to its pivotal role in the Spanish economy. With between 300,000 and 500,000 slaves working on sugar plantations in Spanish Cuba alone in the 1860s, for example, it became a major producer and supplier of sugar. Thus records show that Cuba supplied 30 percent of world sugar production, with huge profits to plantation owners and marketers. Hence, calls for abolition were an affront to slave merchants, plantation owners, and sugar merchants whose sources of huge profits were threatened. The antiabolitionists argued that the emancipation of slaves in the Spanish territories in Latin America would disrupt production, as freed slaves would refuse to work and might even take action against their former masters. Hence, they called for a gradual process.
Adebari, Rotimi (1964–) Thus antiabolitionists formed a pressure group to push for their interests and to ensure that the Spanish government did not jeopardize such interests. Hence, in spite of the Spanish ban and the inauguration of the Mixed Commissions, vibrant slave markets persevered in Cuba and Puerto Rico. Antiabolitionists were strong in their resistance to the abolition of the slave trade and found the means of having an adequate supply of slaves to work on plantations and sugar refineries. After the Spanish monarchy was toppled by revolutionary generals in Spain, it has been posited that antiabolitionists, fearful that the new government would ban slavery, actually sponsored promonarchy resistance in Spain. Nevertheless, slavery was abolished in Puerto Rico in 1873 and in Cuba in 1886. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Moret Law; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Bethell, Leslie. “The Mixed Commissions for the Suppression of the Transatlantic Slave Trade in the Nineteenth Century.” The Journal of African History 7 (1966): 79–93; Eltis, David. “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment.” The William and Marry Quarterly 58 (2001): 17–46; Mellafe, Rolando. Negro Slavery in Latin America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975; Murray, D. R. “Statistics of the Slave Trade to Cuba, 1790–1867.” Journal of Latin American Studies 3 (1971): 131–149; SchmidtNowara, Christopher. “National Economy and Atlantic Slavery: Protectionism and Resistance to Abolitionism in Spain and the Antilles, 1854–1874.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 78 (1998): 603–629; Sundata, I. K. “Cuba Africana: Cuba and Spain in the Bight of Africa, 1839– 1869.” The Americas 34 (1977): 90–101; Tomich, Dale. “World Slavery and Caribbean Capitalism: The Cuban Sugar Industry, 1760–1868.” Theory and Society 20 (1991): 297–319.
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Adebari, Rotimi (1964–) Adebari Rotimi is the first black mayor of Ireland, elected as mayor of Portlaoise, a town west of Dublin, in 2007. Originally from Nigeria, Adebari was part of a wave of asylum-seekers in Ireland during the 1990s. The election of Adebari demonstrates the changing racial demographics of Ireland owing to immigration and the growing multiculturalism of Europe. Adebari arrived in Ireland in 2000 with his wife and two children from Nigeria, seeking asylum because of religious persecution resulting from conflicts between Nigerian Christians and Muslims. During the late 1990s, Ireland allowed the entry of more than 30,000 asylum-seekers, many of whom came from Nigeria. At that time, Ireland had a growing economy and less stringent immigration laws. Although Adebari’s application was rejected, he and his family were granted residency after the birth of their third child while in Ireland. Until 2004, Ireland automatically granted citizenship to foreign parents of a child born in Ireland (which on that basis automatically made the child an Irish citizen). At first, Adebari had difficulty finding work in Ireland in part owing to a law prohibiting asylum-seekers from working while their applications are under review. Consequently, Adebari performed volunteer work and formed a lobbying group in his new
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Aesop hometown of Portlaoise to assist the unemployed. With their support, he ran for and won a seat on the Town Council in 2004. He then completed a graduate degree in intercultural studies at Dublin City University. Adebari, who also hosts a weekly radio show, formed a consultancy to advise both government authorities and immigrant groups on how to cooperate with each other. Adebari is a firm believer that immigrant groups must assimilate within Irish society and take an active role in their new communities. Adebari was unopposed in his 2007 bid for mayor as an independent politician. His bid for office was supported by both sides of the political spectrum, including the leftwing Sinn Fein party and the right-wing Fine Gael party. See also: Ireland, Blacks in. Further Reading: Cullen, Paul. Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Ireland. Cork, Ireland: Cork University Press, 2000.
Eric Martone
Aesop Aesop was an ancient Greek storyteller known for the genre of fables ascribed to him. According to tradition, he was a slave on the island of Samos during the middle of the sixth century b.c.e. The fables, known in Western literature as Aesop’s Fables, were compiled from various sources during ancient times, some even predating Aesop, whose stories were said to have been passed down through oral tradition. Aesop’s Fables are still read and used to teach good moral behavior. Some of the most famous fables include, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf,” “The Tortoise and the Hare,” and “The Fox and the Grapes.” Details concerning Aesop’s life are shrouded in mystery. His place of birth could have been Phrygia, Thrace, Egypt, Ethiopia, Athens, Sardis, Samos, or Amorium. Some modern scholars have suggested that Aesop was of African origin, although this interpretation is controversial. Scholars furthering this view suggest that his name is derived from the Greek word Aethiopian, which referred to people with dark skin color. Such scholars also indicate that the stories in Aesop’s Fables are filled with animals that are not found in Europe, but rather Africa. According to the scant information provided in various Greek sources, Aesop was likely a slave belonging to Xanthus on the island of Samos. According to the ancient Greek historian Herodotus, Aesop met a violent death for some unknown reason at the hands of the residents of Delphi. See also: Black Athena Controversy; Clitus of Macedonia. Further Reading: Aesop. The Complete Fables. trans. Olivia Temple and Robert Temple. New York: Penguin Classics, 1998; Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1974; Holzberg, Niklas. The Ancient Fable: An Introduction. trans. C. Jackson-Holzberg. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002; Lobban, Richard. “Aesop.” Historical Dictionary of Ancient and Medieval Nubia. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2004.
Nicole Martone
Afonso I (1456?–1542/43)
Afonso I (1456?–1542/43) Afonso I, born Nzinga Mbemba, was king of the Kongo (Congo) during the sixteenth century. He converted to Christianity and developed an important correspondence with contemporary kings of Portugal. The letters reveal the unequal relationship between Portugal and African kingdoms that developed during this time, as well as early attempts at westernization. Furthermore, Afonso sent a Kongolese delegation to Portugal to be educated, resulting in the early presence of black African dignitaries in Portugal. Afonso was the son of King Nkuwu Nzinga, who ruled the Kingdom of the Kongo when the Portuguese arrived in 1483. At that time, the Kongo was located mainly in modern-day Angola and the Republic of Congo. Nkuwu Nzinga converted to Christianity and was baptized in 1491, taking the Portuguese name Joao I. It seems likely that his son, Afonso, was also baptized at the same time. In 1509, Joao I died. Because the monarchy was elective rather than hereditary, there were disputes among Joao’s many children. Afonso’s mother helped keep her husband’s death a secret long enough for Afonso to return to the capital of M’banza Kongo (known as Sao Salvador under the Portuguese) and seize power. A half-brother, Mpanzu a Kitima, then attacked the city with an army he had raised in the provinces. Afonso repelled this force, claiming that his supporters saw an apparition of St. James the Great and that the Holy Spirit appeared in the sky in front of them. Afonso felt that this was divine support for his cause, for his half-brother had renounced Christianity and swore to end conversions in the Kongo. This apparition appeared on the national coat of arms of the Kongo until 1860. Afonso I ruled the Kongo for 33 years. During that time, he wrote many letters to Manuel I of Portugal and his successor, Joao III. In these letters, Afonso detailed his administration of the country, complained about the corruption of several Portuguese officials, and explained his own plans for the mass conversion of his people. Although Afonso wrote letters to the Portuguese kings from as early as 1509, the first letters have not survived. One letter from 1514, however, reveals that Afonso had hired Portuguese mercenaries, whom he called lazy and cowardly, in his service. In 1517, Afonso wrote to his “brother,” the Portuguese king, stating that he was sending some of his men to be educated in Portugal. A long series of letters from 1526 detail the king’s attempts to try to regulate Portuguese behavior in the Kongo. He complained that some Portuguese were helping local bandits, and others were taking free people and enslaving them. He also requested physicians and medicines to stop his people from using traditional medicine men. Throughout his reign, Afonso was a keen student of Roman Catholic theology and read many books. According to an account by a Portuguese Royal chaplain sent to Kongo to advise the king on spiritual matters, Afonso sometimes fell asleep over his theological books. Afonso was also keen that his people should become Christians. In pursuit of this goal, he established a royal school, which by 1516 had more than 1,000 students. This led to the creation of a fully literate ruling class; however, there were no plans for education of the ordinary people. In 1540, Alfonso’s children and grandchildren plotted an unsuccessful attempt on Afonso’s life and planned to take over at his death. He died in either late 1542 or early
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African Diaspora 1543. Afonso was succeeded by his son Pedro I, who ruled until 1545, when he in turn was overthrown by Diogo I, one of Afonso’s grandsons. See also: Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Portugal, Blacks in; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Birmingham, David. Trade and Conquest in Angola. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966; Hilton, Ann. The Kingdom of Kongo. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982.
Justin Corfield
African Diaspora In resisting the view that the process of slavery and African colonization destroyed any remnants of a genuine African culture, the concept of an African Diaspora argues that the historical and anthropological reality of African people must include a discussion of the centrality that Africa has played in the cultural and philosophical development of African-descended people during and after slavery. Although a recent term, appearing in its current utilizations only after World War II, the African Diaspora has come to comprise millions of individuals of African descent living in areas across the globe. As argued by historian Colin Palmer, these individuals, despite cultural variations, possess an emotional bond with each other and to Africa, and are united in the common struggle against racial oppression. Furthermore, these individuals face similar struggles in defining their identity. In recent scholarship, however, this focus on cultural continuity, a central motif in the claim that there is indeed an African Diaspora, has invoked charges of essentialism and skepticism. On the one hand, essentialist critics claim an African Diaspora implies an essential identity and necessary cultural continuity that romantically maintains that African-descended people have a mysterious “Africanity” or “Africaness” in their very being. On the other hand, skeptics argue that it is impossible to claim that there is a connection, culturally or otherwise, between people removed from Africa so long ago. In response to these charges, black scholars, like Paul Gilroy, have begun to emphasize hybridity, or the notion of pluralized identities, and multiplicity in the arena of African Diasporic studies. Unlike the theorists of Pan-Africanism in the early to mid-1900s, who privileged an American understanding of race and racism, contemporary scholars aim to recenter African Diasporic studies on the experiences and identities of Afro-Caribbean and African-descended people in Europe that resist traditional notions of an African personality, as well as a racial kinship that unites all people of African descent. Instead, claim these authors, the African Diaspora should be understood in terms of its variability and different processes of forming Africana identities. HISTORICAL ORIGINS. Most scholars mark the turn to the African Diaspora in the 1960s as a break from the unfettered interest in Africa maintained by African American thinkers’ theories of black nationalism and Pan-Africanism from the early 1800s to the mid-1960s. Historians like George Shepperson have made immense theoretical contributions in the area of African Diaspora studies by highlighting the differences between the Americanist-driven Pan-Africanism of the early 1900s and the internationalist focus of diasporic studies that share clear
African Diaspora affinities with classic diasporas like the Greek or Jewish Diaspora movements. Various African American theorists, however, have pointed to the ideas of a proto-Diaspora emphasizing cultural and racial continuity present in the works of Robert Young, David Walker, Martin Delany, Edward Blyden, and W.E.B. Du Bois. This emphasis on the racial/cultural continuity of African-descended people throughout the Caribbean, Africa, and the Americas is the defining aspect of African American Diasporic studies. The publication of both the Ethiopian Manifesto by Robert Young and David Walker’s Appeal to the Colored Citizens of the World in 1829 was an important theoretical contribution to the African Diaspora. These authors not only sought to reclaim a cultural continuity with Africa, but also established the valorization of African people by connecting them with the historical African (black) civilizations of Ethiopia and Egypt. The primary concern of this period resided in the establishment of a “general union” of the race rooted in Africa and African peoples’ having civilization. The articulation of an African cultural union laid the intellectual foundations for the conceptual categories that later Pan-African theorists like W.E.B. Du Bois used in his essay the “Conservation of Races” to show that Africans in America were, at their root, African. This opposition between African-descended people’s “African-ness” and “American-ness” was the basis of Du Bois’s concept of “double consciousness.” BLACK ATLANTIC THESIS. Paul Gilroy’s influential book The Black Atlantic (1993) has reshaped contemporary African Disporic studies despite criticism from such scholars as Brent Edwards and Colin Palmer. Gilroy, using a cultural studies approach, examines African intellectual history and its cultural construction. He moves away from those cultural forms that could be argued as ethnic absolutism to present the concept of the Black Atlantic as a space of transnational cultural construction. Gilroy depicts the victims of the trans-Atlantic slave trade as the symbol of his new concept of disporic peoples, which deviates from the traditional diasporic models that foster the notion that disporic peoples are separated by a communal origin. Instead, Gilroy argues for a model that encourages hybridity, or multiple identities. According to Gilroy, the hybridity of modernity exemplified in attempting to be simultaneously European and black necessitates forms of double consciousness. This double consciousness, not to be confused with two antagonistic static identities as in Du Bois, represents a revolt against the symbiotic entanglement of color that supports the Manichean-like division of the world into two opposing categories of good and evil, in this case between black and white, and European and African. This harsh dichotomy is, according to Gilroy, the natural language of nationality, national belonging, and, of course, race. Instead of containing the African American tradition in national boundaries, Gilroy points out the importance of the travals of many African American intellectuals throughout Europe and Africa. In doing so, he urges a break with traditional notions of cultural nationalism by encouraging a more transnational approach. Further Reading: Delany, Martin. The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States, Politically Considered. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1993; Delany, Martin. “The Political Destiny of the Colored Race.” In The Ideological Origins of Black Nationalism. ed. Sterling Stuckey. Boston: Beacon Press, 1972, pp. 195–236; Delany, Martin. Principia of Ethnology: The Origin of Races and Color, with an Archeological Compendium of
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Africanus, Leo (1488?–1554?) Ethiopian and Egyptian Civilization. Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1991; Du Bois, W.E.B. “The Conservation of Races.” In African American Philosophy: Selected Readings. ed. Tommy L. Lott. Upper Saddle River: Prentice Hall, 2001, pp. 141–147; Edwards, Brent. “The Uses of Diaspora.” Social Text 66: 19 (2001): 45–73; Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso, 1993; Palmer, Colin. “Defining and Studying the Modern African Diaspora.” The Journal of Negro History 85 (2000): 27–32; Shepperson, George. “The African Diaspora—or the African Abroad.” Africa Forum 1 (1966): 76–93; Shepperson, George. “African Diaspora: Concepts and Context.” In Global Dimensions of the African Diaspora. ed. Joseph Harris. Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1993, pp. 41–49.
Tommy J. Curry
Africanus, Leo (1488?–1554?) Leo Africanus is the Christian pseudonym for al-Hasan ibn Muhammad ibn Ahmad al-Wazzan, the Moor who was a favorite of Pope Leo X. During the Renaissance, Africanus became the most authoritative source for information on the Barbary Coast and Sudanic Africa after writing a nine-book survey of African geography called Cosmographia Dell’ Africa (translated as Description of Africa). Born in Granada in Islamic Spain around 1488 and raised in Morocco, Africanus studied at the University of Al Karaouine before entering the service of Sultan Muhammad al-Burtughali as an ambassador. Throughout his lifetime, Africanus paid commercial and diplomatic visits to Constantinople, Beirut, Baghdad, and Egypt, the most notable of which was his 1509 to 1510 journey to Timbuktu, which at that time was the most important center of trans-Saharan trade. During his travels, Africanus was eventually captured by Spanish corsairs and taken to Rhodes, where, like most Muslim captives, he was held either for ransom or to be sold into slavery. Unlike other captives, however, Africanus was recognized and presented to Pope Leo X as a gift. Favored for his intellect and ability, Africanus was baptized Johannes Leo de Medicis, freed, and granted a papal pension. Entreated by Pope Leo X to put his rare knowledge of Africa to use, Africanus compiled his multivolume geography and history of Africa, and it remained the sole known source of information on the Sudan for nearly three centuries. Africanus, thought to have died in Tunis around 1544 after reconverting to Islam, significantly affected literary history. Not only was he an accomplished writer, but he also influenced other prominent writers. For instance, it has been speculated that William Shakespeare modeled the title character in Othello after him. Likewise, Africanus is thought to be William Butler Yeats’s “Daimon” or heroic alter ego. Yeats’s young fascination with mysticism led him to believe that he had contacted the spirit of Africanus during a séance, and he claimed that Africanus wrote to him through his own hand. See also: Popes, African; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, African Invasions of; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Burton, Jonathan. “A Most Wily Bird: Leo Africanus, Othello, and the Trafficking in Difference.” In Post-Colonial Shakespeares. eds. Ania Loomba and Martin Orkin. New York: Routledge, 1998, pp. 43–63; Davis, Natalie Zemon. Trickster Travels: A Sixteenth-
Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain Century Muslim Between Worlds. New York: Hill and Wang, 2006; Maalouf, Amin. Leo Africanus. trans. Peter Sluglett. New York: Norton, 1989.
Ayanna Thompson
Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain The large influx of immigrants to Britain from its former Caribbean colonies in the postwar years has redefined British culture and what it means to be British. Some immigrants have brought with them their culture and traditions, including musical styles and culture, which have become integrated and popular in mainstream British society. One of the first musicians to bring Caribbean music to Britain was the Trinidadian Lord Kitchener and his fellow musician Lord Beginner, who arrived in the late 1940s. Kitchener was a singer in the calypso style, which was an Afro-Caribbean music genre that originated in Trinidad from the music of African slaves mixed with elements of French, Spanish, and British music styles. He first played at the only Caribbean club in London; however, he was soon playing at additional clubs to expanded audiences, pushing his popularity beyond only Caribbean and African individuals. Other calypso musicians began to collaborate with British jazz musicians, as well as African Kwela musicians. At the 1951 Festival of Britain, the Trinidadian All Steel Percussion Orchestra (TAPSO) and Roaring Lion further brought Afro-Caribbean music to the British public. In 1959, Claudia Jones initiated the Notting Hill Carnival, which featured many Afro-Caribbean musicians. From 1957 to 1960, Cy Grant even sang calypsos on the BBC TV news program Tonight. Jamaican music was introduced in Britain during the 1960s and quickly became popular among British Afro-Caribbean youths. Prince Buster and the Skatalites fed the growing British-Caribbean music scene with their take on ska, which was a music style that combined mento (Jamaican folk music) with calypso and American jazz and rhythm and blues. Further successes by Jamaican musicians Millie Small, Desmond Dekker, and Bob and Marcia further moved Caribbean music into mainstream British culture. Black Britons of Afro-Caribbean descent followed the styles of Jamaican music to develop homegrown British music that was popular among both blacks and whites in Britain. In 1969, Symarip, a British Afro-Caribbean ska band, released “Skinhead Moonstomp,” which had a substantial influence on the British ska scene. Jamaican ska was soon succeeded by other Jamaican music styles, such as rocksteady and then reggae. Rocksteady was popularized by such vocal groups as the Gaylads, the Kingstonians, the Maytals, and the Paragons. Rocksteady had a slower and more relaxed tempo than ska, with a heavier and more prominent bass. British AfroCaribbeans generally followed the changes in music in Jamaica. By 1969, reggae musicians, such as Dave and Ansell Collins, Ken Boothe, and John Holt, received regular airplay. Trojan Records, named after producer Duke “the Trojan” Reid, brought several Jamaican recordings to Britain. Their first success was Jimmy Cliff’s “Wonderful World, Beautiful People” in 1969. Eddy Grant, as part of the Equals, which was the
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Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain first multiracial music group to reach number one in Britain in 1968, and later as a solo artist, scored numerous musical successes. During the 1970s, Lovers rock developed as a smooth, soulful version of reggae. The style was spearheaded by Dennis Brown, but also included such musicians as Louisa Marks, Peter Hunnigale, Sylvia Tella, Keith Douglas, and Michael Gordon. The arrival of the Jamaican reggae icon Bob Marley and his band, the Wailers, to London in the early 1970s helped launch an entire Black British music industry based on reggae. Marley’s affiliation with the Rastafarianism influenced many young people in Britain to rediscover their Caribbean and African roots. Furthermore, reggae, with its message of overcoming injustice, was popular among working-class youths who battled racism and poverty. Jamaicans and their children who had settled in Britain helped establish networks of reggae sound systems, some of the most popular being Jah Shaka, Coxsone Outernational, Fatman, and Quaker City. As roots music decreased in popularity in Jamaica during the middle of the 1980s, sound systems, like Jah Shaka, maintained its popularity in Britain and influenced a new generation of producers, sound systems, and musicians. Some of them included the Disciples, Iration Steppas, Jah Warrior, and the Rootsman. This music scene has been referred to as dub, which witnessed resurgence in the 1990s. Dennis Bovell, a British Barbadian, Mad Professor, and other producers emerged in Britain to work with several international reggae stars to bring reggae and reggaeinfluenced music to the top of the British pop charts. Bovell worked with such nonreggae groups as Bananarama and Dexy’s Midnight Runners. He also worked with renowned black British dub poet Linton Kwesi Johnson. Beginning in 1979, 2 Tone Records combined ska, reggae, and rock to encourage the development of the 2 Tone movement that was composed of such bands as the Specials, the Selector, Madness, Hot Knives, the Loafers, and Potato 5. During the 1980s and early 1990s, British music with reggae influences was highly popular. British Afro-Caribbean musicians, such as Musical Youth, Maxi Priest, Misty in Roots, and Aswad were extremely successful. The multicultural group UB40 helped spread reggae to international audiences. Steel Pulse became one of the first exponents of roots reggae and accompanying black consciousness. Many white British pop and rock musicians used elements of Afro-Caribbean music. During the 1970s, punk rocks groups, such as the Clash, infused reggae music into their sings. The group even worked with reggae producer Lee Perry on the song “Complete Control.” Paul McCartney used Jamaican-influenced beats to the Beatles’ song “Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da” and later solo material, such as “Another Day” and “Silly Love Songs.” In 1976, Peter Frampton’s “Frampton Comes Alive” album featured many reggae songs. The 1980s super-group the Police used reggae influences on their songs “Roxanne” and “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” and others. Blondie’s “The Tide Is High,” however, was arguably the first hugely successful white reggae hit in Britain. Before the 1990s, British Afro-Caribbean music had generally followed the initiatives of Caribbean styles. During the 1970s and 1980s, however, British Afro-Caribbean musicians, such as Hot Chocolate and Imagination, led the British disco, soul, and rhythm and blues scenes. By the middle of the 1980s, British Afro-Caribbeans were
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA) also incorporating new African American musical styles such as hip-hop and house. Such developments led to an explosion of new musical forms that changed British music culture. British musicians developed various musical hybrids by combining elements from different sources, including European techno, Jamaican dancehall, breakbeats, dub, and new American rhythm and blues. Such unique blends would propel such groups as Soul II Soul and Massive Attack to international stardom. British Afro-Caribbeans were also at the forefront of the jungle and bass and drums movements of the 1990s. Two successful exponents of these styles were DJs Goldie and Roni Size, both black Britons of Jamaican heritage. Later British Afro-Caribbean musicians and DJs continued to be at the forefront of the British garage and Grime music scenes. See also: African Diaspora; Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Music, African Influences on European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Notting Hill Carnival; Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading: Brock, Colin. The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. London: Routledge, 1986; Foner, Nancy. “Race and Color: Jamaican Migrants in London and New York City.” International Migration Review 19:4 (1985): 708–727; Oliver, Paul, ed. Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contributions to Popular Music. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990; Owuso, Kwesi. Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999; Pryce, Everton A. “The Notting Hill Gate Carnival: Black Politics, Resistance, and Leadership, 1976–1978.” Caribbean Quarterly 31:2 (1985): 35–52.
Eric Martone
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA) Afro-Deutsche Frauen (Afro-German Women), known as ADEFRA, is an organization composed of Afro-German women and women of black descent in Germany to promote the exploration of essential questions about race and identity for women in modern Germany. The organization’s objectives include racial harmony, women’s equality, and respect for all people within German society. ADEFRA dates from the seminal work on Afro-German identity Farbe bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, 1986) edited by Katharina Oguntoye, May Opitz (May Ayim), and Dagmar Schultz. The inspiration for the development of Showing Our Colors came from Audre Lorde, an African American poet, novelist, and essayist who advocated the rights and assertiveness of black women. From ADEFRA came the Initiative of Blacks in Germany (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland, ISD), which seeks to unite both men and women toward the objective of a society devoid of discrimination and prejudice. ADEFRA organizes international, national, and local meetings and helps orchestrate activities to promote awareness of black contributions to German culture and racial harmony. See also: Black History Month; Germany, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European.
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Afro-Germans Further Reading: ADEFRA’s Web Page: http://www.adefra.de/ Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
Nicole Martone
Afro-Germans Afro-German (Afro-deutsche) is a modern term applied to individuals in Germany who are of black African descent and who identify themselves as part of the African Diaspora. The number of blacks residing in Germany is still relatively small, and their status is still plagued by the experiences of German colonialism. Yet there is a growing sense that the history of blacks in Germany is an integral part of German culture, both past, present, and future. Consequently, there is in Germany an effort to be more respectful toward the black German community. Today, Germans often use the term Schwarze (“black person”) to refer to Germans of black African descent. Until the 1980s and early 1990s, however, Germans freely used such terms as Neger (“negro”), Negerkuss (literally, “negro kiss,” but a type of chocolate candy), Farbige (“colored”), and other terms for blacks that today (and especially in the United States, which has a larger black community) would be considered derogatory or inappropriate. In German slang, there is the verb neger sein, which means, “to be broke.” Because of the limited number of blacks in Germany, Germans have had difficulty developing sensitivity toward members of different races within their own country. The changing demographics of Europe and the increasing multicultural diversity, however, have forced Germans to pay more attention to its different cultural and racial groups and redefine German identity. The term Afro-German, based on the term African American in the United States, is gaining increasing use in Germany and other countries. One of the most significant uses of the term came in 1986 with the German publication of Showing Our Colors: AfroGerman Women Speak Out by Katharina Oguntoye, May Opitz (May Ayim), and Dagmar Schultz. The book was translated into English in 1991 and received international acclaim. Furthermore, in academia, there is a growing field in “Afro-German studies.” See also: Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Colonies in Africa, German; Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD). Further Reading: Mazon, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingrover, eds. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005; Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
Eric Martone
Age of Exploration The Age of Exploration was a period during the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries in which European explorers traveled across the globe in search of new trading routes
Age of Exploration and trading partners to expand the growing development of capitalism within Europe. In particular, Europeans were interested in acquiring spices and precious metals such as gold and silver. The process of exploration resulted in better European knowledge of the globe and its seas and continents. Furthermore, the Age of Exploration led to the beginnings of modern European colonialism and the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The countries most significantly involved in the Age of Exploration were Portugal, Spain, the Netherlands, England, and France. Notable explorers included Prince Henry the Navigator, Ferdinand Magellan, Vasco de Gama, Pedro Álvares Cabral, Christopher Columbus, Juan Ponce de León, Francisco Pizarro, Francisco de Coronado, Cabeza de Vaca, Hernán Cortés, Hernando de Soto, Nuñez de Balboa, Giovanni da Verrazzano, Amerigo Vespucci, Henry Hudson, John Cabot, Martin Frobisher, Francis Drake, Henry Morgan, Walter Raleigh, Jacques Cartier, Samuel de Champlain, Robert de LaSalle, and Jacques Marquette and Louis Joliet. The Age of Exploration had its origins in the Renaissance, which was a great period of cultural and scientific advancement in Europe. During the Renaissance, new inventions were developed to advance methods of cartography, or mapmaking, navigation, and shipbuilding. Before the Renaissance, Europeans had access to spices and other goods from Asia via the Silk Road. Most of this trade was conducted by Italian merchants, who purchased Asian goods across the Mediterranean from Muslim traders. One of the most famous explorers before the Age of Discovery was Marco Polo, who traveled throughout East Asia in the thirteenth century and wrote of his exploits During the Age of Exploration, many explorers were looking for alternate routes via the sea to get to Asia in order to conduct trade directly. The land routes for trade across Eurasia, which were controlled by Muslim traders, were dangerous for Europeans to travel through to conduct trade. Furthermore, the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, during the fourteenth century limited travel and foreign trade. During the Renaissance, however, a shortage of domestic supplies of gold and silver bullion, on which the European economy depended, and conflict with the Islamic Ottoman Empire, which controlled North Africa and the Middle East, pushed the European countries, which now had better technology, to seek alternate methods to conduct trade. Portugal, under Prince Henry the Navigator, led the first wave of European explorations. The Portuguese attempted to explore the west coast of Africa. Previously, trade with Western Africa for gold and slaves was conducted through North African merchants, rivals to the Portuguese. In exploring the coasts, the Portuguese hoped to bypass the North African merchants by a sea route. The Portuguese explorers continually sailed slightly farther south along the African coast on subsequent voyages, until they established bases, which became the foundations for future colonies, to conduct trade, making contact with local African chiefs and tribes. In 1487, Portuguese navigator Bartolomeu Dias managed to sail to the tip of Africa and proved that access to the Indian Ocean was possible. In 1498, Vasco de Gama sailed to India, raising hopes that a sea route to trade with East Asia was possible. Meanwhile, Portugal’s rival, Spain, united after expelling the Muslims and conquering Granada in 1492. Granada, a stronghold of the Moors, had been supplying the Spanish with African goods as tribute. With such wars concluded, Spain had the
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Age of Exploration resources to finance exploration. Consequently, Spain financed the voyages of Christopher Columbus, who believed that, because the earth was round, a direct route could be established from Spain to East Asia by sailing west. Columbus’s journey to East Asia was blocked by the previously unknown continents of North and South America. Columbus, however, believed that he had discovered India; hence the islands in the Caribbean, where he first landed, were called the Indies. Only much later, once Europeans realized that what Columbus had discovered was indeed a new land rather than Asia, did they refer to the islands as the “West” Indies to differentiate between them. After Columbus’s voyages, numerous other Spanish explorers sailed to the Americas. Portugal, too, sent explorers to the Americas, including Cabral, who discovered Brazil. Initially disappointed with their findings, Europeans soon made the Americas the focus of early colonization efforts. As competition between Portugal and Spain increased, the pope intervened in 1494 with the Treaty of Tordesillas, which divided the world between the two powers. According to the division, Portugal retained control over Africa, Asia, and eastern South America; and Spain received the largely unknown continents of most of South America, North America, and the Pacific Islands. During the early 1500s, Spain located gold in the Americas. There were numerous native empires, which were ultimately destroyed by Spanish conquistadors, some of whom were black. The most notable empires that were destroyed included the Aztecs of Mexico and the Incas of Peru. During this time, the Spanish also spread diseases, such as smallpox, among the native population to devastating effects. Once Spanish sovereignty was established, the Spanish sought to extract as much gold as possible from the Americas and ship it to Spain. In 1519, Magellan, sailing for Spain, attempted to sail to the Spice Islands by sailing west. Although he died during the voyage, his expedition was the first to circumnavigate the globe. The voyage enabled the Spanish to establish a presence in the Pacific. As the Spanish and Portuguese colonies in America developed, labor sources were needed. Although the Europeans attempted to enslave the indigenous populations, these people died from disease, which created a shortage of labor for European needs. Consequently, an alternative source was sought; ultimately, the labor source chosen was African slaves. The customary way to sail to the Americas was along the coast of Africa and across the Atlantic to South America (where it was the shortest distance), and then north into the Caribbean and North America. Europeans were still wary of sailing too far from the shore and natural trade winds made this route the most feasible to them. Consequently, because Africa was on the way to the Americas, there were no recognized governments in sub-Saharan Africa, and Africans were skilled in tropical agriculture (which was needed in the hot climates of South America and the Caribbean), Africans came to be used increasingly as slaves. Furthermore, African slaves, unfamiliar with the Americas, could not run away. European bases established along the African coasts came to be used increasingly as slaving stations. As European colonization of the Americas continued, the trans-Atlantic slave trade became more complex. Portugal continued its rivalry with Spain, solidifying its control of coastal Africa and Brazil and even sailing to Japan. Over time, however, Portugal was unable to provide the constant revenue to finance such a global enterprise. Portuguese bases throughout
Aida the world were often poorly supplied and underpopulated, and they could not compete with newly enlarging powers that sought to gain at Portugal’s expense. Furthermore, in 1580, the crowns of Spain and Portugal were combined through inheritance, causing the two colonial empires, at least for a time, to unite. As expected, the Dutch, English, and French paid little attention to the papal division of the world between Spain and Portugal. During the seventeenth century, the Dutch, English, and French established trading posts in the East at Portugal’s expense. Soon, Portugal lost much of its position in West Africa and Asia. The Dutch even attempted to conquer Brazil. Also, the Dutch, English, and French attempted to explore North America, first in a search to find a Northwest Passage that would lead through America and into Asia, and then to establish colonial settlements. Spain had largely ignored most of North America, and the English sent John Cabot to explore the region as early as 1497. In 1525, Verrazzano became the first recorded European to visit the eastern coast of the United States. Soon, France had begun to establish a settlement around Quebec (New France), and the English established settlement along the eastern coast of North America. The English, in particular, successfully challenged Spain for control of the Americas and global affairs, leading to an intense rivalry that reached a turning point in the English defeat of the Spanish armada in 1588. See also: Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Conquistadors, Black; Las Casas, Bartolomé de; Moors; New Imperialism; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, French; Slave Trade, Italian; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Bedini, Silvio, ed. Christopher Columbus and the Age of Exploration: An Encyclopedia. New York: Da Capo Press, 1998; Demos, John. Remarkable Providences: Readings on Early American History. Revised ed. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1991; Love, Ronald. Maritime Exploration in the Age of Discovery, 1415–1800. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006; Mancall, Peter, ed. Travel Narratives from the Age of Discovery: An Anthology. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006; Parry, J. H. The Age of Reconnaissance: Discovery, Exploration, and Settlement, 1450–1650. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982.
Eric Martone
Aida Aida is a nineteenth-century opera in four acts by the composer Giuseppe Verdi to an Italian libretto by Antonio Ghislanzoni. The opera, which was based on a short scenario usually attributed to French Egyptologist Auguste Mariette, depicts an interracial romance between a white Egyptian soldier and a black Ethiopian slave. Aida was commissioned by the khedive of Egypt in 1871, shortly after the opening of the Suez Canal. After the opera’s opening in December 1871, it won great popular and critical acclaim. In February 1872, Aida made its Italian debut at La Scala in Milan. It remains one of the most popular operas of all time. The opera tells the story of Aida, an Ethiopian princess, who is enslaved by the Egyptians. In act one, she falls in love with Radamses, an Egyptian soldier. Radames
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Alcindor, John (1873–1924) returns her feelings. However, the Egyptian princess Amneris is also in love with Radames. When the Ethiopians under the command of their king (Aida’s father) invade Egypt, Radames is sent to lead the Egyptian army in battle. While Amneris encourages Radames to seek victory, Aida is torn between her love for her Radames and her loyalty to her father. In act two, after the Ethiopians are defeated, Amneris attempts to discover if Aida is her rival for Radames’s affection. Anmeris pretends that she is sympathetic to the plight of the Ethiopians and that Radames is dead. Aida’s reaction upon hearing the false news of her lover’s death confirms Amneris’s suspicions. Meanwhile, Radames returns triumphant from battle with several Ethiopian captives. Among the captives is Aida’s father. The pharaoh of Egypt allows Radames anything he wishes in reward for his victory. Out of his love for Aida, Radames asks for the Ethiopians’ freedom. Although they are set free, Aida and her father are kept as hostages to ensure that the Ethiopians will not attack again. Further, Radames is given Amneris’s hand in marriage. In act three, Aida secretly meets with Radames on the eve of his marriage to Amneris. Aida’s father appears and pressures her to obtain information from Radames on how to escape. Radames decides to escape with Aida to Ethiopia and tells her the location of the Egyptian guards. However, Amneris and the Egyptian high priest emerge, forcing Aida and her father to flee. Radames is taken prisoner. In the final act, Radames is sentenced to be buried alive. Amneris pleads for mercy, but her entreaties are ignored. Aida hides herself in the crypt so that she can die with her lover. Both Radames and Aida accept their fate and prepare to die together. Above their tomb, Amneris weeps and prays while the high priest leads the Egyptians in celebrations. In 1998, Tim Rice and Elton John developed Aida, an award-winning musical, using the same subject matter. It was produced by Hyperion Theatricals, a unit within Disney Theatrical. Further Reading: Verdi, Giuseppe. Aida. New York: G. Schirmer, 1986.
Eric Martone
Alcindor, John (1873–1924) John Alcindor was a Trinidadian physician who moved to England, where he became known as the “Black Doctor of Westminster” and one of the primary figures of the movement for Pan-Africanism in the early twentieth century. Alcindor was born in 1873 on the island of Trinidad, where he attended St. Mary’s College in Port of Spain. He then won one of four scholarships offered to men on the island of Trinidad to attend the medical school at the University of Edinburgh in Scotland, where he graduated in 1899. Moving to London, Alcindor worked at hospitals in Plaistow, Hampstead, and Camberwell, setting up his own practice at Paddington in about 1907. Initially, Alcindor practiced from home, but in 1913, he established his surgery at 201 Harrow Road. In 1911, Alcindor married Minnie Martin, who was ostracized by her family for marrying a black man. They had three sons.
Aldridge, Ira (1807–1867) In medicine, Alcindor was a member of the committee of the National Council for Combating Venereal Disease and an honorary member of the Anti-Tuberculosis Society. He was also senior district medical officer of the Metropolitan Borough of Paddington from 1917. He wrote journal articles on influenza, cancer, and tuberculosis, gaining his nickname of the “Black Doctor of Westminster.” In July 1900, Alcindor attended the Pan-African Congress held at Westminster Town Hall, London. There were 37 delegates at the meeting, including many from Britain and America, such as John Archer, Dadabhai Naroji, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, W.E.B. Du Bois, and Sylvester Williams, the last also from Trinidad. They urged racial equality and the “benefits of self-government” for Britain’s African and Caribbean colonies. Alcindor helped establish the African Progress Union (APU), which was founded in London in 1918, with John Archer as its first chair, to promote the goals of the Congress. In 1921, Alcindor succeeded Archer as chair. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British. Further Reading: Green, Jeffrey. “John Alcindor (1873–1924): A Migrant’s Biography.” Immigrants and Minorities 6:2 (1987): 174–189; Green, Jeffrey. “John Alcindor and James Jackson Brown: Afro-Caribbean Doctors in London, 1899–1953.” Journal of Caribbean History 20: 1 (1985–1986); Hill, Robert A., Tevvy Bell, and Erika Blum. The Marcus Garvey and Universal Negro Improvement Association Papers. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995; Milton, Sir Simon. Black History in Westminster. London: Westminster Archives Centre, n.d.
Justin Corfield
Aldridge, Ira (1807–1867) Ira Fredrick Aldridge, known by the pseudonym “African Roscius,” was an African American actor most widely known as the first American and African American Shakespearean actor to perform with tremendous success on the London stage. He took on many Shakespearean leading roles including Romeo, Macbeth, Othello, Richard III, Shylock, and King Lear. Aldridge’s parents were Daniel Aldridge, a reverend, and Luranah Aldridge. There is a dispute as to the place of Aldridge’s birth, and scholars have suggested such diverse places as Senegal, Maryland, or New York. From 1820 to 1824, Aldridge was educated at the New York African Free School. In 1825, on his father’s wishes, he attended Glasgow University in pursuit of studies in ministry; however, Aldridge’s interests in theater led him astray and he quit. Before becoming an actor, Aldridge had watched performances as a youth at the Park Theater in New York. These experiences strongly sparked his interest in becoming an actor. Eventually, Aldridge joined an acting group in New York City called the African Grove. He first took on the role of Rolla in the play Pizzaro. His successes there, however, stemmed mostly from his Shakespeare performances, which included the roles of Romeo and Hamlet. At that time in the United States, blacks as stage performers were not widely accepted and, at times, he suffered from racism. In 1823, with the theater’s closure, Aldrige left New York to perform in England.
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Amo, Anton Wilhelm (1703?–1759?) In England, Aldridge began performing on stage at the Royalty Theater. He went on to the Royal Coburg in 1825. There he performed several dramatic roles including Oroonoko in The Revolt of Surinam: or A Slave’s Revenge, Gambie in The Slave, and Christophe in The Death of Christophe. Aldridge shocked audiences with his talents when he tackled the leading role in Othello. In 1827, he also played the leading role in King Lear. That same year, Aldridge performed as Zanga in The Revenge, Mungo in The Padlock, Hassan in The Castle Spectre, and Ginger Blue in Virginian Mummy. A time of difficulty followed a time of prosperity for Aldridge. In 1830, he married Margaret Gill, whom he met in England. Their interracial marriage caused some controversy, as many did not want to accept the union. In 1833, Aldridge performed at Covent Garden to mixed reviews. Never before had there been a performance by an American actor on such a reputable stage, let alone an African American one. Some vocally racist Englishmen, however, were not ready to accept such a movement in stage performance, forcing Aldridge to pursue other venues. He began touring in places such as Ireland, Scotland, and in some English provinces. By 1853, however, no venues in London were willing to employ him. Aldridge continued to tour throughout Europe and Russia, where his work was highly desired and where he received many honors. Aldridge continued to travel to and from England. In 1863, he became a British citizen. Shortly thereafter, in 1864, his wife died. Aldridge then went on to marry his longtime mistress, a Swedish countess, in 1865. On August 7, 1867, Aldridge died while performing in Łódz´, Poland and was buried in an Evangelical cemetery there. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Celoso Extremeño, El (1613); Haitian Revolution for Independence; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Russia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Cowhig, Ruth. “Ira Aldridge in Manchester.” Theatre Research International 11:3 (1986): 239–247; Lindfors, Bernth. Ira Aldridge: The African Roscius. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2007; Marshall, Herbert, and Mildred Stock. Ira Aldridge: The Negro Tragedian. London: Macmillan, 1958.
Nicole Martone
Amo, Anton Wilhelm (1703?–1759?) Anton Wilhelm Amo was a Ghanaian-born philosopher who became the first subSaharan African to attend any university in Europe, rising to the position of a lecturer at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany during the eighteenth century. Amo, originally from the Nzema tribe, was born in Africa in Awukena, located in the Axim region of southern Ghana. The Dutch East India Company brought Amo, then only four years old, to Amsterdam as a page. A missionary working in Ghana had been responsible for Amo’s departure. On arrival in Holland, Amo was presented to Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel and went to live at his palace. There, Amo was baptized and later completed his confirmation. The duke treated the boy as one of his family, sending him to the Wolfenbüttel Ritter-Akademie and then to the University of Helmstedt, where he studied from 1721 until 1727. Amo then went to
Amos, Valerie Ann (1954–) the law school at the University of Halle, completing his thesis on The Rights of Moors in Europe. Amo moved to the University of Wittenberg. By this time, he could speak Dutch, English, French, German, Greek, and Latin. He used his time at Wittenberg to study medicine and also logic, metaphysics, astronomy, physiology, history, law, politics, and theology. Amo completed his thesis at Wittenberg in 1734. The thesis was published later as On the Absence of Sensation in the Human Mind and Its Presence in Our Organic and Living Body. In this work, he dismisses the Cartesian dualist theories in favor of materialism. Returning to the University of Halle, Amo became a professor in 1736. Two years later, he wrote Treatise on the Art of Philosophizing Soberly and Accurately, in which his ideas were clearly similar to those expressed by Enlightenment philosophers John Locke and later David Hume. Amo railed against prejudice and intellectual dishonesty and dogmatic views. In 1740, Amo returned to the University of Jena, but the situation had much changed, especially after the death of the Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel in 1735. There had also been a rise in the secular academics that tended to be against racial equality for Africans in Europe. With increasing prejudice at universities in Germany, Amo even had a public satire on him staged in a theater in Halle. Such racism finally forced him to decide to return to Africa. Traveling in a ship owned by the Dutch West India Company, Amo went to Guinea, and from there, to Ghana. He arrived in Ghana circa 1747 and was reunited with his father and a sister. There is one report that during the 1750s, Amo was interned at Fort San Sebastian, a Dutch fort in Ghana, probably after espousing nationalist or anticolonial views. It is thought that he died circa 1759 at Fort Chama, Ghana. See also: Capitein, Jacobus; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Germany, Blacks in; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Dutch. Further Reading: King, Peter J. One Hundred Philosophers. New York: Barron’s Educational Books, 2004; Kwame, Safro, ed. Readings in African Philosophy. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1995.
Justin Corfield
Amos, Valerie Ann (1954–) Valerie Ann Amos is a British Labour party politician. Recipient of many laurels and honors, Amos was the first black woman member of the British Cabinet and has an impressive track record in government and society. Amos was born in Guyana in 1954. At the age of nine, she migrated to Britain. Amos was enrolled in Bexley Technical High School for Girls, Bexleyheath, where she became the first deputy Head Girl of black descent. She studied further at Warwick University (1976) and Birmingham University (1977) before completing her doctoral dissertation at the University of East Anglia. Amos decided to plunge into public life for changing society in a better way. Between 1981 and 1989, she worked in various boroughs of London. Her motto was for an egalitarian society. In the boroughs of Lambeth, Camden, and Hackney, she served
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Aniaba (1670?–1720?) in Equal Opportunities, Training and Management. Amos headed the Equal Opportunities Commission from 1989 to 1994. In 1995, she set up a consulting firm named Amos Fraser Bernard and became adviser to the government of South Africa on matters pertaining to human rights and equal opportunity in employment. The Thames Valley University conferred on her an honorary professorship for her public service in 1995. Amos added another feather in her cap in August 1997, when she became a life peer of Brondesbury in the London Borough of Brent. She was henceforth known as Baroness Amos. Her parliamentary career was steadily rising. She became the government whip between 1998 and 2001. Amos was the spokesperson on social security, gender-related issues, and external, as well as commonwealth, affairs. She also looked after Social Affairs, Education, and Home Affairs as a coopted member of the European Union Sub-Committee F in 1997 and 1998. In the twenty-first century, she was undersecretary of state in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (2001) and International Development Secretary (2003). She was the British representative to the African Action Plan of the G8 group of developed countries in 2003. In October 2003, she became the third woman in the history of House of Lords to become its leader. Amos was president of the Privy Council and a Trustee of the National Portrait Gallery. Her elevation to the coveted chair in the House of Lords, a bastion of upper strata of the British society, was recognition of merit irrespective of color of the skin. Her expertise in issues relating to development resulted in her nomination by the Labour government in February 2007 to head the United Nations Development Program. In June, she was nominated to be the special representative of the European Union to Africa. In December 2007, Amos attended the African Union/European Union summit in Lisbon as the British representative. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Mirza, Heidi Safia. Black British Feminism: A Reader. New York: Routledge, 1997.
Patit Paban Mishra
Aniaba (1670?–1720?) Aniaba (or Aniabi) was a young African man who was presented at the court of French King Louis XIV in 1687. Aniaba was supposed to be a member of African royalty, but some question exists over whether he was in fact a prince. He was educated and baptized as a Christian, but French plans to install him as African king of Assinie failed. During the seventeenth century, France became one of the leading maritime powers under Louis XIV. French colonies in the Caribbean exported sugar and other valuable products to Europe. Large numbers of African slaves were necessary to work the plantations on these islands, leading to greater French interest in Africa. French merchants hoped to establish trading posts on the African coasts to obtain slaves, gold, and other products from the interior. African diseases were deadly to Europeans, so they were dependent on establishing good relations with tribes along the coast to obtain
Aniaba (1670?–1720?) slaves and products. The Compagnie francoise de Guinée was founded in 1685 to control the trade, especially along the Ivory Coast. French missionaries accompanied the ships, hoping to convert the Africans to Christianity. At the beginning of 1686, Father Gonzalez Francois, a Dominican priest accompanied one of the French ships. When they arrived at Assinie on the Ivory Coast, Father Francois was invited to dine with Bangaza, the local king. The Assini had become familiar with conflicting European countries and hoped to use the French to counter the English and Portuguese, who were also active in the area. Banganza seemed to be open to allowing Dominican missionaries to establish churches in the country. He presented Father Francois and another priest with two young men, Aniaba and his cousin Banga. The priests sent the young men to France to be presented to King Louis XIV. Historians disagree about Aniaba’s status and how much the priests knew. Some authorities believe that Aniaba was a slave, no more; others believe that he was the son of Bangaza. The priests definitely knew that they needed Louis XIV’s support for a successful mission among the Assini. They sent a letter accompanying Aniaba that indicated he was a prince who wished to learn European ways. When Aniaba and his cousin arrived in France, they caused quite a stir. They conducted themselves as royalty. Louis XIV granted them an audience and introduced them to his court. They were allowed to study under the famous orator, Bishop Bossuet, along with the Dauphin. In 1691, Aniaba was baptized by Bossuet in Notre Dame Cathedral. Louis XIV acted as his godfather and allowed him to adopt the Christian name of Louis. Later, Aniaba made his first communion. His tutor was Cardinal de Noailles. Upon making his communion, Aniaba placed his kingdom of Assinie under the protection of France and Louis XIV. Banga was also baptized, but he returned to the Ivory Coast in 1695. While in France, Aniaba lived the life of an educated young nobleman. Louis XIV made Aniaba a captain in the cavalry, and he participated in fighting in Flanders during the War of the League of Augsburg. He also fathered several children with French women and found himself in debt. In 1700, word was received in Paris that Bangaza had died in Assinie. Louis XIV decided to send Aniaba back to take control of the country, where he would become a strong ally of France. To raise his status even further, Aniaba founded an order of knighthood. At a service in Notre Dame in February 1701, Aniaba received the insignia of the Order of the Star of Our Lady from Cardinal Noailles. Louis XIV and the French court were present. When Aniaba left for his homeland soon afterward, Louis XIV apparently told him that he was now a Frenchman with a black skin. Aniaba returned on a French ship to Assinie. When he arrived in June 1701, Aniaba was not received as king. The regent, Akasini, was proper, but did not let Aniaba rule. Aniaba soon alienated the Assini and his French supporters by his haughty manner. At a meeting with the French, Akasini had to be restrained from attacking Aniaba when the latter claimed to be king. Akasini then declared to the French that Aniaba was not Bangaza’s son, as he claimed, but a slave who had been taken in a war. French agents had already reported this possibility as early as 1692, but the French government had hoped to use Aniaba.
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Archer, John (1863–1932) The French established a fort in Assinie, with Akasini’s permission. They took Aniaba with them, but left him at Keta, down the African coast. In 1718, French traders found him there, where he had prospered. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Cohen, William B. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530–1880. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980; Mundt, Robert J. Historical Dictionary of the Ivory Coast (Cote d’Ivoire). Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1987; Peabody, Sue. “There are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Regime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Tim J. Watts
Archer, John (1863–1932) John Richard Archer was a black political activist in Britain who, along with Sylvester Williams, became one of the first people of black African descent to hold public office in Britain. Archer was born in June 1863, in Liverpool, England. His father was a ship’s steward from the Barbados and his mother was from Ireland. As a young man, Archer traveled around the world as a merchant seaman. After living for some years in the United States and Canada, he settled in London, living in the suburb of Battersea with his wife Bertha, a black Canadian. They ran a small photographic studio. Archer became involved in local politics and a friend of many London radicals. In 1906, he stood as a Liberal candidate for the Latchmere ward on the Battersea Borough Council and was elected. On the same day, his friend, Sylvester Williams, was elected for Marylebone. Archer was active and eventually successful in campaigning for a minimum wage of 32 shillings per week for council workers. In 1912, Archer was reelected and, in the following year, nominated as mayor. Archer’s enemies claimed that he was not a British citizen and racial slurs were made; however, Archer won by 40 votes to 39. In his victory speech, he noted: “My election tonight means a new era. You have made history tonight. For the first time in the history of the English nation, a man of colour has been elected as mayor of an English Borough. . . Battersea has done many things in the past, but the greatest thing it has done has been to show that it has no racial prejudice and that it recognizes a man for the work he has done.” In 1919, Archer was reelected to the council as a candidate of the Labour Party. He also contested a parliamentary seat without success. With the establishment of the African Progress Union in 1918, Archer became its first president, working for racial equality. In the next year, he was a British delegate at the Pan-African Congress in Paris, France. In 1921, Archer chaired the Pan-African Congress in London. In the next year, Archer worked as the Labour Party secretary and election agent for Shapurji Saklatvala, a Communist activist who stood for the seat of North Battersea. Saklatvala was elected and Archer was Saklatvala’s election agent again in 1924. In the 1929 election, with the
Art, Blacks as Represented in European Labour Party and the Communists having finally split for electoral purposes, Archer became the campaign agent for William Stephen Sanders, the official Labour Party candidate who defeated Saklatvala. Active in the community, Archer was the governor of Battersea Polytechnic (now the University of Surrey), president of the Nine Elms Swimming Club, and a member of the Wandsworth Board of Guardians. He was the deputy leader of Battersea Council when he died in July 1932. See also: African Diaspora; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Pan-Africanism. Further Reading: Murithi, Timothy. The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005; Scobi, Edward. Black Britannia: A History of Blacks in Britain. Chicago: Johnson, 1972.
Justin Corfield
Art, Blacks as Represented in European Since ancient times, European artists have created a vast array of images of darkskinned peoples of African descent, and these many thousands of images constitute one of the most important sources for Afro-European history, especially before 1700. European depictions of blacks are to be found in figurative artworks from all parts of Europe and in media of every kind: painting, drawing, sculpture, printmaking, ceramics, glass, jewelry, and textiles all supply many examples. There are important representations directed toward popular, bourgeois, and aristocratic audiences. Blacks most often appear as subsidiary figures in European painting, but there are notable cases where they are the principal subject. Artists’ characterizations of black Africans vary greatly, and the imagery does not always suggest a transparent record of the social realities of Africa or the African Diaspora. Representations of slavery are relatively scarce before the nineteenth century, although servility is a common theme; however, black saints occupy a fairly conspicuous position in Christian art. Whereas many characteristic and important depictions of blacks occur in works of art that are either anonymous or by little-known artists, black figures are also present in many widely known European “masterpieces,” such as the sculptural decoration of Chartres Cathedral (early 1200s), Bosch’s Garden of Earthly Delights (c. 1500–1510), Veronese’s Feast in the House of Levi (1573), Bernini’s Fountain of the Four Rivers (1651), and Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa (1818). Drawing on the traditions of Egyptian art, which had already developed a visual vocabulary for representing the diversity of human physical appearance, including skin color, Greek and Roman artists often created images of blacks. For the most part, these images do not seem highly charged with what would now be called racial attitudes, although scholars continue to argue about this question. There are depictions of legendary black heroes, like the Ethiopian King Memnon, but a greater number of surviving images fall into the categories of the exotic and the servile. The exotic images include scenes of the Nile and often match black figures with animals from the tropics. The
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Art, Blacks as Represented in European images that show blacks as servants are in some cases grotesque and in others highly naturalistic. With the coming of Christianity and the subsequent collapse of the ancient Roman Empire, artists and their patrons moved away from an interest in human physical diversity, and identifiably black African figures are rare in early Christian and early medieval art, both before and after the Muslim conquest of North Africa. Egypt and the Nile were, however, seen as gateways toward the lands of darker skinned peoples to the south, and Byzantine artworks of the eleventh and twelfth centuries depict blacks as a significant component of the Egyptian population. The Pentecost dome in San Marco, Venice, shows the Egyptians to be converted by Christ’s apostles as black, and this evangelical inclusion of blacks as standing for the diversity of the world’s peoples also appears in French Gothic artworks, such as the Last Judgment sculptures from Notre Dame in Paris. By the 1200s and 1300s, however, such universalist imagery is outnumbered by representations of blacks as figures of evil, tormenting Christ and his saints, and sometimes executing martyrs. There is little evidence to suggest that blacks actually performed such acts at any time, but Christian theological notions about blackness as a metaphor for spiritual darkness combined with a growing association between dark skin and Islamic identity gave rise to these negative characterizations, which remain frequent in Christian art well into the 1700s. In later medieval and Renaissance art, blacks are also often shown as more neutral bystanders at biblical events, reinforcing the ethnically diverse nature of the Middle Eastern physical setting. During the later Middle Ages, however, Western European artists began to show certain major figures from the Bible and the ranks of Christian saints as black Africans, creating a more individualized version of the universalist imagery discussed previously. Nicholas of Verdun’s 1181 plaque at Klosterneuburg shows the Queen of Sheba as dark-skinned, and the earliest surviving image of the important soldier and saint, Maurice, as black was made in Magdeburg, Germany, in the 1240s. Images of blacks in important sacred and secular roles developed strongly under the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II of Hohenstaufen. By the mid-1300s, one of the Three Magi (also characterized as kings) who worshipped the infant Christ begins to be shown as black. This becomes a standard feature of European art after 1450, and thousands of such representations survive, including major works by Mantegna, Dürer, Rubens, and Velázquez. In these, as in depictions of Maurice and several other black saints such as Gregor Maurus, black characters function as symbols of Christian inclusiveness. The black Magus (known as Caspar or sometimes Balthasar), however, also develops in tandem with the West African slave trade after 1450 and can be read more ambiguously as excusing or endorsing white European control of African peoples. The growing presence in Renaissance Europe of black African slaves and their often manumitted descendants also led to many representations of black domestic servants. Dürer’s drawing of Katherina, made in Antwerp in 1521, exemplifies this trend, which is also visible in Carpaccio’s Miracle of the True Cross (1494), in which two black Venetian gondoliers appear. Titian’s Laura Dianti (1520s) is perhaps the first of hundreds of portraits in which a subsidiary black child page or adult servant sets off the dominant position of a white European subject. Images based on Renaissance epic and ancient
Art, Blacks as Represented in European mythology and historical legend also make use of this device. Although these representations of black servants are among the clearest visual indicators of white Europeans’ construction of racial hierarchies during the early modern period, individual images sometimes point in surprising directions. For instance, the black child in Titian’s Laura Dianti also connects to the Italian origins of Othello, and in pictures like Veronese’s Marriage at Cana (1562), a black aristocrat is one of the wedding guests served by a staff of black and white waiters. Already in the later Middle Ages, black rulers like Mansa Musa and the Emperor of Ethiopia (Prester John) start to appear in illustrated maps and travel literature, and by the 1600s print illustrations to travel books and colonial histories become important categories of representation. Here and in artworks on the theme of the Four Continents, black figures are not confined to depictions of Africa, but often appear, as in Bernini’s Fountain, in characterizations of America as well. By the eighteenth century, paintings like G. B. Tiepolo’s Four Continents in Wurzburg begin to replace images of the Magi story as the most visible expression of the place of Africans in the European world view. During the late 1700s and early 1800s, European representations of black Africans became more polarized in response to the intersections of slavery and abolition, colonialism, and revolution. Visual schemes like those of Petrus Camper advanced the idea that the physical appearance of blacks was intrinsically inferior, and grotesque images of blacks in genre painting and caricature became widespread. At the same time, both illustrators and major artists in the elite tradition more frequently addressed subjects that promoted antislavery views. The Brookes engraving of a packed slave ship (1789), Gericault’s Raft (1819), and J.M.W. Turner’s Slave Ship (1840) are famous instances of this trend. Although antislavery images remained important throughout the nineteenth century, black African figures are more conspicuous during this era in so-called Orientalist representations by artists such as Delacroix, Ingres, and Gerome. In these works, blacks appear as conspicuous, but typically subsidiary, characters in broader evocations of the exotic and/or erotic essence of North African and Middle Eastern society. In general, European depictions of people of black African descent during the 1800s are more frequently set outside the physical and cultural confines of Europe itself, even as the Afro-European population may have been rising. Although African art had a notable impact on European avant-garde image making in the early twentieth century, representations of black people are not especially frequent, except to some degree in images of popular entertainment and in the new realms of photography and film. In recent decades, European artists of color have begun to create postcolonial styles and subjects incorporating depictions of black characters. Individual portrayals of black Africans and Afro-Europeans are uncommon before the 1800s, but works by Dürer, Mostaert, Caporale, Rubens, Velázquez, Rembrandt, Ceruti, Guardi, Gainsborough, Girodet, and Benoist are among those particularly worth noting. See also: Black Madonna Tradition; Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily; Heraldry, Blacks in European; Magi, Representations of the; Moor’s Head Symbol.
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Artists in Europe, African American Further Reading: Bindman, David. Ape to Apollo: Aesthetics and the Idea of Race in the Eighteenth Century. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2002; Bugner, Ladislas, ed. The Image of the Black in Western Art. Vols. 1, 2, 4. New York and Cambridge: William Morrow and Harvard University Press, 1976–1989; Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Kaplan, Paul H. D. The Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985; Pieterse, Jan. White on Black: Images of Africa and Blacks in Western Popular Culture. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1992; Snowden, Frank. Before Color Prejudice: The Ancient View of Blacks. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983; Suckale-Redlefsen, Gude. The Black Saint Maurice. Houston: Menil Foundation, 1987.
Paul H. D. Kaplan
Artists in Europe, African American The tradition of African American artists traveling to and living in Europe has a long history that spans both the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Regardless of whether African Americans contributed to painting, sculpting, or other media, the original intentions for traveling to Europe were the same: to work with great teachers and to gain more critical acclaim than American audiences were willing to give. The history of African American visual artists in Europe can be traced back to the 1830s, when children of black women and wealthy white men in New Orleans were sent to France to receive a formal education. Educational opportunities were limited in New Orleans for those who were not white, but more opportunities were available in France, and the children of these families generally received much support from their white bourgeois parents. Painters such as Florville Foy (1820–1903) and Jules Lion (1810–1866), whose fathers were both highly successful businessmen, studied in Paris in the 1830s, and had their works exhibited in prestigious art salons. Artists, including the talented sculptor Eugene Warburg (1826–1859), who would eventually settle in Rome (after visiting France, Belgium, and England), continued to emigrate in the 1850s. Both the Civil War in the United States and the Franco-Prussian War in Europe limited and often prevented artists from traveling to continental Europe between the 1860s and 1870s. Whereas the door was closed for artists to visit continental Europe, opportunities remained available to those traveling to England. Robert Stuart Duncanson (1821–1872) and Robert M. Douglass (1809–1887) are both examples of artists who traveled to England in the 1840s and 1850s. Duncanson has often been heralded as the first major landscape painter. Like many other African American artists traveling to England, he received support from the abolitionist movement in the United States. His works demonstrate an excellent technique and sensitivity toward nature. Although England continued to be a country of refuge and support for African American artists, the prestige and eminence of France eventually lured others back. In the 1880s, that glamorous image of France prevailed, especially with the arrival
Artists in Europe, African American and success of one young artist named Henry Ossawa Tanner (1859–1937). Born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, Tanner was a talented painter from an early age. He studied art at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts at age 21 under the great American artist Thomas Eakins and traveled to Europe in 1891. Although he initially intended to study in Rome, he decided to stay in Paris, where he had originally docked, and lived in France until his death in 1937. Tanner’s brilliant and meaningful artworks would achieve a level of fame previously unknown to African American artists. Not only did he study in the Académie Julian in France (1892–1896), but he also had his works enthusiastically accepted into prestigious Paris salons (most notably the Salon de Paris) every year. Throughout his life, he won numerous honors and prizes and was eventually awarded the prestigious French Legion of Honor in 1923. As a result of Tanner’s fame and the enticement of studying art in the top art schools in Europe, more African Americans flocked to Europe in the late nineteenth century than ever before. Painter and sculptor Annie Walker (1855–1926) studied at the Académie Julian until 1896; internationally acclaimed African American and Amerindian sculptor Edmonia Lewis spent much of her career in Italy; sculptor Meta Vaux Warrick Fuller (1877–1968) also deserves attention for her powerful and intense expressionist works. Other artists, such as William Harper (1873–1910), William Eduoard Scott (1884–1964), and Laura Wheeler Waring (1887–1948), continued to flock to Europe under the motto, “Europe first, then fame!” Artists would study and exhibit in Germany, England, Italy, and France, learning and creating along the way. Although artists were usually warmly welcomed into artist communities in Europe, many would struggle with their attempts to create art with African American subject matter without alienating their sources of funding and patronage who were generally of the white upper class. African American artists continued creating great art in spite of these adversities until World War I, when they were once again prevented from residing in Europe. The legacy of France as a nation of racial tolerance and artistic freedom and integrity, however, persisted, dominating the golden age of the 1920s with more artists visiting Paris than ever before. Artists like the sculptor Nancy Elizabeth Prophet (1890–1960) and painter Hale Woodruff (1900–1980) studied at Parisian academies, surrounded themselves with excellent artists of the day, and confidently walked into the world of modern art. Woodruff’s works, in particular, are striking in depth and intensity, much like the works of Cezanne or Picasso. Palmer Hayden (1890–1964) became one of the greatest figures in art in the 1920s, whose work “Fetiche et Fleurs,” won the John D. Rockefeller Prize in 1933. At the outbreak of the World War II, artists left Europe for the United States to escape the consequences of war. Although some newer artists would visit Europe with the support of the GI Bill after World War II, the great age of African American artists visiting Europe had past. There was a growing sentiment, which began during the Harlem Renaissance, that African Americans did not need to go to Europe to create artwork that was distinctly African American; in fact, that could best be created, and, perhaps, only be created, in America. As a result of a growing source
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Authors in Europe, African American of support and funding from African Americans themselves, artists were encouraged to travel elsewhere for inspiration, such as Africa, the “mother continent.” Visiting Europe, some claimed, only reinforced Western and white ideals of art, which they believed were at odds with the newly formed black aesthetic. The shift away from European art also demonstrated the desire for many black artists and art critics to define their cultural identity outside the traditional European and Anglo-American framework. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, artists traveled to Europe seeking opportunities to create and sell their artworks, for their career and educational choices in the United States were at first severely limited. While in Europe, artists repeatedly demonstrated their excellent abilities and keen insights into art, gaining popularity and high praise for their profound artistic statements. See also: Authors in Europe, African American; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical. Further Reading: Leininger-Miller, Theresa. New Negro Artists in Paris: African American Painters and Sculptors in the City of Light, 1922–1934. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2001; Lewis, Samella. ART: African American. 2nd ed. Los Angeles: Hancraft Studios, 1990.
Kira Thurman
Authors in Europe, African American From the era of the slave trade to today, many celebrated African American authors have found Europe an attractive destination in which to write their literary works. Their diverse masterpieces are part of American and, in same cases, European literature. Many African American authors were attracted to Europe during the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries because they viewed Europe as both more accepting and more willing to recognize the talents of people of black descent. Therefore African American authors believed that they would find better consideration, inspiration, and opportunity to create and express more freely than in the United States. The cities of London, Paris, and Berlin were destinations that expatriated African Americans tended to visit or live. Paris, in particular, has developed a long-lasting cultural and personal relationship with African American authors. At the same time, black authors have marked and influenced Europe by their ideas. Witnesses of their time, such writers have focused on blacks’ identity, what it means to be black in the United States, and how their European experience allows them to connect with the experiences and individuals of the African Diaspora. FROM SLAVERY TO THE MID-NINETEENTH CENTURY. There was a mutual fascination between African American authors and Europe even before the 1860s emancipation of slaves in the United States. Phillis Wheatley (1752–1784), an African American slave, was the first known black poet. She was born in Senegal and arrived as a slave in the United States in 1761. Wheatley came to Britain to successfully find help in publishing her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral (1773). Harriet Jacobs (1813–1897) exemplified the era in which some slaves were
Authors in Europe, African American writing biographies and following their masters or employers to Europe. At that time, New Orleans counted a kind of club called “Album littéraire,” which was composed of free biracial persons writing in French. This cultural movement culminated with Victor Séjour (1817–1874), the first major African American author immigrating in 1836 to Paris, where he died in 1874. He wrote in French and is best known for Le Mulâtre (The Mulatto, 1837). Frederick Douglass (1818–1895), the great early African American orator, and Edward Wilmot Blyden (1832–1912) are among the postslavery era’s most famous authors who went to Britain and Ireland. Their actions abroad went beyond writing, as they were concerned over the issue of the impact of slavery and therefore worked toward the political emancipation of their own people from oppression, racism, and segregation. Because blacks were generally treated as second-class citizens in the United States, these two authors demonstrated the search and longing of African Americans to find a better place to live, either in Africa or Europe. Douglass published his autobiography, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, in 1845. He spent two years touring the British Empire and giving lectures. His freedom had been purchased by two English abolitionists while he was in Britain. Douglass influenced the abolitionist movement in Britain and is still considered one of the most prominent (African) Americans of the nineteenth century. In A Vindication of the Negro Race (1857), Blyden believed that African American migrants’ redemption would be brought by Christian civilization. He was one of the key figures that influenced the younger generation that organized on a Pan-West African nationalism that sought political reforms. At this time, African American authors developed ideas of Pan-Africanism, which sought to connect the experiences of blacks from all over the world. The French journal Présence Africaine was instrumental in this intellectual movement. Black leader Marcus Garvey (1887–1940) is worth mentioning, for he encouraged black nationalism and a return to Africa in his essays, narratives, and speeches. HARLEM RENAISSANCE, 1917–1935. The Harlem Renaissance found an echo in France with “Art Nègre” (Negro/African Art), “Negritude,” and jazz. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the National Urban League (NUL), with their respective newspapers The Crisis and Opportunity, were used to vehicle new ideas. This movement was made possible thanks to the efforts of previous black authors. The Harlem Renaissance’s writers talked about black consciousness and identity. The most important of these writers was W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963), who summarized in the Souls of Black Folk (1903) what he called the “double-consciousness,” the suffering identity experienced by each African American in the United States. Du Bois went to Berlin, London, and Paris. At the beginning of the twentieth century, segregation was officially absent in France, although France had a large colonial empire. The lack of official segregation reinforced African Americans’ attraction to Paris. Blacks were capable of displaying certain feelings and expressions more freely in France in its artistic environment, which was more accepting of certain differences, than in the United States, where
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Authors in Europe, African American racial relations were tense. Notwithstanding, this does not imply that racism was absent in Europe. Black poetry flourished at that time, and some poets and novelists enthusiastically left Harlem to reside in Europe (mainly Paris) to escape racial discrimination. Some of the African American writers who spent time abroad in Europe at this time included Jessie Fauset (1882–1961), Alain LeRoy Locke (1886–1954), Claude McKay (1889–1948), Zora Neale Hurston (1891–1960), Jean Toomer (1894–1967), Gwendolyn Bennett (1902–1981), Langston Hughes (1902–1967), Countee Cullen (1903– 1946), Richard Wright (1908–1960), Chester Himes (1909–1984), James Baldwin (1924–1997), and William Gardner Smith (1927–1974). These writers appreciated the bohemian life in the frenzied heart of Paris and elsewhere. The European atmosphere had a great influence on these authors’ works, as there was less emphasis on race and interracial relations. The “Lost Generation” (“les enragés”) and the Harlem Renaissance focused on the key issue of representations. The goal was to reshape images and messages dealing with black people in promoting “the New Negro.” Arts were perceived by blacks as a means to change society in order to be accepted into it. There was a clear will to provide a new American literature influenced by Europe; however, racial relations, slavery, difference, and discrimination still were the main themes of that literature. A more recent theme was urban adversity. Moreover, because of the impact of Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalyst theories, there was a trend to write about the black insight, sexuality, experience, and life. Ideas of black separatism, nationalism, and return to Africa continued in the later era of the Civil Rights Movement, even if the idea that African Americans should return to Africa was gradually abandoned. THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT, 1954–1968. The two iconic personalities of the American Civil Rights Movement, Martin Luther King, Jr. (1929– 1968) and Malcolm X (1925–1965), both traveled to Europe. The presence of both in Europe was highly symbolic and demonstrated the significance of African Americans to blacks in Europe, encouraging them in their struggles against racism and discrimination. King, who also wrote essays, went to London in December 1964 to encourage black Britons to fight racism and discriminatory legislation. King also helped to establish organizations to assist these efforts through nonviolent actions. The direct consequence was the foundation of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD). As for Malcolm X, he made several trips to Britain (London, Oxford, and Manchester) and was invited to Paris by the journal Présence Africaine. The goal was to unify blacks throughout the world against Western imperialism by the means of writing and intellectual life. Leaders of the Civil Rights Movement supported the Harlem Renaissance, hoping that such writers would continue their struggle through literature. African American authors’ support proved to be confined not only to writing and furthered the causes of the Civil Rights Movement in many different ways. Politics and literature, as well as cinema, are highly interconnected. Indeed, the African American actor Paul Robeson (1898–1976) visited Britain and contributed to literature with his autobiography, Here I Stand (1958).
Authors in Europe, African American Richard Wright arrived in Paris in 1946. Until his death in 1960, Wright was considered the figurehead of the black writers’ community and of the left intellectuals in Paris. In 1956, he was associated with the American delegation in the First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists, which was held at the Sorbonne University. In 1960, James Baldwin, who had arrived in Paris in 1949, later succeeded Wright in his unofficial leading role within the community of black authors. The “intellectual community” of black authors, however, was far from being homogeneous, and experienced tensions and diverse thoughts in writings and speeches. The difficulties of being American and black, the struggle for Civil Rights and equality, poverty, violence, death, and fate were among the issues represented in this era’s literature; however, Chester Himes, who came to Paris in 1953, had a conflicting relationship with the city. In this era, as Baldwin noted, Paris had become the “lieu de refuge” (sanctuary) for black intellectuals and writers that came there as visitors, expatriated, or to belong to the tremendous Black Power in Paris. CONTEMPORARY ERA. African American women have gained increased representation in American literature, in part because of the Harlem Renaissance and the Civil Rights Movement. Dorothy West (1907–1998), Maya Angelou (b. 1928), Lorraine Hansberry (1930–1965), Toni Morrison (b. 1931), Alice Walker (b. 1944), Gayl Jones (b. 1949), and Gloria Naylor (b. 1950) all went to different parts of Europe (France, Germany, Spain) before writing, for studies, or to escape the United States. These travels, inspired by the desire to follow previous authors in their footsteps, helped them to write some of their best works. Such works have not only a political and racial background, but also deal with gender, sexuality, memory, identity, and the writing experience. At the same time, Europe currently exerts less attraction to African American authors, possibly because of political and international changes since the 1980s. Indeed, an increasing number of European artists and writers leave for the United States under the belief that they will be able to create more easily while there. Because of the changes in regard to their place, identity, and recognition, African Americans are less obliged to expatriate to live their lives and make art. Nevertheless, inspired by, or linked with jazz and the cinema, writers such as James Emanuel (b. 1921), Ted Joans (1928–2003), Ernest J. Gaines (b. 1933), Ishmael Reed (b. 1933), Everett LeRoi Jones/Amiri Baraka (b. 1934), William Melvin Kelley (b. 1937), John Edgar Wideman (b. 1941), and Melvin Dixon (1950–1992) continue to visit Europe and uphold the close historical link between the continent and African American intellectuals and writers. Ralph Ellison (1913–1994), who traveled to Rome in his early life, became a Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters, a French honor, in 1970. See also: Artists in Europe, African American; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical; Négritude. Further Reading: Campbell, James. Paris Interzone: Richard Wright, Lolita, Boris Vian, and Others on the Left Bank, 1946–60. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1995; Du Bois, W.E.B. “The American Negro in Paris.” American Monthly Review of Reviews (November 1900): 575–578; Dunbar, Ernest. Black Expatriates: A Study of American Negroes in Exile. New York: Dutton, 1968; Fabre, Michael, ed. From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840- 1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991; Foney, E. L. “A Visual Arts Encounter: African
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Ayim, May (1960–1996) Americans and Europe.” The International Review of African American Art 11:4 (1994). Available at: http://museum.hamptonu.edu/iraaa_publication.cfm.
Laëtitia Baltz
Ayim, May (1960–1996) May Ayim (formerly May Opitz) was an important German scholar of the AfroGerman movement. Ayim was born in May 1960 in Hamburg, Germany to Emmanuel N. Ayim, a medical student from Ghana, and Ursula Andler, a German mother. Ayim’s father wanted to take her to Ghana, but he had no rights over her as she was illegitimate. When Ayim was 18 months old, she was raised by a white foster family surnamed Opitz. She grew up with them in North Rhine-Westphalia. Her sense of abandonment was to pervade her poetry, and although her foster parents were not cruel, she felt they never understood her. Ayim even occasionally contemplated committing suicide. Initially, Ayim trained to be an assistant nurse but then went to a teacher training college to study German and the social sciences. She went to Israel and then to Nairobi, Kenya and to Ghana. It was in Nairobi where she met her father, who by this time was a professor of medicine working in the Kenyan capital. Returning to Germany, Ayim went to Regensburg Pädagogik. In 1986, she completed her thesis on the history of Afro-German relations in Farbe Bekennen: Afro-Deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (published in English as Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out). The thesis was controversial and a Berlin professor tried to stop the book from being published, claiming that it amounted to a concession to political correctness. In 1986, Ayim went to Ghana with the International Youth Community Service and worked in Ghanaian schools. Although some of the locals perceived her as a white European on account of her looks, most accepted her as a Ghanaian because of her father. She also returned to her father’s native village, where she met many of her relatives, including her grandfather. Ayim then returned to college in Germany to study speech therapy. She graduated in 1990 and then undertook a research trip to South Africa with the Berlin Free University. There, she enrolled to complete a doctorate in education, concentrating on ethnocentrism and racism in therapy; however, Ayim became ill and was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. Her father visited her frequently. Discharged from the hospital, Ayim committed suicide by jumping from a Berlin building in August 1996. Her father subsequently returned to Nairobi. Ayim wrote a number of books that became better known after her death. An English-language edition of Blues in schwarz-weiss and Nachtgesang: Gedichte was published as Blues in Black and White: A Collection of Essays, Poetry and Conversations in 2003. See also: Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Germany, Blacks in; Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD); Literature, Blacks in German and Central European; Oguntoye, Katharina.
Ayim, May (1960–1996) Further Reading: Ayim, May. Blues in Black and White: A Collection of Essays, Poetry and Conversations. trans. Anne Adams. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2003; Black Writers: A Selection of Sketches from Contemporary Authors. 2nd ed. Detroit: Gale Research, 1994; McCarroll, Margaret. May Ayim: A Woman in the Margin of German Society. Master of Arts Thesis, Florida State University, 2005; Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
Justin Corfield
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B Baartman, Saartjie (1789–1815) Saartjie (Sara) Baartman, derogatorily known as the “Hottentot Venus,” was a Khoisan woman from Southern Africa who was exhibited and exploited in Britain and France as an attraction of the grotesque in the early nineteenth century. Her remains, which were not returned to South Africa until 2002, were on public display in a French museum until 1974. Such actions remained a symbol of racial inferiority and black female sexual exploitation in Europe. Baartman, born in 1789, was a Khoi Khoi woman from South Africa. Her tribe was then known by the derogatory name of Hottentots. Her body was characterized by steatophrygia (dense fat accumulation in and around the buttocks) and sinus pudoris, or elongated labia. At the age of 20, Baartman was taken from Cape Town to London after a British ship’s doctor, William Dunlop, noticed, what seemed to the Europeans, her unusual body shape. In 1810, Baartman was exhibited in Britain to paying onlookers as the “Hottentot Venus.” Spectators could touch her buttocks for extra payment. The image of the “Hottentot Venus” swept across British popular culture and became a phenomenon. British abolitionists instigated a legal inquiry into her exploitation; however, Baartman claimed that she was an orphan and had willingly gone to England to exhibit herself for half of the profits. In 1814, Baartman went to France, where she was exhibited under pressured conditions by an animal trainer. On at least one occasion in 1815, she was exhibited and painted in the nude. She also became the subject of scientific research, studied by French anatomist Georges Cuvier and others. Baartman died in France in December 1815 from an inflammatory ailment. Scientists of the day had heralded her as the “missing link” between humans and apes. After Baartman’s death, her body was subjected to various medical experiments in France to study black female sexuality. A plaster cast of her body was made before it was
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dissected. Baartman’s skeleton and preserved brain and sexual organs were on public display in the Musée de l’Homme in Paris, France until 1974, when they were removed and placed into storage. Her treatment emerged as a symbol of colonial Europe’s attitude toward Africa. In 2002, Baartman’s skeleton and preserved organs were returned ceremoniously to the government of South Africa in a symbolic gesture of French reconciliation. Baartman’s story is not unique, but rather representative of larger European scientific racism. Other Khoisan women were exhibited and exploited as a “Hottentot Venus.” At the Bartholomew Fair in Britain during the late eighteenth century, the young George Alexander Gratton was exhibited as a “curiosity,” described as “a spotted Negro boy” from the Caribbean and compared to a Dalmation dog. Gratton likely suffered from vitiligo, a disorder Nineteenth-century caricature of Saartijie that affects skin pigmentation. Furthermore, Baartman, a Khoisan woman exhibited as a parts of other Africans were exhibited in museums throughout Europe during periods of the sideshow attraction in England. nineteenth and twentieth centuries, including the body of “Le Bechuana” (also known as “El Negro”), which Spain returned to Botswana in 2000. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; France, Blacks in; Gall, Franz Josef; Scientific Racism; Soliman, Angelo. Further Reading: Abrahams, Yvette. “Images of Sara Baartman: Sexuality, Race, and Gender in Early-Nineteenth-Century Britain.” In Nation, Empire, Colony: Historicizing Gender and Race. eds. Ruth Roach Pierson and Nupur Chaudhuri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 220–236; Alexander, Elizabeth. The Venus Hottentot. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1990; Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500– 1850 (Online Exhibit from the British National Archives): http://www.nationalarchives.gov. uk/pathways/blackhistory/; Chase-Riboud, Barbara. Hottentot Venus. New York: Doubleday, 2003.
Eric Martone
Baker, Josephine (1906–1975) Josephine Baker was an African American entertainer and singer who took jazz-age Europe by storm. In her early career, she became known for her exotic, provocative attire (or lack of) during her performances and her iconic dance routines, which relayed a comic, yet erotic style. During her career, she received many nicknames, including
Baker, Josephine (1906–1975)
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the “Black Pearl,” the “Black Venus,” and the “Creole Goddess.” Baker acquired many admirers who lavished her with expensive gifts. She became a French citizen and remained a celebrity in Europe for 50 years. Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, in 1906 to Carrie McDonald, a washerwoman, who had been adopted by former slaves of African and Amerindian descent. The identity of Baker’s father is debated. Her official estate maintains that her father was Eddie Carson, a vaudeville drummer; however, many researchers, including Jean-Claude Baker, argue that her father was likely a white man. Nevertheless, Eddie Carson abandoned the family and Baker’s mother later married Arthur Martin, who was frequently unemployed. While growing up, Baker worked for wealthy white families by cleaning and babysitting. When she was barely a teenager, Baker secured a job as a waitress at the Old Chauffeur’s Club. As a waitress, Baker met her first husband, Willie Wells. Baker started her entertainment career as a street performer. She then entered vaudeville. Josephine Baker (1906–1975), African American Later, Baker attempted to work as a chorus dancer, actress, and entertainer, famous for her girl. In 1922, she secured a small role in the Paris stage shows and her scanty costumes, circa touring company of Noble Sissle and Eubie 1930s. Bob Thomas/Popperfoto/Getty Images. Blake’s musical revue, “Shuffle Along.” She worked in New York, performing at such places as the Plantation Club. Baker eventually performed as the last member of the chorus line. This role traditionally required the dancer to perform in a comic manner, feigning that she had forgotten the dance routine, until the show had reached the encore. At that juncture, the dancer would not only perform the dance routine correctly, but in a more complex manner. In this role, Baker drew the audience’s attention by clowning, mugging, and improvising. Her comedic style became popular with audiences and she became a box office draw. Around this same time, in 1921, Baker married Willie Baker, her second husband. After their divorce, she decided to keep his last name. In the mid-1920s, Baker traveled to Paris for La Revue Nègre. As part of a compilation of acts, Baker and her dance partner, Joe Alex, mesmerized the audience with the exotic Danse sauvage. Baker, dressed in only an exotic feather skirt and practically nude, enticed the audience with her uninhabited, erotic dancing. Almost overnight, she became a French sensation. Baker’s popularity allowed her to command a high salary, which she spent on clothes, jewelry, and pets (some of which were quite exotic, such as a leopard and a chimpanzee). In later shows, she was featured with her leopard,
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Baker, Josephine (1906–1975) Chiquita, which would escape to the orchestra pit to create havoc as part of the show’s entertainment. After a successful tour of Europe, Baker returned to France and starred in La Folie du Jour at the Follies-Bergère Theater. Her performance, which caused another sensation, included her dancing in nothing but a skirt composed of 16 bananas. The Danse banane became one of her trademark performances. Baker’s celebrity status was secured and she was one of the most photographed women of her era. Her success coincided with the Art Deco movement, which inspired a renewed interest in ethnic forms of art, including African. Therefore her dances and appearance played into this exotic fascination of Europeans. By 1927, Baker was the highest paid entertainer in Europe and she had opened her own nightclub. She was the first woman of black African descent to star in a major motion picture. In the late 1920s and early 1930s, she began to appear in films, including Siren of the Tropics (1927), Zou-Zou (1934), and Princess Tam-Tam (1935). In 1931, she recorded her biggest hit song, “J’ai deux amours.” Baker also relocated her family from Missouri to her estate in France. By the early 1930s, Baker was an icon in Europe and served as a muse for various artists and writers. Under the management of Giuseppe Pepito Abatino, who fraudulently passed himself off as an Italian count, Baker revised her stage and public persona. In 1934, she starred in the revival of the 1875 opera La créole in Paris. In 1936, Baker planned to make a triumphant return to the United States by appearing in Ziegfeld’s Follies. American audiences and critics, however, reacted to her negatively. She returned to Europe. In 1937, Baker married her third husband, Frenchman Jean Lion, through whom she obtained French citizenship. During World War II (1939–1945), Baker performed for the French troops. She also served the French Resistance by performing undercover work that included smuggling secret correspondence in her music sheets. Baker also served as a sublieutenant in the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force. Baker later received several awards for her wartime service from the French government, including the Legion of Honor and the Croix de Guerre. In 1947, Baker married her fourth husband, Jo Bouillon, a French orchestra leader. He helped Baker raise the 12 children from diverse cultural backgrounds that she eventually adopted. During the 1950s and 1960s, Baker returned for visits to the United States to combat racism. In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington alongside Martin Luther King, Jr. In 1966, she performed in Cuba after an invitation from Cuban communist leader Fidel Castro. In her later life, Baker continued to visit the United States and became companions with the American artist Robert Brady. The two were unofficially married in Mexico in 1973. That same year, she agreed to perform in New York at Carnegie Hall, where she received a standing ovation before her performance began. In 1975, Baker premiered at the Bobino Theater in Paris, performing highlights from her 50-year career. Shortly thereafter, Baker died from a cerebral hemorrhage. More than 20,000 people crowded the French streets to watch her funeral procession. The French state paid tribute to Baker with a 21-gun salute. She was buried in Monaco.
Bakhita, Josephine (1869–1947) See also: Authors in Europe, African American; Bechet, Sidney; Bullard, Eugene; Film, Blacks in European; France, Blacks in; Jazz, European Reception of; King, Martin Luther Jr.; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical; Nazis and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Baker, Jean-Claude. Josephine Baker: The Hungary Heart. New York: Random House, 1993; Haney, Lynn. Naked at the Feast: A Biography of Josephine Baker. New York: Dodd Mead, 1981; Lebovics, Herman. “Chapter Four: France’s Black Venus.” Imperialism and the Corruption of Democracies. Durham: Duke University Press, 2006, pp. 60–86; Peabody, Sue, and Tyler Stovall, eds. The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003; Rosette, Bennetta, Tyler Stovall, and Olivia Lahs-Gonzales. Josephine Baker: Image and Icon. St. Louis, MO: Reedy Press, 2006; Wood, Ean. The Josephine Baker Story. London: Sanctuary, 2000.
Eric Martone
Bakhita, Josephine (1869–1947) Josephine Bakhita, originally from Darfur, was an Italian nun who had previously been a slave. She was born into a prominent African tribal family in a village in the Sudanese region of Darfur in 1869. While still a young girl, she was captured by Arab slave traders and sold into slavery. She was sold five times over a period of eight years in markets within the Ottoman Empire. The traumatic experience caused her to forget her birth name. The name Bakhita was given to her by the slaves and is derived from the Arabic word for “lucky.” Bakhita suffered much cruel abuse as a slave. One of her owner’s sons beat her so severely that she was confined to a straw bed for more than a month. Her fourth owner, an Ottoman army officer, had her (as well as all his other slaves) scarred with a mark to denote his ownership. This mark was created by in a ghastly process: a woman outlined patterns on parts of Bakhita’s body and then cut deeply along these lines, filling the wounds with salt and flour to guarantee permanent scarring. Bakhita was finally purchased by Callisto Legnani, an Italian consul. In 1885, he gave Bakhita to his friend, Augusto Michielli, who took her to Italy. In Italy, she worked as Michielli’s daughter’s nanny. Around 1888, Bakhita and her charge were left under the supervision of the Canossian Josephine Bakhita. Courtesy of Butch Durias.
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Baldwin, James (1924–1987) Sisters in Venice while the Michiellis embarked on a business trip to the Red Sea area. In 1890, Bakhita was baptized and took the Christian name of Giuseppina (Josephine) Margarita. When the Michiellis returned from their trip, Bakhita did not wish to leave the Sisters. When the Michiellis attempted to force the issue, the Mother Superior complained to the authorities. An Italian court decided that Bakhita had never been a slave and in fact had always been free to decide her own fate. The court based its decision on the fact that slavery had officially been outlawed in the Sudan before Bakhita’s birth and that slavery was illegal in Italy. Bakhita remained with the Canossian Sisters and became a permanent member of their order in 1896. In 1902, she was assigned to a house in Schio in Vicenza, a province in northern Italy. She remained there for most of the rest of her life. From 1935 to 1938, she ventured to Milan to assist in the preparation of young sisters for religious work in Africa. Bakhita became known among the residents in Schio as “our little brown mother.” She later published her memoirs in Italian and gave talks about her experiences, which promoted her popularity in Italy. Bakhita died in 1947. Her body was displayed for mourners for three days. The process for her canonization in the Roman Catholic Church began in 1959. In 1978, Pope John Paul II declared her Venerabilis, which is the first step toward becoming a saint. In 1992, she was declared Blessed and assigned the feast day of February 8. Finally, in 2000, she was canonized as a saint. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Benedict the Moor, Saint; Black Madonna Tradition; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Hamitic Myth; Heraldry, Blacks in European; Italy, Blacks in; Magi, Representations of the; Maurice, Saint; Popes, African. Further Reading: Brown, Anne. St. Bakhita: From African Slave to Servant of the “Good Master.” New Hope, KY: New Hope Publications, 2000; Dagnino, Maria Luisa. Bakhita Tells Her Story. Rome: General House/Canossian Daughters of Charity, 1988.
Eric Martone
Baldwin, James (1924–1987) James Baldwin was a famous African American novelist, short story writer, and essayist. Among his many books are Notes of a Native Son (1955) and Another Country (1962). Although never relinquishing his American citizenship, Baldwin lived most of his adult life in Paris, France. Baldwin was born in August 1924, the first of nine children of Berdis Jones. He never met his biological father, taking his surname from his stepfather David Baldwin, a factory worker who treated him brutally and tried to stop him from becoming interested in literature. Nevertheless, after Baldwin finished school, and following the death of his stepfather, he moved to Greenwich Village and started writing. Baldwin drew much of his inspiration from Richard Wright, although he felt that Wright’s Native Son lacked any credible characters. In 1948, Baldwin went to live in Europe, settling in Paris, which he used as a base to travel around much of Europe. He lived in poverty but managed to read profusely and met F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, Gertrude Stein, and Richard Wright.
Balzac, Blacks in the Works of France became his home for most of the rest of his life, although he kept his U.S. citizenship, preferring to consider himself a “commuter” rather than an expatriate. Certainly, Baldwin kept abreast of developments in the United States. In 1957, when he was back in America, Baldwin went to the southern states for the first time and later took part in the Civil Rights Movement, marching with Martin Luther King Jr. in Washington DC. After the assassination of King, Baldwin returned to Paris, but he also lived for a short period in Istanbul, Turkey, where he directed the play Fortune and Men’s Eyes (1970). Baldwin was a prolific writer, with most of his work completed in France. His many book reviews and essays were published in magazines such as Esquire, Harper’s, Nation, and The New Yorker. His second novel, Giovanni’s Room (1956), set in Paris, was about an Italian bartender and a white American student. Baldwin’s most famous book, Another Country (1962), was completed in the United States. Since a large portion of Baldwin’s work was published abroad, it was some time before his work received much attention in the United States. For example, The Amen Corner, a play written in Paris in the early 1950s, although produced at Howard University in Washington DC in 1955, did not reach Broadway until it was finally staged at the Barrymore Theatre in 1965. Furthermore, in spite of long periods away from the United States, Baldwin’s books were mainly on African American themes. Baldwin died from cancer in November 1987 at Saint-Paul de Vence, France. See also: Authors in Europe, African American. Further Reading: Baldwin, James. The Price of the Ticket: Collected Non-Fiction, 1948– 1985. London: Michael Joseph, 1985; Standley, Fred, and Nancy Standley. James Baldwin: A Reference Guide. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1980; Sylvander, Carolyn Wedin. James Baldwin. New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980.
Justin Corfield
Balzac, Blacks in the Works of The bulk of major nineteenth-century French romances do not include episodes with black characters. Thus most of the novels in French writer Honoré de Balzac’s La Comédie humaine do not grant any great importance to black characters, whether they are slaves or free men. The notable exception is La Fille aux yeux d’or (The Girl with the Golden Eyes, 1834–1835), whose heroine, Paquita, is of biracial descent, but whose complexion allows her to pass as white. In several other novels, black characters are servants and occupy only a secondary role. Before tackling the constriction of his multinovel La Comédie humaine, however, Balzac had taken up the theme of blacks as he established himself as a writer during the Romantic era. The young Balzac’s first attempt for the theater was a failure. Le Nègre, a melodrama in three acts, was written in 1822 under the pseudonym of Horace de Saint-Aubin. Le Nègre was never performed during Balzac’s lifetime and was not published until 1933. The théâtre de la Gaîté, whose directors had judged the melodrama’s content too risky and dangerous, refused the piece in 1823. In Le Nègre, which dramatized an interracial love story, Balzac was inspired by Shakespeare’s Othello, which had been performed
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Balzac, Blacks in the Works of in Paris in 1822 by English actors and had subsequently caused a scandal among the Parisian public. Balzac was also influenced by Lord Byron, the great English Romantic writer. According to Balzac, African blood surges in the veins of the hero, Georges, who becomes the servant of Monsieur de Gerval, who has taken him to France from the colonies. Georges identifies himself as a “poor negro.” As he describes his condition: “I am successful in my misfortune. It is Monsieur who traded for me, who brought me to a country where the increasingly insulting laughs teach me that I am outside of humanity.” Georges falls in love with Emilie, the wife of Monsieur de Gerval, and the melodrama ends tragically. In 1822, Balzac, again under the pseudonym Horace de Saint-Aubin, published Le Vicaire des Ardennes. The novel can be seen as the first part of a Romantic trilogy of passion and betrayal that includes Annette et le criminel (1824) and Wann-Chlore (1825). The intrigue is complex and does not concern the question of the literary representation of blacks as its sole focus. Joseph, a young priest, is sent to the village of Ardennes. His origins are mysterious. As a baby, he was placed under a tree in this village and a ship’s captain had taken him to Martinique, where he spent his childhood. Also arriving in France is Mélanie, whom Joseph believes is his sister. Both go to live in the manner of Paul and Virginie, eponymous heroes of Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s novel, one of the greatest works in Romantic French literature, published in 1788 and set in the Île de France (now Mauritius). As Le Vicaire des Ardennes continues, the main character’s happiness is disrupted by a black slave’s attempt to rape Mélanie, who is saved by faithful servants. Blacks are depicted as a terrible sexual menace, and the dramatic scene raises the larger question regarding relations between black men and white women. Joseph discovers that he loves his sister, which is incestuous love. He takes refuge in his religious order and leaves Mélanie. He then learns that Mélanie is not actually his sister and marries her; however, the novel ends tragically. A third work falsely attributed to Balzac concerning blacks, Le Mulâtre, is not widely known. Published in 1824, it was signed by Madame Aurore Cloteaux, pseudonym of Auguste Lepoitevin d’Egreville-Saint-Alme, called Viellerglé, with whom Balzac had written several texts. A contemporary critic of Balzac excluded him as having participated in the drafting of this work. In Le Mulâtre, Féo, who is black, saves Stéphanie, the daughter of Monsieur de Merval, a rich colonist on Saint Domingue. Féo falls in love with Stéphanie, who marries Monsieur de Clémengis, and imposes himself on her during her slumber. Thus is born Etienne, who is of biracial descent. This fact is revealed when Etienne falls in love with his half-sister, Eugénie. Féo kills de Clémengis, and with his son, attempts to kill Stéphanie and Eugénie, the two women whom the father and son cannot possess, by setting their home on fire. Soldiers arrive and save Eugénie, but not St. Féo; Etienne is also killed. In organizing his work around drama derived from crimes of jealousy between blacks and whites, the author of the text was inspired in part by both Le Nègre and Le Vicaire des Ardennes. Féo, the black hero, is comparable to Georges, and the name of his master, de Merval, resembles that of de Gerval. The intrigue set in Saint Domingue slightly resembles that of Le Vicaire des Ardennes, and one can interpret that both works imitate Bernardin de Saint-Pierre’s Paul et Virginie. Elsewhere, Balzac had written a critical review of Le Mulâtre in the Feuilleton littéraire (May 25, 1824), and he ironically ridiculed it.
Barber, Francis (1735–1801) In writing about blacks, Balzac resorted to the standard stereotypes of his era. Indeed, he emphasized the fascination that existed on the taboo of sexual relations between blacks and whites. He also insisted on the condition of servitude, prescribing to the current manner of reflection and representation of the first years of French Romanticism. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Bug-Jargal (1820); Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Georges (1843); Mirza (1795); Ourika (1823); Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Barnum, George. “Saint-Pierre and Balzac.” Modern Language Notes 31:6 (June 1916): 343–346; Cook, Mercer. “The Negro in French Literature: An Appraisal.” The French Review 23:5 (March 1950): 378–388; Hoffmann, Léon-François. “Balzac et les Noirs.” L’Année balzacienne 7 (1966): 297–308; Little, Roger. Between Totem and Taboo: Black Man, White Woman in Francographic Literature. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 2001; SharpleyWhiting, T. Denean. “Black Venus: Sexualized Savages, Primal Fears, and Primitive Narratives in French.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 9:4 (October 2000): 527–531.
Gérard Gengembre Translated by Eric Martone
Barber, Francis (1735–1801) Francis Barber was a former slave from Jamaica who worked in England as an assistant to the famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson, initially as a valet and later as his secretary, during the eighteenth century. “Frank” Barber was born in 1735 in Jamaica as a slave and was taken to England by plantation owner Colonel Richard Bathurst. In England, Barber was sent to a village school in Barton, Yorkshire, and then started working for his owner’s son, Richard. In April 1752, Colonel Bathurst sent Barber to his friend, Samuel Johnson, to serve him as a valet after the recent death of his wife. In 1754, Colonel Bathurst died and he left Barber £12 and his freedom. Barber, only 19 years old, went to London and worked temporarily for young Richard Bathurst. Barber then moved to Cheapside, London, where he worked for an apothecary. Barber did manage to maintain contact with Johnson. In 1758, Barber went to sea, serving on the HMS Stag in the North Sea. Barber soon tired of the sea and Johnson arranged for him to receive a discharge. Johnson then paid for Barber to attend Bishop’s Stortford Grammar School from 1767 to 1772. After leaving the school, Barber went to work for Johnson as a valet and gradually took on secretarial duties. Barber arranged trips for Johnson, along with keeping the lexicographer’s diary. Barber and Johnson became friends. Later, Barber and his family moved in with Johnson. Johnson harbored sentiments of racial equality, always treating Barber with respect and once shocking a dinner party by toasting a slave uprising in the Caribbean. Barber was with Johnson when Johnson died in December 1784. Johnson left Barber an annuity of £70 along with his gold watch with a tortoise-shell cover. Barber and his family moved to Lichfield. Facing increasing financial problems, however, Barber sold Johnson’s watch and other mementoes. He finally found some work as a schoolmaster in Burntwood, but he died in poverty in January 1801. A man who met Barber before his death described him as a sad broken person who had smallpox marks
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Batson, Brendon (1953–) and had lost all his teeth. After Barber’s death, his widow returned to Lichfield and started teaching. Their older son, Samuel (1785–1828), went to work for a surgeon and was later apprenticed into the pottery industry. He later became a preacher in Staffordshire. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Hibbert, Christopher. The Personal History of Samuel Johnson. London: Longman, 1971; Wain, John. Samuel Johnson. London: Macmillan, 1974.
Justin Corfield
Batson, Brendon (1953–) Brendon Batson was one of the first high-profile black British footballers during the 1970s and 1980s. At West Bromwich Albion, Batson, along with fellow black British teammates Cyrille Regis and Laurie Cunningham, formed the trio dubbed by fans as the “Three Degrees” after the contemporary vocal trio of the same name. A decorated athlete, he played football (soccer) at a time when blacks were only beginning to enter the sport in large numbers and ultimately faced resistance among some individuals within the sporting community because of racism. Batson, however, was only one of a pioneering generation of great black British footballers who left their mark in the game during the 1960s to 1980s, including Albert Johannesson, Clyde Best, Viv Anderson, Luther Blissett, and John Barnes. During his association with football, Batson has attempted to eliminate racism from all levels of the game. Batson was born in Grenada in 1953. His family later moved to England in 1962. Batson began his professional football career while still a teenager at Arsenal, later playing for Cambridge United during the mid 1970s; however, he is best known for his years playing for West Bromwich Albion during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Along with Regis and Cunningham, Batson became a key player for the team. No previous English team had been fielded simultaneously by three black players. At that time, black players were subjected to extreme racism by some members of the sports community, with opposing fans often hurling racial slurs from the stands. Consequently, the three challenged the established racism of English football at the time, becoming pioneers that paved the way for a generation of black footballers to enter the sport when they previously would have been excluded because of their race. Batson retired from football after a succession of playing injuries in the early 1980s. Afterward, he became an administrator at the professional footballers’ union, eventually serving as deputy chief executive and helping to transform the trade union into one of the most successful in the world. In 2000, he was named a member of the British Empire (MBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2002, Batson became managing director of his former team, West Bromwich Albion. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Wharton, Arthur. Further Reading: Bowler, Dave, and Jas Bains. Samba in the Smethwick End: Regis, Cunningham, Batson and the Football Revolution. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2000; Official Web Page of Football Unites, Racism Divides: http://www.furd.org/ Vasili, Philip. Colouring Over
Bechet, Sidney (1897–1959) the White Line: The History of Black Footballers in Britain. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2000.
Mark Cordery
Bechet, Sidney (1897–1959) Sidney Bechet was a prominent African American musician considered the master of the saxophone during the early twentieth century. He became a well-respected celebrity in Europe, where he eventually became a permanent resident and helped spread the popularity of jazz throughout the continent. Bechet was born in May 1897 in New Orleans, Louisiana to a shoemaker father and housewife mother. As a child, Bechet played the clarinet in his family’s band. At 16, he performed with different bands and toured with musician Clarence Williams. When the tour ended, Bechet was discovered in 1918 by the famous composer and bandleader, Will Marion Cook. Bechet joined Cook’s orchestra and toured New York and Europe for two years. In London, Bechet started playing the saxophone and was soon hailed as a pioneer and virtuoso of the instrument. His innovative style led to several distinguished performances, including one at Buckingham Palace. When the band dissolved, Bechet worked with another group in London, Paris, and Brussels. Fans flocked to hear him and to experience his creative jazz melodies. Despite all of these accolades, Bechet was imprisoned and expelled from England in 1922 because of an incident with a prostitute. In 1923, Bechet recorded music with the composer Clarence Williams and joined the Clarence Williams Blue Five. Alongside jazz legend Louis Armstrong, they made such legendary songs as “Kansas City Man” until 1925. A year later, Bechet played with Bessie Smith and worked with Duke Ellington’s band. After co-opening a jazz club in 1925, Bechet played in Will Marion Cook’s production La Revue Nègre with African American Josephine Baker, who was a sensation in Europe. The group traveled to Paris and ended their successful tour in Berlin in 1926. During the next year, Bechet played in Russia as the “Talking Saxophone” and organized a new European tour version of La Revue Négre. Moving to Paris in 1928, he joined bandleader Noble Sissle’s orchestra and wrote his first composition, “The Negro Rhapsody.” While enjoying his great success, Bechet was jailed for accidentally shooting a woman and was again deported in 1929. Upon returning to the United States, Bechet rejoined Noble Sissle’s orchestra and toured Europe until 1938. At the same time, he worked with several famous jazz musicians including trumpeter Tommy Ladnier. In 1940, Bechet worked in New York and appeared in New York Town Hall concerts. He later reunited with Louis Armstrong at the Jazz Foundation Concert in New Orleans and recorded his most popular song, George Gershwin’s “Summertime,” in 1945. To the adoration of his fans, Bechet performed at the Paris Jazz Festival in 1949 and moved there permanently in 1951. As an international celebrity, he also toured Europe and North Africa. While in Algeria, Bechet married in August 1951. After his honeymoon, he played in England and the United States with the French musician
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Belle, Dido Elizabeth (1763?–1804) Claude Luter’s band until 1955. As a result of his soaring record sales in France, Bechet resumed touring in several European cities and only stopped in 1959 because of poor health. He died of cancer-related complications in May 1959. A year later, Bechet’s autobiography, Treat It Gentle, was published. A musical legend, Bechet was inducted into the Lincoln Center’s Ertegun Jazz Hall of Fame in 2004. See also: Jazz, European Reception of. Further Reading: Bechet, Sidney. Treat It Gentle: An Autobiography. New York: Hill and Wang, 1960; Chilton, John. Sidney Bechet: The Wizard of Jazz. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.
Dorsía Smith
Belle, Dido Elizabeth (1763?–1804) Dido Elizabeth Belle was the illegitimate daughter of Sir John Lindsay, a British Navy captain who was the nephew of William Murray, the Earl of Mansfield. Belle, a black woman, lived among her white family members and even gained acceptance and respect. The identity of Belle’s mother remains unclear. She is thought to have been born to Lindsay and an enslaved African woman whom Lindsay found aboard a ship in the Caribbean. Another theory speculates that Belle was born to a woman in the Caribbean. Lindsay acknowledged Belle as his legitimate daughter and she was eventually sent to live with her great-uncle, Lord Mansfield, in London. Belle lived with the Mansfields at their house at Bloomsbury Square and later at their Kenwood house. Mansfield and his wife were childless and were already raising Lady Elizabeth Murray (1763?-1823), whose mother had died. Belle perhaps was brought in to live with Murray as a companion, for they were about the same age. Belle’s presence in the Mansfield house presented an interesting situation, as Lord Mansfield served as Lord Chief Justice of England (1756–1788). During his tenure, Mansfield presided over several slave-related cases, and his political opposition believed that Mansfield used his personal situation as a basis for his political decisions. Mansfield had a general distaste for slavery, and he treated Belle accordingly. He did not completely see her as a social equal, yet his overall treatment of Belle was quite favorable. Belle lived a slightly dual role during her 30 years at the Kenwood House. She lived as a companion to Murray, but she also performed some domestic activities that set her apart from her cousin. Belle could not dine with the family if guests were present, but she was allowed to join the women after dinner. She also was in charge of various dairy and poultry duties during her stay. Ultimately, Mansfield treated Belle quite well and she received allowances and gifts, as well as an education. Belle’s allowance of 30 pounds was substantially higher than that of typical domestic slaves. Mansfield also declared in his will of April 1782 that Belle should be granted her freedom. He also left Belle 500 pounds upon his death as well as a 100-pound annuity. Belle’s father also left her money in his will. Recent research has validated that Belle did indeed win her freedom and went on to marry an East India Company officer, John Davinier, in 1793. The couple eventu-
Belley, Jean-Baptiste (1746/47–1805) ally had at least three children, a set of twin sons born in 1795, and another son born in 1800. They were all baptized at St. George’s in London. Belle died in July 1804 and was buried at St. George’s burial grounds in London. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Slave Trade, British; Somerset Case; Strong, Jonathan. Further Reading: Adams, G. “Dido Elizabeth Belle, a Black Girl at Kenwood: An Account of the Protégéé of the First Lord Mansfield.” Camden History Review (1984): 10–14; Minney, Sarah. “The Search for Dido.” History Today 55 (October 2005): 2–3.
Dawn P. Hutchins
Belley, Jean-Baptiste (1746/47–1805) Jean-Baptiste Belley was a black deputy for Saint Domingue (Haiti) in the French National Convention (1793 to 1795) and Council of Five Hundred. He was born on Gorée Island, Senegal in 1746 or 1747. Belley was enslaved as a young boy and sold on the Caribbean island of Saint Domingue (now Haiti). He later purchased his freedom and joined the French army. During the American Revolution for Independence, several blacks who later became leaders in the Haitian Revolution for Independence, such as Henri Christophe, André Rigaud, Alexandre Pétion, Louis-Jacques Beauvais, Julien Raimond, and Belley, served with the French forces on the side of the American colonists. The French colonial blacks were members of the Colored Volunteer Chasseurs and fought in Georgia in 1779. In addition to acquiring military skills during the American Revolution, they became exposed to ideas about liberty, equality, and independence. During the French Revolution (1789–1799), Belley was one of six delegates from Saint Domingue chosen to attend the National Convention in Paris that ultimately abolished slavery in the French colonies in 1794. During the discussion about slavery among the French delegates of the Convention, Belley gave a passionate and memorable speech against the injustices and inhumanity of slavery and the slave trade. After a restructuring in the French government in 1795, Belley became a representative in the Council of Five Hundred, the lower houses of the bicameral French legislature under the Directory. In 1797 or 1798, Anne-Louis Girodet de Roussy-Trioson painted a famous portrait of Belley leaning against a bust of Enlightenment philosophe Abbé Raynal. After Napoleon Bonaparte came to power in France in 1799, the Council of Five Hundred was dissolved. Napoleon attempted to reinforce slavery in the French colonies. Belley returned to Haiti and fought alongside Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture for independence. In 1802, Belley, along with L’Ouverture and other revolutionaries, was deported to France and incarcerated until his death in 1805. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Delgrès, Louis; France, Blacks in; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Ogé, Vincent; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530–1880. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003; Fick, Carolyn. The
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Benbarek, Larbi (1914–1992) Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990; Gaspar, David Barry, and David Patrick Geggus, eds. A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997; Geggus, David. “Racial Equality, Slavery, and Colonial Succession during the Constituent Assembly.” American Historical Review 94 (December 1989): 1290–1308; Genovese, Eugene. From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979.
Eric Martone
Benbarek, Larbi (1914–1992) Larbi Benbarek (or Ben Barek) was a Moroccan football (American soccer) player who became an African celebrity in Europe. He was the first to be known by the nickname, the “Black Pearl.” Benbarek was born to a poor family from Portrait of Jean-Baptiste Belley, by Anne-Louis Marrakech (then a part of the French Zone Girodet (1797). Réunion des Musées Nationaux/ of Morocco) on June 16, 1914, although for Art Resource, NY. many years his official year of birth was 1917. His name at birth was Abdelkader Larbi Ben M’barek. His first major games in 1934 and 1935 were playing for the Idéal Club Casablanca. In 1935–1936, he was a reserve in the team of the Union Sportive Marocaine de Casablanca, being in their team in 1936–1938. These matches were well covered in the French press, and reporters quickly noted that Benbarek was a good player. As a result, he was persuaded to move to France. In 1938–1939, Benbarek was in the Olympique de Marseille team after the payment of a transfer fee of 44,000 francs, a large sum at the time. Benbarek began to play for Marseilles on June 28, 1938. He was a successful player and on December 4, 1938, he played for the French national team against the Italian national team in Naples. Soon afterward, however, Benbarek’s games were cut short by World War II. Benbarek, who was not called up for military service, returned to Morocco and remained in Casablanca during World War II. From 1940 to 1945, he played with the Union Sportive Marocaine de Casablanca. After the war, Benbarek played with Stade Français Football Club from 1945 until 1948. He then moved to Spain, where he played for Atlético Madrid from 1948 until 1953. It was as a player for Atlético Madrid that he achieved fame around Europe and Latin America, becoming the Spanish football champion in 1950 and again in 1951.
Benedict the Moor, Saint (1526–1589) Between 1938 and 1948, Benbarek made 17 appearances for the French national soccer team. In 1953, Benbarek returned to Olympique de Marseille and played for them until 1955. In 1954, he returned again to play for France. That year, he played in a match held in Hanover against the German national team, but he suffered an injury forcing him off the pitch after 27 minutes. The injury ended most of his international football career, although he did play for the Union Sportive Musulmane de Bel-Abbès in Algeria and the Stade Marocain team in 1955–1956. He last played with Fath Union Sport de Rabat, a team based in the Moroccan capital, until his final retirement in 1957. He died on September 16, 1992 in Casablanca. See also: France, Blacks in; Spain, Blacks in.
Justin Corfield
Benedict the Moor, Saint (1526–1589) Saint Benedict the Moor (born Benedetto Manasseri) was born in 1526 near Messina, Sicily, the son of African slaves. He was an Italian friar during the sixteenth century who became a saint in the Catholic Church. He is a patron saint of Palermo, Sicily. Benedict’s parents, who likely came from Ethiopia, were taken to Sicily as slaves and converted to Christianity. Although Benedict is known by his nickname “the Moor,” or “il Moro,” he was not a Moor or of Moorish heritage. In Europe at that time, the term referred to anyone who was black. As a reward to his parents for their labor, Benedict was freed on his eighteenth birthday, but he continued to remain an employee of his former owner, toiling alongside his parents for petty pay. Benedict often gave his money to those who were in need or sick. When he was 21 years old, Benedict gained the attention of a group of Franciscan hermits, as he maintained a patient and dignified bearing despite being the subject of derogatory comments based on his race and origins by a group of peasants. The Franciscan hermits invited Benedict to join their order. He decided to do so, giving up all his early possessions to join the Franciscan hermits at Montepellegrino. Eventually, Benedict became their leader. In 1564, Pope Pius IV disbanded the order, encouraging its members to become part of religious communities. Consequently, Benedict moved to Palermo and became a Franciscan lay brother. He initially served as a cook at Saint Mary’s convent and later became superior of the convent against his will when it opted for reform. He was neither a priest nor literate. While fulfilling the position, Benedict worked to adopt a stricter version of Franciscan monastic rule. After he completed his duties, Benedict voluntarily resumed his work as a cook. Benedict became known as having an intuitive understanding of the scripture and developed a reputation as a healer. He died in 1589. According to tradition, Benedict had correctly predicted the very day and time of his death. King Philip III of Spain (who also controlled Sicily) paid for a special tomb for Benedict.
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Berlin Conference (1884–1885) As indicated in a 1965 article appearing in the academic journal Race, in later traditions, a myth developed that Benedict, fearing the temptation of women, asked God to make him ugly; consequently, God transformed Benedict black. Such a story reveals both the inability of later Europeans to accept the positive accomplishments of a figure of African descent, and the European conception of evilness and ugliness with blackness. Such notions were in keeping with the medieval and early modern European idea that being black was a form of divine punishment. In 1743, Pope Benedict XIV beatified Benedict, paving the way for his canonization as a saint in 1807. The Lutheran Church also commemorates Benedict as a confessor. Because of his patience and understanding in facing racism and prejudice, Benedict is a patron saint of African Americans in addition to that of Palermo. His feast day is April 4. See also: Black Madonna Tradition; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Hamitic Myth; Italy, Blacks in; Magi, Representations of the; Maurice, Saint; Popes, African; Slave Trade, Italian. Further Reading: Attwater, Donald, and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd ed. New York: Penguin Books, 1993; Dunstan, G. R., and R. F. Hobson. “A Note on an Early Ingredient of Racial Prejudice in Western Europe.” Race 6 (April 1965): 335.
Eric Martone
Berlin Conference (1884–1885) The Berlin Conference (or Berlin West Africa Conference) was an international meeting held from November 1884 to February 1885 in Berlin, Germany, to formulate an understanding on the following issues pertaining to African colonialism: freedom of commerce in the Congo basin and its mouth, the preservation of international freedom of the navigation of the Congo and Niger Rivers, and the establishment of procedures to be observed when occupying new territory along the African coasts. The conference was the most significant meeting held between the European powers on the issue of African colonialism. Representatives attended the conference, organized by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck and officially sponsored by both Germany and France, in an official capacity from Germany, France, Great Britain, Belgium, Spain, Italy, Portugal, Austria-Hungary, Sweden, Norway, Russia, Turkey, Denmark, the Netherlands, and the United States. The International Association of the Congo (AIC) attended in an unofficial capacity, for at the time of the conference, only Germany and the United States had recognized the AIC as a state. The catalysts for the calling of the conference included the heightened European scramble for African colonies, which had intensified in the early 1880s, particularly between Britain and France, the attempted 1884 Anglo-Portuguese Treaty, and the sudden desire of Germany to enter the colonial race. The Anglo-Portuguese Treaty was a British attempt to formulate an alliance in which Portugal would secure British interests in West Africa in exchange for British protection. The British hoped to use the Portuguese to counter increasing French influence in West Africa. Both Germany and France opposed the treaty. Furthermore, several British special interest groups opposed
Berlin Conference (1884–1885) a Portuguese alliance because of Portugal’s involvement in the slave trade and corrupt administrative practices. Initially, France attempted to create an alliance with the AIC to counter the Anglo-Portuguese alliance, with France using the AIC similar to the manner in which Britain was using Portugal. This attempt was abandoned, however, and British efforts to counter German expansion in Africa ultimately led to a temporary and uneasy Franco-German alliance. The countries most concerned at the conference included Britain, France, Portugal, and the AIC. Britain had a large formal and informal empire in Africa and wished to maintain its control of the Niger River region and East Africa. France was wary of German efforts to support and expand free trade, fearing that it would hurt French commercial interests. Portugal, too, feared losing its trading monopoly and was eager to maintain its colonial empire at all costs; however, the country with the most to lose (or gain) was the AIC. In actuality, the AIC was a cover for King Leopold II of Belgium. Leopold II firmly believed that the possession of colonies would expand the Belgian economy, but the Belgian government disagreed. Consequently, Leopold embarked on a series of unsuccessful schemes to gain a colony for himself until he finally managed to gain a foothold in the Congo in Central Africa. Under the cover of a corporation, Leopold set about establishing treaties with local chiefs, ostensibly organizing them into a collection of independent states (the Congo Free State) under the protection of the corporation. At the conference, Leopold hoped to gain official international recognition for this country, which did not exist in actuality, and make him its head. Therefore Belgium would be forced to have a colonial empire. Under international law, a new state needed formal recognition from all the major powers of its ownership rights and administration if it hoped to maintain its borders’ integrity. The AIC’s rights to Central Africa were challenged, however, by both Portugal and France, which, as cosponsor of the conference, made prior arrangements with Germany that the topic was not to be discussed. Furthermore, the Congo had yet to yield a profit and many countries feared that Leopold/AIC might sell the Congo to one of the European powers because of bankruptcy. Bismarck, less concerned with African affairs than those of Europe, believed that the AIC’s control of the Congo would be best for German interests, especially after Leopold’s promises free trade, which meant that no tariffs would be placed on foreign goods. Furthermore, Germany concluded that its colonial philosophy was closer in alignment with that of Britain than with France. Consequently, Germany (after the United States) formally recognized the AIC in 1884, thus putting Germany at odds with its ally, France, before the conference began. Once the conference began in November 1884, Germany helped pressure Britain to recognize the AIC, which it did, hoping that the AIC could fulfill the same role as Portugal in the aborted AngloPortuguese treaty. In exchange, Germany supported British ambitions for the Niger region and East Africa. After the British recognized the AIC, most of the countries at the conference followed suit. For Germany to keep its promise to France, such negotiations were conducted behind the scenes at the conference. After recognition had been achieved for the AIC, all countries with claims to the Congo (Portugal, France, and the AIC) needed to agree to established borders. Consequently, during the winter break between conference sessions, Portugal, France, and the AIC busily divided Central Africa among themselves.
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Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri (1737–1814) The conference itself was ineffective in the long term. The resolutions adopted for each of the official three issues were vague and included no true method of enforcement. Instead of free trade and navigation systems on the Congo and Niger Rivers, highly monopolistic systems were developed. Eventually, the Congo shifted to official Belgian control and its neutrality was violated in World War I. Although the conference briefly addressed the international slave trade, the only humanitarian issue addressed, only the vaguest resolutions were passed. Consequently, the conference did nothing to end the terrible practice. Regulations concerning the occupation of new territory applied only to West African coastal areas, of which most was already taken. Furthermore, the regulations amounted to little more than the acquisition’s notification after it had occurred. The conference heightened the diplomatic tensions that ultimately led to World War I and to treat the peoples of Africa as insignificant pawns in the European exploitation of their lands. Furthermore, the conference revealed that the European powers, at that time, were more concerned with their respective commercial interests than any humanitarian issues, notably abolishing slavery. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, European; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; New Imperialism; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Anstey, Roger. Britain and the Congo in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962; Anstey, Roger. King Leopold’s Legacy. London: Oxford University Press, 1966; Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964; Collins, Robert, ed. The Partition of Africa: Illusion or Necessity. New York: John Wiley, 1969; Crowe, Sybil. The Berlin West Africa Conference, 1884–1885. Reprint, Westport, CT: Negro University Press, 1970; Emerson, Barbara. Leopold II of the Belgians: King of Colonialism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979; Forster, Stig, Wolfgang Mommsen, and Ronald Robinson, eds. Bismarck, Europe, and Africa: The Berlin Conference 1884–1885 and the Onset of Partition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; Gavin, R. J., and J. A. Betley, eds. The Scramble for Africa: Documents on the West Berlin Conference and Related Subjects 1884/85. Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1973; Martone, Eric. With a Little Help From My German Friend: Leopold II of Belgium and the Berlin Conference, 1884–1885. Rev. ed. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2003; Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. New York: Avon Books, 1992; Power, Thomas Francis. Jules Ferry and the Renaissance of French Imperialism. Morningside Heights, NY: King’s Crown Press, 1944; Sesay, Amadu, ed. Africa and Europe: From Partition to Interdependence or Dependence? London: Croom Helm, 1986; Taylor, A.J.P. Germany’s First Bid for Colonies, 1884–1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy. Reprint, New York: W. W. Norton, 1970.
Eric Martone
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri (1737–1814) Jacques-Henri Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was a French writer and botanist who spoke out against slavery during the late eighteenth century. Born in January 1737 in Le Havre, France, he traveled extensively after joining the army as an engineer in 1760. During his career, Saint-Pierre visited Russia, Poland, Germany, the Netherlands, and Malta, going to Isle de France (modern-day Mauritius) and Reunion in 1768 and spending 28 months on the two islands.
Besatzungskinder Back in France, Saint-Pierre published his views on Mauritius in 1773 as Voyage à l’Isle de France (published in English as Journey to Mauritius). His book was a series of letters describing his experiences, in which he was highly critical of slavery on the island of Isle de France. Saint-Pierre wrote that although European philosophes were wiling to write about the Saint Bartholomew’s Day Massacre of Protestants by Roman Catholics in 1572, and the ill treatment of the Mexicans by the Spanish, he was angered that few took up the cause of the slaves. In 1768–1769, Saint-Pierre had visited the island. During his stay, he saw slaves, many from Madagascar, treated poorly by the French residents, who were often keen to make their fortunes quickly and then leave the island. Some boasted to Saint-Pierre that it was possible to make enough money after a year and then return to France. With only 400 farmers and a large number of idle people who did nothing more than gamble or exchange gossip, Saint-Pierre felt that the French colonial society was moribund. It was his views on slavery, however, that were particularly important. Saint-Pierre wrote that slaves were often exchanged for a roll of cloth or a gun, and then could be made to work all day in the fields, being given diets of mashed maize, boiled in water, and tapioca bread. Slaves had to live in huts, which seemed, to Saint-Pierre, no better than tents, in which few had any furniture. Saint-Pierre, heavily influenced by the European Enlightenment and a friend of noted philosophe Jean-Jacques Rousseau, wrote that he saw slaves tied to ladders and flogged for minor indiscretions, such as forgetting to shut a door or breaking some pottery. After the floggings, Saint-Pierre said that he saw people rub vinegar and salt into the slaves’ wounds. Furthermore, in cases, he observed owners starving their slaves, and slaves too weak to work were often left to fend for themselves, usually meaning that they starved to death. Saint-Pierre went on to write a number of other books, becoming best known for his novel Paul et Virginie (1787), which also drew from his experiences on Mauritius. Eight years later, Saint-Pierre was elected to the Institut de France, the predecessor of the French Academy. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; France, Blacks in; Georges (1843); Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri. Journey to Mauritius. ed. Jason Wilson. London: Signal Books, 2002; Cook, Mercer. “Jean-Jacques Rousseau and the Negro.” The Journal of Negro History 21:3 (July 1936): 294–303; Graham, Ruth. “The Revolutionary Bishops and the Philosophes.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 16:2 (Winter 1982–1983): 117–140.
Justin Corfield
Besatzungskinder The first black Besatzungskinder (black occupation children) on German territory were the Afro-German and Asiatic-German Rhineland children. The fathers of these children belonged to the French and Belgian troops, as well as to the United States forces, which took part in the occupation of the Rhine country in Germany after World War I (1914–1918). About 385 of these children were born between 1919 and 1925. The smear campaign launched against them, which continued into the mid1920s, used major ideas of the “colonial half-breed question” and combined it with the
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Biassou, Georges (?–1801) discourse on degeneration in the Weimar Republic. The campaign was supported, not just by much of the German government, but also internationally by such groups as women’s organizations in Great Britain, Sweden, France, and the United States, and leftwing journalists, who supported demands to withdraw the black troops. In the construction of the so-called Rhineland bastards, or Rhineland Blacks, as these children became known, they were a visible result of defeat that had “penetrated” the body of the German people, become a threat for “public health,” and symbolized the “internal race enemy.” As early as the 1920s, the Rhineland children were registered. Briefly, after the national socialists took over, officials of different ministries discussed a “solution to the hybrid problem.” One suggestion was to send the children to countries with substantial black populations, but this was quickly abandoned. So, without any legal basis, they decided to sterilize all the Rhineland children by force, which was secretly accomplished in 1937. The next occupation children were black Germans born after 1945. The fathers of these children were primarily members of the United States American and Moroccan (French) occupation troops in Germany after World War II (1939–1945). Between 1945 and 1955, about 4,776 of these children were born. In the early 1950s, it was stated in the German Bundestag that these children of mixed parentage presented a “human and racial problem of a special kind,” which needed consideration. They were perceived as “foreigners,” which had consequences for their treatment by the authorities, as well as by private and public youth welfare services. For instance, between 1952 and 1960, a considerable number of Afro-German children became subjects of anthropological research. The studies explicitly referred to “racial” studies in the first half of the twentieth century. Once again, as a result of racist attitudes, they were considered “strange“ or “alien,“ which resulted in the assumption that they did not belong to Germany, and that they should live in a country with a predominantly black population. As a result of this discussion, an adoption movement from Germany to the United States was developed in 1951 (the so-called Brown Baby Plan). Until 1954, the program placed approximately 300 children in American families stationed in Germany and 50 children with families living in the United States. At the same time, an adoption movement to Scandinavia (Denmark, Sweden and Norway), as well as to the Netherlands, began. See also: African Diaspora; Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Afro-Germans; French Army, Blacks in the; Germany, Blacks in; Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD); Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Scandinavia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Fehrenbach, Heide. Race after Hitler, Black Occupation Children in Postwar Germany and America. Princeton: Princeton University Press 2005; Pommerin, Reiner. “The Fate of Mixed Blood Children in Germany,” German Studies Review 5:3 (October 1982): 315–323.
Nadine Golly
Biassou, Georges (?–1801) Georges Biassou was a leader of the slave uprising in 1791 that started the Haitian Revolution for Independence against the French. He initially fought alongside
Biassou, Georges (?–1801) Haitian revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture, but then supported the Spanish. Biassou and Juan Jorge Jacobo, a former African slave, French colonial revolutionary, and Biassou’s brother-in-law, had tried to use the Spanish against the French. When the leaders of the Haitian Revolution fell out with Biassou, he and Jacobo moved to Spanish Florida, where they continued to serve the Spanish Crown as heads of a black militia. Little is known about the origins of Biassou except that he emerged at the start of the Haitian Revolution as one of its leaders, having been previously a slave working on plantations near Le Cap. With the Haitian slaves needing firm leadership in their fight with the French, Biassou was able to impose his iron discipline on their numbers and lead them to victory. Initially, Biassou led his victorious slave army in attacking and killing white settlers, and was even involved in selling some captured blacks as slaves to the Spanish. With the execution of King Louis XVI of France in January 1793, the slaves on Saint Domingue (now Haiti) feared that the French government might send an expeditionary force to retake their half of the island. Consequently, the slaves on Saint Domingue attempted to get support from the Spanish government, which occupied the eastern part of the island of Hispaniola (now the Dominican Republic). As a result, Biassou, along with many other Haitian rebel leaders, offered his services to Charles IV of Spain. In 1795, after the Treaty of Basel, which reduced the Spanish hold on Hispaniola, Biassou and some of his colleagues had to abandon their armies, with most of the exslaves joining with the forces of L’Ouverture. By this time, Biassou had emerged as an ambitious, but cruel leader. It was also clear that he had amassed a small fortune from plunder. The other Haitian revolutionaries ceased to trust him, and Biassou decided to move to Spanish Florida. His brother-in-law, Jacobo, accompanied him. Only three months after their arrival at St. Augustine, Florida, in 1796, Jacobo married Rafaela, the daughter of Principe (or “Prince”) Witten, an escaped slave from South Carolina who, with his family, had sought refuge in Florida. In Florida, Witten worked as a carpenter and became a significant property owner. Furthermore, Witten was a member of the Free Black Militia in the area, and his daughter’s marriage to a close relative of Biassou provided a tie between the two pro-Spanish and antiFrench militias in the region. Biassou bought a large plantation and rapidly took over an administrative role, becoming the second highest-paid official in Florida. Placed in command of the black militia based at Fort Matanzas, he lived at Salcedo House, St. George Street. Ironically, he owned slaves on his plantation. Biassou was killed in a drunken brawl on July 14, 1801 and was buried at Tolomato Cemetery. After Biassou’s death, Jacobo emerged as his successor and was put in command of the combined Spanish militia in Florida. He had been involved in the fighting at San Rafael, Plaza Chica de San Miguel, and Barica. When he took command of the militia, he was instructed to lead a punitive mission against the Amerindian tribes in the region. Before he left, he petitioned the government for a pay raise that would bring his salary to the same as that of a sergeant first class in the Spanish army in Santo Domingo. The Spanish never agreed to the pay raise and Jacobo subsequently wrote to the authorities of his disappointment. He continued to serve the Spanish Crown,
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Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub (1904–1944) however, managing to end the “Republic of Florida” that was proclaimed in 1812. The Spanish ordered that when the black militia under Jacobo drove out the rebels, the militiamen were allowed to keep any horses, cattle, clothing, and household goods. All arms, artillery and ammunition, as well as any slaves, however, belonged to the Spanish Crown. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1963; Landers, Jane. “Rebellion and Royalism in Spanish Florida.” In A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. eds. David Barry Gaspar and David Patrick Geggus. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997, pp. 156–177; Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Justin Corfield
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub (1904–1944) Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed (also known as Bayume Mohamed Hussein/ Husen) was a German colonial soldier in Africa during World War I. He later became a university teacher and actor in Germany before being persecuted by the Nazis. Mahjub was born in Daressalaam, the capital of the former colony German East Africa (modern Tanzania). He was the son of a Sudanese mercenary in the German colonial army. At the outbreak of World War I, Mahjub (then 10 years old) joined the German colonial army as a soldier and was wounded in 1917 in one of the bloodiest battles on African soil. When German East Africa became British Tanganyika, Mahjub, like many other veterans, failed to establish a livelihood. He signed on as a steward on several German ships, but finally migrated to Berlin in 1929. When he tried to collect his outstanding service pay, he immediately got into trouble with the authorities. He became part of a network of former German colonial officers who found him a job as an “exotic” waiter. At the same time, he was employed as a teacher of Kiswahili at Berlin University, a job that he held for 10 years. He mainly taught future colonial officers and thus became an active part of a neocolonial movement that advocated and worked for the retrieval of the lost colonies. During the 1930s, Mahjub acted as the “truthful former askari,” as the African soldiers of German East Africa were called, at innumerable events of the neocolonial scene who offered a home for him. In 1932, Mahjub dated two German women who simultaneously became pregnant with his first two children, both of whom were boys. He married one of these women, Maria Schwandner, in 1933, shortly before the coming into power of the Nazi party under Adolf Hitler. Mahjub’s illegitimate son was later legitimated and stayed with the family. Mahjub had another child, a girl, in 1936. The family struggled to make ends meet because of Mahjub’s excesses, which included several affairs resulting in illegitimate children. He was constantly in dispute with the authorities over financial
Bissette, Cyrille (1795–1858) support, his recognition as a World War I combatant, and his entitlement to receive the appropriate Medal of Honor. In 1934, Mahjub took his first part as an actor in the colonial-revanchist movie Die Reiter von Deutsch-Ostafrika (“The Troopers of German East Africa”). He played roles in more than 20 movies with the stars of German cinema, even after World War II broke out. In 1941, Mahjub was denounced to the Nazi authorities and accused of miscegenation. As the corresponding laws did not apply to people of African descent, he was transferred to Sachsenhausen concentration camp without trial in September 1941. He survived the inhuman conditions of the camp for three years, but finally died on November 24, 1944. In September 2007, Mahjub became the first African to be given a memorial as a victim of Nazi terror. A stolperstein (a bronze “stumbling block”) was set in the ground in front of his last address in Berlin. See also: Colonies in Africa, German; Germany, Blacks in; Gilges, Lari; Nazis and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Bechhaus-Gerst, Marianne. Treu bis in den Tod. Von Deutsch-Ostafrika nach Sachsenhausen–Eine Lebensgeschichte. Berlin: Ch. Links Verlag, 2007.
Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst
Bissette, Cyrille (1795–1858) Cyrille Charles Auguste Bissette, a free man of biracial descent from the French colony of Martinique, was a writer known for his numerous and fiery writings in France that exposed the social and legal discrimination against free people of color in the French colonies in the Caribbean and demanded the French abolition of slavery. He founded the Revue des colonies (1834–1842) and was a representative for Martinique in the French National Assembly from 1849 to 1851. His calls for union and reconciliation after the abolition of slavery in 1848, as well as his association with a white former slave owner during his electoral campaign, were the subject of virulent partisan attacks at the time and reveal the precarious position of mixed-race people in colonial society. They also account for his current relative obscurity. Cyrille Bissette became known to the Caribbean and the French public in 1824 when he was tried for suspected authorship and circulation of a pamphlet decrying the treatment of free people of color in the French Caribbean. Even though the pamphlet had been legally printed in Paris, and only two copies were found at his home along with several papers and petitions, Bissette was condemned, publicly branded with the letters GAL (for “galley”), and banished forever. Subsequent appeals reduced the banishment to 10 years. The “Bissette affair,” as it came to be known, renewed white Creole fears about the discontent of free people of color and led to reinforcement of discriminatory laws in Martinique. At the same time, however, the “Bissette affair” spurred French outrage about colonial injustice and led to reforms that, during the July Monarchy, culminated in the new Colonial Charter of 1833. As an informal representative of his class in France, Bissette wrote many letters, pamphlets, and petitions to both the public and
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Black Athena Controversy the commissions charged with writing the charter. These texts show the mind of a legislator, as he suggested major reforms, such as fewer powers for the governor, a more democratic system, and more civic and political rights. Always elegant, Bissette’s style could also be fierce, and he did not shy away from personal invective when directly attacked by whites, a trait that led to several court appearances for libel and even a duel. In 1834, Bissette founded La revue des colonies, which, until 1842 and with a few interruptions, he filled with articles mostly from his own pen. The first issue made it clear that he would defend the “suffering and oppressed classes.” Indeed, partly inspired by Britain’s recent emancipation bill, he repeatedly attacked slavery. After initially taking a position of amelioration, Bissette demanded slavery’s immediate abolition without compensation, followed by free education of the former slaves and new work contract laws. This was a radical development for a free person of color who, only 10 years before, was a merchant who owned slaves and helped put down a slave rebellion as a member of the militia. Mostly because of his attacks against the writings of white abolitionist Victor Schoelcher, now considered the hero of French abolitionism, Bissette was excluded from the Commission for the Abolition of Slavery. He is more often associated with bissettisme, which refers to his alliance with the white François Pécoul in the 1849 National Assembly elections, and his call for racial alliance and erasure of the past. To this day, no public place in Martinique bears his name. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Bongie, Chris. “A Street Named Bissette: Nostalgia, Memory, and the CentCinquantenaire of the Abolition of Slavery in Martinique (1848–1998).” The South Atlantic Quarterly 100:1 (2001): 215–257; Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for the Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Pâme, Stella. Cyrille Bissette: Un martyr de la liberté. Fort de France: Editions Desormeaux, 1999.
Christine Levecq
Black Athena Controversy Black Athena is a controversial three-volume academic work (1987–2006) by scholar Martin Bernal that poses the argument that ancient Greece and consequently European classical civilization was primarily rooted in African and Asian cultures, especially those of Egypt and Phoenicia. Bernal argues, however, that scholars of the past two centuries obscured the influences of these two civilizations on ancient Greece because of racism and anti-Semitism. Furthermore, Bernal contends that the population of ancient Egypt was black African. The three volumes of the work are Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume I—The Fabrication of Ancient Greece (1987), Black Athena: Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume II—The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence (1991), and Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume III—The Linguistic Evidence (2006).
Black Athena Controversy Bernal argues that there are two paradigms for the development of ancient Greek civilization. The first paradigm, called the Aryan model, Greece’s early settlement was from northwestern Europe. Bernal then subdivides this model into two versions, the “strong” theory and the “weak” theory. The “strong” theory argues that the land of ancient Greece was uninhabited before the arrival of the Aryans, whereas the “weak” theory argues that the land did have native inhabitants before the arrival of the Aryans. Bernal rejects the Aryan theory based on supposed lack of evidence. He cites ancient Greek historians and philosophers to further his argument that the ancient Greeks believed that Greece had been colonized by the Phoenicians from the Near East (West Asia). Using such evidence, Bernal constructs an alternate paradigm for the development of ancient Greek civilization, called the Ancient model, which argues that ancient Greece was established when European invaders from the north mixed with the Phoenician colonies already established there. Bernal’s work discusses in detail the historiography of Egypt and North Africa to provide examples of European leaders expressing admiration toward Egypt and West Asia. It is generally accepted that the classical Greek language developed from the ProtoGreek language that was substantially influenced by those of Anatolia (now Turkey) in West Asia. Furthermore, it is generally agreed that ancient Greek culture was a mixture of various elements from the ancient Mediterranean world. Bernal, however, emphasizes to a great extent the African elements of Near Eastern cultures. He argues that Greek developed from the interaction between an Indo-European language and culturally influenced Egyptian and Near Eastern languages. As evidence, he cites the Egyptian and Semitic roots for many Greek words and argues that the Greek alphabet was introduced much earlier than can be proven, around 1800 to 1400 b.c.e. Furthermore, African cultures served as the catalyst for the advancement of civilization, influencing those of the Near East and consequently Europe. Bernal argues that nineteenth- and twentieth-century scholarly Eurocentrism, which is the practice of viewing the world from a European perspective in the conscious or subconscious notion that European (or Western) culture is superior to that of non-Europeans, has obscured these elements. Consequently, Bernal’s work had a substantial impact on the Afrocentrist movement, which places Africa and its peoples and cultures as central to understanding events and cultural developments. Afrocentrists, such as Cheikh Anta Diop and Ivan Van Sertima, seek to reinterpret information through an African viewpoint to uncover the contributions of blacks that, as a result of Eurocentrism or for other reasons (such as racism), have been misattributed to others or have gone unnoticed. Bernal’s work has ignited an intense debate among scholars. In general, Bernal has revealed that early studies of ancient Greece have been tainted by degrees of prejudice on the part of Western scholars, and his work has forced scholars to reassess their interpretations. Criticism of Bernal’s work, however, has been wide-ranging. Scholars have launched several works refuting Bernal’s claims and methods of scholarship. Ancient scholars have shown that he has made a number of errors in his data. Bernal has been heavily criticized for the speculative nature of his theories and for working in areas outside his academic expertise. He has been accused of confusing the terms race, ethnicity, and culture. He has also been accused of incompetently handling etymologies.
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Black Athena Controversy In response, Bernal has argued that the world of academia continues to obscure the importance of non-European civilizations, particularly those of Africa and West Asia. One of Bernal’s most notable opponents is Mary Lefkowitz, who has published works refuting Bernal’s theories. At the core of the debate between Lefkowitz and Bernal is whether the ancient Egyptians were black, which Bernal contends that they were, and to what extent was ancient Greek (and consequently European) civilization was indebted to that of ancient (black) Egypt. The race of the ancient Egyptians has emerged as one the most debated topics in modern scholarship. In classifying human populations, distinctions are made between such characteristics as geography, language, ethnicity, nationality, and race. Racial classifications are not scientifically precise, for the term race is more of a political and semibiological term originating from early modern European history. Therefore race is a subjective term. Some scholars classify ancient Egyptians geographically as Africans, but not as members of the black race. They argue that the ancient Egyptians were dark-skinned members of the white race. Other scholars, however, firmly contend that the ancient Egyptians (or at least those of southern Egypt) were black. During the predynasty period, the Egyptian population, according to scholars such as John H. Taylor, increasingly demonstrated features that might be subjectively classified as black the farther upstream the Nile River and therefore farther south from the Mediterranean. The population of ancient Nubia, located south of Egypt, was once classified as dark-skinned whites. It is now generally accepted, however, that a black population inhabited Nubia. Yet according to Taylor, the ancient Egyptians made a distinction between the “brown” skinned inhabitants in northern Nubia, with whom the southern Egyptians more closely identified themselves, and the darker “black” inhabitants of southern Nubia. Many scholars argue that northern Egypt was possibly settled by emigrating Semitic tribes. Semites is a term derived from the Greek prefix meaning “half.” What this means exactly is unknown. Does the reference refer to the people? If so, what are they “half” of? Does “half” refer to their location? If so, halfway to where? Semites, however, are generally classified as white. Both northern and southern Egyptian city-states traded with each other and nearby areas. The populations in the Nile Valley began to intermix, further complicating attempts at racial classification. Several of the pieces in Black Athena Revisited, co-edited by Lefkowitz, argue that identifying the ancient Egyptians as “black” is misleading. Scholar Kathryn Bard contends that the race of the ancient Egyptians cannot be determined by modern concepts of the term. Furthermore, representational and linguistic evidence identifies the ancient Egyptians as a distinct group from sub-Saharan Africans. Other academics, such as Frank Snowdon, accuse Bernal of misconstruing evidence related to ethnic or color terminology to better suit his contentions. As Snowden has pointed out, the term black does not automatically denote race. For example, the ancient Egyptians referred to their land as Kmt (Kemet). This name has been translated two ways: “land of the blacks” or “the black land.” The first translation implies reference to the people living in Egypt; the second refers to the fertile soil. Understandings of racial classifications are culturally influenced. In American culture, for example, any percentage of black ancestry classifies an individual as belonging to that race. In several other cultures, however, a person’s black ancestry must be
Black British more than 50 percent in order for that person to be classified as black. Despite the controversy and intense debates over the ancient Egyptians’ “race,” an uncontested assessment of the term is as useless as it is impossible. The concept of race did not exist during ancient Egypt, nor is it socially or biologically justified. See also: Aesop; African Diaspora; Clitus of Macedonia; Pan-Africanism. Further Reading: Alexander, John. “Beyond the Nile: The Influence of Egypt and Nubia in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Expedition Magazine 35:2 (Summer 1993): 51–62; Berlinerblau, Jacques. Heresy in the University: The Black Athena Controversy and the Responsibilities of American Intellectuals. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1999; Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume I—The Fabrication of Ancient Greece. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1987; Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: Afro-Asiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume II—The Archaeological and Documentary Evidence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1991; Bernal, Martin. Black Athena: The Afroasiatic Roots of Classical Civilization, Volume III—The Linguistic Evidence. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2006; Bernal, Martin. Black Athena Writes Back: Martin Bernal Responds to His Critics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001; Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? ed. and trans. Mercer Cook. New York: Lawrence Hill and Company, 1974; Lefkowitz, Mary. Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. New York: Basic Books, 1996; Lefkowitz, Mary R., and Guy McLean Rogers, eds. Black Athena Revisited. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996; Seligman, C. G. Egypt and Negro Africa: A Study in Divine Kingship. New York: Ams Press, 1934; Taylor, John H. Egypt and Nubia. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1991; Van Sertima, ed. Egypt Revisited. 2nd ed. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1999.
Eric Martone
Black British The term Black British is used in the United Kingdom (England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland) as a racial and political label and has historically been used to designate nonwhite British nationals. The first major use of the term Black British dates to the eighteenth century. The term was used to designate black people in Sierra Leone, who considered themselves British. These inhabitants were the descendants of black people who had lived in eighteenth-century England and black soldiers who had served in the British army during the American War for Independence. In 1787, blacks living in squalor in Britain agreed to move to Sierra Leone on the conditions that they could retain their status as British subjects and the protection of the British government. The modern term Black British dates to the formal end of the British colonial empire after World War II (1939–1945), during which several former colonies achieved independence. Many of these former colonies, however, retained political ties to Britain as members of the Commonwealth. At this time, Black British referred to individuals originating from the former colonies of India, Africa, and the Caribbean. In current British society, the term Black British generally is used to describe a British resident of African descent who identifies himself or herself as black, African, or Afro-Caribbean. The term Black British, however, can also be used to signify all
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Black History Month minority groups within Britain. Consequently, the term has been used to also refer to South Asians and others of non-European descent who consider themselves united in the struggle against white racism. The British authorities use the term Black British to designate individuals originating from Africa and the Caribbean who hold United Kingdom passports. British census data also make distinctions between British South Asians and British Blacks. An increasingly popular term in Britain is African British, which is based on the American term African American. African British has been used in reference to black Britons of African ancestry. There is confusion, however, regarding whether the term can be used in place of Afro-Caribbean and whether it can be used in reference to AfroCaribbeans or exclusively to those whose ancestors came directly from Africa. The black population of the United Kingdom is still relatively small, but blacks have made several contributions to British culture that have often been overlooked. In 2002, the BBC conducted a vote to determine the 100 greatest Britons. The list did not include anyone of black descent. In response, Patrick Vernon, head of the Web site Every Generation, which promotes black heritage, initiated a campaign to develop a list of the 100 greatest black Britons. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Afro-Germans; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Bourne, Stephen. Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television. London: Continuum, 2001; Donnell, Alison, ed. Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. London: Routledge, 2002; Every Generation Web Page: http://www.everygeneration.co.uk/; Oliver, Paul, ed. Black Music in Britain: Essays on the AfroAsian Contributions to Popular Music. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990; Owuso, Kwesi. Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Eric Martone
Black History Month Black History Month is a month-long initiative to celebrate the history and societal contributions of members of the African Diaspora in the United States, Canada, and Europe. Black History Month is an established tradition in the United States (February), Canada (February), and the United Kingdom (October). Although a similar celebration is not practiced widely in Europe, such a situation is changing as Europe is coming to terms with its multiculturally diverse population. France recently established a May 10 holiday to celebrate the French abolition of slavery and black African culture, and the Initiative of Blacks in Germany (Initiative Schwarze Menschen in Deutschland, ISD) has been attempting to organize a widespread Black History Month celebration in Germany since 1990. Black History Month owes its origins to initiatives by several African Americans during the early twentieth century, particularly African American Harvard University graduate, Carter G. Woodson. In 1926, Woodson, director of the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History and founder of the Journal of Negro History, launched
Black Madonna Tradition Negro History Week. The idea may have been inspired in part by the efforts of Mary Church Terrell and the African American fraternity Omega Phi Psi, which had established a local celebration of the birthday of Frederick Douglass, a former slave and early African American leader, on February 14, and established a Negro Achievement Week in 1924. At that time, the study and acknowledgment of African American history and societal contributions were mostly absent from the mainstream media and school curriculums. The initiative, which Carter hoped would be temporary, was to foster national exposure of African American history in order for it to become integrated fully into school curriculums and the media. Ultimately, such educational efforts would improve race relations. Woodson selected the second week of February for Negro History Week to honor the birthdays of Frederick Douglass and President Abraham Lincoln, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation abolishing slavery in the United States. At first, Negro History Week was celebrated mostly by African Americans. The celebration expanded among white society, however, gaining support in the North, which sought to support the initiative to foster racial harmony. By the 1950s, the celebration was an established cultural institution. In 1976, the celebration was extended to one month on the initiative of the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History. Building on the American example, Britain adopted Black History Month to celebrate African and Afro-Caribbean heritage in 1987. Akyaaba Addai Sebbo, who worked as a coordinator of special projects for the Greater London Council (GLC), is regarded as the founder of British Black History Month. Addai had the initiative approved by the various legal committees of the GLC. The first British Black History Month events were initiated by an alliance between the GLC, the Inner London Education Authority, and the London Strategic Policy Unit. The very first Black History Month in Britain began on October 1, 1987, with an event in which Maulana Karenga, the founder of the Kwanzaa holiday to celebrate African culture, gave a speech. It took some time for the celebration to expand outside the Greater London area to adopt the declaration. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Small, Stephen. Racialized Barriers: The Black Experience in the United States and England in the 1980s. London: Routledge, 1994.
Eric Martone
Black Madonna Tradition Of the many hundreds of thousands of images of Mary, the mother of Jesus of Nazareth, the central figure of Christianity, close to 500 throughout the world depict her with black or brown skin tones. This image is called the Black Madonna. In France, which has the greatest number of these images in Europe (about 180), the title Vierge Noires (“The Black Virgins”) is commonly used. In Spain, the famous image of the Black Madonna at the Benedictine Abbey of Montserrat is called by its Catalan name, la Moreneta (“The little dark-skinned one”). The term Black Madonna does not apply to the many images of Mary depicted as a black African that have emerged in areas where there are large black Christian populations. Rather, the term refers to
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Black Madonna Tradition the presence of this image in parts of the world, mostly Europe and the Americas, that have a history of nonblack dominance. The depiction is of Mary, often with her young son, either freestanding or seated on a throne. Her face is presented with recognizable European features. The images are usually icons painted in the Byzantine style, mostly created between the eleventh and the fifteenth centuries, often from Italy. The depiction of a dark-skinned Madonna is also found in freestanding carved wood statues produced throughout all of Europe. A few emerged in the early Middle Ages, as in the case of the statue of Our Lady of the Hermitage in the Swiss Benedictine Abbey of Einsiedeln that may go back to the ninth century. These images are the object of intense devotion and a popular destination of pilgrimage. The statue of Our Lady of Aparecida in the State of Sao Paulo, Brazil, is the most visited shrine in the entire country. The same can be affirmed in Germany, where since the fifteenth century, the small, carved lime wood statue of Our Lady of Altotting in Bavaria has attracted the most visitations. The icon of the Black Madonna known as the Theotokos of Saint Theodore is one of the most venerated images in all of Russia and throughout the entire Orthodox Christian world. The Black Madonna of Czestochowa remains an important symbol for the identity of Polish Catholicism, as does the Virgin of Guadalupe for the Christian tradition in Mexico and Latin America. Indeed, these images from Poland and Mexico embody the national identity to a degree that is unparalleled with any other religious image in the world. Sometimes found in museums, and endlessly copied, most Black Madonnas remain housed in churches or monasteries. These are images often associated with miracles, both in terms of their origins, and the claims made regarding the miraculous intercession of Mary through her image. Because of the lack of sources that reveal the intention of the artist, scholars do not know the original meaning of the use of color in these images. It is often argued that the coloration emerged throughout the ages. Some images have darkened over time through the habitual use of candles and the centuries of soot accumulation. Some were saved from fires but suffered the residue of smoke. In other cases, the cause of the darkness may be traced to the deterioration of lead-based pigments used in the original icon. Further, the choice of the material for the image, such as dark ebony wood, led to the image’s color depiction. Because it has proved impossible to offer a completely satisfactory explanation for the appearance of dark color in the image, a more fruitful approach to this issue is to note the perception of the meaning of the image of the Black Madonna throughout the history of Europe. Central to the whole tradition of the Black Madonna is that the image serves as a vehicle through which the Divine enters into human life. By an encounter with this material reality in time and space, the devout believe they experience the spiritual and the eternal. These depictions of Mary are linked frequently to the miraculous, often in terms of cures and acts of defense for the protectors of the image. This is especially the case within the tradition of the Catholic Counter-Reformation that sought to affirm, after the Council of Trent (1545–1563), the beliefs of traditional Marian medieval piety in contradistinction to the Protestant iconoclastic rejection of this piety. Thus, to intensify the element of mystery surrounding the images, the Jesuits in 1672 published a catalogue of the many thousands of legends associated with the cult sites (Atlas Marianus). Within this context, there was an intensification of the medieval idea that the
Blanco, Roberto (1937–) origin of the image could be traced back to the time of Mary. To take one example of many, it was affirmed that the icon of Czestochowa was painted by Saint Luke, who used a tabletop created by Mary’s carpenter son, Jesus. As Luke painted, it was believed that Mary told him what to write in his Gospel. Thus the image was not any arbitrary artistic rendering, but a “true image” and so not to be rejected. Here the visual experience of the darkened skin becomes important. It is evidence of the antiquity of the object and thus a guarantee of its authenticity. Other issues need to be considered when tracing the history of the perception of the meaning of the Black Madonna. At the base of the Black Madonna image known as the Madonna of Tindari, in Sicily, there is inscribed, in Latin, the words, Nigra sum sed Formosa, meaning “I am black, but beautiful.” This statement, taken from the biblical book the Song of Songs (1:5), had a significant influence on the acceptance of the depiction of Mary with darkened skin. This book, from the Hebrew Scriptures, had for centuries been interpreted as a love song between God and his Church. Mary, in her multiple symbolism, was often seen as the embodiment of the Church whom her bridegroom loves. Thus a linkage of black and beautiful seemed to offer a biblical justification for the image. Another dimension of this issue is the importance of the aims of missionary activities with the indigenous populations. The best example is that within the conquest of Mesoamerica by the Spanish, the acceptance of Christianity was enhanced greatly through the images that reflect the appearance of the population; foremost was the 1531 apparitions of the Virgin of Guadalupe. Finally, scholars of comparative religion often note that the blackness of the image is a symbolic continuance of the ancient tradition of the mother goddess, who was represented in the color of shades of brown to black to symbolize the earth’s fecundity. Within this symbol system, Mary is not only the humble virgin but also the source of vitality as the one within whose body God is made human in the person of Jesus. See also: Art, Blacks as Represented in European; Benedict the Moor, Saint; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Central Europe, Blacks in; France, Blacks in; Germany, Blacks in; Hamitic Myth; Italy, Blacks in; Magi, Representations of the; Maurice, Saint; Missionaries in Africa, European; Moors; Popes, African; Russia, Blacks in; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Benko, Stephen. The Virgin Goddess: Studies in the Pagan and Christian Roots of Mariology. Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1993; Maniura, Robert. Pilgrimage to Images in the Fifteenth Century: The Origins of the Cult of Our Lady of Czestochowa. Woodbridge: Boydell, 2004; Oleszkiewicz-Peralba, Malgorzata. The Black Madonna in Latin America and Europe, Tradition and Transformation. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2007.
Lawrence F. Hundersmarck
Black Pete. See Zwarte Piet Blanco, Roberto (1937–) Roberto Blanco (also known as Roberto Zerquera) is a German pop singer and actor of Afro-Cuban descent. Although the height of his career occurred in the late 1960s and 1970s, he is still a widely known pop artist in Germany.
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Boateng, Ozwald (1967–) Blanco was born on June 7, 1937, in Tunis, Tunisia, to Roberto Zerquera and his wife Mercedes Blanco, who were both Cuban revue artists. Shortly after his birth, his parents moved to Paris, France. As a result of the looming danger of another war in Europe, however, they soon decided to move again, this time to Beirut, Lebanon. Soon after their arrival in Beirut, Blanco’s mother died when he was only two years old. After living for 13 years in Lebanon and receiving most of his education in boarding schools in Beirut, Blanco moved to Madrid, Spain to join his traveling artist father in Europe again. Blanco finished high school in Madrid, where he also began his studies in medicine. In 1957, Blanco made his film debut with A Star of Africa. In the film, he played the personal assistant to a German fighter pilot who was killed during World War II in a plane crash in North Africa. Even though this was only a minor role, the film opened further doors for him and many film offers followed. Most of the films were productions for German television, but a few of the movies became known in the English-speaking world, such as The Hellhounds of Alaska (1973) and Three Men in the Snow (1974). Blanco’s film debut in 1957 caused him also to reconsider his professional dreams, which led him to abandon the medical field after only two semesters. A move to Germany followed. In Germany, he began to take singing lessons. In 1958, he received an offer to perform with Josephine Baker as part of her touring company. Blanco never played a leading role in any film production, but he was able to rise to stardom in Germany as a singer of popular music. In 1969, he won the German Pop Festival with his song “Heute so, morgen so” (“Today this way, tomorrow that way”). Blanco celebrated his biggest success in 1972 with his hits the “Der Puppenspieler von Mexiko” (“The puppeteer of Mexico”) and “Ein bißchen Spaß muss sein” (“There has to be a bit of fun”). Because of this success, he was offered his own television show on German public television in 1973. In 1986, Blanco visited his parents’ home country, Cuba, for the first time. In Cuba, he was honored by the Association of Cuban Writers and Artists for his international engagement for Cuba. In addition, Cuba celebrated Blanco by making him the first foreign artist who was allowed to perform at the Tropicana revue in Havana, Cuba in 1987. In 1994, Blanco debuted as a producer with his album Por tu amor with songs in Spanish and musicians from South America. See also: Afro-Germans; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Germany, Blacks in; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Blanco, Roberto. Meine Vitalgeheimnisse. Wiesbaden, Germany: Modul Verlag, 1999.
Heike Raphael-Hernandez
Boateng, Ozwald (1967–) Ozwald Boateng is a renowned Black British fashion designer and Savile Row tailor. Boateng has had many celebrity clients and his wardrobe designs have been featured in such blockbuster films as Alfie (2004), Hannibal (2001), Gangster Number
Boateng, Paul (1951–) One (2000), Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (1998), and Tomorrow Never Dies (1997), which was the 18th film to feature fictional character James Bond (played by Pierce Brosnan), a suave and stylish British spy. In 2004, the Greater London Authority announced Boateng as one of the top 100 Great Black Britons in a poll initiated by Every Generation, a Web site promoting black heritage. Boateng, born to Ghanaian parents, grew up in London, England. His father, a school teacher, encouraged him to learn and value tradition. Boateng, entirely self-taught, officially started tailoring at the age of 16. He established a design studio on Portobello Road. Boateng studied the best tailors to advance his traditional tailoring skills and develop his own method and style. Consequently, the hallmarks of his designs have been to revolutionize men’s fashion by combining traditional excellence with modern trends. Tommy Nutter, the famed tailor for the British music icons the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, recognized Boateng’s talent and helped him in the business. Boateng viewed himself as something simultaneously more than a tailor and more than a designer. Consequently, he coined the term bespoke couturier. Boateng’s designs are noted for their use of bold colors and his custom suits are tailored to match the owner’s personality and lifestyle. In his career, Boateng has had several “firsts.” He became the youngest tailor (then still in his twenties) and the first black Briton to open a store on Savile Row, a corner in central London that had been known in previous generations as the posh location of England’s finest tailors. Within Britain, Boateng has received the distinction of bringing Savile Row tailoring to the present generation. He also became the first Savile Row tailor to have his designs displayed at the Paris International Menswear Collections. In 2003, French fashion house Givenchy appointed him creative director of menswear; consequently, Boateng became the first black designer to head a French couture house. He now has stores across the globe, including in England, Dubai, and Russia. Boateng is also the first Savile Row designer to open a store in the United States. In 2006, the Sundance Channel developed a reality television show entitled House of Boateng to follow his efforts to launch his Bespoke Couture line of clothing in the United States. Boateng married Gyunel, a Russian former model. In 2006, Boateng was made an officer of the British Empire (OBE) by Queen Elizabeth II. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Official Web Page of Ozwald Boateng: http://www.ozwaldboateng.co.uk/; One Hundred Great Black Britons Web Page: http://www.100greatblackbritons.com/.
Nicole Martone
Boateng, Paul (1951–) Paul Yaw Boateng, a British Labour politician active in the black community for many years, became the first black cabinet minister in Britain in May 2002 when he was appointed chief secretary of the treasury. Boateng was born in 1951 in Hackney, London. Boateng’s father, Kwaku, had been a cabinet minister in Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah until Nkrumah was ousted in a coup d’état in 1966. The family moved back
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Boer War (1899–1902) to London with Boateng, who had been at the Ghana International School and the Accra Academy. He attended Apsley Grammar School and later the University of Bristol, where he studied law. After graduating, Boateng became a civil rights lawyer, initially as a solicitor, and then as a barrister, after he was called to the bar by Gray’s Inn. In the late 1970s, Boateng worked in the Lambeth area and took part in many protests against the police leading up to the 1981 Brixton Riots. In 1981, Boateng was elected a member for Walthamstow to the Greater London Council (GLC). In the GLC, Boateng was a supporter of the Labour Party’s leftwing leader, Ken Livingstone. Boateng became chairman of the GLC police committee and vice chairman of the ethnic minorities committee. He continued his criticism of London’s Metropolitan Police. In the 1983 general election, Boateng unsuccessfully stood for the seat of Hertfordshire West. Four years later at the next general election, however, Boateng was elected as member of Parliament for Brent South, becoming known for his victory speech in which he declared “Today Brent South, Tomorrow Soweto!” In Parliament, Boateng was notably more moderate and was a junior spokesman under Labour leader Neil Kinnock in 1989. Three years later, Boateng was appointed shadow minister for the Lord Chancellor’s Department, being reelected in 1992 and in 1997. With the victory of Prime Minister Tony Blair in the 1997 general election, Boateng became parliamentary under secretary of state at the Department of Health and thus the first black British government minister. Later, Boateng was parliamentary undersecretary of state at the Home Office. In 1998, he became minister of state for home affairs. In 2001, Boateng rose to become financial secretary to the treasury, and in May 2002, he became chief secretary to the treasury with a position in the cabinet. In March 2005, just before the next general election in May, Boateng announced that he would not be contesting his seat. After the election, which resulted in another victory for Tony Blair, Boateng was named as high commissioner to South Africa. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain. Further Reading: Gilroy, Paul. “There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack”: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991; Smith, John, Paul Boateng et al. Reclaiming the Ground. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1993; Whitfield, James. Unhappy Dialogue: The Metropolitan Police and Black Londoners in Post-war Britain. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing, 2004.
Justin Corfield
Boer War (1899–1902) The Boer War was fought between the British Empire and the Boer republics of the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (Transvaal) in South Africa from 1899 to 1902. Ultimately, both African republics were absorbed into the British Empire. During the conflict, British and Colonial forces and the Boers, who were descendants of Dutch-speaking settlers, fought most of the battles; however, both sides used
Boer War (1899–1902) black Africans in the fighting. Indeed, Major-General Robert Baden-Powell was one of the first commanders on either side to use Africans. He enlisted Tswana tribesmen to help protect the town of Mafeking during the siege when he incorporated their encampment in his defensive perimeter. It is also interesting to note that Baden-Powell reduced the rations for Africans below that of whites and then drove out those Africans whom he felt were not able to contribute to the defense of the Mafeking perimeter. Later during the war, when the British built a long series of fortifications known as blockhouses to divide and control parts of the former Boer republics, they pressed thousands of Africans into service to help them. Generally, most of them were paid well, and they had the expectation that they would be rewarded when the British won the war. These Africans were used as an auxiliary force, especially for the carrying of messages. As the war progressed, Africans, especially the San (Bushmen), were used by the British for tracking Boer Commando groups, but also as scouts, these latter being dressed in khaki and often being heavily armed. Throughout the war, as many as 14,000 Africans worked as scouts and drivers, and were paid up to 90 shillings per month. In July 1901, the assistant chief-commandant of the Boer forces, P. H. Kritzinger, declared that all Africans found working for the British, even if unarmed, would be shot. The Boers also used as many as 10,000 Africans in their forces, with some called agterryers, or “after-riders,” who worked as cooks, grooms, and foragers for Boer troopers. These agterryers proved to be extremely loyal in battle Other Africans served as messengers, but both these and the agterryers were liable to be shot if caught by the British. During the guerilla war in late 1900, and through 1901 and early 1902, many African villages were destroyed as the British tried to prevent the Boers from getting supplies. The Boers also destroyed African homesteads if some of the Africans had helped the British. In addition to those killed in combat, there were also African servants of Boer families who were interned in concentration camps, where large numbers of Boers and more than 14,000 Africans died. Toward the end of the Boer War in 1902, the British commander-in-chief, Lord Kitchener, officially stated that there were 2,496 blacks and 2,939 “coloreds” working in the Cape Colony, and a further 4,618 blacks working for the British elsewhere in South Africa. By this time, some Africans were involved in attacks on Boers and the British in Zoutpansberg and in Zululand. On May 6, 1902, after some Boer commandos had attacked Zulu homesteads for several days while foraging for food, the AbaQulusi, a Zulu royal section, attacked the Boers, killing more than 50 of them. By the end of the war, many Africans had been killed or had suffered property losses during the fighting. They did not take part in the peace negotiations, however, and were the only group that emerged from the conflict without having gained any concessions. This, in part, was one of the long-term causes of the Natal or “Zulu” Rebellion of 1906, although the actual cause was the refusal of Zulu villagers to pay hut taxes. See also: British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in Africa, British; New Imperialism; Zulu War. Further Reading: Nasson, William. “Africans at War.” In Boer War: Direction, Experience and Image. ed. J. Gooch. London: Frank Cass, 2000; Warwick, Peter. Black People and the South African War, 1899–1902. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983.
Justin Corfield
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Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu (1844–1906) Behanzin Hossu Bowelle, the 11th king of Dahomey (modern-day Benin), was the last independent ruler of the African kingdom, exercising his power through traditional power structures. He tried in vain to prevent the French from taking control of his country. The French had tried to negotiate with King Glele of Dahomey, but the king had seen neighboring rulers sign treaties of friendship with European countries that had rapidly resulted in their lands becoming ruled by the colonial powers. As a result, he was wary of the Europeans and tried to adopt a policy of isolation. The French, however, were anxious to get some form of treaty signed with him, as the Germans had recently taken over neighboring Togoland. King Glele managed to stall for several years. When he died, his son Behanzin was even less keen on reaching any form of agreement with the French. He turned down an offer to meet with a French envoy, Jean Bayol, the lieutenant governor of Rivières du Sud (Guinea), claiming that he had certain ceremonial obligations. Bayol was not satisfied with this excuse and started assembling an expeditionary force in Cotonou. As part of the ritual associated with becoming king, the rulers of Dahomey used to march from their capital at Abomey to the borders of their possessions. There, they would capture slaves and parade them back to the capital, where the slaves would either be set to work on plantations or ceremonially sacrificed. There had been a brief power struggle when King Glele had died. Consequently, Behanzin was anxious to prove his strength as a ruler to his people. He marched his forces onto the coastal plains. The French decided to take Dahomey officials as hostages and hold them at Cotonou. The Dahomey army attacked Cotonou in March 1890, but they were driven back by the French. In April, they launched another attack against Porto Novo, where the local ruler had accepted French colonial control. It was clear that war was inevitable. Both sides started making preparations, with Behanzin stockpiling arms. He managed to buy large amounts of weaponry from the British and Germans. He had even purchased Krupp field guns and hired some Europeans to train his men in their use. After a skirmish in July 1891, the French had captured and executed three Germans and one Belgian whom they had found using these field guns. In 1892, Behanzin led his men against Grand Popo in an effort to restore the suzerainty of Dahomey over this area. The French, who claimed to be protecting the township, prepared for war. Jean Bayol urged the French government to support an invasion of Dahomey, claiming that the Dahomeans were savages and the invasion was needed to repel aggression. The use of human sacrifices and the continued existence of slavery (which had by then been abolished in most parts of the world) were all highlighted in the French press. The French expeditionary force was placed under Colonel Alfred-Amedée Dodds and French Foreign legionnaires were landed at Porto-Novo. The French followed the strategy used by the British at Ashanti. They marched straight for Abomey, which they captured and sacked; however, their forces were wracked with smallpox. Behanzin managed to evade the French for several more years. In 1897,
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he surrendered and was exiled to Martinique. He was later exiled to Algeria, where he died in 1907. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; New Imperialism. Further Reading: Skelton, Geoffrey. “Invasion into the Heart of Darkness,” Military History (December 1998): 66–73.
Justin Corfield
Bridgetower, George (1780–1860) George Bridgetower, dubbed “the Abyssinian Prince,” was a biracial musician who was a child prodigy, spending most of his life in England. He was born on February 29, 1780 in Biały, Silesia (which is part of modern-day Poland). His father, who claimed to be an African prince, was likely from Barbados in the West Indies (Caribbean) and came to Europe as a servant of Prince Esterházy of Hungary, patron to Joseph Haydn, one of the most prominent composers of the classical period. Bridgetower’s mother was an Eastern European domestic servant. When he was young, Bridgetower showed much musical talent within the Esterházy household. At the age of nine, while in Paris, he performed a violin concerto, his first public musical performance. Moving to England, Bridgetower performed at concerts in London, Bath, and Bristol. In 1789, the Bath Journal noted “the astonishing abilities of this child,” and highlighted the “exquisite performance of Master Bridgetower, whose taste and execution on the violin is equal, perhaps superior, to the best professor of the present or any former day.” In 1791, Bridgetower’s performances managed to secure him the patronage of George, Prince of Wales (later George IV). The prince appointed tutors to Bridgetower that included François-Hippolyte Bartlélémon of the Royal Opera, Giovanni Giornovichi, and Thomas Attwood, a professor at the Royal Academy of Music and organist at St. Paul’s Cathedral. These tutors helped teach Bridgetower some musical theory. Soon, the young musician became famous in the musical society in London. From 1789 to 1799, Bridgetower performed about 50 concerts in Covent Garden, Drury Lane, Haymarket, and elsewhere. For 14 years, he was the first violinist in the prince’s private orchestra, performing in London and Brighton. Leaving England in 1802, Bridgetower Pencil and watercolor portrait of George went on a concert tour of Germany and met Bridgetower. © The Trustees of the British up with his mother and brother, a cellist, Museum.
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Briggs, Cyril (1887–1966) who both lived in Dresden. He also visited Vienna, where he was introduced to the German composer Ludwig van Beethoven. The two became friends and at times performed together. Beethoven described the young prodigy as “a very able virtuoso and an absolute master of his instrument.” During the first performance of Beethoven’s Kreutzer sonata (opus 47) at the Augarten Theater on May 24, 1803, Bridgetower altered a brief passage. The alteration was received warmly by Beethoven, who dedicated the sonata to him. A tuning fork given to Bridgetower by Beethoven is now held at the British Museum, London. Bridgetower also traveled overseas on subsequent occasions, mainly to Italy. Returning to England, Bridgetower was elected to the Royal Society of Music on October 4, 1807. He then studied for a bachelor of music at Cambridge, graduating in June 1811, during which he composed an anthem. At around this time, Bridgetower played in the Royal Philharmonic Society Orchestra. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Central Europe, Blacks in; Emidy, Joseph; Russia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Lerma, Dominique-René de. “Beethoven as a Black composer.” Black Music Research Journal 10 (1990): 118–122; Matthews, Betty. “George Polgreen Bridgetower.” Music Review 29 (1968): 22–26; Panton, Clifford D. George Augustus Polgreen Bridgetower: Violin Virtuoso and Composer of Color in Late Eighteenth-Century Europe. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 2005.
Justin Corfield
Briggs, Cyril (1887–1966) Cyril Briggs was a black militant and writer who was born in the Caribbean island of Nevis. He began his writing career when he moved to Harlem, New York in 1905. Early on, Briggs’s views were radical; he called for the creation of a separate African American state within the United States. In 1918, he founded the black Marxist group African Blood Brotherhood (ABB) to combat racial discrimination. Briggs joined the Communist Party in 1921 and the ABB became increasingly Marxist, incorporating notions of class struggle to the plight of blacks. He came to believe that global black liberation could not be achieved without violence. In 1928, at the Sixth World Congress in Moscow, in which Briggs participated, the Comintern, which was the Soviet Union’s international arm, argued that African Americans had the right to self-determination as a subject nation. Such arguments were the first attempts to link American racial discrimination to capitalism. Images of oppressed African Americans would come to be contrasted with the seeming accomplishments of Soviet internationalism. As a result, black intellectuals became drawn to Marxism and the Communist Party. Briggs furthered the notion of the Soviet Union as a racially tolerant society by pointing to Alexander Pushkin, depicted as a black Russian writer proud of his African ancestry. Pushkin had a substantial impact on subsequent generations of radicals. Conseqently, he emerged as a Soviet hero as an opponent of bourgeois culture and the founder of Soviet literature. See also: Russia, Blacks in; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and.
Brindis de Sala, Claudio (1852–1911) Further Reading: Solomon, Mark. The Cry Was Unity: Communists and African Americans, 1917–1936. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1998.
E. Agateno Mosca
Brindis de Sala, Claudio (1852–1911) Claudio Brindis de Sala was a world-renowned violinist and composer who was born in Havana, Cuba in August 1852. His parents were of unmixed African parentage. His father was a notable musician, composer, and dancer. Brindis was a child prodigy. Learning music from his father, he had become a well-known figure in Havana from the tender age of 10. Brindis went to Paris along with his father and soon became a renowned violinist, receiving the first prize of the Paris Conservatory. The Viscount André Marie de Brinvilliers was the patron of Brindis, and his efforts made him a maestro in Paris. Success and fame followed the boy. In the concert halls of Berlin, Florence, London, Milan, Turin, and other European cities, the crowd rose in a frenzy listening to his violin playing. Brindis enthralled millions of music lovers and soon earned the epithet of “The Black Paganini” and “King of the Octaves.” The elegant, well-mannered, and stylishly dressed violinist had become a world celebrity. In 1875, he made a tour of South America and the Caribbean. He returned to his home country after performing brilliantly in Haiti and Venezuela. During a second visit to Europe, Brindis was invited to the chancelleries of some of the kings. He was decorated profusely by the various monarchs. Brindis was awarded the highest civilian award, the Legion of Honor by the French Third Republic. He achieved fame and glory in the court of Kaiser William II (1859–1941) of Germany. Embellished with the Order of the Black Eagle, Brindis was made a German citizen, a Baron, and the official violinist at the court. William II was also present when Brindis married a German woman named Ulrike von Knaebel. The fall of Brindis was as sudden as his rise. His eccentric nature, love for other women, a spirit of adventure, and strong liking for Bacchus precipitated his decline. His bohemian lifestyle did not make him a good family man and he again headed toward Latin America. In 1901, Brindis gave his last concert in Cuba. He was deeply in love with a woman named Dona Dariana. In Mexico City, he destroyed his hotel room in a fit of drunken stupor. Brindis never bothered about money and became a pauper. Suffering from tuberculosis, he died on June 2, 1911, in a hotel in Buenos Aires. In 1930, Brindis’s body was brought by the government of Cuba from the Cemetery de Oeste to Havana. His three children from his German wife, Ulrike, became violinists in Berlin. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Germany, Blacks in; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical. Further Reading: Lightfoot, Claudia. Havana: A Cultural and Literary Companion. New York: Interlink Books, 2002; McBride, David, Leroy Hopkins, and Carol Blackshire-Belay. Crosscurrents: African Americans, Africa, and Germany in the Modern World. Columbia, SC: Camden House, 1998.
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Britain, Blacks in EARLY HISTORY. Although there are some accounts that the first blacks to arrive in Britain came with the Roman Empire in the third century c.e., most historians begin the history of blacks in Britain with the sixteenth-century slave trade. In 1555, a group of Africans was brought to England from the Guinea coast as slaves who were expected to learn English and then return to Africa to facilitate trade as translators. England, of course, was neither the first nor the strongest European force to traffic in slaves during this era. England’s burgeoning strength, however, was exhibited when the first British slave trafficker, John Hawkins, pirated 300 slaves from a Portuguese trader and brought them to the Caribbean, (West Indies). By the 1570s, African slaves were brought to England to serve as domestic servants, court entertainers, and prostitutes. There are records of African slaves in the aristocratic courts of Henry VIII, Elizabeth I, and James I. Although the exact number of blacks in Britain by the early seventeenth century is unknown, the figure is thought to be enough to warrant Queen Elizabeth I to write two edicts ordering the expulsion of the Moors from England in 1596 and 1601. Although Elizabeth cited her desire to rid England of non-Christians and to preserve jobs for white Christians, she tacitly supported the British slave trade by providing ships and equipment to slave traders like Hawkins. The slave trade, or “triangular trade,” offered a tremendous boost to British industry, as English ships from London, Bristol, and Liverpool traded arms and textiles for slaves on African shores and then traded slaves for sugar, spices, and rum in the Jamaican colonies, Barbados, the Leeward Islands, and Surinam. Furthermore, the trade of guns, copper, and shipbuilding materials increased to supply slave traffickers. The British also served as middlemen to provide slaves to Mexico, the Americas, the West Indies, and Spain. At a profit of about 12 million pounds between 1630 and 1807, an estimated 2.5 million Africans were bought and sold by British merchants. The daily lives of black slaves in Britain during this period have not been preserved in many historical documents, but, of course, not all blacks in Britain were slaves. There were notable exceptions who not only gained freedom, but also some measure of fame. In the eighteenth century, for example, the former slave Ignatius Sancho was an actor, composer, and writer who is thought to be the first black Briton to vote. As a shopkeeper and author of Theory of Music and two plays, Sancho was a financially independent male, thus qualifying him to vote in 1774 and 1780. His letters, published posthumously as The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, An African, provide some of the earliest accounts of slavery written by a former slave. Likewise, Francis Barber, the favored servant of Samuel Johnson, was both freed and granted a large annuity. In addition, he eventually married a white English woman. The majority of free and freed blacks worked as domestic servants or entertainers, but there were some who served in the British Army or as merchant seamen. Still others must have been apprenticed in trade, as there was enough of a stir in 1731 to prompt a ruling by the London City Corporation forbidding the teaching of trades to blacks. The early history of blacks in Britain, however, is dominated by the trade in, and enforcement of, slavery. ABOLITIONISM . Because early modern understandings of what blackness signified were often contradictory—blacks were incorrectly assumed to be suntanned,
Britain, Blacks in another species, the cursed offspring of Ham, and/or infected—the justifications for slavery were also conflicted. For example, it was debated whether slavery could be justified if blacks were not essentially different beings (e.g., should blacks be enslaved if they are only suntanned?). By the eighteenth century, the ideologies that supported slavery became harder to sustain, especially as profit from the slave trade declined. In 1772, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield declared slavery illegal, arguing that English common law did not support slavery. In 1778, a similar ruling in Scotland found that slavery could not be recognized under Scottish law. Although the rulings did not effectively end slavery in England and Scotland, they put slaves in a better position to demand wages and/or to flee from hostile circumstances. Former slave owners were compensated for their “loss of property,” and their slaves were required to perform 45 hours per week of unpaid labor for a specified time before they were essentially freed. Olaudah Equiano was one of the major black influences on the movement for the British abolition of slavery. A West African who was captured into slavery as a child, Equiano was an extremely influential speaker working for abolition. His 1789 autobiography, The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, is thought to be one of the first books published by an African writer in Britain. It was the first influential slave narrative, and Equiano’s firsthand accounts of his enslavement and eventual immigration to England caused a sensation throughout Britain, spurring on the burgeoning antislavery movement. Although ex-slaves largely turned from plantation work to small-scale trading, skilled trade, and subsistence farming (effectively reducing the black plantation population to a third of what it had been at the height of slavery), blacks faced innumerous roadblocks after emancipation: indentured servitude, disciplinary apprenticeship (convicts, who were often convicted for trivial crimes, spent jail time at workhouses or in penal gangs), and employment and academic discrimination. As emancipated slaves began to demand more rights, many in England began to worry about what the future of England held for them. Thus, Sierra Leone was founded by the British in 1787 as a home for the emancipated slaves of England. Although slavery was declared illegal in England, the slave trade was still legal for some time. In 1807, the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act passed; in 1811, trading in slaves was made a felony offense; and in 1838, slavery was finally declared illegal throughout the British Empire. NINETEENTH CENTURY. The black population in Britain in the nineteenth century was not large, but there were, nonetheless, several prominent blacks in Britain. For example, John Mensah Sarbah came to England in the late nineteenth century to pursue a law degree at Lincoln’s Inn. Passing the bar in 1887, Mensah Sarbah became the first African barrister in England. He used his legal training to challenge the right to British colonial rule, arguing that Africa belonged to Africans. Similarly, in 1853 James “Africanus” Beale Horton, a native of Sierra Leone, won a scholarship to attend medical school in Great Britain. He attended King’s College and the University of Edinburgh, and eventually qualified as a doctor in 1859. He used his knowledge, position, and stature to argue for African self-rule, and he is often considered the founder of the African Nationalist movement. Finally, Ira Aldridge, an American-born actor, saw his career flourish mainly in England and Europe. Aldridge
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Britain, Blacks in is thought to be the first black actor to perform the title role in Othello, and he is the only black actor honored with a bronze plaque at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre in Stratford-upon-Avon. Aldridge moved to England in the 1820s, hoping for a greater opportunity to perform (especially scenes from Shakespeare). Although he was viewed initially as a novelty, by 1825 he received top billing at London’s Coburg Theatre, headlining as Oroonoko in A Slave’s Revenge, Gambia in The Slave, and Mungo in The Padlock. It was Aldridge’s performance of Othello, however, that won him the most acclaim. As the first black actor to perform the role, he stunned audiences and reviewers alike with his naturalness: many noted that he was the first actor to perform the role without the aid of makeup. Later in his career, Aldridge married a white English woman and continued his career, touring mainly in Eastern Europe. The nineteenth century, then, saw many black Britons seeking to attain positions of higher profile in England. THE WORLD WARS. In the early twentieth century, the majority of Englishspeaking blacks lived in the British colonies. At the onset of World War I, however, thousands of blacks were brought to Britain from the colonies to serve in combat. They replaced white merchant seamen who had to serve in the Royal Navy, they were drafted into labor battalions, and they worked in munitions and chemical factories. The need for labor produced a brief period of increased economic prosperity for black Britons. This prosperity was effectively ended by the end of the war, when many blacks were expelled from their jobs to make room for returning white veterans. During this period, white resentment over job competition often erupted into violence, with frequent race riots between 1919 and 1920. A repeat effort to use the black labor force was made at the outbreak of World War II, and a similar effect was produced after its end. In response to numerous factors, including the unappreciated service of black men in the World Wars and the growth of independence movements in the African colonies and West Indies, black militancy in England was on the rise beginning in the 1940s. MODERN SOCIAL ISSUES. After England encouraged immigration from the African and Caribbean colonies for the World Wars, there was a huge wave of immigration in the 1950s and 1960s. With the influx of new black immigrants to Britain, there were new social struggles for access to education, legal rights, and social equality. Many of the blacks who came to Britain from Africa and the Caribbean came for educational opportunities, and they were instrumental in helping to shape modern social movements. After the race riots in Europe that ensued after the World Wars, the Race Relations Act was passed in 1965, granting blacks the right to obtain legal redress when faced with discrimination. Although the act was a national recognition of black rights, in the 1970s and 1980s, especially, black Britons continued to face unequal treatment in the forms of police brutality, employment discrimination, and social ostracism. Race riots have more recently taken on a new permutation. In 2005, there was a large race riot between Asians (primarily Pakistani) and blacks in Birmingham. Although the ostensible cause of the riot was the alleged rape of young girl, sociologists speculate that the underlying animosities between the groups stem from the economic
Britain, Blacks in competitions between these underprivileged minority groups. Asian and black communities must compete for the same limited social resources: government subsidized housing, jobs, and community projects. Although it is common in Britain to refer to myriad groups as “black” and “non-white” (people of African, Caribbean, Pakistani, and Indian backgrounds, for example), these race riots demonstrate that many members of these groups do not see themselves united. CONTEMPORARY STATISTICAL SNAPSHOT. Statistics show that 8 percent of the population in England is considered nonwhite: 2.3 million identifying as Asian, 1.1 million identifying as African or Caribbean, and 1 million identifying as mixed race. Despite this fact, only 2.3 percent of members of Parliament come from minority groups. Two-thirds of the black population in England lives in the poorest areas of the country, and blacks are much more likely than whites to live in low-income housing (1/2 of black Caribbeans vs. 1/5 of whites). Black Britons are also three times more likely to be unemployed as white Britons. In addition, the British prison system is dominated by minority populations (65 percent). Major cities like London (in which two boroughs have a minority white population), Birmingham, Leicester, Bradford, and Manchester have become extremely diverse, but there are still large areas in Britain that are still all white (primarily the northeast and southwest of England). See also: Black British; Black History Month; British Army, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Glasgow Race Disturbances (1919); Literature, Blacks in British; Notting Hill Carnival; Slave Trade, British; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Baker, Houston. Black British Cultural Studies: A Reader. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996; Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500–1850 (Online Exhibit from the British National Archives): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/ pathways/blackhistory/; Duffield, Ian. “Identity, Community and the Lived Experience of Black Scots From the Late Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries.” Immigrants and Minorities 11:2 (1992): 105–129; Duffield, Ian, and Jagdish Gundara. Essays on the History of Blacks in Britain: From Roman Times to the Mid-Twentieth Century. Brookfield, VT: Avebury, 1992; Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984; Gerzina, Gretchen. Black London: Life Before Emancipation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997; Gerzina, Gretchen. ed. Black Victorians, Black Victoriana. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003; Hall, Kim. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995; Jenkinson, Jacqueline. “The Black Community of Salford and Hull, 1919–21.” Immigrants and Minorities 7:2 (1988): 166–183; Katznelson, Ira. Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the United States 1900–1930, and Britain, 1948–1968. London: Institute of Race Relations/Oxford University Press, 1973; Lorimer, Douglas. Class, Colour, and the Victorians: A Study of English Attitudes Toward the Negro in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1978; Phillips, Mike. London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain. London: Continuum, 2001; Scobie, Edward. Black Britannia: A History of Blacks in Britain. Chicago: Johnson Publishing, 1972; Walvin, James. The Black Presence: A Documentary History of the Negro in England, 1555–1860. London: Orbach and Chambers, 1971.
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British Anti-Slavery Society The British Anti-Slavery Society was founded in 1823. It was officially known as the Society for the Mitigation and Gradual Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Dominions, but informally it was referred to as the Anti-Slavery Society. Thomas Clarkson and William Wilberforce, both members of the former Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, were the two leaders of the new society. Although the trading of slaves had been against the law since 1807, hundreds of thousands of people were still in bondage in the British colonies. Conditions on the plantations had not improved and flagrant abuses still occurred. The aim of the new society was to pressure Parliament to pass legislation to protect slaves from inhumane treatment, along with a plan for gradual emancipation. The new group enlisted many of the techniques used by the former society. They circulated petitions, distributed literature through various media sources, held public meetings, and enlisted Parliamentary spokesmen to present their views. Their efforts led to the Emancipation Act of 1833, which called for an apprenticeship program that would allow a gradual transition to complete emancipation by 1838. With their initial goals accomplished, the society became fragmented by 1839, and some members went on to form other organizations such as the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society. The abolition of the slave trade had not of itself brought about the abolition of slavery. Contrary to what many had hoped, there had been no improved effect on the treatment of slaves. To the abolitionists, this was unacceptable and led the leaders of the movement to renew their efforts for complete emancipation. In the spring of 1823, a new impetus and direction for the antislavery movement led to the establishment of the Anti-Slavery Society. Quakers once again played a prominent role in the membership, along with veterans of earlier campaigns such as Clarkson, Wilberforce, Zachary Macaulay, William Allen, James Stephen, and Samuel Hoare. They were joined in the fight by Samuel Gurney, George Stacey, James Cropper, Thomas B. Macaulay, and Thomas Fowell Buxton. The society decided not to demand the immediate abolishment of slavery in the hopes that a gradual emancipation plan would have a better chance of being adopted by Parliament. Clarkson toured the country and encouraged the establishment of local auxiliary bodies that would contribute to the work of the larger group. Petitions and literature were circulated. The society published its own newsletter, the Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter, which first appeared in 1823. Buxton, who in 1824 took over from Wilberforce the role of leader and parliamentary spokesman, worked to motivate Parliament to take legal action against slavery. In 1823, he submitted a proposal to the House of Commons requesting gradual emancipation that would lead to complete abolishment. His motion called for all children born after an agreed date to be freed, together with protection for those who remained in bondage from egregious abuses. By adopting such a plan, Parliament would not be depriving the slave holders of their existing property, but merely of the increase on that property. Because the children were essentially the source of new slaves now that the trade was illegal, their freedom meant that slavery would eventually end. Parliament evaded the emancipation measures requested by abolitionists, but they did eventually pass proposals to improve the conditions for slaves
British Anti-Slavery Society that included more opportunity for religious instruction, flogging regulations, and directives to owners to keep families together on one estate. The resolutions inferred preparations should be taken for eventual emancipation, but the details needed for implementation were vague and indefinite. The measures were then sent to the colonial legislative bodies to be implemented as law. The colonists, however, claimed that they should have the jurisdiction over such decisions and refused to adopt them. Observing these developments, some of the younger members of the society realized that it was not enough for the organized abolitionists to appeal to Parliament alone for emancipation; they also needed to persuade the British public to assist in the cause. They felt that the movement’s leaders had been too conservative in their campaign efforts. Therefore a subcommittee known as the Agency Committee was created in 1831 with the goal to direct their attack on slavery through a grassroots effort. The committee employed salaried lecturers to tour the country to rouse public support for the emancipation of all the slaves in Britain’s overseas possessions. As public sentiment increased, prominent public establishments, such as churches and leading newspapers, began to actively support emancipation. The successful aggressive campaign led to the official separation of the committee from the Anti-Slavery Society as an independent organization in July 1832. Emancipation opponents launched their own attack against the abolitionists. They denied the truth of slavery conditions, questioned the abolitionists’ figures, and asserted the rights of property. Meanwhile, in 1832, the Parliamentary Reform Act changed the makeup of Parliament by augmenting representation from cities and counties, which were areas that had been heavily targeted by the abolitionists’ propaganda. The elections of December 1832 brought new members into Parliament supportive of emancipation. After further political negotiations, Parliament passed the Emancipation Act on August 29, 1833, which freed all slaves in the British dominions; however, it did not provide immediate emancipation as desired by the abolitionists. To get the bill passed, Parliament had agreed that the planters would be compensated financially for the loss of their property and that a system of forced apprenticeship would last for five years as a transition to complete emancipation. Although success for the abolitionists was gradual, slavery was essentially abolished by 1837 in the British colonies. After emancipation, abolitionists did not cease their activities altogether. Many continued, under the auspices of newly founded organizations, to attempt to ensure that the government made good on its bill of emancipation and to work toward universal abolition by their European neighbors and the United States. In 1839, the society transformed itself into an outward-looking organization, the British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, which would focus on abolishing slavery in other countries. See Also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, European; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Coupland, Reginald. The British Anti-Slavery Movement. 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass, 1964; Gray, Richard A. “Thomas Clarkson and the Anti-Slavery Society.” Reference Services Review 21 (Winter 1993): 53–66; Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005; Klingberg, Frank J. The Anti-Slavery Movement in England. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968; Temperley, Howard. British Antislavery, 1833–1870. Columbia: University of South Carolina Press, 1972.
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British Army, Blacks in the Before the nineteenth century, officers in the British army could employ blacks as servants. These slaves reinforced their master’s status within the army and wider society. Blacks were also frequently employed as military musicians under the reigning perception at the time that blacks were inherently musical. By the early nineteenth century, however, blacks were commonly employed in the British army as well as the navy. These black soldiers originated from various regions of the Africa Diaspora under British control, including Africa, North America, the Caribbean, and the British Isles. It seems probable that the army served as a place of refuge for escaped slaves or blacks whose freedom was in jeopardy. Many free blacks also enlisted for socioeconomic reasons. Despite the increase in the recruitment and employment of black soldiers, they rarely received promotions in rank. During the early nineteenth century, literacy was one of the key prerequisites for advancement. Although most blacks were as literate as their white counterparts, few blacks were promoted to positions of authority over whites. Many black soldiers fought bravely in British campaigns of the era, including the Napoleonic Wars in Europe. In the battle of Waterloo, for example, black soldiers George Rose, William Wilson, and William Affleck all received the Waterloo Medal. As the nineteenth century progressed, beliefs in racial difference and the decline in blacks’ social status in England prompted the decline of the use of black soldiers in the British army. By the middle of the century, segregation became the unofficial norm. The use of black British soldiers within Europe became undesirable. European powers, including Britain, became increasingly involved in furthering colonial empires, especially in Africa, and beliefs in racial difference were furthered by notions of scientific racism. Nevertheless, the British continued to use units composed of native soldiers to maintain order within its colonies. Therefore blacks were frequently used in British units in Africa and this practice continued until the era of World War II. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Boer War; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; New Imperialism; Sierra Leone; Slave Trade, British; Waters, Billy; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in; Zulu War. Further Reading: Alt, William E., and Betty L. Alt. Black Soldiers, White Wars: Black Warriors from Antiquity to the Present. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002; Holmes, Richard. Redcoat: The British Soldier in the Age of the Horse and Musket. New York: W. W. Norton, 2002; Kwamdela, Odimumba. Black British Soldier. Rev. ed. New York: Kibo Books, 1986; Morgan, Philip, and Sean Hawkins, eds. Black Experience and the Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004.
E. Agateno Mosca
Brown, James Jackson (1882–1953) James Jackson Brown was an Afro-Caribbean physician from Jamaica who spent most of his life in London. He was also actively engaged in the establishment of a black middle-class community and founded an all-black cricket team.
Brown Privilege Bill (1831) Brown was born in October 1882, the youngest of nine children in a wealthy Jamaican family. He grew up in the Caribbean (West Indies), began studying medicine in Canada, and came to London in 1905 to continue his studies and work at the London Hospital. He married Amelia “Millie” Green, the daughter of his landlord and a member of a well-established Jewish family. They had two sons. Once the news of his marriage had reached Jamaica, Brown no longer received financial support, and thus his family depended completely on his work at the hospital as well as his rich in-laws. In 1914, Brown passed his finals and opened a practice at a friend’s house. During World War I, he volunteered for the British army, but because he was refused his proper rank, he decided not to serve. In his leisure time, Brown had been playing cricket for the London Hospital, but soon organized a team called the “Tropics,” which was constituted exclusively of blacks from the empire (encompassing different ethnicities, including Asians). Later, Brown founded a team consisting solely of players of African descent: the “Africs” (renamed the “West Indies” in the late 1920s). The Africs Sports Club openly challenged white Britons and their racial prejudices. Its members were chosen on the basis of their cricket skills, as well as their ability to represent blacks. Brown set up a home with his family in Hackney at 63 Lauriston Road, where he also kept his practice. He was a popular and respected member of the local community. His reputation as a doctor allowed him to charge high rates and keep up an upper middle-class lifestyle. He attracted Jewish patients by stating his fees in English as well as Hebrew. Brown’s success as a doctor might have been furthered by the prejudices he strove to counter, namely the assumption that black doctors combined professional medical training with magic and sorcery. Nevertheless, the family had to deal with financial problems. Brown kept an “open house,” which became an important meeting point for people from the West Indies and Africa of different ages and backgrounds. They exchanged and obtained news from the Caribbean and new arrivals found support and help. The doctor also enriched the community’s social life by holding many parties and an annual dance. See also: Alcindor, John; Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Green, Jeffrey. Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain 1901–1914. London: Frank Cass, 1998; Green, Jeffrey. “West Indian Doctors in London: John Alcindor (1873– 1924) and James Jackson Brown (1882–1953).” Journal of Caribbean History 20.1 (1985): 49–77.
Katharina Gerund
Brown Privilege Bill (1831) The Brown Privilege Bill of 1831 granted equal political and social rights to free nonwhites in the British colony of Barbados. It was one of the first acts of its kind in the British colonies and came three years before slavery was abolished in Barbados. Even though the Brown Privilege Bill was less equitable than it seemed, it still marked an important step toward acceptance of nonwhites as equals. Later attempts to place restrictions on nonwhites led to increasing racial tensions on the island.
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Brown Privilege Bill (1831) Barbados was first settled by Europeans in 1627. It enjoyed a favorable location in relations to the winds and currents that carried ships between Europe and the Caribbean. English land policies promoted the development of large landholdings, but the economic conditions on the island did not stabilize until the 1640s. During that decade, Barbados became an important sugar producer. Because sugar was a laborintensive crop, large numbers of indentured servants from England were needed. The supply of white labor soon declined, and the planters turned to African slaves as an economical alternative. By 1670, nearly 43,000 of the 70,000 people in Barbados were slaves. Barbados became the first true slave society among the British colonies. Because Barbados was so small and the population was so dense, few opportunities existed for slave revolts. Those acts of insubordination that did occur were harshly punished. The most serious came on Easter Sunday, 1816. Slaves who had believed they would be freed at the beginning of the year rioted and set fire to white property. The disturbance was quickly put down and many slaves were punished. The free nonwhites had remained loyal to the system. Within a century, the number of nonwhites born on the island outnumbered the number of true Africans. The culture that developed had its roots in Africa, but it had strong influences in British society. Efforts were made to give all blacks religious and moral education. British values were generally accepted by all. A large number of free nonwhites established themselves in urban areas like Bridgetown as clerks, small merchants, and artisans. Some became wealthy enough to own slaves of their own. From the beginning, the white planters of Barbados exercised a large degree of autonomy. An appointed council helped the governor rule. In 1763, Parliament and the Colonial Office granted Barbados a legislative assembly, with membership and voting restricted to whites only. Restrictions included ownership of property and not being a descendant of nonwhites. Free nonwhites who met the property requirements petitioned the legislature for the right to vote. In recognition for their support during the Easter uprising, they received the right to testify in court in 1817. Rising sentiment in Britain against the morality of slavery forced the government to abolish the slave trade in 1807, followed by other laws to prevent the worst abuses against slaves. The victory of the Whigs dedicated to reform in 1831 made more farreaching reforms likely. The Barbados legislature hoped to forestall direct interference from London by passing the Brown Privilege Bill on November 22, 1831. The bill claimed to repeal all prior acts that placed restrictions on nonwhites that were not in effect for whites. The new law was hailed by liberals as a major achievement, but it actually was limited in its initial effects. Free nonwhites were allowed to vote only if they owned urban property worth 30 pounds. Existing voters, who were all white, needed property valued at only 10 pounds. Alternatively, blacks could qualify if they owned 10 or more acres. Only 75 nonwhites qualified as voters under the Brown Privilege Bill. Free blacks protested the discrimination they faced. After slavery was abolished on Barbados on August 1, 1834, the pressure grew greater for more equal treatment. Attempts by the white-controlled legislature to restrict black rights, such as refusing to admit freed men into the militia, were met with public protest. Planters also used
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806–1861) various tactics to continue to control ex-slaves. Even so, by the election of 1843, free blacks and their white liberal allies were able to win a significant voice in the legislature of Barbados, including electing Samuel J. Prescod, the first nonwhite, to the House of Assembly. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Beckles, Hilary. A History of Barbados: From Amerindian Settlement to Nation-State. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990; Handler, Jerome S. The Unappropriated People: Freedmen in the Slave Society of Barbados. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1974; Levy, Claude. Emancipation, Sugar, and Federalism: Barbados and the West Indies, 1833–1876. Gainesville: University Presses of Florida, 1980.
Tim J. Watts
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett (1806–1861) Elizabeth Barrett Browning was one of the most famous British poets of the Victorian Era and a staunch abolitionist whose family once owned slaves in the British colony of Jamaica. In a 1995 study of the romance between Elizabeth Barrett and her future husband, Robert Browning, historian Julia Markus announced a controversial hypothesis based on documentary evidence that both Barrett and Browning were of biracial descent from wealthy Jamaican plantation owners. Elizabeth Barrett Browning was born in 1806 in England into a wealthy family that owned an estate in Herefordshire, England. She was the first member of her family, which was part Creole, born in England for over two centuries, as her family had lived in Jamaica, where its sugar plantations provided the family with its fortune. Members of her family, including Browning’s grandfather, had supported the British abolition of slavery. Browning’s father had decided to move his family back to England while his revenue from Jamaica increased. While young, Browning devoted herself to the study of literature and classical studies, and became versed in several languages. She also developed an interest in Christianity and would later become active in Bible and missionary societies. By the age of 12, Browning composed her first long poetic work, The Battle of Marathon, which her father printed privately in 1820. Her youth, however, was marred by a horse riding accident that injured her spine, and the development of a lung ailment that left her with a chronic cough. Both of these injuries affected her for the remainder of her life. When she was only 20 years old, Browning published her first collection of poetry. At around this time, she met Hugh Stuart Boyd, a scholar of ancient Greek texts. He became the young Browning’s mentor, rekindling her fascination with classical studies. Shortly afterward, the slow abolition of slavery, a cause Browning supported, and mismanagement considerably reduced the revenue from her families’ sugar plantations in Jamaica. In 1832, Browning’s father was forced to sell the families’ English estate at a public auction to compensate for loses sustained in Jamaica. The family eventually moved to a house in London in 1835.
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Bubonic Plague and Blacks In the 1830s, Browning began to gain fame for her poetry and published some of her most significant works, including Prometheus Unbound (1833) and The Seraphim and Other Poems (1838), which received much critical acclaim. Among literary critics, Browning was hailed as a talented and original poet. She continued to live with her family in London, although her father began to send members of the family to Jamaica to assist with the plantations. Browning opposed such actions. Her physician advised her to relocate to the south coast of Devonshire, England, because of her poor health. During Browning’s stay there, her brother, who was also a close companion, drowned in 1840. On her return to London, Browning resigned herself to her room as an invalid. Browning benefited from inheritances from her grandmother and uncle, which made her financially independent. During the 1840s, she produced a steady literary output that won her much praise in both England and the United States. In her poetry, Browning came to address several social injustices, including slavery. She opposed slavery all her life, writing several poems and works, including The Runaway Slave at Pilgrim’s Point (1849) to support racial equality and the abolition of slavery in the United States. Such actions decreased her popularity in some circles in Europe and America, but her fame was significant in getting her message heard. In 1845, Browning began a correspondence with her future husband, Robert Browning, who had initiated their relationship by writing a letter expressing his admiration for her poetry. After their marriage, she and her husband moved to Italy, hoping that the warmer climate would benefit her. In Italy, Browning gave birth to a son and continued a steady literary output until her death in 1861 from complications from a cold. The Sonnets from the Portuguese (1850), which includes the famous opening lines, “How do I love thee? Let me count the ways!”; Casa Guidi Windows (1851), which supported the Italian Risorgimento; and Aurora Leigh (1856), which portrays male domination of women and is regarded as an early piece of feminist literature were all written during this period. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Markus, Julia. Dared and Done: The Marriage of Elizabeth Barrett and Robert Browning. New York: Alfred A Knopf, 1995; Stauffer, Andrew. “Elizabeth Barrett Browning’s Re-visions of Slavery.” English Language Notes 34 (1997): 29–49; Stone, Marjorie. Elizabeth Barrett Browning. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995.
Eric Martone
Bubonic Plague and Blacks The Bubonic Plague spread throughout Europe during the fourteenth century. A high number of the European population died as a result of the disease, causing a shortage of labor throughout the Mediterranean. Aggressive merchants took advantage of the situation by increasing the sale of slaves, whose price rose dramatically as demand increased. The Bubonic Plague, called by contemporaries the Black Death because of the way it discolored the bodies of those inflicted with the disease, followed the trade routes
Bug-Jargal (1820) from Asia into Europe. The disease was likely spread by the fleas on the rats aboard trading vessels. The disease first broke out in Europe in Sicily in 1347 and spread to the other trading cities in northern Italy before spreading to France, Spain, and northern Europe. The Bubonic Plague greatly reduced the supply of workers everywhere in Western Europe. Consequently, the demand for slaves soared. Merchants imported slaves from a variety of locations, including Africa, the Balkans, Constantinople, Cypress, Crete, and other locations on the Black Sea. Slaves were taken randomly from conquered people, regardless of race or ethnicity. As a result, slaves imported to Western Europe were composed of groups from Eastern Europe (Russians, Greeks), Central and Western Asia (Tatars, Circassians, Georgians, Iranians), as well as other Asians and Africans. By the late fourteenth century, the possession of slaves emerged as a status symbol. Consequently, few wealthy families, particularly those in major trading cities, lacked slaves. Slaves were often used as part of dowries, were accepted as fees for medical treatment, and even served priests. Slavery was not without precedent in Europe during the fourteenth century. As early as the twelfth century, the Spanish had developed a thriving slave market composed of the sale of Muslim captives from Africa and Asia. Furthermore, collective plantation slavery had already been established in the Eastern Mediterranean on Cypress and Crete, and in parts of Africa such as the Sudan. Slave owners had complete control over their slaves. Slaves were expensive, often costing the same price as the wages paid to a free servant over several years. Considering that a slave would provide service for his or her entire lifetime, however, elites felt that the slaves were worth the price. Africans were among the worst treated of the slaves in Western Europe; however, slaves were generally accepted as members of the household. Masters frequently fathered children among their female slaves, usually adopting the children from such unions and raising them as their heirs, if necessary. See also: Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic. Further Reading: Byrne, Joseph P. The Black Death. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2004; Huppert, George. After the Black Death: A Social History of Early Modern Europe. 2nd ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998.
Eric Martone
Bug-Jargal (1820) Bug-Jargal is a historical novel by French writer Victor Hugo (1802–1885) published in its first version in May–June 1820 as a serial in Le Conservateur littéraire. It was later published anonymously as one volume in February 1826 in Paris, after considerable revisions and expansions carried out in 1825. The definitive intrigue goes as follows: Pierrot, a black slave on a Saint Domingue plantation in 1791, is in love with Marie, his white master’s daughter, who is engaged to a French officer, Léopold d’Auverney. The latter goes in search of Marie, who has been kidnapped during a slave revolt that erupted on the very day as their wedding. Pierrot has concealed Marie to save her from a certain death. Captured by the insurgents,
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Bug-Jargal (1820) d’Auverney is rescued from the ferocious Georges Biassou and the frightful Habibrah by the leader of the insurgents, Bug-Jargal (who is none other than Pierrot). In fact, Bug-Jargal had previously been made prisoner by the French but was freed on his word to help d’Auverney, to whom he owes his life. When, as promised, Bug-Jargal returns to the French camp, he is executed by the French sergeant Thadée, who believes that his leader, d’Auverney, has perished. D’Auverney adopts the black leader’s dog, Rask. Bug-Jargal is a visionary novel of adventures set amid a historical event, the revolt of blacks on Saint Domingue (now Haiti) in 1791. The Haitians had their great hero, nicknamed the “Black Napoleon,” in the person of Toussaint L’Ouverture (about whom Alphonse de Lamartine, a French Romantic writer and politician, wrote a play in 1850). Napoleon Bonaparte himself, as First Consul of France, was defeated by the former slaves of Haiti, who obtained their independence in 1804, the year of Napoleon’s coronation as French emperor. In 1825, the French king, Charles X, finally recognized Haiti’s independence. The French expected fabulous commercial profits from the former colony’s sugar supply and wanted to indemnify the dispossessed colonists. It is in this context that Hugo refashioned his work and filled it with new considerations, while adding to the descriptions and complicating the gripping contradictions. The first version presented itself as a short story focused on the military, but the 58 chapters of the new version see the apparition of the terrible figure of Habibrah and the further development of Biassou’s character, a caricature aping European power, but at the same time revealing the violent nature of power. In the new text, Hugo insists on colonial dependence and on the realities of repression, while also introducing a love story. Habibrah, ex-buffoon of Léopold’s uncle, brings to the new text the satanic outburst of his vengeful hatred in a narrative filled with dramatic surprises, where Hugo multiplies the melodramatic artifices and the hyperbolic clichés while, at the same time, developing significant antitheses. The love of a black for a white; the friendship and rivalry between a black and a white; the opposition of the quasi-giant Pierrot and the dwarf Habibrah, of good and evil, of the servile condition of Bug-Jargal with that of his status as son of an African king—everything conspires to dramatize the fiction. D’Auverney and Bug-Jargal capture and save each other and outdo each other in magnanimity. Here is a novel stressing faithfulness and purity (the heroes know only of love through kisses and Bug-Jargal dies a virgin), the tragic sentiment of life (d’Auverney seeks his soul’s rest in a warrior’s death), and Manichean confrontations (the dark villains Biassou and Habibrah are opposed to the luminous figures of the heroes, Bug-Jargal and d’Auverney). Bug-Jargal may be opposed to another figure of the black in nineteenth-century French literature, Atar-Gull, the eponymous hero of the novel of Eugène Sue (1804–1857) published in 1831, who hates his master and provokes his ruin while giving every appearance of devotion. It is also possible to compare Hugo’s description of the Haitian slave revolt to the one given in 1902 by Hugues Rebell (1867–1905) in Les Nuits chaudes du Cap-Français. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Balzac, Blacks in the Works of; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Georges (1843); Haitian Revolution for Independence; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Mirza (1795); Ourika (1823).
Bullard, Eugene (1894–1961) Further Reading: Cook, Mercer. “The Negro in French Literature: An Appraisal.” The French Review 23:5 (March 1950): 378–388; Grossman, Kathryn. The Early Novels of Victor Hugo: Towards a Poetics of Harmony. Geneva: Droz, 1986; Hugo, Victor. Bug-Jargal. ed. and trans. Chris Bongie. Peterborough: Broadview Press, 2004; Raser, Timothy. “Victor Hugo’s Politics and Aesthetics of Race in Bug-Jargal.” Romantic Review 89:3 (May 1998): 307–319.
Gérard Gengembre Translated by Pierre H. Boulle and Eric Martone
Bullard, Eugene (1894–1961) Eugene Jacques Bullard, the son of an African American slave, became a famous boxer in Europe, a member of the French Foreign Legion and Lafayette Flying Corps during World War I, a French nightclub owner, and a French spy during World War II who later fled France from the occupying Nazi German forces. During his life, Bullard received 15 French war medals. Bullard was born in Georgia in the United States in 1894. His father was a former African American slave and his mother was a Creek Amerindian. While a young man, Bullard, tired of the racial discrimination that he faced growing up in the United States at that time, stowed away on a ship headed for Britain. In Britain, Bullard became a boxer and worked in a music hall. During a visit to Paris, he decided to move there. After the outbreak of World War I (1914–1918), Bullard decided to join the French Foreign Legion. He was wounded in 1916 and received the Croix de Guerre. Bullard then transferred to the famous Lafayette Flying Corps (or Lafayette Escadrille), a squadron in the French Air Force composed mostly of American volunteer pilots. In August 1917, he was eventually assigned to SPA 93, flying more than 20 missions during his tenure there. In 2006, the Hollywood film Flyboys, which focused on the Lafayette Flying Corps, depicted a character based on Bullard named Eugene Skinner, played by British actor Abdul Salis. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, the U.S. Army Air Force established a board to recruit American pilots from the Lafayette Flying Corps. Bullard attempted to join the American forces, but was rejected because of his race; blacks were barred from flying in the American service at that time. After quarreling with another officer while off duty, Bullard was discharged from the French Air Force. He was subsequently transferred in 1918 to the French infantry, where he served until the war’s conclusion. After World War I, Bullard remained in France. He began working at nightclubs in Paris and eventually opened his own nightclub. Bullard’s nightclub activities introduced him to many famous African Americans in France at the time, including Louis Armstrong and Josephine Baker. Bullard also married an aristocratic French woman and had two children with her before the couple divorced. After the outbreak of World War II (1939–1945), Bullard, who knew German, accepted a French request to spy on Germans frequenting his Parisian nightclub. Nazi Germany soon occupied most of France after its 1940 invasion, however, and Bullard
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Bullard, Eugene (1894–1961) fled south with his daughters. In Orléans, he participated in an armed defense of the city, receiving a spinal wound in the process. Bullard then managed to escape to Spain via the assistance of another French spy. In July 1940, Bullard decided to return to the United States. In the United States, Bullard, who never fully recovered from his spinal injury, was an unknown and had to work in a variety of meager positions to support his family. Eventually, he attempted to reclaim his nightclub in Paris, but it had been destroyed during the Nazi occupation. He did receive a financial settlement for his property from the French government. With his money, Bullard bought an apartment in New York City. In New York, Bullard worked as an elevator operator. Although Bullard continued to remain in obscurity in the United States until his death, the French government continued to honor him. In 1954, the French government selected Bullard, along with two Frenchmen, to light the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe. In 1959, Bullard became a knight of the Legion of Honor. During his funeral in 1961, he was buried with full military honors by French officers. In 1994, the United States Air Force, in recognition of its former racism, posthumously commissioned Bullard as a second lieutenant. See also: Britain, Blacks in; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Jazz, European Reception of; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Richmond, Bill; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Carisella, P. J., James Ryan, and Edward Brooke. The Black Swallow of Death: The Incredible Story of Eugene Jacques Bullard. Boston: Marlborough House, 1972; Lloyd, Craig. Eugene Bullard: Black Expatriate in Jazz Age Paris. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Eric Martone
C Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from In the Judeo-Christian tradition, Cain, the son of Adam and Eve, murdered his brother Abel. Consequently, in the Book of Genesis, as punishment for his actions, God curses Cain and places a mark on him. There is no consensus among biblical scholars on what the “curse” and “mark” were, or their relation to one another. During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries in Europe and America, it was commonly believed that the “mark,” which was interpreted as having black skin, was part of the “curse.” Consequently, blacks, as descendants of Cain, were cursed by God. Europeans used the interpretation of blacks as Cain’s cursed descendants to find a biblical justification to racism, bans on interracial marriage, and the enslavement of Africans. The curse was also used as a way to explain why different races existed. The racial implications of this interpretation of Cain’s story from Genesis are related to those deriving from the curse of Ham, which was another theory derived from the Bible to support that being black was a curse from God. The two curses have often been conflated over the course of history. Although it was believed that being black was a curse, many theologians believed that blacks could be saved by converting to Christianity. Consequently, under this view, slavery was a positive experience because it led to the exposure to Christianity and the salvation of the soul. This view was even shared by some former slaves caught up in their conversion to Christianity. A famous literary reference to the mark of Cain as black skin derives from a poem by eighteenth-century poet Phillis Wheatley, a former African slave. In 1773, she wrote, “Remember Christians, Negroes black as Cain, May be refined and joined the angelic train.” Jacobus Capitein, another former African slave, who received a doctorate from a university in the Netherlands during the eighteenth century, held a similar view. He wrote a dissertation defending slavery as a path to Christian redemption and European civilization.
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Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) The racial interpretations of Cain’s curse and mark have been discredited since the mid-twentieth century. Currently, all major Jewish and Christian denominations, as well as mainstream European and American society, reject any racial interpretations of the curse and mark of Cain. See also: Age of Exploration; Benedict the Moor, Saint; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gall, Franz Josef; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Missionaries in Africa, European. Further Reading: Felder, Cain. Race, Racism, and the Biblical Narratives. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress Publishers, 2002; Frye, Northrop, and Jay Macherson. Biblical and Classical Myths: The Mythological Framework of Western Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004; Goldenberg, David. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003.
Eric Martone
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) was a protest initiative in Britain during the 1960s and 1970s meant to unite the minority immigrant community and its white supporters to eliminate racism. The initiative was led by the British Labour politician and civil rights campaigner Lord David Pitt, the first (and only) president of CARD. Pitt (1913–1994) was born in the British West Indies (Caribbean). He won an overseas scholarship in the 1930s to attend the University of Edinburgh in Scotland. After his graduation, Pitt returned to the West Indies, where he began his practice in medicine. In the 1940s, he helped found and later presided over the West Indian National Party, which advocated Trinidad’s independence within a West Indian federation. Pitt traveled to Britain to lobby unsuccessfully for independence. He then settled in England and established a medical practice there. In the 1950s, Pitt emerged as a campaigner for civil rights for the growing black British population. He believed in fighting racism from within the existing political system. In 1959, he became the first West Indian to run for a seat in Parliament by unsuccessfully campaigning to represent the London district of Hempstead. In 1961, however, he won a seat in London’s city government, the London County Council, as the representative of the Hackney district. In 1964, the London County Council became a part of the Greater London Council. Pitt presided as its deputy chair (1969–1970) and later as its first black chair. He helped pave the way for the multicultural policies for which the Greater London Council became known. In 1970, he again unsuccessfully campaigned for a seat in Parliament. In 1975, however, he was granted a peerage as Lord of Hempstead and a seat in the Parliamentary House of Lords. As a member of Parliament, Pitt worked for racial equality and the improvement of Britain’s urban communities. In the 1960s and 1970s, Pitt helped organize black immigrants to improve social relations between races. One of the most notable efforts was CARD, which was founded on the encouragement of African American civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. CARD succeeded in lobbying for the race-relations bill in Parliament. CARD lawyers used the fair-employment practices and fair-housing laws then enacted in many states within the United States as models.
Campbell, Naomi (1970–)
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See also: Abbott, Diane; Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Grant, Bernie. Further Reading: Heineman, Benjamin. The Politics of the Powerless: A Study of the Campaign Against Racial Discrimination. London: Institute of Race Relations/Oxford University Press, 1972.
Eric Martone
Campbell, Naomi (1970–) Naomi Campbell, a black British supermodel, actress, musician, and entertainment personality, was born in England in 1970 to parents of Afro-Caribbean and Chinese descent. In the late 1970s, Campbell began her career in the field of entertainment. As a child, she appeared in the music video for Jamaican musician Bob Marley’s song, “Is This Love?” In 1982, she appeared in the music video for the British pop band Culture Club’s song “I’ll Tumble 4 Ya.” As a teenager, Campbell was spotted by modeling agent Beth Boldt. Campbell soon became a fulltime model and signed with Elite Model Management. Campbell began as a catwalk model, but her career soon took off during the 1980s. She was hired for numerous high-profile advertising campaigns for internationally known fashion and design companies. She was featured on the cover of countless fashion magazines, including Elle in 1986 and Vogue Paris in 1988. She was the first black model to appear on the cover of Vogue Paris, Vogue UK, Vogue Nippon, and Time Magazine. Campbell was at the peak of her modeling fame in the early 1990s, alongside models Cindy Crawford, Claudia Schiffer, Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, and Kate Moss. Campbell’s celebrity status gained her roles in several musical videos. In 1990, she had a major role in British pop music star George Michael’s video for his song “Freedom! ’90.” In 1992, Campbell appeared in American pop music star Madonna’s video for “Erotica.” She appeared in numerous other videos for such African American musical artists as Michael Jackson, Jay-Z, P. Diddy, The Notorius B.I.G., Naomi Campbell during a brief news appearance Prince, and Usher. In the 1990s, she also ap- for which reporters had to wait three hours in peared in several films, including Cool as Ice Warsaw, Poland, 2006. AP / Wide World Photo.
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Capitein, Jacobus (1717?–1747) (1991), Ready to Wear (1994), Miami Rhapsody (1995), To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything! Julie Newmar (1995), Girl 6 (1996), and Prisoner of Love (1999). In 2002, she appeared in British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen’s Ali G Indahouse. She also posed for Playboy Magazine in 1999 and appeared in Madonna’s book Sex (1992). In the 1990s, Campbell branched out from modeling to other areas. She attempted to launch a music career with her debut album, Baby Woman (1995). The album was a critical and commercial failure in Britain, although it was successful in Japan and sold more than 1 million copies internationally. She has collaborated with musicians Toshinobu Kubota, Quincy Jones, and Vanilla Ice. In 1994, she coauthored a novel, Swan. In the late 1990s, Campbell also launched her own company, the Design House of Naomi Campbell. She has developed several fragrances for women. For many years, Campbell had a feud with African American model and entertainment personality Tyra Banks. In the 2000s, Campbell has been accused of, and arrested for, several physical and verbal altercations. Nevertheless, Campbell has been heavily involved in charity work primarily focused on the people and children of Africa. In 2005, she helped raise more than 1 million dollars to assist American victims of Hurricane Katrina. See also: Black British; Boateng, Ozwald; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Oldfield, Bruce. Further Reading: Campbell, Naomi. Naomi. New ed. New York: Universe, 2001.
Nicole Martone
Capitein, Jacobus (1717?–1747) Jacobus Eliza Johannes Capitein was a former black African slave during the eighteenth century who earned a doctorate from a University in the Netherlands. He became famous for his defense of the institution of slavery. Capitein was born in about 1717 in Africa and was enslaved at an early age. His owner, a Dutch sea captain, took him to the Netherlands, where he was eventually freed. With assistance from wealthy burghers, Capitein went to Leiden University in the Netherlands where he studied theology and learned several European languages. He was the first former slave to receive a degree in the Netherlands. While at the university, Capitein wrote a dissertation in which he actually defended slavery as the path to Christian redemption and European civilization. Consequently, he challenged most intellectuals of his era favoring abolition, and viewed slavery and Christianity as compatible, for freedom was spiritual rather than physical. The work is significant, for it is the first scholarly work by an African on slavery and seeks to unite the African experience with European thought. In 1742, he was ordained as a minister in the Dutch Reformed Church. The fact that Capitein had defended slavery gained him notoriety around Europe, and many Dutch churches invited him to preach. After 14 years in the Netherlands, Capitein returned to West Africa, where he worked as a missionary and ministered to employees of the Dutch West India Company based at Elmina on the Gold Coast. Many of Capitein’s sermons from this era still survive. He opened a school for Africans and mixed-race children at Elmina, which he
Castro Alves, Antônio de (1847–1871) ran from 1742 until his death five years later. There were as many as 45 children at the school during one period. See also: Amo, Anton Wilhelm; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Dutch. Further Reading: Bartels, F. L. “Jacobus Eliza Capitein, 1717–1747.” Transactions of the Historical Society of Ghana 4:1 (1959); Capitein, Jacobus. The Agony of Asar: A Thesis on Slavery by the Former Slave. trans; Grant Parker. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener, 1999; Kpobi, David Nii Anum. Saga of a Slave: Jacobus Capitein of Holland and Elmina; Ghana: Sub-Saharan, 2002; Prah, Kwesi Kwaa. Jacobus Eliza Johannes Capitein 1717–1747: A Critical Study of an Eighteenth Century African. Braamfontein, South Africa: Skotaville, 1989.
Justin Corfield
Castro Alves, Antônio de (1847–1871) Antônio de Castro Alves was a prominent Brazilian poet of the Romantic literary movement who fought for the abolition of slavery in Brazil. He was born in 1847 at Brazil. From 1862, he was educated at the Faculty of Law in Recife. There, he had an affair with Portuguese actress Eugenia Camara and became involved in the campaign for the abolition of slavery. Castro Alves wrote abolitionist poems, including Os Escravos (“The Slaves”) and A Cachoeira de Paulo Afonso (“The Waterfall of Paulo Afonso”). He read both poems at public meetings urging the ending of slavery. Castro Alves left Recife in 1867. He returned to his native Bahia, where he wrote his first play, Gonzaga. He then left Bahia and moved to Rio de Janeiro, where he joined the literary circle formed by José de Alencar, Joaquim Maria Machado de Assis, and Francisco Otaviano. He did not remain in the Brazilian capital for long, moving to São Paulo to study law. There he met many writers and politicians, including writer and jurist Rui Barbosa and politicians Joaquim Nabuco, Rodrigues Alves, and Afonso Pena (later president of Brazil). Heavily influenced by the French writer Victor Hugo, Castro Alves’s poetry tended to show the optimism that he felt at the increasing prosperity of Brazil and the new middle class emerging with an increasing social and humanitarian conscience. As well as poems, Castro Alves wrote commentaries and other works. His best-known works include Espumas Flutuantes (“Floating Foams”), Gonzaga ou A Revolução de Minas (“Gonzaga, or the Revolution of Minas”), Vozes D’África (“Voices from Africa”), and O Navio Negreiro (“The Slave Ship”). Many followed the theme of the inequality of slavery, urging for its abolition. In 1868, Castro Alves was shot in the left ankle, which resulted in the amputation of his foot. While convalescing, he contracted tuberculosis. In ill health, he returned to Bahia and died in 1871. He had long been a Republican and felt that a Republican democratic regime would be the government most likely to abolish slavery. Slavery remained in Brazil for another 17 years after his death. It was ended in 1888 when Princess Isabel, daughter of King Pedro II of Portugal, declared it was “extinct” by means of the Lei Áurea (“Golden Law”).
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El Celoso Extremeño (1613) See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese. Further Reading: Branche, Jerome. Colonialism and Race in Luso-Hispanic Literature. Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2006.
Justin Corfield
El Celoso Extremeño (1613) El Celoso Extremeño (“The Jealous Old Man From Extremadura”) is a tale by Spanish literary icon Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) that can be found in his Novelas ejemplares (Exemploray Stories, 1613), a collection of 12 short stories. Another version of the story, a one-act comedy, is entitled El viejo celoso (“The Jealous Old Man”) and was included in his Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses nuevos, nunca representados (Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes, Never Before Acted, 1615). “The Jealous Old Man From Extremadura” tells the story of an old miser, Felipe Carrizales, who had amassed a fortune in the Americas before deciding to settle down. He marries a much younger and beautiful girl. Out of fear that she will be unfaithful to him, Carrizales takes steps necessary to prevent being deceived. He isolates his young wife in a house that has no windows facing the street and has a lock on the door. Despite all these measures, however, a young, handsome man manages to seduce the old man’s wife. Carrizales returns home one day to find his wife in the arms of her lover. The old man forgives his wife and her lover, recognizing that he is more to blame for their actions than they are, and subsequently dies of sorrow over his errors. Isaac Bickerstaff, with Charles Dibdin, wrote the English comic opera The Padlock (1768) based on Cervantes’s work. In contrast to Cervantes’s tale, Bickerstaff and Dibdin centered the story on the old man’s black servant from the West Indies (Caribbean), named Mungo, rather than the old man himself. The opera premiered at Drury Lane and was produced numerous times in 1768 to 1769, including productions in Ireland. The opera was successful largely because of the popularity of the character of Mungo. After being published in 1815, the opera remained in circulation in the United States throughout the first half of the nineteenth century. The role of Mungo became one of the first comedic black roles in English drama and was at first played by a white actor in blackface, which is a style of theatrical makeup used to depict a racist archetype of those of African descent. Mungo was depicted as a musically inclined, hard drinking, stingy servant who spoke in an approximation of the dialect spoken by West Indian slaves. The old man beats Mungo with a cane to make the servant dance and sing on cue. Mungo, at least ostensibly, is obedient to whites, but when drunk or alone, he can become insolent. During the opera, he remarks that dogs lead better lives than he because they are sheltered and fed. He wishes he were dead and complains that he is constantly ordered around. Ira Aldridge, the great African American actor who gained success performing in Europe, played the role of Mungo in later productions in a more serious manner. See also: Literature, Blacks in British; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Boyd, Stephen F. A Companion to Cervantes’s “Novelas ejemplares.” Melton, UK: Tamesis Books, 2005; Cervantes, Miguel de. Eight Interludes, trans. and ed. Dawn Smith.
Central Europe, Blacks in New ed. London: Everyman Classics, 1996; Cervantes, Miguel de. Exemplary Stories. trans. Lesley Lipson. New ed. New York: Oxford World’s Classics, 1998; Cockrell, Dale. Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. 1997; Duran, Manuel. Cervantes. Boston: Twayne, 1974; Pappas, George R. “The Theater of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra: A Critical Bibliography.” Unpublished thesis, University of Texas at Austin, 1973.
Eric Martone
Central Europe, Blacks in The black presence in Central Europe, which goes back to ancient times, has always been limited and greatly punctuated by the expansion of the Roman, Ottoman, and Habsburg Empires, as well as by access to the trans-Saharan route of commerce with Africa, including the slave trade. Even with the migrant and refugee waves from the 1950s, black communities across the region today continue to be small at less than 1 percent of the nonindigenous population, with their politics and concerns oriented toward African homelands. The Roman Empire connected the Central European provinces of Noricum, Pannonia, and Dachia to the North African coast of the Mediterranean through a network of trade, cultural flows, and significant population movements. Tombstones of African legionaries and colonists from the first century c.e. onward provide the first written evidence of a Diaspora. Other archeological finds, such as the mosaic floors of the city of Aquincum (Óbuda), depict black people in the contexts of local civil life. Meanwhile, the still preserved shrine dedicated to the Egyptian goddess Isis at Savaria (Szombathely) indicates one of the northernmost African religious influences. In the Middle Ages, a series of Crusades to the Holy Land (1095–1272) and against the Ottoman Empire (1396–1456) resulted in a number of black captives taken to royal and aristocratic courts. Such blacks at court provide the early literary stereotypes of Moors, although little else is known about them. The fourteenth- to seventeenthcentury expansion of the Ottoman Empire took the borders of the Islamic world, which included much of North and West Africa, into the very heart of the kingdom of Hungary and to the neighborhood of the Habsburg, Venetian, and Russian realms. According to Istanbul records, the Ottoman army may have been the most significant vehicle of temporary black movement to the region in this era, fielding up to 100,000 soldiers of African origin during its nearly annual campaigns. Although far less typical, there were also permanent settlements, such as those of Hausa troops from presentday northern Nigeria, whose descendants were known to live in the former Yugoslavia continuously until the 1990s. The long period of Ottoman rule, which lasted into the eighteenth century, meant that besides the army public administration, trading Diasporas and the civil population too came to reflect the diversity of one of the largest empires. Camel caravan routes expanded all the way to Buda, and more infamously, the trans-Saharan slave trade also included Central Europe among its northern destinations via the Mediterranean. This trade, however, waslimited to mostly young African boys to supply pages and servants of royal or aristocratic courts, including those of the Russian Empire. Abraham
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Central Europe, Blacks in Hannibal, great-grandfather of the Russian poet Alexander Pushkin, arrived to the court of the tsar in 1696 by the typical route through Walachia and Moldova. While in servitude, the black courtiers’ subsequent free status in Europe is indicated by allowance notes, property acquisitions, and numerous marriage records involving local women, even from the nobility and gentry. The career of Mmadi Make, the best known Central European black, better known under the name Angelo Soliman (1721–1796), illustrates possibilities for exceptional social mobility. A wealthy man in the service of the Czech princes, Soliman learned Latin, Italian, Czech, German, and French and was also known as a brilliant mathematician. Accepted by high society, he became a member of the same freemasons’ lodge as composers W. A. Mozart and J. Haydn. Soliman also befriended Hungarian author F. Kazinczy, was a confidant of the reform-minded Emperor Joseph II, and was finally married to a general’s sister by Archbishop Migazzi in Vienna’s St. Stephen’s Cathedral. As much an object of curiosity as of envy, his dead body was ordered stuffed and placed in a natural history exhibit by the next emperor, Franz II. A great number of less privileged involuntary servants also appear in Austrian and Hungarian documents, as the reconquest of Hungary (1683–1689 and 1714–1718) yielded a large number of Ottoman captives and deserters, who were in turn sold at increasingly deflated prices to even bourgeois households, or were simply granted to church and charitable institutions free of charge. A 1704 print lamenting the public hanging of Jacob Bock from the Congo testifies that, in an age of continuous wars and distrust of foreigners, Africans in particular in the Habsburg realms suffered and were often sentenced arbitrarily. Cultural assimilation and adopted names, such as Anton Studericus, Hans Hirsch, or Joseph Mahlitzky, mask the historical record of their small community and the ordinary black experience. During the nineteenth century, Central Europeans formed their impressions of Africa and blacks less on direct experience than on literary mediation. The African Diaspora of unbalanced gender proportions was shrinking in numbers as the Ottoman Empire’s influence receded and the slave trade became outlawed in Europe during and after the wars of the French Revolution. The limited examples of new black influx largely account for the dozens of Viennese students sent by Mohammad Ali, the modernizing viceroy of Egypt and the Sudan, as well as the occasional visiting protégées of especially Catholic missionary societies. Seeing a parallel in their fate after suppressed uprisings and a failed Hungarian war of independence in 1848–1849, the educated classes of the subjected provinces paid surprising attention to the abolition of slavery in the United States. The 1852 translation of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin and the two 1853 tours of African American actor Ira Aldridge proved to be extraordinarily successful and became a focus of public discourse revealing contemporary attitudes toward Africa and blackness. Aldridge certainly became a celebrity, despite playing his mostly Shakespearean roles in English, which most in the audiences did not understand. Such curiosity with blacks as “exotic” led to a racist tradition that lasted into the twentieth century of the appearance of blacks as spectacles at freak shows, traveling circuses, or in comic music hall performances. Another extreme example of this form of racism was the horrid display of a South African San family in the Budapest zoo. Against such experiences, however, it proved a memorable event among Central Europeans when French colonial troops,
Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008) including many from African colonies, temporarily occupied southern Hungarian towns after Austria-Hungary lost World War I. The profile of the African presence was raised again during the cold war. The Soviet Union’s interest in the newly independent African countries led to the involvement of Soviet Bloc countries in modernization projects. Czechoslovakia and Hungary hosted technical and military advisers and hundreds of students of the applied sciences from Africa, mostly males, some of whom became naturalized citizens. Given the region’s wellpositioned, long-range airfields, injured soldiers were also flown to hospitals from conflicts such as the Ogaden War of 1977 between Ethiopia and Somalia. The post-cold war NATO membership of Central European countries witnessed the stationing of African American soldiers at bases in Central Europe, such as Taszár in Hungary. Today, the number of people of African origin is about 23,000 in Austria (with 16,000 residing in its capital, Vienna, alone). This concentration in the capital is typical for the region as a whole. From the 1980s onward, the precedent of temporarily admitting refugees of the 1956 Hungarian uprising was used to allow African refugees in Austria with the understanding that they would proceed to third countries. The Czech Republic, Hungary, and Slovakia (now also members of the European Union), and the Schengen Zone, are gradually becoming target, instead of transit, countries for migration (although they have less than 10,000 resident Africans altogether). This is a low figure when compared to the mass relocation of the region’s own minorities and especially the large number of Balkan war refugees in the 1990s. Recent public attention to the black community’s situation is only due to regrettable events, such as the 1999 murder of Nigerian Marcus Omofuma by police officers assisting his deportation, and a similar, but less widely reported, case of a person from Sierra Leone in Hungary. With the subsequent integration of a predominantly Nigerian, Ghanaian, Sudanese, and Sierra Leonean African Diaspora in Central Europe, political parties, such as the Austrian Social Democratic Party and the Green Party, endorsed black candidates in the 2001 municipal and national elections. The Daspora itself, however, focuses on community campaigns and identity politics following American examples, and benefits from the fact that most African countries established their representations in Vienna for the entire Central European region. See also: Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Kiesbauer, Arabella; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European; Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution; Roman Empire in Africa; Russia, Blacks in; Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Debrunner, Hans. Presence and Prestige, Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1979; Sauer, Walter, ed. Von Soliman zu Omofuma: Afrikanische Diaspora im Österreich 17. bis 20. Jahrhundert. Vienna: Studien Verlag, 2007.
Gábor Berczeli
Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008) Aimé Fernand Césaire was a renowned Martinican poet, playwright, politician, and author in Francophone and French literature. Of African descent, Césaire was born
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Césaire, Aimé (1913–2008) in Basse-Pointe, Martinique, on June 26, 1913. Although Césaire’s family was poor, his parents were devoted to the education of their children. When Césaire was a child, the family moved from Basse Pointe to Fort-de-France, the capital, so that Césaire could attend the Lycée Schoelcher. At the age of 18, Césaire went to Paris on a scholarship to attend the Lycée Louis-le Grand, later attending the École Normale Supérieure. Césaire then went to the Sorbonne. He studied Latin, Greek, and French literature. Césaire met other students of black African descent in Paris from the Caribbean, West Africa, and America. Among those whom he met were Léopold Sédar Senghor and Suzanne Roussi, a young poet. In 1937, Césaire married Roussi. The couple had six children in France. In 1939, Césaire returned to Martinique with his family and worked as a teacher at the Lycée Schoelcher. Two of his most significant students were future theorists Frantz Fanon and Édouard Glissant. Césaire later served as a cultural ambassador to Haiti for the Provisional French government. While in Haiti, Césaire gave lectures on French poetry. His first play, La tragédie du roi Christophe (The Tragedy of King Christophe, 1963), was inspired by the events of the Haitian Revolution for Independence and details the life of an early Haitian leader. During World War II, Césaire worked closely with French surrealist, André Breton. During this time, Breton inspired Césaire to use surrealism as a political tool. Césaire’s collections Les Armes miraculeuses (Miraculous Weapons, 1946), Soliel cou coupé (Beheaded Sun, 1948), and Corps perdu (Disembodied or Lost Body, 1950) contain most of his surrealist poetry. Césaire’s use of surrealism is apparent even in his earlier Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (Notebook of a Return to my Native Land, 1939). In Breton’s preface to the 1947 edition of Cahier, he described the work as “the greatest lyrical monument of the age.” With his wife and author René Ménil, Césaire co-founded the cultural journal Tropiques in 1941. After World War II, Césaire began to devote a large portion of his time to politics. A member of the Communist Party, Césaire took part in political activism to support the decolonization of the French colonies in Africa. In 1945, Césaire became mayor of Fort-de-France. He also served as a deputy for Martinique in the French National Assembly. In 1958, shortly after he withdrew from the Communist Party, Césaire founded the Martinican Progressive Party. Disillusioned by the French government’s failed promises of socioeconomic progress in Martinique, Césaire stopped speaking in Parliament in the 1950s and did not publish for several years. In 1993, he stepped out of the political arena. Césaire continued to serve as a political advisor in his native Martinique. He died in 2008. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Arnold, James A. Modernism and Negritude: The Poetry and Politics of Aimé Césaire. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 2000; Césaire, Aimé. Notebook of a Return to My Native Land. trans. Annette Smith, and Clayton Eshleman. Middletown, CT: Wesleyan University Press, 2001; Césaire, Aimé. Discourse on Colonialism. trans. Joan Pinkham and Robin D. G. Kelly. New York: Monthly Review Press, 2001; Davies, Gregson and Abiola Irele. Critical Perspectives on Aimé Césaire. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997; Scharfman, Ronnie.
Le Chat maigre (1879) Engagement and the Language of the Subject in the Poetry of Aimé Césaire. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1987.
Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard
Le Chat maigre (1879) Le Chat maigre (The Thin Cat) is an obscure work by the famous French novelist Anatole France (1844–1924), which was the pen name of François Anatole Thibault. Le Chat maigre was published initially along with another story, Jocaste (Jocasta), in 1879 and therefore stands as an early work, sometimes seen as the author’s first and overlooked book. Set in continental France (and mostly in Paris), Le Chat maigre tells the story of three “mulâtre” men: Mr. Godet-Laterrasse, a poor Parisian, who was born on the French island of Réunion; Alidor Sainte-Lucie, a wealthy lawyer from Haiti; and Remi Sainte-Lucie, Alidor’s son. Because he traveled a lot between Port-au-Prince and Paris, the elder Sainte-Lucie wanted his son, Remi, to be educated according to the French tradition. Consequently, he chose Mr. Godet-Laterrasse, who was currently out of work, as his son’s tutor. A fourth black character (appearing only in the second half of the story) is an older widower: the ex-general Télémaque, who had served for the Haitian emperor Soulouque in Port-au-Prince, before being exiled near Paris. The book’s title comes from the name of a Parisian bar, named “Le Chat maigre,” which displayed in its bay window an obscure painting showing a thin cat. In chapter five of the story, Mr. Godet-Laterrasse exposes his own ethnic theory about the superiority of the black race. He argues that blacks had lived for centuries without the influence of Christianity, which is blamed for blacks’ incapacity to avoid slavery. Mr. GodetLaterrasse explains that when his book is written, it will explain “the regeneration of humanity by the black race.” This story describes a few eccentric characters, blacks and whites, living in “La bohème” near Montmartre. Among the whites, we see a poet, a philosopher, a sculptor, a female bartender, plus (among the blacks) a tutor, and the young Remi Sainte-Lucie, who tries to become a painter. The latter becomes the central character: while his father is away in Haiti, the son fails his exams twice and therefore cannot obtain his baccalauréat diploma. He then decides to study painting as an autodidact. Remi also falls in love twice before suddenly following the woman he loves to Normandy. He leaves without telling anyone about his project. When the ex-minister returns to France from Haiti, no one knows where his son has gone. After a search, the ex-general, Télémaque, develops a plan to find him. In Le Chat maigre, the characters of black descent are either described by the narrator as “mulatto,” “creole,” “savage,” “gourmand,” “lazy,” or “negro.” Although he is black and without a “permanent job,” Remi Sainte-Lucie succeeds in seducing two different women: first Virginie, the older bartender of “Le chat maigre,” and later his pretty bourgeois neighbor, the young Jeanne Lourmel. By the end of the story, one can understand why the rich Alidor Sainte-Lucie has mixed feelings for his son, but he feels
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Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard (1763–1794) only contempt for Mr. Godet-Laterrasse. The reader also learns that the ex-general, Télémaque, is superstitious. Although this minor story brings innovative ethnic relationships in a French context (that could not have been possible during the nineteenth century in the United States), Le Chat maigre is not often quoted in the studies related to Anatole France. Later, the author became a member of the Académie Française in 1896 and received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1921. See also: France, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: France, Anatole. Jocaste and Le Chat maigre. Paris: Edition de Banderole, 1921.
Yves Laberge and Bénédicte Laberge
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard (1763–1794) Pierre Gaspard Chaumette, a politician during the French Revolution (1789–1799), made some of the most significant speeches in defense of the French abolition of slavery throughout the French Empire. Chaumette was born in Nevers in central France in 1763 and studied medicine. During the French Revolution, he joined the side of the revolutionaries and contributed anonymously to the pamphlet Révolutions de Paris. He was a member of the insurrectionary Paris Commune during August 10, 1792, and was delegated to visit prisons with full powers to arrest suspects. Chaumette was in Normandy during the September Massacres, however, when suspected counterrevolutionaries detained in Paris were murdered. Elected president of the Commune, Chaumette was involved in defending the municipality at the National Convention in October 1792. On the municipal elections of December 2, 1792, he was reelected and given the position of procurer of the Commune. Chaumette then took part in the attacks on the Girondists, a political faction, demanding that a Revolutionary army was formed and all traitors to the revolution be executed. In November 1793, Chaumette, who supported attempts to promote secularism, obtained a decree to close all churches in Paris. During his time in power, Chaumette managed to get corporal punishment abolished in schools and also introduced the system of public burials for paupers. He also put forward regulations to try to eradicate lotteries and brothels and to ban obscene literature. Chaumette is best remembered, however, for his attempts to end slavery. Such efforts followed his personal abhorrence of the slave trade after hearing about the terrible treatment of slaves throughout the world. In his famous speech on abolition, he declared: “Today, the alarm of eternal justice has sounded and the famous words are now pronounced by the organ of a powerful and good-hearted people: slavery is abolished.” Fourteen days after slavery was abolished in France and the French Empire for the first time on February 4, 1794, Chaumette made a long speech to the National Convention, highlighting the ethical problems of slavery and the slave trade, urging that the new French Republic should commit itself to ending slavery throughout the world. In spite of his arguments against slavery and his other liberal ideas, Chaumette retained the belief that women’s biological differences made gender equality impossible.
Christophe, Henri (1767–1820) Chaumette tried to help the radical Hébertists, a political faction that was being purged by Maximilien Robespierre, head of the Committee of Public Safety and de facto head of the French Revolutionary government. Robespierre turned on Chaumette, whom he had arrested. Chaumette was held at the Luxembourg Palace. He was tried, sentenced to death by a Revolutionary Tribunal, and guillotined on April 13, 1794. See also: Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Hunt, Lynn, ed. The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1996; Popkin, Jeremy D. “Race, Slavery, and the French and Haitian Revolutions.” Eighteenth-Century Studies 37 (Fall 2003): 113–122.
Justin Corfield
Christophe, Henri (1767–1820) Henri Christophe, one of the great leaders of the Haitian Revolution for Independence, proclaimed himself King of Haiti. He ruled for nine years until he committed suicide to prevent himself from being overthrown and captured. Christophe was born in 1767 in St. Kitts, in the Caribbean. He was brought to Saint Dominigue (now Haiti) as a slave. He worked in the restaurant of a hotel and then obtained his freedom. He served in the French forces during the American Revolution, serving as a drummer boy at the Siege of Savannah, Georgia in 1779. In 1791, Christophe joined the Haitian Revolution. By 1802, he had risen to the rank of general. At first, he fought alongside Toussaint L’Ouverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Four years later, he and Alexandre Pétion took part in the coup d’état that overthrew Dessalines. Christophe took over the northern part of the country, which became the “State of Haiti,” and Pétion took over the south, which was called the “Republic of Haiti.” While in charge of Haiti, Christophe reformed the government, the civil service, and the armed forces. He founded a navy and established a public education system. He helped with the codification of the legal system, which became known as the Code Henri. He established foreign relations with other countries and corresponded with learned societies in Europe. A keen admirer of King George III of Britain, Christophe himself harbored royal ambitions. In 1811, he made himself King Henri I. His only surviving son, Jacques-Victor Henri, became the prince royal of Haiti, his heir apparent. Henri I created a Haitian peerage that included 4 princes, 8 dukes, 22 counts, 37 barons, and 14 knights. There was also a new College of Arms. For himself, Henri I built six châteaux, eight palaces, and the Citadelle (also known as La Ferrière), the great fortress overlooking the palace at Sans Souci near Cap Hatien. King Henri was threatened by the people in south Haiti, and they sent soldiers to overthrow him. Worried about a coup d’état, in October 1820, Henri I shot himself with a silver bullet rather than face capture. He was buried within the Citadelle. His grandson, Pierre Nord Alexis, became president of Haiti from 1902 until 1908.
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Cinqué, Joseph (1815–1879?) See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature. Further Reading: Cole, Hubert. Christophe: King of Haiti. London: Eyre and Spottiswoode, 1967; James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1963.
Justin Corfield
Cinqué, Joseph (1815–1879?) Joseph Cinqué was the most prominent of the defendants in the Amistad case brought before the Supreme Court of the United States in 1840. The case increased international efforts by the British and American governments to end the trans-Atlantic slave trade, which was still being conducted illegally by some Europeans. Cinqué was born as Sengbe Pieh in 1815 in what is now Sierra Leone. He became a rice farmer and fathered three children before being captured by African slave traders in 1839 and taken aboard the Portuguese slave ship Tecora. The ship sailed for Cuba, where Cinqué and 52 others were sold to Spanish traders José Ruíz and Pedro Montez. These Spaniards took the slaves on a ship called the Amistad with the aim of taking them to a sugar plantation at Puerto Principe; however, the slaves on board staged a mutiny. Two of the slaves were killed, but the mutineers managed to kill the ship’s captain and cook, with two of the crew managing to escape. The slaves captured Ruíz and Montez and demanded that the ship sail back to Sierra Leone. The Spaniards, however, sailed the ship to the United States and it arrived off the coast of Long Island, New York, two months later. When the Amistad arrived in U.S. waters, some of the Africans went ashore at Montauk to find water and provisions. Lieutenant Gedney, commanding the USS Washington, saw some of them ashore and then intercepted the Amistad. The Africans were taken into custody, charged with mutiny and murder, and sent to New Haven, Connecticut, to face trial. Essentially, Ruíz and Montez claimed that the Africans were already in Cuba at the time of their purchase and were therefore the legal property of the Spaniards. At that time, it was illegal to capture slaves from Africa. As the slaves spoke only Mende, an African dialect, it was thought that they would not be able to put forward their case, but a translator was found and Cinqué became the informal speaker for the slaves. The slaves claimed that their capture and their subsequent sale to the Portuguese and transportation across the Atlantic violated several treaties. Their legal counsel and former President John Quincy Adams spoke strongly in their defense, arguing that the slaves had mutinied after being kidnapped and illegally sold. The incident threatened to create diplomatic problems between the United States and Spain. American abolitionists took up the cause and, in 1840, a federal court found that the original voyage across the Atlantic was illegal, and even though this was not on the Amistad, the subsequent mutiny was justified. On March 9, 1841, the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the point of view of the Africans and the slaves were freed. In 1842, Cinqué and his companions returned to Sierra Leone against the protests of U.S. President Martin van Buren. On their return, the ex-slaves lived in a local
Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century Great Britain Christian mission, but Cinqué established a company that conducted trade between the mission and the interior. He died possibly in 1879 and was buried as a Christian. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; African Diaspora; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Jones, Howard. Mutiny on the Amistad: The Saga of a Slave Revolt and Its Impact on American Abolition, Law, and Diplomacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987; Osagie, Iyunolu Folayan. The Amistad Revolt: Memory, Slavery, and the Politics of Identity in the United States and Sierra Leone. Bogart: University of Georgia Press, 2000.
Justin Corfield
Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century Great Britain Unlike South Africa and the United States, Great Britain did not officially use a color bar in the twentieth century, although an unofficial bar operated in many places under particular circumstances. Hence, the history of black civil rights in Britain is intertwined with the politics of labor, immigration, violence, and citizenship. For the greater part of the last century, Black British civil rights movements concerned themselves with African-descended populations, not just in Britain but throughout the world. Many black activists (often students and intellectuals) did not consider themselves permanent British residents and hence adopted a Pan-Africanist perspective on race issues. This was especially the case before 1945, after which point the black settler population in Britain climbed steadily. There was also no single, unified civil rights “movement” in Britain. Agitation for rights usually occurred around particular issues, like discrimination in housing or employment, antiblack violence, or immigration restriction. The issue-based organizations that resulted sometimes lapsed after a few years, when the problem had been resolved (for good or ill), or when charismatic leaders left the country or passed away. The first high-profile instance of black civil rights action in the twentieth century was the 1900 Pan-African Conference in London. Later, major cities, such as London and Manchester, hosted a succession of Pan-African Congresses in 1919, 1921, 1923, 1927, and 1945. Although their focus was explicitly international, the interests of black people in Britain was a subject of discussion. Black organizations, such as the Pan-African Association and the West African Students’ Union, coalesced around these conferences, often using them as forums to articulate particular goals or grievances. World War I brought a black labor boom to Britain, especially in the British army, the merchant marine, and chemical and munitions factories; the black population blossomed to about 20,000. When the boom turned to postwar bust and depression, the dearth of jobs affected black residents acutely and triggered white resentment toward their employment. Despite their status as British subjects, they were often treated as foreigners when it came to jobs and lodgings. In London, organizers of the 1919 Victory Peace March refused to allow black troops to participate. Port cities like Liverpool and Cardiff experienced antiblack rioting, as well as individual instances of white xenophobic violence; many seaman were repatriated, refused work on ships, or had their proof of imperial or British citizenship confiscated. In Cardiff, in 1933, the Colonial Seaman’s Association formed to protest these injustices.
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Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century Great Britain In the interwar period, black activism flourished because of the presence of a growing colonial student population and a dedicated cadre of radical intellectuals from Africa and the Caribbean (West Indies), including C.L.R. James, George Padmore, and Jomo Kenyatta. Their explicitly Marxist and anti-imperial politics were visionary and articulate, and they were particularly concerned with colonial history and events. Harold Moody’s distinguished League of Coloured Peoples, a less radical association promoting Christian morality and middle-class respectability, more successfully lobbied against instances of racial injustice in Britain itself, from the discrimination of black seaman to the Imperial Hotel’s refusal to grant lodgings to the famous cricketer Learie Constantine in 1943. In August 1925, Nigerian law student Ladipo Solanke, disgusted with the treatment and representation of Africans at the 1924 British Empire Exhibition, helped establish the West African Students’ Union. The Union aimed to provide a London base for West African students and to agitate against racial discrimination. Many of its members went on to positions of political and professional distinction in their home countries, eventually ushering in political independence. In 1946, the West Indian Students’ Union formed in London along similar lines. Britain’s color bar received renewed public attention during Word War II, when African American GIs were stationed throughout the country. British officials complied with the second-class treatment of African American GIs, which was mandated by the United States Armed Forces. British compliance was controversial, especially as Caribbean and African military personnel often received similar treatment in public places. Although many white Britons objected to such overt discrimination, however, they viewed interracial sociability with some alarm, especially between black men and white women. In such cases, both partners were subject to stigmatization—the former as sexual predators, and the latter as women of questionable virtue. White mothers were sometimes encouraged to give up their mixed-race children. In the postwar years, black people in Britain began to be viewed as permanent settlers instead of sojourners. In 1948, the British Nationality Act declared that any imperial or Commonwealth subject possessed full British citizenship. This legislation, combined with a British labor shortage and the tightening of American immigration regulations in 1952 (with the McCarran-Water Act), prompted the increasing migration of West Indians, or the Caribbean, to Britain, more than 200,000 by 1960. The influx of new settlers to London and other cities sharpened racist sentiment and xenophobic language on the street, in the British press, and in Parliament. The two most visible effects of this attitudinal shift were race riots in both Nottingham and London’s Notting Hill district in 1958, and the Conservative government’s passage of the first Commonwealth Immigrants Bill in 1961, which implicitly curtailed nonwhite entry and reclassified many black British citizens as “immigrants.” Through the 1950s and early 1960s, the organized response to British racism from the black community was resiliently optimistic; both black and white antiracists tended to ascribe bigotry to the ignorance of the white majority, and violent bigotry to an unreconstructed and irrational minority. Some thought that “educating” white Britons on the historical cultural connections between Britain and its colonies in Africa and the Caribbean would diminish the perceived “foreignness” of nonwhite residents and citizens. Accordingly, interracial organizations in urban areas attempted to improve
Civil Rights in Twentieth-Century Great Britain relations through education and social interaction. The British-Caribbean Association was founded in 1959 to promote mutual understanding and aid between the West Indies and Britain, as well as among settlers from different Caribbean colonies. It had branches in London, Birmingham, Liverpool, and Nottingham; but many smaller clubs, for instance the Willesden International Friendship Council and the Clapham Inter-racial Club, sprang up on a local basis. These groups experienced mixed success, although they received some favorable attention in the mainstream press. As white hostility spiked with the Notting Hill riots and the passage of the Commonwealth Immigrants Act, however, disillusionment with such tactics grew among black activists. When the Labour government further restricted immigration in 1965, this disillusionment was complete, as the black community had previously viewed Labour as its only champion in mainstream politics. Labour’s simultaneous passage of the first Race Relations Act, which outlawed public displays of racist invective, did little to conciliate its black constituents. Subsequent legislation further restricted colonial immigration in 1968, 1973, and 1981. The result was the creation of more independent black political and cultural organizations, which, like their prewar counterparts, tended to form around particular issues and to highlight the relationship among black struggles in Britain and the rest of the world. In this, Black British activism was much invigorated by the American-initiated Black Power movement. One of the most obvious illustrations of this influence is the Racial Adjustment Action Society, founded in 1965 by Trinidadian “Michael X” (Michael de Freitas, later charged under the Race Relations Act). These more independent and radical organizations became particular targets of the police, who often associated them with criminal activity. In the 1960s and 1970s, a culture of racial prejudice grew within the police force, resulting in the harassment of ordinary citizens, disproportionate police presence at black events (most notoriously the annual Notting Hill Carnival), the failure to prosecute white perpetrators of racist violence, and the wrongful imprisonment and abuse of black detainees. In 1979, police broke up a protest at a National Front rally and beat one young demonstrator to death. At the same time, a new generation of British-born black people was coming of age that was less likely to defer to the prejudices of white authorities. In April 1981, 15,000 black people marched 10 miles into central London to protest the police department’s handling of a Deptford house fire in which 13 black youths had perished in what was widely believed to be a racially motivated arson. When, shortly after, Brixton police began reprimanding and searching ordinary people on the streets, violent resistance broke out. Rioting quickly spread to several other cities including Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, and Bristol. The rioters were both back and white youths, united in opposition to the police, who after days of rebellion declared a ceasefire. The 1981 riots revealed the limits to which authorities could go in their treatment of racial minorities in Britain, and in recent decades, organized black activism around continued, institutional, or chronic discrimination in education, employment, and housing has become an acknowledged fixture in the British social and political landscape. See Also: Abbott, Diane; African Diaspora; Black History Month; Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks in the; Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD); Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Grant, Bernie; King, Martin Luther Jr.; Literature,
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Clitus of Macedonia (375–328 B.C.E.) Blacks in British; Malcolm X in London; Notting Hill Carnival; Pan-Africanism; Race Riots in Europe; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in; Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984; Gilroy, Paul. There Ain’t No Black in the Union Jack: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. London: Hutchinson, 1987; Hiro, Dilip. Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain. Rev. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1991; Paul, Kathleen. Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997; Runnymede Trust. The Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain: Report of the Commission on the Future of Multi-Ethnic Britain. London: Profile Books, 2000; Tabili, Laura. “We Ask For British Justice:” Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Amanda Bidnall
Clitus of Macedonia (375–328 B.C.E.) Clitus (or Cleitus) was one of the greatest Macedonian commanders under Alexander the Great. He was known as Clitus “the Black,” which distinguished him from Clitus “the White,” who rose to prominence after Alexander’s death. Nicknames at the time were often given based on one’s color or some type of physical characteristic, which has led some scholars to speculate that Clitus was of part African descent. This view is upheld by African American scholar W.E.B. Du Bois in The Negro; however, this interpretation is controversial. Clitus was the son of Dropides, likely a member of the Macedonian nobility. He may have assisted Philip II, Alexander’s father, in becoming king of Greece in 360 b.c.e. Clitus’s sister, Lanike, was wet-nurse to Alexander the Great. Clitus became an officer in the elite Companion cavalry under the command of Philotas, who was the son of Philip’s top general, Parmenion. Clitus accompanied Alexander in his invasion of the Persian Empire. During the battle of the Granicus River in 334 b.c.e., Clitus saved Alexander’s life by killing a Persian soldier about to strike Alexander. This caused Alexander to take a liking to Clitus, and when Philotas was accused of treason in 330 b.c.e. and was executed, Clitus was selected to replace him. Alexander, more cautious after Philotas’s treason, split the command of the Companions between Clitus and Hephaestion, who was Alexander’s closest friend and possible lover. During Alexander’s conquests, Clitus became satrap of Bactria and Sogdia. In 328 b.c.e., during a drinking party and conference of generals in Marakanda, Clitus made comments that angered Alexander. In a rage, Alexander threw a spear through Clitus, who died instantly. Once Alexander was sober, he was remorseful for his actions and even possibly considered suicide. Such actions began to turn Alexander’s generals against him and led to mounting pressure until Alexander began his return to Greece. See also: Aesop; Black Athena Controversy. Further Reading: Du Bois, W.E.B. The Negro. Holicong, PA: Wildside Press, 2005; Engels, Donald. Alexander the Great and the Logistics of the Macedonian Army. Berkeley: University
Code Noir of California Press, 1980; Fox, Robin Lane. Alexander the Great. New York: Penguin, 2004; Green, Peter. Alexander of Macedon, 356–323 BC: A Historical Biography. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992; Plutarch. The Life of Alexander the Great. trans. John Dryden. ed. Arthur Clough. New York: Modern Library, 2004.
Mark Cordery
Code Noir Several European countries, such as Spain and France, established codes for the regulation of blacks and black slaves. The Code Noir (Black Code) was a key element of the French legislation of the Ancien Regime regulating the status of slaves and freemen. It was developed by Jean-Baptiste Colbert during the reign of King Louis XIV (it was signed in March 1685) and, with a few modifications, it remained in effect until the French Revolution. The code was primarily enforced in the French colonies in the Caribbean, but it also served as a blueprint for the Louisiana Code. Compared with British colonial and later U.S. slave laws, the Code Noir was relatively liberal. Still, scholars remain divided on the extent of the code’s implementation and humanitarianism, with some suggesting that it had limited practical effect on conditions of slaves in the colonies. The code consisted of 60 articles, organized in thematic sections, that defined and regulated the status of slaves and freed men. The first eight articles strengthened the Roman Catholic Church’s position in the colonies and reflected Louis XIV’s general policy of “one king, one law, one faith.” The first article expelled all Jews from the French colonies, where they were not allowed to own property or slaves. In other articles, all slaves were required to be baptized and instructed in Catholicism, and all subjects were ordered to observe Sundays and Church holidays. In later articles, the code defined the condition of slavery and established harsh controls over the enslaved. Article 12 specified that children born from marriages between slaves were considered slaves, and if the husband and wife had different masters, the children belonged to the masters of the female slave, not to the master of her husband. Interracial sexual relations were regulated as well. According to Article 13, if a free woman became involved with a slave, her children would be free, but if the father was a free man and the mother a slave, the children would be considered slaves. A freeman, however, might marry his slave concubine in Church and thus legitimize and enfranchise his wife and children. Slave marriages required the consent of the master, who, in turn, was prohibited from forcing slaves to marry. Masters were responsible for burying deceased baptized slaves in designated cemeteries, but slaves who were not baptized were buried at night in a convenient field. Slaves had virtually no rights and were defined as movable property. They could own no property and could not appear as a party or admitted as a witness in court (Article 31). They could not work at any public office and were deprived of autonomous civil capacity. Under Articles 18–19, slaves were also forbidden to sell sugarcane and trade any valuable commodities, including fruit, vegetables, and firewood, except with the written permission of their master. Officials were to be appointed to supervise markets in slave produce.
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Code Noir Within the plantation economy, slaves were often a part to financial disputes between masters. Consequently, the code laid some regulations to protect the colonial economy, including prohibition to remove slaves from their plantation during debt litigation. The code, however, also sought to set some regulations to safeguard slaves. Thus, among other provisions, it specified that legally seized slave couples and children could not be separated (Article 47). The code is noteworthy for its provisions for manumission. Article 55 specified that masters age 20 and older were granted complete powers of enfranchisement, and freedmen could not be forced to work for former masters. Articles 58–59 stated that freedmen were considered citizens with full civil rights, but the practical application of these articles remains a topic of debate. Under the Code Noir, slaves were forbidden to carry any arms (Article 14 even outlawed carrying “large sticks,” except for hunting with masters) or to congregate, and violence against free persons was severely punished. Any violence against the master or his family was punishable by death. Minor offenses were typically punished by beating and branding. Punishment for fugitive slaves included cutting off ears and branding, but repeat offenders could be hamstrung or executed. Anyone giving refuge to fugitive slaves was subject to a heavy fine of 300 pounds of sugar for each day of refuge. Some articles were designed to provide minimal standards of care for slaves. Article 27 required masters to care for old or physically incapacitated slaves. Slaves were to be given weekly rations of 2 pounds of starches (manioc, cassavas or the equivalent) and 2 or 3 pounds of meat (salt beef or fish), and provided with two outfits of clothes per year. Torture and mutilation were outlawed, but Article 42 allowed masters to chain and beat their slaves with rods or straps. Masters and overseers who killed a slave were subject to criminal prosecution (Article 43), and abused slaves had the right to appeal to the royal procureur, the representative of crown interests in the Parlements. The code remained in effect for more than a century and was abolished when the French Revolutionary government outlawed slavery in 1794. In 1814, with the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the code was restored. It was finally discarded by King Louis-Philippe, who granted the civil rights of free people of color. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Déclaration pour la police des noirs (1777); France, Blacks in; Free Soil Principle; French Ministry of the Marine; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Blackburn, Robin. The Making of New World Slavery: From the Baroque to the Modern, 1492–1800. London: Verso, 1997; Brace, Joan. “From Chattel to Person: Martinique, 1635–1848.” Plantation Society 2:1 (1983): 63–80; Breathett, George. “Catholicism and the Code Noir in Haiti.” Journal of Negro History 73:1 (1988): 1–11; Code Noir (excerpts) [Online] Liberty, Equality, Fraternity: Exploring the French Revolution. 2007. Available: http://chnm. gmu.edu/revolution/d/335/; “Edit du Roi, Touchant la Polices des Isles de l’Amérique Françoise. Du mois de Mars 1685.” In Le Code Noir, ou Recueil des reglemens rendus jusquà présent. Concernant le Gouvernement, l’Administration de la Justice, la Police, la Discipline & le commerce des Negres dans les Colonies Françoises. Basse-Terre: Société d’histoire de la Guadeloupe, 1980.
Alexander Mikaberidze
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel (1875–1912)
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Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel (1875–1912) Samuel Coleridge-Taylor was a renowned biracial musician in England during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Coleridge-Taylor is best remembered for overcoming racial boundaries in order to produce some of the most renowned compositions in history. Coleridge-Taylor was born on August 15, 1875, in Croydon, England to an English woman, Alice Hare, and a father from Sierra Leone, Daniel Peter Taylor. ColeridgeTaylor’s father, who was educated as a physician at King’s College in London, found his race a barrier to a successful medical practice in England. He eventually left his family and returned to Sierra Leone. Coleridge-Taylor subsequently was raised by his mother and stepfather. Sources continue to disagree as to the amount of contact between Coleridge-Taylor and his father, with some citing little to no contact, and others asserting that he and his father maintained close contact. Coleridge-Taylor was raised among a highly musical family and received tutelage under Colonel Herbert A. Walters, whom Coleridge-Taylor met at church. He eventually enrolled in 1890 in the Royal College of Music, where he studied the violin. In 1892, he switched his studies to composition and became the student of famed composer Charles Villiers Stanford. During the early years of Coleridge-Taylor’s career, he composed a variety of pieces, including a Symphony in A Minor (1896), a Ballade in A Minor (1898), and his masterpiece Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (1898). These works catapulted him to fame, particularly Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, which, during his time, rivaled works such as Handel’s Messiah. Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, based on poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s poem “Song of Hiawatha,” reached great acclaim throughout the United Kingdom and was performed more than a few hundred times during ColeridgeTaylor’s life. On December 30, 1899, Coleridge-Taylor married Jessie Walmisley, a fellow classmate from the Royal College of Music. The couple had two children, a son, Hiawatha (1900– 1980), and a daughter, Avril (1903–1998). Both children were also musical and trained at the Guildhall School of Music. In 1895, Coleridge-Taylor started accepting teaching positions. He eventually became a lecturer at the Croydon Conservatoire. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, ca. 1905. Courtesy of He was also was a professor of composition the Library of Congress.
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Colonies in Africa, British at Trinity College of Music, the Guildhall School of Music, and the Crystal Palace School of Art and Music. As a result of the high acclaim of Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast, Coleridge-Taylor began traveling throughout the world to promote his compositions. Of particular importance were his three tours of North America (1904, 1906, and 1910). Coleridge-Taylor toured Detroit, Boston, Connecticut, St. Louis, Pittsburgh, Toronto, Chicago, and Washington DC. He also visited U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt at the White House during his tour in 1904. Coleridge-Taylor, often overworked, stressed, and financially troubled, died at the age of 37 from pneumonia on September 1, 1912. His wife, left penniless, was eventually granted an annual pension of 100 pounds. This demonstrated the profound effect Coleridge-Taylor had on society, despite his limited financial standing during life. He is commemorated today by various organizations including the Coleridge Ensemble of Massachusetts. See also: Bridgetower, George; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical. Further Reading: Berwick-Sayers, W. C. Samuel Coleridge-Taylor: Musician. London: Cassell, 1915; McGilchrist, Paul and Jeffrey Green. “Some Recent Findings on Samuel ColeridgeTaylor.” The Black Perspective in Music 13 (Autumn 1985): 151–178; Self, Geoffrey. The Hiawatha Man: The Life and Work of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Aldershot, England: Scolar Press, 1995; Young, Percy M. “Samuel Coleridge-Taylor.” The Musical Times 116 (1975): 703–705.
Dawn P. Hutchins
Colonies in Africa, British The most decisive event in Africa’s modern history was the Berlin Conference (1884–1885) organized by German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck to settle territorial disputes between competing European powers. The conference formalized the “scramble for Africa” and Europe’s partition of the continent, which left all but Liberia in the west and Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in the east under European political control. As one of the most influential European powers, Britain, along with France, received the lion’s share of African territory. Historians, however, have long debated the motives for British acquisition of African colonies, for there is little evidence that the value of trade ever warranted formal political control. Whatever the motives for conquest, British colonial rule in Africa was relatively short-lived. By 1965, all the British colonies had achieved independence from British colonial rule, with the exception of Southern Rhodesia, where a bitter war of independence preceded the assumption of black majority rule in 1980. BRITISH COLONIES. Britain acquired colonies in Africa for varied and complex reasons. In West Africa, fear of competition from other European traders on the coast, notably the French, led British merchants to seek the government’s intervention to forestall possible French action. Elsewhere, a conjunction of economic and political factors forced the British to take decisive action. Britain took the Cape Colony (located in the vicinity of the Cape peninsula in south Africa) from the Dutch in 1806 to protect the route to India; however, the presence of Dutch settlers made administration of the
Colonies in Africa, British colony extremely difficult. This was also the case in Egypt, where the problem was not white settlers, but an Egyptian nationalism, which permeated all sectors of society, especially the army. The opening of the Suez Canal in 1869 offered an alternative route to India and made protection of the Nile a primary political concern of Great Britain. Control of the Nile, or at least preventing other European powers from controlling access to it, informed British annexation of Egypt, the Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya in the late nineteenth century. Colonial conquest of southern and central Africa was precipitated by the actions of Cecil Rhodes, the British South African mining magnate and prime minister of Cape Colony from 1890 to 1895. Rhodes dreamt of an unbroken chain of British colonies stretching from Cape Colony to Cairo, uniting the African continent; but the activities of the Dutch settlers, who rejected British administration and had migrated from the colony to establish independent Afrikaner states in the late 1830s, threatened British interests. Anti-British, anti-imperialist, and anti-capitalist, the Afrikaners found a means of survival, as well as of agitating the British, with the discovery of gold on the Witwatersrand in the Orange Free State in 1886. . Britain fought two wars with the Afrikaners (1880–1881 and 1889–1901), the latter of which arose from Rhodes’s failed attempt to instigate British colonization of the Afrikaner states. In the end, Britain lost political control of South Africa in the postwar settlement, which saw the formation of the Union of South Africa in 1910, with Louis Botha, the Afrikaner war hero, as president. Northern and Southern Rhodesia were colonized in the belief that they might become a source of mineral wealth for the British. The serious problem of establishing effective occupation was resolved in the most practical manner, given the shortage of money and manpower. In 1886, the National African Company was given a royal charter to establish administration on behalf of the metropolitan power on the West African coast, becoming the Royal Niger Company. Trading companies such as these had already established infrastructure for managing trade, including agents on the spot familiar with the people and the environment, and an established working relationship with local ruling elites that could be translated into formal administration. The chartered company was the route by which the British established colonial occupation in east Africa through the activities of the Imperial British East Africa Company (IBEAC), which received its charter in 1888, and in southern Africa, where Rhodes’s British South Africa Company (BSAC) organized the pioneer column that conquered Northern and Southern Rhodesia in the 1890s. The system of administration that the British evolved for the African colonies was known as “indirect rule,” which made a virtue of the fact that the British did not have the human or financial resources to effectively govern their territorial acquisitions. Credit is given to Frederick Lugard, former IBEAC official who became the first governor of northern Nigeria, for this innovation. Lugard was able to persuade the emirs of the Hausa States to accept British overrule by promising to support the preexisting structure of sociopolitical control, thereby enabling the British to govern through the traditional authorities. There was, however, one fundamental problem with the principle of indirect rule that the British had to confront at the outset. Although many African societies before colonial rule had highly developed centralized political systems through which the British could indeed govern, there were many others in which political authority was more diffuse. The policy of indirect rule challenged
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Colonies in Africa, British these systems of sociopolitical organization by concentrating local power in the hands of a single native authority, or chief. Where the chiefs did not traditionally exist, the British appointed them by warrant, and because these men had no traditional authority, the people they were supposed to govern resented them. Even in areas that had traditions of centralized authority, colonial rule distorted the power of chiefs by exaggerating the extent of their political power. Chiefs were empowered by the state to collect taxes, dispense justice, impose fines, apprehend criminals, and maintain order and control. In the early days, when infrastructure was being established, they were also responsible for conscripting labor for public works projects and, in some areas for a brief time, for private employers as well. The fact that many chiefs abused their position, using labor service as a way of punishing enemies and rivals, and exploiting their political position to accumulate wealth at the expense of others, ensured that they would become the focus of nationalist agitation during the interwar years. THE COLONIAL ECONOMY. The economic objective of colonial administration was to establish self-sufficiency for the colonies, but on terms that specifically benefited Great Britain. Aside from providing markets for British-produced goods, the colonies were also important sources of cheap raw materials for Britain. Thus enormous energy was expended early on in establishing infrastructure for commercial activity in the colonies, such as constructing docking facilities and functioning ports, building railways to transport African produce, introducing the telegraph, and, most important, portable currency. All of these activities were to enhance export rather than internal trade. Economic policy focused on organizing and supporting capitalist penetration and exploitation of the mineral and agricultural resources. Labor laws were introduced that kept African wages artificially depressed and obscured workers rights. In the settler colonies, pass laws were introduced that restricted the movement of Africans between employers, limiting their work options and their pay. In southern and central Africa, large-scale capital dominated the mining industry at every level through monopolization and cartelization. Tanganyika operated a plantation economy that required significant capital investment, whereas in Southern Rhodesia and Kenya, where the government had encouraged significant white settlement, cultivation of high-value export crops was restricted to white farmers only. Cattle ranching and dairy farming were also the exclusive preserve of whites in these colonies, which threatened the cattle-keeping economies of the region, as white fear of cattle disease and theft led to laws to limit African livestock holdings. African producers were drawn into the colonial economy through government promotion of cash crops for export. In Uganda, the mainstay of the economy was coffee, tea, pyrethrum, and cotton, whereas palm oil continued to dominate the agricultural export trade of West Africa, although by the 1930s, cocoa had become a major export crop for the Gold Coast. To generate the resources needed to run the administration, colonial governments introduced individual taxation, which also proved to be an effective way of inducing otherwise reluctant African men to enter the wage labor economy. Hut tax was placed on each “hut” that a man owned and, in some areas, a “poll tax” was also imposed on adult men. Taxation created a need for cash that could be met only by engaging with an
Colonies in Africa, British employer and remaining in work long enough to earn the tax money. Wages freed unmarried men from dependence on their senior male kin by enabling them to acquire the resources to allow them to marry and establish households of their own. This explains why, during the interwar period, ever-increasing numbers of young African men joined the wage labor force, and also why, over the same period, mission membership rose. Literacy gave access to higher-status, nonmanual skilled positions that offered better wages, and because the mission schools were the sole source of education available to Africans, many joined the church. Contradictory views exist among historians about the impact of mission Christianity on African societies. European missionaries are credited with introducing literacy and providing rudimentary medical facilities, but mission teaching also challenged African attitudes toward marriage and kin obligations, which many believe contributed to the undermining of traditional ideas about social organization. Literacy also informed the rise of African political organizations during the interwar years, as Africans faced increasing economic and political restrictions. Although I.T.A. Wallace-Johnson from Sierra Leone helped to organize the first labor union in Nigeria in 1931, in most of the colonies, early political activism was localized and consequently asserted specifically parochial ethnic or class interests. Thus educated Kikuyu organized the Kikuyu Central Association in 1925 to push for the restoration of Kikuyu lands, although their claim to be representative of all Kikuyu was contested by the government-appointed chiefs. In Nigeria, the firebrand journalist Herbert Macaulay founded the Young Nigerian National Democratic Party in 1923 as a vehicle for promoting elite political aspirations. In contrast to the nationalist movements that would arise after World War II, the African political organizations of the interwar period were decidedly conservative in their aspirations. Unlike in North Africa, where a fully fledged nationalist movement agitated for the overthrow of British rule, political movements in sub-Saharan Africa sought concessions from the state, as opposed to the overthrow of the system altogether. In Egypt and the Sudan, Islam clearly intensified antagonism toward the British protectorate. A revolt in Egypt in March 1919 against the arrest and deportation of anticolonial leaders exposed the growing militancy of Egyptian nationalism, and eventually forced the British government into issuing a unilateral declaration of Egyptian independence in February 1922. In sub-Saharan Africa, anticolonial agitation was often related to the elite’s perceptions of what their role should be under the system. Hence, the National Congress of British West Africa, formed in 1920 with branches in Sierra Leone, the Gold Coast, and Nigeria, pressed for African-elected representatives on the legislature, which was granted in the coastal towns. By World War II, however, African politics was beginning to challenge the legitimacy of European overrule. By the end of the war, despite the inauguration of a new social and economic development policy to support the expansion of an African middle class, political activism had matured and acquired a nationalist perspective, which contributed to the eventual demise of European rule in Africa. THE WORLD WARS. Africa was drawn into the two world wars by virtue of the fact that its territories were under the possession of the competing European powers. Africans bore a heavy toll during World War I, contributing manpower to serve as porters in the East Africa Campaign. By 1917, for example, more than half of the troops defending the region against the forces of German commander Paul von
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Colonies in Africa, British Lettow-Vorbeck were African. Furthermore, Africans provided food and raw materials to the war effort. Yet, perhaps the war’s greatest devastation came after the armistice, when returning African troops carried the deadly Spanish influenza back to their villages. The influenza pandemic swept through the continent and wiped out much of the population in a matter of months. African participation in World War II was even more extensive. Black troops served in Allied campaigns in Libya and the Horn of Africa. By the end of 1944, more than 374,000 Africans from the British colonies were serving in fighting and ancillary units. Once again, the continent was an important source of raw materials for the Allied armies, a role greatly enhanced by the fall of Southeast Asia to Japan in 1941 to 1942. Meanwhile, chiefs were required to organize villagers in the cultivation of extra food for the war effort. The commercial and military demands of the war stimulated colonial governments into investing in African harbors and airports on a scale not seen since the initial colonial investment in railways. In ports such as Freetown, Lagos, and Mombasa, docks were deepened and harbor facilities improved. In West Africa alone, increased production during the war, alongside the development of processing facilities, contributed to a doubling of the region’s export trade form $176 million to $344 million between 1938 and 1946. The most important impact of World War II on Africa, however, was political. The period saw the convergence of a number of political and social factors that propelled African politics beyond localism toward nationalism and independence from British rule. In 1941, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and United States President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Atlantic Charter, which established the terms of the Lend-Lease arrangement that enabled the U.S. government to supply essential military equipment and supplies to the Allies. Clause three of the charter acknowledged “the rights of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they lived.” A supplementary document from the U.S. State Department went so far as to declare the need for a timetable for independence. The second political event to impact the postwar nationalist movement was the Fifth Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, England, in May 1945. Chaired by the renowned African American academic W.E.B. Du Bois, the event brought together the leading black advocates of Pan-Africanism and anticolonial thinkers and writers of the period, such as George Padmore, C.L.R. James, members of the West African Students’ Union, Jomo Kenyatta, Hastings Banda, and Peter Abrahams of the African National Congress. It was at this meeting that the young Gold Coast nationalist, Kwame Nkrumah, declared the struggle for political power by colonial and subject peoples to be the prerequisite to complete socioeconomic and political emancipation from foreign rule. India’s independence from British rule in August 1947 provided the example, and a decade later, Nkrumah would lead his country to independence from British rule. Across the continent, rapid urbanization followed after the war, providing recruits for the nationalist movements that had begun to flourish in the urban centers. Indeed, what distinguished the political organizations of the postwar period from those of previous decades was that membership cut across ethnic and class lines. For example, in June 1947, Nkrumah formed the Convention People’s Party, which recruited across all sections of society. In the same manner, in Nigeria, Macaulay’s Nigerian National Democratic
Colonies in Africa, British Party gave way to the National Council of Nigeria and Cameroons, which was formed in 1944 as a vehicle for interethnic cooperation and activism. In Southern Rhodesia, Thompson Samkange organized the African National Council, and in Northern Rhodesia, the first nationalist party, the Northern Rhodesian African National Congress (later the African National Congress), was formed in 1948 with a broad membership. DECOLONIZATION. Independence, when it came for Britain’s African colonies, was remarkably peaceful. In 1954, the Gold Coast constitution was amended to allow for full internal self-government, which paved the way for independence in 1957. In Nigeria, which was governed as two parts until 1945, the problem was finding the right kind of political model to reconcile competing claims to leadership. The adoption of a federal model in 1954 opened the way for independence and the birth of the Federal Republic of Nigeria on October 1, 1960. Elsewhere in West Africa, Sierra Leone gained its independence in April 1961. Gambia was one of the last West African countries to gain independence, which it did in 1965. In both Uganda and Tanganyika, the problem of decolonization was settled relatively easily through constitutional reform. Tanzania was able to gain independence on December 9, 1961, and Uganda in 1962. It was only in the settler colonies, where colonial policy had been aimed at upholding the economic interests of the minority whites, that decolonization was accompanied by violent armed struggle. In Kenya, the cost in human and political terms of the bitter anticolonial war that lasted from 1952 to 1960 raised concerns in London about the value in continuing to maintain colonies. In 1960, the Kenyan nationalist hero Jomo Kenyatta led the African delegation at the Lancaster House talks to discuss the terms of formal independence, which was achieved in December 1963. In Southern Rhodesia, the heavy prevalence of South African whites in the settler population and the country’s proximity to the Union of South Africa made it possible for settlers to govern the country in their favor, especially after the country gained internal self-government in 1922. After the independence of Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia in 1963 (which became the Republics of Malawi and Zambia, respectively), Southern Rhodesian whites struck out on their own with a Unilateral Declaration of Independence from Britain. African nationalists mounted an intense guerilla war against Prime Minister Ian Smith’s regime, which, by 1978, had been brought to its knees, forcing the government to negotiate with black leaders. In December 1979, the British and Rhodesian governments met with the Patriotic Front at Lancaster House and signed an agreement ending civil war. The following February, the first free elections were held in the country. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Black British; Boer War; Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Missionaries in Africa, European; New Imperialism; Slave Trade, British; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in; Zulu War. Further Reading: Chamberlain, M. E. Decolonization: The Fall of the European Empires. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1999; Louis, W. Roger. End of British Imperialism: The Scramble for Empire, Suez, and Decolonization. London: I. B. Tauris, 2006; Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. New York: Avon Books, 1991; Pearce, Robert. The Turning Point in Africa: British Colonial Policy, 1938–48. London: Routledge, 1982; Shillington, K. History of Africa.
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Colonies in Africa, Dutch New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1995; Smith, Daniel R. The Influence of the Fabian Colonial Bureau on the Independence Movement in Tanganyika. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1985; Wilson, Kathleen, ed. A New Imperial History: Culture, Identity, and Modernity in Britain and the Empire, 1660–1840. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004.
Joyce A. Kannan
Colonies in Africa, Dutch The Dutch were active in the West African slave trade from the 1460s. Their struggle for independence with Spain and Portugal from 1568 onward involved raids on those countries’ African possessions. The Dutch eventually acquired a chain of trading posts that reached from Arguin in the northwest, through the Cape of Good Hope in the south, to Madagascar and Mauritius in the east. The peak of Dutch trade and influence fell to the second half of the seventeenth century, when they dominated Europe’s overseas commerce through their superior shipping capacity, navy, as well as investments and the introduction of the joint stock company model. The main incentives of expansion were trade in African gold and slaves, as well as securing and supplying the sea route to the Dutch East Indies and Spice Islands. Dutch colonialism in Africa was essentially nonterritorial. Their only successful agricultural settler colony around Kaapstad (Cape Town) fell to the British in 1797. Gradually losing African bases to rivals and forced out of trade with British and French American colonies, the last Dutch forts on the Gold Coast were sold to Britain in 1871–1872, before the “Scramble for Africa” began. Flemish trade was opened with the Azores in the1460s. By 1475, the first ships reached the Gold Coast that is present-day Ghana. When the Treaty of Tordesillas (1493) divided the world outside Europe into Spanish and Portuguese domains by sanction of the pope, the Flemish, along with other European competitors, were effectively locked out of business by the two major sea powers. For nearly a century, the Spanish and Portuguese remained the largest maritime traders and distributors of colonial goods inside Europe. In 1581, the seven northern provinces of the Netherlands formally deposed Philip II of Spain and Portugal. Thus, the Eighty Years War (1568–1648), the Dutch struggle for independence, expanded overseas, including the temporary capture of Brazil, an important destination of African trade. It was from here that Count Maurice Nassau-Siegen launched an expedition that took the main Portuguese fort of West Africa, Sao Jorge da Mina, or Elmina, in 1637. It became the center of Dutch activity until 1872. Within five years, the Portuguese were driven from the Guinea coast. Military operations, however, were not decisive for early European expansion in Africa, as the size of garrisons was low. In addition, stone fortifications were expensive to construct and to keep in good shape, and the different disease environment made largescale campaigning, as well as manning the captured forts, extremely costly in lives. West Africa was known as the “White Man’s Grave,” with high annual death rates for newly arrived Europeans. These high death rates continued until the birth of modern tropical medicine in the late nineteenth century.
Colonies in Africa, Dutch Dutch trade and related exploration in Africa were promoted by various smallscale and competing chartered joint stock companies without direct state control or participation. These had only a handful of resident agents on the entire West African coast, often called the Guinea Coast, otherwise relying on local Creole merchant elites and middlemen for their inland operations. The establishment of the Guinea Company in 1599 was a milestone of consolidation and created a larger-scale framework, merging eight previous enterprises. After its collapse in only five years, the model of the successful Dutch East India Company (Vereenigde Oost-Indische Compagnie, 1602) was taken up, creating the Dutch West India Company (Geoctroyeerde Westindische Compagnie, 1621) with a charter for the monopoly of the Caribbean trade, the African slave trade until the Cape of Good Hope, as well as Brazil, North America, and the eastern Pacific isles. It was reorganized in 1674 with a focus on the increasingly profitable trans-Atlantic slave trade, servicing other countries’ plantation colonies in the Americas as well. The various companies typically rented trading posts and military bases from the Africans against other European competitors or Dutch interlopers. The acquisition of territory by purchase or conquest remained the exception to the rule. The first permanent settlement was built by the Dutch in 1612 at Mori on the Guinea Coast, called Fort Nassau. For more than 250 years, the Dutch constructed trading depots and forts in a large number of coastal areas farther east and south. Despite the large geographical scope of trading operations, the Dutch colonial ambitions for West Africa were concentrated on the Gold Coast. There they became key suppliers of firearms to a series of Akan kingdoms striving to dominate the hinterland. On that basis, a strategic partnership that lasted nearly 150 years was established with the Asante Empire. This partnership enabled large-scale trade in slaves to the West Indies, gold and ivory to Europe, and, with the abolition of the slave trade, initiatives for plantations of tropical crops and expanding European markets into the difficult forestland terrain by river-ways. The cultivation of good relations with local elites also involved examples of educating royal children in Dutch and German universities. After the decisive takeover of companies by the Dutch government in 1791, two major efforts were made to establish profitable colonies. In 1816, immediately after the Napoleonic Wars and re-creation of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, the Huydecoper mission to Asante tried to secure preferential terms for the inland trade at the expense of British and Danish competitors. About the same time, a former successful governor of the Dutch East Indies, H. Daendels, was brought in to explore the possibilities of cash crop production and devising an administrative regime to boost state revenues. A controversial scheme also allowed the Dutch to recruit thousands of soldiers for their other colonial possessions until the1860s; however, this was discontinued on charges of slave trading, which was outlawed in 1814. Interest in the region was revived for the last time in 1868 with a treaty on swapping the dovetailed forts and trading posts with the British to create a single block of Dutch influence centered on Elmina. African reaction to the European deal, including the small coastal kingdoms, as well as the powerful Asante, brought the parties to the brink of war. As a result, in 1871, the decision was made to withdraw from West Africa completely and exchange the forts for colonial gains elsewhere, namely Surinam (Guyana) and Southeast Asia.
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Colonies in Africa, French The Dutch established less of a presence on the eastern coast of Africa. Although Mauritius and Madagascar had ports frequented by Dutch merchants from 1637 onward, this region received attention only as part of the spice trade route to the East Indies rather than a destination on its own right. The Cape of Good Hope, however, became the site of the only settler colony of the Netherlands and the largest Dutch possession in Africa. Cape Colony was established by Jan van Riebeeck as a supply point for the Dutch East India Company in 1655. Cape Colony was situated halfway between the Dutch East and West Indies. Kaapstad Fort (1666–1679) remains the oldest preserved building in South Africa. A moderate climate and arable land attracted settlers in a period when Dutch possessions in the Americas were shrinking, and religious persecution across Europe pressed even non-Dutch (such as French Huguenots, various German and Scandinavian groups, or Scottish Presbyterians) to seek refuge and blend into a population earlier referred to as Cape Dutch and Boers, or more recently, Afrikaner. The colony was taken by the British in 1797 during the Fifth Anglo-Dutch War and was formally annexed in 1805. The new circumstances under British administration, including restrictions on slavery and the discrimination of the indigenous population, induced 10,000 to 15,000 colonists to undertake the northeastern inland migration called the Great Trek from 1828 onward. These settlers, the Trekboers, or Voortrekkers, never recovered their Dutch citizenship. Instead, they founded their own states, such as Natalia Republic (1839), Transvaal (1852), and the Orange Free State (1852), which were eventually incorporated into the British Empire after the wars of 1880–1881 and 1899–1902. Descendants of the Dutch colonial population today comprise the Afrikaner of South Africa, Namibia, and Botswana, with smaller communities in Swaziland, Angola, Zambia, and Mozambique. Their language, Afrikaans, which is derived from Middle Dutch, has been an official language of the Republic of South Africa since 1925, although it has lost ground substantially with the end of the Apartheid regime in 1994. Beyond the heritage and influence of the Afrikaner, the Dutch presence in Africa also resulted in a wealth of written administrative records, scholarly publications, and travel writing that provide an important resource for the study of African history and societies from the seventeenth century onward. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Boer War; Colonies in Africa, British; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Dutch. Further Reading: Boxer, C. R. The Dutch Seaborne Empire, 1600–1800. London: Penguin, 1991; Yarak, Larry W. Asante and the Dutch, 1744–1873. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1990.
Gábor Berczeli
Colonies in Africa, French Colonization has linked the fates of both France and its African colonies for more than three centuries. France’s first colonial empire, which dates from the sixteenth century to the eighteenth century, was established to a large extent by the Royal Trading Companies. The empire included much of North America, as well as some of the more prosperous islands in the Caribbean and a substantial part of India. Colonial conflicts
Colonies in Africa, French between France and its rival, Britain, during the middle of the eighteenth century led to the end of much of France’s first colonial empire. France’s second colonial empire in the nineteenth century included most of North Africa and much of West and Central Africa, as well as Indochina and multiple islands scattered across the globe. Unlike some of its European rivals in the colonial field, France continued to keep her African possessions close. THE CAPTURE OF ALGIERS. France’s first important colonial venture into Africa was in 1830. That year, the army of the French king, Charles X, landed at Sidi Ferruch on June 12 and after three weeks captured the city of Algiers using the 1808 contingency plan developed by former French emperor, Napoleon I. The news of the victory had barely reached France when Charles X was overthrown in the Revolution of 1830 and replaced by his cousin, Louis Philippe. The new French government, which was in part comprised of liberal opponents of the expedition to Algiers, hesitated to continue with the conquest plans of the former government. A parliamentary commission, however, examined the situation and concluded that continued occupation was an issue of national prestige and thus should be pursued. In 1834, France annexed the occupied areas to make Algeria the first French colony. The annexation of Algeria marked the beginning of one of the largest and most durable of the European colonial empires. ASSIMILATION AND ASSOCIATION. The French suffered a demoralizing defeat by the Prussians during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–1871). Some scholars have argued that this defeat had a decisive influence on French colonial actions and ideals. Charles Renouvier, a French philosopher, argued that the French defeat derived from the loss of the ideals of freedom. He supported the French adoption of a new ideal founded on morality and reason, which could both be located in the notion of “civilization.” This idea was upheld by several French leaders, who made it an official state doctrine. The notion of “civilization” emerged as an integral way in which France defined its status on the global stage. The French mission civilisatrice (“civilizing mission”) sought to spread France’s culture to various parts of the globe while also expanding French influence abroad and in Europe through the possession of a vast colonial empire. In its attempts to increase its African possessions, France used two related directives. The first was the idea of mission civilisatrice, and the second was the associated idea of rayonnement, or lighting the way for others. Under these directives, the French empire expanded to include such modern countries as Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria. France also expanded its possessions in West Africa, controlling Dahomey, Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Mauretania, Senegal, and Niger. France also gained possessions in central Africa, including Gabon, Middle Congo (later the Democratic Republic of Congo), and Oubangui-Schari (later the Central African Republic). In these colonies, France followed a policy of assimilation that derived from the ideas of the mission civilisatrice and the ethnocentric view that French civilization was superior to that of Africans. Ostensibly, the policy of assimilation sought to turn colonial subjects into citizens who were integral components of the mother country. Such a policy, however, was an attempt to transform colonized Africans into model French citizens, paying little to no attention (or worth) to the indigenous culture.
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Colonies in Africa, French Reactions against the policy of assimilation began to grow in France, as some argued on racist grounds that Africans were inferior to white Europeans and therefore incapable of being completely assimilated into French civilization. Others argued that the efforts involved in making assimilation a successful policy were too great and urged what they perceived as more practical training in basic literacy, agriculture, and simple trades. At the same time, the French had come to increasingly recognize that African culture was substantially different from that of France. As a result, France took up the notion that the relationship between the colonizer and the colonized should be that of “association” instead of assimilation. The policy of association emphasized cooperation instead of a shared identity and the merging of cultures; however, implementation remained superficial in practice. African authorities were located at the lowest ranks of the administrative hierarchy and served bureaucratic subordinates that executed policies from expatriate French officials without genuine consultation with Africans. Societies were divided into “cantons” (districts) and chiefs deemed inadequate were removed, frequently with little or no regard for status. Although advisory councils were eventually established at each bureaucratic level to provide information about local African laws and customs, such councils’ influence was minimal. WORLD WAR I. Despite French efforts at both assimilation and association, minimal evidence exists to support the notion that the average African in the French colonies considered himself or herself a member of the French Empire. Likewise, there is minimal evidence to support the notion that the average French citizen thought much of the empire’s African subjects, but the beginning of World War I would alter this view. France faced the threat of the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire, and the French colonies served as a source of manpower. France used hundreds of thousands of men from its African colonies during the war. Many colonial recruits fought in the trenches, and other recruits were used as labor in support roles. The colonies, therefore, became exceptionally useful to the war effort, supplying France with needed troops and workers, as well as raw materials. The crucial role that the colonies occupied in the French war effort quieted many of the critics of colonialism who had argued that such expeditions and occupations were not worthwhile. After the war, the African colonies of the Central Powers were divided among the victorious Allied Powers, which were led by France, Britain, Italy, and the United States. As a result, Kamerun (modern Cameroon) became a mandate territory of the newly created League of Nations and was divided between France and Britain in 1919. The contributions to the war effort that the colonies had made during the war marked the beginning of France’s attempts to integrate its African colonies into the mainstream French Empire. Despite the changing French attitude toward its colonies, the life experiences of white colonizers and those of colonized blacks remained quite different. The policy of association simultaneously brought a higher level of authoritarianism, which gave a rationale for the withholding of certain rights from African subjects that those in France enjoyed and often took for granted. Some of these basic rights included freedom of the press and free speech, and trade unions. In Francophone Africa, Western medical treatment was slow to expand and it took a long time until the benefits were felt. In addition, colonial policies led to large-scale migrations that brought new diseases to remote areas, thereby intensifying medical problems.
Colonies in Africa, French With the exceptions of Senegal, and to a lesser extent, Dahomey, education also expanded slowly in the colonies. In Senegal and Dahomey, levels of elementary, secondary, and postsecondary schooling had been established early on. Yet, mass education was nonexistent , in part because of the colonizers’ insistence on French as the languages used for instruction. Because only individuals who had already acquired a high proficiency in French could acquire an education, many African subjects were ineligible. The curriculum used in the French African colonies was almost identical to the one used in France, including the same textbooks, one of which famously referred to “Our ancestors the Gauls.” Thus, assimilation lingered on in the era of association and its consequence was that only a minority of African subjects in the French colonies received an education. Yet the opportunity to receive an education and earn as high as a university degree at a French university did exist, even if the required high level of assimilation drastically limited the number of individuals who could take advantage of such an opportunity. A dual legal system was established in the French African colonies that prescribed French law for whites, the métis, and the extremely few black Africans in West Africa who had become naturalized “citizens.” The vast majority of the colonized African population was subjected to a legal system that was called la justice indigene (indigenous justice). Despite its name, la justice indigene did not carry out or revive local African law. Rather, French officials, in conjunction with assistance from African assessors, meted out civil and criminal justice under the cover of African law. In actuality, such judgments were determined by what the white official deemed African law to be or by what he thought was natural justice. Therefore such judgments created a high degree of variation in the law and how it was administered. WORLD WAR II. World War II profoundly affected the futures of the French African colonies, especially after Germany invaded France in 1940. As in World War I, the colonial powers needed further sources of manpower and the colonials once again served as reservoirs for combat troops, both in Africa and in Europe. Some have estimated that more than half a million Africans fought for France and Britain during World War II. In Chad, Governor Félix Éboué boldly decided to give his support to the Free French rather than the Vichy regime that collaborated with the occupying German forces. Following his lead, governors of other French equatorial territories did the same. Brazzaville, the French Congo’s capital, emerged as a temporary capital for Free France; however, the French governors in North and West Africa generally remained loyal to Marshall Pétain and the Vichy regime. In 1942, the Allied Powers (led by Britain, the United States, the Soviet Union, and Free France) mounted an Anglo-American operation to regain North Africa. After the success of this operation, the West African colonies abandoned Vichy and declared their support for Free France. After World War II, the Fourth French Republic emerged as the new government of France. During this time, France was struggling to maintain its economic and political status in European and world affairs. France hoped to maintain its colonial empire, but it soon encountered much opposition to its dominance. The French failed to regain control of Indochina in 1954 and shortly thereafter faced a new confrontation with the Algerian War of Independence. The French debate over whether to maintain control of Algeria became
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Colonies in Africa, French a divisive issue and nearly led to a civil war. In 1958, the unstable Fourth Republic was replaced by the new Fifth Republic, which placed more strength in the executive. Under the leadership of Chares de Gaulle, the French government took steps toward the peace negotiations in 1962 that ultimately led to independence for Algeria. INDEPENDENCE. In dealing with the French possessions in Africa, de Gaulle developed two approaches. The first approaches revolved around compelling the French possessions in Africa into forming two groupings. The first grouping was composed of the possessions in West Africa. The second grouping was composed of the possessions in equatorial Africa. This initial plan met resistance and subsequently evolved into the Communauté (Community). De Gaulle envisioned the member states of the Community as having one president (the president of France) who would have authority to make decisions over external affairs, which included such fields as the economy, defense, and foreign relations. In return, the member states of the Community would have substantial authority over their internal affairs, but would ultimately have to submit to the president’s will. There would be one Senate and one nationality (French). All members of the former French colonies in Africa (with the exception of Guinea) accepted the terms of the Community. Subsequently, Guinea was excluded from French aid. After only a short time, however, the member states of the Community began to agitate for independence. After 1960, Djibouti was the only sub-Saharan African possession to remain a French colony. De Gaulle continued to maintain strong relations with France’s former African colonies. This “special relationship” between France and its former colonies, one of de Gaulle’s many lasting legacies to France, persevered well into the 1990s and only recently has begun to fade. Therefore de Gaulle focused on maintaining France as a dominant influence in Africa while guaranteeing that the former French colonies kept a high level of independence. De Gaulle conducted “cooperation” agreements with France’s former colonies in Africa (except Guinea) and created the Ministry of Cooperation in 1961 to demonstrate to the former African colonies that they were perceived as states with special ties to France. The special status of former French colonies with France was economically beneficial. After the end of World War II, France developed the Franc Zone. The goal of this French initiative was to assist the emerging economies of the colonies in Africa. The French Ministry of Treasury and several African states developed a currency cooperation program. In fact, the Franc Zone was designed to enable the completion of three objectives: (1) to be able transfer funds easily, (2) to be able to exchange currency with less difficulty at a fixed rate within the zone, and (3) to consolidate revenue reserves from the African possessions to the French treasury. This plan provided the former African colonies with increased currency stability, facilitated foreign trade, and offered all the benefits from having a common currency. In addition, de Gaulle used military interventions to further demonstrate to the world the continued relationship between France and its former African colonies. Although France decreased its military presence in Africa, it did not refrain from its responsibilities. The reduction in military presence coincided with the development of a special military command meant to deploy to Africa whenever needed. De Gaulle sent French troops to assist African governments in Cameroon (1960–1961), Mauritania
Colonies in Africa, German (1961), Gabon (1962), Congo (1960, 1962), Chad (1960–1963, 1968), Niger (1963), and the Central African Republic (1967). Recent changes in French foreign policy have altered relations between France and its former African colonies. One of the most significant changes was the absorption of the French Ministry of Cooperation into the French Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Such a change reduced the special status of former French African colonies with France, placing the former colonies on the same level as every other foreign state when it comes to French foreign policy. Further changes include the reduction of French military in Africa and the reduction of economic benefits that France had provided. Various reasons have been given to account for the change in French policy toward the former French African colonies, including the deaths of the primary figures that had embodied the special relationship between France and its former African colonies, the international embarrassment that resulted from French involvement in the Rwanda genocide, and the development of the European Union, which provides France with links to other European states that are stronger than those with its former African colonies. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; African Diaspora; Berlin Conference (1884–1885); Black History Month; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female; Illegal African Immigration to Europe; Literature, Blacks in French; Marché Dejean; May 10 Holiday; Missionaries in Africa, European; New Imperialism; Slave Trade, French; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Anthokol, Norman, and Mayer Nudell. No One a Neutral: Political Hostage-Taking in the Modern World. Median, OH: Alpha, 1990; Chipman, John. French Power in Africa. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1989; Cooper, Frederick. Colonialism in Africa: Theory, Knowledge, History. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005; Ginio, Ruth. French Colonialism Unmasked: The Vichy Years in French West Africa. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2006; Rouvez, Alain. Disconsolate Empires: French, British, and Belgian Military Involvement in PostColonial Sub-Saharan Africa. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1994.
Charlotte Baker
Colonies in Africa, German Although there were Germans serving with the Spanish and Portuguese in Africa at an early date, it was not until the seventeenth century that the BranderburgischAfricanische Compagnie of Brandenberg established a colony at Arguin on the coast of modern-day Mauritania in Africa. They also built forts at what became the Prussian Gold Coast (later absorbed into the Dutch Gold Coast) in modern-day Ghana and on the island of St. Thomas (modern day São Tomé and Príncipe). It was not until the 1870s, however, after the proclamation of the German Empire, that Germany sought to establish a colonial empire in Africa. It was a part of the German policy of enlarging its naval power, for colonial possessions in Africa and elsewhere would provide useful naval bases. On April 24, 1884, the Germans established their protectorate over German South West Africa (Deutsch-Südwestafrika), and on July 5, 1884, the Germans established their protectorate over Togoland. There had been German missionaries in Togoland
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Colonies in Africa, German since 1847, and it was these who negotiated the seizure of land; however, there was an official treaty with Mlapa III, a regional chief. On July 14, 1884, Germany established another protectorate over the Cameroons (Kamerun). On April 28, 1888, the Germans managed to obtain the lease of a coastal strip of land near Zanzibar from the Sultan of Zanzibar, forming Tanganyika, or officially, the protectorate of German East Africa (Deutsch-Ostafrika). On July 1, 1890, the Germans took over Ruanda and Urundi, although effective control over the former existed only from 1897. Two years later, it became part of the military district of Tanganyika-Kivu, both the latter being, administratively, parts of German East Africa. The Germans did little for most of their African colonies and there were few German settlers. The number of German migrants moving to these colonies rarely exceeded 200 per year. As a result, there was minimal infrastructure in these areas, which was another reason why there were few migrants. During the German colonial period, most of its colonies were run at a large financial loss. In an effort to raise revenue from the colonies, the German treatment of the indigenous African population was often savage. Togoland was the only German colony that became self-supporting. There, the Germans had introduced plantation crops such as cacao, coffee, and cotton. Although known as a “model” possession, many Africans were forced to become indentured laborers working for low wages in poor conditions. In the Cameroons, the Germans were particularly unpopular, introducing a series of forced labor projects. In 1904, the Herero people in German South West Africa rebelled, but they were defeated by the Germans, who killed tens of thousands of Africans in fighting and subsequent reprisals. With the outbreak of World War I, the British, French, and Belgians were anxious to capture Germany’s African colonies, which would not only result in a significant gain of territory, but also prevent the Germans from using any of these places as naval bases. On August 6, 1914, an Anglo-French military force invaded Togoland. The Germans retreated from the colonial capital of Lomé to Kamina, which the Allies took on August 26, capturing the German radio transmitter located there. Cameroon was captured by another Anglo-French force, which landed at Duala on September 25, forcing the Germans to surrender two days later. On July 9, 1915, South African forces occupied German South West Africa. In Tanganyika, the Germans under Lettow von Vorbreck managed to use guerilla tactics to hold back the soldiers from the armies of Britain, Belgium (from Congo), South Africa, and Portugal (from Mozambique) until November 1918. The Germans, in fact, learned of the Armistice in Europe after capturing a British report of it and surrendered on November 25, 1918. During this long and costly guerilla war, the Germans succeeded in evading the British and used large numbers of African porters and helpers, who were treated well, unlike the previous treatment they had received at the hands of the Germans before the outbreak of war. In 1922, the League of Nations’ mandates were established for Germany’s former colonies. Togoland was split; the western part was administered from the Gold Coast (modern-day Ghana). The remainder, which became French, later emerged as the Togolese Republic in 1960. The northern part of the German Cameroons was governed from Nigeria. The remainder of the German Cameroons, which became French,
Colonies in Africa, Italian gained its independence in 1960 as the Republic of Cameroon. The next year, a part of the region ruled by the British merged with the Republic of Cameroon to form the Federal Republic of Cameroon. Tanganyika, under British control, gained its independence in 1962, and, in 1964, merged with Zanzibar to form Tanzania. Ruanda-Urundi was placed under Belgian control, becoming independent as the Republic of Rwanda and the Kingdom of Burundi in 1962. South West Africa remained under South African jurisdiction until 1990, when it gained its independence as Namibia. See also: Berlin Conference (1884–1885); Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub; Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf; Germany, Blacks in; Mpundu Akwa; New Imperialism; World War I, Black Participation in; Weimar Republic, African Activists in the. Further Reading: Bridgman, Jon, and David Clarke. German Africa: A Select Annotated Bibliography Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution and Peace, 1965; Calvert, Albert. German East Africa. London: T. W. Laurie, 1917; Goldblatt, I. History of South West Africa from the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century. Cape Town: Juta, 1971; Henderson, W. O. The German Colonial Empire, 1884–1919. London: F. Cass, 1993; Hodder, B. W. Germany’s Model Colony in Africa: Togo, 1884–1914. London: School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, 1980; Jones, Adam. “Archival Materials on the Brandenburg African Company (1682–1721).” History in Africa 11 (1984): 379–389; Jones, Adam. Brandenburg Sources for West African History, 1680–1700. Stuttgart: F. Steiner-Verlag-Wiesbaden, 1985; Jones, Adam. German Sources for West African History, 1599–1669. Wiesbaden: Steiner, 1983; Rudin, Harry. Germans in the Cameroons, 1884–1914: A Case Study in Modern Imperialism. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1938.
Justin Corfield
Colonies in Africa, Italian In the acquisition of African colonies by the European powers, Italy, unlike its fellow European counterparts, was a latecomer. When Italy joined the race, however, it rapidly consolidated on its conquest and organized its acquired colonies into Italian East Africa and Libya. Italian colonial ventures began in early 1885, when an Italian expedition occupied a part of East Africa. These areas were condensed in 1890 into the colony of Eritrea. The same year marked the establishment of a protectorate over the coast of Somali. This was followed by a movement into Ethiopia, but the Italians were defeated. Outside East Africa, the Italians acquired Libya under the terms of the treaty of Lausanne in 1912, after a short war with Turkey. ITALIAN EAST AFRICA. Italian colonies in East Africa were composed of Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Italian Somaliland. The colonization of these East African countries is intricately linked together. The control of Eritrea by Italy was preceded by Ethiopia’s control of the Eritrean coast, which was essential to the mercantile empire of Axum, the first Ethiopian state until its decline in the eighth century. In 1882, the Italian government purchased the Bay of Assab in Eritrea on the Red Sea coast of Africa, thus extending Italian occupation. By 1885, amid protests from the Ethiopian emperor John (Johannes) IV, the Italians occupied Massawa, although they restricted their occupation to the coast until the accession in 1889 of Emperor Menelik II, who enjoyed Italian military and political support.
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Colonies in Africa, Italian In May 1889, Emperor Menelik of Ethiopia signed the treaty of Wuchale (Uccialli in Italian) with the Crispi government of Italy; however, the treaty was misinterpreted on both sides. Whereas the Ethiopians deciphered it as one of friendship and cooperation, the Italian interpretation of the treaty made Italy a protector of Ethiopia. Hence, war broke out between the two nations, with Ethiopia defeating Italy at Adwa in 1896. By the terms of the succeeding peace treaty, Italy held on to Eritrea, but abandoned declaring a protectorate over Ethiopia. Notwithstanding, in October 1935, Italian troops moved into Ethiopia from Eritrea and Somaliland. Italy took over Ethiopia in 1936 and subsequently combined it with Eritrea and Somaliland to form Italian East Africa. In Somalia, earliest Italian interest in the coast commenced in the late nineteenth century. While Britain established its protectorate in the northern part of Somaliland, the Italians controlled the southern region. By 1915, after the London treaty, Italy had made some advancement by extending its control inland. In 1936, Italy merged its east African colonies into one single colony. With Italy’s entrance into World War II (1939–1945), its troops succeeded in ejecting the British from British Somaliland, but this was reclaimed by the United Kingdom in 1941. The Italian 1947 peace treaty required Italy to give up its African territories. These territories were subsequently placed under the control of the Big Four (United States, United Kingdom, France, and the Soviet Union). By the end of 1949, the Big Four had still not reached a consensus on what to do with the former Italian colonies in Africa. As a result, Somalia was made a United Nations trust territory, with Italy as the administering authority. The British placed the Somalian province of Ogaden under the control of a reformed Ethiopian government and kept British Somaliland under its protection. Somalia did not achieve full independence from Italy until 1960. That same year, it merged with the also newly independent British Somaliland to form the Somali Republic. LIBYA. The Italian colonization of Libya was established when Italy bombarded the country in 1911 and occupied the towns of Tripoli, Benghazi, Derna, and Tobruk. At first, the Italians hoped that the Libyans would accede to their rule to free them from Turkish domination. The reverse was the case, however, as the Libyans joined Turkish forces as fellow Muslims against the Italian Christians. The towns of Tripolitania and Cyrenaica were placed under the Italian crown after the peace treaty of Lausanne was signed in 1912. The treaty, signed between Turkey and Italy, gave Italy nominal control over the territories and ushered in a 20-year colonial war in Libya. The Italian conquest of Libya was not smooth and encountered much local resistance. Such resistance led to defeats for the Italians and little headway throughout World War I (914–1918). The major resistance to Italian rule was led by the Sanusi order, an important Islamic revivalist movement that emerged in Libya founded by Muhammed Ibn Ali al-Sanusi. This group, led by Sayyid Idris, signed an agreement with Italy in 1920 recognizing Idris as Emir of Cyrenaica and heading an autonomous regime that accepted cooperation with the Italians. In an almost similar situation, an independent republican government was formed in Tripoli between 1918 and 1922 in an attempt to reach an agreement with Italy, but this government failed. Sayyid Idris was called to the rescue in 1922, offering to extend the Sanusi emirate to Tripolitania. This aid was not actualized, however, as the new Italian governor, Giuseppe Volpi,
Colonies in Africa, Portuguese rejected any negotiation with the leaders and embarked on the reconquest of Libya. To avoid capture by the Italians, Idris embarked on a self-imposed exile to Egypt that was to last about 30 years. With the accession to power of Benito Mussolini and his fascist government in Italy, the Italians embarked on a policy of military colonization of Libya throughout the 1920s. During this period, the second Italo-Sanusi War commenced in 1923. Sanusi forces during this time were organized under the leadership of Umar al Mukhtar, who was a veteran of many campaigns and familiar with guerrilla warfare. In 1931, the Sanusi resistance collapsed after a series of destructive executions, deportations, and the forcing of Libyans into concentration camps. In September of the same year, Mukhtar was captured and hanged in a show of public display, with about 20,000 locals witnessing the event. After the Italian acquisition of Libya, Italy became extensively engaged in the economic development of the country, investing in capital and technology, public work projects, the extension and modernization of cities, and highway and railroad construction. These developments were to the benefit of the Italian-controlled economy. The demographic colonization of Libya accompanied its economic colonization, as Italians were encouraged to emigrate to Libya en masse to reduce overpopulation and unemployment in Italy. After World War II, Italy was forced to relinquish its African colonies under the terms of a 1947 peace treaty. At the end of 1949, the United Nations decided that Libya should become independent by January 1, 1952. In December 1951, Libya declared its independence with a constitutional monarchy under King Idris. See also: Berlin Conference (1884–1885); Italy, Blacks in; New Imperialism; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Boahen, A. Adu, ed. General History of Africa, Volume VII: Africa Under Colonial Domination, 1880–1935. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985; Kogan, Norman. A Political History of Italy: The Post War Years. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1983; Lewis, I. M., ed. A Modern History of Somalia: Nation and State in the Horn of Africa. London: Longman, 1980; Segre, Claudio G. Fourth Shore: The Italian Colonization of Libya. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982; Wright, John. Libya: A Modern History. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1982.
Mary Afolabi Adeolu
Colonies in Africa, Portuguese The Portuguese were the first of the modern European powers to establish colonies in Africa with their capture of the Moroccan city of Ceuta in 1415. King Joao I of Portugal (reigned 1385–1433) led 50,000 soldiers in a siege of Ceuta, a strategic port city. To rule over this city, the Portuguese king appointed his third son, Henry the Navigator (1394–1460), as its governor from 1415 until 1418. Back in Portugal, Henry used his influence, vision, and money to inspire Portuguese adventurers to travel throughout much of the world. Their initial focus, however, was to capture ports of Morocco and some of the islands of the mid-Atlantic Ocean.
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Colonies in Africa, Portuguese In 1471, the Portuguese captured two Moroccan cities: the port city of Tangier and the Atlantic port city of Asilah (or Arzila), the latter of which became the main Portuguese stronghold in Morocco for many years. Seven years later, the Portuguese sacked the city of Casablanca, building a new city on the same site a hundred years later, which they called Casabranca. In addition, in 1489, the Portuguese established a castle at Larache, but they were able to hold it for only one year. They also took the cities of Mogador (modern-day Essaouira), where they built a fort in 1506; Safi, which was captured in 1508; Mazagan (modern-day El Jadida), which they took in 1513; and Agadir, taken in 1515. In 1515, the Portuguese also made an unsuccessful attack on Marrakesh. The Portuguese had many other bases, such as that at Qsar-es-Seghir (1458–1550). All these bases led to increased interactions between the Christian Portuguese of Europe and the Muslim Moors of North Africa, with a significant number of blacks in Portugal working as traders and as slaves. The Moroccans attacked some of the Portuguese outposts in 1541 and managed to recapture both Agadir and Mogador. The Moroccans also forced the Portuguese to abandon the port of Safi. There was fighting throughout Morocco until 1578, when King Sebastian of Portugal led an ill-fated expedition to seize as much of northwest Africa as he could. It ended with the Battle of the Three Kings later that year, in which King Sebastian was killed and the throne passed to an unmarried uncle. After two years, the King of Spain united Portugal and Spain under a common ruler until 1640, when the Braganças ended Spanish rule and a revolution broke out in Lisbon. The “War of Restoration” between Spain and Portugal lasted until 1668, when a peace agreement was reached. As well as fighting in Morocco, the Portuguese had also taken over some of the islands of the mid-Atlantic. In 1418, a Portuguese navigator sighted the island later known as Madeira. When he visited it two years later, it was uninhabited. Consequently, Henry the Navigator encouraged colonization soon afterward. In 1420, the Portuguese sent a military force to annex the Canary Islands, leading to a conflict with the native Guanches until 1479, when Portugal finally ceded the islands to Spain under the Treaty of Alcáçovas. The Azores, discovered in about 1427 by a Portuguese navigator, became a location for settlement during the 1430s and 1440s. The last of the western mid-Atlantic island chains, the Cape Verde islands, was spotted in 1460 by Portuguese navigators. The first Portuguese settlers arrived at São Tiago in 1462, founding the first European city in the tropics. These islands became significant to the development of the slave trade. The Treaty of Tordesillas in 1494 divided the world between the Spanish and the Portuguese, with the former having control of the land west of a meridian line 370 leagues (970 miles) west of the Cape Verde Islands, and the Portuguese the remainder. The result was that the Portuguese did not have to fight the Spanish for control of the mid-Atlantic islands or North Africa, and managed to control Brazil after its discovery and exploration. It also meant that Portugal was able to expand its colonial possessions in Africa. Initially, most of these possessions were only forts and small trading posts that enabled the Portuguese to begin trade with the Arabs, Indians, and Chinese, an activity that started in earnest from the early sixteenth century.
Colonies in Africa, Portuguese It was not long before the Portuguese took an active role in the African slave trade. Indeed, many Portuguese bases were where slaves could be held before being shipped to the Americas: Bissau (capital of modern-day Guinea-Bissau), Luanda (capital of modern-day Angola), and São Tomé. During the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries, many slaves were shipped across the Atlantic, with large numbers passing through slave centers such as those at Bissau and São Tomé. This generated much revenue for the Portuguese and led to the establishment of other forts along the African coast. During the eighteenth century, the Portuguese started to consolidate many of their colonial possessions, giving up control of some in exchange for greater permanence for others. One of the areas most profitable to the Portuguese remained the trans-Atlantic slave trade operating from Luanda, and São Tomé, with the constant demand for slaves for sugar plantations and other industries in Brazil and elsewhere. During the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, the Portuguese attempted to organize their overseas possessions. In 1807, however, the French invaded and conquered Portugal, which had refused to stop trade with Britain as directed by French Emperor Napoleon I. This invasion resulted in the Portuguese royal family fleeing to Brazil, where they remained until 1821. The French invaded Portugal twice more shortly thereafter. The British aided the Royal Portuguese forces and, under the command of the Duke of Wellington, they eventually defeated the French, who were forced to evacuate Portugal. During the French rule over Portugal, the British sought control of the Portuguese colonies to prevent French control. Most were returned to Portugal after the expulsion of the French from Portugal, but there were some important exceptions. The British retained the Portuguese bases in what is now South Africa. During the 1880s, as the “Scramble for Africa” resulted in the formation of large parts of the African continent into colonies, Portugal sought to establish firm borders for its territories, including the Cape Verde Islands, Portuguese Guinea, São Tomé and Príncipe, Angola, and Mozambique. As Portugal’s international influence continued to decrease, the country sought to maintain its prestige through the preservation of its colonial empire. The Cape Verde Islands and Portuguese Guinea were the only remaining Portuguese possessions in West Africa. The Cape Verde Islands consisted of ten islands and five islets; Portuguese Guinea was located on the African mainland. Although the two colonies were administratively separate for much of the time, their close proximity meant that the nationalist movements in both places considered uniting. In São Tomé and Príncipe, the two islands were not only the site of a major center for slave trading, but also where some sugar and coffee plantations were originally established. Although most of the original Portuguese planters had fled to Brazil in 1530 after a slave revolt, however, others later replaced them and maintained bonded labor on the coffee plantations long after the abolition of slavery. Angola was the wealthiest of the Portuguese possessions in Africa, but the Portuguese devastated the African society there, shipping out between 5,000 and 10,000 slaves annually during the seventeenth century. It was only after the establishment of Angola’s frontiers in 1891 that Portuguese colonists and merchants started opening up the “interior.” In East Africa, the Portuguese controlled Mozambique, which was held
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Colonies in Africa, Portuguese under a variety of jurisdictions. A war fought by the local chiefs in 1895 to 1898 led to concessions in 1899, including Portuguese citizenship for some wealthy and welleducated blacks from Mozambique. Many of the others were forced to work as indentured labor in South African mines. One of the great economic assets in Mozambique was the Beira Railways, which carried much of the mineral resources of Northern Rhodesia (modern-day Zambia) and Southern Rhodesia (modern-day Zimbabwe) to the coast. By the early twentieth century, although Portugal still controlled large tracts of Africa, there was little effort to exert any central control. The situation changed greatly in Portugal with the military coup d’état in 1926 and the emergence of General Óscar Carmona, and two years later, with the rise of António de Salazar, initially as minister of finance, and then as minister for colonies. Salazar immediately developed plans to change the nature of the entire Portuguese Empire, especially the African colonies. He wanted to unite them into a cohesive economic bloc, excluding as many foreign companies as he could, especially the British and South African companies that had taken over parts of Mozambique. Salazar’s overall aim was to ensure that all Portuguese possessions were dependent on each other, creating a much larger domestic market and thereby being able to exclude most imports. To make this plan economically viable, it was necessary for most of Portuguese Africa to be used for the growing of cash crops. This practice angered many farmers and resulted in food shortages in some parts of Portuguese Africa. In 1932, Salazar finally became premier of Portugal. The “closed” nature of the Portuguese economy helped Portugal, which remained neutral during World War II. During the 1950s, with much nationalist activity in the colonies of other European powers, it was only a matter of time before there would be uprisings in Portuguese Africa. In 1951, the Portuguese government officially reclassified colonies as “overseas provinces,” but this was only an exercise in semantics. In the late 1950s, several incidents led to the formation of armed nationalist groups. In 1956, the Partido Africano da Independencia do Guine e Cabo Verde (“African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde”) was formed by Amilcar Cabral, who launched an armed struggle for independence five years later. In Angola, nationalists attacked the Portuguese in February 1961. The independence movement came to be led by Agostinho Neto, who had studied medicine in Portugal and later became a prominent poet, writing a number of important works in Portuguese. In 1962, Frelimo (Frente de Libertacao de Mocambique, “Liberation Front of Mozambique”) formed in Mozambique. As a result, by the early 1960s, there was fighting in many of Portugal’s African colonies. Such a situation led to costly colonial wars that destroyed the economies of Angola, Guinea, and Mozambique. In 1974, Portuguese Guinea asserted its independence as Guinea-Bissau. The military coup d’état in Lisbon in April 1974 led quickly to the end of most of the Portuguese Empire. The new military rulers gave power to a new left-wing government, which signaled Portuguese withdrawal from Angola, the Cape Verde Islands, São Tomé and Príncipe, and Mozambique. Since 1975, Mozambique and Angola have been involved in devastating civil wars, which ended only in 1992 and 2002, respectively. The economic plight of Portuguese Guinea, the Cape Verde Islands, and São Tomé and Príncipe remains difficult, although some mineral resources have been found in the
Colonies in Africa, Spanish latter nation. In spite of the years of slavery, all the former Portuguese colonies retain some links with Portugal. Students from Portugal’s former colonies often attend university in Lisbon or elsewhere in Portugal. Furthermore, much of the scholarship on Portuguese Africa is published in Portuguese. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Age of Exploration; Afonso I; Berlin Conference (1884–1885); Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of; Portugal, Blacks in; Portuguese Education of; Rio Branco Law of Free Birth; Slave Trade, Portuguese; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Boxer, C. R. Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415– 1825. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963; Boxer, C. R. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire. New York: Knopf, 1969; Diffie, Bailey, and George Winius. Foundations of the Portuguese Empire, 1415–1580. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1977; Fisher, H.E.S. The Portugal Trade: A Study of Anglo-Portuguese Commerce, 1700–1770. London: Methuen, 1971; Nuñez, Benjamin. Dictionary of Portuguese-African Civilization. London: Hans Zell, 1995.
Justin Corfield
Colonies in Africa, Spanish Although Spain occupied a primary place in world history dating from the sixteenth century, especially through its victory over the native populations of contemporary southern America, its history and culture are somewhat interwoven with Africa and its people. Aside from Africans’ involvement as slaves, domestic labor, armed men, and officials during Spanish military campaigns and control of territories in the Americas, Spain also extended its rule to mainland Africa dating from the nineteenth century. Spain’s colonial rule in Africa included territories in both North and sub-Saharan Africa. Spanish colonial territories in Africa included Morocco and the Western Sahara, and Fernando Po and Rio Muni in sub-Saharan Africa. After becoming independent, Fernando Po and Rio Muni merged into the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. NORTHERN AFRICA. Spain’s relations with North Africa predate the nineteenth century, when it attempted to actualize its colonial ambitions in the region. Between the eighth and fifteenth centuries, Arab kingdoms with bases in North Africa dominated parts of southern Spain, thereby giving the geographical area a blend of Islamic and Christian cultures. Spanish attempts at having a colonial territory in North Africa began in 1859 with the invasion of Morocco and the claim of a Spanish protectorate over a large portion of the western Sahara in the 1880s. Although these attempts were generally applauded in Spain as humanitarian ventures, devoid of economic considerations but meant to civilize the “barbarian” population of North Africa, it remained largely unsuccessful, as the indigenous population stoutly resisted Spanish rule. This was coupled with the quest of other European powers for African colonies, including Great Britain, France, and Germany, which also had political and economic interests in Morocco. The stalemate continued until 1904 when the French and Spanish, sensing general weakness in the popularity of Sultan Abd al-Aziz, agreed to the partitioning of Morocco. Likewise, shortly thereafter, the British, which previously
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Colonies in Africa, Spanish had advocated the sanctity of Moroccan independence, instead agreed to recognize French influence in Morocco in exchange for recognition of British sovereignty over Egypt. This arrangement, however, did not go without protest from Germany, which voiced its opposition to any erosion of Moroccan independence. Germany backed down only in 1911 after Fez, the seat of the Moroccan sultan, was on the verge of collapse from the threats of militant tribesmen leading to a call for French protection by the sultan. To pacify Germany, France yielded a part of its territory in the Congo to German authorities, and, in March 1912, Sultan Mulay Hafiz signed a treaty that placed his country under French rule. The treaty included a clause placing 8,500 square miles around the Rif region under Spanish authority, even as some other treaties between France and Spain around the same period recognized Spanish rule in the western Sahara. Spanish authority in the Rif region, however, was challenged in a 1921 revolt by Berber tribesmen led by two brothers both named Mohammad ibn Abd al-Karim. The Rifian insurgents secured a crushing defeat over the Spaniards in the Battle of Annual. After an attack on the French in 1925, Spain and France amassed more than 500,000 troops in northern Morocco to combat the Berber insurgents. The leadership of the revolt subsequently surrendered to the French in 1926, and Spain gained full control of its stretch of Moroccan territory. Spain retained this territory until handing it over to Moroccan authorities after France granted independence in 1956. Spain held on to the western Sahara until 1976, when it unilaterally withdrew. Morocco subsequently took over the region after a military invasion. SUB-SAHARAN AFRICA. Spain had two colonial territories in sub-Saharan Africa: Fernando Po (populated by the Bubi) and Rio Muni (populated by the Fang). Fernando Po became a Spanish territory in 1778, and Rio Muni was acquired and recognized as Spanish territory through an international treaty in 1900. In Fernando Po, Spanish administrators established large cocoa plantations on which many Nigerian and Liberian laborers were employed, for the indigenous Bubi would hardly work on the plantations. Labor was forcefully maintained on the plantations, with erring laborers subjected to punishments. Also, Spain had an assimilation policy whereby an educated native with relatively good economic means and service to the state could become an emancipado, thereby receiving the rights of a citizen as a “black Spaniard.” In 1959, the Spanish government sought to integrate the territories into mainland Spain by passing legislations that made them the Equatorial Region of Spain, with the right to elect representatives to Spanish parliament. This concession, however, failed to appease local nationalists who earnestly yearned for independence. Thus, in 1968, Spain merged the two colonies and granted them independence as the Republic of Equatorial Guinea. At independence, the country had one of Africa’s best literacy and health records. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, African Invasions of; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Berman, Sanford. “Pepple’s Story: Footnote to Spanish Guinea.” The Phylon Quarterly 18 (1957): 306–308; Damis, John. “Sahrawi Demonstrations.” Middle East Report 218 (2001): 38–41; Elena, Alberto, and Jarvier Ordonez. “Science, Technology, and the Spanish
Colonies in the Caribbean, British Colonial Experience in the Nineteenth Century.” Osiris 15 (2000): 70–82; Hallet, Robin. Africa since 1875. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd, 1974; Harbon, John. “Spain, Spanish Morocco and Arab Policy.” African Affairs 55 (1956): 135–143; Restall, Matthew. “Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America.” The Americas 57 (2000): 171–205; Restall, Matthew, and Jane Landers. “The African Experience in Early Spanish America (Introduction).” The Americas 57 (2000): 167–170.
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Colonies in the Caribbean, British The implications of Britain’s colonization of the Caribbean are the core issues when considering African presence in European history. Most important, British expansionism was always driven by their untiring desire and quest for sugar. There are two requirements for making sugarcane cultivation a profitable undertaking: land and labor. Sugar is a labor-intensive crop, for extreme care and attention are required throughout the months of the plant’s growth. The gigantic monocultural sugar plantations established in the Caribbean required a systematic method of labor supply and a strict labor regimen. Thus Britain’s colonization brought about dramatic demographic shifts (both an explosion and diversification of the population) through the introduction of largescale migrant workers: first African slavery and later an indentured labor system. A radical demographic change attendant to a sugar-centered economic restructuring began in Barbados in the late seventeenth century. The earlier mass settlement brought about the subdivision of arable land into a chain of small plots, which allowed for a diverse agricultural response, including dyestuffs, cotton, and coffee. These crops were suitable to small-scale family-run farming, which was conducted with indentured servants recruited in the home country. A steep rise in the price of sugar in response to the increasing demand in England, however, led to a swift conversion of traditional crops to sugar. Family-owned estates were quickly merged into metropolitan-based corporate plantations exclusively cultivating sugar. The answer to an ever-increasing demand for affordable and controllable laborers in place of traditional European indentured workers was African slavery. This sugar-induced revolution of social structure eventually reigned throughout the Caribbean along with the expansion of British territories. From the early eighteenth century, by naval and monetary power, Britain began to extend its sphere of influence, which caused recurring wars over colonial possessions with other European powers, particularly Spain and France. As the British won victories in the Caribbean and Europe, many Antillean colonies were ceded to Britain, which established the hegemony of the British Empire in the region by the early nineteenth century. Thus, the British gained French-ruled Grenada and Dominica in 1763, St. Vincent in 1783, St. Lucia and Tobago in 1814, and Spanish-ruled Trinidad in 1802. The British conquests also meant the transformation of these colonies into sugarproducing centers with African slave labor. Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807, but the demand for African laborers was greater than ever in the colonies that had just started supplying sugar to the international market. The (unlawful) importation
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Colonies in the Caribbean, British of workers from West Africa continued while the planters’ search for labor generated an intercolonial migration of Africans, both enslaved and free, from older colonies (where sugar production had already peaked) to the new acquisitions. For instance, in Trinidad, which remained nearly deserted under the 300 years of Spanish rule, the rapid development of sugar plantations doubled the number of Africans from the late eighteenth century up to emancipation. New arrivals from West Africa and the nearby West Indies (Caribbean) not only increased the number of those of African descent, but also rendered the African community in the recipient colonies more ethnically diverse, with a variety of distinct languages, religions, customs, and work ethics and patterns. The sugar-induced socioeconomic revolution was a common historical thread of the British West Indies; however, sugar affected the configuration of each colony in ways determined by its own contextual conditions. The location, terrain, and climate controlled the scale of production and thus influenced the extent and duration of labor importation. In addition to geography and topography, strategic position and relative status of a given colony within the region and within the empire also affected the development of sugar plantations, which shaped various immigration policies. Such policies in turn engendered different racial and ethnic structures. In the post-emancipation era, beginning in 1838, most conquered colonies introduced indentured labors of various national and cultural origins in place of liberated Africans. The importation of South Asian workers configured those colonial societies that applied the scheme, as more racially and ethnically diverse, with a much lower ratio of people of African origin to the total population. Guyana (formerly British Guiana) and Trinidad are cases in point. In the twentieth century, Caribbean colonies changed from suppliers of sugar to suppliers of labor for Britain’s economic development. The post-World War II labor shortage in England popularized the migration of colonial subjects to the mother country, which had been an exclusive practice of the privileged classes. This “colonization in reverse,” as it has been called, reinforced the peripheral status of working-class West Indians of color within the mother country’s economy, as well as their dependency on it. In addition to the demand for labor, the 1948 Nationality Act spurred the growth of working-class migration by granting British citizenship to citizens of its overseas possessions. The number of West Indians coming to Britain in search of employment increased during the 1950s to an average of more than 30,000 per year. The recurring demonstrations of black West Indian workers against discrimination, which occasionally led to violent clashes, gradually inflamed antiblack immigrant sentiment in Britain. In response, Britain passed the Commonwealth Immigration Act of 1962 to restrict the entry of nonwhite Commonwealth citizens with limited educational attainments and work skills. Notting Hill had the largest concentration of West Indians in London and was the scene of violent race riots in 1958. As a symbol of ethnic and racial pride, the Notting Hill Carnival currently draws 2 million people from all over the world every August. The waves of West Indians immigrating to Britain in the mid-twentieth century included many students with interests and ambition in writing and in the arts, along with professional writers, artists, critics, and journalists in search of greater opportunities of expression. Some would contribute to the development of a unique black British culture; some would help introduce Caribbean culture to a wide audience; others returned
Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch to their colonies of origin and became instrumental in the formation of contemporary Caribbean societies. Among the returnees was an awakened and militantly idealistic intelligentsia that played a leading role in the Black Power movement in former British colonies in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They included, but were not limited to, Orlando Patterson (Jamaica), Walter Rodney (Guyana), and Lloyd Best (Trinidad). See also: Abolition of Slavery; African Diaspora; Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Glasgow Race Disturbances (1919); James, C.L.R.; Literature, Blacks in British; Music, African Influences on European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; PanAfricanism; Race Riots in Europe; Rastafarianism; Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean; Slave Trade, British; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Brock, Colin. The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. London: Routledge, 1986; Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975; Foner, Nancy. “Race and Color: Jamaican Migrants in London and New York City.” International Migration Review 19:4 (1985): 708–727; Hiro, Dilip. Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain. Rev. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1991; Murithi, Timothy. The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005; Oliver, Paul, ed. Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contributions to Popular Music. Milton Keynes: Open University Press, 1990; Owuso, Kwesi. Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999; Paul, Kathleen. Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997.
Teruyuki Tsuji
Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch Because of the expansive reach of the Dutch Empire from the sixteenth to twentieth centuries, the Caribbean has a distinct Dutch and black influence. Specifically, the area known as the Netherlands Antilles exhibits a mixture of Dutch and black peoples. The Netherlands Antilles is composed of Bonaire and Curacao off the coast of Venezuela, and, approximately 500 miles away, Saba, Sint Maarten, and Sint Eustatius, which are found southeast of the Virgin Islands. Today, all five islands retain a strong connection with the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Historically, the area was first occupied by native peoples, who were eventually decimated by the diseases brought to them by the Spanish in the late fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. The Dutch, via the Dutch West India Company, conquered the Spanish in the area during the seventeenth century and established the colonies, predominantly for the slave trade. Slavery existed in the Dutch colonies until 1863. During the eighteenth century, economist Adam Smith recognized the colonies for their prosperity and mentioned Curacao and St. Eustatius in his work The Wealth of Nations. Although the islands initially had a reputation for prosperity, it eventually became clear that they lacked significant natural resources. Their prosperity lay in their excellent ports and access to world trade. Because of the lack of their own resources, several
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Colonies in the Caribbean, French of the islands established oil refineries during the early twentieth century. Although the oil refineries have contributed to the wealth of the area, the predominant industries today remain tourism and some offshore financing. Overall, the area boasts a relatively stable economy, especially compared to others in the general area. The area that began as the Dutch colonies in the Caribbean now exhibits a mixture of African slave descendants and Europeans. There are significant numbers of Spanish, Portuguese, and Sephardic Jews in the area as well. Most residents speak Dutch, English, or Papiamentu, with many speaking all three languages. The area maintains stable European and American relations and is demonstrative of the Dutch Empire legacy. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Dutch. Further Reading: Serbin, Andres. “The Caribbean: Myths and Realities for the 1990s.” Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs 32 (Summer 1990): 121–141; Sluiter, Engel. “Dutch-Spanish Rivalry in the Caribbean Area, 1594–1609.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 28 (May 1948): 165–196; Sutton, Paul, and Anthony Payne. “The Off-Limits Caribbean: The United States and the European Dependent Territories.” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 533 (May 1994): 87–99; Vandenbosch, Amry. “The Dutch Colonies in the Western World.” The Journal of Politics 3 (August 1941): 308–317.
Dawn P. Hutchins
Colonies in the Caribbean, French The French colonies in the Caribbean originally consisted of a group of islands in the Greater and Lesser Antilles and the part of the South American continent still known as French Guiana. The islands in the Caribbean were fought over and traded in treaties constantly by France, England, the Dutch, and the Spanish for 300 years after they were discovered. Those that were in French possession for significant periods of time included Martinique, Guadeloupe, Saint-Christophe (now known as St. Kitts), Saint Domingue (part of what is now Haiti), French Guiana, Marie-Galante and St. Croix, St. Lucie and St. Barthélemy and St. Martin, and Grenada. These islands were linked by currents and wind patterns that positioned them favorably for inclusion into the growing Atlantic trade system that developed after Columbus’s famous voyage in 1492. Currents and winds sweep northwest from the hump of Brazil along the coast of Guiana, and then north up to St. Vincent and the Grenadines, before swinging northwest to Saint Lucia, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. Although the terrain varies from island to island, the larger islands feature mountainous regions and rainforests, which became significant refuges for escaped slaves as the islands developed into plantation colonies. All of them are vulnerable to soil erosion, and many have suffered a great deal of ecological devastation as a result of intensive sugar, tobacco, and coffee farming, which depleted the soil. Many of them are also subject to earthquakes and hurricanes, and some, such as Martinique, are vulnerable to volcanic activity. They originally displayed a lush fertility that attracted acquisitive European explorers and settlers, although the intense heat and moisture of the local climate were a setback to European settlement attempts. New settlers were vulnerable
Colonies in the Caribbean, French to tropical diseases such as malaria and yellow fever that were endemic to the area. From the time of Columbus’s voyage onward, however, the Caribbean became home to a growing number and variety of European pirates, buccaneers, traders, and eventually settlers, plantation owners, and the slaves they forcibly imported. There was also a missionary presence on each of the French Caribbean colonies promoting the interests of the Roman Catholic Church. These travelers and settlers first encountered the native inhabitants (the Arawaks and the Carib, from whom the islands drew their name) and engaged in trade and warfare with them, attempted to convert them, and in many cases exploited their labor. The Caribs and Arawak, therefore, became an invisible or extremely tiny proportion of the population of most islands within a hundred years of settlement. DATES AND ORIGINS OF FRENCH SETTLEMENT. Although Columbus had claimed the Americas for Spain, the French disputed this claim. In a now famous anecdote, the French king, Francis I (1516–1547), asked the Spanish to produce Adam’s will leaving the Americas to Iberia. The French Crown then licensed pirates and buccaneers to operate in the French Caribbean, which they did, fostering both legal and illegal trade. The next stage toward colonization unfolded when, in 1625, Pierre Blain d’Estambuc, a French noble and merchant-explorer, was stranded and succored by French squatters on St. Christophe’s. Impressed with its beauty and potential, he vowed to return and settle. In 1627, he returned with 500 engagés (or indentured laborers) and colonists, effectively founding the French Antilles. Initially, settlement was a rough and ready process, and the French crown struggled to assert any control over its far-flung Caribbean holdings. By 1664, however, stability was established by minister Colbert’s appointee, Alexandre de Tracy, who placed the islands under the governance of the merchant trading company the Compagnie des Indes Occidentales. This arrangement lasted until the French crown stepped in and formally took control. Then, as now, the islands under French control were regarded as provinces of metropolitan France. The French Crown officially acquired St. Domingue in the Treaty of Ryswick in 1697, and, from that point onward, the French Caribbean became an enormously profitable source of trade and exports for France. Martinique was originally the favored destination for slave exports and thus the dominant colony, with a fort and the governor’s residence. By 1714, St. Domingue had overtaken it as the greatest sugar producer and was made the administrative center. By 1740, the Caribbean cash crops of sugar and coffee represented 60 percent of French external trade, with an export value of 100 million livres a year. SUGAR REVOLUTION AND THE PLANTATION SYSTEM. The prosperity generated by these valuable cash crops depended on the oppressive exploitation of slaves, who were imported from Africa for their labor. The black experience in the French Caribbean was shaped by the plantation system used to produce crops. The most lucrative crop produced was sugar, but plantations also provided tobacco, indigo, cotton, cocoa, and eventually coffee (after 1730). Sugar was extremely labor intensive to plant, weed, and harvest and required large numbers of workers. The labor was arduous and unforgiving, and the numbers of workers involved exceeded the amount available from France or from the native Caribbean inhabitants who had been decimated by war, exploitation, and disease. So plantation owners imported as many African slaves
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Colonies in the Caribbean, French as they could get. More than a million-and-a-half slaves were brought to the French Antilles between the time of discovery and the end of slavery. The scale of forced migration of Africans into the Caribbean can be derived from figures given for the three largest importers of slave labor: St. Domingue, Martinique, and Guadeloupe. Together, these islands were responsible for bringing in more than 365,000 slaves between 1700 and 1760, and 650,000 between 1761 and 1810. In 1832, about two-thirds of the slaves used for agriculture in Martinique resided on sugar plantations. Sugar was most efficiently and profitably processed onsite, as the cane was bulky and difficult to transport. This meant that plantations also became proto-industrial factories, employing more “highly skilled” slaves in the crushing, extracting, and boiling of sugar. The plantation system, therefore, required enormous amounts of labor, but also offered some differentiation within the occupations given to slaves. Differences in skin color and occupation cross-cut each other and intersected with “creole” (i.e., born in the Caribbean) or “newly arrived” status to create a complex social structure that dictated conditions of daily life for black and white, enslaved and free, in the French Caribbean. The social hierarchy was first set by skin color, and then by property ownership, free or slave status, and occupation. The grand blancs, or white plantation owners, and governmental officials held top rank. Because many white plantation holders were absentee, their agents and managers also had a great deal of responsibility and wealth. Petit blancs, or poorer whites, originally arrived as bound engagés contracted to work for five years to pay for the price of their sea journey. They occupied a subsidiary rank of small landholders, artisans, and petty merchants or shopkeepers. These poorer whites strongly differentiated themselves from the mixed-race inhabitants of the islands (gens de couleur, or free men and women of color) many of whom competed for the same economic and occupational niche. Some free black and colored Caribbeans were slaves who purchased themselves from their owner, but many of them were the offspring of a white master and a slave mother. White fathers frequently “manumitted,” or freed, their concubines and the children they fathered. Gens de couleur, particularly the creoles among them (those who had been born on the Islands), jealously guarded their social ranking, which was higher than that of slaves, and frequently aspired to the social trappings they associated with white settlers. They were, however, subject to various forms of discrimination based on skin color, such as being excluded from voting, holding public office, giving evidence in court against whites, or serving on juries. On Martinique, for example, they were forbidden to practice medicine or pharmacy, or work in offices of clerks or notaries. Such discrimination was fiercely promoted by poor whites to protect their sense of racial superiority. After about 1727, the free men and women of color on Martinique began to present petitions to the French crown demanding greater rights. Their example was followed on other islands. Tensions between various social groups led to rising unrest and discontent that reached its zenith in the Haitian Revolution for Independence of 1791 to 1803. Lowest on the social hierarchy were slaves, even though black slaves represented an overwhelming majority of the population on every French Caribbean island. The slave population was provided through forced migrations, as most islands’ slave populations
Colonies in the Caribbean, French had low fertility and high mortality rates. The death rate for slaves could be as high as 50 percent during the three years of “seasoning” in which slaves adjusted to the climate and disease environment. Fertility rates were higher among island-born (or creole) women, but their numbers were small to begin with. DAILY LIFE, SKILL, AND GENDER PATTERNS. Among slaves, skill and gender dictated social status and access to food. Slaves were divided into field slaves, house slaves, and skilled artisans. Daily existence for field slaves on the plantations consisted of a backbreaking round of labor, usually performed in the hours between sunrise and sunset. This meant 12- to 16-hour days, with a break of two hours in the heat of the day, when working would cause death from sunstroke and dehydration. Field slaves were divided into two or three gangs, and the first gang (which could number up to 100) was composed of the strongest slaves, both male and female. It was responsible for the heaviest labor, such as ripping weeds and tree stumps out of the ground ready for planting, then digging the holes into which the cane cuttings were placed. Holes had to be two feet square and nine inches deep, and slaves were expected to dig up to 28 holes per hour. The second and third gangs performed “lighter” labors, such as intensive weeding. The majority of slave women, who numbered about half of all slaves on plantations, were confined to field work for life, with the exception of a few who were skilled in midwifery, nursing, and medical care, and served as fulltime medics on the huge plantations. Some female slaves were taken as concubines by white masters, or by higher ranked slaves and men of color. In many cases, particularly early in the colony, these women were given freedom. Slave men, however, could be trained into skilled trades and occupations and thus earn better rations, clothing, and for some, eventual freedom. The most valued among such slaves were carpenters, millwrights, coppersmiths, followed by coopers, sawyers, and distillers. As European demand for sugar grew throughout the eighteenth century, the need for slave artisans was great. Slave men who were trained in such occupations, however, encroached on the occupational skills of poor white artisans and freed men of color. This became one of the many tensions driving resentment and ultimately revolt and upheaval in the colonies. All slaves were subject to whipping and abuse for even the slightest infraction. Owners and their managers and overseers committed acts of incredible cruelty and torture in order to punish slaves who ran away, or were suspected of theft or disobedience. The French Crown attempted to regulate such abuses of slaves in order to quell the threat of revolts, in the Code Noir of 1685. The colonies’ distance from France, however, prevented the enforcement of this or any other government injunction. In addition to attempting to set some regulations on slave owners, the Code Noir was also concerned with prevention of interracial marriage between blacks and whites and prohibited such unions, although it had little effect on the ground in the colonies. Slaves were subject to both voluntary and coerced sexual relations with their masters, and unions between women and men of every social standing and color occurred throughout the islands. Offspring born on the islands often considered themselves superior to newcomers, and this became another source of tension as time wore on. Slaves and gens de couleur resisted oppression and racism in a variety of ways, whether through formal petition, the acquisition of freedom and wealth, or through
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Colonies in the Caribbean, French armed revolt, escape, insolence, and the refusal to work or bear children. Marronage was the term describing a widespread custom of slave escapes from plantations, and those who succeeded in escaping permanently set up marron communities. The most successful of these communities were hidden deep in the mountainous and forested regions of St. Domingue and French Guiana, and they sustained themselves through agriculture and occasional raiding and trading with plantations. They became a dominant force in the Haitian Revolution and were a cause of concern to the French government, which sent troops to try to suppress them, with mixed success. Ultimately, the French crown granted some of the marron communities their freedom in return for capturing any further slave escapees and turning them in. Some communities still survive today, notably in French Guiana. REVOLUTION AND INDEPENDENCE. The French Antilles were rocked by slave revolts and revolutions that both preceded and followed the French Revolution, and were linked to it by the ideas of liberty and equality. The Haitian Revolution was the only successful independence movement, and it threw off the French colonial yoke in 1803. The other islands succeeded in briefly abolishing slavery, as a result of the French Revolution, but this gain was rolled back under Napoleon Bonaparte. After the final French abolition of slavery in 1848, however, the colonies became more independent and individuals experienced greater equality. Nevertheless, race and skin color still dictated social standing throughout the French Caribbean in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The French almost lost possession of their Antillean colonies to Britain during the Napoleonic Wars, but they maintained French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Marie-Galante, St. Barthélemy, and part of St. Martin. These colonies have chosen to remain either overseas departments or collectivities of France today and have representation at the French governmental and European Union level as a result. Each of these islands was shaped by slavery; by the rich variety of unions among black, white, and Caribbean inhabitants; and by the cultural mixing of African, European, and Native Amerindian traditions. French Antillean culture has a rich musical and dance tradition featuring the beguine, and the quadrille, in addition to a vibrant local creole-blues tradition. French Antilleans, such as the Nardal sisters, Aimé Césaire, and Frantz Fanon, were all involved in promoting black arts and literature. Césaire and Fanon were advocates of independence and black rights movements. Today the islands rely heavily on tourism, but are also diversifying their agricultural crops. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Bug-Jargal; Colonies in Africa, French; Delgrès, Louis; Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre; France, Blacks in; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Literature, Blacks in French; L’Ouverture, Toussaint; Négritude; Ogé, Vincent; Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Boucher, Phillip. France and the American Tropics to 1700: Tropics of Discontent? Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2008; Burton, Richard, and Fred Reno, eds. French and West Indian: Martinique, Guadeloupe, and French Guiana today. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1995; Debien, Gabriel. Les esclaves aux Antilles françaises (XVII-XVIIIe siècles). Basse-terre and Fort-de-France: Société d’Histoire de la Guadeloupe et Société d’Histoire de la Martinique, 1974; Knight, Franklin, ed. General History of the Caribbean:
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish Volume III The Slave Societies of the Caribbean. London: Unesco, 1997; Moitt, Bernard. Women and Slavery in the French Antilles 1635–1848. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001.
Rachel Gillett
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish After the “discovery” of the Americas, or New World, by Christopher Columbus (1451–1506), Spain undertook a spectacular colonization program in the Caribbean region in the pursuits of obtaining wealth and spreading the Roman Catholic faith. The Spanish called the larger islands (such as Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico) the Greater Antilles and the smaller ones the Lesser Antilles. Present day Cuba, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, Jamaica, Cayman Islands, Trinidad, and the Bay Islands were once under the Spanish domain. Throughout the sixteenth century, the Spanish monopoly remained unchallenged. By the beginning of the seventeenth century, however, cracks began to appear by the intrusion of European powers. There began a long and bitter struggle among the European powers, such as the Dutch, French, and British, to secure a foothold in the region. Surrendering smaller islands or part of Spanish colonies to European powers as part of treaty arrangements became a regular feature of colonial rule. During the nineteenth century, Spain began to lose its colonies in the Americas. Spain did not finally lose all of its American empire until 1898. On his first voyage in 1492, Columbus claimed the island of Hispaniola, which became the launching pad of Spanish expansion in the Caribbean and mainland America. Originally populated by the Taino people, the Spanish conquerors ruled with extreme brutality. The French began to dominate the western part of the island. By the provisions of the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, Spain recognized it as the French domain of Saint Domingue, which became independent as Haiti. The remaining portion of the island gained independence in 1844 as the Dominican Republic. During his fourth and final voyage, Columbus located the Cayman Islands in 1503. Jamaica had come under Spanish control in 1509, but it was given, along with Cayman Islands, to Britain in 1670 under the provisions of the Treaty of Madrid. The Bay Islands were first located by Columbus in 1502. Spain claimed the islands, but they ultimately came into the possession of Britain in 1643. The southernmost island in the Caribbean, Trinidad, was inhabited by Amerindians of South American origin. Columbus discovered it on his third voyage. It was under Spanish occupation from 1510 until 1797, when it was ceded to Great Britain. Puerto Rico was under Spanish domination for almost four centuries. Discovered by Columbus in November 1493 during his second voyage, it was occupied by Spain in August 1508. The indigenous Tainos, which numbered about 30,000 people, were made to do mining work as slaves. A revolt three years afterward was suppressed by the Spanish authorities. Their number dwindled to 4,000 by 1514. Sugar cultivation gradually replaced mining work as the important commercial activity, and Spain granted licenses to bring in cheap labor from Africa. Colonial authorities also undertook a massive fortification program on the island to deter foreign ships from Britain, France, and the Netherlands. From 1527 to the nineteenth century, slave uprisings were a
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Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish frequent problem. Social tension was mounting between the Puerto Rican Creoles and the white Spanish minority, which dominated the bureaucracy, army, and commerce of the colony. In September 1868, rebels declared the colony a republic, but the uprising was quelled with an iron hand. Pressure was being mounted against the metropole (or “mother country”) to emancipate the slaves. The liberal minister for colonial affairs, Segismundo Moret y Prendergast (1838–1913), was assisted by Puerto Ricans like Román Baldorioty de Castro (1822–1889) and Brigadier General Luis Padial (1832–1879) to pass a law that would help the slaves move toward freedom. The Moret Law of July 4, 1870, which was put in force in Peurto Rico and Cuba, freed slaves born after September 17, 1868, as well as persons over 60 years old. The Registro Central de Esclavos (Central Slave Registrar) of 1872 collected genealogical charts about the slaves, who were emancipated the next year. Spain ceded Puerto Rico to the United States by the Treaty of Paris in December 1898. In Cuba, Spanish settlements began in 1511. Local resistance was put down, and in the 1530s, African slaves were introduced to work in mines. With sugar and tobacco as the main products, Cuba replaced Hispaniola as the most important field of operations for the Spanish. Attempts to enslave the Afro-Cuban descendents of slaves, however, led to resentment, and slave revolts became frequent throughout the eighteenth century. In the beginning of the nineteenth century, Cuba became the most important world sugar producer, and slavery was intertwined with the sugar economy. In March 1843, a major slave revolt occurred in the Alcancia sugar plantation. International pressure was placed on the Spanish government to end slavery. The first war of independence, which lasted for 10 years, occurred from 1868 to 1878. The rebels demanded full independence from Spain, once they realized that the colonial government was not willing to undertake even moderate political and social reforms. Slavery was ended in Cuba in October 1886. After the Little War of 1880, there was another war in 1895, in which both whites and blacks participated. The ties of Cuba with the United States were growing and its trade volume with the latter was far more than with Spain. The United States was a large market for Cuban sugar. Some Cubans advocated closer ties with the United States, and others desired full independence. After the Spanish-American War of 1898, American troops occupied Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines. Cuba became independent in 1902. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Age of Exploration; Conquistadors, Black; Latin American Revolutions, Blacks in; Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and; Moret Law, Spanish; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Aimes, Hubert. A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868. New York: Octagon, 1967; Bergad, Laird W. The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Davis, David. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006; Kamen, Henry. Empire: How Spain Became a World Power, 1492–1763. New York: HarperCollins, 2003; Pons, Frank. History of the Caribbean: Plantations, Trade, and War in the Atlantic World. Princeton: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007; Rogozinski, Jan. A Brief History of the Caribbean. New York: Facts on File, 1992.
Patit Paban Mishra
Congo Free State, Protest Against the
Congo Free State, Protest Against the Organized protest against the Congo Free State constituted an important part of European political culture and intellectual history in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as it reflected European imaginings of blacks and the consumption of race in the context of imperialism. Protest against the state can be characterized broadly by two distinct, but sometimes overlapping, discourses: anti-imperialism and human rights. The former characterized the Congo Free State as reflective of the illegitimate practice of empire-building that sanctioned economic and political dominance over peoples outside the nation-state. The latter focused on the abuses and the “atrocities” committed against the Congolese people by Belgian administrators, soldiers, and SAB (Société Anonyme Belge pour la Commerce du Haut-Congo) agents. Many European protesters who deplored the murders, mutilations, rapes, and beatings that underwrote Belgian efforts to mobilize native labor for the rubber trade did not repudiate imperialism as inherently evil. Rather, they ascribed to notions of “benevolent empires” that brought “civilization,” commerce, and Christianity to “backward” races. Those activists who viewed human rights violations as inextricably linked to imperialism emerged as the architects and rank-and-file members of such organizations as the Congo Reform Association, founded in 1904 in Great Britain (with branches across Europe and in the United States), or joined the already established Aborigines Protection Society. The origins of European protest against the Congo Free State can be found in debates over the legitimacy of the International African Association founded by King Leopold II of Belgium and explorer Henry Morton Stanley in 1876. Much of the rhetoric surrounding the resistance to the association’s territorial claims spoke of violations of international law, the lack of free trade, the questionable right of philanthropic organizations to found a state, and the anterior rights concomitant with “first discovery.” The “Congo Question,” as it was known in diplomatic circles, led to the organization of the Berlin Conference on West Africa (1884–1885). The settlement of the Congo debate, especially freedom of trade and navigation of the Niger and Congo Rivers, proved to be of interest to several European states. Representatives from the United Kingdom, France, Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, and Sweden-Norway all signed the General Act issued on February 26, 1885. The act was also signed by plenipotentiaries from the United States and Turkey (the Ottoman Empire). What many diplomats viewed as a triumph, the inauguration of the partitioning of Africa, anti-imperialists saw as a first step in the conquest of sovereign peoples. The earliest written criticisms of the Congo Free State and the wider imperial project in Africa appeared in black newspapers in the United States and throughout the African Diaspora. African American Baptist minister George Washington Williams published the first exposé on the Congo, “An Open Letter to His Serene Majesty Léopold II, King of the Belgians and Sovereign of the Independent State of Congo,” in 1890. Blacks in the Diaspora mobilized to defend Africa, holding the first Pan-African Conference in London under the leadership of Trinidadian, Henry Sylvester Williams and his PanAfrican Association. By 1901, the organization had 150 European members who were not of black African descent; however, arguably sustained European protest against
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Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of “King Leopold’s rule” coalesced after the publication of the Casement Report in 1904. Under the authority of a House of Commons resolution, British Diplomat Roger Casement conducted an investigation in 1903 into allegations of “atrocities” committed against the Congolese people. After filing his report, Casement cofounded the Congo Reform Association with Edmund D. Morel and Henry Guinness. European writers, artists, and missionaries soon joined the phalanx of political dissenters to imperialist practices in the Congo. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s The Crime of the Congo (1909) and Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) were part of a diverse body of literature and cultural texts that directly engaged the Congo Question and served as lenses through which Westerners could interrogate and critique empire. Many British missionaries took photos documenting the amputation of limbs from Congolese men who did not collect enough rubber, the detention of women and children until their husbands/fathers met their rubber quotas, and the flogging of men who resisted impressed labor by Congolese askaris. As these images and accompanying testimonials circulated throughout European metropolises, protest against the Congo Free State accelerated, as reformers began viewing the Congolese as not merely colonial subjects, but human beings. Scholars have argued that protest against the Congo Free State launched the first international human rights campaign. Indeed, the political movement against the state was transnational and stressed the human casualties of its labor policies. Many activists, however, did not to link their opposition to an ongoing, uncompromising critique of empire. When King Leopold ceded his control over the state to the Belgian government in 1908 under rising domestic and international censure, European politicians effusively praised the protectorate policies of the Belgian parliament. Many European protesters who attributed the dehumanization of the Congolese as an abrogation of the Berlin Conference agreement expressed faith that parliamentary rule would ensure future cooperation between Africans and Europeans and thus prevent further atrocities from occurring. The Congo Reform Association, believing that it had achieved its goals, dissolved in 1912. As the colonial economy of the then Belgian Congo expanded to include harvesting palm kernels and copal (resin), labor practices remained exploitative to serve the interests of the empire and foreign commercial agents. See also: New Imperialism; Pan-Africanism. Further Reading: Driver, Felix. “Henry Morton Stanley and His Critics: Geography, Exploration, and Empire.” Past and Present 133 (1991): 134–166; Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. London: Macmillan, 1999; Hooker, J. R. “The Pan-African Conference 1900.” Transition 46 (1974): 20–24; Nelson, Samuel H. Colonialism in the Congo Basin, 1880–1940. Athens: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1994; Wesseling, H. L. Divide and Rule: The Partition of Africa, 1880–1914. Trans. Arnold J. Pomerans. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996.
Jeannette Eileen Jones
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of When the Portuguese started arriving in the Congo in the 1480s, their goal was to convert much of the population to Christianity. This was expected to be achieved by the
Conquistadors, Black conversion of the kings and the ruling class of the Congo. When King Nzinga-a-Cuum converted, he took the name Joao I. His son, King Afonso I, also became a Christian. Afonso wanted the Portuguese to send missionaries and teachers to the Congo. The teachers, many of whom were from Christian religious orders, came to the Congo and established a royal school. It was run initially by an individual from the Congo who had gone to Portugal, possibly as one of the hostages taken when the Portuguese explorer Diego Cão sailed back to Portugal in 1485. The individual in question (whose name has not survived) then was able to return to Africa with plans to educate some of the population of the Congo in the European model. By 1516, there were more than 1,000 students attending this school, which took in not only many members of the extended royal family, but also the sons of most of the nobles of the country. With lessons in Portuguese and Latin, including religious education and other subjects such as language, literature, and the humanities, these schools resulted in the creation of a large literate ruling class that was heavily pro-Portuguese, at least culturally, if not also politically. It also led to the emergence of a major Roman Catholic “establishment” class. There were certainly no plans for education of the vast majority of people in the country. On May 27, 1517, Afonso I wrote to King Manuel I of Portugal, calling him “my brother.” The letter, which survives, noted that the king of the Congo was sending several young men from the Congolese royal family to be educated in Lisbon and other Portuguese centers of learning. This led to more people from the Congo going to Lisbon, but little is known of their academic progress in the country. It is possible that the enlarged elite may well have led to (or at any rate exacerbated) the factional problems that began to face the Congolese court. There were also problems when the Portuguese governors tried to impose more of their rule on the country, especially through bishops who paid the mestres (“lay teachers”) who were running the schools. Factionalism, as well as attacks from Angola and finally by the Dutch, served to undermine the kingdom and to end the Portuguese attempts to establish an elite education system in southwest Africa. See also: Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Portugal, Blacks in. Further Reading: Johnson, LeRoy-Ronald. Congolese-Portuguese Relations, 1482–1543: The First Phase of Lusitanian Expansion in Tropical Africa, PhD dissertation, University of Michigan, 1981; Thornton, John. “Early Kongo-Portuguese Relations: A New Interpretation.” History in Africa 8 (1981): 183–204.
Justin Corfield
Conquistadors, Black During the Spanish conquest of the Americas during the Age of Exploration, many of the members of the armies sent to America included soldiers of black African descent. Those black conquistadores that have been documented include Juan Garrido (Mexico), Sebastián Toral (Yucatan), Pedro Fulupo (Costa Rica), Juan Bardales (Honduras and Panama), Antonio Perez (Venezuela), Juan Portugues (Venezuela), Juan Garcia (Peru), Miguel Ruiz (Peru), Juan Beltrán (Chile), Esteban (North America), Juan Valiente (Guatemala and Chile), Nuflo de Olano (North America), and Pedro Alonso Niño (Santo Domingo).
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Conquistadors, Black The Spanish conquest and settlement of the Americas began with the first voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Even at this early juncture, blacks were participants in the conquest of the Americas. Pedro Alonso Niño was a navigator of black African descent who accompanied and assisted Columbus on his first voyage, piloting the Niña. He also took part in Columbus’s second voyage to the Americas in 1494. After Niño’s return to Spain, he later led his own voyage to the Americas in 1499. Blacks from Spain, known as ladinos, served as soldiers, slaves, and settlers in America during the fifteenth century. Many of those of African descent participated in the Spanish conquest and settlement of the Americas in hopes of improving their socioeconomic status. Blacks in Spain’s port cities at the time generally lived under poor conditions. Consequently, both free and enslaved blacks viewed escape to America as a possible opportunity. Many of these earliest blacks in America desired to serve as military auxiliaries in conquest campaigns, as this role offered the greatest potential for freedom and prosperity. Consequently, blacks used service in the military conquest of the Americas as a means for emancipation and possible inclusion in Spanish society. Furthermore, blacks played a large role in the European conquest, exploration, and settlement of the Americas from the beginning. Blacks, therefore, were part of a number of Spanish expeditions. For examples, in 1513, Nuflo de Olano, a black slave, accompanied Vasco Nuñez de Balboa when his expedition sighted the Pacific Ocean; and the Pánfilo de Narváez Expedition in 1528, which left Cuba to explore Florida, included Esteban, a famous black conquistador. Esteban (or Estevan), born in Morocco, was a former slave and became the first person of African descent to explore Texas and the western half of the United States. During the previously mentioned Pánfilo de Narváez Expedition, which was a disaster, Esteban was one of the only four survivors. The Amerindians captured him and kept him in captivity for several years, during which Esteban learned several Amerindian languages and cultures. Esteban managed to escape and joined conquistador Cabeza de Vaca, another survivor of the Pánfilo de Narváez Expedition, and his company in their exploration of North America. Esteban gained a reputation as a medicine man, acquiring knowledge from African, European, and Amerindian cultures, and later guided missionaries. Coronado’s expedition in 1540 to southwestern North America included a free black man, who served as an interpreter. In 1600, the Juan Guerra de Resa Expedition included 1,600 black soldiers and their families, including Isabel de Olvera, a woman of biracial descent. In reward for their military service, some black conquistadors received land grants and other types of recognition. The Encomiendas, which were estates that included Amerindians as tribute, given to blacks were often located in Chile. One of the most significant black conquistadors was Juan Valiente, who was born in West Africa and was enslaved by Portuguese traders. Eventually, he became a slave of the Spaniard Alonso Valiente. In 1533, Valiente signed a contract with his owner allowing him to take part in the conquest of the Americas, provided he returned after four years with financial compensation. Valiente needed to keep a notarized copy of this agreement on him at all times to avoid arrest as a runaway slave. Valiente participated in numerous expeditions, including those to Guatemala and Chile. Valiente became a captain and equestrian and was granted an estate in Santiago de Chile and an encomienda. Shortly thereafter, he received a commission and married a former slave of
Conquistadors, Black either African or Amerindian descent. Valiente ignored his agreement to his owner, who sent a revised version to his slave of their agreement. Valiente attempted to buy his freedom in 1550 via a royal officer, but the officer ran off with the money. Alonso Valiente again attempted to contact his slave, but Valiente was killed in battle in 1553. It is possible that Alonso attempted to sue his slave’s widow to recuperate his money. Despite their service to Spain, many black conquistadors were treated poorly by the government and were unable to secure work better than menial jobs after their military service. Consequently, black conquistadors experienced limited social mobility based on race. Juan Garrido, born in West Africa, was another famous black conquistador. Garrido went to Portugal as a free man to study and learn Christianity. He was likely the son of an African king who traded with the Portuguese. Garrido later moved to Seville in Spain and, in 1503, crossed the Atlantic as part of a Spanish entourage to the Caribbean. From 1508 to 1519, Garrido participated in the conquests of many Caribbean islands and Florida. He served in expeditions led by both Juan Ponce de León, famous for his quest for the lost Fountain of Youth, and Hernán Cortés, who destroyed the Aztecs in the Spanish conquest of Mexico. Although Garrido eventually received a land plot as reward for his service, his race impeded his social status in Spanish American society and he was to perform work connected with mines and as a doorkeeper. Sebastián Toral, a black conquistador who helped conquer the Yucatan, had to petition the Crown at least twice to receive his due property and raise a family. He had to work as a doorkeeper and guard. Black conquistador Juan Garcia, who had to work as a crier, a piper, and a master of weights after his military career, decided to return to Spain. Some free blacks and free men of biracial descent formed militias in the Spanish colonies. By the end of the seventeenth century, many of the blacks participating in the Spanish conquests were of biracial descent and had been born in the Americas, for many of the earlier black conquistadors settled and had families. Because of the lack of black women, many black conquistadors probably married white Spanish and Amerindian women. These unions led to the development of castas in Spanish colonial society. The status of blacks within the castas system depended on whom they married and with whom they interacted. Spanish colonial society was composed of Europeanborn Spaniards (Peninsulares), American-born Spaniards (criollos), Africans, and Amerindians. As members of these groups increasingly intermarried, the Spanish king sold in the late eighteenth century certificates that “cleansed” individuals of impure blood (essentially Amerindian or black African descent), thereby allowing them to change their race and social status. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Ladinos, Black; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Alt, William, and Betty Alt. Black Soldiers, White Wars: Black Warriors from Antiquity to the Present. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002; Ishikawa, Chiyo. Spain in the Age of Exploration, 1492–1819. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2004; Lockhart, James, Stuart Schwartz. Early Latin America: A History of Colonial Spanish America and Brazil. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983; Restall, Matthew. “Black Conquistadors: Armed Africans in Early Spanish America.” The Americas 57 (2000): 171–205; Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Eric Martone
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Constantine, Learie (1901–1971) Learie Constantine was a British West Indian best remembered as an outstanding cricket player and a crusader for equal rights for blacks in British society. His teams dominated British cricket during the 1920s and 1930s, where he was unusual because of his skin color. Although he remained active in the sport, Constantine devoted more time to West Indian (Caribbean) issues, politics, and legal matters. He was a litigant in one of the most famous British cases of the 1940s in which he sued a luxury hotel for refusing accommodations to him and his family. Constantine’s lifetime of activism was rewarded in 1969, when he became the first black man to become a member of the House of Lords. Constantine was born on September 1, 1901, near Maraval, Trinidad, the grandson and great-grandson of slaves. His father, Lebrun, was a well-known cricketer who worked as a cocoa estate overseer. Constantine remembered his childhood as happy, even if money was always in short supply. He spent long hours playing cricket with his father and perfecting his skills. Constantine left school at age 15 to work as a clerk in a solicitor’s office. His father did not let Constantine play cricket publicly until 1921, after he had established himself as chief clerk at the office. In 1922, Constantine and his father played on the same team in a match against Barbados in British Guiana, the only time that has happened in a match at that level. During the 1920s, Constantine toured Britain with cricket teams. In one match in June 1928, he almost single-handedly won the match against the team from Middlesex. The feat drew national attention and led to an offer to become a professional cricket player. Constantine, his wife Norma, and their daughter moved to Nelson in northern England. As the only black family, they initially suffered from discrimination and unwelcome attention. Eventually, Constantine’s good humor, dignity, and desire to be a good citizen won over his neighbors. Through the 1930s, Constantine dominated British cricket. He also played with teams from the West Indies in exhibitions. In 1945, he led the dominions team to victory over England in a match that marked the end of World War II. By 1946, Constantine had largely retired from cricket, although he continued to appear in charitable or exhibition matches. He worked as a broadcaster for cricket matches as well. Although Constantine became famous as a sports figure, he was also involved in the fight for equal rights for blacks. During the 1930s, he joined the League of Colored Peoples, an organization that fought against discrimination in Britain. Constantine later served as the group’s president. During World War II, the British government asked him to serve as a welfare officer with the Ministry of Labour. Constantine was responsible for the welfare of West Indians who came to work in munitions factories around Liverpool, England. He also served as an advocate for West Indian seamen. As part of his duties, Constantine dealt with government offices, employers, unions, and different organizations to improve race relations. While working for the British government, Constantine suffered personal discrimination. In 1943, he and his family tried to stay at the Imperial Hotel in London. They were refused and Constantine sued the hotel to make a point. He won and was awarded a small fee. The lawsuit was among the first of such cases in Britain and helped to high-
Courts, Blacks in European Aristocratic light the discrimination suffered by blacks. He wrote about his experiences in Color Bar (1954), a candid revelation that surprised many. After the war, Constantine resumed law studies. He was called to the bar in 1954. Soon afterward, he returned to Trinidad to serve as minister of community works and utilities. Constantine established road and bridge-building, as well as interisland shipping programs. Never comfortable as a politician, he accepted an appointment as high commissioner for Trinidad in London in 1961. Constantine’s sometimes injudicious remarks about discrimination against blacks led to his resignation in 1964. Although some thought that Constantine was too strident in his work for equal rights, he was made a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in 1946. He was knighted in 1962. The following year he was made an honorary Master of the Bench. In 1969, Constantine became the first man of black African descent to be given a life peerage, when he was made Baron Constantine of Maraval in Trinidad and Tobago. He died in London of lung cancer on July 1, 1971. See also: Batson, Brendon; Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; James, C.L.R.; Wharton, Arthur. Further Reading: Constantine, Learie, Sir. Colour Bar. London: S. Paul, 1954; Giuseppi, Undine. A Look at Learie Constantine. London: Nelson, 1974; Howat, G.M.D. Learie Constantine. London: Allen and Unwin, 1975.
Tim J. Watts
Courts, Blacks in European Aristocratic People of African origin or descent were present at most European royal and aristocratic courts during the early modern period, where they performed a variety of roles ranging from stable hand to prince. Africans had long been part of court culture, but numbers increased as a result of European involvement in the slave trade to the Americas from the fifteenth century onward. Africans were not only exploited as a source of cheap labor but also functioned as exotic symbols of power and wealth. Europeans had employed black musicians and entertainers at court since at least 1194, when Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI (1165–1197) was accompanied by turbaned black trumpeters on his triumphal entry into Sicily. In 1470 a “black slave called Martino” was purchased to be the trumpeter on board the Neopolitan royal ship Barcha. Henry VII of England employed a black trumpeter named John Blanke, who was paid 8 pence a day in 1507. Henry VIII apparently retained Blanke’s services. The Westminster Tournament Roll, which commemorates the celebrations that marked the birth of Henry VIII’s son and future king Edward VI, depicts a black trumpeter believed to be Blanke. Elizabeth I had a black maidservant and Anthonie Vause, a black trumpeter, was employed at the Tower of London in 1618. James IV of Scotland (1473–1513) had many African Moors, both men and women, present at his court. For example, a Moorish “taubronar,” or drummer, devised a dance with 12 performers in black and white costumes for the Shrove Tuesday celebrations in 1505. In 1594, James VI of Scotland paid an African Moor to assist in pulling chariots as part of the celebrations that marked the birth of the heir to the throne. Teodosio I, Duke of Bragança (1510–1563), had
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Courts, Blacks in European Aristocratic 10 black musicians who played the charamela (a wind instrument). A 1555 list of galley slaves belonging to Cosimo I de’ Medici (1519–1574) of Florence included a moro negro described as a trumpeter. In 1713, Frederick William I, later king of Prussia, asked for “several black boys aged between 13 and 15, all well-shaped” to be trained as musicians for his military regiments. Blacks were often employed in royal and aristocratic stables. In 1507, the Duke of Medina Sidonia had seven black slaves working in his stables in Seville. Don Antonio, Prior of Crato (1531–1595), had working in his stable a Moor named Antonio Luis, brought from Tangiers, where he had been governor. Teodosio I of Bragança had 20 black stable boys. Blacks are often depicted handling horses in portraits, such as in Daniel Mytens’s King Charles and Queen Henrietta Maria Departing for the Chase (c.1630–32). Blacks were often excellent horsemen, such as the Moor described in a letter from Lady Home to Mary of Guise in 1549 as being “as scharp a man as rydis.” Blacks were also employed in the kitchen. King Joao III (1502–1557) of Portugal gave his bride Catherine of Austria (1507–1578) a black pastry chef and confectioner named Domingos de Frorenca as a wedding present in 1526. They also had a black cook named Manuel. James “the Blackamoor” was a cook in the household of the Earl of Bath in Devon from 1639 to 1646.
Taste in High Life by William Hogarth. The painting is a satire on the dress and behavior of contemporary English society and depicts the use of black children as fashion accessories. Courtesy of the Library of Congress.
Courts, Blacks in European Aristocratic The wealthiest aristocrats had the largest numbers of black slaves. Cardinal Luigi d’Este (1538–1586) had 80 slaves in his villa at Tivoli outside Rome. When they rebelled in 1580, he bought another 50. Teodosio I of Bragança owned 36 slaves: the Bragança were the most powerful noble family in Portugal, and eventually became its kings in the seventeenth century. Catherine of Austria, queen of Portugal from 1526 to 1557, was granted a yearly number of slaves from the customs houses. There were several blacks at the court of French king Louis XIV (1643–1715), including one presented to Queen Marie Therese in 1663. In 1680, Frederick William of Brandenberg established a Prussian outpost on the Gold Coast so that he could adorn his court with black Africans. As a further display of wealth, black attendants were decked in rich clothes and jewelry. In 1577, Elizabeth I of England bought a “Garcon coate of white Taffeta, cut and lined with tincel, striped down with gold and silver. . .pointed with pynts and ribands ” for her “lytle Blackamore.” In 1491, Isabella D’Este asked Giorgio Brognolo, her agent in Venice, to obtain “una moreta” between 1 1/2 and 4 years old. Darker skinned Africans were preferred, for it contrasted effectually with the diamond or pearl earrings in which the Africans would be adorned. It also set off the fair skin so prized by aristocratic women as depicted in portraits, where it was increasingly fashionable for a lady to be shown with a black attendant. Some blacks took advantage of the opportunities available at court to advance themselves, either through education or military pursuits. João de Sa Panasco (1524– 1567), who began as a court jester in Lisbon, went on to become a gentleman of the household, king’s valet, a soldier who participated in Charles V’s campaign in North Africa in 1535, and finally a member of the prestigious Order of Santiago. The Moor depicted by Jan Mostaert in a portrait (c.1525–1530) seems to have reached a high status at the court of Margaret of Austria at Malines. The famous scholar Juan Latino (d.1590) grew up in the household of the Duke of Sessa in Granada, where he accompanied his young master to daily grammar classes, and eventually became a published author and lecturer at the University of Granada. Anton Wilhelm Amo, baptised in 1707 at Salzthal Castle, the home of the Duke of Wolfenbuttel, was to become a philosopher, with degrees from the Universities of Halle and Wittenberg. Abraham Hannibal came to the court of Tsar Peter I (1672–1725) in Moscow in 1705, having been purchased by the Russian ambassador in Turkey. He became a military engineer and major general. Not all blacks at European courts were purchased as slaves. Visitors and ambassadors from Ethiopia and the Congo were not uncommon. In 1488, Sengalese Prince “Bemoim” visited King Joao II in Lisbon. In 1491, Ercole d’Este of Ferrara began the practice of washing the feet of “religiosi indiani,” which were probably Ethiopian monks on their way to Rome as pilgrims. Some “black Moor friars” were James IV’s guests at the Scottish court in 1508. In 1544, Dom Henrique, nephew of the king of the Congo, visited Lisbon. Pope Leo X later consecrated him as a bishop. A Moroccan embassy visited England in 1600. From 1652 to 1658, Abba Gregoryus, an Ethiopian priest, stayed at the court of the Duke of Saxony in Saxe-Gotha. One man of African descent actually ruled an early modern court. Alessandro de Medici (1510–1537), the illegitimate son of a black woman, became the first hereditary duke of Florence.
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Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and See also: Renaissance, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, French; Slave Trade, Italian; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Anglo, Sydney. The Great Tournament Roll of Westminster. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1968; Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1650–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Miranda Kaufmann
Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and Social and legal historians have used the records of the eighteenth-century English criminal law to uncover the voices of a growing cross section of the English population. These sources shed light on black integration in English society, their life experiences, and their economic prosperity. Although there are occasional newspaper items and pamphlet accounts that mention black offenders in the rest of England, historians have largely exploited the detailed criminal court records of London. England’s busiest criminal court, the Old Bailey, held sessions eight times a year and left valuable sources for the study of criminality. Both free and enslaved black men and women were prosecuted there for a range of offenses, the great majority of which were thefts. Black men were more likely to be the victims of violent crime than the perpetrators. Few black criminals achieved notoriety. In the late 1730s, contemporary newspapers reported on the activities and trial of a black highwayman, Isaac George, who preyed on travelers around Stanford. Later in the century, the trial of George Hogan for murder garnered attention in London. Hogan, a biracial Portuguese man from Madeira, was convicted of killing a servant girl in 1786. The brutal stabbing aroused interest and outrage. Occasionally, political opinions were expressed by black criminals. The best known example is the black woman and two black men who were convicted of participating in the anti-Catholic 1780 Gordon Riots in London. Most prisoners at the Old Bailey, whether black or white, had similar, humble backgrounds—they were the poor and unemployed. The black poor, however, were at a further disadvantage, for many had been brought to Britain by their masters and therefore did not qualify for poor relief, the contemporary locally based support for needy parishioners. They may also have not had sufficient time to form the necessary social and communal ties to find employment. The defenses of some black prisoners demonstrate this sense of dislocation. The records of the criminal law equally furnish evidence of black integration into English life. Black defendants were supported by their white employers, colleagues, and friends in the courtroom. Some served as important character witnesses, and others signed petitions asking for mercy to be shown to a black convict. Because the sample of black defendants is small, it is difficult to generate meaningful statistics. There are no obvious signs of discrimination in the trial outcomes of black prisoners. Concentrating on the largest category of crime for which black defendants appeared in court, theft without accompanying violence, some interesting trends emerge in the late eighteenth century at the Old Bailey. Although, in the 1770s and the
Crowther, Samuel Adjai (1807?–1891) 1790s, black defendants for theft were more likely to be convicted than nonblacks, they were less likely to be executed. Only one black person convicted of theft was sentenced to death in those 20 years. In the 1780s, when there was a general increase in the number of prosecutions, black defendants were less likely to be found guilty than nonblacks: 32 percent compared to 49 percent; however, they were more likely to be found part guilty of a lesser offence and sentenced to transportation. Transportation meant that the prisoner would serve a term of indenture overseas. A large number of offenses in the eighteenth century potentially carried the death penalty. Finding a defendant part guilty was a way of saving them from a capital sentence, but also ensured that they would still be punished. This pattern of preferentially sentencing black men and women convicted of thefts to transportation continued in the ensuing decades. The issue of race in the courtroom was raised in defense of black prisoners. In several trials of black defendants, barristers and even jurors argued and assumed that it was impossible for white Englishmen and women to positively identify black men because it was difficult to distinguish one black man from another. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Macfarlane, Karen A. “Minority Justice: Ethnic Minorities and Criminal Justice in Eighteenth-Century London.” Ph.D. dissertation, York University, 2008; Myers, Norma. Reconstructing the Black Past: Blacks in Britain 1780–1830. London: Frank Cass, 1996; Sherwood, Marika. “Blacks in the Gordon Riots.” History Today 47 (1997): 24–28.
Karen A. Macfarlane
Crowther, Samuel Adjai (1807?–1891) Samuel Crowther, a native Nigerian who became ordained in England as an Anglican minister, became one of the best-known African Christians in Europe during the nineteenth century, working as a missionary in West Africa. Crowther (originally named Adjai or Ajayi) was born in about 1807 in the town of Osogun in Yorubaland in the western part of modern-day Nigeria around the time of the breakup of the Yoruba Empire, during which there was a period of fighting and raids. During one such raid on Osogun, the young Crowther became a slave of the Fulani and the Oyo Muslims. As a slave, Crowther was sold five times, eventually ending up with some Portuguese traders. The traders tried to take Crowther and others to the Americas, but their ship was intercepted in 1822 by the British navy, which had orders to stop the international slave trade. Consequently, Crowther and his companions were taken to Sierra Leone. In Sierra Leone, an Anglican minister, John Raban, baptized Crowther, who then adopted the name of Samuel in 1825. Crowther’s surname came from that of a member of the Church Missionary Society in London. He then went to school in Sierra Leone and learned carpentry, as well as involving himself with traditional weaving and the rudiments of agriculture. In 1826, Crowther went to England to study, returning to Sierra Leone the next year. It was at this time that Crowther started working with Raban in the interior of Sierra Leone. Raban was keen to learn Yoruba, and Crowther was happy to teach him.
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Cuffay, William (1788–1870) Gradually, Crowther took on the role of becoming a schoolmaster and then started his own study of the African Temne language to help other missionaries. By then, more freed slaves were coming to Sierra Leone. Crowther also went to England, where he was ordained in the 1840s. Crowther rapidly emerged as a major force in the Church Missionary Society Yomba mission. He visited London to press the cause of the African leader Abeokuta in 1851, having an interview with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. On his return to West Africa, Crowther decided to establish a Yoruba-language newspaper and, more important, to translate the Bible into Yoruba. In 1862, Crowther lost many of his working notes when his house burned down in a fire. He managed to continue his work, however, and wrote the first book on the Igbo language. Attempts to promote Christianity in the Niger basin proved important to Crowther, as he found himself working in areas where many people were Muslim. He was appointed the first African Anglican bishop in 1864. Crowther’s evangelization in these areas was well recognized, but he was disappointed when European missionaries arrived and undid much of his work. Many of the loyal staff he had built up over the years were suspended or dismissed, and Crowther died from a stroke in December 1891. His legacy was continued by his son, Dandeson, who became an archdeacon, and his sonin-law, T. B. Macaulay, who became principal of Lagos Grammar School. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Colonies in Africa, British; Missionaries in Africa, European; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Crowther, Samuel. Experiences with Heathens and Mohammedans in West Africa. London: Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge, 1892; Crowther, Samuel, and J. C. Taylor. The Gospel on the Banks of the Niger. London: Church Missionary House, 1859; Hair, P.E.H. The Early Study of Nigerian Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1967.
Justin Corfield
Cuffay, William (1788–1870) William Cuffay, the son of a former black African slave, was a major figure in the English Chartist Movement, a popular political movement that sought universal male suffrage in England in order to represent the working class better in government during the nineteenth century. He was born in 1788 and raised in Kent. His father was a naval cook and former slave. After an apprenticeship, Cuffay became a tailor. At the beginning of Cuffay’s career, he held conservative views and argued against trade unions. Consequently, he was the last member of his lodge to join the burgeoning union of tailors, although he participated in his union’s strike in 1834, and lost his job in the process. Angered over the union’s lack of success and inability to benefit him, Cuffay became convinced that workers needed representation in the English government. Consequently, Cuffay became a staunch advocate of universal male suffrage. Cuffay joined the Metropolitan Tailor’s Charter Association in 1839. Chartists sought to develop a popular political movement that would lead to several reforms within the English government, including universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, secret bal-
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah lot voting, salaries for members of parliament, and an equal revision of electoral districts. By 1842, Cuffay was a major figure within the Chartist Movement in London and was elected to the national executive of the National Charter Association. Also in 1842, Cuffay became president of the London Chartists. As a Chartist leader, he encouraged Chartists to refrain from membership in the Anti-Corn Law League, which sought to reverse the Corn Laws that protected English grain against foreign imports. During the mid-1840s, Cuffay became a supporter of Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor and his Land Plan, which sought to assist the lower classes by raising revenue to purchase real estate that would be divided in subplots. Subscribers would then draw lots, the winners securing a piece of land and a cottage. From 1846 to 1848, Cuffay became auditor to the Land Company, which was bankrupt by 1850. Even from the beginning, Cuffay was regarded often as a militant leader, particularly in the press. During the 1840s, there was a split in Chartist ideology between those who supported moral force and those who advocated physical force for reform. Cuffay became associated with physical force Chartists, who, although not openly using violence, repeatedly warned that if the government did not pass reforms soon, violence would occur. At the National Convention, Cuffay was one of the most militant delegates. The purpose of the convention had been to organize a march on London to present a Chartist petition to the government, but the march was aborted. In 1848, the year that revolutions for political change swept across Europe, at a Kennington Common Meeting, some Chartists urged Cuffay to lead an armed rebellion against the government. A government spy informed the government of the planned Chartist uprising. Based on this evidence, Cuffay was arrested and convicted for conspiring against the government. He was deported to Tasmania in Australia for the term of 21 years. Three years later, however, all political prisoners in Australia were pardoned. Cuffay decided to remain in Tasmania and work as a tailor. Cuffay soon became involved in radical politics and trade union issues in Australia. He died in poverty in a workhouse in 1870. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Grossman, Norbert. “William Cuffay: London’s Black Chartist.” Phylon 44:1 (1983): 55–65; Hall, Robert. Voices of the People: Democracy and the Chartist Political Identity, 1830–1870. London: Merlin Press, 2006; Roberts, Stephen. The People’s Charter: Democratic Agitation in Early Victorian Britain. London: Merlin Press, 2004; Saville, John. 1848: The British State and the Chartist Movement. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
Eric Martone
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah Quobna Ottobah Cugoano was a former African slave who became a leading campaigner for the British abolition of slavery during the late eighteenth century. Cugoano was born in what is now Ghana and was from the Fante tribe, his date of birth being noted by modern writers as anywhere between 1745 and 1757. In 1770, he was kidnapped and became a slave in the West Indies (Caribbean). In 1772, he arrived in England, where he obtained his freedom.
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Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah In England, Cugoano was baptized as “John Stuart” in 1773. In 1784, he became a servant for the artist Richard Cosway and his wife Maria. Cosway was a prominent portrait painter, and both he and his wife were well-known society figures of the period. Through them, Cugoano was able to meet the poet William Blake and even George, Prince of Wales (later King George IV). Cugoano also met with Olaudah Equiano and other Africans in England who worked in a group called “Sons of Africa.” They agitated for the abolition of slavery, with Cugoano and the others regularly writing letters to newspapers against the slave trade and slavery. Cugoano embarked on a study of the slave trade. The focus for his criticism was the style of European colonialism in the Americas and the plantation economies, which needed large numbers of slaves to run them. By this period, Cugoano was a devout Christian and he wrote a book, Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, which was published in London in 1787. Four years later, an abridged version of the book was published. This second work was written in particular for slaves and was also self-published in London. Cugoano supported the idea of the establishment of Sierra Leone for slaves to return to Africa, with the port of Freetown (now the capital of Sierra Leone) being founded for blacks who had supported the British in the American Revolution. Cugoano also wanted schools established in Britain for African students. It is not known what happened to Cugoano after the release of the book, although there is a portrait believed to be of him held in the Royal Albert Memorial Museum and Art Gallery in Exeter, England. Scipione Piattoli, an Italian-Polish patriot, claimed that he knew Cugoano during his years in London (1800 to 1803). The only other record of Cugoano comes from French writer Abbé Grégoire, who claimed that the former slave married an Englishwoman. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Adams, Francis D., and Barry Sanders. Three Black Writers in Eighteenth Century England. Belmont, CA: Wadsworth, 1971; Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah. Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil of Slavery. New York: Penguin Classics, 1999; Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.
Justin Corfield
D Dabydeen, David (1955–) David Dabydeen is an Afro-Guyanese writer, poet, and novelist whose works have won much acclaim in Great Britain. Dabydeen was born in Berbice, Guyana in 1955. When he was 14 years old, Dabydeen went to England with his parents. He studied English at the University of Cambridge, gaining a bachelor of arts with honors, and then completed his Ph.D. in eighteenth-century literature and art at University College, London, in 1982. Dabydeen worked as a community education officer at Wolverhampton from 1982 until 1984, and held a research fellowship at Wolfson College, Oxford. Dabydeen became professor of literature at the University of Warwick in 1984. In addition, he became director of the Centre for Caribbean Studies and professor at the Centre for British Comparative Cultural Studies. In 1983, Dabydeen edited The Black Presence in English Literature, which was published by the Wolverhampton Council for Community Relations in conjunction with the Commission for Racial Equality and Wolverhampton Education Authority. Dabydeen’s first major book, Slave Song, was a collection of poems. The book, lauded by critics, became the recipient of several awards, including the Commonwealth Poetry Prize and the Quiller-Couch Prize. It contained dialogues in the Creole dialect that recreated the harsh life on the sugar plantations. It was followed by Coolie Odyssey, another poetry collection, published in 1985. In 1987, Dabydeen co-wrote A Reader’s Guide to West Indian and Black British Literature and co-edited India in the Caribbean. Some other major works published at this time include Hogarth’s Blacks: Images of Blacks in 18th-Century English Art and Hogarth, Walpole and Commercial Britain. In 1991, Dabydeen co-edited Black Writers in Britain 1760–1890 and published his first novel The Intended, which won the author the Guyana Prize for Literature. The Intended detailed the life of a young Asian student whose father had abandoned him in London. Notably, the book was also, in part, a critique of Joseph Conrad’s classic The
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Da Gama, Luis (1830–1882) Heart of Darkness. The success of The Intended encouraged Dabydeen to write another novel, Disappearance, which was published in 1993. The novel related a tale about the fictional life of a young Guyanese engineer working in a town on the south coast of England and his interactions with an elderly woman living in a postimperial society. His third novel, and first tragedy, The Counting House, followed in 1996, and explored the experiences of a nineteenth-century Indian couple who came to what was then the colony of British Guiana in search of a new life. The Counting House explored the tensions existing between indentured Indian laborers and of African descent in British Guiana. In 1999, his fourth novel, A Harlot’s Progress, was based on some paintings by the London illustrator William Hogarth in 1732. In the novel, which was short-listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction, the author explores the British traditional representations of slavery through the boy Mungo. Most recently, Dabydeen’s works include No Island Is an Island: Selected Speeches of Sir Shridath Ramphal, co-edited with John Gilmore (2000); Turner: New and Selected Poems (2002); and Our Lady of Demerara (2004). He won the Raja Rao Award for Literature, an important Indian literary prize, and wrote and presented The Forgotten Colony, a 2001 British Broadcasting Corporation Radio 4 program on the history of Guyana. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Dabydeen, David, ed. The Black Presence in English Literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985; Kampta, Karran, and Lynne Macedo, eds. No Land, No Mother: Essays on the Work of David Dabydeen. Leeds: Peepal Tree Press, 2006.
Justin Corfield
Da Gama, Luis (1830–1882) Luis Gonzaga Pinto da Gama, who often wrote under the pseudonym Getulino, was a Brazilian biracial poet and journalist. He is the author of many important works of literature. He was one of the most prominent campaigners for the abolition of slavery in Brazil, which eventually took place in 1888. Da Gama was the son of a Portuguese planter, whose name is unknown but was thought to be of Portuguese noble descent, and a free black woman, Luiza Nahin, who was an African-born princess taken captive and sold into slavery in Brazil. Da Gama’s father sold him into slavery when he was 10 years old, and he was taken to Rio de Janeiro and then to Sao Paulo, where he became a house servant. During his time in Sao Paulo, da Gama learned how to read and write. In 1848, he managed to escape from his master’s house. Da Gama discovered that his enslavement was illegal and he obtained proof to that effect. After six years in the militia, he started working as a clerk in Sao Paulo and then trained as a lawyer. In 1864, de Gama founded a magazine, Diabo Coxo (“Limping Devil”), which contained many attacks on slavery. He also joined the staff, and later became the co-editor of O Radical Paulistano, an antislavery journal. By 1880, he was the major figure in Brazil campaigning for the abolition of slavery.
D’Aguiar, Fred (1960–) Da Gama’s first major work was Primeiras Trovas Burlescas de Getulino (“Getulino’s First Burlesque Verses”), published in Rio de Janeiro in 1859. It contains a large number of satirical verses that mock the Brazilian aristocracy for their snobbery. The work also includes da Gama’s most famous poem, “Quem sou eu?” (“Who Am I?”), in which he claims that he is probably related to many other people in Brazil, both rich and poor, on account of his parents. In 1861, his second collection of poetry was published, Novas trovas Burlescas e Escritos em Prosa. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Portugal, Blacks in; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Brookshaw, David. Race and Color in Brazilian Literature. Metuchen, NJ: Scarecrow Press, 1986; Kennedy, James. “Luis Gama: Pioneer of Abolition in Brazil.” Journal of Negro History 59:3 (July 1974): 255–267; Ramos, Arthur. The Negro in Brazil. Washington DC: Associated Publishers, 1951; Stern, Irwin, ed. Dictionary of Brazilian Literature. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1988.
Justin Corfield
D’Aguiar, Fred (1960–) Fred D’Aguiar is a noted black poet and writer of Guyanese descent in contemporary British literature. D’Aguiar was born on February 2, 1960 in London to Guyanese parents. When he was two years old, his parents took him to Guyana, where he remained until he was 12 years old. He returned to England in 1972. D’Aguiar started work as a psychiatric nurse and then went to the University of Kent at Canterbury, where he worked on African and Caribbean Studies. Before graduating in 1985, he had already won the Minority Rights Group Award in 1983 and the T. S. Eliot Prize the next year. Also in 1985, his first collection of poems, Mama Dot, was published. The work was widely acclaimed and won the Malcolm X Prize for Poetry. He also received the Greater London Council Literature Award. His next major work was High Life, a play produced at the Albany Empire in London in 1987. D’Aguiar then co-edited New British Poetry (1988) and wrote Airy Hall (1989). Airy Hall was the name of the village in Guyana where he had spent much of his childhood. This work, along with Mama Dot, won him the Guyana Poetry Prize. D’Aguiar was the Judith E. Wilson Fellow at the University of Cambridge (1989–1990), becoming Visiting Writer at Amherst College in Massachusetts (1992–1994), and later assistant professor of English at Bates College in Maine (1994–1995). He was then professor of English and creative writing at the University of Miami, and in 2003, he took a position at Virginia Polytechnic Institute as orofessor of English and co-director of the Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing. In 1991, D’Aguiar wrote A Jamaican Airman Foresees His Death, a play that was performed at the Royal Court Theatre, London. Two years later, he wrote another collection of poems, which were published as British Subjects. One of these poems, Sweet Thames, won him the Commission for Racial Equality’s Race in the Media Award for 1993. His first novel, The Longest Memory, followed in 1994. The book told the story of a slave called Whitechapel, who worked on a Virginian plantation in the eighteenth century. It won the David Higham Prize for Literature and also the Whitbread First Novel Award. The book was adapted for British television on Channel 4.
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Damas, Léon (1912–1978) D’Aguiar continued writing novels, with Dear Future (1996), set on a fictional Caribbean island, and Feeding the Ghosts (1997), relating the true story of a slave who was thrown overboard from his slave ship in the Atlantic along with 132 other men, women and children, but managed to survive. Dear Future won D’Aguiar the Guyana Prize for Literature, and Feeding the Ghosts saw him short-listed for the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for fiction. In 1998, D’Aguiar had his epic poem about the 1978 Jonestown Massacre, Bill of Rights, published. His recent works include Bloodlines (2000); An English Sampler: New and Selected Poems (2002); and Bethany Bettany (2003), a novel about a five-year-old Guyanese girl called Bethany whose suffering symbolizes the problems facing Guyana. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: D’Aguiar, Fred. Airy Hall. London: Chatto and Windus, 1989; D’Aguiar, Fred. British Subjects. Newcastle: Bloodaxe, 1993; D’Aguiar, Fred. Dear Future. London: Chatto and Windus, 1996; D’Aguiar, Fred. The Longest Memory. London: Chatto and Windus, 1994; D’Aguiar, Fred. Mama Dot. London: Chatto and Windus, 1985.
Justin Corfield
Damas, Léon (1912–1978) Léon-Gontran Damas was a French Caribbean poet, writer, and politician. Genius pioneer of the Négritude Movement, Damas bridged the gap between the Francophone and Anglophone literatures of his time. Damas was born in Cayenne, French Guyana in March 1912. He was the fifth child in a middle-class family of European, Amerindian, and African descent. After his mother’s death in 1913, Damas was raised by his aunt. After receiving his primary education in Cayenne, he moved to Martinique, where he shared classes with literary icon Aimé Césaire. Damas went to Paris in 1929 for higher education. He studied law, ethnology, literature, and oriental languages. In 1935, along with Césaire and Léopold Sédar Senghor, Damas created “L’Étudiant Noir,” the forerunner of the Négritude Movement. He was the first black person to write articles for French newspapers and to publish a volume of poetry, Pigments (1967). Such success set him as a committed writer and the pioneer of “Negritude,” a word invented by Césaire. Damas was influenced by “literary clubs” and jazz and black artists in Paris. Some of his books, which some perceived as subversive, were censured or even burnt. Damas served in the French Army in World War II. After the war, he became politician and held political offices, including a deputy for Guyana in the Assembly (1948). A frequent traveler, Damas met black intellectuals and surrealists in the United States. He became an ambassador of UNESCO and a member of the committee that organized the Third International Festival of Negro Arts in Dakar. Later in his life, he became a teacher and lecturer in the United States, briefly at Hampton Institute and then at Howard University (1970–1978).
Davidson, William (1781–1820) Damas was a prolific writer and fought against colonization, assimilation, racism and other frustrations that blacks experienced. His style was based on analogical images, rhythm, and the musicality of verses. His contributions to black culture are significant, for he attempted to intercross Afro-Caribbean and African (Latin) American literatures. Some of his masterpieces include Graffiti (1953), Black Label (1956), Retour de Guyane (1938), Veillées noires (1943), Poèmes négres sur des airs africains (1948), and Névralgies (1966). See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in French; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Racine, Daniel, ed. Léon-Gontran Damas, 1912–1978—Founder of Negritude: A Memorial Casebook. Washington DC: University Press of America, 1979; Warner, Keith, ed. Critical Perspectives on Léon-Gontran Damas. Washington DC: Three Continents Press, 1988.
Laëtitia Baltz
Damingue, Joseph (1761–1820) Joseph Damingue, nicknamed “Hercules” because of his size and strength, was a celebrated French soldier of black African descent during the Napoleonic Wars. Damingue was born in Cuba in 1761. He distinguished himself in several battles, including the Battle of Arcole in Italy, for which he received a financial reward for his bravery, and during Napoleon’s Egyptian campaign. Damingue was one of the recipients of the 100 swords commissioned by Napoleon that were given to his 100 best soldiers. He also received the Legion of Honor in 1804. Damingue was promoted to the rank of major and placed in the same regiment as that of Napoleon’s stepson, Eugène de Beauharnais, in 1800. However, Napoleon later reassigned Damingue to a black regiment in 1803. Shortly after he was wounded in Italy in 1805 and had a falling out with Napoleon, Damingue settled in Italy and married a Milanese woman. After Napoleon’s downfall, Damingue supported Louis XVIII and the restored monarchy. He was later sent on a mission to Haiti and retired at the rank of major-general. He died in Paris in 1820. See also: French Army, Blacks in the; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Michel, Jean-Louis. Further Reading: Rogers, H.C.B. Napoleon’s Army. London: History Book Club, 1974.
Eric Martone
Davidson, William (1781–1820) William Davidson was a biracial radical activist in London, England, during the early nineteenth century. He was one of the members of the infamous 1820 Cato Street Conspiracy, which involved an attempt by a group of Spencean Philanthropists (supporters of the British radical speaker Thomas Spence) to assassinate the members of the British government led by Lord Liverpool during a cabinet dinner. They were angered by the repressive industrial laws introduced against the nascent trade union movement and other radicals. The conspirators hoped that their lead might inspire others to take part in a general uprising in the turmoil one month after the death of King George III.
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Davidson, William (1781–1820) There were even plans to display the heads of some of the ministers at prominent places around London, especially Westminster Bridge. Davidson was born in Jamaica, then a British colony, in 1781. He was the illegitimate son of the attorney-general of Jamaica and a local black woman. When he was 14 years old, Davidson went to Glasgow to study law and became involved in the campaign for parliamentary reform. Davidson was apprenticed to a Liverpool lawyer, but after three years, he went to sea and ended up with the Royal Navy. Returning to Scotland, he began studying mathematics in Aberdeen. Davidson then started work as a cabinet maker in Birmingham, where he fell in love with the daughter of a local merchant. The girl’s merchant father, suspecting that Davidson was after her dowry, had Davidson arrested on a false charge. While he was in prison, the merchant married his daughter to another man. On his release, Davidson tried to commit suicide. He eventually moved to London, where he became a Wesleyan Methodist Sunday School teacher. By this time, he had married Sarah Lane, a working-class woman, and they eventually had six children. Becoming involved in radical politics, Davidson was a crucial part of the Cato Street Conspiracy, which sought to attack the cabinet while they were having dinner at Lord Harrowby’s London home. Davidson had formerly worked for Lord Harrowby, then the lord president of the Council. Consequently, Davidson was able to ask one of the servants about the dinner, which had appeared in a newspaper item on the previous day. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the location for the dinner was changed. Davidson relayed this information to the plot’s leader, Arthur Thistlewood, but Thistlewood refused to believe this new information. Operating from a house on Cato Street, the conspirators decided to attack. The plot had been infiltrated by a government spy, George Edwards. Police (then known as Bow Street runners) and soldiers attacked the conspirators. Davidson and others were captured in a fight around Cato Street. Eleven men, including Davidson, were arrested and charged with high treason. The trial was curious, as Edwards was found to be unreliable and therefore not called to give evidence. Davidson claimed innocence and that the court was prejudiced against blacks. Evidence was provided, however, that he had bought back a blunderbuss that had been pawned and had it at the time of his arrest. Eventually, two of the conspirators, Robert Adams and John Monument, were persuaded to testify against their colleagues. The turncoats provided enough evidence for Davidson and nine others to be convicted and sentenced to death on April 28, 1820. Radical politicians claimed that the conspiracy was really the work of government agents provocateur attempting to provoke a plot to damage the campaign for parliamentary reform. The government had wanted the newspapers to refrain from publishing the details of the trial before sentencing, but The Observer ignored such wishes. The sentences against five of the conspirators were commuted to transportation for life, but those against Davidson and four others were not. Consequently, they were hanged at Newgate Prison on May 1, 1820. The events of Cato Street have appeared in many books, but the involvement of Davidson became the central feature of Betrayal: The Trial of William Davidson, a radio play written by Tanika Gupta for BBC Radio Four in 2001.
Déclaration pour la police des noirs (1777) See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Cuffay, William. Further Reading: Anand, V. S., and F. A. Ridley. The Cato Street Conspiracy. London: Medusa Press, 1977; Stanhope, John. The Cato Street Conspiracy. London: Cape, 1962.
Justin Corfield
Déclaration pour la police des noirs (1777) The Royal Declaration of August 9, 1777, which prohibited the arrival of any new “Black, Mulatto, or person of color of either sex” into metropolitan France, and the subsequent Council of State arrêt of April 5, 1778, which prohibited interracial marriages and punished the offending couples with expulsion to the colonies, were significant documents in the history of race relations in France. For the first time, a law applied to all nonwhite individuals, and it sought to protect the “native” white population of France from being “polluted”—the term is used at the time—by blacks. Until 1716, even as the Crown permitted West Indian colonials to use African slaves on their plantations and codified the slaves’ status in the Code Noir of 1685, the so-called free soil principle, according to which slavery on French soil was prohibited, continued to be enforced. Planters who brought their slaves to metropolitan France thus risked seeing them declared free by the courts. They took advantage of the new spirit, which prevailed after Louis XIV’s death, to gain exceptions in their favor. The Edict of October 1716 permitted planters and government officials on leave to bring with them to France domestics slaves for the purpose of religious instruction and for the apprenticeship of a trade, so long as they obtained the permission of colonial administrators and registered that permission on their arrival in France. Planters took more advantage of this new legislation than had been anticipated, so that a small but growing nonwhite population, made up in part of slaves, came to exist in France. Periodic efforts were made to limit this population. Thus the Royal Declaration of December 15, 1738 restricted the residence of slaves to three years and required that the name of the craft master to whom the slave would be apprenticed be included in the registration made by owners on their arrival. The marriage of slaves in France, which had been allowed in 1716 and deemed the equivalent of manumission, was now specifically prohibited. Furthermore, whereas infractions to the 1716 legislation were punished by granting freedom to the slave, such infractions now were to result in his or her confiscation, “to be employed on [public] works in our colonies.” To make matters worse, these pieces of legislation had not been registered in every metropolitan jurisdiction, so that some courts could ignore them, notably those within the jurisdiction of the Paris Parlement. This was the case in particular at the Paris Admiralty court, to which a growing number of slaves appealed successfully. Thus not only did the inadequate enforcement of the legislation increase the number of slaves in France, but the granting of freedom to slaves by the courts, compounded by the escape of some slaves, the abandonment of others by their owners, and the birth of children to these residents, increased the number of free nonwhites. This took place precisely when the introduction of colonial attitudes toward race within
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Déclaration pour la police des noirs (1777) the French elite made the latter increasingly fearful of the effects of blacks on French mores. A crisis developed in the 1770s, when a number of cases occurred that pitted the French courts against the royal administration. The Paris Admiralty court placed petitioners for freedom under the King’s protection, while masters obtained warrants from the king (ordres du Roi) to have these petitioners arrested and shipped back to the colonies. The king’s authority was thus evoked on both sides of the issue. The situation was deemed a public scandal and the current minister of the Marine, Antoine de Sartine, sought to resolve it by a new law, which, while returning France to the freedom principle, ensured that the black population there would not grow further and might in fact decline. The Royal Declaration of August 9, 1777 “pour la police des noirs” stipulated that, after a delay of one month during which masters were entitled to send back their slaves to the colonies, the latter could be kept “only with their own consent,” in effect becoming free. Meanwhile, new arrivals were prohibited, and those nonwhites who nonetheless arrived in ports would be detained there in a dépôt des noirs until they could be shipped out. In order that the law be registered throughout France and the colonies, and therefore universally enforced, the text avoided the term slave, which the courts’ magistrates would reject, and replaced it with domestic under the erroneous understanding that there were no white domestics in the West Indies (Caribbean). This proved one of the factors that undid the law, for although most slaves came to France as domestics, not all black domestics were slaves. Further interpretative texts were issued to clarify the situation, as well as to extend the one-month delay accorded masters for the return of their slaves to the colonies. Poorly drafted and not registered in the courts, these texts compounded the confusion. Furthermore, the minister could not resist pressures to make exceptions for some influential individual masters and allowed some new arrivals to avoid the dépôts, notably in the case of the wet nurses of arriving infant children of planters. Finally, the attention of the minister soon became focused on other matters, as France became embroiled in war on the side of the new United States of America in their fight for independence. Meanwhile, the Paris Admiralty court resumed its practice of hearing freedom cases. Only in 1791, during the first phase of the French Revolution, was a law passed clearly reasserting the freedom principle in metropolitan France. Nonetheless, and however ineffective its application, the Declaration of 1777 marks a significant step toward racial laws enacted in Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. See also: France, Blacks in; French Ministry of the Marine; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning. Further Reading: Boulle, Pierre H. “Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France.” The Journal of the Historical Society 6:1 (Mar. 2006): 19–46; Peabody, Sue. “There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Pierre H. Boulle
Delgrès, Louis (1772–1802)
Delafosse, Maurice (1870–1926) Ernest-Francois-Maurice Delafosse, a French colonial administrator, was a writer who became lieutenant governor of Ubangi-Shari and Chad from 1918 to 1919. He spent much of his career in French West Africa as a soldier, explorer, and then administrator. Delafosse was born in December 1870 at Sancergues, Cher, France, and studied at the School of Living Oriental Languages in 1890. He learned Arabic and then many of the African languages, becoming proficient in a large number of them. Delafosse wrote about the capture of Behanzin, the last independent king of Dahomey in 1894. His early books include Manuel Dahoméen (1894), Les Agni (1894), and Essai de manuel de la langue Agni (“An essay on the Agni language,” 1901). In August 1894, Delafosse was appointed to the French colonial service at Lahon in the Côte d’Ivoire, and started learning the languages there before taking up an appointment as the French Consul in Liberia. Returning to France in 1900, Delafosse taught and studied the languages of the French Sudan (modern-day Chad) and wrote about the Mande languages. He then completed a 3,000-kilometer journey across the Sahara, which he documented in Les Frontières de la Côte d’Ivoire, de la Côte d’Or et du Soudan (“The Frontiers of the Ivory Coast, the Gold Coast and the Sudan,” 1908). In 1908, Delafosse married Alice Houdas, the daughter of a professor of Arabic, and the two formed a small literary circle in Bamako (capital of modern-day Mali) where they lived. Delafosse used his time productively and wrote some books on the history, ethnography, and linguistics of the western Sahara and the Guinea coast. His major work, Haut Sénégal-Niger (1912), published in three volumes, remains one of the best books on western Sudan and received much acclaim on its publication in Paris. Delafosse also wrote for a large number of French scholarly journals. In 1914, with the French mobilization for World War I, Delafosse was transferred to Dakar, Senegal, where he held a senior position in the French colonial administration. On June 2, 1918, he was appointed as the lieutenant governor of Ubangi-Shari and Chad, a post he held until December 31, 1919. Delafosse and his wife then returned to France, where he continued contributing to scholarly journals. He also wrote more books, including Les noirs d’Afrique (“The Blacks of Africa,” 1922), Brossard out les états d’âme d’un colonial (“Brossard and the state of the colonial sentiments,” 1923), L’âme nègre (“The Black African Soul,” 1923), and Les civilizations négro-africaines (“The Black African Civilizations,” 1925). See also: Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu; Colonies in Africa, French; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Lipschutz, Mark R., and R. Kent Rasmussen. Dictionary of African Historical Biography. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Justin Corfield
Delgrès, Louis (1772–1802) Louis Delgrès was the biracial leader of the group of ex-slaves who took over Guadeloupe during the Napoleonic Wars and formed a militia to resist the French forces returning and reintroducing slavery. Delgrès was born a free man on the Caribbean
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Des inconnus chez moi (1920) island of Martinique, then under French control. He served as an officer in the French army against the British, who had occupied the island of Guadeloupe in 1794 as an outgrowth of the wars of the French Revolution in Europe. The French under Victor Hugues, an official from the French revolutionary government, however, regained control of the island and abolished slavery, an act that led to the massacre of several hundred white planters. In 1802, Napoleon, who had gained control of the French government in 1799, sent soldiers under General Antoine Richepanse to Guadeloupe in an attempt to reestablish slavery on the island. A slave revolt broke out and Delgrès issued a proclamation in which he urged ex-slaves to fight with him for their freedom; for those who did not want to get involved in the conflict, he promised to respect their homes, their wives, and their children. Delgrès assisted in forming the freed slaves into a militia, and he later took over the freed slaves’ resistance movement from Magloire Pélage when it became evident that Pélage admired Napoleon and would allow the French to take back Guadeloupe. Delgrès, on the other hand, felt that Napoleon had not only betrayed the ideals of the Republic, but also that Napoleon would pay little regard to the interests of France’s black citizens in the Caribbean. Leading a militia, Delgrès harassed the French, but the militia was no match for the much better armed French troops. Delgrès was forced to retreat to the d’Anglemont plantation on the south end of the island. From there, he posed a threat to Basse Terra, and with his cry of “Live Free or Die,” fought off French attacks. Delgrès’ forces finally destroyed the Nosiéeres Bridge, across which the French would have to come, to halt the French forces. Trapped on the slopes of the Matouba Volcano, Delgrès was wounded in the knee, forcing him to stop riding a horse. Surrounded, he and his men decided to commit suicide rather than surrender and risk torture and execution by the French. Crying “No slavery! Long Live Death!” they held hands and detonated their casks of gunpowder, blowing themselves up in the process. Although this ended black resistance to French rule on Guadeloupe, the events at Matouba had a powerful symbolic effect on blacks in the Caribbean and played an important part in slave folklore. French General Richepanse died of yellow fever later that year. In 1997, a protest on behalf of Haitian immigrants in France prompted the Paris City Council to rename the Rue Richepanse after Delgrès. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; French Army, Blacks in the; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Latin American Revolutions, Blacks in. Further Reading: Dubois, Laurent, and John Garrigus. Slave Revolution in the Caribbean, 1789–1804: A Brief History with Documents. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Justin Corfield
Des inconnus chez moi (1920) Des inconnus chez moi (Strangers in My House, 1920), written by Lucie Cousturier (1876–1925), is a sympathetic account of a metropolitan French woman’s encounter
Des inconnus chez moi (1920) with West African soldiers, tirailleurs sénégalais, during and just after World War I. Cousturier, a well-known but minor artist and writer who lived next to a colonial army base in Fréjus, Provence, details in her book not only her experiences befriending black soldiers and teaching them French, but also how her views on race changed over the three years of these encounters (1916 to 1919). Cousturier had little direct knowledge of black Africans before World War I. She was, however, dissatisfied with the prevailing negative stereotypes about blacks both in popular culture and in military culture. To her, black Africans were not frenzied, sexualized savages or subhumans; they were, as the title of her book suggests, strangers or unknowns. In her first encounters with the soldiers, Cousturier could not tell the black Africans apart; she saw only their racialized physical features. As she got to know a few soldiers, she humanized and individualized them. Still, it took her two years before she could discern beauty in the black form, a radical break with the prevailing French stereotype that blacks were ugly. Cousturier, ever maternal, was not immune from constructing stereotypes; in Des inconnus chez moi, Cousturier represented black Africans positively, but as smiling grand enfants (big children). Furthermore, Cousturier believed blacks were linguistically imprisoned, not from a lack of intellect, but from a lack of education. The military did not teach black soldiers standard French. Instead, it taught them petit-nègre, a pidgin French that mocked the intelligence of blacks, effectively preventing the expression of abstract thought and fixing difference. Cousturier came to believe that blacks could learn proper French and offered language classes in her home. Many of her students were successful, some becoming capable of writing her letters from the Western front. One of her students, Bakary Diallo, wrote the only firsthand African account in French about the tirailleur experience, Force-Bonté (1926). Des inconnus chez moi was noticed on publication, influencing René Maran and other pre-Négritude writers. It was nominated for the prestigious Goncourt prize. Some colonial apologists may have found Cousturier’s sympathies too negrophilic, even hostile to whites. Her sympathies, however, came to the attention of the colonial ministry, and they granted Cousturier an official mission to West Africa. In October 1921, Cousturier began a seven-month trek without a male escort through French West Africa. She was charged with studying the African family and the female’s role in the family. She lived with Africans, sketched them and the landscape, and reflected on colonial Africa and her relationship to Africans. Her reflections were published in a two-volume work, Mes inconnus chez eux (1925). All of Cousturier’s writing on black Africans departed from the popular exoticism of Europe’s interwar years, criticized colonial practices, and championed racial understanding, if not unity—a position that was unique in the 1920s. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Little, Roger. “René Maran on Lucie Cousturier, a Champion of Racial Understanding.” Research in African Literatures 34 (Spring 2003): 126–136.
Brett A. Berliner
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Diagne, Blaise (1872–1934) Blaise Diagne was an elected deputy for Senegal in the French National Assembly and was the first black African to serve in the French Chamber of Deputies. He was born in October 1872 on the island of Gorée, off Dakar. His father was from the Serer tribe and his mother was from the Lebou tribe. Diagne attended a Catholic grammar school in Dakar and wealthy benefactors decided to send him to secondary school in France. He became homesick, however, and returned to Senegal, completing his schooling at St. Louis. In 1892, Diagne started to work for the French customs service in Dahomey (modern-day Benin), the French Congo, Réunion, and Madagascar. Although the French had tried to promote Africans, Diagne continued to experience discrimination and frequently argued with his superiors. Such confrontations led to his posting to French Guiana. Having married a French woman, Diagne went on leave to France in 1913. While in France, Diagne decided to run for the elections to the French Chamber of Deputies for Senegal, which had been sending elected deputies since 1848. Diagne campaigned hard and managed to get the support from many local Africans, becoming the first black African to sit in the parliament of any European colonial power. Diagne’s main program was to institute a number of reforms, the main one being to ensure that the people living in Dakar, St. Louis, Gorée, and Rufisque maintained their French citizenship. In return, Diagne became commissioner-general for recruitment in World War I, using his prestige to recruit up to 60,000 enlistments in the French forces. The French government, happy at this success, promised to improve the provision of social services for Africans in Senegal. When the French veterans returned at the end of World War I, they rallied to support Diagne and he was reelected easily. Diagne’s next efforts involved attempts to introduce more social reforms; however, the French hardliners managed to block his efforts. Realizing that the Bordeaux merchants were using their political power to stymie his reform agenda, Diagne signed the “Bordeaux Pact.” By this, Diagne promised to stop attacking the Bordeaux merchants, who dominated the economy of Senegal. As he became more conservative, the French wanted Diagne to remain in the Chamber of Deputies and the colonial administration helped engineer his reelection in 1928. Two years later, at the League of Nations, Diagne defended the corvée hard labor policy of the French, and he became undersecretary of state for the colonies from January 1931 to February 1932. Diagne worked to ensure that the Senegal farmers were helped by subsidies for their peanut crops. Toward the end of his life, however, Diagne rarely visited Senegal even though he was mayor of Dakar from 1920 until 1934. He died in 1934 at Cambo-les-Bains. His son, Raoul, was the first black person to play professional soccer in France. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; France, Blacks in; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Johnson, G. Wesley. “The Ascendancy of Blaise Diagne in the Beginning of African Politics in Senegal.” Africa 36:3 (1966): 235–252; Johnson, G. Wesley. The Emergence of Black politics in Senegal. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1971; Lipschutz, Mark R., and R. Kent Rasmussen. Dictionary of African Historical Biography. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1989.
Justin Corfield
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman (1701–1773)
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman (1701–1773) Ayuba Suleiman Diallo (also known as Job ben Solomon) was a former slave in America who later went to England before returning to his native Africa. In London, the purchaser of Diallo’s freedom published an account of the former slave’s life as Memories of the Life of Job, the Son of the Solomon, High Priest of Boonda in Africa, one of the earliest firsthand accounts of the Atlantic slave trade. Diallo was born in Bondu, in modern-day Senegal and came from a prosperous Muslim family. In February 1730, Diallo was sent by his father to trade with an English ship in the Gambia River. Diallo was instructed to sell to the English two slaves and buy from them some paper, but instead he crossed into the land of the Mandingoes, another African tribe, and sold the slaves for some cows. Soon afterward, he was taken prisoner by some of the Mandingoes and sent to the Senegalese coast. From there, Diallo was sold to Captain Pike, who, by chance, had traded with Diallo some weeks earlier. Pike allowed Diallo to contact his father to purchase the young man’s freedom, but the message took a long time to get to Diallo’s father and the ship left before any news was heard from Bondu. As a result Diallo was taken to the Americas as a slave and sold to Vachell Denton of Annapolis, Maryland. From some slaves arriving on later ships, Diallo heard that King Sambo of Futa had taken revenge on the Mandingoes for their actions, attacking them after hearing what had happened to Diallo. This did not help Diallo, however, who was finding the work extremely arduous, especially after being sold to work on the tobacco fields of the Tolsey family of Kent Island, Maryland. Diallo ran away, but was captured and held at Kent County Courthouse. There, Thomas Bluett, a lawyer, found him and was surprised that the captured slave knew how to write Arabic. Another slave, who could speak Wolof, the dialect spoken in Mauritania, Senegal, and the Gambia, enabled Bluett to find out about Diallo’s background. Curiously, little is known about Bluett’s life. Bluett then purchased Diallo’s freedom and Diallo then accompanied Bluett to England in 1733. Diallo learned English and in July 1734, he returned to Gambia, and from there, to Bondu. Although the place had changed much, he was able to settle back into the West African lifestyle, including managing his own slaves. Bluett wrote a 63-page account of Diallo’s life, which was published in London by Richard Ford in 1734. French and German editions were published shortly thereafter. The story is remarkable because Diallo managed to return to Africa so soon after being enslaved. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Equiano, Olaudah; Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw; Prince, Mary; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Andrews, William. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760–1865. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986; Bluett, Thomas. Some Memories of the Life of Job, the Son of the Solomon, High Priest of Boonda in Africa. London: Richard Ford, 1734; Painter, N. Creating Black Americans: African-American History and its Meanings, 1619 to the Present. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005.
Justin Corfield
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Diallo, Bakary (1892–1978)
Diallo, Bakary (1892–1978) Bakary Diallo served as a Senegalese tiralleur (infantryman) in the French colonial forces in World War I. His account of his experiences is a poignant and powerful autobiographical book reflecting the problematic nature of French rule in West Africa and the experiences of a colonial soldier in the French army. Diallo was the son of a pastoralist family who lived in Futa Tooro in the northern part of Senegal. As such, he was a subject of the French Colonial Empire, not a citizen. In 1911, Diallo enlisted as a tiralleur in the Senegal infantry and was posted to Morocco. Three years later, during World War I, he was transferred to France where, in November, he was injured in the fighting on the front lines of the trenches. Because of the seriousness of the injury, Diallo was forced to step down from combat duties. Returning to Senegal, Diallo took part in the recruitment efforts of Blaise Diagne in 1918. In March 1920, while still a serving soldier, Diallo became a citizen. As he was not a citizen when he joined the army, however, even though he was French from a military perspective, his discharge carried with him no salary to accompany his new rank and status. Diallo was extremely disappointed by this news and managed to find an administrative post in the colonial government. He wrote of his experiences as a tiralleur in the Senegal infantry in World War I in Force-Bonté, which was first published in 1926. The book provides a detailed account of Diallo’s time in the military and his motivations for fighting for the colonial power. It also shows his clear understanding of the patron/client relationship that existed in colonial Senegal, his disappointment at his treatment on his discharge, and his deeply held views on what was at the heart of the French-African relationship. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Herdeck, Donald. African Authors: A Companion to Black African Writing: Volume I, 1300–1973. Washington, DC: Black Orpheus Press, 1973; Jones, Edward. “Diallo and Senghor as Interpreters of the New French Africa.” The French Review 21:6 (May 1948): 444–449; Madubuike, Ihechukwu. “The Politics of Assimilation and the Evolution of the Novel in Senegal.” African Studies Review 18:2 (September 1975): 89–99; Mann, Gregory. “Immigrants and Arguments in France and West Africa.” Comparative Studies in Society and History 45 (2003): 362–385; Riesz, Janos. “The Tirailleur Senegalais Who Did not Want to Be a ‘Grand enfant’: Bakary Diallo’s Force-Bonté (1926) Reconsidered.” Research in African Literatures 27:4 (Fall 1996).
Justin Corfield
Dias, Henrique (?–1662) Henrique (or Enrique) Dias was a black African soldier from Brazil who served in the Portuguese army during several colonial campaigns in the seventeenth century. The son of African slaves, Dias was born at Pernambuco, Brazil. Historians cannot agree on whether Dias was born a freeman or whether he was a slave who had been freed. If he was born as a slave, he would have been freed when young. Dias joined the Portuguese army and took part in a large number of skirmishes. He distinguished
Le Docteur noir (1846) himself at Porto Calvo in the battle of Comendaituba, during which he injured his left hand so severely, it was eventually amputated. Refusing to abandon his position in the battle, Dias was given a decoration of the Order of Christ and the title “Governor of the Creoles, the Blacks, and the Mulattos of Brazil.” Dias’s next major campaign involved fighting a native tribe near Bahia in November 1640. In the 1630s, Portuguese authorities in Brazil wished to support their settlers encroaching on land belonging to the Dutch, their primary rivals. The Portuguese governor of Bahia was keen to help the settlers and ensure that his administration could not be blamed if things went wrong. As a result, he allowed Dias to form a regiment of blacks, the “Terço de Afro-Brasileiros” of the Exército Patriota (“Patriotic Army”), to head into Dutch territory. The Portuguese would maintain their possibility of “deniability” by then sending after Dias some of their own soldiers, ostensibly to try to stop Dias and his men. If Dias failed in his mission to help the settlers, the Portuguese could claim to have acted to try to prevent the blacks from entering Dutch territory. If Dias led his men to victory, the Portuguese could secure it. By mid-1645, Dias had led his men into Dutch territory. After the Dutch massacred a number of Portuguese settlers at Tarairiu, instead of pulling back, the Portuguese decided to send their troops almost to Recife. There, Dias was able to cut the Dutch supply lines and lead his men to victory. Dias later led his men into two battles against the Guararapes in 1648 and 1649, and was subsequently appointed as captain of Pernambuco. He died in 1662 at Recife. See also: Age of Exploration; Portugal, Blacks in. Further Reading: Hemming, John. Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians. London: Pan Macmillan, 1995.
Justin Corfield
Le Docteur noir (1846) Le Docteur noir (1846) is a melodrama in seven acts by August-Anicet Bourgeois and Philippe Dumanoir (pseudonym for Philippe-François Pinel). The play’s main character, a person of biracial descent named Fabien, is known as the “black doctor.” Set in both Bourbon Island (La Réunion) and France, shortly before and during the French Revolution, Le Docteur noir tackles themes of racism and slavery, marginality, power, and lower classes in France, to whom it gives the same status as blacks in the French Colonies. Le Docteur noir’s dual message is that blacks are as human as whites and that slavery is a disease that must be eliminated. Le Docteur noir’s rich plot, featuring complex characters, can be summarized as follows. Fabien, the only doctor to successfully treat victims of an unnamed epidemic on Bourbon Island, is nonetheless the victim of a racist society refusing to even acknowledge his merit. For example, Fabien saves his former master’s daughter, Pauline de la Reynerie, from the disease only after battling with her staunchly racist mother, the Marquise de la Reynerie, who drowns at sea shortly afterward on her way to France. Fabien loves Pauline, but he cannot see how Pauline could marry him. Consequently, on leaving the plantation, a miserable Fabien’s strong feelings of jealousy prompt him
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Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895) to plan Pauline’s murder to prevent anyone else from having her. He takes Pauline to an isolated shore, declares his love for her, and hopes the tide will drown them both. Pauline reveals her hidden love for Fabien and the couple is unexpectedly rescued. Pauline sells the family estate and weds Fabien in secret. News is received, however, that the Marquise has actually survived and is summoning Pauline to Paris. Fabien accompanies Pauline, posing as her valet. Unwilling to marry the Chevalier de SainteLuce, Pauline tells the Marquise about her marriage to Fabien. Consequently, Fabien is put in solitary confinement in the Bastille prison without trial, and Pauline is sent to a convent and told by the Marquise that Fabien has gone back to Bourbon. Having become insane, Fabien is freed on July 14, 1789, during the storming of the Bastille. When he and Pauline meet in Brittany in 1793, at first Fabien does not recognize her long enough to produce their marriage documents to save Pauline from the Revolutionary tribunal. Eventually, Fabien regains his sanity, steps in front of Pauline to stop a revolutionary’s bullet, produces the wedding documents, and dies saving her. Le Docteur noir has great appeal today because it has always featured in the slowly developing and scarce scholarly attention given to black figures in French and European drama. A central literary text of the resurging critical interest in French melodrama since 1983, as Barbara Cooper aptly demonstrates, Le Docteur noir underscores clear connections between “confinement and power,” prison and punishment more than a century before Michel Foucault and Victor Brombert. Le Docteur noir is a political play as worthy of mainstream French literature as Victor Hugo’s Hernani, but it additionally de-marginalizes black characters and speaks to contemporary racisms against blacks in Europe. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Bug-Jargal; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; French Literature, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Anicet-Bourgeois, Auguste, and Dumanoir, Philippe. Le Docteur Noir. Paris: Michel Lévy Frères, 1846; Cooper, Barbara T. “Le Docteur Noir: A French Romantic Drama in Blackface.” French Forum 28:1 (Winter 2003).
Saër Maty Bâ
Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895) Frederick Douglass was a farmer, writer, and speaker during the nineteenth century. Douglass was one of the most significant and influential African American figures of his era and advocated equality among all people regardless of race, ethnicity, or gender. He is noted for his first autobiography, the Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845). As a result of his book’s popularity, Douglass made an extensive tour of Britain and Ireland. The tour reflected the differing perceptions of race and equality both within the British Isles, and between the British Isles and the United States during the mid-nineteenth century. Douglass also befriended many Irish nationalists and became a lifelong defender of Irish independence. Douglass was born a slave in Maryland in 1818. While still young, he became a servant of Thomas Auld. Auld temporarily lent Douglass to his brother Hugh, whose
Douglass, Frederick (1818–1895) wife illegally taught Douglass how to read letters of the alphabet. He then continued to learn to read by observing the writings of the men he served and by the white children in his neighborhood. In 1833, Douglass was returned to Thomas Auld, who found Douglass rebellious. Auld subsequently sent Douglass to work for Edward Covey, a reputed “slave-breaker.” Covey’s efforts to break Douglass ultimately failed. In 1837, while still enslaved, Douglass met Anna Murray, a free African American whom he married shortly after his escape from slavery in 1838. His escape route ultimately led him to New York. Douglass’s freedom was made permanent many years later when British sympathizers of abolition paid the slaveholder who still technically owned him. From 1838 onward, Douglass became an avid advocate of the abolition of slavery and equality among all people throughout the United States. Douglass’s Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) became a bestseller in the United States and Britain and was translated into French and Dutch. The book’s popularity led many of Douglass’s supporters to fear that his former slave owner might attempt to reclaim him. Consequently, Douglass was encouraged to tour Britain and Ireland. In 1845, Douglass arrived in Liverpool. He remained abroad for two years, giving speeches in predominantly Protestant churches and chapels. In England, Douglass’s fame brought in huge crowds to lectures. One of his most noted speeches was delivered in 1846 at Alexander Fletcher’s Finsbury Chapel in London, in which he noted that in England he was treated not “as a color, but as a man.” Douglass’s efforts further solidified British efforts at global abolition of slavery and encouraged equal civil rights. Douglass arrived in Ireland during the potato famine. While in Ireland, Douglass befriended Daniel O’Connell, the prominent Irish nationalist politician, who fought for Catholic tenants and small landholders, as well as for greater equality within the British government and the repeal of the Act of Union. In Ireland, Douglass drew parallels between the Irish experience and that of Africans and slavery. Douglass consequently encouraged Irish freedom from English rule, along with women’s rights and the abolition of slavery. Throughout his life, Douglass continued to advocate the Irish cause. In one such speech, Douglass remarked that “Perhaps no class has carried prejudice against colour to a point more dangerous than have the Irish and yet no people have been more relentlessly oppressed on account of race and religion.” Douglass’s visit to Scotland in the 1840s brought forth many protestors carrying signs depicting racist obscenities. This reaction was in part a response to Douglass’s early comments against the Free Church of Scotland, which he castigated for accepting money from American slaveholders. Douglass returned to America and continued to serve the abolitionist cause. After the Civil War (1860–1865), American slavery was abolished and African Americans received the right to vote. Douglass continued to fight for African American civil rights. In 1884, two years after his first wife’s death, Douglass married a white feminist, Helen Pitts. The marriage caused controversy, both because of its interracial nature and the fact that Pitts was about 20 years younger than Douglass. The couple made an extended tour of Europe from 1886 to 1887, visiting England, France, Italy, and Greece. In 1892, Douglass was elected by Haiti as its commissioner to the Chicago World’s Fair. Douglass spoke on behalf of Irish home rule and the
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Du Bois, W.E.B. (1868–1963) efforts of Irish nationalist Charles Parnell. Douglass returned to Ireland for another visit in 1886. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Ireland, Blacks in. Further Reading: Andrews, William, ed. The Frederick Douglass Reader. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Douglass, Frederick. Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave. New: York: Signet Classics, 2005; Foner, Philip, ed. Frederick Douglass: Selected Speeches and Writings. Abridged and: adapted by Yuval Taylor. Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1999; Garner, Steven. Racism in the Irish Experience. London: Pluto, 2003.
Mark Cordery
Du Bois, W.E.B. (1868–1963) William Edward Burghardt Du Bois was an influential African American who furthered the movement for Pan-Africanism and sought to eliminate racism on a global scale. Du Bois pursued his graduate studies in Europe at the University of Berlin in Germany, which influenced his ideas concerning African Americans in society. He also became involved in the Pan-African Congresses held in Europe and an early advocate of the communist regime in Russia. Du Bois was born in 1868 in Massachusetts. After graduating from high school, Du Bois hoped to attend Harvard University, but he could not afford it. Consequently, he attended Fisk College in Tennessee. While in the South, Du Bois learned of the poverty and racism that were part of the African American experience. Du Bois managed to receive enough scholarships to transfer to Harvard, where he completed his bachelor’s degree in 1890 and his master’s degree in 1891. While reading the Boston Globe, Du Bois came across a quotation from former United States president Rutherford Hayes, then heading a fund to further African American education, complaining that he could not find an African American worthy enough for advanced study abroad. Du Bois, angered by the quote, applied directly to Hayes, who selected Du Bois to receive the grant and offered him a letter of apology, stating that he had been misquoted. Du Bois decided to pursue his doctorate at the University of Berlin, which was one of the most prestigious universities in the world. While in Germany, Du Bois developed an interdisciplinary view of social research toward the problems of global racism and political development. He traveled extensively throughout Europe and studied the ideologies of prominent social scientists. After Du Bois studied abroad for two years, his American grant money was withdrawn under the view that the research that Du Bois was engaging in would not be beneficial to the work needed to help African Americans. Consequently, Du Bois returned to Harvard, where he completed his dissertation on The Suppression of the African Slave Trade in America. During his academic and social career, Du Bois made several studies on black society in America. He believed initially that an interdisciplinary use of the social sciences could solve the issue of racism. He also believed racism was born from ignorance, a symptom of existing, developing social problems. Gradually, however, Du Bois came to the conclusion that social change would be brought about only by agitation and protest. Although Du Bois supported integration and equal rights for all people devoid
Du Chaillu, Paul (1835?–1903) of racism, his intellectual thought frequently depicted an element of black separatist and nationalist tendencies. During the turn of the century, Du Bois supported black capitalism; however, he came to increasingly support the political left during his career. In the early 1900s, Du Bois was drawn to socialist ideas and became a sympathizer of communism. Du Bois often participated in international activities and offered comments on global events. At the 1900 World’s Fair, held in Paris, Du Bois prepared an exhibit on African American achievement since the Civil War. In 1905, Du Bois applauded the Japanese victory over tsarist Russia as a type of victory against racism. He came to sympathize with Japan during the years before World War II (1939–1945) and gave tours in Asia. In 1909, Du Bois participated in the formation of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and became director of publications and research. In 1919, Du Bois attended the Paris Peace Conference, which ended World War I, to represent the NAACP as an observer. While in France, Du Bois decided that the time was right to organize a Pan-African conference to draw global attention to the plights of blacks throughout the world. Du Bois argued that blacks must be free everywhere. Several influential black organizations, however, failed to participate in this conference and subsequent conferences. Du Bois visited Russia after the Russian Revolution. He became intrigued by his studies of Marx and Engels and what he perceived as the beginnings of a new nation devoid of class. In 1945, Du Bois served as associate consultant to the United States delegation at the United Nation’s founding conference in California. He continued to attack imperialism and encourage the end of global racism. His efforts to encourage nuclear disarmament and world peace in the early days of the cold war led to his labeling as a Soviet sympathizer. Facing increasing alienation, Du Bois moved to Ghana, where he renounced his American citizenship and spent his remaining days until his death in 1963. See also: African Diaspora; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Barkin, Kenneth. “W.E.B. Du Bois and the Kaiserreich,” Central European History 31:3 (1998): 155–170; Bell, Bernard. W.E.B. Du Bois on Race and Culture. New York Routledge, 1997; Juguo, Zhang. W.E.B. Du Bois: The Quest for the Abolition of the Color Line. New York: Routledge, 2002; Lewis, David. W.E.B. Du Bois: Biography of a Race, 1868–1919. New York: Henry Holt, 1993; Przyblyski, Jeannene. “Visions of Race and Nation at the Paris Exposition, 1900: A French Context for the American Negro Exhibit.” In National Stereotypes in Perspective: Americans in France, Frenchmen in America. ed. William Chew III Atlanta: Rodopi, 2001.
Eric Martone
Du Chaillu, Paul (1835?–1903) Paul du Chaillu was a French traveler and anthropologist who studied Africa. His work was highly influential on European academics and their perception of Africa. He was born either in July 1835 in Paris, France, or July 1838 in New Orleans, Louisiana. When he was young, he went with his father, a French trader working for a Paris-based
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Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf (1873–1914) company, to the west coast of Africa. There, du Chaillu lived in Gabon, where he was educated by missionaries and acquired a deep interest in the African continent, as well as a detailed knowledge of its natural history. In 1852, du Chaillu was encouraged to write for the New York press. In 1855, du Chaillu joined an expedition to Africa organized by the Academy of Natural Sciences in Philadelphia. During this trip, he collected plant and animal specimens in northern Gabon. Two years later, du Chaillu explored the area south of the Ogowe River. Returning to Gabon, he spent the period from 1863 until 1865 there, hunting gorillas and other wild animals. Although some critics thought that his accounts were exaggerated, later scholarship has proven that not only was du Chaillu correct in his description of places and incidents, but his zoological conclusions were also excellent. Among the many accounts of his travels in Africa were the following: Explorations and Adventures in Equatorial Africa, with Accounts of the Manners and Customs of the People, and of the Chase of the Gorilla, The Crocodile, Leopard, Elephant, Hippopotamus and Other Animals (1861); A Journey to Ashango-Land; and Further Penetration into Equatorial Africa (1867); Adventures in the Great Forest of Equatorial Africa and the Country of the Dwarfs (1871); My Mpingi Kingdom; with Life in the Great Sahara (1871); The World of the Great Forest: How Animals, Birds, Reptiles and Insects Talk, Think, Work and Live (1900); King Mombo (New York, 1902); and In African Forest and Jungle (1903). See also: Colonies in Africa, French. Further Reading: Patterson, K. David. “Paul B. Du Chaillu and the Exploration of Gabon, 1855–1865.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 7 (1974): 647–667; Vaucaire, Michel. Paul de Chaillu. New York: Harper, 1930.
Justin Corfield
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf (1873–1914) Rudolf Duala Manga Bell was the grandson of Ndumbe Lobe Bebe (“King Bell”) who was one of the signatories of the so-called Schutzvertrag (protectorate treaty) with the German representative Gustav Nachtigal that made Cameroon a German colony during the late nineteenth century. He was a Duala king and paramount chief, as well as a resistance leader against the German colonial authorities. Duala Manga was born in 1873 as the eldest son of Manga Ndumbe Bell. He visited a governmental school in Duala but continued his education in Germany from 1891 onward. The tuition fees were paid by the German authorities who, in return, found a more than cooperative father, Manga Ndumbe, willing to compromise for the sake of his son. Duala Manga lived with a German family in Aalen in Wurttemberg, where he first went to elementary school and from 1893 to grammar school. He was baptized and confirmed during his stay. When he was 12 years old, Duala Manga went to school in Ulm. There is some evidence that he later studied (colonial administrational) law in Bonn. Duala Manga returned to Cameroon in 1896 but periodically returned to Europe, visiting Germany and England. In 1897, Ndumbe Lobe died and Duala Manga’s father, Manga Ndumbe, became his successor. In the same year, Duala Manga married
Dumas fils, Alexandre (1824–1895) Emily Engome Dayas, the daughter of an English merchant and a Duala woman. The next year, their first son, Alexander Ndumbe, was born. In 1902, Manga Ndumbe became a leading member of a Duala delegation to Germany that tried to make complaints about the ongoing oppression and mistreatment by the colonial administration under its governor Jesco von Puttkamer. Although the delegation did not categorically question colonial rule, but rather presented a moderate petition, it was rejected as presumptuous and outright impertinent. The situation in Cameroon even deteriorated when, in 1903, a poll tax was introduced in Duala. In 1910, two years after the death of his father, Duala Manga ascended the throne. The next year, the German Reichstag developed a plan to expropriate and relocate the Duala inland to allow for segregated European riverside settlements. A fundamental conflict between the Duala and the German colonial government erupted. Duala Manga became one of the leaders of Duala resistance to German policy. He and other chiefs pressured the colonial administration through letters and petitions, which, however, were either ignored or rebutted. Because of his protests, Duala Manga was divested of his office as paramount chief. A telegram allegedly written by Sultan Njoya of Bamun emerged accusing Duala Manga of instigating a conspiracy against the Germans. He was arrested by the German authorities and accused of high treason. After a summary trial, Duala Manga was sentenced to death and hanged on August 8, 1914. Several other combatants were executed with him. In modern historiography, Duala Manga is regarded as an early Cameroonian nationalist. In Cameroon, he and his combatants are remembered as national heroes. See also: Colonies in Africa, German; Germany, Blacks in; Mpundu Akwa. Further Reading: Austen, Ralph, and Jonathan Derrick. Middlemen of the Cameroons Rivers: The Duala and Their Hinterland, c. 1600–c. 1960. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999.
Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst
Dumas fils, Alexandre (1824–1895) Alexandre Dumas fils was a celebrated nineteenth-century French writer and social critic who became a member of the illustrious Académie française. He was the son of literary icon Alexandre Dumas père, author of The Three Musketeers (1844) and The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846), and grandson of General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, who was the son of a French aristocrat and an African slave. Dumas was born in Paris in 1824 as the illegitimate son of Alexandre Dumas père, who was notorious for his numerous romantic liaisons, and Marie-Catherine Labay, a seamstress. Dumas’s paternal great-grandparents were the Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French aristocrat, and Marie-Césette Dumas, an African slave from the French colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti). Davy de la Pailleterie adopted his son by Marie-Césette (Thomas-Alexandre) and took him to France. During the French Revolution (1789–1799), Thomas-Alexandre became a French Revolutionary general, having previously abandoned the family’s aristocratic surname in favor of that of his mother.
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In 1831, Dumas père recognized and sought custody of his son, although the young Dumas did not wish to leave his mother. Furthermore, Dumas père made certain that the young Dumas was well educated, attending several Parisian private schools and the Collège Bourbon. At school, however, Dumas was taunted because of his black ancestry and illegitimacy. Thus these two traumas of his youth (being illegitimate and taken away from his mother) left an indelible impression on him and influenced much of his work, which criticized the morals of society. Dumas moved to Saint-Germain-en-Laye in 1844 to live with his father. At that time, he met the infamous courtesan, Marie Duplessis, with whom he had a brief affair. After her premature death from consumption in 1847, Dumas used his relationship with her as the inspiration for his melodramatic novel, La Dame aux camélias (The Lady of the Camellias, 1848), which he also dramatized as a play (1852). La Dame aux Camélias (also known as Camille) became a literary sensation and launched Dumas’s career. The book is still his best known work in the English-speaking world and it served as the basis for Verdi’s famous opera, La Traviata (1853). Although Dumas’s early life was marked by Alexandre Dumas fils. Vanity Fair print, Decemhis own romantic affairs, financial debts, and ber 27, 1879. © Mary Evans Picture Library. attacks that his works were morally indecent, during the 1850s onward, he became increasingly conservative and focused on the theater, crafting plays that harbored moral messages and solutions to social problems. During Dumas’s own lifetime, he was widely praised, and the recognition bestowed on his literary works surpassed that of his father. Dumas became a chevalier (1857) and then an officier (1867) of the Légion d’honneur (Legion of Honor). In 1874, he was elected as an immortel (immortal) of the Académie française, a body of renowned French scholars. Dumas’s other major works include Diane de Lys (1853); Le Demi-monde (1855); La Question d’argent (A Question of Money, 1857); Le fils naturel (The Illegitimate Son, 1858); L’affaire Clemenceau (The Clemenceau Case, 1867); La Femme de Claude (Claude’s Wife, 1873); Denise (1885); and Francillon (1887). See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Dumas fils, Alexandre. La Dame aux Camélias. trans. David Coward. New York: Oxford University Press, 1986; Maurois, André. The Titans: A Three Generation Biography of the Dumas. trans. Gerard Hopkins. New York: Harper, 1957.
Eric Martone
Dumas père, Alexandre (1802–1870)
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Dumas père, Alexandre (1802–1870) Alexandre Dumas père, one of the most popular writers in all of French literature, was the grandson of a black African slave. Dumas’s works span almost every literary genre, but he is most famous for his books The Three Musketeers (1844), The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846), and The Man in the Iron Mask (1848–1850). Dumas was born in Villers-Cotterêts on July 24, 1802. His father, ThomasAlexandre Dumas, was a French Revolutionary War general who was the son of Marie-Césette Dumas, an African slave from Saint-Domingue (now Haiti), and the Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, a French aristocrat. Davy de la Pailleterie adopted Thomas-Alexandre and took him to France. At the outbreak of the French Revolution (1789–1799), Thomas-Alexandre joined the revolutionaries, having previously discarded his father’s aristocratic surname in favor of that of his mother. Thomas-Alexandre later served with Napoléon Bonaparte in Egypt, but was captured during his return to France and held prisoner in Southern Italy. Meanwhile, the young Dumas and his mother, Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, were left to attempt to survive on their own. Thomas-Alexandre was eventually released, but his reunion with his family was short lived; he died in 1806 shortly after his return. Consequently, the young Dumas had a modest upbringing and only the most rudimentary education. One of his closest childhood friends (and earliest literary collaborators) was Adolphe Ribbing de Leuven, the son of a Swedish aristocrat. As a result of his excellent penmanship, Dumas secured a position in Paris as a clerk to the duc d’Orléans, the future King Louis-Philippe (r. 1830–1848). In Paris, Dumas sought to establish himself as a dramatist and became one of the leaders of the French Romantic movement alongside contemporaries Victor Hugo, Honoré de Balzac, Georges Sand, and Alphonse de Lamartine. Dumas’s first dramatic success was Henri III and His Court (1829). Others soon followed, including Christine (1830), Antony (1831), Charles VII at the Home of His Great Vassals (1831), Napoléon Bonaparte (1831), Tower of Nesle (1832), Kean (1836), Caligula (1837), Catilina (1848), and The Vampire (1851). After gaining success as a dramatist, Dumas gained an interest in novels. He often worked with collaborators, the most famous of whom was Auguste Maquet. Before the two had a falling out, Dumas and Maquet worked together on such celebrated works as The Three Musketeers (1844), The Count of Monte Cristo (1845–1846), The Man in the Iron Alexandre Dumas père, ca. 1865. Courtesy of the Mask (1848–1850), Queen Margot (1845), Library of Congress.
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Dumas père, Alexandre (1802–1870) Le Chavalier de Maison-Rouge (1845), Joseph Balsamo (1846–1848), The Queen’s Necklace (1849–1850), and The Black Tulip (1850). Dumas’s literary output also included a series of travel books; short stories; memoirs; poems; several journals, including Le Mousquetaire (1853–1857); children’s books, including The Nutcracker (1844), When Pierrot was Young (1854), and Captain Pamphile (1839); and even a cookbook. From 1839 to 1841, Dumas and a series of collaborators published Celebrated Crimes, a multivolume collection of essays on famous criminals and crimes in European history. Dumas was such a prodigious writer that he was accused of establishing a writing factory in which he placed his name on works by other authors. Dumas was known for being free with his money. Despite the financial success of his works, he was constantly attempting to escape his creditors. In 1846, Dumas built the lavish Château de Monte Cristo, but he could afford to live in it only for a short time. He briefly married actress Ida Ferrier, but was known for his numerous romantic conquests. Dumas had at least three illegitimate children, including Alexandre Dumas fils, who also became a noted French author. Dumas was involved in politics, supporting many political journals and movements. He was an ardent republican, although he enjoyed the patronage and companionship of many members of the aristocracy. Dumas was an active participant in the French Revolution of 1830 that overthrew the restored Bourbon monarchy, which had been removed during the French Revolution, but restored after the fall of Napoléon in 1814 and 1815. As a result of the revolution, the more liberal duc d’Orléans became King Louis-Philippe, the “citizen king.” Louis Philippe was overthrown in the French Revolution of 1848, however, paving the way for the Second French Republic. Before its president, the nephew of Napoléon I, maneuvered himself into the position of emperor in 1852, Dumas attempted to launch a political career and founded the journals Le France Nouvelle (1848) and Le Mois (1848–1850) to further his cause. In the 1860s, Dumas became involved in the cause of Italian unity and fought alongside Italian patriot Giuseppe Garibaldi as one of his “red shirts.” Dumas, captivated with Italian history and culture, founded a bilingual (French-Italian) political journal and wrote several stories and novels set in Italy, including La San Felice (1863–1865). Dumas’s racial background was not a large obstacle to his endeavors in France, but he did suffer effects from racism, often from his detractors. His major work dealing with the role of blacks, racism, and slavery is the 1843 novel Georges. Many French literary critics did not respect Dumas as a writer despite his popularity, and he was never admitted to the prestigious literary body, the Académie française. Despite the popularity of his works abroad and extensive travels, Dumas refrained from visiting the United States, where slavery was legal for most of his life. Dumas died in 1870 and was buried initially in Villers-Cotterêts. In 2002, to celebrate the bicentennial of his birth, Dumas was interred ceremoniously in the Panthéon of Paris, a mausoleum reserved for the greatest French citizens. French President Jacques Chirac remarked that years of racism had been undone as Dumas rightfully took his place in the Panthéon. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Balzac, Blacks in the Works of; Bug-Jargal; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French; Slave Trade, French.
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre (1762–1806) Further Reading: Alexandre Dumas père Web Site: http://www.cadytech.com/dumas/; Bell, A. Craig. Alexandre Dumas: A Biography and Study. London: Cassell, 1950; Dumas, Alexandre. My Memoirs. trans. A. Craig Bell. Philadelphia: Chilton, 1961; Hemmings, F.W.J. Alexandre Dumas: The King of Romance. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1979; Reed, Frank Wild. A Bibliography of Alexandre Dumas père. Pinner Hill, Middlesex: J. A. Neuhuys, 1933; Schopp, Claude. Alexandre Dumas: Genius of Life. trans. A. J. Koch. New York: Franklin Watts, 1988; Society of the Friends of Alexandre Dumas Official Web Site (Academic Literary Society): http:// www.dumaspere.com/.
Eric Martone
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre (1762–1806) Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the son of a French aristocrat and a black African slave, became a general in France during the French Revolution and served under Napoleon Bonaparte in his Italian and Egyptian campaigns. He was born ThomasAlexandre Davy de la Pailleterie in 1762 in Jérémie, Saint Domingue (now Haiti), a French colony. His parents were the Marquis Alexandre-Antoine Davy de la Pailleterie, an aristocrat who worked for the French government in Saint Domingue (now Haiti) as Général commissaire in the Artillery, and Marie-Césette Dumas, a black African slave. Dumas spent his early life on Saint Domingue and as a young boy experienced the death of his mother from dysentery. Dumas accompanied his father, who adopted him, to Normandy, France in 1776. Dumas, unlike his other siblings, was his father’s favorite and was therefore not left as a slave in Saint Domingue. Dumas later moved to Paris alone. In 1786, Dumas enlisted in the French army as a dragoon in the 5th Régiment Dragons “la Reine.” To protect his aristocratic family’s reputation, Dumas abandoned the surname of Davy de la Pailleterie in favor of Dumas. Dumas embraced the ideas of the French Revolution and General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas in the uniform quickly became a strong advo- of a French Republican army officer. Courtesy Nacate of republicanism. Shortly tional Park Service, Museum Management Program after the outbreak of the French and Frederick Douglass National Historic Site.
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Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre (1762–1806) Revolution (1789–1799), Dumas and his regiment were sent to secure Villers-Cotterêts. While staying at a local inn, Dumas met the innkeeper’s daughter, Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, his future wife. Dumas served under General Dumouriez in the Northern Army and was promoted rapidly. In 1792, Dumas became a colonel in the newly formed “Légion Franche de Cavalerie des Américains et du Midi,” commonly known as the Black Legion, which was composed of all black soldiers and under the command of Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. In addition, in 1792, Dumas married Labouret. During the French Revolution, Dumas distinguished himself as a capable military commander and brave soldier. Although being of partial black descent had been a hindrance to Dumas before the French Revolution, he took advantage of the opportunities that the Revolution had brought. He received a series of quick promotions until he became a general at the age of 31. As a general, Dumas fought to suppress the Counterrevolutionary revolt in the Vendée in Western France (1793–1796), the Italian campaign (1793–1796), and the Egyptian campaign (1798–1800). Initially, Dumas became a favorite of Napoléon Bonaparte; however, the two had a falling out in 1799 when Dumas became critical of Napoléon and left Egypt against Napoléon’s wishes. On his way back from Egypt, opponents of the French Revolutionary government captured Dumas and held him in Southern Italy. He was released after 20 months in 1801 and returned to his family lame, partly deaf, and partly paralyzed. France at that time was under the control of Napoléon, who turned his back on Dumas. Shortly after his return home, Dumas died of stomach cancer in 1806, leaving his wife and son, the great author Alexandre Dumas père, to survive on their own. In 1906, a statue of Dumas was erected in Paris to commemorate the centennial of his death. During the Nazi German occupation of France during World War II (1939–1945), however, the statue was removed before German leader Adolf Hitler’s arrival to Paris. Dumas’s name is also inscribed on the Arc de Triomphe in Paris. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Dumas fils, Alexandre; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Slave Trade, French; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Gallaher, John. General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997; Maurois, André. The Titans: A Three Generation Biography of the Dumas. trans. Gerard Hopkins. New York: Harper, 1957.
Eric Martone
E Éboué, Félix (1884–1944) Félix Éboué was the first black French colonial governor, serving as governor of Guadeloupe (1936–1938), Chad (1938–1940), and then as governor-general of French Equatorial Africa (1940–1944). Éboué, whose grandparents had been slaves, was born in Cayenne, French Guiana, in 1884. He excelled in academics and won a scholarship in 1898 to study at secondary school in Bordeaux, France. Éboué graduated from the École coloniale in Paris, a prestigious school in colonial administration, and shortly thereafter began 20 years of service in Oubangui-Chari, a French territory in Central Africa. In 1927, he became a knight of the Legion of Honor. Éboué then served as secretary general in Martinique in the Caribbean before serving in the French Sudan. In 1936, Éboué was the first black person to serve in a senior position in the French colonies when he became governor of Guadeloupe. In 1938, he was transferred to Chad and arrived in Fort Lamy in January 1939. In 1940, Nazi Germany invaded France as part of World War II (1939–1945), occupying most of the country while leaving the south in the control of the collaborative Vichy government. Éboué played a significant role in rallying support in Chad for the Free French forces, helping the group gain control of the rest of Equatorial Africa. In 1941, Free French leader and future French president Charles de Gaulle awarded Éboué the Cross of Liberation. The Free French forces, with Allied assistance, went on to liberate France from Nazi control. From 1940 to 1944, Éboué served as governor of the entire region of Equatorial Africa. As governor, Éboué attempted to develop the regional economy and organizational structure, and promote the French language while simultaneously maintaining the integrity of African culture. He took personal interest in the careers of individuals who later become significant figures in the French colonial territories, including JeanHilaire Aubame, a Gabonese politician who served as a French deputy (1946–1958).
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Edmonstone, John (dates unknown) Éboué died of a heart attack in 1944. Regarded as a hero and capable administrator, he became the first black French citizen to have his remains placed in the Panthéon, a mausoleum reserved for the greatest figures in French history, in 1949. In addition, in his honor is the Place Félix-Éboué in the 12 arrondissement of Paris. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Weinstein, Brian. Éboué. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972.
Eric Martone
Edmonstone, John (dates unknown) John Edmonstone was a free black in nineteenth-century England who taught the young naturalist Charles Darwin the techniques of taxidermy. These skills were important to Darwin during his voyage on the HMS Beagle. The historical sources on Edmonstone are scant and his place in history has been assembled piecemeal from various sources. While studying at the University of Edinburgh, Darwin recorded that he had received taxidermy lessons from a black man who lived nearby. Darwin liked his African teacher and remembered him as intelligent and of an amiable character; however, he neglected to record the man’s name. Biographers have wondered whether Darwin’s relationship with Edmonstone led him to see the humanity of enslaved Africans. Darwin did argue in The Descent of Man that he had learned how similar the races were thanks to his experience with an unidentified African. Further, Darwin held a lifelong hatred of slavery. Edmonstone’s past appears in other sources. Darwin wrote that his taxidermy instructor traveled with a man named Waterton. The English naturalist Charles Waterton had indeed spent some time in South America. While exploring with his friend Charles Edmonstone, Waterton taught one of Edmonstone’s black slaves how to stuff birds. Waterton recorded that this slave, originally from Guyana, was somewhat slow to learn, but eventually mastered the task. After returning to Scotland with his master, Waterton recorded, this slave received his freedom and went on to stuff birds at the Glasgow and Edinburgh museums. Freed slaves often took the surname of their masters, so it is reasonable to assume that this former slave would have likely taken on “Edmonstone” for a surname. In addition, it is clear from post office records that a “John Edmonstone” did indeed live near the University of Edinburgh while Darwin was there. A few matters complicate the historical picture of Edmonstone. There is some discrepancy between Darwin’s and Waterton’s assessment of Edmonstone’s intelligence, and there are several variances in how “Edmonstone” is spelled. Waterton claims to have also taught a biracial slave, owned by Robert Edmonstone (Charles Edmonstone’s nephew), how to stuff birds, although Waterton does not record that this slave ever came to Europe. It seems reasonable, although not beyond doubt, to assume, however, that John Edmonstone, a former slave of Guyanese origin, indeed taught Darwin how to stuff birds, a skill that came in handy during Darwin’s voyage on the HMS Beagle.
Ellington, Duke (1899–1974) See also: Britain, Blacks in; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Freeman, R. B. “Darwin’s Negro Bird-Stuffer.” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 33:1 (August 1978): 83–86.
Joshua M. Rice
Ellington, Duke (1899–1974) Edward Kennedy “Duke” Ellington was a great African American jazz musician whose numerous tours throughout Europe helped spread jazz and jazz culture to the continent, where it became extremely popular. Ellington was born in April 1899 in North Carolina. His father was a former slave. In 1886, Ellington moved to Washington, DC with his family. His parents were both piano players and his father briefly worked as a butler at the White House. Ellington left school when he was 17 to focus on his music. He married Edna Thompson, his childhood sweetheart, two years later. Ellington then started playing jazz for the Cotton Club, which had a white clientele. He became a renowned musician and one of the pioneers of American jazz. In 1932, Ellington went on his first tour to England, where he stayed at the London Dorchester Hotel. Ellington’s son later wrote that both his father and the other black musicians traveling with them were prepared for discrimination but faced less than they had expected. Playing for two weeks at the London Palladium, then the most prestigious vaudeville theater in the world, Ellington was a great success and received good reviews in the press. It was also during this trip that he met with Constant Lambert, then writing for Sunday Referee, and other musicians. Ellington continued his tour of England and Scotland. Edward, Prince of Wales (later King Edward VIII), even came to a performance in Liverpool. Back in London, Ellington performed at a party organized by Lord Beaverbrook at which the Prince of Wales and his younger brother, Prince George (later King George VI), were both present—the former drinking gin with the jazz player, and the latter playing a piano duet during the evening. After this, Ellington headed for Paris, where he performed and also gained positive reviews. Two years later, Ellington toured continental Europe to great success. The tours helped further the popularity of jazz in Europe, and other African American performers gained fame and success there as well. In 1939, during a European tour, Ellington visited Scandinavia for the first time. During the 1940s, Ellington became world famous, with records of his jazz music selling throughout the United States and also Britain and Europe. Ellington did not return to Britain until 1958, however, when he was invited to perform at the Leeds Festival in England by the Earl of Harewood. It was during this visit that he was presented to Queen Elizabeth II, whose husband, the Duke of Edinburgh, liked Ellington’s jazz style. This started a series of regular tours to London and Paris. In 1968, Ellington went to the Soviet Union. Toward the end of his life, Ellington received or was nominated for several prestigious awards. In 1965, he was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. In 1969, he was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. Ellington received the French Legion of Honor in 1973. He died of lung cancer and pneumonia in May 1974.
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Emidy, Joseph (1775?–1835) See also: Baker, Josephine; Bechet, Sidney; Jazz, European Reception of. Further Reading: Collier, James Lincoln. Duke Ellington. New York: Macmillan, 1991; Dance, Stanley. The World of Duke Ellington. London: Macmillan, 1971; Ellington, Mercer, and Stanley Dance. Duke Ellington in Person. New York: Da Capo Press, 1979; Tucker, Mark. Ellington: The Early Years. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991.
Justin Corfield
Emidy, Joseph (1775?–1835) Joseph Antonio Emidy was a former black African slave who became a celebrated violinist and composer in Georgian England. He was born in West Africa (probably in modern-day Guinea) in about 1775, based on the information on his surviving tombstone, which records Emidy as 60 years old when he died. While still young, Emidy was captured by Portuguese traders, who enslaved him and brought him across the Atlantic to Brazil. Emidy ended up in Portugal, where his musical talent was recognized and he became virtuoso violinist in the Lisbon Opera. When the British soldiers were in Portugal during the Napoleonic Wars, Emidy came to the attention of Captain Edward Pellew of the HMS Indefatigable. Pellew apparently had Emidy kidnapped as he was leaving through the back door of the Lisbon theater and taken on board the British Royal Naval vessel. Emidy then spent the next four years on the ship as a fiddler to entertain the crew. In 1799, Emidy was abandoned at Falmouth, Cornwall, where he managed to find work repairing musical instruments and then worked as a violinist and teacher. Three years later, in 1802, he married Jane (or “Jenefer”) Hutchins, the daughter of a local tradesman, at Falmouth Parish Church. They had eight children before the family left Falmouth. In about 1815, the family moved to Truro, where Emidy became the leader of the Truro Philharmonic Orchestra. He went on to become one of the most celebrated musical figures in Cornwall. He enjoyed performing the works of Cimarosa, Gluck, Haydyn, and Mozart. Of his original compositions, contemporary descriptions praise them, but none have survived. A picture, now held at the Royal Cornwall Museum, Truro, dated November 8, 1808 showing Emidy clearly in it, depicts “A Musical Club.” Emidy died in 1835 in Truro. See also: Bridgetower, George; Britain, Blacks in; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: McGrady, Richard. Music and Musicians in Early Nineteenth Century Cornwall: The World of Joseph Emidy, Slave, Violinist and Composer. Exeter: University of Exeter Press, 1991.
Justin Corfield
English Common Law, Slavery and No statutes codifying modern slavery were ever passed in England. The only forced labor recognized in English law was feudal villeinage, which had died out by the seventeenth century. Confusion arose when Englishmen began to bring blacks they had
English Common Law, Slavery and legally bought as slaves in the colonies back to England. The colonial legislatures had laws to define slave status, but English law did not. From the precedents created by a series of cases that came before English law courts regarding slavery, we must conclude that the status of slaves under English law remained ambiguous, despite the famous decision in the Somerset Case in 1772, until slavery was finally abolished in the British Empire by parliamentary statute on August 28, 1833. At the Star Chamber trial of John Lilburne in 1637, a case was quoted as follows: “in [1569] one Cartwright brought a slave from Russia, and would scourge him, for which he was questioned; and it was resolved that England was too pure an Air for Slaves to breathe [sic] in.” This statement has since been interpreted as limiting the level of physical violence permissible in such cases. The point about the purity of English air was quoted in many of the later cases, including the Somerset Case, to much broader effect. In 1587, Hector Nuñez complained to the Court of Requests that he had “no remedie [sic]. . .by the course of the Common Law of this realme [sic]. . . to compel” an “Ethiopian” who “utterly refuseth [sic] to tarry and serve him to do so.” In 1677, in Butts vs. Penny, where a trover claim was made regarding property of 10 blacks, the Court of King’s Bench ruled that as blacks were normally bought and sold they ranked as merchandize, and as they were infidels they could be considered property for the purposes of claiming trover. Trover is an action at law to recover the value of property that has been taken from its legal owner. Thus the court ruled that as nonChristians, blacks were essentially non-men, and in fact, property. This was repeated in Lowe v. Elton, also in 1677, and in 1694, in Gelly v. Cleve, where it was decided that trover would lie for a black boy because he was a heathen. His religious status was emphasized to the court. In Chamberlain v. Harvey (1696), Smith v. Brown and Cooper (1701), and Smith v. Gould (1706), however, Lord Chief Justice Holt ruled that there could not be a action of trover in the case of a black slave, because the common law did not recognize blacks as different from other people, and although blacks could be bought and sold as chattels in Barbados, that was not the case in England. He said in 1701 that “as soon as a negro comes into England, he becomes free, one may be a villein in England but not a slave.” By this, he meant that a man enslaved in the colonies was not recognized as a slave by English law, but was treated with the limited rights of a villain; that is, slave owners still had a right to service when they brought slaves to England from the colonies, but the slave was not their chattel, and he could not be treated as such. The series of cases outlined did not resolve the issue satisfactorily in the minds of merchants and planters. In particular, the earlier decisions, where the status of blacks as property seemed dependent on their being heathens, made some people think that once a slave was baptized, this set him free. In 1729, to clarify these points, and to protect their property rights, the merchants and planters sought an opinion from Sir Philip Yorke, the attorney-general, and Charles Talbot, the solicitor-general, who ruled that a slave did not become free by coming to Great Britain or Ireland from the West Indies (Caribbean), either with or without his master; that his master’s property or right in him did not change when he came to Britain; that baptism did not make him free, or have any effect on his status; and finally that his master might legally compel him to return
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English Common Law, Slavery and to the plantations. This decision was given after dinner in Lincoln’s Inn and so did not have the same legal status as a court judgment. In 1749, however, Yorke, by then Lord Chancellor Hardwicke, reaffirmed this opinion, making trover available for a slave in the case of Pearne v. Lisle. This case was not reported until 1790, however, and thus exerted little or no power as a precedent for the next 40 years. In 1750, Baron Thompson in Galway v. Cadee followed Holt in stating that a slave became free on arrival in England; and in 1762, in the case of Shanley v. Harvey, Lord Chancellor Henley declared that as soon as a man sets foot on English ground he is free. He asserted that a black could take his master to court for cruel treatment and could have a habeas corpus (a writ that protects the individual from arbitrary imprisonment) if restrained of his liberty. These comments, however, were obiter dictum, said in passing, and not legally binding as precedent for subsequent decisions. The year before the Somerset Case, William Murray, Lord Mansfield, heard a similar case: Rex v. Stapleton (1771). In this case, Robert Stapleton had attempted to send his alleged slave, Thomas Lewis, back to the colonies. The jury concluded that there was no evidence that Stapleton had property in Lewis, but in the course of the trial, Mansfield admitted that it had never been solemnly determined whether this kind of property existed in England. Mansfield remarked to Thomas Lewis’s counsel, John Dunning, that he would prefer the question remain unsettled, because he feared the consequences if slave masters were to lose their property by accidentally bringing their slaves to England. Lord Mansfield’s decision in the Somerset Case of 1772 was taken at the time and later to mean the emancipation of black slaves in Britain. Mansfield remarked in the course of the trial that slavery was odious, that it was not to be introduced by inference, and would require a new statute, or positive law, to be supported in England. His actual ruling was more limited, however, and stated only that it was not legal for a master to take a slave away from England by force back to the colonies. This was confirmed by Mansfield in the case of Rex v. Inhabitants of Thames Ditton (1785), in which one Charlotte Howe, a black woman, brought to England as a slave by a Captain Howe, sought poor relief from the Parish of Thames Ditton. Mansfield remarked that the Somerset Case determined only that a master could not force a slave to leave England, much as a master could not remove his villein. He ruled that Howe could not have settlement in the Parish, because the legislature comprising the various Poor Laws, in which relief was dependent on settlement in a parish, never thought of slaves. Justices of the Peace, however, sometimes assumed the Somerset Case had meant emancipation. In 1774, John Wilkes, a lay magistrate, discharged a black slave and recommended he sue his former master for the last 14 years’ worth of wages. Meanwhile, slave owners continued to flout even the limited ruling that slaves could not be removed from England by force: as late as 1823 a Mrs. Allen took her slave, Grace Jones, back to Antigua against her will. Blacks could not even rely on their right to habeus corpus: in 1799, John Hamlet was refused it and returned to his master, Matthias Dobinson, a Jamaican trader; and in 1812, King’s Bench refused to issue a habeus corpus for 10 black crewmen held on a Portuguese merchantman in Truro, Cornwall. In Gregson v. Gilbert (1783), the owners of the Zong came up against their insurers, the dispute centering on whether the throwing overboard of 132 slaves was a genuine
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race act of jettison or a fraud. The jury recognized the slaves as property and ordered the insurers to pay up. The insurers appealed, but no record of the second case remains. Some contemporaries, such as abolitionist Granville Sharp, thought that it should have been a murder case rather than an insurance case. This case shows that enslaved people could still be treated as property before the law; however, public outcry did influence Parliament. In 1788, Dolben’s Slave Carrying Law prohibited the insurance of slaves under any circumstances other than piracy, natural disaster, insurrection, barratry, or fire. This was a very limited improvement, but it showed that they way forward for abolitionists was the incontrovertible, positive, parliamentary, statute law, rather than the vacillating precedents of the common law. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Free Soil Principle; Slave Trade, British; Strong, Jonathan. Further Reading: Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984; Oldham, James. English Common Law in the Age of Mansfield. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2004; Paley, R. “After Somerset: Mansfield, Slavery and the Law in England, 1772–1830.” In Law, Crime and English Society, 1660–1830. ed. Norma Landau. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, pp. 165–184; Shyllon, F. O. Black Slaves in Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1974; Van Cleve, George. “Somerset’s Case and its Antecedents in Imperial Perspective.” Law and History Review 24:3 (Fall 2006).
Miranda Kaufmann
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race The Enlightenment was marked not only by the triumph of reason, but the perennial question of “what is human.” As early as 1951, Ernst Cassirer’s The Philosophy of the Enlightenment claimed that reason—that idea that drove the inevitability of intellectual progress and civilization during the Enlightenment—was as much an anthropological concept as it was a philosophical one. It was not until the end of the last century, however, that various scholars began to investigate the concept of race as a philosophical motivation in Enlightenment thinking over the question of “what is human”? After the publication of Emmanuel Eze’s Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader and his subsequent essay “The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s Anthropology,” in Post-Colonial African Philosophy in 1997, the concept of race became both philosophically interesting and philosophically relevant to a thorough understanding of Enlightenment thinking. This newly emergent postcolonial query began to look more closely at the rise of philosophical anthropology and the effects the category of race had in assigning reason to various peoples outside of Europe in the works of Immanuel Kant, David Hume, and G.W.F. Hegel. Before the advent of postcolonial critiques, those critiques of Enlightenment thinking that aim to expose the role race plays in one’s participation in humanity, Enlightenment thinkers were seen as un-raced scholars rationally reflecting on the universal human concerns of freedom, morality, and society. Postcolonial critiques of the Enlightenment unveiled that the alleged neutrality of a universal human nature was in fact an isolated description of European civilization that justified European superiority and the colonization of non-European peoples.
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Enlightenment Philosophers and Race The idea of race developed concomitantly with the rise of scientific and anthropologic classifications in the early eighteenth century. Some scholars have maintained that the seeds of a racial worldview were in place during the European crusades of the fifteenth century, and were solidified by the rise of capitalism in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. Contemporary scholarship, however, argues that it was the debates launched by the works of Enlightenment philosophers like Immanuel Kant, Johann Friedrich Blumenbach, and Johann Gottfried von Herder that spurred the development of the scientific concept of race, which understood races as major divisions of humanity that have both physical and mental traits transmitted through heredity. KANT’S ROLE IN THE GERMAN INVENTION OF RACE. Immanuel Kant (1724–1804) was a German philosopher whose interest in the physical and moral capacities of different peoples in the world was developed, respectively, in his works on physical geography and pragmatic anthropology. As early as 1763 in Observations on the Feeling of the Beautiful and the Sublime, Kant began theorizing about the moral differences that arose from a people’s geography and their personality, which would develop into a national character. Although this work outlines what Kant took to be indicative of the physical, moral, and mental differences within humanity, it was not until Kant’s 1775 work “Of the Different Human Races” that he introduced a definition of race that resembled its modern use. This modern use of race, which understood races as major divisions of humanity that have both physical and mental traits transmitted through heredity, laid the foundation for racial theorization throughout the Enlightenment. According to Kant, as translated in The Idea of Race, races are “deviations that are constantly preserved over many generations and come about as a consequence of migration (dislocation to other regions) or through interbreeding with other deviation of the same line of descent, which always produces half-breed off-spring.” Ultimately, Kant proposed a theory of race that resulted from continuous interaction between a people’s inborn seeds (keime) and their climate. Following this logic, Kant believed that there were four races that possessed these distinctions: the white race, the Negro race, the Hun race, and the Hindu race, which corresponded to their habitation from different corners of the globe. This taxonomy, however, was not neutral. Kant held that only white Europeans, because of their temperate and amenable climate, were capable of true intellectual achievement and philosophical thought, and conversely that the hot climate and heavy iron particles in Africa made Africans lazy, stupid, and foul-smelling. From this perception of the physical differences in humankind, Kant argued that human beings had the potential to survive any and all climates in the world. Further, in their acclimatization, human beings develop permanent natural characteristics like skin color, physique, and mental capacities that make them more fit for their environments. Thus races were the products of an irreversible adaptation to one’s climate, environment, and the demands a people’s environment places on their bodies and minds. This inquiry into what Kant called natural history was his attempt to understand human beings as part of nature’s origin and nature’s ultimate goal. What Kant inevitably called pragmatic anthropology was the first attempt during the
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race Enlightenment to understand how a people’s geography related to their skin color and, by effect, their ultimate purpose or teleology. Geographical diverse people thus became different types or kinds of humans with fundamentally different characters, potentials, and telos. This idea was discussed most thoroughly in Kant’s Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View (1798), where he outlined his comprehensive study of peoples’ moral capacities according to their race. Physiognomy, the art of judging a human being’s way of experiencing the world from their visible forms like race, became the method of philosophizing about the interior of a people from their exterior. As such, race became the marker of a people’s interior being from the judgment of their exterior skin color. BLUMENBACH’S CONTRIBUTION TO RACE THEORY. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach (1752–1840) was a German anatomist and natural scientist generally regarded as the most influential figure in the development of race. According to Stephen Jay Gould’s famous article “The Geometer of Race” (1994), it was Blumenbach, not Kant, who created the most influential racial classification system during the Enlightenment. In 1775, Blumenbach wrote his dissertation De Generis Humani Varietate Nativa (On the Natural Variety of Mankind), but it was not until 1795, with the third edition of his doctoral dissertation, that Blumenbach proposed his racial taxonomy that divided human beings into five groups and introduced the term Caucasian into the racial lexicon. According to Blumenbach, the races of the world are Caucasian, Mongolian, Ethiopian, American, and Malay. Similar to Kant’s racial system, Blumenbach’s system included a notion of formative drive (bildungstrieb) that dictated the development of racial groups toward a particular racial destiny. Despite the parallels with Kant, Blumenbach’s theory was developed as a means to refute Kant’s theory of seeds (keimes), although Blumenbach did maintain the preeminence of Caucasians in reason and beauty. HERDER’S DISSENT. As a student, Johann Gottfried von Herder (1744– 1803) attended Kant’s lectures on physical geography and was well familiar with the teleological anthropology of Kant’s racial classifications. In 1774, Herder wrote his Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind, which sought to refute Kant’s hierarchical racial scheme. For Herder, the history of humanity is the unfolding of a given people’s Volk, or culture. Herder, unlike Kant, and later Blumenbach, believed that various peoples had legitimate forms of civilization. In Herder’s eyes, race did not exclude any group of people from the truth of reason or their claim to civilization, as it was only from within these groups that reality of their culture could be understood. As such, it was Herder who sought to convincingly refute the racial distinctions of the Enlightenment that would sustain its ethic of racial inferiority. ENLIGHTENMENT THEORIES OF RACIAL INFERIORITY. Given the role that race has played in the development of Enlightenment philosophy, current academic work in this area has begun to question whether the Enlightenment itself is deeply racist. Enlightenment philosophers consistently supported the idea of European superiority and African inferiority. John Locke (1632–1704) was involved in the slave trade, David Hume (1711–1776) wrote that only Europeans have birthed civilization and that Africans were naturally inferior to whites in a footnote to his 1748
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Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery essay “Of National Characteristics,” Kant claimed that blackness was an indication of stupidity, and G.W.F. Hegel (1770–1831) argued in his Philosophy of History that Africa was without history, and as such, slavery both moralized and civilized African people. The concept of race that developed during the Enlightenment was believed not only to be scientific but to form the ideas of racial difference that dictated European colonization of Africa and the Americas. Although scholars have not arrived definitively at an answer over the charge of racism against the entirety of the Enlightenment period, it is undeniable that the racial taxonomy of Kant and the antiblack disposition of many Enlightenment thinkers were linked inextricably to European colonization. See also: Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gall, Franz Josef; Gobineau on Races and Slavery; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Bernasconi, Robert. “Who Invented the Concept of Race? Kant’s Role in the Enlightenment Construction of Race.” In Race, ed. Robert Bernasconi; Cambridge: Blackwell, 2001, pp. 11–36; Cassier, Ernst. The Philosophy of the Enlightenment. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1951; Eigen, Sara and Mark Larrimore, eds. The German Invention of Race. Ithaca: State University of New York Press, 2006; Eze, Emmanuel, ed. “The Color of Reason: The Idea of ‘Race’ in Kant’s Anthropology.” In Post-Colonial African Philosophy: A Critical Reader, ed. Emmanuel Eze. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997, pp. 103–140; Eze, Emmanuel, ed. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997; Gould, Stephen Jay. “The Geometer of Race.” Discover (Nov. 1994), pp. 65–69; Hegel, G.W.F. Philosophy of History. trans. J. Sibree. New York: Prometheus, 1991; Herder, Johann Gottfried von. Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind; Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968; Kant, Immanuel. Anthropology from a Pragmatic Point of View. trans. Robert Louden; Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Lott, Tommy and Robert Bernasconi, eds. The Idea of Race. Indianapolis: Hackett, 2000; Smedley, Audrey. Race in North America: Origin and Evolution of a Worldview. Boulder: Westview Press, 1993; Valls, Andrew, ed. Race and Racism in Modern Philosophy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005.
Tommy J. Curry
Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery The era of critical thought and humanitarian reforms known as the Enlightenment was slow to posit slavery as a central evil in society. While attacking slavery generally, the influential writers were inconsistent in championing the cause of blacks because the period of abolitionist rhetoric, the second half of the eighteenth century, also saw the greatest valuation of sugar products in Atlantic Europe. Saint Domingue, present-day Haiti, had emerged as the premier sugar colony in the Americas, and it was widely believed that the plantation system depended on a large supply of forced black labor. Mercantilist ideas that colonies were essential to a nation were followed by the notion that only with black labor could sugar and other plantation crops be cultivated, as the tropical climate of the Caribbean was difficult for white workers. Some writers, like John Locke and François-Marie Arouet, better known as Voltaire, had economic ties to the colonial system, either directly or indirectly and, consequently, the issue of slavery and the slave
Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery trade was tied to the larger debate about the economic impact of the colonies and their future. Furthermore, the theoretical underpinnings of abolition, the humanitarianism and belief in natural rights, were offset by the simultaneous derogation of blacks by philosophes, men of letters, and naturalists who popularized proto-racial ideas based on their interpretations of science. So-called racial ideas in France had traditionally been linked to theories of lineage and rank, but in the second half of the eighteenth century, the association of groups of people with set physical traits coincided with the importance of a colonial system based on slave labor. Given the high mortality and low birth rates among the enslaved, the slave trade had become indispensable by the late eighteenth century; and the economies of such European port cities as Liverpool, Bristol, Nantes, Bordeaux, and La Rochelle were deeply tied to this trade. Many rationales had developed to justify this trade in human beings. Theological arguments had long focused on the supposed biblical curse on the progeny of Ham, targeted to blacks, and the more general goal of exposing blacks from pagan or Muslim lands to the preferred Christian faith. An even more enduring proslavery argument was that, given the wars, oppression, and misery in Africa, where people had long practiced selling each other into slavery, enslavement in the European colonies would be a considerable improvement. Beyond contact with small numbers of people of color concentrated in Paris, London, and the port cities, most Europeans had little occasion to take notice of the situation of people of color. Except for a few fortunate ones, people of color in Europe, whether slave or free, shared the mean circumstances that were typical of the European masses. Also, the theoretical underpinnings of abolition—the humanitarianism and belief in natural rights, freedom, and equality—were offset by the simultaneous derogation of blacks by philosophes, men of letters, and naturalists such as Carl Linnaeus and Georges-Louis Leclerc, Count de Buffon, who popularized proto-racial ideas based on their interpretations of science. In his Natural History, one of the most influential books of the eighteenth century, Buffon saw blacks as lazy and debauched, with no imagination or genius. Most scholarly writers questioned the moral and intellectual qualities of blacks. Even those such as Charles-Louis Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu, Guillaume-Thomas François Raynal, and Voltaire, who occasionally denounced the slave trade or slavery, were reluctant to accept the full humanity of blacks. In his Essay on Manners, Voltaire found “prodigious differences” between blacks and other species of humans based on their physical features and level of intelligence. Black skin color was identified with servitude and was considered reflective of the very soul of black people. Encyclopédie articles on “slaves” and “blacks” repeated the uncharitable descriptions of Africans offered by missionaries and colonial officials. Africa was the land where time had stood still, a land historically in its infancy. The poet Jean-François de Saint-Lambert saw the most advanced nations of Africa as barely comparable with medieval France. Many accepted the almost consistently negative interpretations of African character and society and appealed only for more humane treatment of slaves. The eighteenth-century discussion of slavery and the slave trade was launched by the philosophe Baron de Montesquieu in his Spirit of the Laws (1748). Using the literary device of satire, Montesquieu attacked most of the proslavery conventions showing
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Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery that they were inimical to true Christian principles and natural law. His assault on slavery inspired the Encyclopédie’s articles written by Louis de Jaucourt. In the Encyclopédie, this laboratory of Enlightenment ideas, Jaucourt denounced Christian nations’ support of black slavery and the slave trade. His statement in 1765 became a mantra for later abolitionists: “Let the European colonies perish rather than have so many suffer.” Jaucourt believed that with free laborers the colonial population would augment and the slave trade would be unnecessary. The philosophe Voltaire created an indelible antislavery image in the cry of a mutilated Dutch slave in his novel Candide: “it is at that price that you eat sugar in Europe.” Jean-Jacques Rousseau was mute on the slave trade and wrote little about the specifics of black slavery, but he generally opposed all slavery as against nature. Yet, neither Montesquieu, Voltaire, nor Rousseau used their enormous prestige to call for the end of the slave trade or the abolition of slavery. In Great Britain, the philosophe John Locke espoused the principles of freedom and equality, yet he invested in the Royal African Company, which conducted much of Britain’s slave trade; and the Scotsman David Hume proclaimed the inferiority of blacks in his 1753 Treatise of Human Nature. Some sympathetic literary manifestations focused on the nobility of blacks, who were occasionally included in the widespread regard for the “noble savage” and the cult of primitivism. In the “Reflections” accompanying his tale Ziméo (1769), the writer Saint-Lambert condemned the malice of Europeans toward blacks and the ensuing criticism hurled at the victims of that injustice. Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, was the story of a slave revolt and was published in England in 1688, translated into French in 1745, and instantly became popular. These literary treatments raised consciousness about the situation of the enslaved. In the last decades of the eighteenth century, there were numerous projects for gradual abolition of slavery on humanitarian and economic grounds, but rarely was there a serious call for immediate emancipation. There were examples to follow, such as the English abolitionist movement, the antislavery of the Quakers in Pennsylvania, and England’s cessation of the slave trade in 1787. Moreover, a dynamic element in French economic thought, the physiocrats, joined the Scotsman Adam Smith in urging the advantages of free over servile labor and thereby undercut primary arguments for slavery. The Abbé Raynal, primary author of the influential Philosophical and Political History of the European Settlements and Commerce in the Two Indies (1770–1781), championed cultivation in Africa as a way of eliminating slavery in the Caribbean. Raynal’s History included an extensive description of the system of enslavement from Africa to the Antilles. At its core, the system of Atlantic slavery did not allow humans to choose their condition for themselves, and Raynal called on the world’s monarchs to oppose slavery; however, his was not an egalitarian perspective. Like most of his contemporaries, Raynal saw blacks as representatives of a degenerate land, and in his last writing on the subject, Raynal called for a continuation of slavery in the colonies. The philosophe Nicolas de Caritat, marquis de Condorcet, synthesized the positions of his predecessors. In one of the major abolitionist treatises of the century, Reflections on the Slavery of Blacks (1781), he demanded the immediate end of the slave trade and programmed emancipation over 35 to 40 years. Combined with his
Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797) project for gradual abolition were numerous protections for those in slavery, including pensions for the needy slaves who would be transformed into serfs, similar to some contemporary Europeans; then they would be entirely free. Like Saint-Lambert and Raynal, he recommended support of cultivation in Africa and the dissemination of European reason, arts, and industry to Africa. Such views offer an anticipation of the “civilizing mission” of later French imperialism. Inspired by a British antislave trade movement led by Thomas Clarkson, Granville Sharp, and William Wilberforce, in 1788 a French abolitionist organization, Society of the Friends of the Blacks, began lobbying for people of color and an end to the slave trade. Among their charter members were Comte de Mirabeau, Brissot de Warville, Condorcet, and the Marquis de La Fayette, who chided his American friend Thomas Jefferson for refusing to emancipate the slaves on his estate. Proslavery interests undermined their efforts, however, until a French Revolutionary assembly abolished slavery in February 1794. Few issues were more troublesome to the Enlightenment than slavery, yet it has become an important measure of that era’s outlook and accomplishments. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, European; Abolition of Slavery, French; Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Abolition of Slavery, Russian; Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Gall, Franz Josef; Gobineau on Races and Slavery; Hemings, Sally; Hamitic Myth; Missionaries in Africa, European; Scientific Racism; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, French; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish; Quassia. Further Reading: Peabody, Sue. “There are no Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Regime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Sala-Molins, Louis. Dark Side of the Light: Slavery and the French Enlightenment. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2006; Tiainen-Anttila, Kaija. The Problem of Humanity: The Blacks in the European Enlightenment. Helsinki: Finnish Historical Society, 1994.
William H. Alexander
Equiano, Olaudah (1745–1797) Olaudah Equiano, an abolitionist, writer, sailor, and slave, was the most influential person of African descent in the abolitionist movement in Britain. He is known best for his provocative autobiography. According to this text, he was born free in Igboland, in what is now Nigeria. When he was about 11 years old, Equiano was kidnapped and sold several times as a slave within Africa. Six or seven months after being captured, he was sold again, this time onto a European slave ship bound for the Americas. Equiano was brought to Virginia, where he was purchased by Michael Henry Pascal, a lieutenant in the British Royal Navy. Pascal renamed him Gustavus Vassa, which he did not appreciate, but eventually accepted. Equiano remained in Pascal’s service for several years, generally on board naval ships, which brought him to Holland, Scotland, France, Nova Scotia, Gibraltar, and Spain. While in Pascal’s service, Equiano fought in the Seven Years’ War as a powder boy and gunman. He also began to learn hairdressing and navigation, as well as rudimentary reading, writing, and arithmetic. He converted to Anglicanism, and in 1759, he was baptized in Westminster.
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Frontispiece and title page from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, 1794. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. In December 1762, Pascal unexpectedly sold Equiano, despite Equiano’s belief that he was free by English common law because of his status as a Christian. Equiano was taken to the Caribbean, where he was sold to Robert King, a Quaker of Philadelphia, who reportedly treated him humanely. King allowed Equiano to be hired out to ships, which allowed the black sailor some degree of freedom, although he was still legally bound to King. During this time, Equiano engaged in petty trading, which earned him money toward the purchase of his own freedom, despite the fact that he was working primarily on slave ships, thus participating in the enslavement of others. By July 1766, Equiano managed to collect 40 pounds sterling, which King accepted for Equiano’s freedom. Equiano continued to work on ships as a free man, making voyages to Turkey, Italy, France, Portugal, Spain, and the West Indies. In 1773, he joined an expedition to the North Pole and later helped establish a plantation in Jamaica. Back in London, Equiano joined the abolitionist movement, which was gaining momentum in the 1770s. He was acquainted with the famous philanthropist and abolitionist, Granville Sharp, who helped him gain a position as the supervisor of a Sierra Leone settlement project, which sought to repatriate free people of African descent. Because of political trouble, Equiano did not go to Sierra Leone. Instead, he remained in England; married a British wife, Susan Cullen; and authored his extraordinarily
Europe, Mary L. (1882–1947) popular autobiography, which went into nine editions in his lifetime. Equiano’s narrative is known best for its description of Igbo life, as well as its depiction of the deplorable conditions aboard slave ships. He continued to work for the abolitionist cause for the rest of his life but died in 1797, 10 years before his primary goal was accomplished—the abolition of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. The veracity of Equiano’s narrative, particularly the sections regarding his life in Africa and his voyage across the Atlantic, has been challenged several times. Early challenges were made by proslavery activists in the late eighteenth century (which Equiano was able to refute in his lifetime), and then again more recently by scholars claiming Equiano may have been born in South Carolina, although the influential Africanist historian Paul Lovejoy (among others) has convincingly refuted such a position. Regardless of these challenges, Equiano’s work and life remain exemplary and are extraordinarily valuable sources of information about black life in the eighteenth century. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Cugoano, Ottobah; Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman; English Common Law, Slavery and; Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw; Prince, Mary; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Carretta, Vincent. Equiano, the African: Biography of a Self-Made Man. Atlanta: University of Georgia Press, 2005; Equiano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African, Written By Himself. ed. Werner Sollors. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001; Lovejoy, Paul. “Autobiography and Memory: Gustavus Vassa, alias Olaudah Equiano, the African.” Slavery and Abolition 27:3 (December 2006): 317–347.
Laura Murphy
Europe, Mary L. (1882–1947) Mary Lorraine Europe was an African American musician and educator known for her performances of the works of Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, the Afro-British composer. Coleridge-Taylor praised Europe, a pianist and organist, and he often requested that she perform with him when he visited the United States. Europe was born in Mobile, Alabama in 1882. She and her family later moved to Washington, D.C. Europe’s family, which included five siblings, was musically inclined. Europe was the sister of famed jazz musician, James Reese Europe. She learned how to play the piano and organ from her family members, and her biographers have noted that she did not receive formal training at an early age. Europe was educated at the noted Washington, D.C. high school, the M Street High School (later the Paul Laurence Dunbar High School) in 1900. Two years later, she attended Washington Normal School, a teacher’s training school. She studied music at the Washington College of Music and focused her music training on studying harmony and piano. She also spent time in training at Columbia Teacher’s College. She graduated from Howard University with a bachelor’s degree in education in 1922. Between 1916 and 1944, Europe served as music teacher at the Dunbar High School, while she rose to prominence as the piano accompanist for the Samuel Coleridge-Taylor Choral Society. Europe met Coleridge-Taylor in 1903 after he traveled to Washington, D.C. to conduct his famed, “Hiawatha.” The next year she accompanied him on
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Europe, Mary L. (1882–1947) “Atonement.” Coleridge-Taylor was so taken by her performance that he requested she accompany him again when he returned to Washington, D.C. in 1906. While teaching at Dunbar, Europe wrote the words to the Dunbar High School alma mater. She was able to bring noted performers to visit her high school students, including opera singer Marion Anderson. In 1919, she established the first coed choir in the Washington, D.C. public schools. Europe was a long time member of Lincoln Temple Congregational Church, where she served as an accompanist and choral director. She was also a member of the Treble Clef Club, an organization of African American women organized to promote music appreciation and music education. In 1932, Europe played the piano for one of the last productions of the “Song of Hiawatha” in Washington, D.C. She helped establish music programs in Washington, D.C. secondary schools, and her efforts led to the formalization of music education from an extracurricular activity to courses students could take for credit. She died in Washington, D.C. in 1947. See also: Musicians in Europe, African American Classical. Further Reading: Badger, Reid. A Life in Ragtime: A Biography of James Reese Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995; Douglass, Fannie, and Roy Hill. “Reminiscences of Yesteryear.” The Black Perspective in Music 2:1 (Spring 1974); McGinty, Doris E. “Gifted Minds and Pure Hearts: Mary L. Europe and Estelle Pinckney Webster.” Journal of Negro Education 51:3 (1982).
Marcia Chatelain
F Fanon, Frantz (1925–1961) Frantz Fanon was an influential twentieth-century French essayist, psychoanalyst, and theorist who became a noted critic of French colonialism. He was born in July 1925 to a middle-class family of biracial descent in Martinique, a French colony. In Fort-de-France, he was educated at the Lycée Schoelcher under the tutelage of Aimé Césaire. In 1943, he voluntarily left Martinique to fight with the Free French in World War II against France’s occupation by Nazi Germany. Later joining the French army, he was wounded during the three-week battle at Colmar in 1944 and received the Croix de Guerre medal. After the Nazis were defeated and Allied forces crossed the Rhine into Germany, Fanon’s regiment was “bleached” of nonwhite soldiers. Thus Fanon and many of his fellow soldiers were dismissed and sent to Toulon. In 1945, Fanon returned to Martinique, where he worked for Césaire’s parliamentary campaign and completed his baccalaureate. He then returned to France to study medicine and psychiatry on scholarship in Lyon. During this time, he met and married Jose Duble, a Frenchwoman. Before leaving France, Fanon had already written his first analysis of the effects of racism and colonization, Peau noire, masques blancs (Black Skin, White Masks, 1952), and originally titled “Essai pour la désaliénation des noirs” (“An Essay for the Disalienation of Blacks”). After completing his medical studies in 1951, Fanon began a residency in psychiatry under the radical Catalan psychiatrist, François de Tosquelles. De Tosquelles greatly influenced Fanon’s medical practice by emphasizing the essential role of culture in psychopathology. In Algeria, Fanon was appointed head of the Psychiatry Department at the Blida-Joinville Hospital in 1953. During his time in Blida, the war for Algerian independence from France broke out. He was profoundly struck by
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Film, Blacks in European the stories of torture told by his patients, both Algerian victims of torture and French torturers. The events of Algerian War turned him against the French government. In 1956, he officially resigned his post with the French government, fled to Tunisia, and began working with the Algerian independence movement. He continued to see patients and wrote articles and essays for existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre’s Les Temps Modernes (Modern Times), Alioune Diop’s Présence Africaine (African Presence), and the National Liberation Front newspaper El Moudjahid. A good portion of his work from this period was published posthumously as L’an V de la revolution algérienne (A Dying Colonialism, 1959). In addition, Fanon served as the Ghanaian ambassador for the Provisional Algerian Government. In Ghana, Fanon was diagnosed with leukemia. In the last 10 months of his life, he completed his final and most passionate critique of the colonial condition, Les damnés de la terre (The Wretched of the Earth, 1961). In 1961, Fanon died at the National Institute of Health in Maryland. His body was returned by his request to Algeria, where the Algerian National Army of Liberation buried Fanon with honors. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; French Army, Blacks in the; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Cherki, Alice, and Nadia Benabid. Frantz Fanon: A Portrait. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006; Fanon, Frantz. Black Skin, White Masks. trans. Constance Farrington. New York: Grove Press, 1991; Fanon, Frantz. A Dying Colonialism. trans. Haakon Chevalier. New York: Grove Press, 1994; Fanon, Frantz. The Wretched of the Earth. trans. Richard Philcox. New York: Grove; Press, 2005; Gibson, Nigel. Fanon: The Postcolonial Imagination. London: Polity Press, 2003; Gordon, Lewis R., T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting, and Renee T. White. Fanon: A Critical Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing Limited, 1996.
Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard
Film, Blacks in European THE SILENT ERA. In the nineteenth century, the first blacks who appeared in European films were featured in a series of 12 short documentaries made by the brothers Auguste and Louis Lumière. The films were shot in April 1897 at a French colonial exhibition entitled the “Exposition de Lyon” (1897). Among the titles were “Danse du sabre” (“Sabre Dance”), “Danse du féticheur” (“Dance by a Magician”), “École de négrillons” (“School for Young Negro”), and “Toilette d’un négrillon” (“The Washing of a Young Negro”). During the same year, the Lumière brothers also shot street scenes in the United States in which African American pedestrians could be seen by European audiences. In the mid-1920s, Josephine Baker (1906–1975) was an established artist in the United States, but she became such a smash hit in Paris with her 1925 revue that she stayed in France for the rest of her days. From 1926, she stole the show (appearing half-naked on stage, wearing only a few bananas) in various musical reviews like La Revue nègre (The Negro Musical) in high-class cabarets on the Champs-Élysées. Excerpts of these shows were filmed in newsreels. Apart from her singing and recording
Film, Blacks in European career, Baker also starred as a dancer at the Folies bergères theater in Paris and as an actress in French movies such as Zouzou (1932), which was directed by Marc Allégret, and Princess Tam Tam (1934), which was directed by Edmond T. Gréville. At the age of 20, Baker was the toast of Paris, and she was already a millionaire by 1930. FRENCH CINEMA. Except for documentaries, black characters were not seen frequently in European cinema during the 1940s. In Henri-Georges Clouzot’s 1947 crime fiction masterpiece, Quai des Orfevres (Quay of the Goldsmiths), however, the severe bachelor character of Inspector Antoine (played by French actor Louis Jouvet) becomes more human when we learn that he adopted a young black boy (about eight years old). Although the young boy does not appear in all scenes, Inspector Antoine explains to a colleague that this child is alone and has nobody in the world to care for him. From the late 1940s, French director Jean Rouch was a pioneer in ethnographic cinema in Africa, with classic documentaries like Les Maîtres fous (The Mad Masters, 1955) and Moi, un Noir (Me, a Black, 1958). Rouch shot his first documentary Au pays des mages noirs (In the Land of the Black Magi) in Niger in 1946. Although Rouch was white, he was fascinated with black Africans’ traditions. He shot dozens of films all across Africa, from Benin to Burkina Faso and Niger, on such topics as circumcision, possession dances, magicians, music, and culture. Rouch’s films were often produced by the French government (through institutions like the Centre national de recherches scientifiques—CNRS) and won many prizes in film festivals. During half a century, Rouch helped to show and reveal to the world the true Africa in a perspective that contrasted with the common, stereotyped image of a starving continent. In a lighter tone, in the absurd French comedy Oscar (1966), directed by Edouard Molinaro (from a play by Claude Magnier), the bourgeois character played by Louis de Funès suddenly realizes that his manservant is a black man. Many years later, the first feature film by Jean-Jacques Beinex, Diva (1981), featured the black singer Wilhelmenia Fernandez in her own role of an opera star. CRITICAL RECEPTION. Some African feature films were praised by critics in Europe. For instance, the Senegalese film Kaddu Beykat/Lettres paysanes (1975), which was directed by Safi Faye, received the Prix Georges-Sadoul (France) in 1975 and a prize at the 1976 Berlin Film Festival. Through the co-production model that provided European funding, many African directors could shoot feature films in Africa, like Le Mandat (1968), directed by Ousmane Sembène (Sénégal/France), which received the Prix de la critique internationale at the Venice Film Festival in 1968, and Yeelen (1987), directed by Souleymane Cissé. FRANCE AS A LEADER. In France during the 1980s, a few comedies were made with the theme of the cultural shock between blacks and whites in the Parisian region, such as Black Mic Mac (1985), which was directed by Thomas Gilou, and L’Oeil au beurre noir (1987), which was directed by Serge Meynard. Although on a more dramatic tone, the provocative film La Haine (Hate, 1995) by French director Mathieu Kassovitz tells the story of the spiral of violence in the suburbs of Paris, where the blacks and North African immigrés refuse the conventions of French society and rebel against the French police. This film showed a new generation of blacks who grew up in France without having a direct encounter with Africa. It created many debates
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Film, Blacks in European about the “real situation” of immigration in France and even won the prestigious Prix de la mise en scène at the Cannes Festival in 1995. Kassovitz had already directed another feature film, Métisse (1993), with a Caribbean character (played by Julie Mauduech) who, being pregnant, hesitates between her two French lovers—one black and the other white. Among animated films were two masterpieces, Kirikou et la sorcière (Kirikou and the Sorceress, 1998) and Princes et Princesses (2007), both of which were directed by Michel Ocelot. Both films were a huge success as European co-productions (France/Belgium/Luxembourg) and showed a wonderful story, which is retold as a modern African tale. Although Ocelot is a white filmmaker and screenwriter from France, he created two wonderful films that illustrate the symbols and style of African folktales with an all-black cast set in an African village, with themes such as the child as a hero of his village (in this case Kirikou himself) and the curse of destiny. The musical soundtrack was composed by Senegalese Youssou N’Dour. EUROPE. In European cinema, some black actors and actresses appeared in a notable feature films. A Yugoslavian filmmaker, Dusan Makavejev, imagined another giant black character in his provocative film, Sweet Movie (1974), which is a biting critique of capitalism. In a graphic scene, a Caribbean athlete (Roy Callender) played the paradoxical “Jeremiah Muscle,” an intellectual black student who quotes Marx and Marcuse while trying to rape a young, white Canadian woman traveling in Paris. The racist conflicts between blacks and whites and their political compromises are depicted in Mephisto (1981), which was directed by Hungarian filmmaker Istvan Szabo from a novel by German author Klaus Mann. In this Hungarian film set in Nazi Germany, a married actor, Hendrik Hofgen, is forced by the Nazis to leave his mistress, who is black. This feature film received an Academy Award for Best Foreign Film in 1982. West German director and screenwriter Rainer Werner Fassbinder is probably the European filmmaker who has included the largest number of black characters in his films. In Fassbinder’s film Ali: Fear Eats the Soul (1973), in which a middle-age German widow falls in love with a younger African worker, both have to face social pressures, rejection, and prejudices. In other Fassbinder films, such as The Marriage of Maria Braun (1978), the figure of the African American soldier in postwar Germany symbolizes the non-Aryan winner of World War II, who was at the same time American and black, and therefore the absolute opposite of the Nazi racial ideal. When the blond-haired, Aryan type Maria Braun has a torrid affair with the African American soldier, it is often interpreted as a metaphor of the new Germany, which has sold its soul to capitalism. Other African American characters appear in Fassbinder’s Der Amerikanische Soldat (The American Soldier, 1970) and in his posthumous film Querelle (1982), in which a sailor is forced to make love with a black bartender. Other West German directors included black characters in their feature films, especially those who shot their films abroad, such as Werner Herzog and his Where the Green Ants Dream (1984). This documentary depicts the aboriginals in Australia, who protest against the loss of their lands, and therefore a part of their culture and symbols. In the feature film Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972), the Spanish expedition that explored the Amazon River during the sixteenth century brings a black slave to frighten the South
Fortuna, Ignatius (?–1789) American natives, who have never seen an African before. On a less dramatic tone, in the pleasant comedy Out of Rosenheim (sometimes entitled Bagdad Café, 1988), German director Percy Adlon depicts the friendship between two opposed personalities who meet in the American desert: a German tourist, Jasmin, and a hard-headed African American young woman, Brenda. In England, particularly beginning in the 1980s, blacks appeared in many feature films produced by foreign communities living in the United Kingdom. Among the most popular mainstream productions were such films as Secrets and Lies (1996), which was directed by Mike Leigh. The film depicts a black woman named Hortense (played by Marianne Jean-Baptiste) who tries to find out the identity of her birth parents in a quest for her own identity. She is astonished when she finally learns that her birth mother is in fact white. In Switzerland, Alain Tanner directed a movie with a black actress, Aïssa Maïga, entitled Jonas et Lila, à demain (1999). In fact, this Parisian actress, who was born in Dakar, had the chance to appear in multiple films in France, Switzerland, and Africa, including Cédric Klapish’s Les Poupées russes (2004) and Olivier Assayas’s Paris, je t’aime (Paris, I love You, 2005). Apart from acting, Maïga was also scriptwriter and director for her debut feature film shot in Africa (with European funding): Il faut quitter Bamako (2008). See also: Besatzungskinder; Television, Blacks in European; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Bourne, Stephen. Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television. London: Continuum, 2001; Laberge, Yves. “Film as Ethnography: A Tribute to Jean Rouch (1917–2004).” H-France Review 5:118 (November 2005). Available: http://www.h-france.net/vol5reviews/laberge.html; Rapp, Bernard, and Jean-Claude Lamy, eds. Dictionnaire mondial des films. Paris: Larousse, 1999; Rittaud-Hutinet, Jacques. Auguste et Louis Lumière: Les 1000 premiers films. Paris: Philippe Sers, 1990; Rouch, Jean. Ciné-Ethnography. ed. and trans. Steven Feld. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2003.
Yves Laberge
Fortuna, Ignatius (?–1789) Ignatius Fortuna was a black servant in Germany to Franziska Christina von PfalzSulzbach, the lady abbess of a convent in Essen that was home to unmarried noble women. It was a widespread practice in eighteenth-century noble homes in Europe to have a black servant for representational reasons, but Fortuna differed from other black servants of his time. During his life, he gained social status and wealth and was buried in the orphanage’s church of the city of Steele. One can see Fortuna in a notable 1772 painting, in which he is depicted holding the train of the abbess’s robe. It is unknown when Fortuna was born. When he was given as a present to the abbess in 1735, it was assumed that he was about five to seven years old. Franz Adam Schiffer, a businessman of the city of Essen, had brought him back from a trip to South America. On October 12, 1737, Fortuna was baptized Ignatius Christianus Fridericus. During his first years in service, Fortuna’s duties seemed to have been comparable to that of other black servants at the time, such as carrying the train of noble robes and
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France, Blacks in serving tea to guests. In later years, he seemed to have been responsible also for musical entertainment because his estate listed several instruments. During her life, the abbess granted Fortuna privileges that were unusual at that time. She gave Fortuna a heated and furnished room of his own on her private floor. Only a few other people, such as her personal confessor, her personal secretary, and her two chamber maids, enjoyed the same residential privilege. All other servants shared unheated quarters far away from the abbess’s private rooms. In her last will, she gave Fortuna the lifelong privilege of free room and board in the orphanage of Steele, which she had founded several years before. In addition, he received a golden watch, a fur coat, a substantial amount of cash, and the guarantee that all his medical bills would be paid by the orphanage. After the death of the abbess in 1776, Fortuna became the servant of her successor, the Polish princess Maria Kunikunde von Sachsen. When Fortuna died on November 24, 1789, he was a well-respected citizen of Steele known as “Herr Ignaz” (Mr. Ignaz). He left a fortune that was substantial enough to cause a battle over his estate. Several of Schiffer’s children argued that since their father had brought Fortuna to Germany, they should be considered half-siblings to Fortuna. The orphanage, however, claimed that because of Fortuna’s free room, board, and medical bills, the orphanage would be the only legal heir. Even the site of Fortuna’s grave serves as a sign of his privileged position in life. Originally, the abbess had stated in her last will that he should be buried next to her in the church crypt of the orphanage. Because this place was reserved for the clergy, however, the abbess’s wish was only partly observed by burying him in the bell tower of the church. See also: Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Germany, Blacks in. Further Reading: Küppers-Braun, Ute. “Kammermohren: Ignatius Fortuna am Essener Hof und andere farbige Hofdiener.” Das Münster am Hellweg 54 (2001): 17–50.
Heike Raphael-Hernandez
France, Blacks in Blacks have had a longstanding presence in France and have been documented since the thirteenth century. The French traveled to many parts of Africa, but it was their contact with West Africa that came to shape their perceptions of the continent during the modern era. West Africa had a diverse range of peoples, yet the French tended to view them as a whole. They noted the Africans’ dark skin color, their perceived heathen religions, and their perceived primitive social customs and institutions. The French became involved in the African slave trade in the sixteenth century. During this time, French traders went to West Africa looking for goods, such as ivory and gold, to bring back to France. Some of these traders began to bring back African slaves. French contact with Africans increased during the seventeenth century. Trading posts were established in Africa along its coast to further trade and eventually to establish political control as the French expanded in Africa. After the Age of Exploration, France was expanding to create a colonial empire. The French colonies in the Caribbean were first composed of several islands in the Greater and
France, Blacks in Lesser Antilles and French Guiana, which was part of the South American continent. The Caribbean islands were the source of constant struggles between the colonial powers of England, France, the Netherlands, and Spain. Consequently, territories often changed hands through treaties. Some of the most significant of France’s Caribbean colonies included Martinique, Guadeloupe, and Saint Domingue (now Haiti). In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, France became highly involved in the African slave trade. The colonies in the French Caribbean were used for breeding cattle, then tobacco, and finally sugar. By the mid to late 1600s, it was clear that slavery would emerge as the dominant form of labor and the basis for French wealth in the Caribbean. The plantations in the French colonies in the Indian Ocean were also run on slave labor. The working conditions for slaves on the colonial plantations were harsh and many were worked to death. Birth rates were also low. Therefore the need for new slaves was constant. In France, several cities were involved in the slave trade, particularly Nantes, Bordeaux, Le Havre, La Rochelle, Saint-Malo, Harfleur, and Rouen. The growth of freedmen in the French Caribbean in the late eighteenth century prompted increased restrictions against them to maintain social distinctions. Freedmen grew in prosperity, often owning their own slaves and plantations. Such newfound elites wished to unite with the whites in maintaining their status over the slaves, the vast majority of the population. France advocated a free gens de couleur-white rapprochement when it was advantageous. Although such a union would assist in the subjugation of the multitude of black and mixed-race slaves, it might provide security to break away from France. White plantation owners, however, maintained their hostile and discriminatory practices toward freedmen. The rise of the French slave trade also resulted in the increase in the number of blacks in France. French aristocrats fathered illegitimate children with their slaves. Sometimes, the biracial sons that resulted from these unions were sent to France to be educated or accompanied their fathers to France. Such was the case with Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, future general during the French Revolution and father to celebrated writer Alexandre Dumas, and the Chevalier de Saint-Georges, a noted musician, duelist, and leader of a black regiment in France during the French Revolution. Other blacks arrived in France with their masters. French plantation owners at times wished to bring their slaves with them when they returned to France. Other blacks were sent to France to learn trades. Plantation owners in the colonies, however, were wary of sending blacks to the metropole (or “mother country”) for too long for fear that blacks would be exposed to “dangerous” egalitarian ideas. The French government, however, issued legislation attempting to regulate the presence of blacks in France and the slave trade. A notable piece of legislation was the Code Noir in 1685. In addition, slaves were not allowed into France as slaves, on the grounds that presence on French soil brought with it freedom. In 1571, for example, some slaves were put on auction in Bordeaux, but the parlement ordered their release, claiming that slavery did not exist in France; however, this rule was not always followed during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Yet, the Parlement of Paris, which held jurisdiction over one-third of France, refused to register legislation containing the word “slave” and upheld the Free Soil Principle.
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France, Blacks in France was concerned about having too many blacks in the country. In 1738, for example, slave stays in France were limited to three years and for the purpose of learning a trade. Masters breaking such laws were to be fined heavily. In 1777, Louis XVI signed the Déclaration pour la police des noirs, prohibiting the new arrival of blacks and gens de couleur, ordering depots for slaves accompanying their owners as they traveled to France, and requiring the registration of all blacks in France. In 1778, an arret du conseil required all registered blacks to carry identification cards. Failure to comply resulted in deportation. A ban on interracial marriages was declared in 1778. To early modern French intellectuals, the appearance, manners, and customs of the Africans questioned European conceptions of humans and society. They therefore established theories about the place of Africans in creation. Those that did travel to Africa attempted to understand the seemingly strange world that they encountered, but often without success. Enlightenment thinkers, relying on earlier descriptions of Africa and Africans, maintained negative perceptions of blacks. During the second half of the eighteenth century, human biology emerged as an explanation to account for the perceived differences between various social structures and customs found across the globe. Enlightenment thinkers and their advancement of the idea of equality of humans opened the door for the abolition of slavery, but they fell short of unambiguously advocating emancipation. The oncoming of the French Revolution did not alter perceptions of blacks and slavery in France. Out of a possible 2,000 cahiers from representatives throughout French towns, 21 favored the abolition of slavery and an additional 28 called for the abolition of the slave trade. During the French Revolution, the revolutionary values of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” ultimately led to debates about slavery. Although many within the revolutionary government were willing to extend rights to free blacks, such willingness collapsed on pressure from white colonial planters and influential slave traders. Efforts from French abolitionists and free gens de couleur representatives from Saint Domingue were unsuccessful. As the revolution became more radical, however, slaves were emancipated throughout the French colonies. A regiment of free blacks was formed in France under the Chevalier de Saint-Georges. After Napoleon came to power, however, slavery was reinstated in the colonies. The British government, which advocated the elimination of the slave trade in the beginning of the nineteenth century, pressured other governments to comply. In 1818, the French government declared the slave trade illegal; however, French involvement in the slave trade continued illegally throughout much of the century. In 1848, the French government abolished slavery throughout the French colonies. During the nineteenth century, many prominent French individuals were of partial black descent. For example, François Fournier de Pescay became a renowned French physician during the early nineteenth century. He became the surgeon general of several French regiments before becoming chief surgeon of the Paris police. For a time, he was the personal physician of King Ferdinand VII of Spain. In 1814, King Louis XVIII of France appointed Fournier de Pescay the director of health and hygiene for the French army. Other figures include the famous writer Alexandre Dumas père. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the European powers sought new markets and raw materials to further industrial and commercial expansion, as well as pres-
France, Blacks in tige and strategic power. One of the areas targeted for expansion was Africa. France was interested in establishing its control over North and West Africa. The New Imperialism led to new social views concerning colonialism. Scientists developed scientific grounds to determine differences between races. European powers, particularly France and Britain, took on self-appointed civilizing missions to parts of the world. The French mission civilisatrice (“civilizing mission”) attempted to spread French culture and influence. In general, France initially pursued a policy of assimilation that sought to transform colonial subjects into integrated citizens of the mother country. Later, France took up a policy of association that emphasized cooperation. During World War I, France used hundreds of thousands of men from its colonies, including those in Africa, to fight in the trenches and in various labor roles. The use of colonial troops and laborers did spark some racial violence in France. After the war, the French government was keen to have the men return to their colonies of origin. During the 1920s, France seemed to be taken by anything associated with blacks and black culture. The popularity of jazz in France and seeming acceptance of black celebrities, such as Josephine Baker, furthered the reputation of France as a racially tolerant society. In the early twentieth century, African American artists, adventurers, and intellectuals were attracted to France, perceiving the country as more accepting of blacks than the United States. Many, such as writer Richard Wright, even became French citizens. Blacks from France’s African and Caribbean colonies also spent time in France, often to be educated at French universities. Yet French attitudes toward blacks were more ambivalent, and the perceived racial tolerance was not all that it was made out to be. Interracial unions were perceived as a threat to French civilization and blacks were often depicted as primitive and distinctly non-French. During World War II, Germany invaded and occupied France. After numerous French territories in Africa threw their support behind the Free French rather than the Vichy government that collaborated with the Nazis, Brazzaville in the French Congo became the temporary capital of Free France. After the war, France struggled to maintain its economic and political status in Europe and the world. France’s relationship with its former colonies was altered. The country hoped to maintain its colonial empire, but it soon faced various independence movements. The French government struggled to find a course of action. The question of whether to grant independence to Algeria in North Africa was a dividing issue that contributed to the establishment of a new government in France in 1958 and the Algerian independence in 1962. France eventually developed a plan to form a Communauté with its overseas possessions that was similar to the British Commonwealth. Most of the former French colonies in Africa accepted the terms of the Communauté. The members of the Communauté, however, soon began to agitate for independence. The French government under de Gaulle still sought to maintain strong relations with its former African possessions, securing French influence, while granting high levels of independence. The establishment of the African states as having a “special relationship” with France persevered throughout the twentieth century. African immigrants, many from former French colonies in Africa and the Caribbean, have been steadily pouring into France, both legally and illegally. France has increasingly debated its colonial past and the role of immigrants from France’s former
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France, Blacks in colonies in French society. The French insistence on the equality of humans, a fundamental legacy of the French Revolution, leaves many African immigrants behind. Black critics have argued that France has long perpetuated a fiction that it is a society without minorities. France continues to face difficulties finding a course to deal with multiethnic diversity. In France, census questions cannot include those on race, so it is difficult to determine the exact number of blacks in France. Many blacks in France are also Muslim. As Islam has emerged as the second largest religion in France, which has traditionally been Catholic, the country has had to reconsider what it means to be French. While Jacques Chirac was president, his conservative government had often adopted strict immigration legislation and supported controversial legislation concerning how colonialism should be taught in schools. Further troubles arose as a result of high unemployment rates, particularly among the young, and poor living conditions for immigrants. Riots in Paris in 2005, orchestrated by many black and Arab youths, also caused concern. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Artists in Europe, African American; Authors in Europe, African American; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Film, Blacks in European; French Army, Blacks in the; French Ministry of Marine; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Illegal African Immigration to Europe; Jazz, European Reception of; Literature, Blacks in French; May 10 Holiday (France); Media, Blacks in Contemporary European; Negritude; Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European; Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN); Scientific Racism; Slave Trade, French; Television, Blacks in European; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Berliner, Brett. Ambivalent Desire: The Exotic Black Other in Jazz-Age France. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002; Brock, Colin. The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. London: Routledge, 1986; Chapman, Herrick, and Laura Frader, eds. Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004; Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530–1880. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003; Conklin, Alice. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997; Dorigny, Marcel, ed. Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848. trans. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003; Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960. Portsmouth, NH, and London: Heinemann and James Currey, 1991; Fabre, Michel. From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840–1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991; Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. Black Paris: The African Writers’ Landscape. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998; Kenney, William H. “‘Le Hot’: The Assimilation of American Jazz in France, 1917–1940.” American Studies 25:1 (1984): 5–24; Lawler, Nancy Ellen. Soldiers of Misfortune: Ivoirien Tirailleurs of World War II. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992; Lewis, Shireen. Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and Theory from Négritude to Créolité. New York: Lexington Books, 2006; McCloy, Shelby. The Negro in France. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1961; Peabody, Sue. “There are No Slaves in France” – The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Peabody, Sue, and Tyler Stovall, eds. The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003;
Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily Stovall, Tyler, and Georges Van Den Abbeele, eds. French Civilization and Its Discontents: Nationalism, Colonialism, Race. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003; Thomas, Dominic. Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006; Winders, James. Paris Africain: Rhythms of the African Diaspora. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
E. Agateno Mosca
Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily The conquest of the remaining population of Sicilian Muslims by Frederick II Hohenstaufen beginning in the 1220s, and his creation of an exiled colony of such Muslims in southern Italy, is one of the earliest documented accounts of a Christian European ruler interacting in a complex way with a group that included a significant black African component. Frederick II (1194–1250) was the son of the Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI of Hohenstaufen (d. 1197), who had married Constance, the Norman heiress of Sicily. Sicily had been conquered by Islamic forces in the ninth century, and it was only in the eleventh century that the Normans reasserted Christian control on the island. A substantial Muslim population remained, and some of the zones in the mountainous interior continued to resist Christian authority. Henry VI, like his Norman rival Tancred of Lecce, made use of dark-skinned Muslim musicians in his entourage, and when Frederick came of age he resumed this practice. Frederick, however, decided to definitely subdue the Islamic resistance in central Sicily, and as part of his “pacification” project, he moved at least 15,000 to 20,000 Muslims, among whom there must have been a significant number of blacks, to a new imperial colony at Lucera in Apulia on the southern Italian mainland. These Muslims were legally defined as Frederick’s personal servants, and many were used as an elite personal guard and also as functionaries and entertainers at Frederick’s court. Darkskinned boys named Musca and Marzuch are described as trumpeters in 1239–1240, and around this time one Johannes Maurus (Giovanni Moro, John the Moor, or John the Black) began to rise in the imperial hierarchy. Johannes was wealthy enough to own many properties, including a grand house in Foggia, the imperial capital of Apulia. It is possible, although not certain, that Johannes converted from Islam to Christianity. Johannes had the position of Chamberlain, and after Frederick’s death in 1250, he actually became Grand Chancellor of the kingdom of Naples, until he betrayed the Hohenstaufen party and was killed by his own Muslim troops. The colony at Lucera was allowed to practice its own faith, and its cultural and religious isolation was a means of ensuring loyalty to Frederick. There is evidence that Luceran-Sicilian blacks were present in Frederick’s entourage during his travels through Germany in 1235, and they may have been in the entourage of his grandson, Conradin, during his stay in Siena in 1267. The memory of Frederick’s black retainers was strong enough that a pretender known as the “False Frederick” tried to confirm his imperial identity in Austria in 1283 by employing black retainers to distribute coins to his would-be subjects.
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Free Soil Principle Although it is clear that blacks were a highly visible component among the Sicilian Muslims whom Frederick moved to Lucera, it is unknown how numerous they were, or what percentage of this Muslim group they constituted. Several sculptures (c. 1230–1250) from the Lucera area depicting black Africans survive. The colony at Lucera had some initial conflict with Charles I of Anjou, the French noble who defeated the last heirs of Frederick in 1266–1269 and became king of southern Italy, but Charles soon renewed the colony’s charter. His son, Charles II, suppressed the Muslim community in 1300, and most of its members were sold into slavery. See also: Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Germany, Blacks in; Italy, African Invasions of; Italy, Blacks in; Moors. Further Reading: Kantorowicz, Ernst. Frederick the Second, 1194–1250. Trans. E. O. Lorimer. New York: F. Unger, 1957; Kaplan, Paul. “Black Africans in Hohenstaufen Iconography.” Gesta 26 (1987): 29–36; Taylor, Julie. Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera. Lanham, MD: Lexington, 2003.
Paul H. D. Kaplan
Free Soil Principle The Free Soil principle was the shared understanding that slaves who crossed certain territorial boundaries would become legally free. Its origins are obscure but almost certainly include many medieval municipal charters in Spanish, French, English, and German cities that nineteenth-century German historians characterized as “stadtluft macht frei,” or “city air makes [one] free.” The transition to the early modern national Free Soil principle is best studied for France, where medieval customary law freed serfs and slaves of Toulouse, as spelled out in the city’s charter of 1283. Although King Philippe III rejected this article, many slaves escaped their masters in Aragon-ruled Perpignan and fled to Toulouse in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where they were welcomed and defended as free by the city’s municipal leaders or capitouls. At this point, most slaves were of Mediterranean (rather than sub-Saharan African) origin. In 1444, the Parlement of Paris affirmed the royal French commitment to Toulouse’s Free Soil principle. By 1579, French legal scholar Jean Bodin, citing judicial precedents in Toulouse and Bordeaux (1571), articulated the principle as a national one: “Even the slave of a foreigner is free [franc et libre] as soon as he sets foot in France.” A parallel national tradition emerged in England at about the same time. In 1577, William Harrison wrote: “As for slaves and bondmen, we have none; nay, such is the privilege of our country by the especial grace of God and bounty of our princes, that if any come hither from other realms, so soon as they set foot on land they become so free of condition as their masters, whereby all note of servile bondage is utterly removed from them.” The English judge who decided the 1569 Cartwright case, against the flogging of a Russian slave, reputedly stated, “England is too pure an air for slaves to breathe in.” Although original documentation of the case has not survived, its traces can be found in the Lilburne trial before the Star Chamber in 1637, as reported by his lawyers in 1646.
Free Soil Principle Whatever its origins, the Free Soil principle was widely accepted in England, France, and the Netherlands during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, precisely as each of these countries began to engage in the enslavement of Amerindians, Asians, and especially Africans in their global empires. Although the Free Soil principle lived on in popular understanding (often linked to the condition of baptism as well as traversing state boundaries), colonists began campaigns to undermine or even overturn the principle. In France, the mayor of Nantes drafted legislation, eventually promulgated as the royal Edict of October 1716, which suspended Free Soil for slaves who came to France for religious instruction or training in a trade useful to the colonies. The Declaration of December 15, 1738 further limited the duration of the slave’s stay to three years and, in lieu of freeing slaves arriving in violation of the law’s provisions (as had the Edict of 1716), ordained their confiscation and return to the colonies. Neither law, however, was registered by France’s most powerful court, the Parlement of Paris. Slaves suing for their freedom in the Admiralty Court of France in Paris were universally freed, often with back wages. Meanwhile, in England, colonists petitioned privately for a legal opinion by Attorney General Philip Yorke, and Solicitor General Charles Talbot, one evening after dinner in Lincoln’s Hall Inn in 1729. In an informal opinion (having no force of law, but suggesting how such a case would be decided), Yorke and Talbot declared that “a slave, by coming from the West Indies (Caribbean), either with or without his master, to Great Britain or Ireland, doth not become free; and that his master’s property or right in him is not thereby determined or varied; and baptism doth not bestow freedom on him, nor make any alteration in his temporal condition in these kingdoms. [Moreover,] the master may legally compel him to return to the plantations.” This widely publicized pronouncement effectively chilled the climate for legal claims to Free Soil in Great Britain, although the principle lived on in popular understanding, as shown in chapter six of Olaudah Equiano’s autobiography. A key event in the renewal of Free Soil was the Parlement of Paris’s 1759 decision freeing the South Asian slave Francisque. Lawyers in Francisque’s case based their arguments on the Free Soil principle and the master’s inadequate compliance with the Declaration of 1738, but also a new racial argument: as an “Indian,” rather than an “African,” Francisque was entitled to his freedom. The Enlightenment-influenced Portuguese prime minister, the Marquis de Pombal, was the first to codify the Free Soil principle in his 1761 statute declaring all slaves who reached the metropolitan soil of the Portuguese kingdom as free; however, Pombal also prohibited the arrival of all blacks to Portugal, thus setting up a racial quarantine there. The French government followed suit in 1777 with its Déclaration pour la police des noirs, prohibiting all “blacks, mulattoes and other people of color” from arriving in France. The 1772 Somerset Case sought to resurrect the Free Soil principle via the abolition movement by declaring England Free Soil. Although Justice Mansfield’s decision stopped short of embracing Free Soil as a foundation of English common law, in popular understanding, slaves reaching England were freed. As later decisions made clear, however, their free status did not follow them on return to slave colonies. Meanwhile, the Dutch explicitly revoked Free Soil by statute in 1776.
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French Army, Blacks in the During the French Revolution, the National Assembly codified Free Soil on September 28, 1791, only to be reneged under Napoleon in 1802. Decades later, in 1836, a pivotal freedom suit by Spanish slaves in the India Section of the Spanish Royal Council made Spain Free Soil as well. French Free Soil was reaffirmed by the Cour royale de Paris as a result of another slave’s lawsuit in 1843, just three years before Dred Scott began his ill-fated lawsuit for freedom in the United States. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, French; English Comon Law, Slavery and; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, French; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Peabody, Sue, and Keila Grinberg, eds. Slavery, Freedom and the Law in the Atlantic World: A Brief History with Documents. Boston: Bedford/St. Martin’s, 2007.
Sue Peabody
French Army, Blacks in the The French army recruited soldiers from its African colonies particularly after the 1850s. Soldiers from French West Africa, in particular, were an important force in the French army for more than a century, providing it with shock troops and elite units in many wars including World War I and World War II. The most important section of black French troops was the tirailleurs sénégalais, soldiers from the vast colony of French West Africa. Beginning in the seventeenth century, French authorities recruited blacks, mostly slaves, into small units to guard and defend the French ports on the West African coast and for military labor in these areas. Small detachments of black recruits from Senegal were used in French wars of conquest in Madagascar in 1827 and Guyana in 1831. In 1857, the governor of Senegal, Louis Faidherbe, formed the tirailleurs sénégalais as a volunteer professional army with regular pay, pensions, and colorful uniforms, although the practice of buying local slaves as soldiers did not cease until 1882. The tirailleurs sénégalais were the crucial force in French expansion in West Africa in the last decades of the nineteenth century that resulted in the creation of the colony of French West Africa (1905), and they were the mainstay of French occupation troops in this region. The expansion also broadened the sphere of recruitment for the tirailleurs sénégalais, particularly among the Bambara of Mali and the densely populated plateau of the Mossi in today’s Burkina Faso. In 1905, when France began to establish a stronger presence in Morocco, the tirailleurs sénégalais were used for security purposes. The idea to increase the deployment of tirailleurs sénégalais outside of French West Africa induced the French administration to introduce partial conscription in parts of French West Africa in 1912. The foremost proponent of military recruitment in French West Africa was General Charles Mangin, whose 1910 book La force noire (The Black Force) argued that black Africa was a vast resource of military manpower and that some of the West African people were by nature and lifestyle ideally suited for war. Mangin led a tirailleurs sénégalais force in the last stage of the conquest of Morocco in 1912. Mangin’s schemes triggered much opposition from the French socialists, who worried that African troops might be used to repress striking French workers, and from many
French Army, Blacks in the doubters who did not believe in the fighting value of African troops or who feared that the use of Africans in a war against white people might undermine the colonial hierarchy. The colonial administration opposed too extensive recruitment efforts because they were draining the labor force of the colonies and increased the likelihood of uprisings. Still, the low French birthrate compared with that in Germany lent urgency to the recruitment of all available forces; Mangin, therefore, was able to pursue and expand his recruitment program. During World War I, approximately 160,000 blacks were mobilized in tirailleurs sénégalais units, and several thousand blacks belonged to units from French Somalia, French Equatorial Africa, and Madagascar, where recruitment was much less well developed. Black troops were deployed on the Western front in 1914, where they helped to stop the initial German advance. In 1915, the French contingent for the Gallipoli landings also contained thousands of black soldiers who shared the disease and misery afflicting all Allied soldiers on this ill-fated campaign. Later, some French black troops landed in Greece and moved to the Macedonian front, where they remained until the end of the war. By 1916, many Black troops were fighting again in France. French Somalis and some tirailleurs sénégalais took part in the battle of Verdun, and they later fought in other bloody battles. Although the black troops, believed to be particularly vulnerable to diseases in the cold winter climate of northern France, were usually withdrawn to camps in the warmer south of France, they suffered proportionately the same losses as white French troops. Replacing the high losses with newly drafted reserves, however, proved increasingly difficult. West African communities, dependent on the labor of young men for their own economies, frequently revolted in the face of recruitment drives. It took a major reorganization of the conscription program under the Senegalese deputy Blaise Diagne to replenish the exhausted units. In 1918 alone, Diagne raised 60,000 soldiers in French West Africa without triggering a rebellion. The French use of so many black troops was always controversial. France’s allies often disliked the African forces, and German propaganda portrayed the black soldiers as head cutters and cannibals. Unfortunately, French advertising of the allegedly inborn ferocity and savagery of black soldiers often played into the hands of German propaganda. Abuses of prisoners occurred on both sides. Allegations that the French used black troops as cannon fodder also did not die down, and historians still argue about their merit. Nonetheless, the recruitment drive of 1918 was so successful that it led to a conscription law for French West Africa in 1919. Mobile draft boards henceforth tried to recruit annual levies of approximately 7,000 to 10,000 soldiers in French West Africa according to a quota system, but many young men avoided conscription by hiding or by migrating into different regions. Still, the tirailleurs sénégalais remained an important sector of the French army during the interwar period. Black troops were deployed in the bloody repression of various Moroccan uprisings, particularly one rebellion in the Rif Mountains in 1925–1926, and in other counterinsurgency wars in Syria and Central Africa. They further served as occupation troops in North Africa, the French Levant, and the German Rhineland, where their presence triggered a vicious press campaign accusing them of rapes and other outrages toward German civilians. Significant numbers of black troops also remained garrisoned in France, mostly in camps near Fréjus and Bordeaux.
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French Army, Blacks in the World War II again triggered massive recruitment efforts in French Africa. Approximately 100,000 tirailleurs sénégalais were mobilized in 1939–1940, and the majority was sent to France. They served in the Maginot Line in the fall of 1939, were then withdrawn to the southern camps for the winter, and were redeployed in northeastern France beginning in April 1940. When the German offensive started on May 10, many black units were still on their way to the front. Troops from Madagascar and tirailleurs sénégalais mounted a heroic defense in many places along the crumbling front, particularly in Lorraine. In June, black troops were stationed in key sectors of the French defensive line along the Somme and Aisne rivers. Superior German forces broke through the lines and massacred black troops in many places. Bitter combat and massacres of black troops continued until the very end of the campaign on June 22. Small black forces also fought on the Franco-Italian border after Italy had declared war on France and Britain on June 10, 1940. Approximately 16,000 black soldiers were prisoners of war in German-occupied France in 1941. Many were released as a result of illness. Meanwhile, the Free French forces under General Charles de Gaulle began recruiting African volunteers in increasing numbers. The defection of French Equatorial Africa to the Free French, and later the Allied landings in North Africa brought thousands of black soldiers into the ranks of the Free French armies fighting against Italy and Germany. Tirailleurs sénégalais and other black African forces participated in the Allied campaign in Italy, landed in Provence on August 15, 1944, and helped liberate much of southern and central France in the following months. In a controversial move, de Gaulle withdrew the black troops from the front in late 1944 and replaced them with white forces drawn largely from French resistance groups. Although it had been standard practice to move the black troops to the warmer south during the winter, the “whitening” of the French army triggered rumors that the glory of invading and ultimately defeating Hitler’s Nazi Germany should be reserved for white forces. This impression and the frustrations of demobilization irritated many black soldiers; repatriation took a long time, black troops often did not receive their deserved pay, and they had to return to a barely reformed colonial routine at home. Riots erupted in many garrisons in France and Africa. The worst incident happened in Thiaroye outside of Dakar (Senegal) in December 1944, when the French army attacked tirailleurs sénégalais who demanded their full pay and who had taken a French officer as a hostage. Thirty-five black soldiers were killed, and many more were wounded. After 1945, tirailleurs sénégalais were deployed in anti-insurgency campaigns in Madagascar, Vietnam, and Algeria. When the countries of French West Africa gained independence, the pensions of black veterans were frozen on the level of 1959. The last black African units in the French army were disbanded in the early 1960s. See also: Bullard, Eugene; Colonies in Africa; French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Delafosse, Maurice; Des inconnus chez moi (1920); Diallo, Bakary; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Nazis and Black POWs; Rhineland Blacks; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Clayton, Anthony. France, Soldiers, and Africa. London: Brassey’s Defense Publications, 1988; Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960, Social History of Africa. Portsmouth, NH, and London: Heine-
French Ministry of the Marine mann and James Currey, 1991; Lawler, Nancy Ellen. Soldiers of Misfortune: Ivoirien Tirailleurs of World War II. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992; Rice, Laura. “African Conscripts/European Conflicts: Race, Memory, and the Lessons of War.” Cultural Critique 45 (2000): 109–149; Rives, Maurice, and Robert Dietrich. Héros méconnus, 1914–1918, 1939–1945. Paris: Association Frères d’Armes, 1990; Stovall, Tyler. “The Color Line behind the Lines: Racial Violence in France during the Great War.” American Historical Review 103 (June 1998): 737–769.
Raffael Scheck
French Ministry of the Marine From the seventeenth century onward, the Ministry of the Marine formed one of the six branches of royal administration, the other five being Foreign Affairs, the King’s Household, War, Finances and the Chancellery. It was headed by a secretary of state who often, but not always, held the title of minister. The Marine encompassed the navy, of course, but it also was responsible for the consulates (in collaboration with Foreign Affairs) and for colonies and maritime commerce (in conjunction with the Controller General of Finance). One of its four (then later eight) bureaus controlled overseas affairs; this role was reinforced when colonies were gradually transferred from company rule to direct royal control. It is in his capacity as responsible for colonies and maritime commerce that the secretary of state for the Marine acted on slavery in both the colonies and in metropolitan France, first by providing various financial incentives to the triangular trade that supplied plantation colonies with its slave labor force. A number of important regulations, initiated by successive ministers, defined the institution of slavery, not least of them the Code Noir (Edict of March 15, 1685), which institutionalized African slavery in the West Indies (Caribbean). The Code Noir was followed by the more stringent Louisiana Code of 1724. Based on Roman principles, the Code Noir ensured that the slave status of Africans and their children was made permanent; it placed stringent restrictions on the activities and life style of slaves, which it defined as chattel property. If it also attempted to ensure their conversion to Christianity and to restrain the harsher practices of masters, these aspects of the law were not always effectively enforced. At home, laws passed under the auspices of the ministry also permitted from 1716 onward the visit of slaves to France and regulated their existence there, thereby challenging the Free Soil principle, according to which presence on metropolitan soil made one free. Starting in the middle of the eighteenth century and notably under the ministry of the duc de Choiseul (1761–1766), who appointed a Martinique planter as head of the bureau of colonies, colonials entered the ministry and their attitudes began to influence policies. Increasingly harsher laws concerning race were allowed to be implemented in the colonies, as a means of controlling the growing population of free men and women of color who threatened the vision, according to which, white meant free and black meant slave. In France, increasing concern was expressed about the risks that blacks posed there, not only because slaves might spread on their return to the colonies the “spirit of liberty” they found in Europe, but also because it was felt that mixed re-
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French Revolution, Blacks in the lations would inevitably lower the quality of “French blood.” A consequence was the promulgation of the Déclaration pour la police des noirs in 1777, the first genuinely racial measure promulgated in metropolitan France. See also: France, Blacks in; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning. Further Reading: Pritchard, James. Louis XV’s Navy, 1748–1762: A Study of Organization and Administration. Montreal: McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1987.
Pierre H. Boulle
French Revolution, Blacks in the The French Revolution (1789–1799) was a period of sociopolitical change and upheaval in France and the European continent. During this period, the French state changed from being an absolute monarchy that maintained feudal privileges for the nobility and clergy to a radically new state based on Enlightenment ideals of citizenship, inalienable rights, and nationalism. The French Revolutionary government abolished slavery in 1794, although Napoleon Bonaparte would later reinstate slavery in the French colonies. In September 1792, a delegation from the French overseas territory of SaintDomingue (now Haiti) led by Julien Raimond petitioned the French Revolutionary government to establish a military unit made up of free blacks and members of mixed racial descent. In 1792, the Assembly instructed Le Chevalier de SaintGeorges, a renowned composer and swordsman from Guadeloupe who was the son of a French aristocrat and a black slave, to form the Légion franche de cavalerie des Américains (Free Cavalry Legion of Americans), which was in 1793 renamed the 13e Régiment de chasseurs (13th Combat Regiment). Saint-Georges became colonel of the unit, which was made up of 800 infantry and 200 cavalry personnel. In addition to Saint-Georges, a significant member of the unit was its lieutenantcolonel, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Dumas, Saint-Georges’s protégée, was also the son of a French aristocrat and a black slave. As time progressed, the unit became variously known as the “Black Legion,” the “American Legion,” and the “Legion of Saint-Georges.” During the early history of the regiment, Saint-Georges spent much of his time in Paris recruiting soldiers while Dumas organized and trained the soldiers. In 1793, the 13th Regiment was stationed at Lille as part of the Army of the North to fight against the Austrians. Saint-Georges’s critics, including Dumas, blamed Saint-Georges for low morale and poor supplies. In March 1793, French General Charles François Dumouriez was defeated by the Austrians at Neerwinden. He had grown increasingly frustrated with the French Revolutionary government, which was becoming increasingly radical, and had decided to march on Paris. After the defeat at Neerwinden, rumors began to circulate that the French Revolutionary government was in danger. The government sent a delegation to the Army of the North, ordering it to remove Dumouriez. When the delegation arrived at Lille on their way to Dumouriez’s headquarters, they asked for a military escort. The escort, led by Saint-Georges and Dumas, included 100 members of the 13th Regiment. In need of fresh horses, however, the 13th Regiment remained
French Revolution, Blacks in the at Orchies while the delegation continued with an escort provided by the local garrison. When the delegation reached Dumouriez’s headquarters, they were arrested. Dumouriez then ordered General Joseph Miaczynski, who commanded the garrison at Orchies, to attack Lille. Miaczynski invited Saint Georges and the 13th Regiment to join him in his attack. The 13th Regiment refused, hurried to Lille, and informed the town of the attack. Without the element of surprise, Miaczynski was forced to retreat. Without the support of the army, Dumouriez eventually defected to the side of those who wished to restore the French monarchy. Later, the 13th Regiment was moved to Madeleine. Saint-Georges, however, handed over the command of the unit to Dumas and remained at Lille. The French Revolutionary government hoped to use members of the 13th Regiment to put down revolts in the colonies. When the 13th Regiment discovered the government’s intentions, they petitioned to be assigned to an army in France. As a result, the 13th Regiment was assigned to the Army of the West, which was involved in putting down insurrections in the Vendée against the French Revolutionary government. Saint-Georges was not officially removed as the 13th Regiment’s commander until September 1793. The Revolutionary Council accused Saint-Georges of misappropriation of public funds for personal profit. He was consequently removed from his post as commander of the 13th Regiment. Although he was cleared of these charges, he was imprisoned shortly afterward on corruption charges. The French National Committee of Public Safety ordered Saint-Georges’s release in 1794. By that point, however, Saint-Georges’s military career was ruined. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Cohen, William B. The French Encounter with Africans: White Responses to Blacks, 1530–1880. Reprint edition. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003; Gallaher, John G. General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997; Guédé, Alain. Monsieur de Saint-George: Virtuoso, Swordsman, Revolutionary. trans. Gilda M. Roberts. New York: Picador, 2003; Peabody, Sue. “There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Martone, Eric. “Gens de Couleur in Saint Domingue and France during the French Revolution.” The Maryland Historian 31:2 (Fall 2007): 11–29; Smidak, Emil F. Joseph Boulogne, Called Chevalier de Saint-Georges. trans. John M. Mitchell. Lucerne: Avenira Foundation, 1996.
Eric Martone
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G Gall, Franz Josef (1758–1828) Franz Josef Gall was a German anatomist who studied the working of the brain. He collected a large number of skulls, which led him to develop ideas on phrenology, a theory that conclusions about character, personality, intelligence, and other traits can be discerned based on the shape of the head and brain. Gall concluded that “inferior races” had smaller brains. This led to some attempts to provide a scientific basis to justify racism. Such ideas are related to those of physiognomics, which is the “science” of determining character, intelligence, and virtue of humans through an analysis of physical traits. Gall was born in 1758 in the village of Tiefenbronn in the Grand Duchy of Baden (part of modern Germany). His father was a wealthy Catholic wool merchant. Gall, the second son in his family, was initially intended for the priesthood. Instead, he became interested in medicine and went to study at the University of Strasburg, completing his degree in Vienna and starting to lecture in the Austrian capital in 1796. In about 1800, Gall started to work on what he called “cranioscopy,” a study of the skull, or cranium, as it was called in Latin, the language used by scientists. The theory of cranioscopy was later renamed phrenology by Gall’s student, Johann Spurzheim. Gall rapidly came to develop the idea that a study of the brain could be used to try to discover more about particular people. This theory led to some early anatomists using a study of the head to try to assess intelligence, criminality, and also racial differences. The Catholic Church was immediately critical of Gall’s work, claiming that his work was contrary to religious teachings. Similarly, many other scientists of the period believed that Gall lacked enough evidence for his conclusions. Gall’s ideas were rejected by the Austrian court and he was prevented from giving public lectures on phrenology. Gall moved to Germany, where he taught for a period, giving lectures along with Spurzheim, before moving to France in 1807.
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Garrison, Len (1943–2003) In France, after the French Revolution, there was great interest in the new ideas that Gall was promoting. Using skulls, including some from Africa and from parts of the Americas, including Haiti, Gall continued to propound the inferiority of blacks (as well as the Irish). Gall remained in France in spite of the rejection of his ideas by Napoleon Bonaparte, the Institute of France, and other elements of the Parisian scientific establishment. Nevertheless, Gall did make substantial contributions to neurological science. He made the revolutionary conclusion that emotions were not located in the heart, but rather the brain, as segments of brain controlled certain emotions and actions. Gall’s theories were best accepted in England, which used such notions to justify its colonial dominance and subjugation of Ireland, and in America during the first half of the nineteenth century. Gall’s collection of skulls is now held at the Rollet Museum in Austria. See also: Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Ackerknecht, E. H., and H. V. Vallois. Franz Joseph Gall: Inventor of Phrenology and His Collection. Madison: Department of History of Medicine, 1956; Jackson, John, and Nadine Weidman. Race, Racism, and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2004.
Justin Corfield
Garrison, Len (1943–2003) Lenford Kwesi Garrison was a black British historian, poet, and educator. Garrison was born in Jamaica in 1943. He and his family migrated to Britain in the early 1950s. He attended Kingsley grammar school in Chelsea and King’s College, London. Garrison then went on to become a specialist in medical photography. In the 1960s, Garrison was a founding member of the International Social Group. In 1971, he graduated from Ruskin College, Oxford with a dissertation on Rastafarianism. He graduated from Sussex University in 1976 after studying African and Caribbean history. In the 1970s, Garrison worked to provide materials for educators that would assist in the incorporation of African Caribbean studies in school curriculums. In this pursuit, he founded the Afro-Caribbean Education Resource (ACER) in 1977. The organization worked to develop curriculum materials and learning initiatives for schools. The Inner London Education Authority later supported the effort. One of the initiatives that ACER launched was the Young Penmanship awards for creative writing. The awards launched the careers of many black professionals, including music critic Clive Davis. In 1988, Garrison became director of Afro-Caribbean Family and Friends in Nottingham. He set up a mentoring project and an initiative to support the careers of orphaned and abandoned children. Garrison also helped establish East Midlands African Caribbean Arts. In 1992, Garrison received a graduate degree in local history from Leicester University. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, he put together a collection of documents and memorabilia to form a valuable collection of sources that became part of the Black Cultural Archives (BCA). In 1997, the BCA and Middlesex University partnered
Genet, Jean (1910–1986) to create the Archive and Museum of Black History. Garrison died of a heart attack in 2003. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Garrison, Len. Beyond Babylon. London: Black Star, 1985; Garrison, Len. Black Youth, Rastafarianism, and the Identity Crisis in Britain. London: ACER Centre, 1979; Olowe, Sarah, ed. Against the Tide: Black Experience in ILEA. London: ILEA, 1990.
E. Agateno Mosca
Genet, Jean (1910–1986) Jean Genet, a French social outcast and later a writer of black descent, became interested in anticolonial movements and was the author of many plays including The Blacks. He also became involved with the Black Panthers, a black nationalist group based in the United States. Genet was born in December 1910 in Paris, France, as the illegitimate son of a prostitute. He was raised by a provincial foster family. As a young boy, Genet was involved in a number of petty thefts that sent him in and out of reform schools and detention centers. At the reform school, Genet was bullied and abused. When he was released, he joined the French army at the age of 18 but was discharged for indecency (being caught in a homosexual act). Genet then became a tramp, beggar, pickpocket, and male prostitute in Barcelona, Antwerp, and many other western European cities, floating in and out of prisons. He was again jailed in 1942 for theft. In prison, he started to write and noted contemporary French writers such as Jean Cocteau, Jean-Paul Sartre, and Simone de Beauvoir soon recognized Genet’s literary talent. In 1948, when Genet was convicted of theft for the tenth time, which meant that he was subject to life imprisonment, a number of writers led by Cocteau successfully petitioned the French president to grant Genet a “pardon in advance.” Genet immediately set to work writing about his life and experiences in a number of novels. He also became interested in drama, breaking away from his criminal and prison themes. He started to write plays including Les Nègres (The Blacks, 1958), which involves a violent assertion of the black identity. The play was first performed in Paris in 1959 and in New York in 1961. The original New York cast included noted African Americans James Earl Jones, Roscoe Lee Browne, Louis Gossett Jr., Cicely Tyson, Godfrey Cambridge, Maya Angelou, and Charles Gordone. The Blacks ran for 1,408 performances, becoming the longest running off-Broadway nonmusical of the decade. Becoming interested in the career of French student leader Daniel Cohn-Bendit after the demonstrations in Paris in May 1968, Genet initiated campaigns to improve the living conditions of immigrants in France. This led the Black Panthers to invite Genet to visit the United States as their guest. He gave lectures for three months and wrote articles for Black Panther publications. For the rest of his life, Genet campaigned on behalf of the dispossessed and marginalized, being involved in work dealing with police brutality against Algerian and
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Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female African migrants to France. Genet was found dead in a hotel room in Paris in 1986 and was buried in the Spanish Cemetery at Larache, Morocco. See also: France, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Brooks, Peter, and Joseph Halpern, eds. Genet: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1979; Stewart, Harry, and Rob McGregor. Jean Genet: A Biography of Deceit. New York: Peter Lang, 1989; White, Edmund. Genet. London: Vintage, 2004.
Justin Corfield
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female As Europe has become increasingly multicultural, economic migrants and refugees have brought their customs with them, including the practice of female genital mutilation (FGM, or female circumcision). The European Union perceives this practice as a fundamental violation of human rights. The World Health Organization (WHO) recognizes four types of FGM: (1) legitimate circumcision, which removes only the clitoral prepuce; (2) clitoridectomy (or excision), which amputates either the visible part of the clitoris alone and/or the labia minora, in whole or in part; (3) infibulation, which may or may not remove the visible part of the clitoris and the labia majora, and then stitches the vulva shut, leaving an anterior, small opening for the passage of urine and menstrual blood; and (4) a potpourri of additional techniques, including cauterization, scarring, and the introduction of irritating substances into the vagina. FGM is common among women in Africa (Somalia, Sudan, Djibouti, Eritrea, and among Somali ethnics in Ethiopia, southern Egypt, Kenya, Saudi Arabia, Yemen) and in the African Diaspora. In general, African immigration to Europe follows colonial trajectories, with European Union members receiving the majority of residents from former spheres of influence. Consequently, the United Kingdom welcomes Commonwealth immigrants; France those from Francophone West Africa; Italy from East Africa; Germany from Togo and Cameroon, where the Kaiser had colonized before World War I; and Portugal and Spain from colonial connections to Guinea. The Netherlands and Scandinavian countries have also experienced a significant upsurge in Somali refugees since the early 1990s. Despite laws against bodily harm and child abuse in all European countries under which genital assaults could be brought to court, FGM goes on, with surgeries taking place either in Europe in clinics or by flown-in excisers, or in Africa while on vacation in the parents’ homes. FGM first drew attention in Europe during the late 1970s and early 1980s. Senegalese Awa Thiam in France and Ghanaian Efua Dorkenoo in Britain founded two of the earliest nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to oppose FGM: CAMS (Commission pour l’Abolition des Mutilations sexuelles, “Commission for the Abolition of Genital Mutilation”) in 1982; and FORWARD (Foundation for Women’s Health Research and Development) in 1981. Other early groups were established in the Netherlands, Italy, and Germany. In 1984, the Inter-African Committee was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, and in Geneva, Switzerland, leading to increased interdependent cooperation between European NGOs and the African continent.
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female Presently, there are dozens of NGOs dedicated to eliminating FGM, both in Africa and in Europe. Many of these organizations are members of the European Network against FGM (launched in 2001), which has sponsored several transnational projects against violence against women funded by the European Commission. Another noteworthy umbrella is the German INTEGRA, linking more than 20 supranational, governmental, and nongovernmental organizations to eliminate FGM. Differences in immigration and integration policy distinguish the ways in which FGM is handled in various European countries. Distinctions emerge along four overlapping axes: legislation and enforcement, healthcare, child protection and prevention, and asylum. Debate around legislation and enforcement of laws against FGM questions whether specific statutes criminalizing female genital mutilation are needed or whether existing paragraphs against bodily harm are sufficient. Some (particularly in Germany) argue that laws singling out a specific ethnic group may be discriminatory in themselves. Others are convinced, however, that direct legal sanctions would best stop FGM and protect girls in Europe. France is the only European nation thus far to successfully prosecute excisers and parents under existing laws. France has a system of free health care that includes genital examination for all children up to age six. Furthermore, physicians are legally required to report detected mutilations. Such efforts have led to a significant reduction in the number of excisions. Other countries lack clear guidelines for reporting cases (suspected or confirmed) and/or lean toward nonreporting so as not to alienate an immigrant group. Furthermore, there is no consensus about punishment versus education. Whereas most NGOs favor specific legislation against FGM, many in practice devote their budgets and maximum effort to sensitization campaigns. Officially, many European countries have specific laws against FGM, including Sweden and Britain, but apart from France, FGM is carried out in European countries with relative impunity. Healthcare for excised and infibulated women is another major issue. Many European doctors are shocked when encountering FGM and are insensitive to the needs of their patients, who do not necessarily realize that there is anything unusual or wrong with FGM in European society. Consequently, many NGOs have placed medical education and sensitization of doctors on the agenda. FGM sufferers are often treated free of charge and, along with prenatal examinations and counseling, deinfibulation operations are offered. More remarkable still, an urologist in St. Germain-en-Laye has pioneered reconstruction of the clitoris. Education for midwives has also taken priority, with NGOs offering seminars and workshop sessions. Whereas little controversy greets efforts to provide sensitive healthcare, the issue of prevention and protection is more fraught and linked to other legal problems. In Germany, for instance, where most immigrants do not hold German citizenship, parents risk deportation with enforcement of the law if FGM were to be defined as grievous bodily harm (a crime) rather than bodily harm (a misdemeanor). The German government continues to discuss this distinction. Furthermore, a bill proposed in the Netherlands calling for girls from at-risk cultures to be subjected to pelvic examinations remains hotly debated as discriminatory. As noted, in Germany, physicians, teachers, social workers, or other professionals who might be alerted to or discover a completed mutilation are under no obligation to report it, unlike France and several
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Georges (1843) other European countries. Furthermore, the international community unanimously condemns all forms of medicalization, seeing in this not a step toward abolition, but rather a move toward continuity. Finally, whether European countries should grant asylum to women fleeing FGM has gained increasing momentum. Nonetheless, when the court system is not federal but decentralized, as is the case in Germany, judges in one state have been known to grant asylum, whereas those elsewhere refuse it. Furthermore, some individual European governments fear a huge influx of asylum seekers on the grounds of FGM. See also: Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Illegal African Immigration to Europe; Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Dirie, Waris, with Corinna Milborn. Desert Children. trans. Sheelagh Alabaster. London: Virago, 2005; Dorkenoo, Efua. Cutting the Rose. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2007; Korn, Fadumo, and Sabine Eichhorst. Born in the Big Rains. A Memoir of Somalia and Survival. trans. Tobe Levin. New York: The Feminist Press, 2006; Momoh, Comfort, ed. Female Genital Mutilation. Abingdon: Radcliffe, 2005.
Tobe Levin
Georges (1843) Georges is a novel written by the great nineteenth-century French writer Alexandre Dumas père (1802–1870). Published in 1843, it is the story of Georges Munier, the son of a wealthy biracial planter on Île de France (now Mauritius), an island in the Indian Ocean off the coast of Africa. The tale opens with an account of the naval battle between the British and French for control of the island during the Napoleonic Wars. In the ensuing battle on the island itself, Georges’s father, Pierre Munier, leads a heroic charge of biracial forces and captures the enemy’s flag, which is then claimed by Monsieur de Malmédie, the richest white planter on the island. The insult itself is not as stinging to the young Georges as is his father’s humble submission to it, dictated by years of being subject to the island’s strict racial caste system. Georges and his brother, Jacques, are later sent away to be educated in Paris. From the frail and quiet child he once was, Georges grows up to become a well-bred, intelligent, and strikingly handsome young man who could easily pass for being white, but he makes no attempts to do so. It becomes clear that Georges plans to return to his homeland to confront its embedded prejudice and to level its racist social hierarchy to the ground, even by force, if necessary. A more peaceable option becomes apparent when, on his return, Georges meets the beautiful Sara de Malmédie, cousin and betrothed of Henri de Malmédie. In marrying her, Georges would both avenge his father’s insult from the Malmédie family and create a symbolic victory over Île de France’s deeply entrenched racism. The Malmédie family publicly renounces Georges’s claim to Sara’s hand, however, even after a friendly intervention from the governor of the island.
Georges (1843) In retaliation, Georges organizes a massive slave rebellion, but the governor has been forewarned and the revolt is unsuccessful. During the fray, Georges is wounded, and, after an all-night pursuit through the forest, is captured and jailed. As Georges is led to his execution, he finds Sara de Malmédie waiting for him, and they are married in a hasty ceremony. While inside the church, the newly married couple is rescued by a force commanded by Georges’s brother, Jacques, who is now living the life of a rich slave trader and pirate. The governor, infuriated, pursues them over sea. After an intense fight, the governor’s ship is sunk and Georges, Sara, Jacques, and Pierre Munier sail away to freedom. Georges is the only novel authored by Alexandre Dumas (whose father was the son of a French aristocrat and black slave) that deals with the question of race. Its fierce antiracist polemic (above all in the first chapters) is a stinging indictment of the status quo of European colonial society. Although antislavery tracts achieved notice in France during the 1700s, and slavery itself was abolished briefly in the French colonies from 1794 to 1802, colonial plantation owners depended on slavery for their livelihoods and were fiercely defensive of it. Many feared the possibility of a slave rebellion like the 1791 Haitian Revolution for Independence and eyed the black population (of any economic standing) with suspicion and contempt. The majority of the action in Georges takes place in 1824, 33 years after the infamous Haitian rebellion, but just 24 years before slavery would be abolished in French holdings for the second and final time. In addition to addressing the basic problems of a slave-based society, the novel is particularly successful in illustrating the moral ambiguity of this interstitial period. Dumas, however, does not necessarily make the case for racial equality per se. Île de France does not only face the pressures of black and white integration, but also those of a variety of ethnic subgroups such as Indian, Chinese, and Arab, some of whom are portrayed in an unflattering light. Although there are displays of selfless black heroism, in the end, Georges is betrayed by the slaves’ ignorance and simplicity. Unsurprisingly, given Dumas’s personal biography, it is the well-bred and successful Georges who receives the most sympathy, slave-owner (or in the case of Jacques Munier, slave-trader) though he may be. Dumas couches these unresolved social problems within a novel of the romanticrealist genre, using exotic locales, swashbuckling adventure, and melodrama to address a broader moral issue. This literary formula would make famous subsequent Dumas works like The Count of Monte Cristo and The Three Musketeers (both made their first appearance only one year after the publication of Georges). Along with being the only work on race penned by nineteenth-century France’s most famous writer of black descent, Georges possesses the same elements that would later make Dumas’s literary style famous. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; France, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in French; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Dumas, Alexandre. Georges. trans. Tina Kover. ed. Werner Sollors. New York: Random House, 2007; Enz, Molly Krueger. “The Mulatto as Island and the Island as Mulatto in Alexandre Dumas’s Georges.” The French Review 80:2 (December 2006): 383–394.
Cambridge Sena Ridley
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Germany, Blacks in
Germany, Blacks in Active research into the history of blacks in Germany has been carried out only since the 1980s, and consequently much of this history is still to be written. Although it remains unclear as to when the first blacks arrived in Germany, the presence of individuals of African heritage in German-speaking Europe can be traced at least as far back as the early modern period. By the seventeenth century, African pages and servants, originally brought as slaves to Europe, were frequently found as exotic status symbols at the courts of Germany’s feudal aristocracy and in the households of emerging middle-class trading families. African servants were typically assigned low status roles such as lackeys, room servants, or grooms. At the larger princely courts, court “Moors” (Mohren) often underwent a musical apprenticeship and served as trumpeters or musicians in military troupes. This tradition was continued into the Wilhelmine era through the likes of the Berlin-born Gustav Sabac el Cher (1868–1934), son of an Egyptian servant, and the Cameroonian Wilhelm Sambo (1885–1933). The lives of black servants were subject to the arbitrary will of their masters, who were free to decide over most aspects of their servants’ lives, ranging from their clothing and training to their marriage partners. At the same time, servants enjoyed status, protection, and sponsorship courtesy of their relationship with their employers. Beginning in the eighteenth century, a number of young men of African heritage were brought to Germany specifically to learn a trade, or, in the spirit of the Enlightenment, to be educated. From this period onward, there is also evidence of blacks present in Germany as dock workers, traveling performers, and prostitutes. Among the well-documented lives of these Africans are the extraordinary biographies of the likes of the Ghanaian philosopher Anton Wilhelm Amo, who enjoyed the patronage of the Duke of Wolfenbüttel and later taught at the universities of Halle and Jena, and that of the well-connected Ethiopian courtier Angelo Soliman in Vienna. The development of a permanent, small, but visible black population in Germany, however, was largely an unforeseen consequence of German colonialism. From the creation of the German colonial empire in 1884 up to the outbreak of World War I, several thousand men and women of African descent from various regions of Africa and from further abroad, such as Haiti and the United States, were present in Germany. This population was dominated by colonial subjects, primarily young men, from the German protectorates of Cameroon and Togo. The ways and means by which those of African heritage reached Germany were many and varied. Africans arrived as seamen or blind passengers at German ports, personal servants accompanied colonial officials, missionaries, or private individuals on home leave, whereas others were participants in ethnological exhibitions. Some undertook sponsored military or missionary training, and the protestant North German Mission was especially active in preparing Africans for future missionary service in the protectorates. A handful of Africans taught as language instructors at the Hamburg Colonial Institute or the Berlin Seminar for Oriental Languages. In particular, youngsters from elite families were educated or served apprenticeships in the metropole, or “mother country.” Such educational visits were initially sponsored by the colonial authorities, who favored the integration of trained Africans into local colonial administrations. Typically, apprentices learned a skilled trade
Germany, Blacks in that was to be of use in the protectorates, such as engineering, shoe making, tailoring, or carpentry. The stay of these migrants was envisaged by the German authorities, and often by Africans themselves, as being only of a temporary nature. Although many did return to their countries of origin, some chose to remain on a long-term basis while still retaining links to their homelands. The port of Hamburg and the capital of Berlin in Germany emerged as the main centers for African immigration. Here, African men and women lived, worked, and established families. A new generation of dual European and African descent developed out of marital and nonmarital relationships, primarily between African men and European women. A further generation of German-born blacks emerged after World War I and French occupation of the Rhineland. These were the so-called Rhineland Blacks (Rheinlandbastarde)—the 600 to 800 children born between 1920 and 1927 to German women and French colonial troops, mainly from North and East Africa. Immigration from the German colonies ended as a result of World War I. Germany was stripped of its colonial possessions and colonial subjects in the metropole were placed under the protection of the responsible mandate powers, primarily the British and the French. During the Weimar period, German officials tolerated the continued presence of African migrants only in so far as it served the interests of German propaganda, which hoped to regain the lost colonies. As part of the expression of the emergence of a tangible African Diaspora with a growing sense of its own identity, mutual aid societies developed post-1918 out of informal social networks established prewar. In the postwar period, a number of the men involved in these organizations actively intervened in political debates about the fate of Germany’s colonies and sought to defend the interests of former German colonial subjects. African anticolonial activists in Germany established tentative transnational links with compatriots in France and in Cameroon, and several German-based Africans participated in the Communist International sponsored anticolonial and antiracism movement in Germany between 1926 and 1933. For blacks in Germany throughout the 1920s, the fluctuating fortunes of the German economy and practices of discrimination and exclusion limited their job opportunities and survival strategies. Often, their main source of employment was as performers in roles that tended to present an image of blacks as primitive or exotic. Black performers were in high demand and several internationally renowned stars, such as Josephine Baker, Paul Robeson, and the Sam Wooding Orchestra featured on the Weimar stage. With the coming to power of the Nazis in 1933, and in the face of increasing racial tension, a number of Africans fled to France in the hope of returning to Africa. Those in the diminished population that remained behind were designated as racial aliens and, as such, subject to discrimination and policies of exclusion. Persecution measures ranged from registration and deportation to forced labor, and liability for prosecution under the miscegenation laws, which in turn could result in transportation to a concentration camp. From around 1937 onward, more than 370 of the Rhineland children were illegally sterilized, and several thousand black prisoners of war were held in concentration camps. At the same time, a small number of black Germans survived the Nazi regime as performers in the ethnological exhibition run by the Nazis, the Africa-Show, or as performers in propaganda films that glorified the German colonial past.
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Germany, Blacks in German defeat in World War II was followed by a second period of occupation by foreign troops and the birth of a new generation of occupation children (Besatzungskinder). From 1946 to 1955, around 5,000 children were born out of relationships between German women and African American servicemen in West Germany. These children were reluctantly recognized by the West German authorities as German citizens. At certain significant moments in the development of their lives, such as when they were born, when they began their education, and when they began to work, the children became topics of public discussion in Germany and the United States regarding their place in German society and whether they should be integrated, segregated, or forced to emigrate. In turn, this led to an increased awareness of black Germans in the public consciousness. Their fate was popularized in the hit film Toxi (1952), which, while seeking to promote tolerance, ultimately preached a message of nonintegration. Like the lead character in the film, a number of the children were brought up in children’s homes, and more than 1,000 were adopted by U.S. citizens. By around the mid-1960s, this generation of black Germans had disappeared as an object of social policy and had become increasingly marginalized. Although the foreign population of the former East Germany was minimal, the GDR was a temporary home to a small number of Africans, principally from fellow socialist states. From the mid-1980s onward, around 15,000 contract workers from Mozambique and smaller group from Angola arrived in the GDR, partly to learn new skills, but also to fill the gaps in the country’s existing labor shortage. They were joined by African students and political refugees and activists from ideologically like-minded liberation groups or independence parties. A school for children of members of the Namibian SWAPO (South African People’s Organization) was set up in Bellin, Mecklenburg, in 1979. The School of Friendship in Straßfurt, near Magdeburg, catered for 900 Mozambique children. In general, all these migrants lived in isolation from the rest of East German society. Few efforts were made to integrate them or to help with their repatriation when they returned to Africa. In the limited instances of contact that migrants had with local populations, they were often greeted with suspicion and conflicts developed over the falsely held belief that migrants had more ready access to limited consumer goods. By the 1980s, the marginalization and discrimination that those of African heritage continued to experience in Germany led to a quest for self-definition. In particular, women of mixed heritage in both East and West Germany, influenced by the black liberation movement in the United States, engaged in a transnational dialogue with African-American activists. Out of this dialogue emerged the term Afro-German, which, like the similar name black German, has become an expression of self-determination and a description of mixed heritage. The term black German has increasingly expanded to become a form of self-identification for individuals and groups of more diverse ethnic and geographical origins residing in Germany, such as Indians, Asians, and Arabs. Political and cultural organizations, like the Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD), first formed in 1985. Groups developed throughout Germany out of this initial catalyst, as did annual Black History Month celebrations. In the aftermath of reunification, Germany’s black population was confronted with a resurgence of racist and xenophobic violence, especially in the former East. As a response to the violence, a collective of 14 mainly black German performers created the popular and influential Brothers Keepers,
Gil, Mourana (1230?–?) an antiracism project, in 2001. Through the means of hip-hop and other music forms, they have actively sought to campaign for equal opportunities and to challenge existing concepts of German ethnicity. In spite of the increasing visibility of black Germans in public life, men and women of the African Diaspora continue to battle prejudice. The increasing restrictions placed on immigration and asylum rights of migrants have limited the opportunities for new arrivals. The exact figure remains unknown, but conservative estimates suggest that currently more than 1 million people of African or mixed African heritage, German born, migrants, or transients live in Germany. See also: Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Ayim, May; Colonies in Africa, German; Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Fortuna, Ignatius; Gilges, Lari; Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the; Jobatey, Cherno; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European; Missionaries in Africa, European; Moors; Oguntoye, Katharina; Parzival, Feirefiz in; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Blackshire-Belay, Carol, ed. The African-German Experience: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996; Bridgman, Jon, and David Clarke. German Africa: A Select Annotated Bibliography. Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1965; Campt, Tina. Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004; Fehrenbach, Heide. Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Post-war Germany and America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005; Gilman, Sander. On Blackness Without Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982; Grimm, Reinhold, and Jost Hermand, eds. Blacks and German Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986; Ireland, Patrick R. “Socialism, Unification and the Rise of Racism in East Germany.” International Migration Review 31 (1997): 541–568; Massaquoi, Hans. Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany. London: Fusion, 2001; Mazon, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingrover, eds. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2005; Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991; Poikane-Daumke, Aija. African Diasporas: Afro-German Literature in the Context of the African-American Experience. London: Lit Verlag, 2007.
Robbie Aitken
Gil, Mourana (1230?–?) Mourana Gil, as she is called in Portuguese chronicles, is also known as Madragana, Mor Afonso, or Maior Afonso. Her family came from modern-day Morocco in North Africa and she became the main mistress of Afonso III (or Alfonso III, as he often appears in English), king of Portugal from 1246 until 1279. Afonso III had the title “Defender and Visitor,” becoming the first Portuguese monarch to be styled as “King of Portugal and the Algarves.” Gil’s ancestors include much of royal and aristocratic Europe, including the British royal family. Gil was born in about 1230 in Faro in the Algarve, on the south coast of Portugal. Her father was Aloandro Ben Bekar (also known as Aldronado Gil), who was the governor of Faro. He was an Iberian Christian who served the Moors, and one of his grandfathers was from a Sephardic Jewish family. In 1249, when Alfonso III captured the city of Faro from the Moors, thereby marking the end of Muslim rule in Portugal, Aloandro offered
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Gilges, Lari (1909–1933) his daughter to the king. At that time, Alfonso III was married to Matilda of Boulogne (they eventually divorced in 1253). Alfonso III fell in love with Gil, although he felt that he could not marry her. Indeed, their first child, Martim Afonso Chichorro, was born in about 1250. Gil was rechristened at this time, with Afonso III likely serving as her godfather. The couple remained together for many years and had a second child, Urraca Afonso of Portugal, circa 1260. When Afonso III tired of his mistress, she was married to Fernão Rei, a Portuguese nobleman. Little is known of her life beyond her marriage. Although Gil did not have a major impact on Portuguese history, there has been much interest in her race, as she is an ancestor of the British queen, Elizabeth II, and her family. There has been much debate about Gil’s race and some sources, notably Duarte Nunes de Leão, a sixteenth-century Portuguese chronicler, describe Gil as a Moor; however, other chroniclers refute this claim. One of Gil’s descendants was Margarita de Castro e Souza, a fifteenth-century Portuguese noblewoman, who married Jean II, Count of Neufchâtel, Lord of Montagu and Fontenoy. The couple’s descendants included many of the noble houses of Europe, including Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz (consequently, a fifteenth-generation descendant of Gil). Charlotte became the Queen Consort of King George III of Great Britain, who reigned from 1760 to 1820. Queen Charlotte and King George III had numerous children, and the current British monarch is their direct descendant. See also: Portugal, Blacks in. Further Reading: Gomes, Rita Costa. The Making of a Court Society: Kings and Nobles in Late Medieval Portugal. trans. Alison Aiken. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Hibbert, Christopher. George III: A Personal History. New York: Basic Books, 2000.
Justin Corfield
Gilges, Lari (1909–1933) Hilarius “Lari” Gilges was an Afro-German dancer murdered by the Nazis in 1933, the year in which they came to power. Gilges was born in 1909, his father being a boiler man of black African descent on a ship that plied the Rhine River in Central Europe, and his mother a white German textile factory worker. Growing up in Dusseldorf in western Germany, as an adolescent, Gilges had several part-time jobs. He later became a major local entertainer as a dancer and an active member of the Communist Party in Dusseldorf. He also became a founder of Northwest Ran, a gathering of local entertainers who opposed the Nazi party in Germany. Gilges was arrested soon after establishing Northwest Rann, an organization of entertainers that fought the Nazis in Dusseldorf, but was released. After the Nazis came to power, however, he was in serious trouble. On June 20, 1933, Nazi storm troopers took Gilges from his home and killed him near the Oberkassel Rhine Bridge. His body, covered with bullet wounds, was dumped near the Concert Hall. Officially, he was shot while trying to escape from the police. Others saw the motives variously as anti-Communist and/or racist. Gilges was buried in the Dusseldorf cemetery, but few people attended the funeral fearing reprisals from the Gestapo, the secret police. Such fears seemed to have been
Gilroy, Beryl (1924–2001) proven correct when the mason who made the gravestone was arrested and sentenced to five years in prison for pro-communist sympathies. After World War II, Gilges’s German wife and their two children sought restitution from the German government for her husband’s murder. In 1949, they were awarded a small sum. In recent history, as Germany has developed an increased multiracial society and conflicts with racism, Gilges has emerged as a symbol of heroism and antiracism. In 1988, the Dusseldorf Council consented to mark the spot where Gilges was killed. In 1994, to commemorate the 60th anniversary of his murder, a small ceremony was held in Dusseldorf to raise awareness of the life of Gilges. The next decade, in 2003, a much larger event was staged to commemorate the 70th anniversary of Gilges’s murder, with several local politicians attending it to show their opposition to racism. See also: Germany, Blacks in; Nassy, Josef; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Snow, Valaida; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Burleigh, Michael, and Wolfgang Wippermann. The Racial State: Germany, 1933–1945. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991; Keating, Robert. “Blacks under the Swastika: A Research Note.” The Journal of Negro History 83, 1 (Winter 1998): 84–99; Samples, Susan. “African Germans in the Third Reich.” In The African-German Experience: Critical Essays. ed. Carol Blackshire-Belay. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996, pp. 53–69.
Justin Corfield
Gilroy, Beryl (1924–2001) Beryl Agatha Gilroy (née Answick) was a prominent Guyanese writer who moved to London, England, where she wrote a large number of books, including some highlighting the experiences of black Britons. Gilroy was born in 1924 at a village then called Skeldon (modern-day Corriverton), Berbice in British Guiana. Her grandmother, Sally Louisa, who helped raise her, was an herbalist and managed the family farm where their extended family lived. Gilroy did not attend school until she was 12, but she managed to train as a teacher and received a British Guiana teacher’s certificate. She worked as a school teacher until 1951, when she managed to win a scholarship to attend the University of London. In London, she studied for a diploma in child development. Gilroy wanted to teach in England, but she faced racial prejudice and initially had to work doing washing, then as a factory clerk, and later as a housecleaner. During this period, she met her husband and became involved in one of the early mixed-race marriages of the 1950s. For the first 12 years after her marriage, Gilroy brought up her children, completed a number of university courses, and worked for a publisher as a reader and reviewer. Returning to teaching in 1968, Gilroy later became one of the first black school head teachers in the United Kingdom. She described these experiences in Black Teacher (1976). Gilroy then went to the University of London, where she became a researcher working on psychotherapy, especially with black women and children. Gilroy continued writing about her experiences and those of other blacks in Britain. Her In Praise of Love and Children (1994) collected some of her creative writings of the 1960s. Her first novel, Frangiapani House (1986), was set in Guyana and
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Glasgow Race Disturbances (1919) revolved around “Mama King,” an elderly grandmother who described the lives, experiences, and attitudes of the diverse racial groups living there. Gilroy’s other books included Boy Sandwich (1989), which covers the treatment of the elderly in London, and Steadman and Joanna: A Love in Bondage (1991), a historical romance about the eighteenth-century Dutch soldier John Steadman in Suriname who married a slave. Her other works include Echoes and Voices (1991), an anthology of poems; Sunlight and Sweet Water (1994), a collection of short stories, some of which were partially autobiographical; Gather the Faces (1994); Inkle and Yarico (1994); and The Green Grass Tango (2001). See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Stringer, Jenny, ed. The Oxford Companion to Twentieth-Century Literature in English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Justin Corfield
Glasgow Race Disturbances (1919) The Glasgow Race Disturbances of 1919 stemmed from several factors. An increasing minority population in Britain just before and during World War I raised racial tensions that had been building, especially during the war period. After the war, however, as soldiers returned home, resentment reached a point where violence was probable. Adding to the tension were years of union organizing in Britain that was also reaching a point where unions were beginning to fracture and become more radical. Completing the many reasons why violence erupted at this time were fears regarding the spread of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. There were many among the working class in Britain who subscribed to the theories of the Bolsheviks and their goals in Russia. With all these stresses placed on a social structure that was undergoing major change, the first violence in Great Britain broke out in Glasgow, Scotland, at the end of January 1919. Just before and during World War I, Britain had to increase the labor supply, which led to a rise in foreign labor to ensure that they could sustain their considerable shipping industry. When the war started, many of the men who worked in the shipping industry went into the service of the Royal Navy. To fill these jobs, the limited black population was employed, and Britain sought to import people, especially from the Arab countries and the Middle East. When the war ended and the British armed forces were demobilized, there was great resentment toward the replacement workers, especially toward the racial minorities. Furthermore, beyond the scarcity of jobs, there was an economic depression that only added to the unrest against the minority and/or foreign workers. By early 1919, the tension broke into violence, which was first witnessed in Glasgow. Glasgow was particularly susceptible to this violence, as the Scots held a unique position within the shipping industry of Great Britain and the world. Immediately before World War I, half of the world’s ships were built in the Clyde section of Scotland. The conditions and pay the workers endured were typical for that period, with
Gobineau on Races and Slavery low wages, and poor living and working conditions, being the norm. Subsequently, labor organizations began to form in this area, including the Clyde Workers Committee. What made it distinguishable from other trade unions was that the workers in the shipyards elected their own officials and made it a worker-based organization. Combined with the forces of socialism that were spreading in Eastern Europe at the time, the “Red Clydesiders” became known as a group of people who promised great change to the many impoverished dock workers. Shortly after World War I, the Clyde Workers Committee became active in trying to institute changes in the working and living conditions of the dock workers. It wanted to lower the normal 54-hour workweek to 30 hours. By January 18, 1919, negotiations had stalled and the Clyde Workers Committee, now settling on a 40-hour workweek, called for a 40-hour strike to begin on January 24, 1919. Tension was high and on January 24, 1919, the first violence broke out. Fighting broke out between the white and black workers. Guns were fired and men used anything that could be used for a club or weapon. By Monday, January 27, there were numerous strikes and disturbances in and around Glasgow. Mass picketing was seen throughout the area and most shipbuilding businesses were shut down. By Friday, January 31, 1919, a massive protest was to be held at Saint George Square. Before long, the protest turned violent. There are numerous reports of how it started, but it led to a day of violence that witnessed an outnumbered police force retreat. Troops had to be brought in by the government to restore order. Since many, if not most, of the strikers were veterans of the British military, the government used the new, young, and inexperienced troops, which only worsened the situation. As a result of racial tensions, many of the most severely injured and beaten were the minority or foreign-born workers. Within a week, order was restored in Glasgow and eventually a 47-hour workweek was agreed on. The tensions felt in Glasgow, however, were just the first round of trouble and violence that took place in Britain throughout 1919. The forces of race, class, nationality, poverty, and economic empowerment were all being manipulated during this time. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks in the; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Notting Hill Carnival; Race Riots in Europe. Further Reading: Armstrong, Ronald, and Brian Osborne, eds. Mungo’s City: A Glasgow Anthology. Edinburgh: Birlinn Limited, 1999; Jenkinson, Jacqueline. “The Glasgow Race Disturbances of 1919.” Immigrants and Minorities 4:2 (1985): 43–67; Maver, Irene. Glasgow. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2000.
Robert Nave
Gobineau on Races and Slavery Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882) was a French diplomat and writer whose Essay on the Inequality of the Races, published between 1853 and 1855, greatly influenced European racist thinking of the nineteenth century. Racial thinking began to seize
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Gobineau on Races and Slavery the European imagination earlier in the nineteenth century and within a few decades would infiltrate and even dominate much of the continent’s intellectual life. Gobineau contributed a more scholarly veneer to this trend with his Essay, which had copious footnotes and the appearance of considerable research. Gobineau argued that humankind is divided into three great races: black, yellow, and white. He deemed the latter superior to the others. Each “race” was divided further into various strata. Foremost among the whites, according to Gobineau, were the so-called Aryans, which in his use of this highly imprecise term, meant the Nordic and Germanic peoples descended from Indo-Europeans. Gobineau warned white Europeans against racial intermingling, which he believed would undermine their alleged racial superiority by diluting their creativity, morality, and other intellectual virtues. Subsequent advances in biology, anthropology, and other fields would thoroughly discredit Gobineau’s theories. The aristocratic count’s sweeping generalizations sound bizarre, if not repellent, to the modern ear. For example, he wrote that, in comparison to the other “European races . . . the French and Spanish have a greater power of resisting fatigue and privation,” while the “negroid” is the lowest race, and “his mental faculties are dull or even non-existent. . . . Many of his senses, especially taste and smell, are developed to an extent unknown to the other two races.” Although Gobineau was distinct among his contemporaries primarily for his scholarly pretensions, his prejudices were in no way unique. Nor were his ideas original: Gobineau borrowed from American scientist Samuel Morton, and other polygenists (who argued that human “races” have no common origin), as well as ethnographers. Gobineau heavily influenced European and American racial and social theory for the remainder of the nineteenth century. His theories were particularly well received in the United States and in Germany, where they were adopted by such notorious racial thinkers as his friend German composer Richard Wagner and Wagner’s future son-in-law Houston Stewart Chamberlain. Gobineau’s racial views were later championed by some prominent twentieth-century proponents of racist theory, including Nazi German dictator, Adolf Hitler. Gobineau’s belief in racial inequality, however, did not lead him to endorse slavery. His Essay devoted little attention to slavery, which had been abolished throughout the French empire in 1848. Slavery had been virtually extinct within France for many decades and had been on the wane in its colonies since the French and Haitian revolutions of 1789 to 1804. Consequently, by the middle of the nineteenth century, French social scientists did not discuss the issue extensively, and racist writers like Gobineau (in sharp contrast to their counterparts in the Untied States) felt little need to justify the institution. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gall, Franz Josef; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Hamitic Myth; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Responses to Blacks, 1530–1880. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1980; De Gobineau, Arthur. The Inequality of Human Races. New York: Howard Fertig, 1999.
John M. Cox
Gomes, A. Carlos (1836–1896)
Gomes, A. Carlos (1836–1896) Antônio Carlos Gomes was one of the best-known late nineteenth-century composers, and the first from South America whose work was widely acclaimed in Europe. Late in his career, he became heavily involved in the campaign for the abolition of slavery in Brazil. Gomes was born in July 1836 in Brazil of mixed racial descent. He was the son of Maestro Manuel José Gomes and Fabiana Maria Jaguari Cardoso. As a child, he became interested in music. Gomes’s older brother, José Pedro, was a conductor and he managed to get his younger brother introduced to Emperor Dom Pedro II of Brazil. Such an introduction ensured that Gomes was able to secure a place at the Musical Conservatory in Rio de Janeiro, the capital of Brazil. After graduating with honors in 1861, Gomes wrote his first opera, A Noitre do Castelo, which was a success in Rio de Janeiro. Two years later, he wrote another opera, Joana de Flandres, which critics thought was much better than his first work. Emperor Pedro II, who took a great interest in the arts, gave him a scholarship to study in Italy. Consequently, Gomes went to the Milan Conservatory, where he completed the fouryear course in three years and received the title, “Maestro Composer.” The next opera that Gomes wrote had a Brazilian setting and was entitled Il Gurany. The opera, based on a novel by the Brazilian writer José de Alencar, was about the Indian tribes who lived on the Brazilian-Paraguayan borders. Il Gurany was performed for the first time in May 1870 at La Scala Theater, Milan, and was hailed by the critics, some of whom compared it with works by opera greats Rossini and Verdi. Even King Victor Emmanuel II of Italy was impressed by the opera and he applauded the composer. Il Gurany was then performed throughout Europe and then in Rio de Janeiro. Afterward, Gomez returned to Italy, where he married Adeline Peri, a pianist he had met while studying in Milan. In 1876, for the centenary of American independence, Gomes wrote Il saluto del Brasile, a hymn that was performed in Philadelphia in July 1876. Gomes returned to Brazil in 1883. Angered by the fact that slavery still existed in his homeland, Gomes decided to dedicate his next work to the cause of the abolition of slavery in Brazil. André Rebouças, a black engineer who was a close friend of Gomez for many years, had suggested the idea of the opera to the composer. That opera, Lo Schiavo, premiered in 1889, a year after Pedro II had finally declared slavery in Brazil illegal. After the overthrow of the Brazilian monarchy and the proclamation of a republic in 1889, Gomez remained loyal to the memory of the monarchy and turned down the opportunity to compose the new national anthem. He composed one more opera, Condor, which premiered in Milan, Italy in 1891, and a cantata, Colombo, which was performed for the first time at the Columbus Festival in October 1892 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of the European discovery of the Americas. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Italy, Blacks in; Rio Branco Law of Free Birth. Further Reading: Bethell, Leslie, ed. A Cultural History of Latin America: Literature, Music, and the Visual Arts in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998; Rehrig, William. The Heritage Encyclopedia of Band Music: Composers and Their Music. Westerville, OH: Integrity Press, 1996; Rogers, J. A. World’s Great Men of Color. vol. II. Reprint. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Justin Corfield
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Gomez, Sebastian (1646–1682) Sebastian Gomez was a former slave and student of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo (1617–1682), a famous Spanish painter. He was nicknamed “Murillo’s mulatto” because of his close connections with the artist. Gomez started his life as a slave working for Murillo, who lived in Seville, Spain. Murillo was a prominent Baroque artist, and it appears that Gomez was one of Murillo’s household slaves. Gomez may have been involved in grinding the paint for his master. During this time, Gomez became interested in art and managed to develop such skill that one day he decided to work on his master’s painting of the Virgin Mary. Accordingly, Gomez finished off a painting, and when Murillo found out, he allowed Gomez to use the paints. Furthermore, Murillo remarked, good-naturedly, that Gomez had not only created pictures, but had helped nurture an artist. Another version of a similar story has Murillo discovering a drawing on a canvas that had come from those used by his pupils. Murillo was convinced that the young men did not have the skill to produce such work and had been unable to find out who drew the image until Gomez owned up to it. Murillo was amazed that the slave had not had any formal art lessons. Murillo offered to give Gomez his freedom. The slave successfully petitioned for his father’s freedom as well. There is also a merger of the two stories in a long poem by Susan Wilson, who refers to Gomez finishing a painting of Saints Anne and Joseph, and places the date of the incident in 1630, which seems incorrect. A number of paintings by Gomez survive and several are in art galleries in Seville. Although they do use the rich coloring of Murillo, a few writers have been critical of their composition. Some of Gomez’s paintings are held in the Church of San Telmo in Chicana de la Frontera; others are in located in art galleries in Italy, Spain, and elsewhere. See also: Art, Blacks as Represented in European; Pareja, Juan de; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Fikes, Robert. “Juan de Pareja and Sebastian Gomez: Masters of Spanish Baroque Paiting.” Crisis 87:2 (1980): 49–54; Rout, Leslie. The African Experience in Spanish America: 1503 to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1976; Spratlin, V. B. “The Negro in Spanish Literature.” The Journal of Negro History 19:1 (January 1934): 60–71; Woodson, C. G. “Attitudes of the Iberian Peninsula.” The Journal of Negro History 20:2 (April 1935): 190–243.
Justin Corfield
Goytisolo, Juan (1931–) Juan Goytisolo, a famous Spanish novelist and essayist, was a longtime critic of the Spanish political right. His brothers, Luis and José, are also prominent writers. Goytisolo was born in 1931 in Barcelona, Spain and was of Basque and Cuban descent. His mother was killed during the Spanish Civil War in a Nationalist air raid on Barcelona in 1938. As a result, Goytisolo grew up with a strong distaste of the dictatorship of Francisco Franco and for the conservative religious values that the government espoused. These political views are clear in his novels and his 2004 book on Spanish Republican politician Manuel Azana. After studying at the University of Barcelona and then the University of Madrid, Goytisolo wrote his first book, Juegos de manos
Goytisolo, Luis (1935–) (The Young Assassins, 1954). The novel was about some students who planned to assassinate a politician, but ended up murdering the member of their group chosen as the assassin. Goytisolo then wrote Duelo en el paraíso (Children of Chaos, 1955), which was about the violence of a group of children taking over a small town in the period just after the Spanish Civil War. In 1956, Goytisolo left Spain for self-imposed exile in France, where he remained until the death of Franco in 1975. In exile, he gradually came to believe that the Francoist regime would collapse, not through any armed struggle, but from the modernization of Spain. In France, he wrote a number of books in which his Neo-Realist writing evolved gradually into the developing avant-garde style in which he used formalist and structuralist techniques. His first two major works in France were a collection of short stories, Fin de fiesta (The Party’s Over, 1962), and a more experimental work, Señas de identidad (Marks of Identity, 1966). In 1967, Goytisolo visited Cuba, where he was critical of the government attitudes toward African beliefs. His next book, Reivindicación del Conde don Julián (Count Julian, 1970), was widely acclaimed and regarded by many critics as his best work. Sharply critical of the hypocrisy and cruelty experienced in Spain, the Spanish government continued to ban his books. His next two novels were Juan sin tierra (Juan the Landless, 1975), Makbara (1980), En los reinos de taifa (Realms of Strife, 1986), and La saga de los Marx (The Marx Family Saga, 1993). He also wrote a number of travel books, some critical essays, and autobiographical accounts, such as Coto vedado (Forbidden Territory, 1985) and Memorias (Memoirs, 2002). Goytisolo married the publisher and novelist Monique Lange. He worked for many years as an editor with Editions Gaillimard in Paris. Goytisolo’s wife died in 1996 and, unable to live any longer in their apartment in Paris, he soon moved to Marrakesh, Morocco in “voluntary exile” from the decadent and repressed Spain. He won the Premio Europalia (Prize) in 1985, the Premio Nelly Sachs in 1993, the Premio Octavio Paz de Literatura in 2002, and the Premio Juan Rulfo in 2004. See also: Goytisolo, Luis; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Six, Abigail Lee. Juan Goytisolo: The Case for Chaos. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1990; Ward, Philip, ed. The Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Justin Corfield
Goytisolo, Luis (1935–) Luis Goytsilo is an important Spanish novelist of Cuban and Basque descent. He is the younger brother of prominent writer Juan Goytisolo and poet and critic José Agustín Goytsilo. Goytisolo was born in 1935 in Barcelona, Spain. His mother was killed in a Nationalist air raid on Barcelona in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War. Consequently, Goytisolo harbored a lifelong dislike of the Francisco Franco dictatorship. Unlike his brother Juan, however, he remained in Spain. He studied law at university but decided to turn to writing.
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Grant, Bernie (1944–2000) Goytisolo’s first major work was his avant-garde novel Les afueras (The Suburbs, 1958). The book focuses on a large cast of characters who have essentially many similarities in succeeding generations and find disenchantment and some bitterness whether they consider themselves politically “radical” or “conservative.” He then wrote Las mismas palabras (The Same Words, 1963). It was Goytisolo’s series of four novels under the overall title of Antagonía, however, that won him fame. The series attempts to explore Barcelona in the 1950s and 1960s through its young characters, who are disabused for their idealism. See also: Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Ward, Philip, ed. The Oxford Companion to Spanish Literature. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1978.
Justin Corfield
Grant, Bernie (1944–2000) Bernie Alexander Montgomery Grant was a prominent black British politician who was the Labour leader of Haringey Council. From 1987 until his death, Grant was Labour Member of Parliament for Tottenham. Grant was born in 1944 in Georgetown, Guyana. He attended St. Stanislaus College in Georgetown and worked as an analyst for the Demerara Bauxite Company in Guyana from 1961 until 1963. Grant then moved to Britain in 1963 and worked as a clerk for British Rail until 1965. He attended Tottenham Technical College and, from 1969 until 1978, worked for International Telephones in the Post Office. Soon after his arrival in Britain, Grant became a member of the Socialist Labour League. He quickly developed into an active trade unionist, becoming an area officer for the National Union of Public Employees from 1978 to 1983. In 1978, Grant became a Labour Party councilor in the London Borough of Haringey and, in 1983–1984, was a Development Worker with the Black Trade Unionists Solidarity Movement. With the election of the Conservative Party of Margaret Thatcher in 1979, Grant was soon clashing with the new government. In 1985, Grant became the leader of Haringey Council, being one of a number of Inner London Councils who soon found themselves in direct opposition to the Thatcher government. Grant himself rose to national prominence after the Broadwater Estate riots in 1985, during which a police officer was beaten to death. The press felt that Grant supported the rioters, and this led to his vilification in many British newspapers and the title of “Barmey Bernie.” In the general election of 1987, Grant was elected Member of Parliament for Tottenham, easily defeating the Conservative candidate, and being one of only three black MPs at the time. Grant was critical of the police, many of whom he viewed as racist. Grant was founder member and chairman of the Parliamentary Black Caucus from 1988, chairman of the (Socialist) Campaign Group of Labour MPs in 1990–1992, and chairman of the Standing Conference on Race Equality in Europe in 1990. In 1992, Grant was reelected with 56 percent of the vote, having nearly tripled his majority. Grant became chairman of the African Reparations Movement (UK) from 1993. From 1997, he was a member of the Select Committee on International Development,
Grégoire, Abbé (1750–1831) chairman of the British Caribbean Parliamentary Group, and vice-chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party’s Group on Culture, Media, and Sport. Grant was editor of the Black Parliamentarian Magazine from 1990 until 1992, and in 1993, he was awarded an honorary doctorate from Pace University, New York. In 1996, Grant became a member of the Council of Middlesex University. He died in 2000 from a heart attack and his widow unsuccessfully sought to succeed him in his government seat. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Race Riots in Europe. Further Reading: Gilroy, Paul. “There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack”: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
Justin Corfield
Grégoire, Abbé (1750–1831) Abbé Henri-Baptiste Grégoire was a French priest, revolutionary, and author famed for his defenses of Jews and blacks. He wrote the first important book chronicling the achievements of blacks in Europe and elsewhere. Grégoire first gained public prominence in Europe after entering an essay contest in 1785 on how to improve the situation of Jews in France, a long persecuted minority. After arriving in Paris in 1789 and becoming involved in the French Revolution, he met property holders of mixed-race from the French Caribbean, and learned of the many kinds of legal racial discrimination practiced in the French empire. At first, Grégoire campaigned more for the rights of free people of color than for those of slaves. Other abolitionists, such as the Englishman Thomas Clarkson, however, educated Grégoire about the horrors of the slave trade, and he eventually became a key figure in the French antislavery movement. His major writings on racial equality from the era of the French Revolution include Mémoire en faveur des gens de couleur . . . de St.-Domingue (“Memoir in favor of the People of Mixed-Race . . . of Saint-Domingue [now Haiti],” 1789); Lettre aux philantropes sur les malheurs, les droits et les réclamations des gens de couleur de Saint-Domingue (“Letter to friends of humanity on the misfortunes, rights, and complaints of the people of mixed-race of Saint-Domingue,” 1790); and Lettre aux citoyens de couleur et nègres libres de Saint-Domingue (“Letter to the Citizens of MixedRace and Free Blacks of Saint-Domingue,” 1791). After the French revolutionaries decreed the abolition of slavery in 1794, Grégoire continued to campaign for the end of the institution in other parts of the world. Between 1796 and 1799, he was a leading figure in France’s Society of the Friends of Blacks and of the Colonies, successor to the pre-revolutionary Society of the Friends of the Blacks. When Napoleon reinstituted slavery in France in 1802, Grégoire was one of the only figures to protest this action publicly. Guichard Parris has also called Grégoire the “father of Negro literary and biographical history” because of his 1808 book De la littérature des nègres (“On the Cultural Achievement of Negroes”). Written at a time when censorship laws prevented direct criticism of Napoleonic policies, this work set out to destroy the ideological foundations of slavery by proving that people of African descent were capable of the
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Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw (1710/1714?–?) same intellectual achievements as whites. By recounting the biographies of exceptional men and women of African descent (such as Angelo Soliman, Ottobah Cugoano, Olaudah Equiano [Gustavas Vassa], Phillis Wheatley, and Ignatius Sancho), Grégoire aimed to prove that people of color could show great intellectual achievement, if only the world would encourage their talents instead of repressing them. At the time Grégoire wrote this book, no comparable work chronicled the achievements of blacks in Europe and elsewhere. To gather the information presented in this work, Grégoire was in contact with intellectuals throughout the Atlantic world. De la littérature des nègres was first translated into English by David Bailie Warden in 1810 as An Enquiry Concerning the Intellectual and Moral Faculties of Negroes. The book became an inspiration to scores of American abolitionists, as well as to figures in the twentieth-century black history movement and Harlem Renaissance. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Colonies in the Caribbean; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Ogé, Vincent; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Grégoire, Henri-Baptiste. On the Cultural Achievements of Negroes. trans. by Thomas Cassirer and Jean-François Brière. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1996; Sepinwall, Alyssa Goldstein. The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005.
Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw (1710/1714?–?) James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw was a freed slave from what is now Nigeria who wrote an account of his life during the seventeenth century. The account was the first slave narrative in the English language. Gronniosaw was born between 1710 and 1714, probably in Bornu, in northeastern Nigeria. Taken as a slave in Africa, he eventually managed to secure his freedom from his owner in North America. Gronniosaw then worked on several ships before deciding to settle in England, where he lived a life of poverty. In England, he married his wife, described as “White Betty.” The couple then lived in a religious community, after which Gronniosaw started writing his narrative to raise money for his family. In 1770, W. Gye of Bath published Gronniosaw’s 39-page book, A Narrative of the Most Remarkable Particulars in the Life of James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, an African Prince. Most of the details available about Gronniosaw’s life come from his narrative, which was subsequently republished by W. Gye in 1775, by B. Dugdale in Dublin in 1790, and by Davies and Company in Leeds in 1810. Gronniosaw’s narrative refers to the works of the Puritan writers John Bunyan and Richard Baxter, revealing Gronniosaw’s life as a slave as a spiritual autobiography. The narrative is structured in such a way that it tells of Gronniosaw’s life as one of sin, his conversion to Christianity, and his subsequent redemption and rebirth. The book begins with Gronniosaw’s hazy memories of Africa, where he was kidnapped and then enslaved, and relates his traumas on the trans-Atlantic voyage on a slave ship.
Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989) The book continues with his arrival at Barbados and his next move to North America. In North America, Gronniosaw was sold to a young man in New York, who then resold him to a church minister who taught him about Christianity. Gronniosaw was also taught how to read and write by a kindly schoolmaster and was freed when his owner died. It is not known what happened to Gronniosaw after his book was published, but his narrative had a great impact on autobiographical literature, as it served as a model for the slave narrative genre that led to Olaudah Equiano writing his two-volume narrative in 1789. Equiano’s narrative, in turn, was used as a model by individuals writing slave narratives during the nineteenth century. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman; Prince, Mary; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Andrews, William L., Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, eds. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; Costanzo, Angela. Surprising Narrative: Olaudah Equiano and the Beginnings of Black Autobiography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1987; Gates, Henry Louis. “James Gronniosaw and the Trope of the Talking Book.” Southern Review 22 (April 1986): 252–272.
Justin Corfield
Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989) Nicolás Guillén Batista was a noted Afro-Cuban poet who went to Spain during the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939) and wrote both creative and nonfiction pieces about his experience. He was born in 1902 in Camagüey, Cuba and educated at Camagüey Institute. He then went to the University of Havana to study law. Abandoning his studies in 1921 to write poetry, Guillén combined themes from his African and Spanish heritage to put together his first volume of published poetry, Motivos de Son (Motifs of Son, 1930). The book was quickly hailed as one of the great works of Afro-Cuban writings. The success of his first book encouraged Guillén to write more poetry, which began to include political themes. Gradually, Guillén work shifted from merely highlighting the problems of poverty and the lives of the poor to goading politicians to do something about it. Shortly after the publication of Cantos para soldados y sones para turistas (Songs for Soldiers and for Tourists, 1937), Guillén decided to go to Spain where the Spanish Republic was fighting against the Nationalists of Francisco Franco in a civil war. Fuillen reported for the Mediodia magazine in Spain from 1937 to 1938. This experience led him to write a collection of poems, which were published as España (Spain, 1937). Returning to Cuba at the end of the Spanish Civil War, Guillén contested the position of the mayor of Camagüey and then joined the Popular Socialist Party (later the Cuban Communist Party), urging for political reform and social change in Cuba. During the 1940s, Guillén continued to write on African themes and introduced African song and dance rhythms into his poems. In 1948, he contested the senate elections for Havana. Although Guillén was able to visit much of South America and parts of Europe and even China, he was barred from entry to the United States. His political
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Guillén, Nicolás (1902–1989) activity led him, in the early 1950s, to be arrested by the anti-Communist government of Fulgencio Batista and then exiled in 1953. In the next year, he was awarded the Lenin Peace Prize. In 1959, Guillén was one of the Cuban exiles who supported the Cuban Revolution that propelled Fidel Castro to power. When Castro took over the Cuban government, he welcomed Guillén back to Cuba. The new government then appointed Guillén as the president of the Unión Nacional de Escritos de Cuba (“National Union of Writers/Artists of Cuba”). He was also made a member of the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party. In his prose, Guillén continued to follow the joint themes of social protest and revolution with two other books: Tengo (I Have, 1964) and Poemas de Amor (Love Poems, 1964). Guillén died in 1989. The Fundación Guillén was established to commemorate his career. See also: Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the. Further Reading: Guillén, Nicolás. Man-Making Words: Selected Poems of Nicolás Guillén. trans. Roberto Márquez and David Arthur McMurray. 2nd ed. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2003; Kutzinski, Vera. Against the American Grain: Myth and History in William Carlos Williams, Jay Wright, and Nicolás Guillén. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
Justin Corfield
H Haitian Revolution for Independence In 1791, the largest and most successful slave rebellion in history culminated in the establishment of an independent Haiti in 1804, run largely by former slaves. The independence movement in Haiti should be understood within the larger context of eighteenth-century Enlightenment and revolutionary movements. The same ideals that inspired the Rights of Man and individual liberty in France and the American colonies also found expression as slave revolts and anticolonial movements in the French colony of Saint Domingue, the former name given to modern Haiti. Once the French Revolution broke out in 1789, it was impossible to keep news from France away from Saint Domingue. Wharves where slaves loaded coffee, beans, and coconuts were met by revolutionary sailors festooned with the tricolor cockade, a symbol of the revolution. The insurrection that took place on August 22, 1791, was well organized and specifically targeted sugar plantations, as they were both the lifeblood of the white settler community, as well as a hated symbol of oppression and tyranny. Many slaves had been worked to death in this type of labor, the most arduous slave occupation. Such a high mortality rate kept the birth rate among slaves low and thus kept the demand for new slaves high. Numbering close to 500,000, many slaves were therefore fresh from Africa and unbroken. They spoke dialects incomprehensible to most whites and could therefore plot in secret. Moreover, they dwarfed the white population of only 40,000. A freed slave, Toussaint L’Ouverture, soon became the leader of a massive rebellion that quickly became the most violent slave uprising in history. Murder, rape, and torture became widespread, with settler deaths numbering quickly into the thousands. The enormity of the crisis soon became a primary concern for the newly created French Revolutionary Assembly. This was an obvious predicament for the French revolutionaries. On the one hand, the revolutionaries in France created a constitution enshrined in the Declaration of
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Haitian Revolution for Independence the Rights of Man, which had been approved in 1789. On the other, Saint Domingue was France’s most lucrative colony. Just as the French Revolution divided Frenchmen, however, it also divided whites in Saint Domingue. Predictably, lower classes, seamen, workers, and shopkeepers tended to be more fervent with revolutionary zeal and were hostile toward the wealthier merchant, slave-owning, and plantation class. This split not only led to the mutiny of one regiment, but effectively civil war. Revolutionaries on the island promised freedom to all blacks who joined the revolution. This was even ahead of the revolutionaries in France, who had tried to take away the right to vote from those of biracial descent on the island. In 1792, they reversed course and restored that right to them and free blacks, but it was not until February 4, 1794, that the assembly in France ended slavery. In large measure, this was owing to facts on the ground in Saint Domingue. In the absence of the governor, who had been guillotined, a senior official of the colonial administration, Léger-Félicité Sonthonax, acted unilaterally and freed all slaves on August 29, 1793. As increasing numbers of black rebels joined forces with white French revolutionaries against the ruling elites, it became impossible and impractical for the assembly to change course. Internationally, the rebels also had to contend with the United States, which helped support the white settler community with approximately $400,000 in aid until 1804. In addition, the British sent arms and ammunition to suppress the rebellion. Both Britain and the United States were afraid of a successful slave rebellion on Saint Domingue that would engender passion among their slaves. When war between Britain and France broke out in 1793, however, Britain saw it as an occasion to conquer Saint Domingue outright, thereby securing their holdings in the Caribbean against slave rebellion, and laying claim to the lucrative sugar and coffee plantations. After initial British military successes in capturing the major cities, L’Ouverture took to the countryside and trained his followers in guerilla tactics. He and his following of former slaves were able to establish control over the north of the island. He also deftly allied with the Spanish in Santo Domingo, who were at war with France after 1793. L’Ouverture needed to be careful, however, as he was aware that Spain, too, had designs on all of the island of Hispaniola. After Sonthonax freed the slaves, however, L’Ouverture formed an alliance with the French Republicans against the British and broke off his alliance with Spain and Santo Domingo. On July 22, 1794, France and Spain signed a separate peace, in which Spain was obliged to cede Santo Domingo to France. Former slaves led by L’Ouverture’s rivals, Jean-François and Georges Biassou, who had hitherto been engaged against Spain, disbanded, with many going over to L’Ouverture, the most capable commander against the British. Nevertheless, the real obstacle to British success was disease. Insisting on maintaining the garb of bright red wool in the sultry climate of Saint Domingue, perspiration attracted mosquitoes and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of British soldiers were stricken with malaria. Malaria coupled with an outbreak of yellow fever, and it is small wonder that the British lost nearly 60 percent of the 20,000 soldiers sent to Saint Domingue, mostly to disease. By 1799, the British had had enough. The motley assortment of a couple of hundred former slaves had grown to a following of 14,000. With the last British stronghold of Port-au-Prince virtually surrounded, they agreed to withdraw. In exchange for an
Haitian Revolution for Independence orderly, peaceful decampment, L’Ouverture agreed to greater trade with Britain, especially in sugar. He further agreed not to foment revolution in the rest of the Caribbean, as the British were particularly sensitive about Jamaica. L’Ouverture recognized the importance of maintaining the best possible relations with Britain because his ultimate goal was independence from France, republic or no. The British were the only power capable of ensuring that independence. Beyond the British, those of mixed race, who had a modicum of political rights under the colonial regime, could and did cause problems for a black-led insurrection. The French commander of the Revolutionary army, General Etienne-Maynard Laveaux, was nearly deposed by those of biracial descent, who resented the new rights afforded to blacks and the shifting power paradigm it engendered. L’Ouverture rescued him, and as a result, was appointed lieutenant governor of Saint Domingue. Eventually, the new French republic gave L’Ouverture command of all French forces on the island. L’Ouverture ousted Sonthonax and sought conciliation with those of biracial descent led by Andre Rigaud. The white settler community, both royalists and republicans, who believed they had everything to lose in a society ruled by blacks, supported Rigaud and kept the war going. Sensing shifting political winds in the United States, L’Ouverture reached out to the new administration of John Adams, who was able to send arms and ships so as to keep both British and French out of what Adams believed to be an American sphere of influence. American arms proved beneficial, as L’Ouverture decisively defeated his biracial opponents in what is often called the “War of the Castes.” In 1800, Rigaud fled Saint Domingue. With the entire island at his feet, L’Ouverture instilled martial law. The colonial assembly, which was still in existence, drafted a constitution that essentially made L’Ouverture governor-general for life in 1801. In an effort to maintain good trade relations with Britain, sugar production had to keep pace. This meant that the plantation system would not be dismantled anytime soon. Although slaves, in the strict sense, were not used, there was little other way to eke out a living other than on the plantation at paltry wages and near slave conditions. With the advent of Napoleon Bonaparte as First Consul of France in 1799, another challenge came to the independence of Saint Domingue. By the treaty of San Ildefonso in October 1800, Spain ceded Louisiana and much territory on the North American continent west of the Mississippi river to France. This acquisition brought Saint Domingue back into prominence. Napoleon perceived Saint Domingue as a vitally important strategic position that would secure and maintain trade through the port of New Orleans. To that end, Napoleon dispatched an army of nearly 20,000 led by his brother-inlaw, General Charles Victor Emmanuel Leclerc. Whites of the former colonial regime and members of biracial descent joined with Leclerc. Two of L’Ouverture’s lieutenants, Jean-Jacques Dessalines and Henri Christophe, betrayed L’Ouverture and joined Leclerc. L’Ouverture surrendered on May 5, 1802. He was taken back to France and died in prison on April 7, 1803. Alarmed at seeing Napoleon restore slavery in Martinique, however, former collaborators Dessalines and Christophe rebelled against Leclerc. Disease once again intervened on behalf of independence. Yellow fever killed Leclerc in late 1802, as it ravaged much of his army. Although a new general, Donatien
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Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature Rochambeau, was dispatched to replace Leclerc, France’s renewed war with Britain, as well as the selling of the Louisiana Territory to the United States in 1803, meant that Saint Domingue was no longer vital to French interests. Without further support or supplies, Rochambeau fled to Jamaica, where he surrendered to British authorities rather than face a more grisly fate on Saint Domingue. On January 1, 1804, Haiti became independent and, consequently, the world’s first free black republic; however, Dessalines, who had become the new country’s leader, continued to rule according to the authoritarian constitution of 1801. Although L’Ouverture had shown accommodation and generosity toward whites, Dessalines did not, murdering most of what was left of their numbers. The republic did not last long, as Dessalines crowned himself emperor in 1805, restored the plantation system by force, and promulgated a system of authoritarianism that would last well into the next century. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Delgrès, Louis; French Army, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Latin American Revolutions, Blacks in; Ogé, Vincent; Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Cohen, David, and Jack Greene, eds. Neither Slave Nor Free: The Freedmen of African Descent in the Slave Societies of the New World. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1972; Drescher, Seymour. “British Way, French Way: Opinion Building and Revolution in the Second French Slave Emancipation.” American Historical Review 96 (June 1991); Fick, Carolyn E. The Making of Haiti: The Saint Domingue Revolution from Below. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990; Gaspar, David Barry, and David Geggus, eds. A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997; Geggus, David. “From His Most Catholic Majesty to the Godless Republique: The ‘Volte-face’ of Toussain Louverture and the Ending of Slavery in Saint Domingue.” Revue francaise d’histoire d’Outre-Mer 65 (1978); Geggus, David. “Racial Equality, Slavery, and Colonial Succession during the Constituent Assembly.” American Historical Review 94 (December 1989); Genovese, Eugene. From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979; James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution, 2nd ed. 1963; Reprint, New York: Vintage Books, 1989; Stein, Robert L. Léger Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic. Rutherford: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985.
Thomas Martin
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature The Haitian Revolution (1791–1804), which culminated in the declaration of Haitian Independence in 1804, has been the subject of extensive literary exploration since the early nineteenth century. Although numerous authors from around the world writing in different languages have taken the Haitian Revolution as their theme, significant contributions have been made from French and Francophone writers in Europe, the Caribbean, and Africa to the corpus of literary texts written in French about the Haitian Revolution. NINETEENTH CENTURY. Bug-Jargal, a novel set in revolutionary Haiti by the French Romantic author Victor Hugo (1802–1885), was first published as a
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature short story in 1820 before being expanded and published as a novel in 1826. Hugo’s story depicts the life and death of Bug-Jargal (Pierrot), an enslaved African prince who leads a slave rebellion in Haiti. The novel is narrated retrospectively by the French Captain D’Auverney. D’Auverney, who is involved in a love triangle with Bug-Jargal for the affections of Marie, ultimately comes to respect Bug-Jargal for his selflessness. With the exception of the idealized Bug-Jargal, the novel depicts black characters, including the rebel and sorcerer Habibrah, and the revolutionary Haitian leader Georges Biassou, as inherently inferior to white characters. Pierre Faubert (1806–1868), a Haitian dramatist and intellectual, wrote the play Ogé, ou Le préjugé de couleur (“Ogé, or Color Prejudice”). This play, set during the 1790 revolt of Vincent Ogé, follows the unsuccessful uprising that ended in the torture and execution of Ogé and his army of free men of color. First performed in 1841 and published in 1856, the drama revolves around the love of Delphine, the daughter of a colonial slaveholder, for Alfred, a young free man of color who is murdered by the slaveholder’s men after he takes part in the insurrection. The French Romantic writer Alphonse de Lamartine (1790–1869) wrote Toussaint Louverture: un poeme dramatique en cinq actes, a five-act play in Alexandrian verse about the role of Toussaint L’Ouverture in the Haitian Revolution. Although Lamartine wrote the play in the early 1840s as a call for the abolition of slavery, the play was not performed or published until after slavery was abolished definitively in 1848 under the Second Republic. The play is a dramatization of the revolutionary quest for racial and national identity in the period beginning with the arrival of Napoleon’s brother-in-law, Charles Leclerc, in 1802 and ending before L’Ouverture’s capture by the French. In 1892, Marie Augustin published Le Macandal: épisode de l’insurrection des noirs à St. Domingue (“Makandal: Episode of Black Insurrection in Saint Domingue”), a novel about the life and family of Makandal, the historical black rebel leader who supposedly planned to poison all white inhabitants of Saint Domingue. Published in New Orleans, Louisiana, the novel re-creates the Bois Caiman ceremony and introduces the characters of Wamba, the voudoun priestess, as Makandal’s wife, and Dominique as his son. The novel reinforces racist tropes of black cruelty and white civilization: Dominique, who gains the confidence of his slave master’s family, is given the opportunity to learn about white civilization by traveling to England and France with the slave master’s son. Nevertheless, he later returns to Haiti to incite violence as his father, Makandal, once did, and viciously massacres the slave master’s family. The white survivors of the massacre flee Haiti and settle in Louisiana. TWENTIETH CENTURY. In the twentieth century, a growing number of Haitian and French Caribbean writers published works dealing with the Haitian Revolution. Stéphen Alexis (1899–1962), the father of Jacques-Stephen Alexis, one of Haiti’s most well-known novelists, published the biography Toussaint Louverture, libérateur d’Haïti (“Black Liberator; the Life of Toussaint Louverture,” c. 1947). Also, in Haiti, Jean Baptiste Dorismond published Sur les traces de Caonabo et de Toussaint Louverture, poèmes caraïbes (“On the Trail of Caonabo and Toussaint Louverture, Caribbean Poems,” 1953) under the pseudonym Félix Desroussels. This book of poetry draws inspiration from the history of both indigenous Taino leaders, such as Caonabo, and black leaders who participated in the Haitian Revolution.
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Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature The Haitian writer Marie Vieux Chauvet is the author of La danse sur le volcan (“Dance on the Volcano,” 1957), a novel set in late eighteenth-century colonial Saint Domingue on the eve of the revolution. The novel, which focuses on the lives of lightskinned people of color in Port-au-Prince, highlights the revolutionary contributions of Ogé, Petión, and Régaud over those of L’Ouverture, Dessalines, and Christophe. The young protagonist, Minette, is the light-skinned daughter of Jasmine, a freed slave who was raped by her former slave master. Minette has a beautiful voice and a promising career in the theater in Port-au-Prince until the revolutionary violence that erupts throws the country into turmoil. Minette is killed by a colonial soldier and her hopes for the transformation of society are extinguished along with her voice. Aimé Césaire, the Martinican poet, writer, co-founder of the Négritude movement, and former mayor of Fort-de-France, has published several works dealing with the Haitian Revolution. In addition to the essay Toussaint Louverture: La révolution française et le problème colonial (“Toussaint Louverture: The French Revolution and the Colonial Problem,” 1960) and selected poetry from his Cahier d’un retour au pays natal (“Notebook of a Return to My Native Land,” 1960), Césaire also wrote a play dealing with the post-revolutionary history of one of L’Ouverture’s generals. The play, La tragédie du roi Christophe (“The Tragedy of King Christophe,” 1963), reenacts the story of the revolutionary hero Henri Christophe and his short reign as king of northern Haiti soon after the success of the revolution in 1804 and the overthrow of Jean-Jacques Dessalines in 1806. Édouard Glissant, the celebrated Martinican intellectual and author of numerous novels, essays, and poetry collections, is also the author of Monsieur Toussaint (1961), a play in four acts. The play is set in the Jura Mountains of France at the Fort de Joux, where L’Ouverture was held prisoner and eventually died after eight months of imprisonment. Through the intervention of the dead who haunt him, the play transports L’Ouverture back to Haiti, where he relives his military career before dying in France. Bernard B. Dadié, novelist, poet, playwright, and former minister of culture from the Ivory Coast, published the play Iles de Tempête (“Stormy Islands,” 1973) about French colonization in Saint Domingue and the fight for freedom. Dadié was an active participant in the Ivorian independence movement against the French colonial government. The play draws on the history of the French, Haitian, and American Revolutions to demonstrate the importance of solidarity and the role of black people in various liberation movements. In France, Robert Gaillard published a tetrology of erotic adventure novels that use the Haitian Revolution as an exotic backdrop: La volupté et la haine, La luxure du matin, La chair et la cendre, Désir et liberté (1971–1972). Also in France, the writers Bernard Gilles and Serge Quadru collaborated on the historical novel Le chouan de Saint-Domingue (“The Royalist Rebel of Saint Domingue,” 1979) set between 1802 and 1820 that details an ill-fated love story between Gildas Laöric and Béatrice Perregaux. The Haitian writer and politician Roger Dorsinville, who lived in exile for many years in Liberia and Senegal during the Duvalier regime, published a novel about the life of L’Ouverture entitled De Fatras Bâton à Toussaint Louverture (“From Little Stick
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature to Toussaint Louverture,” 1983) in addition to a book-length essay on L’Ouverture before returning to Haiti in 1986. The nickname Fatras Bâton (“useless stick”) refers to L’Ouverture’s small stature as a child. His progression from a “useless stick” to a revolutionary hero suggests that even someone perceived as weak can go on to accomplish great things. Also in the 1980s, Haitian writer Ghislaine Rey Charlier published a novel that tells the story of the revolution from the point of view of a woman who was once a slave: Mémoire d’une affranchie (“Memoir of a Freewoman,” 1989). Charlier, who began writing the novel in Haiti, was forced into exile during the Duvalier regime. She continued writing in Paris and New York before completing the novel in Montreal. In 1990, the Haitian writer Jean-Claude Fignolé, cofounder of the Spiralist literary movement in Haiti, along with René Philoctète and Frankétienne, published Aube tranquille (“Tranquil Dawn”). In stark contrast with the intentionally misleading title, Fignolé’s novel confronts the violent and destructive legacy of slavery and exploitation, both in revolutionary and contemporary Haiti. EARLY TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY. In the first years of the twenty-first century, the literature in French about the Haitian Revolution has continued to grow, and the figure of L’Ouverture still looms large in the works of many authors dealing with this period. Jean Métellus, a prolific writer and medical doctor specializing in neurolinguistics, was born in Haiti and has lived in France since 1959. His play, Toussaint Louverture (2003), was followed by a novel, Toussaint Louverture, le précurseur (“Toussaint Louverture, the Precursor,” 2004), which deals with L’Ouverture’s role in the revolution as well. Fignolé, author of the novel Aube tranquille mentioned previously, has also published an innovative first-person account of L’Ouverture’s life, Moi, Toussaint Louverture . . . avec la plume complice de l’auteur (“I, Toussaint Louverture. . .with the Author’s Complicit Pen,” 2004). Fabienne Pasquet, born in Geneva to a Swiss mother and a Haitian father, is the author of the prize-winning novel La Deuxième mort de Toussaint-Louverture (“The Second Death of Toussaint Louverture,” 2001). The novel takes the incarceration of the German author Heinrich von Kleist (1777–1811) in the Fort-de-Joux as its historical premise. Although Kleist is the protagonist of this story set in 1806, his conversations with L’Ouverture, who died in the same fort three years earlier, become a focal point of the novel. The historical Kleist went on to become the author of several plays and short stories, including the play Die Verlobung in Santo Domingo (“Betrothal in St. Domingo,” 1811). Other recent literary contributions include Rodrigue François’s historical novel Les géants de 1804 (“The Giants of 1804,” 2003) and Jean-Claude Joseph’s novel Rosie Moussa, esclave libre de Saint-Domingue (“Rosie Moussa, Free Slave of Saint Domingue,” 2003) about the participation of a young female slave in the course of Haitian history. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Delgrès, Louis; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French; Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution; Slave Trade, French; Sonthonax, Léger Félicité. Further Reading: Bongie, Chris. “‘Of Whatever Color’: (Dis)locating a Place for the Creole in Nineteenth-Century French Literature.” In Francophone Postcolonial Studies: A Critical
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Hall, Stuart (1932–) Introduction. eds. Charles Forsdick and David Murphy. London: Arnold, 2003, pp. 35–45; Clark, Vèvè A. “Haiti’s Tragic Overture: (Mis) Representation of the Haitian Revolution in World Drama (1796–1975).” In Representing the French Revolution: Literature, Historiography, and Art. ed. James A. W. Heffernan. Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1992, pp. 237–60; Dash, Michael. “The Theater of the Haitian Revolution/The Haitian Revolution as Theater.” Small Axe 9:2 (2005): 16–23; Madureira, Luís. “The Shadow Cast by the Enlightenment: The Haitian Revolution and Naming of Modernity’s Other.” In Cannibal Modernities: Postcoloniality and the Avant-garde in Caribbean and Brazilian Literature. Charlottesville: University of Virgina, 2005, pp. 131–163; Munro, Martin, and Elizabeth Walcot-Hackshaw, eds. Reinterpreting the Haitian Revolution and Its Cultural Aftershocks. Kingston, Jamaica: University of the West Indies Press, 2006.
Sara Scott Armengot
Hall, Stuart (1932–) Stuart Hall, a prominent black British intellectual figure, is a socialist thinker who has argued that the tense race relations within modern Britain are rooted in the fact that Britain, as a country, is still engaged in the process of reconciling with its imperial past. Hall was born in February 1932 in Kingston, Jamaica, and migrated in 1951 to Bristol, England, where he studied at Merton College, Oxford. He earned a master’s degree from Merton College in 1954. Being black (or “brown,” as he states in passages included in Chris Rojek’s 2003 biography of Hall) in Oxford during his twenties, Hall recalls that he soon felt the snobbery and racism from his white English fellow students. Hall is known to be the foremost continuator of the works of intellectuals Richard Hoggart, Raymond Williams, and E. P. Thompson on British popular culture. Together, they forged what was to become a genuine critical discipline, namely “Cultural Studies.” From 1964 to 1979, Hall would teach at the Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies at the University of Birmingham. Hall has always been interested in the study of “dominant cultures” in the media, but also in communities, localities, subcultures, in the cultural practices of marginal groups, as well as the determinance of politics, every form of power, and economic life in general. This commitment toward “the other” and “the forgotten” can partly explain why he left the University of Birmingham in 1979 to pursue his work at the Open University, which specializes in courses for adults. In the 1980s, Hall’s works became influential in the United States, and he became known as the leading figure in cultural studies. Hall was named emeritus professor after he retired from the Open University in 1997, and was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Award for Contribution to Education by the Windrush Foundation. An important collective book under the title Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart Hall (2000) was edited by scholars Paul Gilroy, Lawrence Goldberg, and Angela McRobbie as a tribute to his intellectual contribution. There are few collections of Hall’s texts as such; nevertheless, a generous bibliography (although not complete) with references for several of his articles can be found at the end of the biography by Rojek.
Hamitic Myth See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading and Viewing: During, Simon, ed. The Cultural Studies Reader. 2nd ed. London: Routledge, 1999; Gilroy, Paul, with Lawrence Goldberg and Angela McRobbie, eds. Without Guarantees: In Honour of Stuart Hall. London: Verso, 2000; Miller, Toby, ed. A Companion to Cultural Studies. Oxford: Blackwell Publishers, 2001; Race, the Floating Signifier. Featuring Stuart Hall (1997). New York: Media Resources, DVD; Rojek, Chris, Stuart Hall. London: Polity, 2003; Stuart Hall: The Origins of Cultural Studies. With an introduction by Sut Jhally (2006). New York: Media Resources, DVD.
Yves Laberge
Hamitic Myth Europeans once used the term Hamitic in reference to the peoples of Africa on the assumption that Africans descended from the biblical figure of Ham, one of Noah’s sons. During the course of European history, the term acquired revised interpretations. In the medieval period through the nineteenth century, Europeans used the term Hamitic indiscriminately in reference to Africans. During the nineteenth century, scientists suggested the existence of a Hamitic language group in North Africa, as well as a Hamitic race, which included those Africans whom Europeans considered “civilized” and most similar to other European and Semitic peoples. These scientific concepts based on the biblical Ham and his descendants, known as the Hamitic myth, have been widely discredited. Furthermore, Europeans used the Hamitic myth as a justification for the slave trade and for the subjugation and colonization of Africa during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In the Hebrew Scriptures, which also include the Old Testament of the Bible, God creates a great flood, wiping out civilization except for Noah, his family, and the creatures that he has saved with his ark. Consequently, in the Hebrew and Christian tradition, all of humanity is believed to be descended from Noah. One of Noah’s sons was Ham and his descendants became collectively known as the Hamites. In the Hebrew Scriptures, the descendants of Ham’s four sons included the people who were the traditional enemies of the Hebrews, including the Egyptians (descendants of Mizraim) and Canaanites (descendants of Canaan). The African descendants of Ham’s two other sons were the Cushites (descendants of Cush) and the Libyans (descendants of Phut). According to the Hebrew Scriptures, Noah placed a curse on Ham’s son, Canaan, because of a drunken act. Some Biblical scholars have argued that the inclusion of the curse in Hebrew tradition was meant to justify the eventual Hebrew conquest and enslavement of the Canaanites, whom the Hebrews presumed descended from Canaan. Furthermore, “cush,” the name of Ham’s other son, also meant black in Hebrew, although it is not necessarily a racial reference. During the early medieval period, however, some Jewish writers argued that Ham’s descendants were cursed by being made black. Consequently, Europeans wishing to apply the Hamitic myth as a justification for slavery extended the Curse of Ham to their inhumane practice, choosing to believe
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Hannibal, Abraham (?–1781?) that Africans were cursed, possibly “blackened” by their sins. Such racist notions suited the ideological interests of the European elite during the medieval and early modern periods, as the principal enemy of Christendom was the Islamic empire that controlled much of Africa, despite the fact that Islam originated among the Semitic Arabs. Furthermore, European imagery emphasized the blackness of the Islamic Moors to highlight their connection with the cursed descendants of Ham. After the French invasion of Egypt by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1798 to 1799, there was renewed interest in Egyptian civilization and its influence on ancient Greece and Rome, and relations with its neighboring peoples in Africa. Current ideology placed the Egyptians as “cursed” sons of Ham and as black. Consequently, a reevaluation was needed and the term Hamitic assumed a more positive connotation in a European ethnocentric sense. During the nineteenth century, as Europeans became more familiar with the geography of Africa, they found different types of peoples of varying skin colors and physical characteristics. Those types of African peoples that appeared more physically similar to Europeans or had a redeeming cultural quality were classified as Hamitic and consequently considered more advanced than other Africans. The term Hamitic became increasingly used in colonial administration as Europeans attempted to study and control the new societies that they were exploiting in Africa. During the nineteenth century, European scholars attempted to apply the term to African languages. Egyptologist Karl Friedrich Lepsius was the first to restrict the term’s usage to the non-Semitic languages in Africa characterized by grammatical gender system. As racial theories became more convoluted during the nineteenth century, European writers applied the term Hamitic to several African groups including Berbers, Ethiopians, Eritreans, and Nubians. In hierarchical racial theory, these Hamitic African groups were “superior,” teaching the “lesser” African groups civilization similar to the way Europeans perceived that they were civilizing the Hamitic peoples. See also: Age of Exploration; Black Athena Controversy; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gall, Franz Josef; New Imperialism; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Frye, Northrop, and Jay Macherson. Biblical and Classical Myths: The Mythological Framework of Western Culture. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004; Goldenberg, David. The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2003; Haynes, Stephen. Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American Slavery. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Eric Martone
Hannibal, Abraham (?–1781?) Abraham Petrovich Hannibal (or Gannibal in Russian transliteration), a favorite of Tsar Peter I (the Great), was a former black African slave who became a noted Russian general, military engineer, and governor during the eighteenth-century in Europe. Hannibal was captured from Africa to be sold into slavery as a young boy. He ended up in Turkey, where he became a slave of the Muslim sultan. While in Constantino-
Hannibal, Abraham (?–1781?) ple, Hannibal attracted the attention of the Russian ambassador, who gained possession of the slave to give him as a gift to the Russian tsar. Tsar Peter the Great became fond of Hannibal and freed him. In 1707, Peter served as Hannibal’s godfather and Queen Christina of Poland served as godmother during his baptism into the Christian faith. After the baptism, Hannibal, who at this time had still gone by his original name of Ibrahim, thereafter went by its Christian equivalent, Abraham, and the surname Petrov after his godfather. The surname of Hannibal was allegedly added later to accentuate his military prowess, alluding to the great North African general of the same name who won many victories over the ancient Romans during the Punic Wars. Hannibal became Peter’s valet and secretary, and demonstrated aptitude in mathematics and engineering; consequently, Peter sent him to Paris to study in 1716. While in France as the tsar’s emissary, Hannibal was received in elite society, where he gained attention because of his exotic features. While Hannibal was studying in Paris, war broke out between France and Spain, and Hannibal accepted a commission in the French army. During combat, he was wounded in the head and captured by the Spanish. After his release following the war’s conclusion, Hannibal was promoted to lieutenant, and in 1722 enrolled in the artillery school in Metz, France. In 1723, Hannibal was ordered to return to Russia, where he became an officer in the engineers’ corps before rapid promotions based on merit. Peter also appointed him mathematics tutor to the imperial prince, the future Tsar Peter II. At this time, Hannibal was one of the most educated men in Russia, and he had brought with him a library from France. After Peter the Great died in 1725, his wife, Catherine I, seized the Russian throne, initiating years of conflict between various members of the ruling Romanov family for control of the throne. Many of Peter the Great’s former favorites attempted to wield de facto power, first through Catherine, and then, after her death in 1727, through Peter II. Fearing Hannibal’s influence at court, he was essentially exiled to Siberia and later detained. Peter II died in 1730 and was succeeded by Anne, Peter the Great’s niece. Hannibal was soon promoted to the rank of captain and assigned to the Baltic fortress of Pernau. He retired from military and civil service in 1733. Hannibal married the daughter of a Greek captain in the early 1730s. His wife bore a daughter who demonstrated no biracial features. Hannibal claimed that the child must have been conceived through an extramarital affair and sued for divorce in 1732. The trial was one of the most celebrated of its day. During the trial, which lasted until 1753, scientists debated at great length whether it was possible for an interracial couple to have offspring that could demonstrate no subjective signs of being biracial, and hence “white.” Hannibal ultimately won his case. In the interim, he had illegally married a titled German woman in the mid-1730s. The couple went on to have 11 children, including several sons who had distinguished military and civil careers. Elisabeth, Peter the Great’s daughter, ascended the throne on Anne’s death in 1740. The new ruler, grateful to Hannibal’s loyalty to her father and his memory, became his benefactor. In 1741, she appointed Hannibal lieutenant colonel of artillery and assigned him to the Reval garrison. In 1742, he was appointed major general and served as commander of Reval from 1743 to 1751. Among the honors bestowed on Hannibal was a gift in 1746 of numerous estates with thousands of serfs in Pskov and Saint
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Hemings, Sally (1773–1835) Petersburg provinces. In 1752, he became major general of fortifications. Hannibal was later recalled to the engineers’ corps, where he was promoted to major general in 1756. In 1759, he was appointed director of the Ladoga canal, Kronstadt, and Rogervik construction projects. Finally, Hannibal retired to one of his estates in 1762. He lived in such seclusion that the exact year of his death is uncertain, probably 1781 or 1782, when he was in his nineties. Hannibal’s descendants include the famed Russian literary figure Alexander Pushkin, who wrote an unfinished novel about his ancestor, and many members of the European aristocracy, including Natalia Grosvenor, Duchess of Westminster, and George Mountbatten, 4th Marquess of Milford Haven. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Russian; Russia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Barnes, Hugh. The Stolen Prince: Gannibal, Adopted Son of Peter the Great, Great-Grandfather of Alexander Pushkin, and Europe’s First Black Intellectual. New York: Harper Collins, 2006; Blakely, Allison. Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1986; Pushkin, Alexander. The Captain’s Daughter and The Negro of Peter the Great. London: Neville Spearman, 1958.
Eric Martone
Hemings, Sally (1773–1835) Sarah (known as Sally) Hemings was an African American slave and companion to the American politician Thomas Jefferson, who later became president of the United States from 1801 to 1809, during his travels to France on a diplomatic mission. Hemings was born in 1773, most likely in Charles City County, Virginia. She was the daughter of an enslaved woman, Elizabeth Hemings, and John Wayles, a wealthy lawyer and planter who owned her mother. Elizabeth Hemings and Wayles had five other children: Robert, James, Thenia, Critta, and Peter. Upon Wayles’s death, the Hemings family came under the ownership of his daughter, Martha, and her husband, Thomas Jefferson, then a prominent lawyer and owner of the plantation, Monticello. Hemings and her family went to live there in 1774. Young Sally became a companion to Jefferson’s daughters. She, her mother, and sisters were present at Martha’s death bed, and according to Hemings family lore, Martha gave her enslaved half-sister, Sally, a hand bell as a memento. After Martha’s death, Jefferson went to Paris on a diplomatic mission for the United States. He took his eldest daughter, Martha, and Sally’s brother James Hemings to be trained as a French chef. Sally Hemings went with his youngest daughters, Mary and Lucy, to the home of his late wife’s sister, Elizabeth Eppes, also Sally’s half-sister. When Lucy Jefferson died unexpectedly, Jefferson wanted his surviving daughter sent to him with an older woman who had been inoculated against smallpox to serve as a traveling companion. The Eppeses instead sent 14-year-old Sally Hemings. Hemings and Mary Jefferson arrived in London on June 26, 1787, on the Robert. Abigail Adams, whose husband, John, was ambassador to the Court of St. James, met the girls. Hemings stayed in London for about two weeks until Jefferson sent his maitre de hotel, Adrien Petit, to bring her and Mary to Paris.
Hemings, Sally (1773–1835) Hemings arrived in Paris on July 15, 1787. She took up residence at the Hotel de Langeac, the spectacular townhouse that Jefferson rented on the Champs Elysees, and Mary joined her sister at boarding school. Hemings had not been inoculated, so Jefferson engaged the very expensive services of the famed Dr. Sutton to perform the dangerous procedure. Sutton had been brought in to save the doomed King Louis XV of France when he was dying of smallpox. Hemings, as was required by law, was sent to the outskirts of Paris for a 40-day quarantine. Hemings returned to the Hotel de Langeac to rejoin her older brother, James, who was now Chef de Cuisine at the Hotel. James Hemings, a very talented man, had apprenticeships with several chefs while in Paris, including the chef of the Prince de Conde, who possessed perhaps the most celebrated kitchen in all of France. He spent some time at the Prince’s spectacular chateau, Chantilly. Evidently planning to stay in Paris, he hired a tutor to help perfect his grammar. His sister, Sally, may have been included in the lessons. Jefferson freed James Hemings a few years after they returned to Virginia. Both Sally and James Hemings drew full wages, although there were gaps in Sally’s pay schedule. Not until November 1788, did she begin to receive a regular monthly wage. She continued to do so until she departed Paris in September 1789. Hemings was femme de chambre to Jefferson and lady’s maid to Jefferson’s daughters when they were home on the weekends. She also accompanied Martha Jefferson to various society functions. During their stay in Paris, Hemings and Jefferson began what would be a 38-year liaison. Pregnant by Jefferson near the end of their time there, she refused at first to return to Virginia with him. She and her brother had learned that they had the right to freedom in France. In Virginia, children followed the status of their mothers. So any child she bore there would be enslaved. When Jefferson promised her a good life at Monticello, and that their children would be free when they became adults, she decided to go back with him. She gave birth shortly after her return, but that child soon died. Hemings and Jefferson had six more children, but only four lived to adulthood: William Beverley, Harriet, James Madison, and Thomas Eston. Hemings continued as Jefferson’s chambermaid, did light sewing for the family, and looked after her children. Hemings became the focus of national attention in 1802 when her relationship with Jefferson was exposed in the newspapers during Jefferson’s presidency. Jefferson never spoke publicly about the matter, and the scandal died down, but resurfaced periodically. Their two eldest children left Monticello to live as white people when they reached adulthood. Her two youngest were freed in Jefferson’s will, and she went to live with them in nearby Charlottesville. Most probably to avoid a recurrence of scandal, Hemings was only informally freed. Jefferson’s daughter gave Hemings “her time,” rather than petition the state legislature to allow her to remain in Virginia, a dispensation required by Virginia law for all formally freed enslaved people. Hemings died in 1835. See also: Code Noir (France); France, Blacks in; Free Soil Principle. Further Reading: Adams, William. The Paris Years of Thomas Jefferson. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1997; Gordon-Reed, Annette. The Hemings Family of Monticello: An American
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Henry, Thierry (1977–) Story of Slavery. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008; Gordon-Reed, Annette. Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy. Richmond: University of Virginia Press, 1997; Stanton, Lucia. Free Some Day: The African American Families of Monticello. Charlottesville: University of North Carolina Press, 2000.
Annette Gordon-Reed
Henry, Thierry (1977–) Thierry Daniel Henry, one of the best football players of his generation, overcame his humble beginnings to become a football (American soccer) star. He was born into a family of Antillean heritage in the rundown neighborhood of Les Ulis in Essonne (France). He began to play football as a child and quickly showed talents in kicking the ball. In 1990, after playing for a few local junior clubs, he was signed by AS Monaco, where he trained for the next four years. Henry made his professional debut with the club in 1994 and continued to play for Monaco until 1998. He then moved to the premier European clubs, first to Juventus of Turin (Italy) and later to Arsenal of north London in 1999. While playing in the English league, Henry emerged as one of the best football players of his generation and earned a reputation of a prolific striker. In eight years with Arsenal, he won two English league titles and three Football Association Challenge Cups and earned two English league’s player of the season awards. He was the top goal scorer in the Premiership for four years (2002, 2004, 2005, and 2006). In 2007, Henry transferred to the Spanish powerhouse FC Barcelona, where he continues his successful career. Selected to the French national team since the late 1990s, Henry played an important role in the French victories at the 1998 World Cup and the 2000 UEFA European Championship. He was a runner-up for FIFA World Player of the Year awards in 2003 and 2004, but won the PFA Player’s Player of the Year titles (2003–2004), which are voted on by the players themselves. Henry’s collection of awards also includes three Football Writer’s Association Footballer of the Year awards (2003, 2004 and 2006) and two European Golden Boot awards (2004, 2005). Outside the football arena, Henry is actively involved in social issues and is a member of the UNICEF-FIFA squad. He is well known for his work against racism, which he experienced first-hand on a number of occasions. In 2004, a TV crew caught Louis Aragonés, the coach of the Spanish national team, motivating his team by making offensive and racist comments about Henry. The incident caused an international scandal and led Henry to launch the “Stand Up Speak Up” campaign against racism. The campaign sold several million interlocked black and white wristbands symbolizing racial unity and used the funds to support initiatives combating racism in sports. In 2005, he won the prestigious Media Personality of the Year award at the Commission for Racial Equality’s Race in the Media Awards. Further Reading: Derbyshire, Ollie. Thierry Henry: The Biography. London: John Blake, 2005.
Alexander Mikaberidze
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Heraldry, Blacks in European Blacks have appeared in European heraldic insignia for more than 700 years. The form in which they are represented has varied, although a view of a head in profile has been the most common. Nearly all parts of Western Europe have made use of this motif. In the professional jargon of heraldry, the terms “Moor” and sometimes “blackamoor” signify a black African. The intended meanings of these emblems are apparently quite varied, and in many cases obscure. European heraldry began in the eleventh and twelfth centuries as the practice of assigning personal and family emblems to members of the feudal nobility. Cities, regions, and states also adopt this imagery. Identifiably black African heads and bodies are not among the first sets of heraldic devices, but in the later 1200s, these motifs start to appear. Noble families in south Germany use heads of blacks in the most important armorial zone of the shield and also above in the crest (atop a helmet) from 1263. By 1316, the coat of arms of the important bishopric of Freising in Bavaria shows a black wearing a red crown—a device now incorporated in the arms of the current pope, the German Benedict XVI. Also among the earliest examples (1308 and later) are seals of the kingdom of Aragon (encompassing Eastern Spain and several Mediterranean islands), which gave rise to later emblems on depictions of the flags of Sardinia and Corsica. The German families, the see of Freising, and the kingdom of Aragon all had links stretching back to the Hohenstaufen dynasty, which would mean that the emblems had a positive political association. The use of the device by the Carrara family in Padua during the fourteenth century may have had a similar meaning. During the 1300s, however, artists throughout Europe also used the heraldic image of black as a symbol of evil, mostly in conjunction with hostile representations of Islam. In these works, the device of the black appears on the banners or armor of fictional, legendary, or historical characters (such as Muslim leader Saladin who fought against Christians in the Crusades) and are not connected with Christian Europeans. The most common format in all these early examples of the motif is a profile of a head, apparently male, which is both dark in color and shows tightly curled hair; a white headband (or torse) is often worn. By 1370–1395, another version of the heraldic black appears, in connection with the Three Magi who traditionally visited Jesus in Bethlehem. At first, this is a purely heraldic image, with King Balthasar assigned a banner of a black “herald” (that is, a figure in turn holding a banner) and the head of a black in the crest. This and other Magian arms are inserted into German images of the Adoration of the Magi from 1440 onward, although the narrative images they accompany do not always contain a black Magus. Thus by 1500, several different connotations could be intended by heraldic depictions of blacks. The Nuremberg artist Albrecht Dürer depicted the device in several portraits of local patricians (including the Tucher family), and a winged black appeared in the crest of the arms of Dürer’s own family, as can be seen in the artist’s 1524 woodcut of his personal coat of arms. Other conspicuous examples of the heraldic device in the Renaissance can be found in relief sculptures and painted majolica (ceramics) commissioned by the Pucci family of Tuscany. Although many German, Netherlander,
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Hill, Richard (1901–1996) French, and Italian instances of the arms can be explained by dynastic allegiances or puns on family names (such as Mohrungen, whose first syllable is a German term for black African), there are also many cases where the derivation or meaning of the device is not clear. Assumptions that the device regularly signifies a crusader ancestor who triumphed over Muslims, black or white, are not necessarily persuasive. In the 1560s, however, England’s Queen Elizabeth I’s favorite admiral, Sir John Hawkins, was awarded arms with a chained black that signified his engagement in the West African slave trade. Although initially more common in the shield or the crest, heraldic blacks also appear as supporters, figures at the side holding the shield upright. Women appear infrequently in this genre, but there is an excellent example from 1503 in a piece of stained glass with the arms of the Swiss Reinach family. In Britain, in the eighteenth, nineteenth, and early twentieth centuries, newly created aristocrats with backgrounds in colonial ventures or administration sometimes adopted black figures as part of their heraldic insignia. Modern European advertising has also made use of heraldic blacks as logos, as is the case with Nuremberg’s Tucher brewery. See also: Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily; Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the; Magi, Representation of the; Moor’s Head Symbol. Further Reading: Devisse, Jean, and Michel Mollat. The Image of the Black in Western Art. vol. II, part II. New York: Morrow, 1979; Kaplan, Paul H. D. The Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985.
Paul H. D. Kaplan
Hill, Richard (1901–1996) Richard Leslie Hill was an English scholar and one of the pioneers in the study of the modern Sudan in Africa. He was born in 1901 in Ramsbury, Wiltshire, England. When Hill was 12 years old, his family moved to New Zealand, where he attended Auckland Grammar School. He later returned to England and entered St. Augustine’s College, Canterbury, planning to become an Anglican Benedictine monk. He left, however, going to Oxford University to complete his honors thesis, published in 1928 as Toryism and the People. In 1927, Hill went to the Sudan to work on the Sudan railways, remaining there until 1945. During his time there, Hill wrote a number of historical accounts of the railways. When Hill retired from the railways in 1945, he became senior lecturer in history at University College, Khartoum (now the University of Khartoum). In 1949, he moved to Durham University in the north of England, where he became a lecturer in near eastern history. Eight years later, Hill helped establish the Sudan Archive at Durham, having collected on his own initiative vast amounts of primary information on the Sudan as well as papers of colonial officials. These ranged from the papers of Sir Reginald Wingate, governor-general of the Sudan from 1899 until 1916, to those of junior inspectors and provincial governors. During his years at Durham and at Oxford, Hill wrote a large number of newspaper, magazine, and journal articles (serving as a regular contributor to railway magazines),
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the as well as a number of books. His first book on the Sudan was A Bibliography of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1939). His later books include A Biographical Dictionary of the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1951); Egypt in the Sudan (1963); Sudan Transport: A History of Railway, Marine and River Services in the Republic of the Sudan (1965); and On the Frontiers of Islam: Two Manuscripts concerning the Sudan under Turco-Egyptian Rule 1822–1845 (1970). One of Hill’s last major research interests was the Sudanese who went to Mexico to serve in the forces of the French-supported Emperor Maximilian from 1863 to 1867. Hill’s published account of his research, An African Corps d’elite, describes the experiences that the African unit experienced fighting in a relatively inhospitable countryside on behalf of a government imposed on the Mexicans by the French government. Throughout his time at Durham, Hill had a number of visiting professorships to California, British Columbia, and Nigeria before retiring to Oxford in 1966. In retirement, he lived with his wife Juliana and completed some of his work on the Sudan until his death in 1996. See also: Colonies in Africa, British; French Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Daly, M. W., ed. Modernization in the Sudan: Essays in Honor of Richard Hill. New York: Lilian Barber, 1985; Warburg, Gabriel. “Richard Hill: 1901–1996.” Middle Eastern Studies 33:1 (1997): 193–195.
Justin Corfield
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the Black Africans play a surprising and recurring role in the imagery of the Holy Roman Empire, a political entity derived from the bulk of the empire founded by Charlemagne in 800. The Holy Roman Empire, based in modern Germany, but with important Italian territories, was enduring but of fluctuating power and influence. At several key moments, especially in the 1200s and 1300s, the representation of black Africans expressed the desire of particular emperors to extend their sovereignty well beyond the borders of Europe. The Holy Roman Empire did not develop a particular affiliation with black Africans until the late twelfth century. The Empire’s German heartland had little contact with blacks or Africa until Henry VI of Hohenstaufen (emperor 1191–1197) acquired the island of Sicily by marrying the Norman heiress, Constance. There were evidently a number of dark-skinned people in the Sicilian Muslim population, and Henry apparently used black musicians to celebrate his triumph in Palermo in 1194. His son, Frederick II (1194–1250), spent part of his youth in Sicily and remained attached to his lands in Southern Italy, although they were not technically part of the Holy Roman Empire. His foundation of a settlement of exiled Sicilian Muslims at Lucera in Apulia in the 1220s led to the presence of blacks in his imperial entourage, including the Chamberlain Johannes Maurus. Frederick also launched a brief crusade to the Holy Land in 1228–1229, where he may have encountered Ethiopian Christian monks. In the 1230s, blacks traveled with him to Germany, and images of black Africans began to appear in art commissioned by Frederick and his allies and subordinates.
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Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the The most important example is a wall painting in a tower adjoining the monastery of S. Zeno in Verona, Italy, where Frederick is known to have lodged while traveling between Italy and Germany. The wall painting shows a ruler (probably Frederick) accepting the homage of his subjects or tributaries, a very diverse group that includes a prominent subset of four black Africans. Around the same time (1240–1250), the first image of St. Maurice as a black African was created and installed in Magdeburg Cathedral in the German province of Saxony, a city and region closely associated with Frederick. There are also several important images from Apulia. After Frederick’s death, the blacks in the Hohenstaufen entourage were also alluded to in a relief sculpture of the Adoration of the Magi, on a pulpit made by Nicola Pisano for Siena Cathedral (1265–1268). The two black camel-riders in this work are only servants to the Magi, but even this was a novelty at the time. The presence of blacks in Imperial imagery was renewed during the reign of Charles IV of Luxembourg (ruled 1348–1375), whose principal capital was Prague. Charles is said to have tried to establish contact with the Christian ruler of Ethiopia, then known by the title of Prester John. A range of works produced under imperial auspices represent black figures in a generally positive light. The figure of St. Maurice at Charles’s castle of Karlštejn, outside Prague, is only the second surviving image of this saint as a black African and constitutes an explicit revival of Hohenstaufen imagery. The Maurice at Karlštejn, like the black figures at S. Zeno in Verona, is an example of an imperial claim to universal rule; the distinctive presence of Africans denotes the potentially global reach of Christian imperial authority. Although much damaged and restored, a fragmentary wall painting in the Emmaus Monastery in Prague from about 1370 may have been the first monumental image of a black Magus. This story was soon to become the most important expression of Christian universalism, and the first extended textual source for a black African Magus was written in 1375 by John of Hildesheim, who lived in Saxony, also within the empire and not far from Prague. In the 1400s and early 1500s, images of the black Maurice are almost entirely confined to German imperial territories, and images of the black Magus are concentrated there as well. Direct imperial artistic patronage languished for much of the 1400s, although the Habsburg emperor Frederick III (ruled 1452–1493) did promote the ideology of universal rulership with his “AEIOU” acronym (“The entire earth is subject to Austria”). In 1512–1515, Maximilian I of Habsburg commissioned an illuminated prayer book and a woodcut depiction of imperial triumph in which distant, non-European lands played a conspicuous part. Although the woodcut (by Hans Burgkmair) included images of West African blacks, the prayer book instead used an Amerindian to embody the far-flung parts of the world. Maximilian’s successor, Charles V of Habsburg, was the first emperor who could claim substantial contact with sub-Saharan Africa, but his imperial iconography focused on the peoples of the North African coast and treated them mostly as enemies to be subjugated. See also: Art, Blacks as Represented in European; Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily; Germany, Blacks in; Heraldry, Blacks in European; Italy, Blacks in; Magi, Representations of the; Maurice, Saint; Moor’s Head Symbol; Parzival, Feirefiz in.
Horton, James (1835–1883) Further Reading: Devisse, Jean, and Michel Mollat, with Jean-Marie Courtès. The Image of the Black in Western Art. vol. II, parts I–II. New York: Morrow, 1979; Kaplan, Paul. “Black Africans in Hohenstaufen Iconography.” Gesta 26 (1987): 29–36.
Paul H. D. Kaplan
Horton, James (1835–1883) James Africanus Beale Horton was the first black medical doctor who received diplomas from King’s College, London, and Edinburgh University. A representative of the educated Creole elite, he was a surgeon and regular officer of the British Army with the rank of lieutenant-colonel, and the author of seven books and numerous articles on tropical medicine, colonial policy, African history, and politics. He is noted today as an early proponent of African nationalism. Horton was born in Gloucester village near Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone. His father was a freed Ibo slave from present-day Nigeria who was landed from a captured ship by a British warship enforcing the abolition of the slave trade. In the village elementary school, he was cited as talented by the Reverend Beale, the source from which Horton took his middle name. Beale helped Horton to continue studies at the Church Missionary Society Grammar School, which offered a classical education in English, Latin, Greek, mathematics, geography, history, astronomy, music, and Bible studies. From 1851, Horton attended the Fourah Bay Institution of Freetown, the predecessor of the University of Sierra Leone. In the end, however, he was not ordained a minister. Instead, along with two other African students, he was taken to London on a British War Office scholarship to be trained as a medical doctor for the military garrisons on the West Coast of Africa. Little is known about Horton’s five years in Britain except that he won several academic prizes, and that, while there, he adopted his second middle name, Africanus, in reference to the medieval scholar Leo Africanus. After graduating with an MRCS degree from King’s College in 1858 and an MD from Edinburgh University in 1859, he was commissioned as staff assistant surgeon. Horton served 20 years in army posts on the stretch of West African coastline from the Gambia River to the town of Lagos. Next to his military duties, Horton found time for research and correspondence with scientific and philanthropic societies in London and Paris. Among his resulting publications are the influential book West African Countries and Peoples (1868) and several medical works, including the Physical and Medical Climate and Meteorology of the West Coast of Africa (1867). Horton believed in the positive British influence on African advancement, while insisting on the capabilities of the Africans against contrary racist theories, and instigating authorities for the establishment of modern education for Africans including a West African University. He believed this to be a precondition of self-government that would launch an African way of modernization. Upon the 1865 report of a Select Committee of the British House of Commons that called for the gradual transfer of responsibilities and eventual withdrawal from African colonies, Horton promptly proposed the establishment of West African nation states and prescribed political systems and economic
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Howells, Rosalind (1931–) frameworks based on an analysis of local historical and cultural patterns—hence his Republic of Accra, Kingdom of Fantee, or Empire of the Eboes. Yet Horton did not stop at theorizing, but applied for the post of governor of the Gold Coast in 1872, was founder of a Commercial Bank of West Africa with a view to support local enterprise, and left his estate for the establishment of a school in Sierra Leone. He also took active roles in the two major political experiments of his times: the Fante Confederacy on the Gold Coast (1868–1871) and the United Egba Board of Management in Agbeokuta (1865). Horton’s works and activities enjoyed wide contemporary attention in the context of the abolitionist debates of the American Civil War era on the nature and condition of black people, and also the dawning of European New Imperialism with its questions of profitability and objectives of African colonization. Later, thinkers of PanAfricanism, leaders of African independence movements in the1950s and 1960s, still found Horton’s legacy inspiring, and scholars of African studies value his works as a unique resource of the West African past from an African perspective. Horton continues to be honored with annual memorial lectures held alternately at Edinburgh University and the University of Sierra Leone. See also: Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks; Colonies in Africa, British. Further Reading: Fyfe, Christopher. Africanus Horton, 1835–1883: West African Scientist and Patriot. New York: Oxford University Press, 1972; Horton, J.B.A. West African Countries and Peoples. Reprint ed. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 1969.
Gábor Berczeli
Howells, Rosalind (1931–) Rosalind Patricia-Anne Howells, born January 10, 1931, is a Labour Member of the House of Lords. Her forefathers, who had 900 years of slavery behind them, came from Africa as slaves to Granada. She was educated in St. Joseph’s Convent, South West London College, and finally, City College at Washington, D.C. Howells has remained in the forefront for fair play in matters of race relations. She has occupied many important positions in her long career. She was a community and equal opportunities worker. She proved her capability as director of the Greenwich Racial Equality. Howells has been chairperson of the Lewisham Racial Equality Council since 1994. She is also a trustee of the Stephen Lawrence Charitable Trust. She was vice chairperson of London Voluntary Services Council and has worked with the Greater London Action in Race Equality and Carnival Liaison Committee. She became the first woman member of the Court of Governors of the University of Greenwich. Another achievement in her career was that she became the first black female of the Greater London Council’s (GLC) Training Board. The GLC was the top administrative organization for Greater London between 1965 and 1986. The career of Howells reached its pinnacle on July 21, 1999, when she became a life peer with the title of Baroness Howells of St. Davids. She was decorated with the Order of the British Empire in May 2006. From the floor of the House of Lords, she argues for the social and economic advancement of the black Britons.
Hügel-Marshall, Ika (1947–) Howells is vocal about the issue of slavery. She recognizes the contribution of black slaves to the development of world civilization. She has argued that an apology is not enough for mitigating the past injustice done to slaves. Howells has also advocated a museum in London highlighting the contribution of African people. She compares the horror, brutality, and injustice of the slave trade with the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis. By associating herself with various organizations and institutions, Howells has tried her best to improve the lot of black Britons. There is no doubt that the efforts of black British women like Howells, Valerie Amos, Patricia Scotland, and others have not gone in vain. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984; Hiro, Dilip. Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain. Rev. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1991.
Patit Paban Mishra
Hügel-Marshall, Ika (1947–) Ika Hügel-Marshall is an Afro-German educator, artist, and author whose work focuses on raising social awareness about the reality and harmful consequences of racism in Germany. Her best known contribution to this topic is her 1996 autobiography Invisible Woman, which records her childhood encounters with racism, her later involvement with the Afro-German identity movement, and her gradual transformation from an unhappy, mistreated child into a confident and engaged adult. In many ways, Hügel-Marshall’s life is paradigmatic for the black German experience of the postwar generation. As the child of a white German woman and an African American soldier who returned to the United States before her birth, her life story reflects the mixed ancestry and longing for the absent father that is common among black Germans. Also common was her experience of not being allowed to grow up with her German family. Instead, she was placed in a Catholic home for children with special needs when she was seven years old. There, she suffered physical and emotional abuse, including a ritual of exorcism meant to eradicate the parental sin of miscegenation. Despite the psychological damage that growing up in the home caused HügelMarshall, her career path shows determination and strength of character. She finished basic training in social work in 1964, completed the state examinations in education in 1970, and obtained an advanced university degree in social pedagogy in 1973. From 1970 to 1982, she worked as a supervisor in a children’s home. During this time, she was married to a white German for six years. By the early 1980s, Hügel-Marshall had become an active participant in the West German women’s movement, which provided her with a political framework for recognizing sexism, racism, and class exploitation as interconnected forms of social domination. She became disillusioned with the movement, however, when her white “sisters” failed to acknowledge the importance of fighting racism in Germany. Hügel-
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Hügel-Marshall, Ika (1947–) Marshall first came into contact with other Afro-Germans in Frankfurt in 1986, and a year later she met the African American poet Audre Lorde and her German publisher, Dagmar Schultz. Lorde, who inspired the Afro-German identity movement more than any other international figure, provided Hügel-Marshall with the courage to speak out against racism, and Schultz became her life partner. Hügel-Marshall’s good fortune continued when she was able to meet her father in Chicago in 1993. As a result of her positive interactions with him and his family, she made peace with her past and was proud of her hybrid identity. Hügel-Marshall has authored numerous articles in addition to her autobiography. She has also provided counseling to those confronted with racism or other social challenges and has taught courses on diversity at educational institutions in Berlin. Her interest in art, which began as a means of escape from the misery of living in the children’s home, is expressed primarily through wood sculptures and brightly colored abstract drawings. See also: Afro-Germans; Ayim, May; Besatzungskinder; Germany, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European. Further Reading: Campt, Tina. “Reading the Black German Experience: An Introduction.” Callaloo 26.2 (2003): 288–294; Hügel-Marshall, Ika. Invisible Woman: Growing up Black in Germany. trans. Elizabeth Gaffney. New York: Continuum, 2001; Janson, Deborah. “The Subject in Black and White: Afro-German Identity Formation in Ika Hügel-Marshall’s Autobiography Daheim unterwegs: Ein deutsches Leben.” Women in German Yearbook 21 (2005): 62–84.
Deborah Janson
I Immigration to Europe, Illegal African The process of globalization, increased human mobility, and European integration in the post–World War II era has resulted in an increase in European immigration, especially illegal immigration, which has raised many significant political, economic, and health issues for Europe. Some of the primary routes of illegal immigration to Europe are from Africa to Spain via the Strait of Gibraltar or off the Canary Islands, from Turkey to Greece via the Aegean Sea, and from Africa to southern Italy. Once in Europe, these immigrants often make their way to other European countries including France, Switzerland, Belgium, and Germany. Many of these immigrants face racism and prejudice as well as poverty. In many European countries, immigrants are linked frequently with negative phenomena, including terrorism, crime, violence, unemployment, and health problems. As many of these immigrants, which mostly come from West Asia and Africa, settle in Europe in increasing numbers, conceptions of what constitutes European culture and values are undergoing a fundamental reevaluation. Many illegal African immigrants risk dangerous journeys to enter Europe. Almost half of would-be illegal immigrants die in the arduous and risky process that includes traveling across Africa and attempting to cross open ocean in rickety, unsafe boats. In many African countries, war and turmoil, as well as poor economic conditions, encourage these individuals to take such chances. In the United Nations’ human development report for 2005, 24 of the poorest 25 countries in the world were located in sub-Saharan Africa. Immigrants working in Europe often send money back to their families in Africa; some even return after accumulating money to marry and build homes. Africans continue to attempt to enter Europe illegally. In 2006, for example, tens of thousands of illegal African immigrants reached the Canary Islands. Because the European Union has worked to remove border restrictions among its members, once immigrants reach Spain (or any other port of entry in Europe), they have open access
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Immigration to Europe, Illegal African to the continent. The number of illegal African immigrants was drastically reduced in 2007 as a result of increased surveillance of the coastline by African and European enforcement agencies. European and African governments are working to increase coordinated efforts to prevent illegal immigration to Europe. The European Union has become stricter in regard to deporting illegal immigrants back to Africa. African countries, in response, have argued that Europe needs to provide them with aid to address the poor economic conditions that cause the conditions prompting Africans to leave. It is estimated that perhaps 10 million illegal Africans currently reside in Europe, although this number could be much higher. Such immigrants, as they are not medically examined, can bring health risks to Europe, and this has been a real issue of concern among European authorities. The immigrant population in Europe (both legal and illegal), however, has largely been responsible for stimulating the European economy by creating new jobs and filling those that Europeans do not wish to do themselves. In some European countries, foreigners make up the bulk of the labor force. As the birthrates in Europe continue to decrease, immigrants are particularly important to maintain the European population and economy. In 2005, Spain provided amnesties for illegal immigrants, enabling almost 800,000 people to receive temporary legal residence in Europe. Many of the West Asian and African immigrants to Europe are Muslim, and prejudice against them increased in the wake of several terrorist attacks perpetrated by radical Islamic groups, including an attack on New York City in September 2001, an attack on Madrid in 2004, and an attack on London in 2005. As a result, these immigrants are often victims of violence and prejudice and forced to live in segregated (and often poor) communities. In 2005, France, which has one of the largest Muslim populations in Europe, passed a controversial decision to prohibit the wearing of religious symbols to forbid Muslim girls from wearing headscarves in school. Other European countries have passed laws meant to curtail the rights of Muslims within their societies. Many African immigrants create isolated cultural communities reminiscent of their places of origin in major European cities, often operating outdoor markets (such as the Marché Dejean in Paris). African immigrants have also brought with them cultural practices from their countries of places that pose health risks, such as female genital mutilation (or female circumcision), which is of concern to European authorities. See also: African Diaspora; Britain, Blacks in; Central Europe, Blacks in; France, Blacks in; Genital Multilation in Europe, Female; Germany, Blacks in; Ireland, Blacks in; Italy, Blacks in; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Portugal, Blacks in; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and; Race Riots in Europe; Russia and Eastern Europe, Blacks in; Scandinavia, Blacks in; Spain, Blacks in; Television, Blacks in European; World War II, Black Participation in; Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Alexseev, Mikhail. Immigration Phobia and the Security Dilemma: Russia, Europe, and the United States. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Al-Shahi, Ahmed. Middle East and North African Immigrants in Europe: Current Impact, Local and Native Responses. London: Routledge, 2005; Baldwin-Edwards, Martin, and Joaquin Arango, eds. Immigrants and the Informal Economy in Southern Europe. London: Frank Cass, 1999; Bommes, Michael, and Andrew Geddes, eds. Immigration and Welfare: Challenging the Borders of the Welfare State. London: Routledge, 2000; Brinker-Gabler, Gisela, and Sidonie Smith, eds. Writing
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD) New Identities: Gender, Nation, and Immigration in Contemporary Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1996; Düvell, Franck. Illegal Immigration in Europe: Beyond Control? New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006; Geddes, Andrew. Immigration and European Integration: Towards Fortress Europe? Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2000; Hollifield, James F. Immigrants, Markets, and States: The Political Economy of Postwar Europe. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1992; Laqueur, Walter. The Last Days of Europe: Epitaph for an Old Continent. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2007; Koopmans, Ruud, et al. Contested Citizenship: Immigration and Cultural Diversity in Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005; Mendoza, Cristobal. Labour Immigration in Southern Europe: African Employment in Iberian Labour Markets. Aldershot: Ashgate, 2003; Messina, Anthony. West European Immigration and Immigrant Policy in the New Century. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002; Parsons, Craig, and Timothy Smeeding, eds. Immigration and the Transformation of Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Van der Leun, Joanne. Looking for Loopholes: Processes of Incorporation of Illegal Immigrants in the Netherlands. Amsterdam: Amsterdam University Press, 2003; Yoshida, Chisato, and Alan Woodland. The Economics of Illegal Immigration. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005; Zimmermann, Klaus, Holger Bonin, Rene Fahr, and Holger Hinte. Immigration Policy and the Labor Market: The German Experience and Lessons for Europe. Berlin: Springer, 2007.
Eric Martone
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD) In November 1985, in Wiesbaden of the former West Germany, a group of AfroGerman women and men met for the first time and planned to form a social movement. What became the Initiative Schwarze in Deutschland (Initiative of Blacks in Germany, ISD) was founded the next year as a social and civil rights organization. A sister organization, Afro-German Women (ADEFRA), was created in the same year with many members who are active in both organizations. Both movements were inspired by African American poet Audre Lorde’s students, who had been taking her courses in Berlin in 1985 and shortly thereafter, May Opitz (May Ayim), Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz edited the groundbreaking book, Farbe bekennen:Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, 1986). Among the prominent founders of the ISD was Eleonore Wiedenroth-Coulibaly, who continues to be in the organizational leadership. She currently works for the African Courier, speaks at news conferences, and offers social and political recommendations to the European community. During the 1980s, the ISD endeavored to unite all Germans of African descent, and even before the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, the ISD sought solidarity with black Germans in the East. Since German unification in 1990, the ISD also includes members from the former East Germany and is called the Initiative Schwarze in Deutschland to recognize the new immigration of Africans to Germany. The ISD sponsors a yearly conference with informal discussions, workshops, and potential for networking. As a social movement aimed at reducing marginalization and cultural exclusion, the ISD also takes an interest in issues of citizenship and immigration. Black Germans can turn to the ISD for assistance with official papers, education and professional development, and issues of discrimination.
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Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning The annual conference, the Bundestreffen, offers a wide-ranging program for men and women, youth and adults, and there are workshops on literature, film and culture, sports, dance, and music events. During the year, the ISD also sponsors events and smaller regional meetings at ISD branches in Berlin, Hamburg, Geisen, Hannover, Mannheim, Munich, Nuremberg, Nordrhein-Westfalen, and the Rhein-Main-Region. There are family camp and youth retreats, the SANKOFA-Friedendorf and “Youngstars” camps, publications, and a series of networks, including CyberNomads, the Black Media Network, and several Black Media Congresses held in Berlin. The ISD also participates in public demonstrations wherever questions of race and Germany arise: in the 1992 Rostock attacks on immigrants, in the Berlin demonstrations against neo-Nazi violence in 2000, and in 2005 against the Augsburg Zoo’s misguided concept of presenting an “African Village” with Africans alongside the animal exhibits. Eleonore Wiedenroth-Coulibaly of the ISD argued against the idea that there was even a singular type of African village and asserted that the exhibit presented Africans in the old colonial tradition. The mission of the ISD is to raise public consciousness about the lives of black Germans and to promote greater acceptance and understanding. See also: Afro-Germans; Black History Month; Colonies in Africa, German; Germany, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European. Further Reading: Blackshire-Belay, Carol, ed. The African-German Experience: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996; Gilman, Sander. On Blackness Without Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982; Grimm, Reinhold, and Jost Hermand, eds. Blacks and German Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986; Mazon, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingrover, eds. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005; Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991; Poikane-Daumke, Aija. African Diasporas: AfroGerman Literature in the Context of the African-American Experience. London: Lit Verlag, 2007.
Ruth Starkman
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning Certain laws banning “interracial” relationships in Europe are infamous. Most notably, the 1935 Nuremberg laws forbidding sexual relations between Aryans and Jews put into place some of the gruesome legal discriminations that would lead to the Holocaust. Although few historians have looked systematically at other bans on interracial liaisons or marriages, and much of the history of miscegenation law in Europe remains to be written, restrictions on interracial marriage can be grouped into two major waves. The first set was instituted primarily in the empires claimed by early modern Europe, but also episodically in the Old World itself. These were often tied closely to slavery, and the consequent desire to distinguish free and enslaved populations; some measures also concerned relations between European settlers and Amerindians. A second wave followed in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries. These later restrictions and bans were often associated with new imperialism (including the “Scramble for Africa”), scientific or pseudo-scientific definitions of race, and the rise of new, fundamentally racist ideologies, particularly fascism and Nazism.
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning Proscriptions against sexual union between French men and black and Amerindian women in Canada and Louisiana appeared beginning in the late seventeenth century. The Code Noir of 1685, the law code that regulated slavery and race relations in the French empire, actually implicitly encouraged interracial marriages in the Caribbean, especially those between white men and women of color, by fining free men who refused to marry the enslaved mothers of their children. The relevant articles were often circumvented, or superseded by later regulations, however, like a decree that forbade marriage between blacks and whites in Guadeloupe beginning in 1711. In perhaps the most well-known case, French Louisiana officially barred both marriage and concubinage between whites and blacks in 1724, although there were periodic exceptions. By the mid-eighteenth century, racial lines began to harden in mainland France, as well as in French colonies. A royal decree from April 1778 explicitly barred racially mixed marriage in France, although it is unclear how widely it was actually applied. The decree was overturned with the French Revolution of 1789. The law of September 1791 declared that all men in metropolitan France were free, regardless of their color; it also granted them full citizenship rights, provided they met the other qualifications of the constitution. This effectively ended regulations against interracial marriage in the metropole, or “mother country.” In a dramatic historic gesture, the National Convention abolished slavery throughout France’s colonial empire on February 4, 1794. Among its other consequences, general emancipation lifted barriers on mixed marriages in the colonies; however, neither the freedom to marry across color lines nor general emancipation lasted. In 1802, Napoleon Bonaparte restored slavery in the French Empire. His government also reinstated Old Regime laws forbidding blacks and gens de couleur to enter into France without authorization and, in 1803, forbade marriages between blacks and whites in metropolitan France. In a partial break with older laws, the decree was applied only to those deemed to be black and not those of biracial descent; it was quietly lifted in 1819. From the early days of its empire in the New World, the Spanish Crown tried to prevent interracial marriages, especially between whites and blacks, a policy motivated both by racial prejudice and the dynamics of slavery. Periodic marriages nonetheless took place, as did less legally sanctioned sexual relations; Latin America became a complicated mixture of those of Spanish, Amerindian, and African ancestry. In 1778, the same year as the Old Regime ban on interracial marriages in France, the Spanish crown issued a law that is probably the most influential of its measures on marriage in its colonial empire. Known as the Royal Pragmatic, it gave parents the right to block their children’s marriages to “unequal partners.” It sanctioned opposition to only one kind of “inequality,” that arising from interracial unions. High colonial courts, however, often considered a wealthy biracial family the equal of a wealthy Spanish family, and made it clear that they were most concerned with racial differences when they were tied to economic ones. In the British Empire, most North American colonies adopted laws that discouraged sexual relations between whites and blacks by the early eighteenth century. Virginia was the first to do so; in 1662, it issued laws against fornication and doubled the penalty if either party was of African descent; 30 years later, it completely banned interracial marriage. Colonists in the British Caribbean periodically proposed similar bans.
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For example, officials considered prohibiting interracial marriage in Jamaica in the early nineteenth century. In contrast to the French Napoleonic ban, which followed the return of slavery, Jamaican proposals surfaced especially after the abolition of the slave trade in 1807, in part because the free population of people of color had grown substantially. Such proposed bans, however, never became law. They also did not connect as directly to metropolitan policies as in France; early modern Britain and Spain do not appear to have instituted measures against interracial marriage within the “mother country.” New policies and laws began to emerge throughout Europe and in the new colonial empires that European powers claimed in the later nineteenth century. For much of the later nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, however, laws against interracial marriages were often more oppressive in the United States than in Europe. Indeed, the very term miscegenation was coined by two antiabolitionist journalists in 1864, during the American Civil War (1861–1865). American laws sometimes inspired Euro“Noon,” part of a series, Times of the Day, by William pean measures, particularly attempts to outlaw Hogarth. Courtesy of the Library of Congress. interracial marriage in African colonies. German colonial regimes banned interracial marriage in 1904 in Namibia, in 1906 in German East Africa, and in 1912 in Samoa. Colonial officials played on contemporary concerns about eugenics, social Darwinism, and European control in Africa, but they also made it clear that they were influenced by American models. The 1912 decree also reveals the arbitrary nature of these German bans, as it established that marriages consecrated before the new law were legitimate and children of such unions were legally “white.” In contrast, marriages after the ordinance were illegitimate, and any children from these unions were deemed black. When the metropolitan German legislature discussed these laws, the majority of legislators rejected what they saw as discrimination and usurpation of authority by colonial governments. Nonetheless, the fears of racial “dilution” of the German nation and white race that motivated colonial policies struck a chord in a period increasingly concerned with eugenics. Metropolitan German policies became more explicitly racist after World War I (1914–1918), when propagandists campaigned against the presence of black soldiers in territories occupied by the French and denounced the offspring of these soldiers and German women as the “Rhineland Bastards,” or Rhineland Blacks.
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning When the Nazis seized power in 1933, they instituted a series of measures against what they saw as dangerous racial mixing. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws forbade sexual relations and marriage between “Jews” and “Aryans” to protect “German Blood and German Honor.” Such measures paved the way for the increasingly harsh legislation and policies that would lead to the Holocaust. In Italy, Mussolini’s government instituted anti-Jewish laws in 1938, modeled on the Nuremberg laws, explicitly prohibiting “marriages between Italians and Italians belonging to the Semitic race and other non-Aryan races.” The fascist regime also banned interracial marriages in the Italian colonial empire. Under a 1937 law, any Italian citizen caught in an intimate relationship with a native woman in Italian East Africa could be imprisoned for up to five years; in 1938, marriage between citizens and colonial subjects was forbidden. In 1940, a final decree both revealed the extent to which preceding laws failed in forbidding sexual relations, if not marriage, and tried to reinforce these laws by forbidding Italian fathers from legitimizing their “meticci,” or biracial children. Other countries allied with Nazi Germany, or directly under Nazi rule, implemented similarly restrictive measures. If the Third Reich was an extreme of racial prejudice, the democracies of Europe often shared the ideas that the nation needed racially sound progeny and that the state should intervene in private life to create them. These ideas were particularly common in the interwar period, although their implementation in antimiscegenation laws was limited. In Britain, the demobilization of colonial soldiers after World War I and nonwhite immigration particularly fed fears of miscegenation, but the government did not actually outlaw interracial marriages. In the same period, the French government did prohibit marriages between French women and Chinese men, some of whom had been brought to France to meet labor shortages during World War I. It does not, however, seem to have otherwise instituted a formal bans on interracial marriage. There were no celebrated court cases in Europe to compare with the 1967 Loving v. Virginia case, in which the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled that antimiscegenation laws were unconstitutional. Instead, the horrors of World War II (1939–1945) generally discredited race-based legal discrimination throughout Europe. Few, if any, postwar European governments endorsed antimiscegenation laws, even if prejudice against interracial unions did not disappear. Decolonization from the late 1940s through the 1970s also ended direct European attempts to regulate racial and marriage relations within its empires, although certain former colonies, most infamously South Africa, continued with their own discriminatory bans. New waves of immigration, from the 1960s onward, have also brought an increasingly large population of citizens of nonwhite ancestry into Europe. This has led both to new forms of discrimination, although not to new bans on interracial marriage, and to new forms of hybridity and racially mixed identities. See also: Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Gobineau on Races and Slavery; Nazis and
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Ireland, Blacks in Blacks in Europe; New Imperialism; Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and; Scientific Racism; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, French; Slave Trade, Italian; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Aubert, Guillaume. “ ‘The Blood of France’: Race and Purity of Blood in the French Atlantic World.” William and Mary Quarterly 61:3 (2004): 439–478; Bland, Lucy. “White Women and Men of Colour: Miscegenation Fears in Britain after the Great War.” Gender and History 17:1 (2005): 29–61; Fredrickson, George. “Mulattoes and Métis: Attitudes Toward Miscegenation in the United States and France since the Seventeenth Century.” International Social Science Journal 57:1 (2005): 103–112; MacMaster, Neil. Racism in Europe, 1870–2000. Hampshire, England: Palgrave, 2001; Spear, Jennifer. “Colonial Intimacies: Legislating Sex in French Louisiana.” William and Mary Quarterly 60:1 (2003): 75–98; Stoler, Ann Laura. Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002; Szobar, Patricia. “Telling Sexual Stories in the Nazi Courts of Law: Race Defilement in Germany, 1933 to 1945.” Journal of the History of Sexuality 11:1–2 (2002): 131–163; White, Owen. “Miscegenation and the Popular Imagination.” In Promoting the Colonial Idea: Propaganda and Visions of Empire in France. eds. Tony Chafer and Amanda Sackur. New York: Palgrave, 2002, pp. 133–142; Wildenthal, Lora. “Race, Gender and Citizenship in the German Colonial Empire.” In Tensions of Empire: Colonial Cultures in a Bourgeois World. eds. Frederick Cooper and Ann Laura Stoler. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1997, pp. 263–283.
Jennifer Heuer
Ireland, Blacks in The relationship between Ireland and Africans is rooted in the former’s status as a British colony up through the 1920s. It has been asserted that Ireland had been a “Diaspora space” for centuries, dating the presence of blacks in Ireland to the Viking invaders that brought black slaves with them to work the fields of their settlements in Dublin. In the centuries of British control, blacks inhabited Ireland largely as agricultural laborers, both free and slave, and in some instances as entertainers. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Ireland became a focal point for the abolition movement, as noted intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass came to such places as Dublin and Belfast in the effort to gain support for their cause. In the twentieth century, Irish support for African independence movements forged a connection that would compel thousands of migrants and refugees to settle permanently in Ireland, forcing the nation to rethink its policies toward race, as well as notions of cultural homogeneity. The nature of Ireland’s status within the British Empire was shaped largely by the Atlantic system of economic exchange. As a result, the black population of Europe was intermeshed within the plantations system of the Americas and Ireland, fulfilling labor needs as field workers and domestic servants. It has been noted that the black population of eighteenth-century Ireland was somewhere between 2,000 and 3,000, and was largely concentrated on the eastern coast, or Pale, which is the regions of Ireland inhabited by English settlers. As the movement to end slavery gained momentum, abolitionists from England, the United States, and from within Ireland found a population sympathetic to their cause. Such notable black abolitionists as Olaudah Equiano,
Ireland, Blacks in Charles Lenox Redmond, and Frederick Douglass found receptive audiences within Ireland, especially among such advocates of Irish independence as Theobald Tone and Daniel O’Connell. Blacks in nineteenth-century Ireland also encountered racism, as the perceived exoticness of Africans was evident in the popularity of minstrel shows and the carnivals of Dublin. Although a visit by the noted “Hottentot Venus” in 1812 was largely ignored, the popularity of minstrel shows in Ireland reached its peak in the nineteenth century, providing a stark contrast to those that sympathized with the cause of abolitionism. Ireland’s status as a former colony of the British Empire has made it rather unique in its relationship to Africa and the twentieth-century incarnation of the African Diaspora to Europe. Throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the struggle by Irish Republican Nationalists proved inspirational to such African American intellectuals as Marcus Garvey, Claude McKay, and Frederick Douglass. Also, such Irish radical groups as the Fenians and Sinn Féin sent money and weapons to African revolutionaries in British-controlled Africa, forging an ideological connection that would compel thousands of African migrants to settle in Ireland. With the emergence of a republican government in the 1930s, as well as complete independence from Britain the next decade, Ireland continued to support anticolonial movements and postcolonial governments in Africa, sending money and serving as an advocate in the United Nations. Combined with the popularity of Irish missionaries in such places as Nigeria and Ghana, Ireland became a highly prized destination for Africans seeking education, work, and asylum in Europe. In 1960, Ghanaian president Kwame Nkrumah visited Ireland as a guest of the Irish government. In the course of his visit, Nkrumah gave speeches before the Irish United Nations Association and addressed the Ghana Student Union at Dublin University. In a speech made to the latter, Nkrumah spoke of the ideological and cultural connection between Ireland and Ghana, noting the influence of Irish revolutionaries on his own movement. Nkrumah’s visit represents both an acknowledgment of a rather unique link between Ireland and Britain’s former African possessions, and also the fact that there was a large enough contingent of black students within Ireland to form a student association based not only on race but also on nationality. Moreover, by the 1960s, a relatively large number of Africans were beginning to settle permanently within Ireland’s borders. Like laborers of all ethnicities, much of Ireland’s black population is relegated to relative anonymity, yet there have been a number of black Irish citizens who achieved a certain level of notoriety. In the 1940s, Ghanaian refugee Raphael Armattoe wrote extensively on African civilization and published collections of his poetry. Another such example is Philip Lynott, a founding member of noted rock-music group Thin Lizzy, which achieved fame in the 1970s. Lynott was memorialized in a bronze statue in Dublin after his death in 1986. Moses Bhamjee, a South African native, served as a Labour Teachta Dála (deputy) in the Irish Dáil during the 1980s, demonstrating a certain level of achievement by a black Irish citizen. The inclusion of blacks into contemporary Irish society has forced Ireland to reassess its claims of cultural homogeneity, resulting in resistance and increased racism toward its estimated 20,000 black citizens. Conversely, this same phenomenon has also
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Italy, African Invasions of compelled the Irish government and native industries to incorporate a more global outlook, which has proved to be a major factor in the transformation of Ireland into the economic power dubbed the “Celtic Tiger.” It has been noted that Ireland’s status as a former British colony has not necessarily meant that racist ideology has no place. Indeed, there remains in Ireland racial tension between the native Irish and migrants. Recent action by the Irish government, however, such as the formation of the National Consultative Committee on Racism and Interculturalism, and the Office of the Director of Equality Investigations, demonstrates that there is both recognition and acceptance (at least economically) of a permanent black population in Ireland. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Adebari, Rotimi; Baartman, Saartjie; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Gall, Franz Josef; Literature, Blacks in British; Roar. Further Reading: Fanning, Bryan. Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002; Farrell, Fintan, and Philip Watt, eds. Responding to Racism in Ireland. Dublin: Veritas Publications, 2001; Garner, Steve. Racism in the Irish Experience. London: Pluto Press, 2004; Hart, W. A. “Africans in Eighteenth-Century Ireland.” Irish Historical Studies 33:129 (May 2002): 19–32; Rolston, Bill, and Michael Shannon. Encounters: How Racism Came to Ireland. Belfast: BTP Publications, 2002.
Kenneth L. Shonk, Jr.
Italy, African Invasions of During the Middle Ages, Muslims from Africa launched several invasions of the Italian peninsula and Sicily, where they eventually established Islamic Emirates. The Muslim attacks on Italy were part of the general expansion of Islam that had resulted in the spreading of the religion throughout parts of Asia, Africa, and Europe. EARLY MUSLIM ATTACKS. The first Muslim attacks on Sicily occurred in 652, when the island was under the control of the Byzantine (Eastern Roman) Empire based in Greece. The Muslim invaders from Syria remained in Sicily for many years despite a Byzantine attempt to expel them. The Muslims eventually left Sicily after amassing a collection of booty. In 669, Muslims invaded Sicily for a second time. The Muslims invaders, this time from Egypt, attacked and pillaged Syracuse. After the Umayyad conquest of Africa, which was completed circa 700, Muslim fleets launched attacks on Italy in 703, 728, 729, 730, 731, 733, and 734. Some of these attacks, notably those in 733 and 734, encountered extensive resistance from the Byzantine Empire. In 740, Habib, a Muslim prince, captured Syracuse. He was prepared to use his military victory as a step toward the conquest of the entire island of Sicily until a Berber revolt in Tunisia required him to return to Africa. Another Muslim attack on Syracuse in 752 resulted in the pillaging of the city. In 805, Constantine, the Imperial patrician of Sicily, agreed to a 10-year truce with Ibrahim I ibn al-Aghlab, Emir of Ifriqiya; however, Muslims from other parts of Africa and Spain continued to attack Italy. Muslims attacked the Italian islands of Sardinia and Corsica from 806 to 821. In 812, Abdallah I, Ibrahim’s son, unsuccessfully attempted to conquer Sicily, but did manage to manage to conquer the island of Lampedusa. The
Italy, African Invasions of new Imperial patrician, Gregorius, and the emir negotiated an agreement for freedom of trade between Southern Italy and Ifriqiya. In 819, Mohammed ibn-Abdallad, cousin of the emir, launched another Muslim attack from Africa on Sicily. INVASIONS OF SICILY AND SOUTHERN ITALY. The African conquest of Sicily was a gradual process from 827 to 902. The Byzantine commander of Sicily, Eufemius, conquered Syracuse and was proclaimed emperor. His reign was short-lived, however, and he fled to the African court of Ziyadat Allah. Ziyadat Allah agreed to conquer Sicily and place Eufemius as its ruler on the condition that he paid annual tribute. Consequently, Asad ibn al-Furat mounted an expedition from Africa, along with Eufemius’s reinforcements, to conquer Sicily in 827. The invading Muslims defeated the Byzantine Empire near Mazara and proceeded to conquer Sicily. During their siege of Syracuse, the Muslims were met by a large army sent from Palermo that was supported by a fleet sent by the doge of Venice. After some setbacks, including the deaths of Asad and Eufemius, the invading Muslims received a number of reinforcements of Spanish and African troops in 830; however, plague reduced the number of Muslim troops. The invasion continued as both the Muslim and Byzantine forces were unable to secure a full victory. Several Italian towns fell to the Muslims in the 840s. In 846, Muslim forces attacked Rome on the Italian mainland and looted the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica. In 847, the Muslims captured the port city of Bari in Apulia and established an independent Emirate of Bari. The Islamic Emirate of Bari, which also attacked the Italian Duchy of Benevento, lasted until 870, when it was conquered by Byzantine forces. By the the 870s, the Byzantine Empire maintained control of only a short stretch of territory on the eastern coast of Sicily around Taormina. As the invasion continued to linger in Sicily, in the 880s, the Muslims decided to invade Calabria in the southern Italian peninsula. Taormina, the last major Byzantine stronghold in Sicily, finally succumbed to the Muslim invaders in 902. The remaining free Italian cities subsequently surrendered. The Muslims briefly continued their campaign in the southern Italian peninsula until deciding to halt their campaign to retreat to Sicily. SICILY UNDER MUSLIM RULE. During the years of Muslim invasion and settlement, the Italian population received a huge influx of diverse Muslim immigrants from areas in Africa, Asia, and Spain. Therefore, Sicily developed into a multiethnic society: Arabs, Spanish Moors, Berbers, black Africans, Persians, Greeks, Jews, Slavs, and Lombards all inhabited Sicily. As an emirate, Sicily occupied a unique position as a bridge between the cultures of Europe and Africa. Trade developed and the Muslim government kept taxes low to avoid popular agitation. Under Aghlabid rule, the emir in Palermo appointed the governors of the lesser Sicilian cities and other government functionaries. Each city had a council composed of its most prominent members. The Sicilian population was permitted freedom of worship and the government tolerated local laws and customs. Christians, viewed as an inferior in status to Muslims, were subject to extra taxation, barred from military service, and subject to various restrictions. Those Sicilians who converted to Islam could avoid such restrictions and subservient status; consequently, many Sicilians converted.
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Italy, African Invasions of The Muslims followed a progressive policy that allowed for a period of sustained economic development and intellectual enlightenment. The Muslims initiated land reform, increasing productivity and the growth of smallholdings, and borrowed from Roman engineering and Persian irrigation systems. Arabic became Sicily’s official language, although Greek survived in some sections of the island, evolving into vulgar Sicilian. The persistence of the Greek language was in protest of the Muslim invaders. In 909, the Shiite Fatimids took control of Sicily. In 913, the Fatimid governor in Palermo faced revolts and Sicily declared its independence under Emir Ahmed ibnKohrob. Berbers rose in revolt and killed ibn-Kohrob. The Fatimids regained control of the island, sacking Palermo in 917. In 937, the Berbers in Sicily again revolted unsuccessfully. After suppressing another revolt in 948, the Fatimid Caliph appointed Hassan al-Kalbi as emir of Sicily. The position became hereditary and the emirate became, for all practical purposes, independent of African control. In 950, Hassan warred against the Byzantine Empire in the southern Italian peninsula. A second campaign in Calabria in 952 forced the Byzantine emperor to agree to let Calabrian cities pay tribute to the Sicilian emir. Tensions continued between the Italians and their Muslim rulers. Some of these revolts were instigated the Byzantine Empire, which sporadically attempted to reassert control over Sicily. In 956, the Byzantine Empire unsuccessfully invaded Sicily. In 962, a revolt in Taormina was brutally suppressed. After another effort of resistance in Rametta, the Byzantine emperor renewed efforts to regain Sicily in 964. The Byzantine forces sent to conquer Sicily again met defeat. In the 970s, the new emir of Sicily launched several attacks against Calabria and Apulia. The Byzantine Empire, engaged in conflicts with Muslims in Eastern Europe and West Asia, could not intervene, but the German emperor, was free to do so. His forces were defeated in 982 at the Battle of Stilo. Nevertheless, the Muslims decided to withdraw to Sicily. Uprisings against the Muslim rulers continued periodically in Sicily, as well as disputes between the Muslim rulers themselves. In 1038, a Byzantine army that included a number of French Norman soldiers again invaded Sicily unsuccessfully. In 1061, an army of Normans from northern France led by Robert Guiscard and his brother Roger d’Hauteville invaded Sicily. The island’s Christian population revolted against its Muslim rulers to assist the Normans. The Normans took Palermo in 1072. Soon, all of Sicily was under Norman control. In 1091, the last of the Muslim strongholds in Sicily and Malta fell, thereby weakening Muslim control of the Mediterranean. The Norman kingdom of Sicily marked the decline of Islam in Sicily; however, the North African influence remained in Sicily, contributing to a hybrid culture. See also: Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily; Italy, Blacks in; Moor’s Head Symbol; Pirates, Black and Mediterranean; Punic Wars; Spain, African Invasions of. Further Reading: Abulafia, David, ed. Italy in the Central Middle Ages: 1000–1300. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Duggan, Christopher. A Concise History of Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Epstein, Stephan R. An Island for Itself: Economic Development and Social Change in Late Medieval Sicily. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992; Houben, Hubert. Roger II of Sicily: A Ruler between East and West. trans. Graham Loud and Diane Milburn.
Italy, Blacks in New York: Cambridge University Press, 2002; Mallette, Karla. Kingdom of Sicily, 1100–1250: A Literary History. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2005; Metcalfe, Alex. Muslims and Christians in Norman Sicily. London: Routledge, 2002; Powell, Eve Troutt, and John O. Hunwick, eds. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Markus Weiner, 2002; Quatriglio, Giuseppe. A Thousand Years in Sicily: From the Arabs to the Bourbons. trans. Justin Vitiello. 3rd ed. Mineola, NY: Legas, 2005; Taylor, Julie. Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera. New ed. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005.
E. Agateno Mosca
Italy, Blacks in Black Africans have had a long history in connection with the Italian peninsula. One of ancient Rome’s archenemies was Carthage in North Africa. Rome and Carthage fought three Punic Wars (264–241 b.c.e., 219–202 b.c.e., 149–146 b.c.e.) for control of the Mediterranean. During the Second Punic War, the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, invaded the Italian peninsula with an army that included many black African soldiers. During the many years in which Hannibal and his army were based in Italy before the Romans landed an army near Carthage to force Hannibal’s retreat, it seems probable that many members of the Carthaginian army would have settled there, including those imprisoned or enslaved by the Romans. As Rome expanded throughout the Mediterranean region, its economy became highly dependent on slave labor, and the seemingly insatiable need for slaves resulted in many African slaves being used in European areas under Roman control. Furthermore, the new multicultural Rome resulted in those of African origin serving in the Roman army in Europe and even as Roman emperors. After the fall of Rome in 476 c.e., Europe plunged into disarray as Germanic tribes overran Western Europe and there was no strong political authority to impose order. The Roman Catholic Church slowly increased its authority to restore a sense of order and encouraged Charlemagne (742/47–814 c.e.), Christian leader of the Franks, to expand his Carolingian Empire throughout Western Europe, including Italy. During the Early Middle Ages, the Italian peninsula faced increasing troubles with Islamic Africa. In 827 c.e., Muslims from North Africa, known as Aghlabids, conquered Sicily. Their successors, the Kalbids, ruled Sicily until 1053. In 846, Muslim North African invaders attacked Rome and looted Saint Peter’s Basilica. Consequently, the pope initiated the construction of the Leonine Walls of Vatican City in 847. Such conquests resulted in the settling of many Muslim Moors in the Italian peninsula, particularly the South. During this time, many regions in the southern Italian peninsula remained under the influence of the Byzantine Empire (Eastern Roman Empire) based in modern Greece. The Byzantine Empire attempted to unite with the Franks in the late ninth century to expel the Muslim North Africans from Southern Italy. The Byzantine Empire became engaged in an ongoing battle with the Muslim Ottoman Turks until 1453, when the Turks finally captured Constantinople (now Istanbul) and defeated the Byzantines. Muslim pirates from the African sections of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Bar-
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Italy, Blacks in bary pirates, plagued Italian coastal towns during the Middle Ages, capturing Italians and using them as slaves within North Africa and West Asia. The Bubonic plague ravaged Europe in the fourteenth century. As a result, large amounts of the European population were wiped out. Such a condition resulted in a severe labor shortage throughout the Mediterranean. Aggressive merchants, many of Italian origin, prospered from the situation by selling an increased amount of slaves. Merchants imported the much needed slaves from different locations in Africa, Eastern Europe, and West Asia. By the time of the early Renaissance, ownership of slaves became a status symbol. Thus most wealthy families in Italy, particularly in the northern cities that were centers for trade, owned some slaves. Slaves, treated as a commodity, could be used for a variety of purposes, such as dowries and fees for services. With the Portuguese exploration of the coast of Africa during the Age of Exploration, and the pope’s orders to cease the enslavement of Christians, black Africans increasingly became the source of slaves in Europe and its overseas colonial empires. There are many Italian residents of African origin in Italy today. During the past quarter century, Italy has faced rising immigration. Recently, the term Afro-Italian has been vaguely used in reference to such Italians. Most current African Italians are descendants of recent immigrants, for Africans that had settled in Italy during ancient, medieval, and Renaissance times have long been absorbed into the Italian population. Some large cities, such as Milan, have had longer histories of African immigration and are home to a second generation and emerging third generation of African Italians. Thousands of illegal African immigrants arrive on Italian shores every year in attempts to escape the turmoil facing several modern African countries. Because of its close geographical proximity to Africa, many Africans hope to settle in Italy or make their way to other countries within the European Union. Many attempts to flee to Italy often end tragically, as the rickety boats used to transport these individuals sink before reaching their destination. The smuggling of Africans into Italy has become a profitable illegal enterprise. Italian authorities often return those Africans seeking to enter the country illegally back to Africa. Italian immigration policy is primarily guided by the 2002 Bossi-Fini Law, which severely restricts the entry and stay of immigrants. Italy accepts only a small number of refugees, and an additional law in 2003 increased penalties for illegal immigration, expanded the number of detention centers, and reduced family reunification. European and African governments have begun to try to develop coordinated strategies to prevent such frequent illegal trips from occurring to both eliminate crime and prevent the deaths of Africans crowded into unsafe vessels. African immigrants, most of whom are Muslim, re-create their own ethnic sections of Italian cities, operating outdoor markets and African shops. Many African Italians remain ostracized from the mainstream Italian population, and the homes that African Italians are forced to reside in are often unhealthy and overcrowded. African immigrants, often faced with prejudice, receive meager pay. In general, African immigrants are poorly educated, as many have high levels of absences and dropout rates. Italian authorities are concerned about immigrants’ lack of education, as schools are an important institution in teaching the immigrants the Italian language and culture. Italy also needs to increase cultural awareness among mainstream Italians on its immigrant
Italy, Blacks in cultures. Italy has been becoming multicultural and Islam has become the second largest Italian religion. Foreign labor from Africa and Asia, however, has increasingly become an important component of the Italian economy. As the birthrate in Italy among its white residents has continued to decline, foreign immigrants have begun to fill their place. Furthermore, foreign laborers perform much of the undesirable lower-class jobs that are necessary but that the mainstream population no longer wishes to perform. Some famous Italians of black African descent include Alessandro de Medici (1510–1537), the first Duke of Florence; Benedict the Moor (1526–1589), a Catholic saint from Sicily; Josephine Bakhita (1869–1947), a Catholic saint from Darfur; Jean-Leonard Touadi (b. 1959), an Italian politician; Stefano Attruia (b. 1969), an Italian basketball player; Fiona May (b. 1969), an Italian track athlete; Carlton Myers (b. 1971), an Italian basketball player; Mirka Francia (b. 1975), an Italian volleyball player; Fabio Liverani (b. 1976), an Italian footballer; Magdelin Martínez (b. 1976), an Italian track athlete; Taismary Agüero Leiva Botteghi (b. 1977), an Italian volleyball player; Matteo Ferrari (b. 1979), an Italian footballer; Andrew Howe (b. 1985), a track athlete; and Stefano Okaka Chuka (b. 1989), an Italian footballer. See also: Black Madonna Tradition; Immigration to Europe, Illegal African; Bubonic Plague and Blacks; Italy, African Invasions of; Moor’s Head Symbol; Othello (1603); Pirates, Black Mediterranean; Popes, African; Renaissance, Blacks in the; Roman Army, Africans in the; Roman Empire in Africa; Slave Trade, Italian. Further Reading: Andell, Jacqueline. Gender, Migration, and Domestic Service: The Politics of Black Women in Italy. Bulington, VT: Ashgate, 2000; Birnbaum, Lucia. Black Madonnas: Feminism, Religion, and Politics in Italy. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993; Colatrella, Steven. Workers of the World: African and Asian Migrants in Italy in the 1990s. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001; Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Duggan, Christopher. A Concise History of Italy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Goldsworthy, Adrian. The Punic Wars. London: Cassell, 2000; Powell, Eve Troutt, and John O. Hunwick, eds. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Princeton, NJ: Markus Weiner, 2002; Wise, Terence. Armies of the Carthaginian Wars, 265–146 BC. Oxford: Osprey, 1999; Yavetz, Zvi. Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1988.
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J Jackson, Colin (1967–) Colin Ray Jackson is one of greatest sprint and hurdling athletes in British sports history. He is well known for his record-breaking 110 meter hurdle record. Jackson won his fourth European 110 meter hurdle title in 2002, and he has been consistently ranked among the world’s top hurdlers since 1986. Jackson recorded more fast times than any other hurdler and held the world record for the 110 meter for 13 years. He retired in 2003. Jackson, who is of Jamaican and Scottish ancestry, was born in Cardiff, Wales, in 1967. He attended Llanedeyrn High School, where he excelled in athletics and played several sports. His favorite athletic event was the 110 meter hurdles. After his junior career, Jackson won a silver medal for Wales at the Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh in 1986. He also won a World Championship bronze medal in 1987 and a silver medal in 1988. In 1990, Jackson became a Commonwealth and European champion. At the 1992 Olympics, although the favorite to win, Jackson finished in seventh place. He rebounded by setting a world record time of 12.91 seconds for the 110 meter hurdles at the 1993 World Championships (the record was later broken by Chinese athlete Liu Xiang in 2006). Jackson set the world record time of 7.30 seconds for the indoor 60 meter hurdles in 1994, and won four successive European titles from 1990 to 2002. Jackson is known as the master of the “dip”—the art of leaning forward right before the end of a race to advance the shoulders’ position and improve times and possibly positions. Jackson retired after the 2003 World Indoor Championships in Birmingham. He now works as a sports commentator and television presenter, mostly for the BBC. Jackson’s sister, Suzanne Packer, is a television celebrity noted for her role in the series Casualty. In 1990, Jackson became a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). In 2003, he was promoted to the rank of commander (CBE). In 2006, Jackson participated in the BBC television series Who Do You Think You Are? The series performs genetic testing on participants, and Jackson was revealed as being 55 percent black African, 7 percent Amerindian, and 38 percent European.
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James, C.L.R. (1901–1989) See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Collins, John, Alan Curie, Brenda Curie, and Mike Walters. History of Welsh Athletics. 2 vols. Llanelli: Dragon Sports Books, 2002; Jackson, Colin, with David Conn. The Autobiography of Colin Jackson. London: BBC Books, 2003.
Mark Cordery
James, C.L.R. (1901–1989) Cyril Lionel Robert James was a West Indian (Caribbean) revolutionary Marxist, social and political theorist, and art and literary critic. He was born in Trinidad in 1901 to black parents. His father worked as a teacher. As a child, James was interested in literature and history, although he rebelled against formal education. Early in his writing career, James worked as a local cricket reporter. In the 1920s, he began to write pieces of fiction. Two of his most significant novels during this period are La Divina Pastora (1927) and Triumph (1929). James’s writing technique involved the reworking of tales that he heard or had been told to him, thereby creating stories that combined both the real and unreal to expand the reader’s imagination. In the 1930s, James moved to England to further his career as a novelist. In his first years in London, James lived with his friend, the cricketer Learie Constantine. With Constantine’s help, James published the first version of what became The Case for West Indian Self-Government (1933), which provided an overview of the social and political conditions in Trinidad to a general audience. During this time, James became exposed to the plights of the working classes and began to study the works of such individuals as Marx, Engels, Lenin, and Trotsky. In 1933, James moved to London and became a leading figure in the Trotskyist movement. He attempted to integrate the struggles of those in the colonies into the European revolutionary tradition. The Ethiopian crisis in 1936 inspired James to write Abyssinia and the Imperialists (1936), which acknowledged the significance of the struggle of Africans and those of African descent to obtain liberty. James’s revolutionary politics drove him to study in detail the Haitian Revolution for Independence. In 1936, he produced Toussaint L’Ouverture, a play about one of the major figures in the Haitian Revolution, in which famed African American actor Paul Robeson played the title role. The play was timed to serve as an intervention in the debates over the Ethiopian crisis. James hoped to make his audiences realize that the people in the colonies did not need European leadership to obtain their own freedom and that they had their own revolutionary tradition from which to draw. In 1938, he wrote the first edition of his classic work of history on the Haitian Revolution, The Black Jacobins. James’s interpretation of events was highly influenced by Trotsyist ideas. The question of the Soviet Union dominated intellectual life during the first half of the twentieth century. In the 1930s, James and others faced the problem of attempting to define their positions as revolutionary Marxists in opposition to both Stalin and the British Communist Party. Trotsky, one of the leading figures in the Russian Revolution and associate of Lenin discredited by Stalin after Lenin’s death, emerged as the
Jazz, European Reception of focus for this opposition. For James and his associates, it was important to show how Stalin had betrayed the revolutionary principles on which the Soviet Union had been founded. James’s book, World Revolution, about the First International, was such an attempt. Yet James’s interpretation of events differed in many ways from those of Trotsky, which became evident when the two met in 1939. In 1938, James embarked on a tour of America to lecture on the conditions in Europe as World War II approached and to contribute to the Trotskyist movement on the black question. After the 1940 signing of Nazi-Soviet nonaggression pact, James embarked on an intensive study of the Russian Revolution and the development of a worker state with a handful of collaborators that became known as the Johnson Forest Tendency. In 1947, the group published Dialectical Materialism and the Fate of Humanity, which attempted to clarify some of the inconsistencies in Trotskyist thought and, in 1950, published The Class Struggle, which led to severance with the notion of the Communist Party as the revolutionary vanguard. James also wrote on the question of race while in America, developing an understanding of the American black population’s revolutionary history in their struggle to secure fundamental civil rights. In 1948, he published The Revolutionary Answer to the Negro Problem in the USA. James later divorced himself from Trotskyist ideology but remained a revolutionary Marxist. In 1949, he began work on his monumental American Civilization and also published works on art and literary criticism. The Gold Coast revolution played a prominent role in James’s later work, in which he resumed his involvement in the Pan-African movement. He became interested in studying different aspects of the African Diaspora to establish Africa as the heart of an emerging postwar order. James returned to the Caribbean in 1958. In 1963, James published Beyond a Boundary. He then traveled throughout the former European colonies in Africa and the Caribbean. James returned to America in the 1960s and lectured on black power and black studies. He returned to England, where he died in 1989. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; L’Ouverture, Toussaint; Pan-Africanism; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and. Further Reading: Grimshaw, Anna, ed. The C.L.R. James Reader. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 1992; Renton, David. C.L.R. James. London: Haus, 2007; Rosengarten, Frank. Urbane Revolutionary: C.L.R. James and the Struggle for a New Society. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
Eric Martone
Jazz, European Reception of Jazz, and especially jazz played by African American musicians, was circulating in mostly alternative circuits in the big cities of the United States before 1930, but it was perceived differently in Europe. In Europe, jazz arrived as a powerful form of music from America and was received by most Europeans without any racist connotation. Because the music came mostly through the radio and 78 rpm recordings, European audiences did not bother to know if orchestras were made up of blacks or whites. Jazz was
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Jazz, European Reception of already fashionable during “The Roaring Twenties” (1919–1929) and was extremely successful in Paris after “Les Années Folles.” EUROPEAN AUDIENCES. Jazz was first discovered in France in 1917, when U.S. soldiers brought along some jazz musicians. At that time, jazz was seen as “modern.” Many French writers referred to jazz in their books from the late 1920s, including Jean Cocteau, Georges Bataille, André Hodeir, Jean-Paul Sartre (in La Nausée, 1938), and Boris Vian. Apart from being a jazz critic, French novelist Boris Vian had his own jazz ensemble in Paris during the late 1930s, in which he played the trumpet. Claude Luter, Stéphane Grapelli, Django Reinhardt, Jean-Luc Ponty, and Michel Petrucciani were all white, French musicians, fascinated and inspired by jazz, who themselves contributed to reinvent the genre. Vocal jazz singers were especially popular in England, whereas audiences in nonAnglophone countries, such as France, seemed to prefer instrumental jazz. An American vocal quartet made of four African American voices, The Mills Brothers, were already famous in the United States when they toured in England from 1934 to 1937. Each year, they played concerts, appeared in radio broadcasts on the BBC, and even recorded two titles for the British Decca Company at the Thames Street Studios in London. They sang songs a cappella, sometimes accompanied only by a guitar (played by John Mill), as they imitated all other instruments with their voices, from bass to trumpet and brass. The Mills Brothers were so popular in Britain that they even released songs that were not published in the United States. EMERGENCE OF WRITINGS ABOUT JAZZ. Magazines dedicated to jazz, such as Jazz Hot and the later Jazz Magazine, first began to appear in France in the 1930s. The oldest jazz magazine in the world, Orkester Journalen (OJ), which first appeared in 1933, was not American-based, but located in Sweden; however, Robert Goffin, a Belgian jazz critic, wrote an article on the subject in 1921. In Italy, there was the Il Blues magazine. In England, the Jazz Journal (now known as the Jazz Journal International) was founded in 1947. One of the foremost blues historians, Paul Oliver, was born in Nottingham, England. In addition, the famous British historian Eric Hobsbawm wrote dozens of jazz chronicles under the pseudonym of Francis Newton in the New Statesman and Nation, plus other British magazines (like the Times Literary Supplement and Melody Maker). Hobsbawm’s famous book The Jazz Scene (1959), published under the pseudonym of Francis Newton, was translated into French, Italian, and Czech. The comparison of two obituaries about musician Big Bill Broonzy (1893–1958) demonstrates how African Americans were perceived on both sides of the Atlantic. In the August 23, 1958 edition of the British Melody Maker, Max Jones wrote: “I suppose Bill made more friends in this country than any American singer since [Louis] Armstrong first came here.” Conversely, in the September 1, 1958 issue of the U.S. magazine Time, one could read: “Bill never saved the money he earned, and when a new generation cramped his country style, he was broke all the time.” When Big Bill Broonzy first came to London in 1951, the Melody Maker critic Max Jones observed that the Kingsway Hall audience “regarded him as a combination of creative artist and living legend.” JAZZ DURING WARTIME. If African Americans could escape American racial prejudice abroad when traveling in most European countries during the 1930s,
Jazz, European Reception of they were not welcome in Germany after 1933. They banned jazz, and any foreign music labeled as “black” was considered “degenerate” in 1938. From 1942, however, the Nazi German propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, promoted his official allwhite jazz ensemble, the Deutsche Tanz und Unterhaltungsorchester (“German Dance and Entertainment Orchestra,” DTU) to serve as an official German jazz ambassador. In the 1940s, jazz was most popular in Paris. A famous Parisian jazz club, named Blue Note, was located at 27 rue d’Artois near the fashionable Champs-Élysées. Forbidden by the Nazi occupation of France in 1940, jazz was nevertheless adopted by some French musicians, who called their appropriation “Swing,” whereas other jazz aficionados identified themselves as “zazous.” Jazz, however, was banned in European countries occupied by the Nazis, such as France, Belgium, and Poland. The end of the war in 1945 meant the return of U.S. mass culture in Europe, and jazz became a synonym of “liberation” for a whole generation. EUROPE AS A “HOMELAND” FOR AFRICAN AMERICAN MUSICIANS. After World War II, African American singers, including Leadbelly, Josh White, and Big Bill Broonzy, began touring in Europe and paved the way for other bluesmen and jazz artists. In Belgium, Broonzy gave an admirer the handwritten manuscript retelling the narrative of his own life that became an autobiography entitled Big Bill Blues (1955). In Belgium, at the 1958 World Fair in Brussels, a series of jazz concerts were presented during the summer to a worldwide audience. The performance of jazz saxophonist Sidney Bechet was recorded and released on a unique LP in France on the label Disques Vogue. African American musician Miles Davis did the soundtrack of a French feature film, Ascenceur pour l’échafaud (“Lift to the Scaffold,” or “Elevator to the Gallows,” 1958). He and his musicians recorded their instrumental soundtrack while watching the film in the studio. The LP of the original soundtrack was among the most famous in film history and was constantly re-released in subsequent years in France. In the same vein, although less popular, jazz organ master Jimmy Smith also recorded in Paris an exclusive soundtrack with a brass section for another film noir entitled La métamorphose des cloportes (1965), directed by Pierre Granier-Deferre. The LP soundtrack, and later the CD, were available only in France and were not released elsewhere. Beginning in the late 1950s, many African American artists recorded and even lived in Europe, where there was no segregation, as opposed to the United States. While abroad, they had the freedom to be admitted to the same hotels, buses, and public restrooms as whites. This was a sharp contrast to their previous life in the United States. Big Bill Broonzy spent a few months in London during the early 1950s. Piano player Bud Powell (1924–1966) chose to live in France from 1959 until 1964 (his character was featured in a 1986 film about jazz in Paris entitled Round Midnight). Powell’s colleague, drummer Kenny Clarke (1914–1985), also lived in Paris from 1957 until his death and served as a sideman for many U.S. jazzmen (including Miles Davis) who toured in Europe. A true Parisian for decades, Clarke was buried at the famous Père-Lachaise Cemetery. Another blues piano player and singer, Memphis Slim (1915–1988), lived in Paris from 1962 until his death in 1988. Miles Davis lived a few months in Paris in 1959. Legendary blues piano player Champion Jack Dupree (1909–1992) lived in Germany for 33 years (from 1959 until his death in 1992). Other African American artists
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Jazz, European Reception of chose to live overseas, such as Tina Turner in Zurich (Switzerland) in 1986. Countless African American musicians recorded albums in Paris, including the Quincy Jones Big Band, Charles Mingus, and Miles Davis. Many Jazz legends played and recorded with French musicians; for instance, Dexter Gordon recorded with French bass player Pierre Michelot, and Bud Powell played with French bass player Gilbert Rovère. From 1962 to 1966, several African American artists made a collective tour in Europe that was presented by the National Jazz Federation. It had various names, including “American Negro Blues Festival,” “A Documentary of the Authentic Blues,” and “The Cavalcade of the Blues.” Each concert featured a dozen legendary artists who performed on their own or in various combinations. Bluesmen included T-Bone Walker, Sonny Terry, Brownie McGhee, and Memphis Slim in 1962; and Muddy Waters, Sonny Boy Williamson, Otis Spann, Lonnie Johnson, and Big Joe Williams in 1963. Bass player Willie Dixon served as an organizer and arranger every year. This all-star cast played in Britain, France, West Germany, and elsewhere, usually in halls or theaters (made for classical concerts) instead of bars or taverns. Some of these historical performances were later released on LP in the 1970s (on the Musidisc label in France and Italy). These concerts were first broadcast in the 1960s on West German television (Südwestfunk) under the title “Jazz Gehört und Gesehen” (“Jazz Heard and Seen”). EUROPEAN ARTISTS INSPIRED BY JAZZ. The number of European artists influenced by jazz is endless, ranging from Charles Trenet (especially in his early songs from the 1930s, such as “Quand j’étais p’tit, je vous aimais,” “Verlaine” and “Une noix”), Charles Aznavour (“Pour faire un jam” and his 1998 CD entitled Jazznavour), and Henri Salvador (“Maladie d’amour”) (“Love Sick”) in France. Salvador remains the most famous black artist, maintaining a 60-plus year career in France as a singer, songwriter, and musician dedicated to jazz. Even Quincy Jones went to France to produce the brass section in one of his most humorous songs “Blouse du dentiste” (“Blues of the Dentist”) in 1960. In 1968, Charles Trenet copied an old standard from the repertoire of Al Jolson, but also the Tommy Dorsey Orchestra and Nat King Cole, entitled “Little Girl” (composed by Madeline Hyde and Francis Henry). Trenet copied the song with the same melody but in a slower tempo and a new title, “Quartier latin.” In England, there was a whole generation of jazz-inspired artists, such as Sir Johnny Dankworth, Humphrey Lyttleton, Chris Barber, Cleo Laine, and George Melly. In London, many pop groups were influenced by blues music and contributed to the popularity of this genre in Europe and even in the United States. British musicians brought to pop radio stations (now with a British accent) the “devil’s music” that used to be limited to the circuits of “Race Records” and black radio stations in the United States before 1965. Examples were numerous and included the Rolling Stones, who purportedly received their name from a song by Muddy Waters, and pop groups such as the Animals and the Yardbirds, who recorded with blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson in 1964. Even the Beatles composed jazz-flavored songs, such as “Honey Pie” (1968) and “You Know My Name” (1969 [1967]). Other British artists influenced by jazz and blues music include Alexis Korner, Long John Baldry, John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers, Cyril Davies, Joe Cocker, and the group Fleetwood Mac. Although all were white, they were considered the epitome of the blues in England. Some famous British musicians (Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Charlie Watts, and Bill Wyman) reunited to
Jobatey, Cherno (1965–) record The London Howling Wolf Sessions in 1971. In Ireland, artists such as Van Morrison and Dusty Springfield sang mostly rhythm and blues-inspired songs in the early 1960s. The two foremost British pop groups, the Beatles and Rolling Stones, both hired African American musician Billy Preston to play organ on their records in the 1970s. In Europe today, there are many annual jazz festivals. Some of the more famous ones are held in Montreux and Bern (Switzerland). Some of these jazz festivals take place in the most remote cities in northern Europe, far from the hot New Orleans where jazz originated. The guests to these jazz events, however, are not exclusively black or American; they often come from various countries, and the list usually includes some local performers. See also: Baker, Josephine; Bechet, Sidney; Bullard, Eugene; Ellington, Duke; Music, African Influences on European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical; Snow, Valaida; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Broonzy, Big Bill, with Yannick Bruynoghe. Big Bill Blues. New York: Da Capo, 1955; Edward Komara, ed. Encyclopedia of the Blues. 2 vols. New York: Routledge, 2006. Lane, Jeremy. “Jazz.” In France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. ed; Bill Marshall. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005; Hodeir, André. The André Hodeir Jazz Reader. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2006; Jazz festivals in Europe Web site. Available: http://jazzfests. net/; Lusane, Clarence. Hitler’s Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of European Blacks, Africans and African Americans during the Nazi Era. London: Routledge, 2002; Newton, Francis. The Jazz Scene. London: MacGibbon and Gee, 1959; Wynn, Neil A., ed. Cross the Water Blues: African American Music in Europe. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007.
Yves Laberge
Jobatey, Cherno (1965–) Cherno Jobatey, commonly known by only his first name, is a famous Afro-German television presenter and entertainment personality. Jobatey was born in August 1965 in Berlin, Germany, the third child in a family of six. His father was a ship’s cook from Gambia, and his mother was from Berlin. Jobatey was educated at German Abitur in Berlin. He worked repairing bicycles, delivering flowers, and as a waiter in a restaurant. Jobatey then studied political science at the Free University Berlin, getting work as an interpreter and translator, as well as giving guitar lessons. He also spent time as a disc jockey and a guitar player. Although interested in music, Jobatey was also interested in the news and wanted to become a journalist. In his fourth semester at university, he managed to get the DAAD (the German Academic Exchange Service) Scholarship to study in Los Angeles for a year. Consequently, Jobatey attended the Musicians’ Institute at Hollywood. He won the Arthur F. Burns Scholarship, allowing him to spend four months at Paramount Studios, Hollywood. Jobatey then returned to Germany and started to work for the Berlin-based RIAS radio station as a concert critic. Jobatey’s fame on the radio was propelled by two successful interviews. The first occurred when African American pop star Michael Jackson came to Berlin to give a concert. By chance, one of Jobatey’s guitar teachers in Los Angeles was a member of Jackson’s band. Consequently, Jobatey was allowed to gain access to Jackson, who
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Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–) usually refused to speak to the press. Jobatey’s second break came when he asked German Chancellor Helmut Kohl at the Berlin Press Ball what type of dance the politician liked best. Kohl replied that he liked the tango, as it was the only time he could dance and get close to women. By 1990, Jobatey became a television presenter for several broadcasters. Since 1992, he has been the television presenter for the morning television “magazine” on the Second Channel. In April 2006, the conservative FAZ newspaper described Jobatey as “Germany’s most entertaining alarm clock.” His casual image, including long hair and sneakers, became famous throughout Germany. As well as Jobatey’s work on television, his essays have been published in many German newspapers including Die Zeit and Der Spiegel. He has also written one book, Fit wie ein Turnschuh (2005), and is coauthor of Geld spielt (k)eine Rolle (2005). Cherno has also been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNICEF and has raised money for many charities. See also: Afro-Germans; Colonies in Africa, British; Germany, Blacks in; Kiesbauer, Arabella; Television, Blacks in European. Further Reading: The Official Web Page of Cherno Jobatey: http://www.cherno-jobatey.de/.
Justin Corfield
Johnson, Linton Kwesi (1952–) Linton Kwesi Johnson is a British Dub poet. His work has won garnered much critical acclaim and, consequently, he is only the second living poet whose work has received a Penguin Classics edition. Often known by his initials “LKJ,” Kwesi was born in 1952 in Jamaica. In school, he joined the Black Panthers, a black nationalist group. Within the movement, Johnson assisted in setting up a poetry workshop. Johnson became involved with Rasta Love, a poetry and percussion circle. He then attended Goldsmiths College, University of London, and started writing poems during the 1970s. Race Today, a journal, published Johnson’s first poetic pieces. In 1974, the journal published a collection of his poems as Voices of the Living and the Dead. In the next year, Bogle-L’Ouverture published Johnson’s second poetry collection, Dread Beat An’ Blood. Johnson made clever use of Reggae, and most of his poetry is political and covers aspects associated with the Afro-Caribbean community in Britain. He wrote much about British foreign policy and the death of the antiracist demonstrator Blair Peach, who was killed in 1979. Using aspects of Jamaican Creole, following his own transcription style, Johnson’s poems criticized the British police during the conservative government of Margaret Thatcher. With the style of Johnson’s poems, it was inevitable that they would lead to music albums. Consequently, Dread Beat An’ Blood was issued by Island in 1978. Others followed, with Island issuing Forces of Victory (1979), Bass Culture (1980), LKJ in Dub (1981), Making History (1983) and Independent Intavenshan (1998). Johnson then established his own company, LKJ Records, which issued Tings An’ Times (1991), LKJ in Dub: Volume 2 (1992), LKJ Presents (1996), LKJ: A Cappella Live (1996), More Time (1998), and LKJ in Dub: Volume 3 (2002).
Jones, Claudia (1915–1964) In 2002, Penguin Modern Classics published a collection of Johnson’s poetry, Mi Revalueshanary Fren. In addition, Middlesex University in London appointed him Honorary Visiting Professor in 2004. In 2005, Johnson received the Silver Musgrave Medal from the Institute of Jamaica for his poetic contributions. See also: Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Head, Dominic, ed. The Cambridge Guide to Literature in English. 3rd ed. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Owuso, Kwesi. Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999.
Justin Corfield
Jones, Claudia (1915–1964) Claudia Jones was a Trinidadian activist and journalist. She is best remembered for her leadership in the postwar West Indian (Caribbean) community in Britain, her promotion of interracial cooperation and colonial pride through her newspaper, West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News, and her establishment of London’s Notting Hill Carnival. Jones was born Claudia Vera Cumberbatch on February 21, 1915, in Port-of-Spain. She spent her youth in Harlem, New York, and her young adulthood witnessed her increasing engagement with the Communist Party, in which she quickly gained prominence. By 1947, she was editor of “Negro Affairs” at the Daily Worker and chair of the National Women’s Commission of the Communist Party. Such high-profile activities, however, made Jones (who had changed her surname when she joined the Communist Party) a target for anti-Communists within the U.S. government. After being arrested and imprisoned twice, she was exiled to Britain in 1955. While in America, she had married Abraham Scholnick (in 1940), but the couple divorced in 1947. In London, the Communist Party of Britain did not offer Jones the same support and respect she had earned in America, perhaps because of her status as a black woman. Hence, she spearheaded other ventures, in particular her weekly newspaper the West Indian Gazette and Afro-Asian Caribbean News, launched in March 1958. Although Jones made no attempt to disguise her political orientation in the pages of the Gazette, the paper’s true aim was to promote understanding and cooperation among people of all races in Britain, and especially among West Indian settlers and the native population. The Gazette critically fused international and local issues, but its focus was the local black community. It challenged negative representations of nonwhite settlers that circulated in the mainstream British press, and exposed instances of racial discrimination by the police, media, and government. Despite Jones’s fierce political commitment, the Gazette remained an unpretentious community paper that encouraged positive social cooperation. The most enduring example of Jones’s inclusive activism was her establishment of the Caribbean Carnival in 1959. It began, under Jones’s energetic initiative, as a
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Jones, Claudia (1915–1964) positive response to 1958’s anti-black Notting Hill race riots. It featured dances, costumes, calypso performances, and a “Carnival Queen” pageant that promoted nonEuropean standards of beauty. Today, the Notting Hill Carnival is the largest outdoor festival in Europe. Upon being granted a British passport, Jones traveled more extensively in the 1960s, twice to the U.S.S.R. (in 1963 for the Word Congress of Women), and once to Tokyo for the tenth Anti-Hydrogen Bomb Conference. Illness plagued her during these years (she struggled with a heart condition for most of her life), and she succumbed to a heart attack in her London home on December 24, 1964. The West Indian Gazette lapsed shortly after her death. See also: African-Caribbean Street Fair; Black British; Black History Month; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European; Race Riots in Europe. Further Reading: Johnson, Buzz. “I Think of My Mother”: Notes on the Life and Times of Claudia Jones. London: Karia Press, 1985; Sherwood, Marika, with Donald Hinds, Colin Prescod, and the 1996 Claudia Jones Symposium. Claudia Jones: A Life in Exile. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1999.
Amanda Bidnall
Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture
Advisory Board Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst, University of Cologne Allison Blakely, Boston University Robert A. Cordery, Pitney-Bowes, Inc. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina, Dartmouth College Sue Peabody, Washington State University at Vancouver Tyler Edward Stovall, University of California at Berkeley
Encyclopedia of Blacks in European History and Culture Volume 2: K–Z Edited by Eric Martone
GREENWOOD PRESS Westport, Connecticut • London
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Encyclopedia of Blacks in European history and culture / edited by Eric Martone. p. cm. Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978–0–313–34448–0 (set : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34450–3 (v. 1 : alk. paper) — ISBN 978–0–313–34452–7 (v. 2 : alk. paper) 1. Blacks—Europe—History—Encyclopedias. I. Martone, Eric. D212.2.B53E53 2009 940'.0496—dc22 2008030542 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data is available. Copyright © 2009 by Eric Martone All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, by any process or technique, without the express written consent of the publisher. Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 2008030542 ISBN: 978–0–313–34448–0 (set) 978–0–313–34450–3 (Vol. 1) 978–0–313–34452–7 (Vol. 2) First published in 2009 Greenwood Press, 88 Post Road West, Westport, CT 06881 An imprint of Greenwood Publishing Group, Inc. www.greenwood.com Printed in the United States of America
The paper used in this book complies with the Permanent Paper Standard issued by the National Information Standards Organization (Z39.48–1984). 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
Contents
VOLUME 1 Preface
vii
Acknowledgments
ix
Introduction
xi
Chronology
xvii
Alphabetical List of Entries
xxxi
Topical List of Entries
xxxvii
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA, A–J
1 VOLUME 2
Chronology
vii
Alphabetical List of Entries
xxi
Topical List of Entries
xxvii
THE ENCYCLOPEDIA, K–Z
305
Resource Guide
573
Index
583
About the Editor and Contributors
605
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Chronology
500s B.C.E.
Aesop, who might have been of African origin, creates his fables on the Greek island of Samos.
300s B.C.E.
Clitus “the Black,” one of the Macedonian commanders under Alexander the Great, may have been of black African descent.
219 to 202 B.C.E.
During the Second Punic War between Rome and Carthage, Carthaginian general Hannibal invades Italy with many African soldiers, many of whom are black African.
200s B.C.E. to 476
The ancient Roman army uses African troops, which are stationed throughout Western Europe.
100s
African playwright Terentius Afer writes several pieces for the theater of the ancient Roman Empire.
100s to 200s
Five emperors from Africa rule ancient Rome: Septimius Severus, Geta, Caracalla, Marcus Opellius Macrinus, and Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus; the exact race of each of these emperors is often debated.
100s to 400s
Ancient Rome incorporates Africa into its empire; Africans become members of the Roman government.
600s to 900s
Muslims from Africa launch attacks and eventually occupy parts of Italy.
700s
Muslims from Africa begin to launch attacks and occupy parts of the Iberian peninsula; Muslims retain control over parts of the Iberian peninsula until 1492.
viii
Chronology 1000s to 1400s
Development of the Black Madonna tradition in Europe, which depicts Mary, the mother of Jesus, with dark skin tones.
1099
Nugaymath Turquia leads a contingent of 300 female Moorish archers, called “Amazons” during the Almoravid siege of Valencia, which led to the death of the Spanish hero El Cid.
1100s
Prester John, a mythical figure, is thought by Europeans to rule over a distant Christian empire beyond the Islamic world; over time, this empire is believed to be in Africa.
1194
Holy Roman Emperor Henry VI is accompanied by turbaned black trumpeters on his entry into Sicily.
1200
Feirefiz is a courtly knight and the biracial half-brother of the main character Parzival in the Middle High German epic poem Parzival by Wolfram von Eschenbach.
1200s
Sir Morien, a black Moorish knight, is the subject of a romantic epic poem written in medieval Dutch set in the mythical era of King Arthur of England and the Knights of the Round Table.
1200s
Mourana Gil, a Moor, becomes the mistress of King Afonso III of Portugal.
1200s to 1300s
Black Africans are used frequently in the iconography of the Holy Roman Empire to express the desire of particular emperors to extend their sovereignty beyond Europe.
1240s
Earliest surviving image of Maurice, the important soldier and Catholic saint, as a black African is made in Magdeburg, Germany.
Late 1200s
The Romance of Palamedes is written. Palamedes, a Moorish knight, is a member of the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend and a prominent character in the tale of Tristan and Isolde.
Late 1200s
The heraldic symbol of the Moor’s head, which depicts the profile of a black African Muslim, begins to appear on the traditional flags of many southern European regions.
Late 1200s
Many coats of arms in Europe begin to feature black Africans.
1300s
The Muslim community in Lucera in southern Italy, which included many black Africans, is suppressed by Charles II of Anjou.
Chronology 1300s
One of the Three Magi who worshipped the infant Jesus of Nazareth begins to be shown as black in European art.
1300s to 1400s
Black Death results in the increase of slaves in Europe, many of whom come from Africa.
1400s to 1600s
The Age of Exploration takes place.
1400s to 1500s
Renaissance art features many representations of black African slaves and domestic servants and their often manumitted descendants in Europe.
1400s to 1800s
African pirates known as Barbary pirates or Ottoman corsairs attack southern European cities and ships in the Mediterranean.
1450s
Pope Nicholas V issues papal bulls granting the right to reduce pagans, Muslims, and other non-Christians to slavery.
1490s to early 1500s
The Kingdom of the Kongo converts to Christianity and begins to send delegations to Portugal.
1492
Pedro Alonso Niño, a Spanish navigator of black African descent, pilots the Niña during Columbus’s first voyage to the Americas.
Early 1500s
Bartolomé de las Casas encourages the use of black African slaves in the New World instead of the native population.
1500s
The trans-Atlantic slave trade begins.
1500s
Leo Africanus, a former slave of Pope Leo X, publishes a multivolume survey of African geography.
1500s
John Blanke, a “Moor,” has a long career as a trumpeter at the Tudor Court in England.
1513
Nuflo de Olano, a black slave, accompanies explorer Vasco Nuñez de Balboa when his expedition sights the Pacific Ocean.
1526
Benedict the Moor, the son of African slaves and patron saint of Palermo, is born in Sicily.
1537
Alessandro de Medici, whose mother was a black servant, dies; he was the last of the senior branch of the Italian Medici family to rule Florence and the first to become a hereditary duke.
1574 to 1585
Juan Latina, a black Spanish poet, publishes three volumes of poetry in Latin.
ix
x
Chronology 1590s
Luce Negro, a famous black courtesan who ran a brothel in London, may have been the inspiration for the “Dark Lady” of Shakespeare’s sonnets.
Early 1600s
Leonardo Ortíz works as an Afro-Spanish lawyer of the Royal Court in Spain.
1600s
Henrique (or Enrique) Dias, a black African soldier from Brazil, serves in the Portuguese army during several colonial campaigns.
1603
William Shakespeare writes Othello.
1603
Andrés de Claramonte publishes El Valiente Negro de Flandes (“The Valiant Negro of Flanders”).
1640s
António Vieira, a biracial Jesuit missionary and Portuguese diplomat during the seventeenth century, becomes an advisor to the king of Portugal.
Mid-1600s
Sebastian Gomez, a former slave, becomes a student of Bartolomé Esteban Murillo, a famous Spanish painter.
Mid-1600s
Juan de Pareja, a slave of African descent who worked in the household of Spanish painter Diego Velázquez, eventually earns his freedom and becomes a noted painter.
1665
Nabo the Moor, a favorite at the court of Queen Marie-Teresa of France, disappears; he is speculated to be the infamous Man in the Iron Mask.
1685
The Code Noir is adopted in France to regulate the status of slaves and freemen.
1687
Aniaba (or Aniabi), a young African man, is presented at the court of French King Louis XIV.
1688
Aphra Behn publishes Oroonoko or, the Royal Slave.
Late 1600s to 1700s
Enlightenment philosophers develop theories on race and slavery.
1700s
Jacobus Capitein, a former African slave, earns a doctorate from a university in the Netherlands; he becomes famous for his defense of the institution of slavery.
1700s
Francis Barber, a former slave from Jamaica, works in England as an assistant to the famous lexicographer Samuel Johnson.
1701
The Free Soil Principle is recognized in England by Lord Holt.
Chronology 1707
Tsar Peter the Great of Russia serves as godfather to Abraham Hannibal, a former black African slave who would become a noted Russian general, military engineer, and governor.
1723
Slavery is abolished in Russia.
1736
Anton Wilhelm Amo, a former African slave and first subSaharan African to attend any university in Europe, becomes a lecturer at a university in Germany.
1767
The case of Jonathan Strong is heard in England.
1770
James Albert Ukawsaw Gronniosaw publishes his slave narrative in England.
1772
The Somerset Case suggests that slavery is inconsistent with English common law.
1773
African American slave Phillis Wheatley publishes her Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral in England.
1773
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre publishes Journey to Mauritius, which criticizes slavery.
1777
Bill Richmond, the slave who executed American Revolutionary war hero Nathan Hale, arrives in England, where he becomes a famous boxer.
1777
A French Royal Declaration prohibits the arrival of any new “black, mulatto, or person of color of either sex” into metropolitan France.
1778
A French Council of State arrêt prohibits interracial marriages and punishes the offending couples with expulsion to the colonies; all registered blacks are to carry identification cards.
1778
The Royal Pragmatic is issued in Spain to curb unacceptable interracial marriages.
1780
Ignatius Sancho, a former slave, dies; he was the first black African prose writer to publish his work in England and the first black Briton known to have voted in an election.
1786
Jean-Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy, a French scientist and the son of a former African slave, becomes the first person of African descent elected to the Academy of Science in Paris.
1786
Abolitionist Thomas Clarkson publishes the English version of An Essay on the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species, Particularly the African.
xi
xii
Chronology 1787
The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade is founded in England.
1787
Sierra Leone is founded through English efforts as a home for emancipated slaves.
1787
Quobna Ottobah Cugoano publishes Thoughts and Sentiments on the Evil and Wicked Traffic of the Slavery and Commerce of the Human Species.
1788
The Society of the Friends of the Blacks is founded in France.
1789
The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African is published.
1789
Black servant Ignatius Fortuna dies in Germany as a wealthy and respected man.
1790
Vincent Ogé, a biracial merchant from Saint-Domingue, returns to the Caribbean to initiate a doomed rebellion after unsuccessfully petitioning the French National Assembly to give free gens de couleur the right to vote.
1790s
Thomas-Alexandre Dumas, the son of a black slave and a French aristocrat, becomes a general in France during the French Revolution.
1790s
Black and biracial deputies from Saint-Domingue arrive in France during the French Revolution.
1791
The Haitian Revolution begins.
1792
During the French Revolution, a legion composed of all black soldiers is created and placed under the command of Chevalier de Saint-Georges, the son of a black African slave and a French aristocrat.
1794
The French Revolutionary government abolishes slavery.
1795
Madame de Staël publishes Mirza.
1796
After the death of Angelo Soliman, a former African slave popular at the Habsburg court, the Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of Austria, claims the former slave’s body and has it flayed and stuffed to be put on display in his private museum.
1800s
A series of revolutions for independence in Latin America and the Caribbean against European countries take place; many revolutionary leaders and soldiers are of black African descent.
1800s
Scientific racism is developed in Europe.
Chronology 1800s to early 1900s
Many African American intellectuals, artists, and writers travel to Europe.
Early 1800s
Joseph Emidy, a former black African slave, becomes a celebrated violinist and composer in Georgian England.
Early 1800s
John Edmonstone, a free black in nineteenth-century England, teaches the young naturalist Charles Darwin the art of taxidermy.
Early 1800s
African American actor Ira Aldridge becomes a success in European theaters, performing many of Shakespeare’s plays.
1802
Napoleon reintroduces slavery in the French colonies.
1802
Louis Delgrès leads a group of ex-slaves in Guadeloupe to resist the French forces returning and reintroducing slavery.
1802
George Bridgetower, a biracial musician dubbed “the Abyssinian Prince,” becomes an acquaintance of composer Ludwig van Beethoven.
1807
Britain passes the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act.
1808 to 1815
Joachim Murat, a renowned cavalry leader of Moorish descent who was made a grand marshall of France by Napoleon Bonaparte, rules as king of Naples.
1811
The German writer Heinrich von Kleist publishes The Engagement in San Domingo about the Haitian Revolution.
1818
Nathaniel Wells, the son of a Welsh merchant and his black slave who inherited his father’s Caribbean estates, becomes Britain’s first black sheriff.
1820s
Nancy and Nero Prince, both African Americans, move to Russia and work for Tsar Alexander I and Tsar Nicholas I.
1820
William Davidson, a biracial radical activist, is a member of the infamous 1820 Cato Street Conspiracy in England.
1820s
Billy Waters, a black African sailor in the British navy, becomes famous as an eccentric street musician and actor in London.
1820s to 1840s
Cyrille Bissette, a man of biracial descent from Martinique, becomes known for his fiery writings in France that exposed the discrimination against free people of color in the French Caribbean and argues for the abolition of slavery.
1823
The British Anti-Slavery Society is founded.
xiii
xiv
Chronology 1823
Madame de Duras publishes Ourika, the first full-fledged representation of a black person’s interiority in European literature.
1824
Radical biracial abolitionist Robert Wedderborn publishes his autobiography, The Horrors of Slavery.
1825 to 1830
Eugene Onegin, written by the Russian literary icon Alexander Pushkin, descended from an African slave, is published serially.
1830s
Jean-Louis Michel, a famous swordsman and duelist in Napoleonic France, opens a fencing school in Montpellier.
1830s
Biracial children from well-to-do families in New Orleans are often sent to France to receive a formal education.
1831
The Brown Privilege Bill is passed.
1833
Slavery is outlawed in all British colonies.
1834
French Society for the Abolition of Slavery is founded.
1835 to 1840
Alexis de Tocqueville publishes his Democracy in America, which greatly influences European opinion of the United States and its inhabitants, including blacks.
1836
Victor Séjour migrates to Paris, where he writes Le Mulâtre (The Mulatto, 1837), the first known piece of fiction by an African American writer.
1840s
Abolitionist and former slave Frederick Douglass publishes a Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave (1845) and tours Europe for the first time.
1840s
Samuel Crowther, a native Nigerian, becomes ordained in England as an Anglican minister.
1844
Alexandre Dumas père, the grandson of a black slave, publishes The Three Musketeers.
1847
Sweden abolishes slavery after the slaves’ freedom was bought by the state.
1848
Denmark and France abolish slavery.
1848
William Cuffay, a black British tailor and leader in the Chartist movement, is arrested in connection with a planned uprising.
1850s
Arthur de Gobineau, a French diplomat and writer, publishes his Essay on the Inequality of the Races.
Chronology 1854
Mary Seacole is refused by British War Offices the right to serve as a nurse because of her ethnicity; she pays her own way to Crimea and becomes an independent nurse for the British army.
1860s
Famous Afro-Brazilian composer and abolitionist Antônio Carlos Gomes studies music in Italy.
1860s
Black British doctor James Africanus Beale Horton becomes an early advocate of African nationalism.
1860s to 1901
Afro-Cuban violinist Claudio Brindis de Sala becomes a sensation in Europe and German Kaiser Wilhelm II’s official violinist.
1863
The Netherlands abolishes slavery, including in its colonies.
1869
Portugal abolishes slavery in its colonies.
1870
Spain passes the Moret Law.
1871
The Rio Branco Law of Free Birth takes effect in Brazil.
1870s
The European “Scramble for Africa” begins.
1881
Pierre Loti publishes Le Roman d’un Saphi.
1884–1885
Germany and France host the Berlin Conference to discuss European imperialism in Africa.
1887
John Mensah Sarbah becomes the first black barrister in England.
Late 1800s
W.E.B. Du Bois pursues graduate studies in Germany and becomes an advocate of Pan-Africanism.
1896
Josephine Bakhita, a former African slave, becomes a permanent member of the Canossian Sisters in Italy. She is later made a Catholic saint.
1897
After the death of José de Sousa Martins, a revered biracial doctor in Portugal, a quasi-cult forms around him followed by people looking to his spirit to intervene in their recovery of a medical condition.
1898
Black British musician Samuel Coleridge-Taylor composes Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast.
1900
First Pan-African Congress is held in London.
Early 1900s
Germany bans interracial marriages in its African colonies.
xv
xvi
Chronology Early 1900s
Blaise Diagne, deputy for Senegal in the French National Assembly, becomes the first black African to serve in the French Chamber of Deputies.
1902
A delegation of Duala chiefs arrives in Germany to attempt to make complaints about the ongoing oppression and mistreatment by the German colonial administration.
1904
Mary Church Terrell is the only black woman to attend the Berlin International Congress of Women in Germany.
1906
John Archer becomes one of the first people of black African descent to hold public office in Britain.
1908
Leopold II transfers control of the Congo to the Belgian government amid protest by white European and black intellectuals over the Congo’s administration.
1914
Rudolf Duala Manga, a Duala king and paramount chief educated in Germany, is executed as a resistance leader against the German colonial authorities.
1914–18
Black colonial troops and labor are used in World War I.
1916
Sosthene Mortenol, whose parents were former black slaves, is a French naval captain appointed commander of the Air Defenses of Paris during World War I.
1919
Race disturbances occur in Glasgow.
1920s
Several mixed race children are born to black colonial occupational troops and white German women in the German Rhineland. They are later persecuted by the Nazis.
1920s
African American jazz takes Europe by storm.
1920s
African American Josephine Baker first emerges as a European superstar.
1921
René Maran, a French writer of Guyanese descent, becomes the first black recipient of the prestigious Prix Goncourt.
1926
Bakary Diallo writes of his experiences as a tiralleur in the French colonial army in World War I.
1929
The German Section of the League for the Defense of the Negro Race is formed.
1930s
Mahjub bin Adam Mohamed, a German colonial soldier in Africa during World War I, becomes a university teacher and actor in Germany before being persecuted by the Nazis.
Chronology 1930s
Nicolás Guillén Batista, a noted Afro-Cuban poet, goes to Spain during the Spanish Civil War.
1930s
Many African American volunteers fight against Francisco Franco in the Spanish Civil War.
1930 to 1940s
The Nazis persecute blacks in Germany and other parts of Europe, including Josef Nassy and Valaida Snow, performing forced sterilizations and sending them to concentration camps.
1930s to 1940s
Larbi Benbarek becomes an African sports celebrity in Europe.
1931
Harold Moody establishes the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP) in Britain.
1933
Hilarius Gilges, a young Afro-German dancer and communist from Dusseldorf, Germany, is murdered by the Nazis.
1935
The “L’Etudiant Noir,” the forerunner of the Negritude Movement, is created in France.
1935
The International African Service Bureau is founded in England by C.L.R. James and George Padmore.
1938
Italy bans marriage between citizens and colonial subjects.
1939–1945
Black colonial troops and labor are used in European military forces in World War II; many African Americans are stationed and fight in Europe.
1940s to 1950s
Several biracial children are born to German mothers and African American servicemen stationed in Europe.
1943
The Imperial Hotel refuses to grant lodgings to the famous black British cricketer, Learie Constantine.
1945
The European decolonization of Africa begins.
1948
The Empire Windrush brings 500 Afro-Caribbean migrants to Britain, marking the beginning of an immigration boom.
1948
Jean Genet, a black French writer, is convicted of theft for the tenth time and several French writers successfully petition for a “pardon in advance.”
1949
Félix Éboué, the first black French colonial governor and hero of World War II, becomes the first black French citizen to have his remains placed in the Panthéon, a mausoleum reserved for the greatest figures in French history.
xvii
xviii
Chronology 1952
Frantz Fanon publishes Black Skin, White Masks.
1954
The French government selects African American Eugene Bullard, who served with distinction in the French military during World War I and as a spy during World War II, to light the flame at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier under the Arc de Triomphe.
1956
First International Congress of Black Writers and Artists is held in France.
1958
Notting Hill Race Riot takes place in London.
1959
Claudia Jones, a Trinidadian activist and journalist, introduces the Notting Hill Carnival.
1959
The Africa Institute is founded in the Soviet Union for research on Africa.
1960s
Lumumba University opens in the Soviet Union to bring students from Africa study to the U.S.S.R.
1960s
African American Civil Rights leaders Martin Luther King, Jr. and Malcolm X travel to Europe to encourage blacks to stand up for social equality.
1960s to 1970s
The Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) is launched as a protest initiative in Britain to eliminate racism.
1965
Britain passes the Race Relations Act.
1970s
The Notting Hill Carnival in London is transformed into a celebration of Caribbean identity.
1970s to 1980s
Brendon Batson becomes one of the first high-profile black British footballers.
1976
The Notting Hill Carnival Riot occurs in London.
1981
The Brixton race riots occur in England.
1982
Black Briton Val McCalla founds The Voice.
1983
David Dabydeen edits The Black Presence in English Literature.
1983
Léopold Sédar Senghor is elected a member of the prestigious French Academy.
1985–1986
The Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD) and Afro-German Women (ADEFRA) are founded.
Chronology 1986
Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out is published.
1987
Diane Abbott becomes the first black woman to be elected to the House of Commons in the United Kingdom.
1987
Britain adopts the American concept of Black History Month, which in Britain is celebrated in October.
1987 to 2006
Martin Bernal published his three-volume Black Athena, a controversial work posing the argument that European classical civilization was primarily rooted in African and Asian cultures, and that previous scholars obscured the influences of these civilizations because of racism and anti-Semitism.
1990s
Afro-German entertainer Cherno Jobatey hosts a morning German television show.
1992
Afro-Caribbean writer Derek Walcott wins the Nobel Prize for Literature.
1993
Lennox Lewis becomes the first British world heavyweight champion in the twentieth century.
1994 to 2004
Arabella Kiesbauer hosts the daily talk-show Arabella, modeled on African American Oprah Winfrey’s show Oprah, on German television.
1995
Scholar Julia Markus published her book arguing that famous English poet Elizabeth Barrett and her future husband, Robert Browning, were of biracial descent.
1996
Calixthe Beyala is awarded the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française.
2001
The French Senate adopts a law recognizing slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity.
2002
Penguin Classics publishes a collection of Linton Kwesi Johnson’s poetry, Mi Revalueshanary Fren, making him the second living poet to receive such an edition.
2002
The remains of Saartjie (Sara) Baartman, derogatorily known as the “Hottentot Venus,” who was exhibited and exploited in Europe as an attraction of the grotesque in the nineteenth century, are returned to South Africa by a French museum.
2002
Paul Boateng, a British Labour politician active in the black community for many years, becomes the first black cabinet minister in Britain.
xix
xx
Chronology 2005
Black and Arab youths riot in the suburbs of Paris.
2005
The Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) is established in France.
2006
May 10 is designated a French national holiday to commemorate the abolition of slavery in France and its colonies.
2006
Harry Roselmack becomes the first black lead news anchor on French television.
2007
Adebari Rotimi is elected the first black mayor in Ireland.
2007
Black Briton Patricia Scotland becomes the first woman attorney general.
2007
African and European enforcement agencies increase surveillance of the coastline to reduce illegal African immigration to Europe.
2007
Black European Women’s Congress held in Vienna.
2008
Aimé Césaire, one of the founders of the Francophone Negritude movement, dies.
2008
Noah Snow, who founded the first antiracist media watchdog organization in Germany, publishes a book on racism in Germany.
Alphabetical List of Entries
Abbott, Diane
Authors in Europe, African American
Abolition of Slavery, British
Ayim, May
Abolition of Slavery, European
Baartman, Saartjie
Abolition of Slavery, French
Baker, Josephine
Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese
Bakhita, Josephine
Abolition of Slavery, Russian
Baldwin, James
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish
Balzac, Blacks in the Works of
Adebari, Rotimi
Barber, Francis
Aesop
Batson, Brendon
Afonso I
Bechet, Sidney
African Diaspora
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Africanus, Leo
Belley, Jean-Baptiste
Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain
Benbarek, Larbi
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Afro-Germans
Berlin Conference
Age of Exploration
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri
Aida
Besatzungskinder
Alcindor, John
Biassou, Georges
Aldridge, Ira
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Bissette, Cyrille
Amos, Valerie Ann
Black Athena Controversy
Aniaba
Black British
Archer, John
Black History Month
Art, Blacks as Represented in European
Black Madonna Tradition
Artists in Europe, African American
Blanco, Roberto
xxii
Alphabetical List of Entries Boateng, Ozwald
Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch
Boateng, Paul
Colonies in the Caribbean, French
Boer War
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish
Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu
Congo Free State, Protest Against the
Bridgetower, George Briggs, Cyril
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Brindis de Sala, Claudio
Conquistadors, Black
Britain, Blacks in
Constantine, Learie
British Anti-Slavery Society
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
British Army, Blacks in the
Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and
Brown, James Jackson Brown Privilege Bill Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Bubonic Plague and Blacks Bug-Jargal Bullard, Eugene
Crowther, Samuel Adjai Cuffay, William Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah Dabydeen, David Da Gama, Luis
Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from
D’Aguiar, Fred
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD)
Damas, Léon Damingue, Joseph
Campbell, Naomi
Davidson, William
Capitein, Jacobus
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
Castro Alves, Antônio de
Delafosse, Maurice
El Celoso Extremeño
Delgrès, Louis
Central Europe, Blacks in
Des inconnus chez moi
Césaire, Aimé
Diagne, Blaise
Le Chat maigre
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Diallo, Bakary
Christophe, Henri
Dias, Henrique
Cinqué, Joseph
Le Docteur noir
Civil Rights Movement in TwentiethCentury Great Britain
Douglass, Frederick
Clitus of Macedonia
Du Chaillu, Paul
Code Noir
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Dumas fils, Alexandre
Colonies in Africa, British
Dumas père, Alexandre
Colonies in Africa, Dutch
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Colonies in Africa, French
Éboué, Félix
Colonies in Africa, German
Edmonstone, John
Colonies in Africa, Italian
Ellington, Duke
Colonies in Africa, Portuguese
Emidy, Joseph
Colonies in Africa, Spanish
English Common Law, Slavery and
Colonies in the Caribbean, British
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race
Du Bois, W.E.B
Alphabetical List of Entries Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the
Equiano, Olaudah
Horton, James
Europe, Mary L.
Howells, Rosalind
Fanon, Frantz
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Film, Blacks in European
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Fortuna, Ignatius
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD)
France, Blacks in Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Free Soil Principle
Ireland, Blacks in
French Army, Blacks in the
Italy, African Invasions of
French Ministry of the Marine
Italy, Blacks in
French Revolution, Blacks in the
Jackson, Colin
Gall, Franz Josef
James, C.L.R.
Garrison, Len
Jazz, European Reception of
Genet, Jean
Jobatey, Cherno
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Georges
Jones, Claudia
Germany, Blacks in
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Gil, Mourana
Kincaid, Jamaica
Gilges, Lari
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Gilroy, Beryl
Ladinos, Black
Glasgow Race Disturbances
Laine, Cleo
Gobineau on Races and Slavery
Larsen, Nella
Gomes, A. Carlos
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Gomez, Sebastian Goytisolo, Juan
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Goytisolo, Luis
Latino, Juan
Grant, Bernie
Le Bon, Gustave
Grégoire, Abbé
Levy, Andrea
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Lewis, Lennox
Guillén, Nicolás
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Literature, Blacks in British
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Literature, Blacks in French
Hall, Stuart
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Hamitic Myth
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Hannibal, Abraham
McCalla, Val
Hemings, Sally
McDonald, Trevor
Henry, Thierry
McGrath, Paul
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María
Hill, Richard
McKay, Claude
xxiii
xxiv
Alphabetical List of Entries Magi, Representations of the
Olympics of 1936
Malcolm X in London
Oroonoko
Man in the Iron Mask
Ortíz, Leonardo
Maran, René
Othello
Marché Dejean
Ourika
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen
Ourika, Charlotte
Matheus, John
Padmore, George
Maurice, Saint
Palamedes, Sir
May 10 Holiday
Pamoja
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Pan-Africanism
Medici, Alessandro de
Pareja, Juan de
Meneses, Cristóbol de
Parzival, Feirefiz in
Merida, Juan de
Phillips, Caryl
Michel, Jean-Louis
Piar, Manuel Carlos
Mirsky, D. S.
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Mirza
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Missionaries in Africa, European
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Moody, Harold Moors
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European
Moor’s Head Symbol
Popes, African
Moret Law, Spanish
Portugal, Blacks in
Morien, Romance of
Prester John
Morris, Bill
Prince, Mary
Mortenol, Sosthene
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Mpundu Akwa Murat, Joachim
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Music, African Influences on European
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Music Industry, Blacks in the European
Punic Wars
Musicians in Europe, African American Classical
Pushkin, Alexander
The Mysterious Island
Race Riots in Europe
Nassy, Josef
Rastafarianism
Nazis and Black POWs
Remond, Sarah Parker
Nazis and Blacks in Europe
Renaissance, Blacks in the
Négritude Netherlands, Blacks in the
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN)
New Imperialism
Rhineland Blacks
Notting Hill Carnival
Richmond, Bill
Ogé, Vincent
Riley, Joan
Oguntoye, Katharina
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Okri, Ben
Roar
Oldfield, Bruce
Robeson, Paul
Quassia
Alphabetical List of Entries Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the
Spain, Blacks in
Roman Army, Africans in the
Spanish Army, Blacks in the
Roman Emperors of African Origin
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
Roman Empire in Africa
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell
Le Roman d’un Spahi
Storm, Theodor
Roselmack, Harry
Strong, Jonathan
Roumain, Jacques
Tanner, Henry Ossawa
Russia, Blacks in
Television, Blacks in European
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de
Terentius Afer
Salvador, Henri
Terrell, Mary Church
Sancho, Ignatius
Thompson, Daley
Sarbah, John Mensah
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Scandinavia, Blacks in
Tombouctou
Scientific Racism
Trouillot, Hénock
Scotland, Patricia
Turquia, Nugaymath
Seacole, Mary
Tuskegee Airmen
Séjour, Victor
Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London
Senghor, Léopold Sédar
Ustinov, Peter
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of
Vieira, António
Shinebourne, Janice
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Sierra Leone
Von Kleist, Heinrich
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Walcott, Derek
Slave Trade, British
Waters, Billy
Slave Trade, Dutch
Wedderburn, Robert
Slave Trade, French
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the
Slave Trade, Italian
Wells, Nathaniel
Slave Trade, Portuguese
Wharton, Arthur
Slave Trade, Spanish
Wheatley, Phillis
Snow, Valaida
Wilberforce, William
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Woodson, Carter G.
Society of the Friends of the Blacks
World War I, Black Participation in
Soliman, Angelo
World War II, Black Participation in
Somerset Case
Wright, Richard
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de
Young Africans in Norway (AYIN)
Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and
Zulu War
Spain, African Invasions of
Zwarte Piet
xxv
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Topical List of Entries
Art Art, Blacks as Represented in European Artists in Europe, African American Black Madonna Tradition Film, Blacks in European Gomez, Sebastian
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Missionaries in Africa, European Moors New Imperialism
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Prester John
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and Race Riots in Europe
Magi, Representations of the
Television, Blacks in European
Moor’s Head Symbol
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Nassy, Josef Pareja, Juan de
Central Europe
Tanner, Henry Ossawa
Abolition of Slavery, European
Belgium
Central Europe, Blacks in
Black Madonna Tradition
Abolition of Slavery, European
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Berlin Conference
Film, Blacks in European
Black Madonna Tradition
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Congo Free State, Protest Against the
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Film, Blacks in European
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female Heraldry, Blacks in European Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
xxviii
Topical List of Entries Kiesbauer, Arabella
France
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Abolition of Slavery, French
Maurice, Saint
Aniaba
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Moors Pamoja Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution Prester John Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and Race Riots in Europe Soliman, Angelo Television, Blacks in European Tuskegee Airmen Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Events
Age of Exploration Authors in Europe, African American Baker, Josephine Baldwin, James Balzac, Blacks in the Works of Bechet, Sidney Belley, Jean-Baptiste Benbarek, Larbi Berlin Conference Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri Biassou, Georges Bissette, Cyrille Black Madonna Tradition Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu Bug-Jargal
Age of Exploration
Bullard, Eugene
Berlin Conference
Césaire, Aimé
Black History Month
Le Chat maigre
Boer War
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Bubonic Plague and Blacks
Christophe, Henri
Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain
Code Noir
Congo Free State, Protest Against the
Colonies in the Caribbean, French
Glasgow Race Disturbances
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Damas, Léon
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Damingue, Joseph
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
May 10 Holiday
Delgrès, Louis
New Imperialism
Des inconnus chez moi
Notting Hill Carnival
Diagne, Blaise
Olympics of 1936
Diallo, Bakary
Punic Wars
Le Docteur noir
Race Riots in Europe
Du Bois, W.E.B
Renaissance, Blacks in the
Du Chaillu, Paul
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Dumas fils, Alexandre
World War I, Black Participation in
Dumas père, Alexandre
World War II, Black Participation in
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Zulu War
Éboué, Félix
Colonies in Africa, French
Delafosse, Maurice
Topical List of Entries Fanon, Frantz
Ogé, Vincent
Film, Blacks in European
Ourika
France, Blacks in
Ourika, Charlotte
Free Soil Principle
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
French Army, Blacks in the
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
French Ministry of the Marine
Prester John
French Revolution, Blacks in the Genet, Jean
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Georges
Race Riots in Europe
Gobineau and Race
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN)
Grégoire, Abbé Haitian Revolution for Independence Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature Hemings, Sally Henry, Thierry Heraldry, Blacks in European
Roman d’un spahi Roselmack, Harry Roumain, Jacques Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de Salvador, Henri Séjour, Victor
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Senghor, Léopold Sédar
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Slave Trade, French Society of the Friends of the Blacks
Le Bon, Gustave
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste
Television, Blacks in European
Literature, Blacks in French
The Mysterious Island
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Man in the Iron Mask
Tombouctou
Maran, René
Trouillot, Hénock
Marché Dejean
World War I, Black Participation in
Matheus, John
World War II, Black Participation in
May 10 Holiday
Wright, Richard
McKay, Claude
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Michel, Jean-Louis
Germany
Mirza
Abolition of Slavery, European
Missionaries in Africa, European
Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Moors
Afro-Germans
Moor’s Head Symbol
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Morien, Romance of
Ayim, May
Mortenol, Sosthene
Berlin Conference
Murat, Joachim
Besatzungskinder
Négritude
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub
New Imperialism
Black Madonna Tradition
xxix
xxx
Topical List of Entries Blanco, Roberto
Terrell, Mary Church
Colonies in Africa, German
Tuskegee Airmen
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Von Kleist, Heinrich
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the
Du Bois, W.E.B
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Film, Blacks in European Free Soil Principle
Great Britain
Gall, Franz Josef
Abbott, Diane
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Abolition of Slavery, British
Germany, Blacks in
Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain
Gilges, Lari
Age of Exploration
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Alcindor, John
Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the
Aldridge, Ira
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Archer, John
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Baartman, Saartjie
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD)
Barber, Francis
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Batson, Brendon
Jobatey, Cherno
Berlin Conference
Kiesbauer, Arabella Literature, Blacks in German and Central European Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen Maurice, Saint Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Missionaries in Africa, European Moors Mpundo Akwa Nassy, Josef Nazis and Blacks in Europe Nazis and Black POWs Oguntoye, Katharina Olympics of 1936 Parzival, Feirefiz in
Amos, Valerie Ann
Belle, Dido Elizabeth Black British Boateng, Ozwald Boateng, Paul Boer War Bridgetower, George Britain, Blacks in British Anti-Slavery Society British Army, Blacks in the Brown, James Jackson Brown Privilege Bill Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD) Campbell, Naomi
Prester John
Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Race Riots in Europe
Colonies in Africa, British
Rhineland Blacks
Colonies in the Caribbean, British
Snow, Valaida
Common Law, Slavery and English
Storm, Theodor
Constantine, Learie
Television, Blacks in European
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Topical List of Entries Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and
McKay, Claude
Crowther, Samuel Adjai
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Cuffay, William
Missionaries in Africa, European
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
Moors
Dabydeen, David
Morien, Romance of
D’Aguiar, Fred
Morris, Bill
Davidson, William
New Imperialism
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Notting Hill Carnival
Douglass, Frederick
Okri, Ben
Du Bois, W.E.B
Oldfield, Bruce
Edmonstone, John
Oroonoko
Emidy, Joseph
Othello
Equiano, Olaudah
Padmore, George
Film, Blacks in European
Palamedes, Sir
Fortuna, Ignatius
Phillips, Caryl
Free Soil Principle
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Garrison, Len
Prester John
Gilroy, Beryl
Prince, Mary
Glasgow Race Disturbances Grant, Bernie
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Hall, Stuart
Race Riots in Europe
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Rastafarianism
Hill, Richard
Remond, Sarah Parker
Horton, James
Renaissance, Blacks in the
Howells, Rosalind
Richmond, Bill
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Riley, Joan
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Robeson, Paul
Jackson, Colin
Sancho, Ignatius
James, C.L.R.
Sarbah, John Mensah
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Scotland, Patricia
Jones, Claudia
Seacole, Mary
Kincaid, Jamaica
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Shinebourne, Janice
Laine, Cleo
Sierra Leone
Levy, Andrea
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Lewis, Lennox
Slave Trade, British
Literature, Blacks in British
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
McCalla, Val
Somerset Case
McDonald, Trevor
Strong, Jonathan
Malcolm X in London
Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the
xxxi
xxxii
Topical List of Entries Television, Blacks in European
Scientific Racism
Thompson, Daley
Woodson, Carter
Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London Ustinov, Peter
Ireland
Walcott, Derek
Adebari, Rotimi
Waters, Billy
Douglass, Frederick
Wedderburn, Robert
Film, Blacks in European
Wells, Nathaniel
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Wharton, Arthur
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Wheatley, Phillis
Ireland, Blacks in
Wilberforce, William
McGrath, Paul
World War I, Black Participation in
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
World War II, Black Participation in
Prester John
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Zulu Wars
Roar Television, Blacks in European
Groups Afro-German Women (ADEFRA)
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
British Anti-Slavery Society
Italy
Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD)
Abolition of Slavery, European
Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD)
Age of Exploration
Pamoja
Aida
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN)
Bakhita, Josephine
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade
Black Madonna Tradition
Society of the Friends of the Blacks Young Africans in Norway (AYIN)
Intellectual History/Concepts
Africanus, Leo
Benedict the Moor, Saint Bubonic Plague and Blacks Colonies in Africa, Italian Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic Damingue, Joseph
African Diaspora
Film, Blacks in European
Black Athena Controversy
Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily
Black History Month
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Enlightenment Philosophers and Race
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery Hamitic Myth
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Gall, Franz Josef
Italy, African Invasions of
Gobineau on Races and Slavery
Italy, Blacks in
Négritude
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Pan-Africanism
Medici, Alessandro de
Rastafarianism
Missionaries in Africa, European
Topical List of Entries Moors
Le Chat maigre
Moor’s Head Symbol
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
New Imperialism
Dabydeen, David
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
D’Aguiar, Fred
Popes, African
Damas, Léon
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Da Gama, Luis
Punic Wars
Des inconnus chez moi
Race Riots in Europe
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Roman Army, Africans in the
Diallo, Bakary
Roman Emperors, African
Le Docteur noir
Roman Empire in Africa
Douglass, Frederick
Slave Trade, Italian
Dumas fils, Alexandre
Television, Blacks in European
Dumas père, Alexandre
Terentius Afer
El Celoso Extremeño
Tuskegee Airmen
Equiano, Olaudah
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Fanon, Frantz
Law
Genet, Jean Georges
Brown Privilege Bill
Gilroy, Beryl
Code Noir
Goytisolo, Juan
Common Law, Slavery and English
Goytisolo, Luis
Criminality in Eighteenth-Century England, Blacks and
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning Moret Law, Spanish Rio Branco Law of Free Birth Somerset Case Strong, Jonathan
Literature Aesop Authors in Europe, African American Ayim, May
Guillén, Nicolás
Hügel-Marshall, Ika James, C.L.R. Johnson, Linton Kwesi Kincaid, Jamaica Larsen, Nella Latino, Juan Levy, Andrea Literature, Blacks in British Literature, Blacks in French
Baldwin, James
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European
Balzac, Blacks in the Works of
McKay, Claude
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Maran, René
Bug-Jargal
Matheus, John
Castro Alves, Antônio de
Merida, Juan de
Césaire, Aimé
Mirsky, D. D.
xxxiii
xxxiv
Topical List of Entries Morien, Romance of
Ellington, Duke
Négritude
Emidy, Joseph
Oguntoye, Katharina
Europe, Mary L.
Okri, Ben
Gilges, Lari
Oroonoko
Gomes, A. Carlos
Othello
Jazz, European Reception of
Ourika
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Palamedes, Sir
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Parzival, Feirefiz in
Laine, Cleo
Phillips, Caryl
Music, African Influences on European
Prester John
Music Industry, Blacks in the European
Prince, Mary
Musicians in Europe, African-American Classical
Prince, Nancy and Nero Pushkin, Alexander Riley, Joan Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the Roman d’un spahi
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European Salvador, Henri Snow, Valaida
Roumain, Jacques
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Sancho, Ignatius
Netherlands
Séjour, Victor
Abolition of Slavery, European
Senghor, Léopold Sédar Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of Shinebourne, Janice Storm, Theodor Terentius Afer The Mysterious Island Tocqueville, Alexis de Tombouctou Trouillot, Hénock Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London Von Kleist, Heinrich
Age of Exploration Black Madonna Tradition Capitein, Jacobus Colonies in Africa, Dutch Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch Film, Blacks in European Free Soil Principle Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female Heraldry, Blacks in European Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Walcott, Derek
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Wheatley, Phillis
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Wright, Richard
Missionaries in Africa, European
Music Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain Bechet, Sidney Blanco, Roberto Bridgetower, George
Moors Morien, Romance of Netherlands, Blacks in the Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic Prester John
Brindis de Sala, Claudio
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Campbell, Naomi
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Topical List of Entries Race Riots in Europe
Boateng, Paul
Slave Trade, Dutch
Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu
Television, Blacks in European
Bridgetower, George
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Briggs, Cyril
Zwarte Piet
Brindis de Sala, Claudio
People
Brown, James Jackson Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Abbott, Diane
Bullard, Eugene
Adebari, Rotimi
Campbell, Naomi
Aesop
Capitein, Jacobus
Afonso I
Castro Alves, Antônio de
African Diaspora
Césaire, Aimé
Africanus, Leo
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Afro-Germans
Christophe, Henri
Alcindor, John
Cinqué, Joseph
Aldridge, Ira
Clitus of Macedonia
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel
Amos, Valerie Ann Aniaba
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Archer, John
Conquistadors, Black
Artists in Europe, African American
Constantine, Learie
Authors in Europe, African American
Crowther, Samuel Adjai
Ayim, May
Cuffay, William
Baartman, Saartjie
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
Baker, Josephine
Dabydeen, David
Bakhita, Josephine
Da Gama, Luis
Baldwin, James
D’Aguiar, Fred
Barber, Francis
Damas, Léon
Batson, Brendon
Damingue, Joseph
Bechet, Sidney
Davidson, William
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Delafosse, Maurice
Belley, Jean-Baptiste
Delgrès, Louis
Benbarek, Larbi
Diagne, Blaise
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri
Diallo, Bakary
Besatzungskinder
Dias, Henrique
Biassou, Georges
Douglass, Frederick
Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub
Du Bois, W.E.B
Bissette, Cyrille
Du Chaillu, Paul
Black British
Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf
Blanco, Roberto
Dumas fils, Alexandre
Boateng, Ozwald
Dumas père, Alexandre
xxxv
xxxvi
Topical List of Entries Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Éboué, Félix
Latino, Juan
Edmonstone, John
Le Bon, Gustave
Ellington, Duke
Levy, Andrea
Emidy, Joseph
Lewis, Lennox
Equiano, Olaudah
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste
Europe, Mary L.
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Fanon, Frantz
Machado de Assis, Jaoquim Maria
Fortuna, Ignatius
McCalla, Val
Gall, Franz Josef
McDonald, Trevor
Garrison, Len
McGrath, Paul
Genet, Jean
McKay, Claude
Gil, Mourana
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María
Gilges, Lari
Magi, Representations of the
Gilroy, Beryl
Malcolm X in London
Gomes, A. Carlos
Man in the Iron Mask
Gomez, Sebastian
Maran, René
Goytisolo, Juan
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen
Goytisolo, Luis
Matheus, John
Grant, Bernie
Maurice, Saint
Grégoire, Abbé
Medici, Alessandro de
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Meneses, Cristóbol de
Guillén, Nicolás
Michel, Jean-Louis
Hall, Stuart
Mirsky, D. S.
Hannibal, Abraham
Missionaries in Africa, European
Hemings, Sally
Moody, Harold
Henry, Thierry
Moors
Hill, Richard
Morris, Bill
Horton, James
Mortenol, Sosthene
Howells, Rosalind
Mpundu Akwa
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
Murat, Joachim
Jackson, Colin James, C.L.R.
Musicians in Europe, African American Classical
Jobatey, Cherno
Nassy, Josef
Johnson, Linton Kwesi
Nazis and Blacks in Europe
Jones, Claudia
Nazis and Black POWs
Kiesbauer, Arabella
Ogé, Vincent
Kincaid, Jamaica
Oguntoye, Katharina
King, Martin Luther, Jr.
Okri, Ben
Ladinos, Black
Oldfield, Bruce
Laine, Cleo
Ortíz, Leonardo
Larsen, Nella
Ourika, Charlotte
Topical List of Entries Padmore, George
Thompson, Daley
Pareja, Juan de
Tocqueville, Alexis de
Phillips, Caryl
Trouillot, Hénock
Piar, Manuel Carlos
Turquia, Nugaymath
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Tuskegee Airmen
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Ustinov, Peter
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Vieira, António
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Popes, African
Walcott, Derek
Prince, Mary
Waters, Billy
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Wedderburn, Robert
Pushkin, Alexander
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the
Quassia
Wells, Nathaniel
Remond, Sarah Parker
Wharton, Arthur
Rhineland Blacks
Wheatley, Phillis
Richmond, Bill
Wilberforce, William
Riley, Joan
Woodson, Carter G.
Robeson, Paul
Wright, Richard
Von Kleist, Heinrich
Roman Emperors, African Roselmack, Harry
Portugal
Roumain, Jacques
Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de Salvador, Henri Sancho, Ignatius Sarbah, John Mensah Scotland, Patricia Seacole, Mary Séjour, Victor
Afonso I Age of Exploration Berlin Conference Black Madonna Tradition Castro Alves, Antônio de Colonies in Africa, Portuguese
Senghor, Léopold Sédar
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Shinebourne, Janice
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Snow, Valaida
Da Gama, Luis
Soliman, Angelo
Dias, Henrique
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité
Film, Blacks in European
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
Gil, Mourana
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell
Gomes, A. Carlos
Storm, Theodor
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Strong, Jonathan
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Tanner, Henry Ossawa Terentius Afer
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Terrell, Mary Church
Ladinos, Black
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Topical List of Entries Machado de Assis, Joaquim
Film, Blacks in European
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Hannibal, Abraham
Missionaries in Africa, European
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Moors
James, C.L.R.
Moor’s Head Symbol
McKay, Claude
New Imperialism
Mirsky, D. S.
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic
Moors
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean
Padmore, George
Portugal, Blacks in
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
Prester John
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Race Riots in Europe
Race Riots in Europe
Robeson, Paul
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Russia, Blacks in
Slave Trade, Portuguese
Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Pushkin, Alexander
Television, Blacks in European Vieira, António
Scandinavia
Villa-Lobos, Heitor
Abolition of Slavery, European
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Religion
Film, Blacks in European Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Bakhita, Josephine
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Benedict the Moor, Saint Black Madonna Tradition
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Crowther, Samuel Adjai
Larsen, Nella
Magi, Representations of the
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European
Maurice, Saint
Moors
Missionaries in Africa, European
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Popes, African
Race Riots in Europe
Rastafarianism
Scandinavia, Blacks in
Russia and Eastern Europe
Television, Blacks in European Quassia
Abolition of Slavery, Russian
Young Africans in Norway (AYIN)
Aesop
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Aldridge, Ira Black Madonna Tradition
Slavery
Briggs, Cyril
Abolition of Slavery, British
Clitus of Macedonia
Abolition of Slavery, European
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Abolition of Slavery, French
Du Bois, W.E.B.
Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese
Topical List of Entries Abolition of Slavery, Russian
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Abolition of Slavery, Spanish
Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah
Afonso I
Déclaration pour la police des noirs
African Diaspora
Delgrés, Louis
Age of Exploration
Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman
Aldridge, Ira
Dias, Henrique
Amo, Anton Wilhelm
Douglass, Frederick
Aniaba
Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre
Bakhita, Josephine
English Common Law, Slavery and
Barber, Francis
Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery
Belle, Dido Elizabeth
Equiano, Olaudah
Belley, Jean-Baptiste
Fortuna, Ignatius
Benedict the Moor, Saint
Free Soil Principle
Biassou, Georges
French Ministry of the Marine
Bissette, Cyrille
French Revolution, Blacks in the
Bridgetower, George
Georges
British Anti-Slavery Society
Gobineau on Races and Slavery
Brown Privilege Bill
Gomez, Sebastian
Browning, Elizabeth Barrett
Grégoire, Abbé
Bubonic Plague and Blacks
Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw
Bug-Jargal
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from
Hamitic Myth
Capitein, Jacobus
Hannibal, Abraham
Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard
Hemings, Sally
Christophe, Henri Cinqué, Joseph
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Code Noir
Ladinos, Black
Colonies in Africa, British
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Colonies in Africa, Dutch
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Colonies in Africa, French Colonies in Africa, German Colonies in Africa, Italian Colonies in Africa, Portuguese Colonies in Africa, Spanish Colonies in the Caribbean, British Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch Colonies in the Caribbean, French Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish
Latino, Juan L’Ouverture, Toussaint May 10 Holiday Medici, Alessandro de Mirza Moret Law Ogé, Vincent Oroonoko
Common Law, Slavery and English
Ourika
Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of
Ourika, Charlotte Pareja, Juan de
Conquistadors, Black
Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution
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Topical List of Entries Prince, Mary
Free Soil Principle
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
Gomez, Sebastian
Quassia
Goytisolo, Luis
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Guillén, Nicolás
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de
Heraldry, Blacks in European
Sancho, Ignatius
Immigration to Europe, Illegal African
Sierra Leone Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Slave Trade, British
Ladinos, Black
Slave Trade, Dutch
Las Casas, Bartolomé de
Slave Trade, French
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Slave Trade, Italian Slave Trade, Portuguese Slave Trade, Spanish Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade Society of the Friends of the Blacks Soliman, Angelo Somerset Case Sonthonax, Léger Félicité Strong, Jonathan Tocqueville, Alexis de Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London Waters, Billy Wells, Nathaniel Wheatley, Phillis Wilberforce, William
Spain Abolition of Slavery, Spanish Age of Exploration Benbarek, Larbi Black Madonna Tradition Brindis de Sala, Claudio Cinqué, Joseph Colonies in Africa, Spanish
Goytisolo, Juan
Latino, Juan Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Meneses, Cristóbol de Merida, Juan de Missionaries in Africa, European Moors Moor’s Head Symbol Moret Law Ortíz, Leonardo Pareja, Juan de Piar, Manuel Carlos Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean Prester John Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and Race Riots in Europe Slave Trade, Spanish Spain, African Invasions of Spain, Blacks in Spanish Army, Blacks in the
Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the
Conquistadors, Black
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell
Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic
Television, Blacks in European
El Celoso Extremeño
Turquia, Nugaymath
Film, Blacks in European
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe
Topical List of Entries Sports
Michel, Jean-Louis
Batson, Brendon
Mortenol, Sosthene
Benbarek, Larbi Brown, James Jackson Constantine, Learie Henry, Thierry Jackson, Colin Lewis, Lennox McGrath, Paul Olympics of 1936 Richmond, Bill Thompson, Daley
Murat, Joachim Nazis and Black POWs Nazis and Blacks in Europe Ogé, Vincent Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution Punic Wars Race Riots in Europe Roman Army, Africans in the
Wharton, Arthur
Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de
War and Conflict
Spain, African Invasions of
Biassou, Georges
Spanish Army, Blacks in the
Boer War British Army, Blacks in the Bullard, Eugene Christophe, Henri Clitus of Macedonia Conquistadors, Black Damingue, Joseph Delgrès, Louis Des inconnus chez moi Diagne, Blaise Diallo, Bakary Dias, Henrique Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre Éboué, Félix French Army, Blacks in the French Revolution, Blacks in the Guillén, Nicolás
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the World War I, Black Participation in World War II, Black Participation in Zulu War
Women Abbott, Diane Afro-German Women (ADEFRA) Amos, Valerie Ann Ayim, May Baartman, Saartjie Baker, Josephine Bakhita, Josephine Belle, Dido Elizabeth Browning, Elizabeth Barrett Campbell, Naomi Europe, Mary L.
Haitian Revolution for Independence
Genital Mutilation in Europe, Female
Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature
Gil, Mourana Gilroy, Beryl
Hannibal, Abraham
Hemings, Sally
Italy, African Invasions of
Howells, Rosalind
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Hügel-Marshall, Ika
L’Ouverture, Toussaint
Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning
Merida, Juan de
Jones, Claudia
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Topical List of Entries Kiesbauer, Arabella
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and
Kincaid, Jamaica
Remond, Sarah Parker
Laine, Cleo
Riley, Joan
Larsen, Nella
Seacole, Mary
Levy, Andrea
Shinebourne, Janice
Oguntoye, Katharina
Snow, Valaida
Ourika, Charlotte
Terrell, Mary Church
Prince, Mary
Turquia, Nugaymath
Prince, Nancy and Nero
Wheatley, Phillis
Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and
K Kiesbauer, Arabella (1969–) Arabella Cosima-Asereba Kiesbauer is an Austrian television entertainer, model, musician, and writer of black African descent. She was born in Vienna, Austria, in 1969. After the separation of her mother, Hannelore, a German actress, and her father, Sammy Ammissah, an engineer from Ghana, Kiesbauer was raised in Vienna by her grandmother. At school, Kiesbauer studied journalism and dramaturgy. Kiesbauer entered the entertainment industry as a presenter of the youth magazine X-Large on ORF, the Austrian public service television station, from 1989 to 1993, and as presenter of the series Inter-City on 3Sat from 1990 to 1991. She emerged as a celebrity after the success of her long-running daily talk show, Arabella, which aired on the German television station Pro7 from 1994 to 2004. The German daily talk show was inspired by the American talk show hosted by African American entertainer Oprah Winfrey. In 1995, Kiesbauer’s fame made her the target of a letter bomb that injured her assistant. In 2006, Kiesbauer began hosting a weekly late night talk show on the Berlin television station N24 TV. After only 40 shows, however, Kiesbauer claimed that the stress and fatigue of traveling from Vienna to Berlin regularly was too much for her private life to handle. She has also presented the ORF casting show Starmania. Kiesbauer has won numerous German awards for her television work, including the Bayerischen Fernsehpreis for Beste Talk-Newcomerin in 1994 and the media award Das Goldene Kabel in 1996. Kiesbauer also works as a model and musician and has published books, including Nobody Is Perfect! (2001) and Mein afrikanisches Herz (My African Heart, 2007). She appeared on the cover and inside pages of the July 1995 issue of the German Playboy magazine. Kiesbauer also models and does promotions for Vögele Shoes. She issued a music CD entitled Number One in 1994. In 2004, Kiesbauer married Florens Eblinger, a Viennese businessman.
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Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–) See also: Central Europe, Blacks in; Germany, Blacks in; Jobatey, Cherno; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Television, Blacks in European. Further Reading: The Official Web Page of Arabella Kiesbauer: http://www.arabella-kiesbauer. at/; Wieten, Jan, Graham Murdock, and Peter Dahlgren, eds. Television Across Europe: A Comparative Introduction. London: Sage Publications, 2000.
Eric Martone
Kincaid, Jamaica (1949–) Jamaica Kincaid is a renowned black novelist and journalist from the British Caribbean. Kincaid was born in the former British colony of Antigua in 1949. Her birth name was Elaine Potter Richardson. After her family expressed disapproval of her career choice, she changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid in 1973. When she was young, Kincaid resided with her stepfather and her mother. Because Arabella Kiesbauer, 2003. AP / Wide World Antigua was a British colony until 1967, Kincaid was educated under the British system. Photo. In 1965, she went to Westchester County in New York to work as an au pair. As a young adult, Kincaid remained in New York and studied photography at the New School for Social Research. She eventually won a full scholarship to Franconia College in New Hampshire. Under the impression that she was too old to be a student, Kincaid dropped out of Franconia after one year and returned to New York to write for Ingenue magazine. During this time, she also began writing articles for The Village Voice. Her work for these publications attracted the New Yorker’s lead editor at the time, William Shawn. In 1978, Kincaid became a staff writer for The New Yorker and worked for the magazine until 1995. Kincaid is most famous for her prolific career as a novelist. Lucy (1990) and Annie John (1985) are both autobiographical narratives. Annie John’s success propelled Kincaid to critical acclaim. In 1985, she was among the three finalists for the international Ritz Paris Hemingway Award. A later novel, Autobiography of My Mother (1996), explores issues of colonialism as well as her troublesome relationship with her mother. In 1997, Kincaid published My Brother, which focused on her experiences with her brother struggling against HIV/AIDS. Her recent novel Mr. Potter (2003) explores Kincaid’s troubled relationship with her father. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British.
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Further Reading: Birbalsingh, Frank. Jamaica Kincaid: From Antigua to America. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1996; Ferguson, Moira. “A Lot of Memory: An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid.” Kenyon Review 16:1 (Winter 1994): 163–188; Ferguson, Moira. Colonialism and Gender Relations from Mary Wollstonecraft to Jamaica Kincaid: East Caribbean Connections. New York: Columbia University Press, 1994; Ferguson, Moira. Jamaica Kincaid: Where the Land Meets the Body. Charlottesville: University Press of Virginia, 1994.
Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard
King, Martin Luther, Jr. Martin Luther King Jr. (1929–1968) was an African American Baptist pastor and famous nonviolent Civil Rights Movement leader from 1955 to his assassination in Memphis, Tennessee, in 1968. He won the 1964 Nobel Peace Prize. King’s sermons, speeches (such as his 1963 “I Have a Dream” speech), identification with peaceful revolutionary Mahatma Gandhi, and influence on freedom movements around the world have made him a universal messenger for peace. His influence and message were keenly felt in Britain before, during, and after King’s two London visits in the 1960s. In 1961, the London-based Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND), which had adopted King’s ideas, rhetoric, and aspects of his nonviolent protest ethos, sponsored his visit to preach from St. Paul’s Cathedral’s pulpit. King delivered an altered version of his favorite sermon, “The Three Dimensions of a Complete Life,” to about 4,000 people. During King’s 1964 London visit, on his way to collect the Nobel Prize in Oslo, he spoke against British restrictions on immigration and urged Britain to address racial issues without delay. Both trips also gave King the opportunity to address pressing international issues such as apartheid in South Africa. King’s influence on civil rights struggles in 1960s Britain was substantial. For example, he inspired the creation of the Campaign against Racial Discrimination (CARD), Oxford University’s SCORE (the Student Campaign for Racial Equality), and the Birmingham Coordinating Committee. To make a self-satisfied British society take notice, these organizations adopted techniques from the American Civil Rights Movement, ranging from sit-ins to boycotts, against color-bar buses and cafes. Thus King’s trips and British civil rights struggles emphasize that his inspiration and influence in London (and Britain) cannot be fully grasped without taking into account both the British and global contexts of decolonization and racial turmoil, in addition to immigration. Indeed, between 1955 and 1968, a considerable number of Caribbean, African, and South Asian immigrants arrived in Britain. Decolonization affected European imperial powers, whereas, to both Britons and King, the problem of race relations seemed a universal, rather than national, phenomenon. Furthermore, when filtered through the British minority struggles prism, King’s inspiration and influence played a considerable part in two British antidiscrimination legislations: the Race Relations Acts of 1965 and 1968. These acts made expressions of racial prejudice unlawful in public places (excluding boarding houses and shops) and banned racial discrimination in housing, employment, and all public services.
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King, Martin Luther, Jr. These laws were largely not enforced, and the combination of police harassment, institutional racism, and visits to Britain by radical African American leaders Malcolm X and Stokely Carmichael (also known as Kwame Ture) gave birth to a more militant black British struggle even before King’s death. Similarly, contemporary evaluations of King’s influence in London (and Britain) should not overlook the fact that his message might not be effective in tackling the intricacies of Britain’s class structure, ethnic, and religious diversities. And yet, 40 years after his assassination, (black) London looks up to King for solutions to youth involvement in gun and knife crimes, and gang cultures. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Malcolm X in London; Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN). Further Reading: Carson, Clayborne, and Shepard, Kris. A Call to Conscience: The Landmark Speeches of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. New York: Warner Books, 2001; Lewis, David Levering. Martin Luther King: A Critical Biography. London: Allen Lane/Penguin Press, 1970; Sewell, Mike. “British Responses to Martin Luther King Jr. and the Civil Rights Movement, 1954–1968.” In Brian Ward and Tony Badger, eds. The Making of Martin Luther King and the Civil Rights Movement. New York: New York University Press, 1996.
Saër Maty Bâ
L Ladinos, Black Black ladinos were persons of African heritage who were familiar with Spanish or Portuguese culture and Spanish or Portuguese languages. Many of them had been born in Spain or Portugal. Blacks born in the Americas were later also referred to as ladinos. The full title given them was negros ladinos, or “Latinized Blacks.” Although mostly slaves, they filled a number of important roles in the Spanish Americas. Besides working as domestic servants and in mines, they also fought against the Amerindians, helped enforce Spanish rule over the Amerindians, and worked as skilled craftsmen or managers for their colonial masters. The importance of the ladinos in the colonies was eventually superseded by the large number of Africans unfamiliar with Spanish or Portuguese culture/language brought directly to the New World. In fifteenth-century Spain, African slaves were not uncommon. Many were purchased by Portuguese merchants in North Africa, then resold in port cities like Valencia, Barcelona, and, especially, Seville. Africans were only one group from which slaves came. Others included Jews, Muslims, whites, and natives of the Canary Islands. Spanish tradition allowed slaves to buy their freedom if they and their owners could agree on a price. Although some free blacks could be found, they still suffered from social and economic discrimination. All blacks were considered to be loyal, but inferior to whites and needing supervision. They were taught Spanish and officially converted to Christianity. Some of the first Spanish conquistadors in the Americas were blacks. For example, Pedro Alonso Niño, a navigator who accompanied Christopher Columbus on his first voyage to America, was a free black born in Spain. The Spanish crown was anxious to prevent disloyal subjects from entering the New World. In 1501, Queen Isabella II of Spain decreed that Jews, Muslims, and newly converted Christians could not immigrate to the Americas. She made an exception for ladinos, however, who had been born into Christianity. In 1502, the first Spanish governor on Hispaniola, Nicolas de
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Laine, Cleo (1927–) Ovando, brought a number of ladinos with him as domestic servants. Ovando soon reported that some ladinos had escaped slavery and formed their own communities in the mountains of Hispaniola. A temporary ban on the immigration of ladinos to the New World was ordered. In 1505, a year after Isabella died, her husband, King Ferdinand, ordered that ladinos be sent to the colonies to work in agricultural and mining industries. Ferdinand had learned that the Amerindians were dying in large numbers and a shortage of workers was hampering production. Hundreds of ladinos were sent from Spain and, by 1514, the number of ladinos on Hispaniola was greater than that of whites. At first, the Spanish settlers felt safer with ladino workers. They knew Spanish customs and seemed loyal. In 1522, however, disgruntled ladinos led a revolt in Santo Domingo that threatened the white settlement. Although quickly crushed, ladinos were no longer assumed to be loyal. White leaders feared they would make common cause with the Amerindians to expel the Spanish from the Americas. Royal decrees on February 25, 1530, and September 13, 1532 specifically ordered that no white, Jewish, Muslim, or ladino slaves be sent to the Americas. Instead, a royal monopoly known as the asiento was established to bring black slaves directly from Africa to the Americas. These slaves, known as bozales, were believed to be more peaceful and obedient, partly because they did not know Spanish. Ironically, the ladinos still brought higher prices when they were sold, thanks to their usually superior skills and knowledge of Spanish. Although ladinos were banned from immigration to the Americas by 1530, they played an important role in the conquest of the New World. Many were skilled craftsmen, such as masons, carpenters, or blacksmiths. Their skills were necessary because many Spanish refused to immigrate. Others participated in the military conquest of the Amerindian peoples. Amerindians reportedly disliked ladinos because they were used by Spanish overlords to enforce rules and collect taxes. See also: Age of Exploration; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Portugal, Blacks in; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Bennett, Herman L. Africans in Colonial Mexico: Absolutism, Christianity, and Afro-Creole Consciousness, 1570–1640. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003; Landers, Jane, and Barry Robinson. Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006; Rout, Leslie B., Jr. The African Experience in Spanish America: 1502 to the Present Day. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1976; Terrell, John Upton. Estevanico the Black. Los Angeles: Westernlore Press, 1968.
Tim J. Watts
Laine, Cleo (1927–) Cleo Laine is recognized as among the best and most versatile all-around vocalists in Europe. Laine was born Clementina Dinah Campbell on October 28, 1927, in Southall, a primarily white, working-class district of London. Her Jamaican father, Alec, fought with the British during World War I. Her English mother, Minnie, was disowned by her parents for marrying a black man. Until the early 1950s, Laine performed
Larsen, Nella (1891–1964) occasionally, but did not pursue singing as a career. She married building tradesman George Langridge at age 18, and they bore a son, Stuart, in 1947. Laine’s career took off in 1951 when she successfully auditioned as a vocalist for a well-regarded London jazz group, the Johnny Dankworth Seven. She performed under their banner until 1958, during which time the group rose to popular fame, especially in England. Aficionados praised Laine’s original and distinctive vocal style, her improvisation, and her ability to instill freshness into even the most familiar jazz standards. In 1958, Laine married her bandleader, John Dankworth (having divorced Langridge the previous year) and made her dramatic stage debut as Della, the lead in the Royal Court Theatre’s Flesh to a Tiger. Although the play received mixed reviews, critics singled out Laine’s performance for favorable mention. A steady stream of roles in both musical and “straight” theater followed, including The Seven Deadly Sins in the 1961 Edinburgh Film Festival, Hedda Gabler in Canterbury in 1970, and the 1985 Broadway musical The Mystery of Edwin Drood (for which she received a Tony nomination). She appeared in more than 20 productions, as well as on television and film. Despite Laine’s dramatic achievements, her vocal career never languished. She continued to work with Dankworth in subsequent years while diversifying her repertoire. The 1964 Laine/Dankworth release Shakespeare and All That Jazz remains one of their most acclaimed works. They also appeared on BBC programs like the satirical That Was The Week That Was. In 1969, they established their first charity, the Wavendon All-Music Plan, which was devoted to musical education and performance in a variety of genres. Later, in 1999, they established a second charity, the Wavendon Foundation. During the 1960s, Laine bore two children, Alexander (in 1960) and Jacqueline (in 1963). Between 1950 and 2003, Laine released more than 100 recordings in several styles. She is the only woman ever to have been nominated for the prestigious Grammy Award in the categories of jazz, pop, and classical music. She won a Grammy in 1983 for best female jazz vocalist, as well as a Lifetime Achievement distinction at the British Jazz Awards (2002). In 1997, she was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire for her services to music. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Film, Blacks in European; Jazz, European Reception of; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Television, Blacks in European; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Collier, Graham. Cleo and John: A Biography of the Dankworths. London: Quartet Books, 1976; Laine, Cleo. Cleo. London: Simon and Schuster, 1994.
Amanda Bidnall
Larsen, Nella (1891–1964) Nella Larsen was an African American librarian, nurse, and author famous for her 1920s novels published during the Harlem Renaissance. Larsen resisted forms of belonging based on exclusion. Her experiences in Europe during the 1890s to 1930s played an important role in this theme as they helped shape her daring “social consciousness” in a United States that emphasized racial divisions.
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Larsen, Nella (1891–1964) Larsen was born Nellie Walker to a working-class, immigrant married couple in Chicago. Her mother, Mary Hansen, was a white Danish seamstress; and her father, Peter Walker, was a black laborer from the Danish West Indies (U.S. Virgin Islands). Larsen had no recollection of her father. Her mother later married a white man, Peter Larsen, who resented the girl’s presence. The birth of Larsen’s half-sister only exacerbated her feeling of disconnection. By the late 1920s, Larsen had attended and been expelled from Fisk University in Tennessee after one year for rebellion against strict rules for girls, had lived in Copenhagen, and had studied nursing in New York City. She had also been superintendent of nurses at The Tuskegee Institute in Alabama, but left within one year because she was unable to stand its strict control of women. She then joined New York’s Lincoln Hospital and the New York City Department of Health. Larsen helped organize the New York Public Library’s “Negro Art” exhibit, and eventually left nursing to train and work as a librarian. She wrote children’s games and riddles, the semiautobiographical novels Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929), and the short story “Sanctuary” (1930). Larsen returned to nursing in the 1950s, a profession she practiced until her death. Europe is crucial to a contemporary reassessment of Larsen. Larsen went to Denmark twice: once at the age of 4 with her mother and half-sister to visit her grandparents in the Jutland Peninsula, and again at the age of 16 to live with her relatives in Copenhagen after her expulsion from Fisk. During the first trip (1895–1898), Larsen, seen as different and exotic, spoke Danish and learned the children’s games and riddles that she was to translate and publish two decades later. The second trip (1908–1912) made her feel like Helga Crane from Quicksand: an oddity. As a culturally and racially mixed woman, Larsen did not belong in Denmark and decided to return to the United States. This latter experience would end in bitter disappointment, with flashes of joy brought about by Larsen’s further interactions with Europe. Larsen read and borrowed themes, narrative, and character development techniques from European writers, a few of whom Larsen met. It is now established that Quicksand should be read with Peter Jens Jacobsen, Henrik Ibsen, and Anatole France in mind and that Larsen met Federico García Lorca in New York and introduced him to a “Negro” life in Harlem recorded in El Poeta en Nueva York. In the 1930s, Larsen traveled extensively in Europe as a Guggenheim Fellow. Escaping from her crumbling marriage to black physicist Elmer Imes, she went to Barcelona, Madrid, Mallorca, Málaga, Marseille, Lisbon (where she was struck by the lack of curiosity about black people), Nice, Monte Carlo, and Paris, where she lived at the height of singer-entertainer Josephine Baker’s stardom. See also: Authors in Europe, African-American; Du Bois, W.E.B.; Scandinavia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Hutchinson, George. In Search of Nella Larsen: The Biography of the Color Line. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2006; Larson, Charles, ed. The Complete Fiction of Nella Larsen: Quicksand, Passing, and the Stories. New York: Anchor Books, 2001.
Saër Maty Bâ
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in
Las Casas, Bartolomé de (1474/1484?–1566) Bartolomé de las Casas was a Spanish priest who spent his life living in the New World and in Spain working for the rights of the indigenous people and arguing against slavery using theological reasoning. He is often referred to as the “Father of Liberation Theology,” or “Father of the Indians.” It was las Casas, however, who suggested the use of black Africans as laborers in America to counter the enslavement of the indigenous people. Although there is conflicting scholarship of the date of his birth (1474 or 1484), las Casas was born in Seville, Spain. His father was a soldier who sailed with Christopher Columbus in his first voyage from Spain to the New World in 1492. While his father was away amassing wealth from his endeavors with Columbus, las Casas attended schools in Spain. By 1502, he had completed his studies in law and theology. Also in 1502, las Casas took his first trip to the New World with the conquistador Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and settled on the island of Hispaniola. While there, las Casas worked as a soldier and was given an encomienda, which was a piece of land that included the indigenous people living on it, in reward for his services. It was during this time that las Casas first began to notice the treatment of the native population. Returning to Spain in 1506, las Casas continued his studies for the priesthood, was ordained a deacon and then later a priest. On his return to Hispaniola, on more than one occasion, las Casas witnessed individual executions or mass slayings of the indigenous people. Such events led him to give up his claim on the lives of the natives on his encomienda in 1514. It is at this time that las Casas began preaching what would eventually come to be termed liberation theology. The idea behind liberation theology stems from the Christian teachings of Jesus as not only savior, but as a freer of the oppressed. To prevent the enslavement of the native population in the Caribbean, however, las Casas suggested that black Africans be used in America instead. In Christian theology at that time, blacks were believed to be divinely cursed. Although he later changed his mind on this issue after he witnessed the effects on slavery on Africans, Africans were increasingly forced from their homes in Africa to work as slaves in the Spanish Caribbean. Besides preaching and working among the natives of the New World, las Casas was named Bishop of Chiapas (Guatemala) in 1544 and wrote many works on the subject of liberation theology as well as historical and anthropological works of the New World. He died and was buried at the Convent of Santa Maria de Atocha in Madrid, Spain, in 1566. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Age of Exploration; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Conquistadors, Black; Hamitic Myth; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Brion, Marcel. Bartolome de las Casas. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1929.
Robert Nave
Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in The creation and expansion of colonial empires in Latin America were shaped from their onset by the rise and fall of several riots, rebellions, and revolutions, which
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Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in were either led or supported by blacks in the Caribbean and in South America. During the movements for independence of these colonies in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, freed blacks and slaves read the winds of change in the volatile environments of the plantation and the expanding urban colonial settings to advance their own self-determining projects of emancipation within the new ideals of republicanism and national identity. The participation of blacks in Latin American colonial revolutions can be distinguished in two forms of engagement: first, the one in which black slaves worked from the inside, fighting for the independence of the colony and expecting to eventually win their freedom, and second, all those attempts in which blacks fought against colonial rule for their freedom, regardless of any connections to the shifting conjuncture of the political moment. Regardless of their magnitude, complexity, success, or failure, such as the Haitian Revolution for Independence in 1791, or the Muslim revolt in Bahia in 1835, these events show that each of them served as a building block for future action. This differentiation is important for several reasons. In the case of blacks that engaged in revolutionary movements for independence as members of a white anticolonial army, the integrated black divisions were invariably seen as ways to contain loses of white soldiers. In general, they were given the worst and most dangerous jobs. In returning from these campaigns, their efforts would often be overlooked. As a result, in some cases, blacks would still have to fight against a bureaucratic process in order for promises of freedom to be acknowledged and finally granted. These contingents of emancipated blacks, however, represented a small portion compared to the majority that still remained enslaved. In the case of the blacks that looked for freedom by their own means in association with other enslaved ones, their initiative and tenacity were determining factors that usually led to the establishment of a chain of events demonstrating that blacks had their own resistance movement that could not be encompassed by the colonial desire of emancipation from Europe. The prime example is the Haitian Revolution. A slave revolt in 1791 on Saint Domingue ultimately resulted in the establishment of Haiti, the first independent black republic. Inspired by the ideals of the French Revolution, this movement was a powerful influence on the end of the slave trade and a benchmark against slavery that shaped abolitionist ideas in the United States, Europe, and Latin America. Centuries before the Haitian Revolution emerged as the most emblematic case of colonial revolution made by the slaves themselves, however, the maroons in Jamaica, Cuba, and other locations in the Caribbean fought several wars against the British, Spanish, and French. As movements for independence begin to take shape in the colonies in Latin America during the nineteenth century, the participation of blacks in the armed forces of countries such as Argentina and Brazil provided an insight into how they were quick to understand that they could create a platform to demand emancipation and citizenship, which they used afterward to guarantee the freedom of others still in captivity. The Black Legions of Buenos Aires is one among many examples that could be drawn from Brazil, Cuba, or Venezuela to illustrate several characteristics that are present in the participation of blacks in military institutions in those countries. They served in the army in expectation of three things: freedom, civil equality, and social mobility.
Latino, Juan (1518–1596) The symbol of a military unit represented for these men the possibility of manumission sponsored by the state, which offered better guarantees than a business agreement with a private party that could be revoked, undone, or not upheld. The continuous need for more men for the anticolonial struggle, and the internal wars within Latin America during the postcolonial period, demonstrates that enlisting in the army became established as a desirable option for free blacks and slaves, especially in urban settings. Another example is that of the Black Militia Officers of Salvador, in Brazil. These officers struggled to establish a place for themselves in the state apparatus during the changes from a colonial empire in the 1790s, through the independence period in 1822, and the liberal “second” empire in the 1830s under Pedro II. These black officers held great expectations for the independent Brazil that they helped to create. As a result of their efforts, they became the representatives of the freed black Brazilians. The liberal reforms that started in the 1820s proposed, and finally abolished, the militia in 1831, thereby putting an end to the dreams of the participants of the Henriques, as the black militias were then nicknamed. See also: Biassou, Georges; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Delgrés, Louis; L’Ouverture, Toussaint; Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Andrien, Kenneth J. The Human Tradition in Colonial Latin America: The Human Tradition around the World. Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 2002; Davis, Darién J. Beyond Slavery: The Multilayered Legacy of Africans in Latin America and the Caribbean. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2007; Hart, Richard. Slaves Who Abolished Slavery. Kingston, Jamaica: Institute of Social and Economic Research, University of the West Indies, 1980; James, Cyril L. R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. London: Penguin, 2001; Kraay, Hendrik. Afro-Brazilian Culture and Politics: Bahia, 1790s to 1990s. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 1998; Landers, Jane, and Barry Robinson. Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006; Naro, Nancy Priscilla. Blacks, Coloureds, and National Identity in NineteenthCentury Latin America. London: Institute of Latin American Studies, 2003; Reis, João José. Slave Rebellion in Brazil: The Muslim Uprising of 1835 in Bahia. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1993; Segal, Ronald. The Black Diaspora. London: Faber, 1995.
Augusto Ciuffo
Latino, Juan (1518–1596) Juan Latino was a black African poet and humanist in Renaissance Spain. He was born in Baena in 1518, the son of a slave belonging to Luis Fernández de Córdoba, the Duke of Sessa. It is possible that the Duke of Sessa was also his father. Along with his master’s son, Latino was sent to Grenada to be educated. In his studies, Latino excelled in classical languages and music. In 1545, he received a degree from the University of Granada. After receiving his freedom, Latino received an academic position in Grenada. Luis Fernández de Córdoba’s son, Gonzalo Fernández de Córdoba, became Latino’s protector. In 1547 or 1548, Latino married one of his high society students, Ana Carleval. The dramatist Diego Ximénez de Enciso (1585–1633) later wrote a comedy entitled Juan Latino relating the events of the interracial love affair between Latino and his wife.
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Le Bon, Gustave (1841–1931) Between 1573 and 1585, Latino published three volumes of poetry in Latin. He contemplated on the condition of being black and rejected a social hierarchy derived from the color of one’s skin. An example of this is Latino’s poem, “Asturias Carmen,” which was dedicated to Juan of Austria following his military victory over Muslim insurrectionists in Grenada known as the War of the Alpujarras (1568–1572). In the poem, Latino raises the position of blacks by connecting them to biblical Ethiopia and rejecting ideas promoting the natural existence of slavery. In a reversal of fate, he imagines an Ethiopia in which whites occupy a subordinate position in society and praises being black. See also: Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Hamitic Myth; Interracial Marriages, Laws Banning; Renaissance, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Spratlin, V. B. Juan Latino, Slave and Humanist. New York: Spinner Press, 1938.
E. Agateno Mosca
Le Bon, Gustave (1841–1931) Gustave Le Bon was a French psychologist, sociologist, and physicist. He wrote several works in which he explained his theories. He is well known for his work on herd behavior and crowd psychology. He also elaborated theories regarding national traits and racial superiority. Le Bon was born in France in 1841 and he studied medicine there. From the 1860s to 1880s, Le Bon toured various parts of Europe, Asia, and Africa. During his travels, he wrote on archaeology and anthropology. In 1894, he established his scientific reputation when he published The Psychology of Peoples. The next year, Le Bon published The Crowd: A Study of the Popular Mind. The book was a bestseller and Le Bon became a fixture in French intellectual circles. He also contributed to debates in physics with his book, The Evolution of Matter. In 1898, Le Bon argued that he observed a kind of radiation that he termed “black light.” In 1910, Le Bon published Political Psychology and Social Defense. In 1912, he published The Psychology of Peoples. Le Bon advocated racial inequality and believed non-Europeans to be inferior. He criticized European colonial expansion under the premise that it would be a fruitless endeavor, for inferior races could never reach the level of superior ones. See also: Gobineau on Races and Slavery; New Imperialism; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Le Bon, Gustave. The Psychology of Peoples: Its Influence on Their Evolution. New York: Macmillan, 1898; Widener, Alice, ed. Gustave Le Bon: The Man and His Works. Indianapolis: Liberty, 1979.
E. Agateno Mosca
Levy, Andrea (1956–) Andrea Levy is a black British writer best known for her fictional works depicting the life and complexities faced by minorities in Britain. She has four major novels to
Lewis, Lennox (1965–) her credit and was most widely acclaimed for her fourth book, Small Island (2004), which has received numerous awards. Levy’s parents have influenced her writing. Although both her parents are nativeborn Jamaicans who moved to Britain at separate times in 1948, the story of her father is perhaps the most famous. Her father was one of approximately 500 West Indians coming from the Caribbean on the ship Empire Windrush. Many of these people, mostly men, were moving to Britain after performing military service in World War II. The arrival of the ship in a homogeneous Britain created some controversy. With the arrival of the Windrush, Britain started to become more multicultural, thus making the name of the ship famous. Levy was born in 1956 in London, where she still resides. She did not start writing until later in life. She describes herself as a “late reader” and states that television had a greater influence on her than did literature in her earlier years. She did not read a book of fiction until she was 23 years old, believing that there was nothing to be learned by reading fiction. When she did begin to write her novels, however, Levy focused on the experience of being black in a predominantly white Britain. To date, Levy has penned four novels: Every Light in the House Burnin’ (1994), which is semi-autobiographical; Never Far from Nowhere (1996); Fruit of the Lemon (1999); and Small Island, for which she is most famous. Small Island won the Orange Prize in Britain, which is a prestigious literary award given to women authors in Britain. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Fleming, Robert. “Clean sweep: Andrea Levy Defines What It Is to Be Black, British and a Literary Lioness.” Black Issues Book Review 7:4 (July 2005): 16 (2).
Robert Nave
Lewis, Lennox (1965–) Lennox Claudius Lewis, a black Briton, is a retired professional heavyweight boxer who often referred to himself as “the pugilist specialist.” In his boxing career, he was an Olympic gold medalist, one of the greatest heavyweight boxers of the twentieth century, and the first British world heavyweight champion in more than 100 years. Lewis was born in London in 1965 to Jamaican parents. At the age of 12, Lewis moved to Canada. In high school, he excelled in athletics. He was particularly drawn to boxing and trained under Coach Arnie Boehm. Lewis finished his amateur career with a record of 85 wins, 9 losses. In 1983, Lewis won the gold medal at the World Junior Championship. In his Olympic boxing career, Lewis won a gold medal as part of Team Canada in 1988. In 1989, Lewis moved to England and made his professional boxing debut. He won the European title in 1990 and the British Commonwealth heavyweight title in 1992. Consequently, Lewis was one of the top boxers in the world. In 1992, World Boxing Council (WBC) world heavyweight champion Riddick Bowe refused to fight Lewis, who was then the number one contender. Consequently, the WBC stripped
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Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste (1755–1836) Bowe of the title and awarded the WBC world heavyweight championship to Lewis in 1993. Thus Lewis became the first British world heavyweight champion in the twentieth century. In 1994, Lewis suffered his first major defeat when he lost the WBC world heavyweight title to Oliver McCall. Lewis battled through several opponents, including Tommy Morrison, who starred in the fictional boxing film Rocky V, and former Olympian Ray Mercer, however, to become a top contender to regain the championship. In 1997, Lewis gained his revenge for his 1994 defeat, knocking out McCall in the fifth round to become the first British boxer to regain the WBC title. Lewis successfully defended his WBC championship against several opponents. In March 1999, Lewis boxed one of his most celebrated opponents, World Boxing Association (WBA)/International Boxing Federation (IBF) heavyweight champion Evander Holyfield, to a controversial draw. A rematch was scheduled for November later that year. In the rematch, Lewis won by decision, becoming undisputed world heavyweight champion. After several successful title defenses, Lewis lost the undisputed title to Hasim Rahman in 2001. Unable to accept defeat, Lewis defeated Rahman in a rematch seven months later to reclaim the WBC, WBA, and IBF world titles to become a three-time heavyweight champion. In 2002, Lewis finally had a boxing match with the infamously wild Mike Tyson, who had been suspended from boxing for biting off his opponent’s ear. In the widely publicized spectacle that became the highest grossing event on pay-per-view television at the time, Lewis decisively knocked Tyson out in the eighth round. Lewis then successfully defended his undisputed world heavyweight title against Vitali Klitcshko in 2003. With his boxing legacy secured, Lewis announced his retirement from the sport in 2004 as the reigning undisputed world heavyweight champion. At his retirement, Lewis had a professional career record of 41 wins, 2 losses, and 1 draw. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Lewis, Lennox. Lennox. London: Little, Brown, 2002; Lewis, Lennox, and Joe Steeples. Lennox Lewis: The Autobiography of the WBC Heavyweight Champion of the World. London: Faber and Faber, 1994; The Official Web Page of Lennox Lewis: http://www. lennoxlewis.com/lennox/.
Mark Cordery
Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste (1755–1836) Jean-Baptiste Lislet-Geoffroy was a French scientist and the son of a former African slave, and in 1786, he became the first person of African descent elected to the Academy of Science in Paris. Jean-Baptiste was baptized in August 1755 in Saint-Pierre, Île Bourbon (now Réunion), part of a chain of islands in the Indian Ocean off the southeastern coast of Africa that includes Île de France (now Mauritius) and Madagascar. His baptismal certificate lists only his first name. His mother was Niama, an African slave, who was freed on the day of his baptism by her master, Jean-Baptiste Geoffroy. The granting of freedom to Niama also applied to her son, as an individual’s status as free or slave depended on that of his or her mother. Geoffroy was likely Jean-Baptiste’s
Literature, Blacks in British father, and if he had any intentions on marrying his former slave, such an official action was prohibited under French law. Jean-Baptiste lived with his parents on the Islet of Basin Plat and adopted the place name as a surname. Geoffroy, an engineer and cultivated man, recognized Lislet’s intelligence and gave the boy a rudimentary education in reading, writing, Latin, math, and science. During 1771, Lislet became a guide for Philibert Commerson, an explorer and French naturalist, during his expeditions in the area. Lislet went on to become an established engineer, botanist, astronomer, and cartographer in the French overseas territories in the area. In 1780, Lislet, interested in meteorology, began to establish an accurate record of weather data in the Indian Ocean region until 1834. In 1786, while still in his thirties, he was elected as the first black member of the prestigious Academy of Science in Paris. During the French Revolution, Lislet initially sympathized with the revolutionaries. He became involved with French revolutionary colonial governance. Legal changes brought about during the revolution allow Geoffroy to formally adopt Lislet and make him his heir; however, Geoffroy still did not make any public claims of paternity. Thus Lislet’s new surname became Lislet-Geoffroy. In 1810, after the fall of Île de France, Lislet-Geoffroy was charged with making an inventory of the buildings and fortifications for the British. He continued to work as an engineer for the British and eventually became a British citizen. See also: Code Noir (France), Colonies in Africa, French; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Interracial Marriage, European Laws Banning. Further Reading: Fleming, Beatrice, and Marion Pryde. Distinguished Negroes Abroad. Washington, DC: Associated Publishers, 1946.
Eric Martone
Literature, Blacks in British An important shift in the representations of blacks occurred in the Renaissance. For a better understanding of this shift, an awareness of the theoretical and historical conditions that shape the development of a European racial consciousness is important. The literary treatments of blacks in British literature are directly related to this shift. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, Britain began to develop a racial consciousness that coincided with its emergence as a dominant naval power. Britain developed a sense of race as a meaningful and significant way of dividing human beings into distinct groups. In this epoch, race was not always clearly grasped, but the way in which it was understood historically becomes a problem, especially for the cultural and scientific communities. The English, for instance, had already attributed certain types of behavior to people from specific regions, such as the “wild” Irish. The racial differences the English drew between themselves and their neighbors were cultural. Yet, as the English interacted with such ethnic groups as New World natives and Africans through the voyages of discovery, colonialism, and the European slave trade, they began to define race by skin color. Thus some Renaissance writers were in search of new definitions of race based on empirical and inductive principles, refuting conventional interpretations of
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Literature, Blacks in British race handed down to them. Bolstered by geographical explorations and new commercial development, biblical and classical theories of race could no longer satisfy the new demands of the period. This shift in the meaning of race from culture to encompass the physicality of the body is central to an understanding of the representations of blacks in British literature of the Renaissance, and these representations continue to influence and shape literary images of black peoples hundreds of years later. SIR THOMAS BROWNE. Influenced by Sir Francis Bacon’s scientific method to revaluate traditional knowledge and promote practical learning, the English physician and writer Sir Thomas Browne (1605–1682) questioned many of the superstitions and common beliefs of his age. Book Six of Browne’s Pseudodoxia Epidemica (1646) is crucial to understanding his use of race and his interrogations of the racial assumptions of his time. In Book Six, Browne calls into question the climatological and biblical explanations for blackness. In the former explanation, blackness is an effect of climate. In the ancient myth of Phaeton, Ethiopians’ black complexion derived from the heat and scorch of the sun. Browne argues that this account was a myth. He raises several problems with this theory, such as if the sun alone was responsible for blackness, then it should follow that the migration of dark-skinned people to more moderate climates and the reverse (the movement of fair people to hotter regions) should result in a corresponding change in skin color. Since peoples’ complexions do not alter simply because of migration, Browne dismisses climatology as ever being the source of blackness. The implication is that climate is not a necessary condition for race. The second theory for blackness is the curse of God. In the Bible, Ham (or in Browne, “Cham”) is cursed and this curse was interpreted as blackness. One problem Browne has with this explanation is the difficulty of ascribing the descendants of this curse to a particular region. Although Browne’s own prejudice is felt in passages where fairness is described as “a constant and agreeable hue,” or when he argues that the peoples of Sicily and parts of Spain “deserve not so low a name as tawny” and “low as blackness,” he also writes of blackness that “Whereas men affirm this colour was a curse, I cannot make out the propriety of that name, it neither seeming so to them, nor reasonably unto us.” Furthermore, “Thus we that are of contrary complexions accuse the blackness of the Moors as ugly.” Browne does link race with skin color, but not in a way that we would readily identify it as racist: he does not endow blackness with a pejorative moral meaning. Browne’s response to blacks and blackness is ambivalent. On the one hand, he views racial otherness with a considerable amount of cultural relativity; on the other hand, his views of blacks and blackness are not free of value judgment. RENAISSANCE DRAMA. As is the case with Browne, the dramatists of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries also reveal a racial consciousness. The first dramatic representation of an African on the English stage is in George Peele’s The Battle of Alcazar (1594). Blackness can presuppose a diabolical and barbarous nature, such as Peele’s Muly Mahamet. In other plays, the correlation between black skin and treachery is more complicated. In William Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus, for instance, Aaron’s actions are clearly savage. Yet, on the other hand, his defense of his son displays his parental affection. Renaissance dramatists bring Europeans and non-Europeans together in such a way that a conflict ensues between what one might
Literature, Blacks in British call a principle of virtue and a principle of savagery. The paradox, though, is that because Aaron is capable of exhibiting virtue as well as great cruelty, his blackness cannot explain or define him. Blackness in Renaissance texts signifies more than skin color. Aaron’s schemes to destroy the political order in Rome also threatens the entire social and domestic fabric. His adulterous relationship with Tamora, the white queen of the Goths, produces an interracial child. He usurps both the domestic authority and political power of Tamora’s husband and Rome’s king, Saturninus. As is the case with Titus Andronicus, blacks and blackness in Renaissance drama often signal moral corruption as well as introduce sexual pollution and political disorder into the society. Shakespeare’s Othello and Elizabeth Cary’s The Tragedy of Mariam are also deeply racialized dramas. In Othello, Iago’s use of animal imagery brings out the hideousness of Othello’s marriage to Desdemona. In Shakespeare’s language, Othello is “an old black ram” who is “tupping” Desdemona, “the white ewe.” In addition to bestiality in these texts, blackness is being used to trope femininity. When the Venetian virgin is tainted sexually in Othello’s imagination, she is symbolically blackened. Desdemona’s presumed infidelity has tarnished Othello’s “name, that was as fresh/as Diana’s visage, is now begrimed and black/As mine own face.” This is not the only representation of Othello’s blackness, however. Shakespeare’s Othello is a converted Christian; his rejection of Islam might enable Shakespeare to defy the stereotypical identification of blacks with savagery. At the beginning of the play, Shakespeare allows Iago to spew his considerable racial hatred without restraint. When Othello finally enters the stage in the second scene of Act One, however, his temperance and dignified bearing deflates Iago’s representation of Othello as sexually intemperate and savage. Othello’s conformity and transcendence of the stereotypical attributes associated with blackness remain in tension throughout the play. Similarly, in Cary’s play, Salome is slighted as a “sun-burnt blackamoor” and denigrated as “an ape.” Contrastingly, Mariam’s whiteness and chasteness are a foil to Salome. This clear divide between blackness and whiteness continues in the play. In addition to Salome, Cleopatra is important to the treatment of blackness in the play. Physically and sexually, Cleopatra is racially marked as black. Cleopatra’s race fluctuates in Renaissance texts, especially in relation to her sexual and political temperance. As a point of comparison, in Mary Sidney’s The Tragedy of Antonius, Cleopatra is a distinctly white heroine. Whereas her blackness denotes her lack of virtue in Cary, her whiteness in Sidney is an external sign of her internal worth and virtue. As Renaissance drama indicates, the racial discourse in this period develops in relation to views of femininity, in particular female sexuality. In large part, Renaissance dramatists did not heed Browne’s caution that it is fallacious to impose any single “property” to an ethnic group based on race. As Browne observed, extrinsic attributes do not bring us any closer to a genuine understanding of blacks. As Shakespeare and other dramatists demonstrate again and again, barbarity and cruelty (as well as virtue) are possible modes of being for blacks and whites, as well as for women and men. Yet the frequency with which representations of non-Europeans and non-Christians draw correlations between their ethnicity and savagery suggests that in the Renaissance, blackness is beginning to define the morality, temperance, and sexuality of large groups of people. The meaning of blackness is historical; this
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Literature, Blacks in British means that a race or an ethnic group is always in the process of thinking of itself in relation to the world in which it finds itself at any given moment with respect to its political, social, religious, cultural, and economic conditions. In the Renaissance, as Britain was beginning to transform itself into a dominant naval power, and by the beginning of the eighteenth century into a slave-trading nation, Britain was in a state of flux, and so too was its discourse of blackness. EARLY TWENTIETH-CENTURY REPRESENTATIONS OF BLACKS. Three hundred years after the Renaissance, British representations of blacks continued to show signs of a search for new definitions of race. Twentieth-century British literature attempted to throw off and deconstruct more than three centuries of racism. Although such stereotypical associations of blacks with bestiality, savagery, and sexual intemperance are increasingly interrogated and rejected, there is still a sense that British writers are still unable to fully shed the racial assumptions of previous ages. Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness (1902) is a case in point. Although Conrad was Polish, his text is a significant piece of English literature. Conrad’s novella is often read as an attack on colonialism. The violence of European imperialism is clearly represented in Conrad’s text. The images of Africans literally worked to death produce discomfort and outrage in the reader. The images of “moribund shapes” and “black bones” haunt Conrad’s text. Representations of young black men chained, beaten and groaning under the burden of European racism, bring into relief the horror and savagery of colonial exploitation and victimization of native African populations. In contrast, Conrad’s text is also read to promote racist assumptions. Chinua Achebe, the Nigerian novelist, has attacked Conrad as a “bloody racist.” In spite of his criticisms of European colonialism, Conrad clearly reproduces Victorian racial ideologies. He writes of Africans as “strings of dusty niggers” and of a “lot of people, mostly black and naked, moved about like ants.” Whereas Conrad attempts to penetrate the psychology of the European mind when it is confronted with absolute evil, black Africans are merely dehumanized as abstractions. He writes of “the white of their eyeballs glistening. . . . their bodies streamed with perspiration; they had faces like grotesque masks.” Although Conrad’s narrator reluctantly admits that these howling, leaping, black bodies are human, their link with civilized Europeans is buried in the abyss of the past: “what thrilled you was just the thought of their humanity—like yours—the thought of your remote kinship with this wild and passionate uproar.” Shakespeare’s treatment of the black Othello contrasts sharply with such writers as the Romantic poet Samuel Coleridge (1772–1834). Coleridge rejects that Shakespeare intended Othello to be a black-skinned African; Shakespeare, he argues, would never imagine a royal birth for a black barbarous African. A comparison of Shakespeare with Coleridge and Conrad highlights the shifting representations of blacks in British literature. In the 300 years separating Shakespeare’s age from Conrad’s, blacks in British literature are in general stripped of their dignity and humanity. As Coleridge intimates, in the nineteenth-century discourse of blackness, it was unthinkable to associate black people with regality and nobility. The cultural relativity with which Browne viewed racial otherness belongs to Shakespeare’s age, not Conrad’s. That being said, the pendulum begins to swing the other way in Conrad’s age. Although Heart of Darkness reproduces the racial and racist assumptions of the Victorian Age, Conrad’s text also
Literature, Blacks in French discloses the horrors and brutality of European colonialism, and as such, it is a landmark text. As Shakespeare and Conrad illustrate, representations of blacks in British literature is heterogeneous. What is consistent, however, is the existence of a racial and racist discourse, which attempted to define blacks physically, culturally, and sexually. In the age of Shakespeare, the definition of blackness was in flux, and it was possible for writers to view blackness with a certain amount of cultural relativity. As England entered fully into the slave trade in the eighteenth century, representations of black people changed accordingly. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Browning, Elizabeth Barrett; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Dabydeen, David; D’Aguiar, Fred; Gilroy, Beryl; Hamitic Myth; Johnson, Linton Kwesi; Kincaid, Jamaica; Levy, Andrea; Okri, Ben; Palamedes, Sir; Phillips, Caryl; Renaissance, Blacks in the; Riley, Joan; Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the; Shinebourne, Janice; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Barthelemy, Anthony Gerard. Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama From Shakespeare to Southerne. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987; Bates, Jonathan, ed. The Romantics on Shakespeare. London: Penguin Books, 1992; Browne, Sir Thomas. Pseudodoxia Epidemica; or, Enquiries into very Many Received Tenents and Commonly Presumed Truths. ed. Robin Robbins. Oxford: Clarendon, 1981; Carretta, Vincent. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth-Century. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996; Cary, Elizabeth. The Tragedy of Mariam: The Fair Queen of Jewry. eds. Barry Weller and Margaret W. Ferguson. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994; Dabydeen, David, ed. The Black Presence in English Literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985; Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Innes, C. L. History of Black and Asian Writing in Britain, 1700–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003; Mark, Peter. Africans in European Eyes: The Portrayal of Black Africans in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Europe. Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1974.
Richardine G. Woodall
Literature, Blacks in French Most of the early contemporary African and Caribbean literatures originated as a form of protest against assimilation and French dominance. The most influential black Francophone literary movement of the twentieth century was undoubtedly Négritude. Léopold Sédar Senghor, one of this literary movement’s guiding figures, later became the first president of the Republic of Senegal in 1960. In Paris during the 1930s, he met many French Caribbean black writers, including Aimé Césaire from Martinique and Léon Damas of French Guiana. Together, they began an examination of Western colonial values and a reassessment of how African and Caribbean cultures were being represented by European writers. In 1947, they founded Présence Africaine, a leading literary journal for black writers in Paris. In addition, Senghor’s Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache (Anthology of New Black and Madagascan Poetry, 1948)
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Literature, Blacks in French was an important influence in the formation of the idea of Négritude and included poets from all over the Francophone world including Africa, the French Caribbean territories, and Madagascar. During this time, Martinican writer Suzanne Roussy Césaire was experimenting with surrealist poetics in her expressions of Négritude ideology, including essays “Le grand camouflage” (“The Great Disguising,” 1945) and “Malaise d’une civilization” (“Discontent of a Civilization,” 1942). In a similar vein, poet and essayist Lucy Thésée was using surrealist techniques to describe a uniquely black, feminine understanding of the world. In 1947, Birago Diop emerged on the Francophone literary scene with his Les contes d’Amadou Koumba (Stories of Amadou Koumba, 1947). Diop was a Senegalese poet and storyteller who recorded traditional oral folktales of the Wolof people. His work helped to reestablish global interest in African folktales published in French. During the 1950s and 1960s, Diop became one of the most prominent African Francophone writers. His tales combined realism, humor, and fantasy to express various facets of the human condition. Two significant Francophone novelists from Cameroon are Mongo Beti (pseudonym of Alexandre Biyidi), who wrote Le Pauvre Christ de Bomba (The Poor Christ of Bomba, 1956), and Ferdinand Oyono, author of Une Vie de boy (Houseboy, 1956) and Le Vieux Nègre et la médaille (The Old Black Man and the Medal, 1956). These novels sought to counter the propaganda of the French government that portrayed educated Africans as simply “black Frenchmen.” Although the Congolese poet Tchicaya U Tam’si wrote of his people’s agonies, he did not claim to be the spokesman of his country or race like the Négritude writers. In Le Mauvais Sang (Bad Blood, 1955), Feu de brousse (Bush Fire, 1957), À triche-coeur (By Cheating the Heart, 1960), Épitomé (1962), and Le Ventre (The Belly, 1964), he explored his personal experiences and sufferings through poems in which surrealist, Christian, mythological, and sexual imagery is intertwined. Guinean author Camara Laye established his reputation with L’Enfant noir (African Child, 1953), an autobiographical account depicting life in a traditional African town. Another of his important works is the novel Le Regard du roi (Radiance of the King, 1954), which recounts a white man’s journey to gain personal atonement in the jungles of West Africa. In his third novel, Dramouss (A Dream of Africa, 1966), Laye criticizes life under the ruling party of Guinea. Such views were affected by his status in 1965 as a political refugee in Senegal. In 1956, Ousmane Sembène wrote and published a novel under the title Le Docker Noir (The Black Docker, 1956) based on his experiences as a Senegalese man living in France. He has grown to become one of the most prolific African writers of the twentieth century. The majority of Sembene’s literary work is a critique of the conflicted relationships between the colonizer and the colonized, the state and the people, the rich and the poor, and the elders and youth. Thus, his novels address the universal issues involving tensions that are created by power relations. Other well-known novels by Sembène include Les bouts de bois de dieu (God’s Bits of Wood, 1960), L’Harmattan (1964), and Xala (1974). The1960s brought about the development of the philosophical novel in Francophone Africa, led by Sheikh Hamidou Kane in L’Aventure ambiguë (Ambiguous Adventure, 1961), and by Yambo Ouologuem in Le Devoir de violence (Bound to Violence, 1968). Both writers are of Sudanese origin and craft their novels partly
Literature, Blacks in French as “conversations” between Islam and Christian spirituality, or between traditional autocracy and colonial rule. Senegalese author Mariama Bâ was the recipient of the first Noma Award for publishing in Africa for Une Si Longue Lettre (So Long a Letter, 1980), and Aminata Sow Fall, a fellow Senegalese writer, earned recognition for La Grève des battu ou les déchets humains (The Beggar’s Strike, 1979), an ironic novel written with great skill and attention to cultural detail. In the 1980s, Martinican authors Patrick Chamoiseau, Raphael Confiant, and Jean Bérnabé theorized la créolité in their seminal work Eloge de la créolité (In Praise of Creoleness, 1989). They described this philosophical and literary movement as a departure from the universality and monolinguism that was encouraged by Négritude. The créolité movement sought to overturn the dominance of French as the language of culture and literature in the French Caribbean. Instead, it championed the use of Antillean Creole in literature. Today, France is home to hundreds of immigrant authors from the Francophone world. Texts by authors of immigrant origin explore what it means to be French and are often infused with debates about French national and cultural identity. They address themes such as cultural hybridity, linguistic identity, and the theorization of “otherness.” Authors at the forefront of this movement are Calixthe Beyala, Bessora, and Alain Mabanckou. Calixthe Beyala left Cameroon at age 17 and arrived in France where she studied and published numerous novels. In 1993, she was awarded the Grand prix littéraire de l’Afrique Noire and the Grand Prix du Roman de l’Académie Française in 1996. Her extensive bibliography includes Seul le diable le savait (Only the Devil Knows, 1990), C’est le soleil qui m’a brûlée (The Sun Hath Looked Upon Me, 1996), and Tu t’appelleras Tanga (Your Name Shall be Tanga, 1996). Bessora is an author of Swiss-Gabonese descent who uses satire, irony, and intertextuality in her novels to undo stereotypical images of immigrants and to introduce a model of identity based on the image of “transplanting,” rather than “rootedness.” Her novels include 53 cm (2000), Les Tâches d’encre (The Ink Stains, 2000), and Deux bébés et l’addition (Two Babies and the Bill, 2002). Alain Mabanckou is the author of six volumes of poetry and five novels. In 2006, he recently received the Prix Renaudot, one of the highest and most prestigious literary prizes in France, for his novel Memoires de porc-épic (Memoirs of a Porcupine, 2006). Other novels include African Psycho (2003) and Verre cassé (Broken Glass, 2005). See Also: African Diaspora; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature. Further Reading: Cazenave, Odile. Afrique sur Seine. A New Generation of African Writers in Paris. New York: Lexington Books, 2005; Cazenave, Odile. Rebellious Women. New York: Lynne Rienner, 1999; Kesteloot, Lilyan. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1991; Lewis, Shireen. Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and Theory from Négritude to Créolité. New York: Lexington Books, 2006; Miller, Christopher. Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990; Thomas, Dominic. Nation-Building, Propaganda, and Literature in Francophone Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard
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Literature, Blacks in German and Central European The role of blacks in German and Central European literature has gradually shifted over time from one in which black identity was usually stereotyped and portrayed by white Europeans to one in which blacks in Europe gained their own voice through writing literature. Enlightenment morality plays, which use black characters as a foil, provide early representations. The libretti for operas in Vienna, such as Antonio Salieri’s Die Neger (1804) and even Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart’s Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute, 1791), featured black characters and were immensely popular. In the nineteenth century, works such as Heinrich Von Kleist’s The Engagement in St. Domingo (1811) focused on issues of race by depicting a love affair between a white man and a black woman in Haiti during the Haitian Revolution for Independence in 1803. German colonial literature also explored themes of racism and conflict in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Beginning in the late twentieth century, however, Afro-German literature, the literature of German authors of black descent, became visible on the literary scene. Although Afro-Germans had lived in Germany before the 1980s, they began to write as a way to gain their voice and legitimize their existence in German society. When African American poet and feminist Audre Lorde taught a 1984 course at the Freie Universität in Berlin on African American women poets and conducted a workshop in English, she encouraged and inspired black German women to write about their own experiences. As a result of her advice and support, Germans of black descent began to refer to themselves as “Afro-Germans,” giving Afro-Germans their own identity instead of having others create one for them. Audre Lorde’s influence also extended into literature, most notably with the groundbreaking work Farbe Bekennen: Afro-deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out, 1986), which contained histories of blacks in Germany, personal accounts, interviews, poetry, and prose, edited by May Opitz (May Ayim), Katharina Oguntoye, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing Our Colors was the first visible book written by Afro-Germans and also the first visible book placing Germans of black descent within a German national framework. The book insists that AfroGermans are individuals “whose self-defined identities are no longer shameful secrets in the countries of our origin, but rather declarations of strength and solidarity.” It is arguable that this groundbreaking book gave birth to the Afro-German movement, for, after its release, movements such as the Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD) and Afro-German Women (ADEFRA) sprang up as more Afro-Germans began to meet and organize. In the wake of Showing Our Colors, other works in Afro-German literature appeared. Anthologies focusing on themes and stories of the marginalized were especially prevalent. Anthologies such as Power of the Night, a Black German Anthology (1991), Distant Connections (1993), and Talking Home: Frauen of Color in Deutschland (1999) were strong testaments to the power of language and its ability to validate and celebrate the lives of black Germans. Whereas Talking Home discusses the idea of a “homeland” and deals directly with gender, Distant Connections, whose title comes from a poem by May Ayim, examines the complicated ways in which racism, anti-Semitism, and classism impact women’s lives.
Literature, Blacks in German and Central European Ayim’s work was itself a galvanizing force in Afro-German literature. Born as May Opitz in Hamburg in 1960, she changed her surname to that of her Ghanaian father to more strongly and actively acknowledge her African heritage. Educated at the University of Regensburg, she received attention first for her work in Showing Our Colors. Her anthologies of poetry, such as Blues in Schwarz-Weiss (Blues in Black and White, 1995), set her apart as a great poet and figure in literature. Blues in Black and White pays homage to Langston Hughes and his use of the blues as an expression of mourning. Her works often deal with the theme of identity, femininity, dehumanization, and discrimination. Yet her sharp insight and good humor made her poetry accessible to those of all backgrounds in Germany, while still exposing others to the difficulties of being Afro-German in a society unwilling to accept others. Despite her early death in 1996, Ayim’s work continues to influence readers and writers alike. Other figures in Afro-German literature include those who have published their autobiographies, especially Ika Hügel-Marshall and Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi (b. 1926). Massaquoi’s autobiography, Destined to Witness (1999), conveys the difficulties of growing up black in Nazi Germany. Born to a white German mother and an elite Liberian father, Massaquoi grew up (like many German children during the 1930) wanting to join the Hitler Youth. Yet he also soon became the target of racist national-socialist ideologies. Although he was not persecuted like the Jews in Germany, he was nonetheless considered a second-class citizen in his own home. Hügel-Marshall’s experience as an Afro-German is quite different, although her autobiography also has a tone of alienation and isolation that pervades the work. Born as one of the many Besatzungskinder, or “occupation children” after World War II, her father was an African American soldier and her mother a white German. When her mother was encouraged to give her up, HügelMarshall was forced to endure the harsh racisms of several institutions. Hügel-Marshall’s original subtitle for her work was “ein afro-deutsches Leben” or “an afro-German life.” The subtitle was eventually changed to “a German life” to demonstrate the universality of the German experience among Germans of different backgrounds. Although blacks in Germany and Central Europe have only begun to express their views and gain their voice in the mid to late twentieth century, they nevertheless represent a strong minority in German literature. The prolific body of work produced by Afro-Germans continues to grow and reach audiences worldwide. See also: Afro-Germans; Colonies in Africa, German; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Pamoja; Parzival, Feirefiz in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Blackshire-Belay, Carol, ed. The African-German Experience: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996; Gilman, Sander. On Blackness Without Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982; Grimm, Reinhold, and Jost Hermand, eds. Blacks and German Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986; Mazon, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingrover, eds. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005; Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing Our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991; Poikane-Daumke, Aija. African Diasporas: Afro-German Literature in the Context of the African-American Experience. London: Lit Verlag, 2007.
Kira Thurman
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L’Ouverture, Toussaint (1743–1803) Toussaint L’Ouverture was an eighteenth-century leader of an anti-French uprising for the abolition of slavery in Saint Domingue (present-day Haiti). He was born Pierre Dominique Toussaint on the Bréda plantation in Haut-du-Cap, in the French colony of Saint-Domingue. He is believed to have descended from a chief of an African tribe, whose son was captured and sold into slavery. Francois Dominique Toussaint Bréda, as L’Ouverture was known before the Haitian Revolution for Independence, was born as a slave but was later freed and taught to read and write by an ex-priest. His origins are often traced to an African chieftain of the Arada tribe from Dahomey, but no tangible evidence exists to support this. By 1779, he was a freeman, married to Suzanne Simone Baptiste and growing coffee on rented land that was cultivated by a dozen slaves. As the French Revolution began in 1789, the revolutionary sentiments also spread in Saint Domingue, where the slaves demanded freedom and rights as promised by the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen. When plantation owners refused to compromise, a slave uprising began in the Cap Français hinterland in the summer of 1791. There is no evidence that Toussaint directly participated in early stages of this uprising, and he is said to have saved the lives of the Bréda plantation manager and his family early in the revolt. The first record of his presence among the rebels is in December 1791, when he took part in negotiations between white and black leaders. Toussaint later joined the revolt, first working as a doctor, and later serving under rebel leaders Jean-François and Georges Biassou, proving his military skills. In 1793, they allied with the Spanish in Santo Domingo on the eastern side of the island, and Toussaint entered the Spanish service fighting the French plantation owners. The Spanish deployed forces to support the rebel slaves in the north of Saint Domingue. Toussaint, who had taken up the Spanish banner in February 1793, came to command his own forces and took control of north-central Saint Domingue. Spain and Britain, meanwhile, had reached an informal arrangement to divide the French colony between them: British forces landed in the southern portions of the island while the Spanish continued their operations in the north. In September 1793, local French revolutionary authorities decided to abolish slavery to gain slave support and save the colony from Spanish and British encroachment. Confirmation of the National Assembly’s decision (February 1794) to abolish slavery had a great influence on Toussaint, now calling himself Toussaint Louverture (L’Ouverture), who decided to change sides in May 1794. He quickly became the leading black general under the French authorities. He achieved notable success against his former allies until a peace agreement was signed between France and Spain in 1795. The treaty required Spain to cede its holdings on Hispaniola to France and deny supplies and funding to the rebel forces fighting under the Spanish colors. The armies of Jean-François and Biassou were soon disbanded, and many flocked to the standard of Toussaint, the remaining black commander of stature. By 1796, Toussaint emerged, through his military talents, as one of leading figures in Saint Domingue when the French revolutionary authorities appointed him lieutenant governor of Saint Domingue. Distrustful of all parties, Toussaint set out
L’Ouverture, Toussaint (1743–1803) to consolidate his political and military positions. He took advantage of the fact that France was occupied with the Revolutionary Wars in Europe to further secure his authority on the island. He influenced the French commissioners to appoint him commander-in-chief of all French forces on the island and, acting from this position of strength, he moved to establish an autonomous state under black rule. In 1798, without authorization from French authorities, Toussaint negotiated with the British, who had invaded the colony five years before, and concluded a secret treaty providing for withdrawal of British troops, commerce with Jamaica, and the rehabilitation of pro-British colonists. The next year, Toussaint entered into negotiations and signed a commercial agreement with the United States. The same year, Toussaint turned against his main opponent, André Rigaud, who controlled Saint Domingue’s southern peninsula. He sought to secure Rigaud’s allegiance and incorporate gens de couleur, Rigaud’s main supporters, into his future state, but his plan was thwarted by the French authorities, who saw in Rigaud their last opportunity to retain dominance over the colony and control Toussaint. In the bloody “war of the south,” Toussaint’s predominantly black forces clashed with Rigaud’s army. By 1800, Toussaint and his lieutenant, Jean-Jacques Dessalines, defeated Rigaud’s troops and captured their center of Les Cayes. Toussaint then expanded his operations to the Spanish-controlled portion of the island where slavery was still practiced. By 1801, he achieved virtual control of the colony by using his troops and influence with ex-slaves, who composed an overwhelming majority of Saint Domingue’s population. He consolidated his position as Saint Domingue’s ruler with a new colonial constitution, which named him governorgeneral for life. After a decade of civil strife, Saint Domingue was devastated and its sugar and coffee exports plummeted. Toussaint realized that the survival of his new state depended on an export-oriented economy. Hoping to generate commercial revenues to revive the colony, he then chose to adopt a policy of forced plantation labor that was similar to slave labor used by previous plantation owners. To implement his policies, he also adopted a more authoritarian style of leadership and established a military dictatorship, which he believed was most effective under the circumstances. In the meantime, France, under the new leadership of First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, sought to recover its lucrative colony. Saint Domingue was also essential for future French exploitation of the Louisiana Territory in North America. Toussaint sought to assure Bonaparte of his loyalty to France, but he refused to accept French authority on the island. In early 1802, a French military expedition, led by General Charles-Victor-Emmanuel Leclerc, Bonaparte’s brother-in-law, arrived in Saint Domingue and moved against Toussaint and his forces. By May 1802, unable to defeat the French and with some of his lieutenants defecting, Toussaint chose to negotiate a treaty with Leclerc on condition that there would be no return of slavery. After the treaty was signed, he was allowed to retire to his estate, but was soon arrested on charges of plotting an uprising against the French authorities. Toussaint was quickly deported to France, where he arrived in July 1802. A month later, he was sent to the fortress of Fort de Joux in the Jura Mountains in eastern France. Confined to a squalid cell and
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L’Ouverture, Toussaint (1743–1803) neglected, Toussaint lived for another year before succumbing to pneumonia in April 1803. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Delgrès, Louis; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste; Ogé, Vincent; Slave Trade, French; Sonthonax, Léger Félicité. Further Reading: Bell, Madison. Toussaint Louverture: A Biography. New York: Pantheon Books, 2007; Césaire, Aimé. Toussaint Louverture: La Révolution française et le problème colonial. Paris: Présence Africaine, 1981; Geggus, David P., and David B. Gaspar, eds; Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997; James, C.L.R. The Black Jacobins: Toussaint L’Ouverture and the San Domingo Revolution. London: Allison and Busby, 1994; Nicholls, David. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour, and National Independence in Haiti. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979.
Alexander Mikaberidze
M McCalla, Val (1943–2002) Val Irvine McCalla was a controversial black British publisher and the founder of The Voice, an influential weekly newspaper that catered to Britain’s black community. He was born in 1943 in Jamaica. He studied accounting at Kingston College before moving to Britain in 1959. McCalla hoped to serve in the Royal Air Force as pilot, but ended up performing bookkeeping functions. Afterward, he volunteered at the newspaper East End News while maintaining employment as an accountant. The early 1980s was a period of racial unrest in Britain. Blacks and black issues did not receive much attention in the media, and when they did, it was often negative. McCalla decided to found The Voice in 1982 as a vehicle for the British Afro-Caribbean and black British community to express themselves. The Voice was meant to appeal to a new generation of black Britons whose parents had been immigrants. The newspaper was not afraid to cause controversy and targeted what it perceived as racism in British society. The Voice was launched at the Notting Hill Carnival and it became very influential and popular. It established itself as a recognized, if not official, mouthpiece for the black British community and campaigner for black rights. As a result of The Voice’s success, McCalla became an extremely wealthy man. His publications helped launch the career of numerous black journalists. McCalla owned other publications including Chic and Pride. In 1991, he founded The Weekly Journal. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; McDonald, Trevor; Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading: Ainley, Beulah. Black Journalists, White Media. Stoke-on-Trent, UK: Trentham Books, 1998; Morrison, Lionel. A Century of Black Journalism in Britain. London: Truebay, 2007.
E. Agateno Mosca
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McDonald, Trevor (1939–) Trevor McDonald, the first black television news anchor in the United Kingdom, was born in San Fernando, Trinidad. As a young child, he watched the BBC World Service to improve his command of the English language. He started his career in the media through the Blue Circle Network, a university broadcast at Naparima College in San Fernando. McDonald started his professional career as a producer for the BBC’s World Service and the BBC’s Caribbean Service in 1962. In 1969, he moved to London to work for the BBC’s World Service. He subsequently was a reporter for Independent Television News (ITN) from 1973 to 1978, a sport correspondent from 1978 to 1980, a diplomatic correspondent from 1980 to 1982, and a newscaster for Channel 4 News from 1987 to 1989. His presentation of the News at Ten bulletin from 1991 to 1999 and from 2001 to 2005 brought him popular recognition. He also hosted Granada Television’s Tonight with Trevor McDonald from 2001 to 2005. In 2006, he signed a two-year contract with ITN to produce a documentary show and a new series of interviews. In June 2007, McDonald began hosting the new ITV television series News Knight with Sir Trevor McDonald. As evidence of his professionalism, McDonald was awarded the Television and Radio Industries Club’s “Newscaster of the Year” and received a National Television Award for Special Achievement in 2003. He was honored with a Royal Television Society Journalism Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2005. McDonald is also an honorary vice president of Optical Charity Vision Aid Overseas (VAO) and Chancellor of London South Bank University. He holds an honorary award from the University of Plymouth and was knighted in 1999. His books include biographies of cricketers Clive Lloyd (1985) and Viv Richards (1987) and an autobiography, Fortunate Circumstances, published in 1993. Although aware of racial problems in the country, McDonald always claimed he had never encountered racism in his professional and personal life. Because of his popularity as one of a few black media professionals, he has been criticized for not using his position to fight racial discrimination. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading: McDonald, Trevor. Fortunate Circumstances. London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1993.
Tristan Cabello
McGrath, Paul (1959–) Paul McGrath, a biracial football (American soccer) defender, played for the Republic of Ireland’s national team from 1985 until 1997. He is predominantly known as Ireland’s most famous sportsman. McGrath was born as Paul Nwobilo. His father was Nigerian and his mother, Betty McGrath, was Irish. Afraid of the repercussions of an illegitimate, biracial child, McGrath’s mother traveled to London, where she gave birth to him and gave him up for
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María (1839–1908) adoption when he was four weeks old. McGrath was raised in a series of orphanages in Dublin, Ireland. McGrath developed feelings of insecurity and isolation while growing up black in a predominantly white community. Although he felt that could not tell fellow teammates of his troubles, he managed to find some security in youth football leagues. He played for the Pearse Rovers and later for Dalkey United. Eventually, McGrath attracted the attention of football scouts and obtained a position on the professional team, St. Patrick’s Athletic in 1981. McGrath excelled in his sport at St. Patrick’s and earned the nickname the “Black Pearl of Inchicore.” McGrath’s professional career took off rapidly, and in 1982, he transferred to Manchester United under the leadership of Roy Atkinson. Problems with injured knees and alcohol addiction hindered McGrath’s relationship with the new owner of Manchester United, Alex Ferguson. In 1989, McGrath transferred to Aston Villa and played for them until 1996. During his stay at Aston Villa, he picked up numerous awards, such as Player of the Year, and helped his team win the Cup in 1994 and 1996. On the international scene, McGrath helped Ireland achieve worldwide acclaim. McGrath has admitted to alcohol addiction and has told his life story in an autobiography titled Back from the Brink. His years of alcohol addiction led to several suicide attempts, which McGrath attributes to his troubled childhood. Yet despite his personal problems, McGrath still managed to attract the acclaim of fans worldwide. He remains celebrated as one of Ireland’s best athletes. See also: Batson, Brendon; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Henry, Thierry; Ireland, Blacks in; Wharton, Arthur. Further Reading: McGrath, Paul, with Cathal Dervan. Ooh, Aah, Paul McGrath: The Black Pearl of Inchicore. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 1994; McGrath, Paul, with Vincent Hogan. Back from the Brink: The Autobiography. London: Arrow, 2006.
Dawn P. Hutchins
Machado de Assis, Joaquim María (1839–1908) Joaquim María Machado de Assis, a Brazilian realist novelist and author, is one of the greatest black writers in Western literature. Machado de Assis’s work was heavily influenced by English writers, such as Shakespeare and John Milton, and French realists, such as Gustave Flaubert and Emile Zola. In turn, Machado de Assis has been a great influence on many writers in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. He also translated many works of Shakespeare into Portuguese, thereby making the English playwright more accessible to Portuguese audiences, and even based his Dom Casmurro (1899) on Shakespeare’s Othello. Machado de Assis was born in 1839 in Rio de Janeiro. His father was Francisco José de Assis, a black housepainter and descendant of freed slaves, and his mother was María Leopoldina Machado de Assis, a Portuguese washerwoman who died when her son was young. Machado De Assis was said to have taught himself to write, and after gaining skill in Portuguese, he studied French and then English until he was fluent in both.
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McKay, Claude (1889–1948) As a teenager, Machado de Assis worked for newspapers in Rio de Janeiro and published his first works in the early 1860s. In 1869, he married Carolina Xavier de Novaes, the descendant of a Portuguese noble family and soon managed to get a position in public service. He wrote many more books, including Contos Fluminenses (Fluminensis Tales, 1870); Ressurreição (Resurrection, 1872); Histórias da Meia Noite (Stories of Midnight, 1873); A Mão e a Luva (The Hand and the Glove, 1874); Americanas (collection of poetry, 1875); Helena (1876); and Iaiá Garcia (Mistress Garcia, 1878). Many of these books sold well, but in about 1880, Machado de Assis’s style of writing changed dramatically. He wrote a novel, Memórias Póstumas de Brás Cubas (The Posthumous Memoirs of Bras Cubas, 1881), which resembled, to some degree, the works of British writers George Meredith and Laurence Sterne. He then wrote a number of other works, including Histórias sem data (Undated Stories, 1884) and Páginas recolhidas (Retained Pages, 1899). In 1896, Machado de Assis founded the Brazilian Academy of Sciences and served as its president from 1897 until his death. In 1899, he published his most famous novel, Dom Casmurro (Sir Dour), which deals with the theme of jealousy. Casmurro, meaning “obstinate,” is the main character and has obvious similarities to Shakespeare’s Othello. Dom Casmurro is a fictional memoir written from the point of view of Bento (Bentinho), a jealous husband. He believes that his wife, Capitu (a version of Shakespeare’s Desdemona), has betrayed him with his best friend and has given birth to an illegitimate son. Bento’s evidence to support his suspicions is weak, however, and could be explained by paranoia. Therefore the novel, with its unreliable narrator, never presents a straight answer to the question of whether Capitu has betrayed her husband. Machado de Assis was involved in translating Shakespeare and other English writers into Portuguese. His later works included Esaú e Jacó (Esau and Jacob, 1904), Relíquias da Casa Velha (Relics of the Old House, 1906), and Counselor Aires’s Memorial (Memorial de Aires, 1908). Further Reading: Caldwell, Helen. The Brazilian Othello of Machado de Assis. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1960; Caldwell, Helen. Machado de Assis: The Brazilian Master and His Novels. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1970; Lisboa, Maria Miguel. Machado de Assis and Feminism: Re-reading the Heart of the Companion. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1996.
Justin Corfield
McKay, Claude (1889–1948) Claude McKay was a Jamaican novelist and communist, who, after living for a time in England as arguably Britain’s first black journalist, became a noted figure in the Harlem Renaissance. He was born in September 1889 in Jamaica. His father was a farmer. In 1912, McKay, who started working as a policeman, eventually became noticed by Walter Jekyll. Jekyll assisted McKay in publishing his first poetic collection, Songs of Jamaica. The collection was significant as the first set of poems published in Jamaican Creole. McKay’s next volume, Constab Ballads (1912), recounted his times as a law enforcement official.
Magi, Representations of the In late 1912, McKay went to Booker T. Washington’s Tuskegee Institute in Alabama. During McKay’s time in the United States, especially during his experiences in South Carolina, he was shocked at the racist attitudes and the restrictions on blacks in public facilities. McKay left to go to Kansas State University and, in 1914, decided against becoming an agronomist and moved to New York. In New York, McKay married Eulalie Lewars, his childhood sweetheart. After six months, McKay and his wife returned to Jamaica, where he continued to write poetry. In 1917, he published Seven Arts under the pseudonym “Eli Edwards.” McKay then started working as a waiter on the Jamaica railways and then became politically active. McKay had been unhappy with the nationalist ideals espoused by black leader Marcus Garvey, as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), which he saw as too middle class. This led to his involvement in the new alternative African Blood Brotherhood, a semisecret revolutionary group. Soon afterward, McKay moved to London, England, where he wrote for Negro World and became involved in the International Socialist Club in Shoreditch. In Shoreditch, McKay started associating with many leftwing intellectuals and began to write for Workers’ Dreadnought, which published a large number of his articles. While living in England as a paid journalist, McKay may have been the first black journalist in Britain. McKay attended the 1920 Communist Unity Conference that established the British Communist Party. Continuing writing, McKay’s famous book, Home to Harlem, was in 1928. The book, which detailed life on the streets of Harlem in New York, had a profound influence on black intellectuals across the globe, including those in Britain and continental Europe. Furthermore, it won the Harmon Gold Award for Literature. McKay’s later books included Banjo (1930), Gingertown (1932), and Banana Bottom (1933). His two-volume autobiography appeared in A Long Way from Home (1937) and Harlem: Negro Metropolis (1940). His Selected Poems (1953) was published posthumously. Disillusioned with communism, McKay became a Roman Catholic. He died from a heart attack in May 1948. See also: Authors in Europe, African American; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading: Cooper, Wayne. Claude McKay: Rebel Sojourner in the Harlem Renaissance. New York: Schocken, 1987; Hones, Bridget. “With ‘Banjo’ by My Bed: Black French Writers Reading Claude McKay.” Caribbean Quarterly 38:1 (1992): 32–39; McKay, Claude. A Long Way from Home. New York: Lee Furman, 1937; McKay, Claude. Harlem: Negro Metropolis. New York: E. P. Dutton and Co., 1940; Rani, Kandula Nirupa. Claude McKay: The Literary Identity from Jamaica to Harlem and Beyond. Jefferson, NC: McFarland and Company, 2006.
Justin Corfield
Magi, Representations of the The Christian traditions associated with the story of the birth of Jesus of Nazareth celebrated every year at Christmas (December 25) have had a profound impact on the imagination of the West. The retelling of the infancy narrative from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew has served as a powerful vehicle for the communication of the central claims of Christianity about Jesus and the models of human responses toward
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Magi, Representations of the him. Within the Gospel of Matthew (Matt 2:1–12), magi come to Bethlehem, where Jesus is born, from the East asking to see the newborn king of the Jews because they have seen his star rising and they wish to pay him homage with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Warned in a dream not to return to King Herod, who desired the destruction of the child, they return to their own homes after their act of reverent devotion to him. This story served to articulate the twofold reaction toward Jesus: rejection (Herod) and acceptance (the magi). For Matthew, the true king of the Jews was not King Herod, but the baby in Bethlehem. The magi, as Gentiles, or non-Jews, had recognized the revelation from God through the signs of nature, which eluded the learned within the Jewish court of worldly power. The adoration of the magi depicted in the Gospel of Matthew, rather than the devotion of shepherds in the Gospel of Luke (Lk 2:8–14), first captured the attention of the pious in the early centuries of Christianity. As early as the third century, the visitors from the East make their appearance in a fresco within the Roman catacomb of Priscilla. In the literature of Christianity, the impulse to supplement Matthew’s account with specific details proved irresistible. Soon, the European Christian tradition set the number of magi at three, because of the number of gifts, and gave them the status of kings. They were given the names of Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar, and their veneration was linked with the solemn feast of the Epiphany (January 6). Their saintly remains were believed to repose within the cathedral of Cologne, and a depiction of them formed the centerpiece of many nativity liturgical dramas. Central to their symbolic importance was that they represented the acceptance of Jesus as the Messiah, or Savior, by all humanity; thus they represented the three regions of the earth (Europe, Asia, and Africa). Further, they were thought of as representing the three chronological periods of old age, middle age, and youth, as well as different races. The emphasis on one of the magi being black can be found as early as the eighth century in Irish commentaries on the Gospel of Matthew (Pseudo-Bede, In Matthaei Evangelium Exposito). By the year 1000, a clear magi legend articulated itself within the devotional and religious culture of the emerging Middle Ages. That tradition would become well known through the efforts of Johannes de Hildesheim in his comprehensive summation of the whole magi mythology, the Historia Trium Regum, penned toward the end of his life in 1364–1375. An English translation of the Historia Trium Regum can be found in The Early English Text Society (1886). This work affirms that one of the magi, Caspar, was a black Ethiopian and the tallest of the three. It was he who offered, with tears, the gift of myrrh. This text of Johannes, along with the emerging awareness of black Africans in Europe in the fifteenth century, would give rise to the explosion of devotional pictorial and dramatic representations of Gentile piety through the image of the black magi. Some examples of important works of art that codified the artistic rendering of the black magi tradition would be the Bavarian Wurzach Altarpiece of Hans Multscher (1437); Albrecht Dürer’s Adoration (1504); Hieronymous Bosch’s Adoration of ca. 1500–1510; and Andrea del Sarto’s fresco in the atrium of SS. Annunziata in Florence (1511). This tradition, which continues to the modern period, would reverently depict the black magi in gestures of adoration and, as such, serves as one important positive way of integrating black non-Europeans into the Christianized Western world.
Malcolm X in London See also: Age of Exploration; Art, Blacks as Represented in European; Benedict the Moor, Saint; Black Madonna Tradition; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Hamitic Myth; Maurice, Saint; Popes, African; Renaissance, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Kaplan, Paul. The Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art. Ann Arbor: UMI Research Press, 1985.
Lawrence F. Hundersmarck
Malcolm X in London Malcolm X (1925–1965), an African American civil rights leader, spent half of the final two weeks of his life in England, primarily London, where he gave two speeches and several interviews that had a substantial impact on the civil rights movement in Britain. Malcolm flew from New York to London on Friday, February 5, where he attended a weekend conference of the Council of African Organizations. He addressed the gathering on February 8, advocating unity between Africans and black Americans, and decrying the negative depiction of both in the United States news media. Malcolm traveled to Paris on February 9 at the invitation of African American students there, but French officials denied him permission to enter the country. On returning to London, Malcolm was interviewed on February 10 by Flamingo, a monthly magazine produced by black Londoners. In the interview, Malcolm returned to several themes that he often emphasized during this period of his life, including the international context of the civil rights struggle in the United States; the inspiring examples of ongoing anticolonial revolutions in Africa and Asia; the necessity of unity in the face of a powerful enemy; and the damage caused by demeaning images of blacks in the American press. Malcolm was able to develop all those themes at much greater length in his most important talk in London, a February 11 speech at the London School of Economics organized by the university’s Africa Society. The transcript indicates that Malcolm was more relaxed than in the previous day’s interview, in which most of his answers were curt, and his trademark sense of humor is evident. He warned against any reliance on liberal politicians, applauded the emergence of an “independent Africa,” and concluded the speech with a call to blacks in Western countries to see themselves as “part of the oppressed masses all over the world” who “today are crying out for action against the common oppressor.” Malcolm commented briefly on his split with the Nation of Islam in the discussion period. It is notable that throughout his week in Europe, he rarely mentioned the Nation, preferring to speak about international developments and the struggle against racism at home and abroad. While in London, Malcolm was also interviewed by the South African Sunday Express, the Ghanaian Times, the London Times, and the New China News Agency. He told the Chinese journalists that the United States was doomed to failure in their military efforts in Vietnam, where its choice was “to die there or pull out.” The day before leaving England, Malcolm visited Smethwick, a suburb of Birmingham that had recently experienced racial tension. He returned to New York on Saturday, February 13, and maintained a busy schedule over the next week. He was
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Man in the Iron Mask assassinated as he took the podium to address an audience at Harlem’s Audubon Ballroom on Sunday, February 21. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; King Jr., Martin Luther. Further Reading: Malcolm X. The Final Speeches: February 1965. New York: Pathfinder Press, 1992; Malcolm X Project (Columbia University): http://www.columbia.edu/cu/ccbh/ mxp/; Marable, Manning. Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. New York: Viking/Penguin, 2009.
John M. Cox
Man in the Iron Mask Nabo the Moor was an African who became a favorite at the court of Queen MarieTeresa of France during the seventeenth century. He disappeared mysteriously and was once suggested as being the famous prisoner known as the “Man in the Iron Mask.” From North Africa, Nabo lived at the French Royal Palace of Louis XIV at Versailles. Ten or twelve years old, and two feet three inches tall, he was given to Queen Marie-Teresa as a wedding present when she married Louis XIV at Saint Jean-de-Luz on June 9, 1660. The queen, the daughter of Philip IV of Spain, brought with her a large dowry and was, herself, of short stature. Within four months of the marriage, Nabo had become her favorite. He accompanied her when she made short journeys and appeared with her in at least one painting. Soon, it was realized that Nabo had significant musical talents. As a result, Paul Auget, the director of the King’s Music, taught him how to play the guitar. As a result, Nabo took the surname “d’Auget.” Louis XIV and Maria Therese had a son, born on November 1, 1661 (Louis “The Grand Dauphin,” grandfather of King Louis XV); and on November 18, 1662, they had a daughter, who died on December 30. Soon after, Louis XIV started having an affair with his sister-in-law, and it seems that the queen may have started an affair with Nabo, by then 15 or 16 years old. On November 16, 1664, the queen went into premature labor, and she gave birth to a dark-skinned daughter. Rumors circulated quickly that Nabo was the father. The baby, named Marie-Anne of France, was sickly; and by the end of the year, it was announced that the girl had died on December 26, barely five weeks old. Nothing more was known about Nabo. There were theories that the girl had survived and, known as the “Mooress of Moret,” she became a nun at the Benedictine Convent at Moret. There were also theories that she assumed the name of Sister Louis-Marie-Therese, and that the king had endowed the nunnery with 20,000 crowns, with the Grand Dauphin visiting the place on occasions. This story became part of the play Las Meninas, which took its name from the painting by the Spanish artist Velasquez. Nabo’s fate continues to remain a mystery. Certainly, he disappeared from court, and there are theories that he was the infamous man held in the Royal Prison at the Bastille, Paris, as the “Man in the Iron Mask.” This story was revived by the writer Pierre-Marie Dijol, suggesting that this is why the name Eustache d’Auger became associated with the mysterious legend of the prisoner known as the “Man in the Iron Mask.” When the prisoner died in 1703, he was buried in Paris under the name “Marchiali.” Although
Marché Dejean many historians suggested that this was because the prisoner was the North Italian politician Ercole Antonio Mattioli, Dijol put forward an alternative theory for the name. Nabo, as he was from North Africa, was often known by his slang name “Ali.” After he was given an honorific title, “Marquis,” it was not long before he became known as “Marquis Ali,” or “Marchiali.” Given that one of the few identifying features of the prisoner was that he was tall, however, Nabo seems an unlikely candidate. See also: Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; France, Blacks in. Further Reading: Dijol, Pierre-Marie. Nabo, ou le Masque de fer. Paris: Editions FranceEmpire, 1978; Michael of Greece, Prince. Louis XIV: The Other Side of the Sun. London: Orbis, 1983; Noone, John. The Man Behind the Iron Mask. Stroud: Alan Sutton, 1988.
Justin Corfield
Maran, René (1887–1960) René Maran, a French writer of Guyanese descent, was the first black recipient of the prestigious Prix Goncourt in French literature. He was born aboard a boat bound to Fort-de-France, Martinique, in 1887. As a boy, his family moved to Gabon, where his father served in the colonial service. Maran attended a boarding school in Bordeaux, France. He later became a member of the French colonial service in French Equatorial Africa. Maran’s experiences in the French colonial service served as the inspiration for much of his literary output, including Batouala, which won the Prix Goncourt in 1921. To many literary critics, Maran’s work marks the beginning of African and Caribbean literature in French. He came to argue for an African identity in terms of the context of a sort of Pan-Africanism. In this sense, his work is often considered a precursor to the Négritude movement. Some of Maran’s major collections of poetry include La Maison du Bonheur (1909) and La Vie Intérieure (1912). Some of his major novels include Batouala (1921), Le cœur serré (1931), Le Livre de la Brousse (1933), and Un Homme pareil aux autres (1947). See also: African Diaspora; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Damas, Léon; Du Bois, W.E.B; Fanon, Frantz; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French; Senghor, Léopold Sédar; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Cameron, Keith. René Maran. Boston: Twayne Publishers, 1985; Maran, René. Batouala. trans. Alexandre Mboukou and Barbara Beck. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 2008; Ojo-Ade, Femi. René Maran: The Black Frenchman: A Bio-critical Study. Washington, DC: Three Continents, 1984; Peabody, Sue, and Tyler Stovall, eds. The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003.
Eric Martone
Marché Dejean The Marché Dejean, commonly referred to as the “African Market,” is a popular open-air neighborhood market located in the Goutte d’Or quarter in the 18th arrondissement of Paris, France outside of the Château-Rouge subway stop. Men,
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Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen (1926–) women, and children in native African clothing are typically found there working tables, trading spots, and places to eat. The area, which includes several specialty shops in the surrounding streets, is usually boisterous and crowded, featuring much mingling, shopping, and bargaining as people from all over the greater Paris area attempt to purchase exotic foodstuffs and ingredients, clothing, hair products, and other items from Europe, Africa, and the Caribbean. Hawkers also line the Marché Dejean, peddling cheap watches and perfumes. The surrounding neighborhood of the Marché Dejean is composed of multiethnic diverse inhabitants and has been in recent history a working-class area with its fair share of crime and destitution. The area, one of Paris’s most cosmopolitan neighborhoods, is currently home to a number of Africans and North Africans who have immigrated to France. Several different languages are spoken in the area around the Marché Dejean, including different Northern and Western African dialects and Arabic, with French serving as a universal language. During the nineteenth century, provincial workers moved to Paris to help build the improvements to Paris as part of the designs of Baron Georges Haussmann. These workers lived in what became part of the 18th arrondissement. The remains of the Haussmann buildings were used to build inexpensive housing in the area, which caused its growth. At the beginning of the twentieth century, in addition to the steady supply of new inhabitants from the French provinces, there was an influx of immigrants to this area, at first from Belgium and Poland, and then from Italy and Spain. During the 1920s, there was an influx of new Berber inhabitants from Algeria, which at that time was still part of France. More Algerians arrived after World War II to help rebuild Paris, which had been damaged during the war. After the Algerian war, there was a wave of immigration from Africa to France that has continued steadily to the present. The African inhabitants of the Marché Dejean area derive from such sub-Saharan countries as Senegal and Cameroon and from northern African countries such as Morocco, Tunisia, and Algeria. These countries have historically had ties with France as part of the French colonial empire. There are also immigrants from the Caribbean (the Antilles and Jamaica), East Asia (China), and India living in the area to work. Consequently, within the small area of Paris around the Marché Dejean, one can see the effects of colonialism on the metropole (or “mother country”) and the emerging struggle to find a French identity in a pluralist society. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Immigration to Europe, Illegal African; May 10 Holiday (France); Race Riots in Europe; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Winders, James. Paris Africain: Rhythms of the African Diaspora. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Eric Martone
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen (1926–) Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi, a German native, grew up in Nazi Germany and came to the United States on a student visa. He eventually become a U.S. citizen and
Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen (1926–) worked for almost 40 years with Ebony Magazine, where he eventually became managing editor. Born in January 1926, Massaquoi grew up in a Germany devoid of many racial minorities. Massaquoi’s father, Al-Haj, was the son of the Liberian Counsel General in Hamburg, Germany. While in Hamburg, Al-Haj met Massaquoi’s mother, Bertha Baetz, a German nurse. The couple never married. In the early 1930s, Massaquoi’s diplomatic grandfather returned to Liberia to run unsuccessfully for the presidency of the country. Al-Haj followed his father, but Bertha refused to go to Liberia and also refused to let her son accompany his father there. It was during this time that Adolph Hitler and the Nazis assumed control in Germany. Massaquoi was able to advance while living under the Nazi regime despite being without a father, not being affluent, and being a minority. Before his father returned to Liberia, Massaquoi lived in a household with German servants, thus living in an environment where the Africans were superior in social class and rank to their white servants. Furthermore, and especially in 1936, Massaquoi had strong black role models who were from the United States, as news of Jesse Owens in the 1936 Olympics and the great fights between Max Schmeling and Joe Louis provided a source of strength and pride for the 10-year-old. Even without a father living at home, Massaquoi was surrounded by many “father figures” in Germany, especially at school, where the idea of a “fatherland” was indoctrinated into every child. Massaquoi did face some racial challenges during his childhood in Nazi Germany. Being in the nearly all-white city of Hamburg, he stood out because of his dark appearance. At school, he was sometimes taunted by other children who shouted, “Neger, Neger, Schornsteinfeger!” (“Negro, Negro, chimney sweep!”) Ironically, in recent years, a German producer made a television movie on the life of Massaquoi using the taunt as the title of the movie. Despite these taunts, Massaquoi was never attacked or imprisoned like so many other minorities during the Nazi regime. There was little opportunity for Massaquoi in Nazi Germany. Consequently, after the war, he took a post with the British military, which was occupying Hamburg. He served as a translator, which ignited his interest in communications. In 1948, Massaquoi went to live in Liberia with his father’s family, but he found the country to be too racially charged. Soon after, he applied for a student visa to the United States and became an aviation mechanics student in Chicago. When the Korean War began, Massaquoi volunteered for military service and served with the 82nd Airborn Division. Because he never left the United States, and lived in the pre-Civil Rights era South, Massaquoi was very aware of the racial divide in the United States. After the Korean War, and now a citizen of the United States, Massaquoi graduated from the University of Illinois in 1957 and immediately began working for Ebony Magazine, where he remained for nearly 40 years and eventually became managing editor. During his tenure at the magazine, Massaquoi met with and interviewed many of the great African American figures. After years of encouragement by his friend Alex Haley, Massaquoi, upon his retirement, decided to write a book on his experiences growing up in Nazi Germany. In Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany (1999), Massaquoi tells his story and shares his interpretations and views of one of the most volatile times in world history.
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Matheus, John (1887–1983) See also: Afro-Germans; Germany, Blacks in; Gilges, Lari; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European; Nassy, Josef; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Snow, Valaida; Television, Blacks in European. Further Reading: Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen. Destined to Witness: Growing Up Black in Nazi Germany. New York: William Morrow, 1999.
Robert Nave
Matheus, John (1887–1983) John Frederick Matheus was an African American playwright and academic who completed part of his graduate studies in Paris, France. The settings of many of Matheus’s literary pieces focused on the diverse experiences of the African Diaspora. Matheus was born in September 1887 in West Virginia. He attended public schools in Steubenville, Ohio, and Western Reserve, before going to Columbia University, where he graduated in 1921. After completing summer school at the University of Paris (Sorbonne), Matheus proceeded to the University of Chicago. He visited Haiti, Cuba, and Liberia, and later set some of his plays and short stories in these countries. From 1911 until 1913, Matheus was a teacher of Latin at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical College in Tallahassee. He was later a professor of modern languages at West Virginia State College from 1913 until 1922. There, Matheus became professor of Romance languages from 1922 until 1953, when he then became professor emeritus. During his career, Matheus won several distinctions and published several works. In May 1925, Matheus won the Opportunity short-story competition with his short story, Fog, which was set on the borders of West Virginia and Ohio. The next year, he won first prize in the personal-experience section, second prize in the drama section, and an honorable mention in both the poetry and short story sections. In 1930, Matheus became a member of the commission appointed by the League of Nations to investigate allegations of forced labor in Liberia. In 1936, Matheus jointly edited A Reader on Alexandre Dumas. His one-act play, Cruiter, set in a log cabin in lower Georgia, was performed in 1940, and in 1945–1946, Matheus taught English in Haiti under the auspices of the Inter-American Educational Foundation. His work influenced many others, including composer Clarence Cameron White (1880–1960), who used one drama by Matheus to put together Onaga: A Haitian Opera in Three Acts in 1938. Retiring from West Virginia State College after a 40-year career there, Matheus was professor of foreign languages at Maryland State College from 1953 until 1954. He worked as professor of Romance languages at Dillard University in New Orleans from 1954 until 1957. Matheus then held a succession of positions as assistant professor of foreign languages and literature at Texas Southern University in Houston from 1959 to 1961, visiting professor of German and French at Hampton Institute from 1961 to 1962, and professor of Romance languages at Kentucky State University in 1962. Matheus died in February 1983. See also: Authors in Europe, African American; Dumas père, Alexandre; Haitian Revolution for Independence.
Maurice, Saint (?–287 c.e.?) Further Reading: Andrews, William, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, eds. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; Lowney, John. “Haiti and Black Transnationalism: Remapping the Migrant Geography of Home to Harlem.” African American Review 34: 3 (Autumn 2000): 413–429.
Justin Corfield
Maurice, Saint (?–287 C.E.?) Saint Maurice, Knight of the Holy Lance, is a saint in the Roman Catholic Church. According to historical accounts that remain incomplete, Maurice was a soldier from Africa who was martyred by the Roman Army to which he belonged when he and his troops refused to worship the Roman gods. In the Catholic Church, Maurice’s Feast Day is September 22. He is the patron for soldiers, especially the papal Swiss Guards. Maurice was a soldier of reported high rank of the Roman Army. He was the commander of a legion called the Theban Legion. This legion comes from the Upper Nile, where Egypt borders the Sudan, and comprised mostly Christians. During the reign of Diocletian and his co-emperor, Maximian Herculius, Maurice and the Theban Legion were ordered into service. Maximian commanded the forces of the Roman Army in Gaul (present day France/Switzerland) to put down a reported rebellion of the citizens of Gaul. On their arrival at Martigny, near the lake of Geneva, Maximian ordered the troops to worship the Roman gods with a ritual sacrifice. Protesting this non-Christian activity, and believing that the people of Gaul did nothing to incur the wrath of the Roman Army, Maurice and the Theban Legion retreated to Agaunum (present-day Saint-Maurice-en-Valais), disobeying Maximian’s orders to return and conform to the rituals. Maximian ordered every tenth soldier of the Theban Legion executed, but Maurice did not capitulate. Such actions led to a second round of sacrifice of every tenth man. Without achieving success, Maximian ordered the entire slaughter of the Theban Legion. Although much of this depiction is viewed as skeptical, Bishop Eucherius of Lyons, in an attempt to authenticate the legend of Maurice, documented this story. The story was substantiated further by other rulers in the area of Saint-Maurice in Switzerland, and, consequently, the story became established history. A cultlike following of Maurice developed through the years and is still active. The Holy Lance, which came to be associated with Saint Maurice, is an ordinary wing-shaped spearhead without the shaft that has a slit in the middle of the lance-head containing a nail that is supposed to have been used to crucify Jesus of Nazareth. The lance is believed to be the one that was used by the Roman centurion, Longinus, to pierce the side of Jesus while he was on the cross. To believers, this piercing caused blood and water to flow from the inflicted wound on Jesus. There is great significance in the action of the piercing, which symbolizes the birth of the Catholic Church. The water that came from the wound symbolizes baptism, and the blood represents the transubstantiation of blood into the wine as celebrated in the Eucharist within the Catholic Church.
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May 10 Holiday The exact point in time when the Holy Lance became associated with Maurice is unclear. The connection possibly dates to the reign of Henry III of France (1039–1056), for an inscription, bearing the name of Maurice was placed on the lance-head at the point where the nail was being held in place. On closer study, and according to weapons experts, however, wing-shaped spearheads were not found until the sixth and seventh centuries, making it highly unlikely that Maurice ever brandished such a weapon. See also: Germany, Blacks in; Holy Roman Army, Africans in the; Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the. Further Reading: Suckale-Redlefsen, Gude. The Black Saint Maurice. Houston: Menil Foundation, 1987.
Robert Nave Meeting of Saint Erasmus of Formiae and Saint Maurice by Matthias Grunewald (1517–1523). Alte Pinakothek, Munich, Germany. Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / Art Resource, NY.
May 10 Holiday
May 10 has been designated a national holiday in France since 2006 to commemorate the abolition of slavery in France and its colonies. The holiday, the first of its kind in Europe, comes as France increasingly debates its colonial past and the role of immigrants from France’s former colonies in French society. French president Jacques Chirac announced the holiday in January 2006 at a reception held in honor of the Committee for the Memory of Slavery. According to a January 30 press release from the French government, Chirac shared his desire that beginning in 2006, “Metropolitan France should honor the memory of the victims of slavery and commemorate its abolition.” Furthermore, in his speech, Chirac expressed that, “in human history, slavery is a wound, a tragedy which has caused enormous suffering on every continent.” He further presented the idea that democracy is incompatible with slavery and all that it represents, and that “slavery must be given its rightful place in primary and secondary school curricula.” May 10 was chosen as the date for the holiday, for on that day in 2001, the French Senate adopted a law recognizing slavery and the slave trade as crimes against humanity. The law was the first of its kind in Europe; however, France continues to face difficulties charting a course to deal with multiethnic diversity. The bulk of France’s immigrants hail from its former colonies, particularly those in the Caribbean and Africa. While Chirac was president, his conservative government had often adopted strict immigration legislation and supported controversial legislation concerning how
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European colonialism should be taught in schools. Further troubles arose as a result of high unemployment rates, particularly among the young, and poor living conditions for immigrants. Race riots in Paris in 2005, orchestrated by many black and Arab youths, also caused concern. During the first annual celebration of the holiday in 2006, Chirac inaugurated a temporary piece of art in Paris featuring a bamboo arch with photographs of culturally diverse individuals. The Panthéon, which holds the remains of France’s greatest citizens, provided free entry to the tombs of those individuals significant to the abolition of slavery. The Louvre Museum and the National Library in Paris gave special tours highlighting pieces of art and manuscripts pertinent to slavery and the slave trade. The city of Nantes, which occupied a prominent role in the French slave trade, held a moment of silence. Other cities throughout France held ceremonies, readings, concerts, and other events to celebrate cultural diversity and commemorate the French abolition of slavery. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Race Riots in Europe; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Chapman, Herrick, and Laura Frader, eds. Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004; Dorigny, Marcel, ed. Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848. trans. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003; Lebovics, Herman. “The Musée du Quai Branly: Art? Artifact? Spectacle!” French Politics, Culture and Society 24:3 (Winter 2006): 96–110.
Eric Martone
Media, Blacks in Contemporary European Contemporary European media differ from U.S. media in several ways, but one of them concerns the representation of blacks. Although seeing black news reporters and news anchormen and anchorwomen is nothing unusual in the United States, blacks in contemporary European media are rare despite the increasing numbers of black Europeans and blacks residing in Europe. They remained virtually invisible in European media until the 1990s, with few exceptions. In European countries, in general, and in contrast to the United States, for instance, blacks are hardly represented in contemporary media such as journalism and broadcast news. Because race does not exist as a census category, no official data exist with regard to how many blacks actually live in Europe. Some were born and raised in European countries, whereas others went to Europe as soldiers, students, or refugees. A number of blacks are the children of these migrants. Some of the black journalists and television news reporters are from the United States, the Caribbean or from African countries; others are Afro-descendants with a white European parent. FRANCE. There are some prominent journalists and television news reporters in France of black descent. Some of the most prominent are Harry Roselmack, Audrey Pulvar, and Christine Kelly. Despite efforts to increase the representation of minorities in the media, France, similar to most other European countries, still has a long way to go. In the wake of the 2005 race riots in France, the French government decided that it had to ensure that the media reflected the diversity of the French people. In July
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Media, Blacks in Contemporary European 2006, Harry Roselmack, the first black evening news anchorman on the French TV station TF1, entered the French TV scene. Club Averroes, an organization advocating the increased representation of minorities in the French media, considered his position a sign of progress. Black journalist Audrey Pulvar, who was born in Martinique, became the first black news anchorwoman, but on a smaller scale than Roselmack. Pulvar studied economics at Rouen and journalism in Paris. She started working for a regional program (France 3). A few years afterward, she also started working also for LCP. Christine Kelly, born in Guadalupe, is a black journalist, TV reporter, and TV show host. Similar to Pulvar, Kelly was a TV reporter for France 3 in different regions, such as Rouen and Tours, starting in 1997. Three years later, LCI hired her as a news anchor. She became the first black female to broadcast news nationwide. GERMANY. Germany ranks among those European countries that feature some black news broadcasters. Since the 1990s, the appearance of black talk show hosts and journalists has gradually increased. Some of the most prominent are Cherno Jobatey, Jeannine Kantara, Nkechi Madubuko, and Noah Sow. Cherno Jobatey, who was born in Berlin, has worked as a journalist. He has been contributing to newspapers and magazines, such as taz, Die Welt, Die Zeit, Der Spiegel, and others. Jobatey has degrees in political science (Free University, Berlin) and music (Musicians’ Institute, Hollywood, LA). In addition, he has hosted radio shows and, since 1992, the popular TV morning news show ZDF-Morgenmagazin. Jeannine Kantara is a journalist with a social sciences degree from the Open University in England. Kantara is cofounder of the Afro-German organization, Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD), and codirector of its Berlin office. Kantara is also editor of the Afro-German magazine, afro look. John A. Kantara, born in Bonn to a white German mother and a Ghanaian father, has degrees in political science (Free University, Berlin, 1991) and international journalism (City University, London, 1992). Kantara, a freelance journalist and filmmaker, has contributed to TV shows produced by TV stations, such as ZDF, 3sat, and Vox. Nkechi Madubuko, who was born in Giessen to Nigerian parents, studied sociology, media, and psychology. Madubuko is currently a doctoral student at Philipps-University, Marburg. Apart from hosting several TV shows, such as the TV music station VIVA Zwei (1996–1999), Premiere World, and DSF, she has worked as an actress and is an accomplished athlete (high jump). Noah Sow, who was born in Straubing, is a musician, producer and author, who had her own TV shows on German TV stations, such as WDR and HR. In addition, Sow worked as a radio host on radio stations like Radio Fritz. She started the first antiracist media watchdog organization in Germany, der braune mob, in 2001 and published a book on racism in Germany in 2008. UNITED KINGDOM. As with the other European countries, the United Kingdom has few black journalists and news anchors. In the 1950s, black publications appeared in the United Kingdom such as the West Indian Gazette, the Jamaican Gleaner, and the Caribbean Voice. In the late 1970s to late 1990s, several African-Caribbean newspapers like the Caribbean Times, the Journal, and the New Nation were published and competed with each other.
Medici, Alessandro de (1510–1537) The United Kingdom is the only European country with an association of minority journalists. This association, Aspire, was founded by Mutale Nkonde and Corinne Amoo. Nkonde is a news and current affairs researcher at the BBC, and Amoo is a researcher for a production company. As of 2007, the association lists about one dozen board members and approximately 250 members. The existence of the U.S. organization National Association of Black Journalists gave the impetus to the establishment of Aspire in 2003. There are some prominent journalists and television news reporters in the United Kingdom of black descent. Some of the most prominent are Trevor McDonald and Esther Armah. Trevor McDonald, who was born in Trinidad, was the first black news anchor in the United Kingdom. McDonald started working for BBC Radio in London in 1969. In 1973, he joined ITN (Independent Television News). Queen Elizabeth II knighted him in 1999, the same year in which he received several other honors. McDonald published his autobiography in 1993. Esther Armah is a black British journalist who owns the multimedia company Centric Productions and has appeared on the radio. Armah has worked as a journalist in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Ghana. She has written for newspapers and magazines such as The Guardian (UK), Essence (US) and New Ghanaian. In 2006, she published a self-help book. See also: Afro-German; Black British; Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD); Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen; Race Riots in Europe; Television, Blacks in European. Further Reading: Ainley, Beulah. Black Journalists, White Media. Stoke-on-Trent, UK: Trentham Books, 1998; Armah, Esther. Can I Be Me? Bloomington: iUniverse, 2006; Jobatey, Cherno. Fit wie ein Turnschuh: minimaler Aufwand—maximaler Erfolg. Munich: Knaur, 2005; Kelly, Christine. Francois Fillon, le secret et l’ambition. Paris: Editions du Moment, 2007; Kelly, Christine. L’Affaire Flactif. Paris: Calmann-Lévy, 2006; McDonald, Trevor. Fortunate Circumstances. London: Weidenfield and Nicholson, 1993; Morrison, Lionel. A Century of Black Journalism in Britain. United Kingdom: Truebay, 2007; Sow, Noah. Deutschland Schwarz Weiß. Der alltägliche Rassismus. Munich: Bertelsmann, 2008.
S. Marina Jones
Medici, Alessandro de (1510–1537) Alessandro de Medici, the first duke of Florence, was the last of the senior branch of the Italian Medici family to rule Florence and the first to become a hereditary duke. Known as “il Moro” (“the Moor”), Alessandro was the first black head of state in modern European history, although his African ancestry is rarely mentioned. He was an influential Renaissance figure and is the ancestor of a number of noble and royal houses in Europe. Alessandro was born in 1510 to a black servant in the Medici household. After her later marriage to a muleteer, she is referred to as Simonetta da Collavechio. Alessandro was raised by Lorenzo II de Medici, Duke of Urbino, who was the grandson of the famous statesman Lorenzo I de Medici, known as “the Magnificent.” The renowned Renaissance politician and writer Niccolò Machiavelli dedicated The Prince,
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a guide for rulers that extolled the virtues of tyranny that must be used to maintain power, to Lorenzo II. Many historians, however, believe that Alessandro was actually the son of Giulio de Medici (the future Pope Clement VII), himself an illegitimate Medici child raised by his uncle, Lorenzo the Magnificent. Alessandro’s physical appearance reflected his black ancestry, which was noted by his contemporaries and became the basis of his nickname. In 1523, after his election as pope, Giulio relinquished the lordship of Florence to the young Alessandro and his nephew Ippolito de Medici. Although both were illegitimate, they were the last members of the elder branch of the Medici family. Because both were too young to govern effectively, Giulio appointed a regent, Cardinal Silvio Passerini. During the regency, republican sentiment grew in Florence. When Holy Roman Emperor Charles V sacked Rome in 1527, the people of Florence seized the opAlessandro de Medici. Scala / Art Resource, NY. portunity to reinstall a republic. Alessandro and Ippolito, along with the rest of the Medici family and primary supporters, fled. Eventually, papal and imperial factions made peace. After such a situation, in 1530, Charles V decided to restore the Medici to power in Florence. With military assistance and endorsement as ruler from Charles V, Alessandro was installed as the Florentine head of state. Around the same time, Clement VII made Ippolito a cardinal and sent him on a temporary mission to Hungary. In an attempt to secure Alessandro’s legal and political position as head of Florence, Clement VII made an agreement with Charles V that would bestow on Alessandro the hereditary title of duke of Florence. Previously, the Medici had attempted to avoid such titles to maintain ostensibly Florentine aspirations for a republic. In 1532, a new constitution was adopted and Alessandro became the hereditary duke of Florence and perpetual head of state. After the death of Clement VII in 1534, Alessandro’s political opponents, which included members of junior branches of the Medici family, attempted to remove him from power. In 1535, the Florentines appointed Ippolito their representative to bring grievances against Alessandro to Charles V. Ippolito died on his way to the court, probably from malaria, although some have speculated that he was poisoned on Alessandro’s orders. Charles V continued to uphold Alessandro’s right as ruler and offered the Italian duke his daughter, Margaret of Austria, in marriage as a sign of support. Shortly after the wedding, however, Alessandro was assassinated by his distant cousin, Lorenzino de Medici, to further republicanism.
Merida, Juan de Medici officials, in fear of an uprising upon news of Alessandro’s death, attempted to hide the corpse and arrange a secret burial to delay a public response; however, the Medici managed to maintain control of Florence after Alessandro’s assassination. Rather than establish a regency for Alessandro’s four-year-old son, Giulio, the family instead transferred power to Cosimo I de Medici, head of a junior branch of the family, who was older and had a greater chance of restoring order and consolidating power. Cosimo served as the guardian of Alessandro’s children. Later, Cosimo made Giulio first admiral of the Knights of San Stephano, which was an order of chivalry developed to counter the Turks. Alessandro’s daughter, Giulia, eventually married her distant cousin Bernardino de Medici. She and her husband relocated to Naples, where they gained the principality of Ottaiano. Alessandro was buried in the cemetery of San Lorenzo in a magnificent tomb by Michelangelo, solidifying his status as a Renaissance patron. See also: Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Italy, Blacks in; Renaissance, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Brackett, John K. “Alessandro de Medici, first Medici Duke of Florence, 1529–1537.” In Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. eds. T. F. Earle and K.J.P. Lowe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 303–325; Hare, Christopher. The Romance of a Medici Warrior. New York: Scribner’s, 1910; Hibbert, Christopher. The House of Medici: Its Rise and Fall. New York: Morrow, 1975; Winspeare, Massimo. The Medici: The Golden Age of Collecting. Livorno: Sillabe, 2000.
Eric Martone
Meneses, Cristóbol de Cristóbol de Meneses was a Dominican monk who lived in Spain during the sixteenth century. His father was a Spanish nobleman and his mother was a black African. From a young age, Meneses was trained by Spanish Roman Catholics for holy orders and joined the Order of Saint Dominic. Moving to Granada, in southern Spain, from where the Moors had ruled until 60 or so years earlier, Meneses was involved in religious pursuits, and for a long time was involved in study. Along with the traveler Leo Africanus, Meneses befriended Don Juan (or Don John) of Austria, brother of King Philip II of Spain, after the battle of Lepanto, in which the combined Christian fleets destroyed that of the Ottoman Empire in 1571. It appears that Meneses spent the rest of his life in the Order of Saint Dominic. See also: Spain, African Invasions of; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Allen, Alma. “Literary Relations between Spain and Africa: An Introductory Statement.” The Journal of Negro History 50:2 (April 1965): 97–105; Schomburg, Arthur. “Two Negro Missionaries to the American Indians: John Marrant and John Stewart.” The Journal of Negro History 21: 4 (October 1936): 394–405; Spratlin, Valaurez. “Juan Latino, Slave and Humanist.” Crisis (September 1932): 281.
Justin Corfield
Merida, Juan de Juan de Merida, known as El Valiente Negro de Flandes (“The Valiant Negro of Flanders”), appeared in the play of the same name by Andrés de Claramonte
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Michel, Jean-Louis (1785–1865) (c.1580–1626), a minor Spanish poet. The story is semilegendary, with little evidence of it being based on the life of an actual soldier. Little is known about the life of Andrés de Claramonte except that he lived in Murcia in southeast Spain, where he became the director of the theater that flourished at the time, and attracted attention from many from the capital, Madrid. It was in Murcia that El Valiente Negro de Flandes was first performed. The basis of El Valiente Negro de Flandes is that a black slave named Juan de Merida gained his freedom and then went to Flanders, where he fought in the army of Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, the third duke of Alba, who was governor of the Spanish Netherlands from 1567 until 1573. The Duke spent most of that time fighting against the Dutch Protestant burghers, who were aided by the English. De Merida acquitted himself bravely in combat and managed to gain the attention of the duke himself. The former slave was described as a noble Spanish soldier, but the “color of his skin prevented him from being a true caballero.” In the play, de Merida complains about racism in a long monologue, but he does not let this stop him from defending what he sees as right and just. He demonstrates bravery in battle and is promoted to the rank of sergeant. Later still, de Merida gains a commission and becomes a captain. The high point in the story of the fighting has de Merida entering the Flemish encampment by himself, managing to capture the duke of Orange and turn what would otherwise have been a defeat for the Spanish into a victory. This episode leads to the climax of the play, when de Merida was presented to the Spanish king for bravery. Overawed by this, his only words are “Soy un negro, un negro soy” (“I am a negro, a negro am I”). See also: Netherlands, Blacks in the; Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Brachfield, F. Oliver. Inferiority Feelings in the Individual and the Group. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972; Spratlin, V. B. “The Negro in Spanish Literature.” The Journal of Negro History 19:1 (January 1934): 60–71.
Justin Corfield
Michel, Jean-Louis (1785–1865) Jean-Louis Michel was a famous swordsman and duelist of biracial descent during the Napoleonic era in Europe (1799–1815). Many of his contemporaries praised him as the greatest master of the art of fencing in the nineteenth century. Little is known about Michel’s early life. It seems that he came to France from the French colony of Saint-Domingue (modern Haiti). During the French Revolution (1789–1799), Michel, an orphan, attempted to enlist in the revolutionary French army in the 1790s while he was an adolescent. Even though he was of African descent, it was not a barrier to his enlistment. The new French Republic had even formed a black regiment under the Chevalier de Saint-Georges and had temporarily abolished slavery. Michel had a small physique, making him appear weak, but since members of the French army were impressed by his determination, it was arranged for master swordsman D’Erape to instruct him. When Michel was 17 years old, he was sent into active service and fought for France in the Napoleonic Wars (1799–1815) throughout Europe. Napoleon Bonaparte had
Mirsky, D. S. (1890–1939) emerged as the French emperor in 1804, and the European powers made repeated alliances to remove Napoleon and prevent the spreading of the French Revolution. During the Peninsular campaign, in which French forces invaded and occupied Spain to prevent Portugal from trading with Britain, leader of the anti-Napoleon forces, Michel was master-of-arms of the Third Division’s 32nd Regiment. This division also included the First Regiment, composed of Italians recruited from the sections of Italy under French influence. There was much animosity between Michel’s regiment and the Italian regiment. In 1814, to end the animosity between regiments within the same division, commanding officers decided to hold a tournament in Madrid. They ordered Michel and Giacomo Ferrari of Florence, Italy’s most renowned swordsman and the Italian regiment’s master-of-arms, to select 15 of their individual regiments’ best men. On the day of the tournament, Ferrari arrived with 14 additional men, and Michel arrived alone. Michel first engaged Ferrari, who was defeated and killed. Michel proceeded to take on each of the additional 14 Italians, one at a time, until they, too, were defeated. The whole affair lasted less than an hour. The surviving Italian swordsmen and Michel shook hands as a symbol that the animosity between the two regiments was now past them. As news of Michel’s success spread, he became a celebrity in France and participated in subsequent duels. Napoleon even sent Michel the Legion of Honor. Michel retired from the army in 1830 and settled in Montpellier, where he opened a famous fencing school. Michel developed his own method of fighting, emphasizing the conservation of movement, which came to be taught throughout France. In later years, he argued against dueling to the death and promoted it as a form of competition. Michel enjoyed great wealth and social status, and many of his students hailed from the nobility. He married a local physician’s daughter and died after his wife in 1865, blind in both eyes from cataracts. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; French Army, Blacks in the; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de. Further Reading: Cross, Thomas, and Ernie Kirkham. Introduction to Fencing. 2nd ed. Champaign, IL: Stripes Publishing, 1996.
Eric Martone
Mirsky, D. S. (1890–1939) D. S. Mirsky was the pseudonym of Dmitry Petrovic Mirsky, a Russian political and literary historian. He was a member of an aristocratic Russian family, although he gave up his princely title. He fought in the Russian army during World War I before the outbreak of the Russian Revolution and the overthrow of the tsar. From 1920 to 1931, Mirsky lived in exile in Britain. He promoted the knowledge of Russian literature in Britain. In pursuit of this objective, he promoted English translations of many Russian pieces of literature. Mirsky wrote one of the first critical biographies of Alexander Pushkin in 1926. The work did much to propel the literary reputation and study of Pushkin, who was of black descent, particularly in the Englishspeaking world.
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Mirza (1795) In 1931, Mirsky joined the British Communist Party. He asked for a pardon from Soviet authorities and was granted permission to return to Soviet Russia. Shortly thereafter, he was arrested and placed in a labor camp, where he died. See also: Russia, Blacks in; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Mirsky, D. S. Pushkin. London: George Routledge, 1926.
Eric Martone
Mirza (1795) Mirza is a short story by late eighteenth-century and early nineteenth-century French author Madame de Staël in which she castigated the French slave trade and advocated the abolition of slavery. The story was written in 1786 when Staël was 20 years old. She later published the story in 1795 with a preface. Staël’s preface serves to encourage the French abolition of slavery despite the negative perceptions of blacks that had escalated after the outbreak of the Haitian Revolution for Independence. She further encourages readers to adopt a positive response to her fictitious black African characters, despite the present state of violent social upheaval. Consequently, Staël’s work differs from other portraits of black Africans in contemporary novels (such as Jean-Francois Saint-Lambert’s Ziméo) that depicted blacks as prone to violence, ignorance, drunkenness, and sexual acts. Staël’s story, which combines melodrama with antislavery polemic, focuses on Mirza, a black African woman, and her tragic love for Ximéo. Within the story, Mirza speaks out against the institution of slavery; and through this long speech, Staël’s voice and Mirza’s are one. Mirza takes place in Africa and is told from the point of view of Ximéo, a “noble savage” from the African kingdom of Cayor and a son of a chief. At birth, Ximéo is engaged to Ourika. One day while hunting, Ximéo overhears a woman singing. He discovers that the woman, Mirza, also composes the beautiful songs that she sings. Ximéo is enchanted by Mirza and seeks to win her heart by telling her that despite her intellectual pleasures, she needs the pleasures of love to complete her being. Mirza’s love for Ximéo becomes very intense, yet Ximéo ultimately rejects her and marries Ourika. After his marriage, Ximéo attempts to return to Mirza to offer her his friendship but is taken prisoner in war. He is then sold as a slave to European traders. Mirza arrives and gives a long heartfelt speech that convinces the European traders to release Ximéo. Unable to live without her lover, however, Mirza stabs an arrow through her heart. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Herold, J. Christopher. Mistress to an Age: A Life of Madame de Stael. New York: Grove Press, 2002; Kadish, Doris. “The Black Terror: Women’s Responses to Slave Revolts in Haiti.” French Review 68:4 (1995): 668–680; Staël, Germaine de. “Mirza.” trans. Francoise Massardier-Kenney. In Translating Slavery: Gender and Sex in French Women’s Writing, 1783–1823. ed. Doris Kadish and Francoise Massardier-Kenney. Kent: Kent State University Press, 1994.
Eric Martone
Missionaries in Africa, European
Missionaries in Africa, European European missionaries made substantial efforts to spread Christianity in subSaharan Africa beginning in the fifteenth century. Such efforts intensified during the New Imperialism in the nineteenth century. The first European missionaries were Catholic, but Protestant missionaries also became active in Africa. The conversion to Catholicism connected those Africans to the universal Catholic Church under the supreme guidance of the popes in Rome. Many of the Protestant congregations set up in Africa by European missionaries retained significant identification with European churches. In both cases, some Africans were sent to Europe to receive training in becoming priests or reverends. The Portuguese were the first Europeans to make considerable efforts to convert sub-Saharan Africans to Christianity. During the fifteenth century, Catholic missionaries often accompanied Portuguese explorers as they attempted to examine Africa. Although some attempts were unsuccessful, one of the Portuguese missionaries’ greatest successes came when the Kingdom of Kongo converted to Christianity in the 1490s. Despite such efforts, Catholic missionary activity declined in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The first Protestant missionaries to sub-Saharan Africa were former slaves. In the eighteenth century, many former slaves, who had supported the British in the American Revolutionary War and had moved to Nova Scotia in Canada, left to settle in Sierra Leone in Africa. They established several Christian communities. In the early nineteenth century, European missionaries started to arrive in Africa to establish mission villages and mission stations. As the European powers began to carve up Africa among themselves, the nature of African missionary work underwent a change. Missionaries became more closely associated to the different European powers. African rulers no longer exercised primary political power. Missionaries became subject to the colonizing European powers. The European powers used missionaries and their work to help control Africa. Thus missionaries ultimately became an informal component of the colonial structure that maintained European control through cultural and political domination. In the nineteenth century, during the height of European imperialism, one of the justifications for colonialism was the need to “civilize” Africans. One of the means of achieving this goal was to make them Christian. African religions were viewed as inferior, barbaric, and evil. Some missionaries set up schools, which in varying degrees served the interest of the European colonizers. A European education became one of the means to spread European ideas among Africans and for Africans to gain higher status. See also: Afonso, King of Kongo; Age of Exploration; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Crowther, Samuel Adjai. Further Reading: Ballard, Martin. White Man’s Gold: The Extraordinary Story of Missionaries in Africa. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2008.
E. Agateno Mosca
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Moody, Harold (1882–1947) Harold Arundel Moody was one of a renowned circle of expatriate black intellectuals who were politically active in Britain during the 1930s and 1940s. His greatest public achievement was founding the League of Coloured Peoples (LCP), an organization devoted to protecting the welfare of blacks in Britain and the world. Moody was born on October 8, 1882 in Kingston, Jamaica, the eldest of six children, to Charles and Christina (née Ellis) Moody. He received his education in Jamaica and then moved to London in 1904 to study medicine at King’s College. He received his M.B., B.S. in 1912 and his M.D. in 1919. During these years, he started a successful private practice and worked as medical superintendent of the Marylebone Medical Mission, but was refused a post at King’s College Hospital on account of his race. In 1913, he married Olive Tranter, an English nurse with whom he had worked at Marylebone; they had six children together. Moody was a devout Congregationalist and in England became increasingly involved in Christian organizations with local and international scope. These included the Colonial Missionary Society (he became chairman in 1921), the London Missionary Society (chairman in 1943), and the Christian Endeavour Federation (president in 1931). In 1931, Moody established the LCP as an interracial organization formed to educate and press for black civil rights through legal and governmental channels. It aimed to aid black people in distress, spur public interest in colonial welfare, and improve race relations in general. Under Moody’s direction, the LCP cultivated an image of moral uprightness and middle-class respectability. Moody used his own influence to draw prominent individuals (both black and white) into association with the league. At times, these tendencies caused tensions with more radical and black organizations. The LCP was one of the most visible and effective pressure groups for black civil rights before 1945. Within Britain, it protested the color bar and lobbied particular cases of discrimination, such as the “alien” treatment of black British seamen in port towns like Cardiff and Liverpool. In 1933, Moody founded the LCP paper, The Keys, which remained in circulation until 1939, in addition to publishing several pamphlets. Internationally, the LCP evolved into an articulate proponent of colonial issues: it denounced Italy’s invasion of Abyssinia in 1935, and later (in 1944) advocated full colonial self-government and the official prohibition of racial discrimination in Britain. Moody often used the language of common imperial membership to argue the equality of all British subjects, regardless of race. He remained politically active until his death from influenza on April 24, 1947. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Kilingray, David. Race, Faith and Politics: Harold Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples. London: Goldsmiths’ College, 1999; MacDonald, Roderick J. “Dr. Harold Arundel Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples, 1931–1947: A Retrospective View.” Race 14:3 (1973): 291–310; Rush, Anne Spry. “Imperial Identity in Colonial Minds: Harold Moody and the League of Coloured Peoples, 1931–50.” Twentieth Century British History 13 (2002): 356–383.
Amanda Bidnall
Moors
Moors In Europe during the Middle Ages and early modern period, the term Moor was used broadly in reference to black African, Berber, and Arab Muslims from the region of northwest Africa who settled in parts of Spain and Portugal and certain Mediterranean islands, such as Sicily. In its modern usage, the term refers to those who speak the Hassaniya Arabic dialect in parts of Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Western Sahara, Niger, and Mali. Furthermore, particularly in the Spanish usage, the term can be used in general reference to all Muslims. Many European languages’ words for all things dark derive from the term Moor (such as moreno), and many surnames also derive from Moor, such as Moore, Muir, Morello, and Mauros. The term Moor derives from the Greek word “mauros,” which means “black” or “very dark.” In Latin, the word became “mauro” (plural “mauri”). In the Middle Ages, European descriptions of Moors ranged from black, dark skinned, to swarthy in complexion. Such terms are subjective and reflect the diverse ethnicities of Africa, which through conquest and intermarriage became even more ambiguous. For example, Berbers, the original inhabitants of northwest Africa, became a mixture of a variety of peoples from East Africa, North Africa, West Africa, and sub-Saharan Africa. The Romans controlled western North Africa, what they called Mauritania (from “mauri”), but what is today Morocco and Algeria. Moors figured prominently as an ally of Carthage against Rome in the Punic Wars and accompanied Carthaginian general Hannibal in his campaigns. Moorish conversion to Islam in the late seventh century formed a formidable force with Arab allies. In 711, Taarik ibn Ziyad led an African invasion of Spain. His army crossed the Pyrenees into the kingdom of the Franks, where their advance was stopped at the Battle of Tours in 732 by Charles Martel. Withdrawing back into Spain, in 756, Adb-al-Rahman founded the Umayyad dynasty, establishing a long period of Moorish, Islamic rule. The Moors had a profound impact on the cultures of the areas that they conquered, particularly Spain. The Moors brought silk and crops, such as rice, cane sugar, dates, lemon, ginger, and cotton. They are thought to have brought the lute and an early version of the guitar, the Kithara, and are further credited with understanding the curvilinear nature of light rays, eventually leading to the development of corrective lenses. They understood astronomy, documenting the spherical nature of the Earth and its gravitational pull. By the tenth century, Moorish Spain was well in advance of its European counterparts. Its public baths, through which hot water was conveyed through pipes in the walls, were well known. The city of Cordoba’s streets were cleaner, paved, and well lit much earlier than the streets of London or Paris. Watermills were reintroduced, numbering more than 5,000 at a time when Europe had none. The Moors in Spain and Africa could also boast having the most literate populations. Education was universal, as women became doctors, and Jews attended university and had freedom to practice religion (although all nonbelievers paid a tax). Paper was used widely at a time when it was still unknown in the rest of Europe, giving rise to a plethora of bookshops. Cordoba became the intellectual center of Europe, drawing scholars to make use of more than 70 libraries.
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Moor's Head Symbol Internal divisions allowed for the advance of Christian armies. The city of Toledo fell in 1105, but as it did, one of the world’s greatest libraries was revealed to Christian Europe. Greek, Roman, and Arab manuscripts on philosophy, astronomy, and mathematics were then disseminated throughout the Christian world. The books on navigation alone would serve as the foundation of European exploration in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. Southern Spain remained Moorish until the unification of Spain in the fifteenth century. The last stronghold at Granada gave way in 1492. Thereafter, Moors were exiled, forced to convert, or killed, thus ending arguably Europe’s most cosmopolitan, tolerant, and heterogeneous society of the Middle Ages. See also: Frederick II and the Moors of Sicily; Heraldry, Blacks in European; Italy, African Invasions of; Moor’s Head Symbol; Spain, African Invasions of. Further Reading: Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006; Nicolle, David, and Angus McBride. The Moors: The Islamic West, 7th-15th Centuries AD. Sterling Heights, MI: Osprey, 2001; Seminario, Lee Anne Durham. The History of the Blacks, Jews, and Moors in Spain. Madrid: Playor, 1975.
Thomas Martin
Moor’s Head Symbol The heraldic symbol of the Moor’s head (or blackamoor’s head), which depicts the profile of a black African Moor, appears on the traditional flags of Aragon (Spain), Corsica (France), and Sardinia (Italy), and the coat of arms of the Algarve (Portugal). As a heraldic sign, the Moor’s head, generally facing to the viewer’s left (in heraldic terms, facing right), depicts black African features and usually has a ribbon around the head. This was generally fitting the traditional descriptions of the Islamic Moors from modern-day Morocco and Algeria, some of whom were taken as slaves in Spain, Portugal, and other parts of the Western Mediterranean. Why the Moor’s head has the ribbon, or headband, is not known for certain, although some Moors wore it as a sign that they were chieftains. The use of the Moor’s head in the coat of arms of Aragon in northern Spain was first recorded in 1281 during the reign of Peter III. Four Moors’ heads around a red cross were used within the Aragonese coat of arms during an early stage in the Reconquista, during which Catholic Spanish forces eventually united to expel the Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula. At this time, Catholic Aragon served as a base for attacks on Moors elsewhere in Spain. The coat of arms depicting four Moor’s heads around a red cross appears to have been used until 1387, when the original Aragonese coat of arms (without the Moors’ heads) was restored. Their use seems to have returned after the battle of Alcoras in 1046, during which Ramiro I, king of Aragon, defeated the Moors. Consequently, such use of the Moor’s heads are intended to represent the conquest of Moorish kings during combat. With Aragon’s close connections with the islands of Sardinia and Corsica (at times, exercising political control over the islands), this may also explain the subsequent
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Flag of Corsica. Courtesy of keyboardsamurai, http://www.flickr.com/photos/keyboardsamurai/ 416681617. appearance of the Moor’s head there, especially on the arms of Cagliari, the capital city of Sardinia. There have also been suggestions that the head might be that of Saint Maurice, the black patron saint of the Holy Roman Empire, which exerted control over parts of Italy. This theory extends a more positive origin to the use of the Moor’s head. The Moors on the current flag of Aragon are small and have long headbands, far more prominent than those used in Corsica. The Moor’s head seems to have been used in Corsica when Arrigo della Rocca, the leader of the pro-Aragonese party in Corsica, introduced his coat of arms and that of Aragon in 1376, which may have included the Moor’s head, although this is not known for certain. In 1547, Colonel Sampiero of the Corsican Regiment in the army of Charles V, king of France, may have used a Moor’s head in the center of his flag, which had a black field and a white cross. Some historians, however, doubt that the French would allow an Aragonese symbol to appear on banners of their soldiers, although mercenary bands from Corsica and Sardinia may have used them. In a painting dating from before 1466 in the Church of St. Francis in Arezzo, in central Italy, a banner showing a Moor’s head is visible. During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the Moor’s head had become a recognized symbol of Corsica. For examples, the symbol appeared on an atlas by Italian
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Moret Law, Spanish geographer Mainaldo Galerati in 1573, and one by Dutch map maker Johann Blaeu in 1662. Gradually, many other atlases came to use the Moor’s head as a popular symbol for Corsica and the tradition continues in later atlases. In 1760, nationalist leader Pasquale Paoli (1725–1807) proposed a flag for Corsica, then under the control of France, that included a Moor’s head along with the fleur-de-lis. After the French Revolution, the fleur-de-lis were removed. From 1794 to 1796, Paoli, attempting to create a Corsican kingdom under British control, again used a Moor’s head, this time with the English Royal Arms. More recently, Corsican nationalist protestors have brandished white flags with a Moor’s head, for example during the Aléria protest in the 1970s. The Moor’s head used on the Sardinian flag is quite different in some respects from its counterpart in Corsica, but there are some similarities. Again, the face is black, with visible white eyes, and a headband. This time, however, the heads (there are four on the Sardinian flag, with a red cross in the middle) face to the viewer’s right. This flag was used in Sardinia from about the fourteenth century and appears in the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1771. Sardinia formally adopted the traditional flag with the Moor’s heads as its symbol in 1999. Although the Moor’s heads appear on the coat of arms of the Algarve, Portugal, they are radically different from those of Aragon, Sardinia, and Corsica. The Moor’s heads on the arms of the Algarve are facing forward and shown wearing turbans, with two Moors’ heads and two heads of kings, transposed. The transposed heads depict the Islamic kings of Africa and the Christian kings of Portugal. See also: France, Blacks in; Heraldry, Blacks in European; Holy Roman Empire, Black Iconography and the; Italy, Blacks in; Portugal, Blacks in; Spain, African Invasions of; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Woodcock, Thomas, and John Robinson. The Oxford Guide to Heraldry. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Justin Corfield
Moret Law, Spanish The Moret Law (1870) was a milestone in the history of emancipation of the slaves in the colonies of Spanish Empire. It contributed to a certain degree in ameliorating the condition of slaves in the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, particularly Cuba and Puerto Rico. The emancipation movement in Cuba was gradual, as slavery was intertwined with the sugar economy of Cuba. The main element of the Cuban economic system was the ingenio (sugar plantation). In 1867, the last recorded slave ship had arrived in Cuba. Any sudden and far-reaching move would deteriorate relations between whites and Africans in Cuba. Although the pressure from Britain and the Civil War in the United States accelerated the process of ending slavery in the Spanish Empire, the process was not rapid. The law was the work of the minister for colonial affairs and member of the Spanish Abolitionist Society, Segismundo Moret y Prendergast (1838–1913). The twice-elected liberal parliamentarian from the town of Almadén and a future premier, Moret was an advocate of the Spanish abolition of slavery throughout the Spanish Empire and expressed his views in the parliament. There was opposition
Morien, Romance of (1200s) from a lobby representing the colonial slave owners. The idealists, reformers, and individuals desiring better methods of production argued vehemently for emancipation. The Moret Law was approved in Spain on July 4, 1870. It was to take effect in Cuba and Puerto Rico and gave freedom to slaves born after September 17, 1868, as well as individuals over 60 years old. The slaves helping the Spanish government in the Guerra de los Diez Años or Ten Years’ War in Cuba (1868–1878) were to be liberated. The government of Spain freed the slaves that it owned. Individuals owning slaves received 125 paestas for each slave as compensation. The paesta was a new currency for Spain introduced in 1869 and was equal to 0.29 grams of gold or 4.5 grams of silver. The state could not provide money to the slave owners making the law ineffective in many cases. Moret also came under criticism from radical groups, as the law was not enough to satisfy them. The gradual strategy envisioned in the Moret Law, however, worked as the supply of labor was not discontinued, and the slaves not coming under the law worked as wage earners in plantations. The Moret Law also did not permit the sudden, mass freeing slaves. In October 1868, slavery was finally abolished in Cuba, freeing 30,000 people. Two Puerto Ricans, Román Baldorioty de Castro (1822–1889), who was a teacher, politician, and political activist, and Brigadier General Luis Padial (1832–1879) helped Moret in legislation of the Moret Law. In 1867, individuals of black descent numbered about 310,000, and whites numbered about 346,000. The Moret Law initiated a Registro Central de Esclavos (Central Slave Registrar) in 1872 that collected detailed data about slaves for a genealogical chart. Their country of origin, sex, names of parents, as well as masters were taken into account. In 1873, slavery was finally abolished in Puerto Rico. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Rio Branco Law of Free Birth; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Aimes, Hubert. A History of Slavery in Cuba, 1511 to 1868. New York: Octagon Books, 1967; Bergad, Laird. The Comparative Histories of Slavery in Brazil, Cuba, and the United States. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007; Corwin, Arthur. Spain and the Abolition of Slavery in Cuba, 1817–1886. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1967; Knight, Franklin. Slave Society in Cuba during the Nineteenth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1970; Scott, Rebecca. Slave Emancipation in Cuba: The Transition to Free Labor, 1860–1899; Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000.
Patit Paban Mishra
Morien, Romance of (1200s) Sir Morien, a black Moorish knight, is the subject of a romantic epic poem written in medieval Dutch during the thirteenth century set in the mythical era of King Arthur of England and the Knights of the Round Table. The Romance of Morien, which nears 5,000 lines, is preserved as a component of the Lancelot-Compilatie. The epic relates the tale of Morien, the son of an African Moorish princess and Agloval, one of Arthur’s knights, who arrives in Britain on a quest to find his vanished father. The epic is notable for its positive portrayals of an African knight and the inclusion of such a character in the Arthurian legend, an evolving narrative within Western literature that has emerged as a central component of British and European folklore.
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The epic story tells of the adventures of Sir Agloval, who went searching for Sir Lancelot, a Knight of the Round Table. In his search, Agloval traveled through the lands of the Moors and encountered a beautiful African princess. Although pledged to marry, Agloval abandoned the princess, who now bore his child, to continue his search for Lancelot. The princess bore a son, Morien, who grew into a handsome and strong young man. Now grown, Morien embarks on a quest to find his lost father after he and his mother are disinherited from their lands. In his quest, Morien encounters and eventually wins the admiration of Sir Lancelot and Sir Gawain, another prominent Knight of the Round Table, who are searching for Perceval, a new knight and the brother of Agloval. They assist Morien in his efforts. After a series of adventures, Morien is reunited with his father. Father and son return to the land of the Moors, where Agloval marries his lost love, Morien’s mother, and wins back her lands. The poem describes Morien as black, including his face, body, and limbs, and as a great warrior dressed in black Moorish armor. In the poem, Morien is loyal, articulate, skilled in the art of war, and brave. Consequently, Morien, despite his black African origins, is depicted as a paragon of the virtues of European knighthood. The Romance of Morien is likely a verse translation of an original French prose version, which is now lost, although a German Statue of the Black Knight, Cathedral of Magde- origin has been suggested. The Dutch comburg, Germany, c. 1250. Courtesy of Carija Ihus. piler presents a mixture of earlier and later elements of the Arthurian legend. None of the adventures related in The Romance of Morien are preserved in any English texts. Morien is presented as kin to Perceval, who is associated with the quest for the Christian Holy Grail, or the cup of Jesus of Nazareth used at the Last Supper before his crucifixion, in the Arthurian legend. In earlier versions, Perceval emerges as the Grail hero, but later versions make Galahad, Lancelot’s son, the hero. The anonymous compiler of The Romance of Morien indicates that, in some versions, Perceval is Morien’s father; however, he decided to maintain convention that Perceval died a virgin, and was hence suitable for the Holy Grail. The action within the epic occurs before the Knights of the Round Table’s quest for the Holy Grail. The
Morris, Bill (1938–) compiler attempts to connect events within The Romance of Morien to the episodes within twelfth-century French poet Chrétien de Troyes’s unfinished Perceval, the Story of the Grail, and the Vulgate Cycle, which is a series of eight medieval French volumes dating from the thirteenth century detailing tales of Arthur, his knights, and the quest for the Holy Grail. Both works are among the most significant and influential of the medieval versions of the Arthurian legend. The character of Morien and his birth parallels that of Wolfram von Eschenbach’s character Feirefiz in Parzival, which is a medieval German version of the Arthurian legend. See also: Palamedes, Sir; Parzival, Feirefiz in. Further Reading: Ashley, Mike. The Mammoth Book of King Arthur: Reality and Legend, the Beginning and the End. London: Robinson, 2005; Kooper, Erik, ed. Medieval Dutch Literature in its European Context. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994; Morien: Arthurian Romance Unrepresented in Malory’s “Morte d’Arthur.” Trans. Jessie L. Weston. Bournemouth, Hants: Nutt, 1901.
Eric Martone
Morris, Bill (1938–) William Manuel Morris, better known as Bill Morris, was the first person of black descent to head a British trade union. He was born on October 19, 1938 in Bombay, Manchester, Jamaica, and came to Britain to join his widowed mother, who was living in Handsworth, Birmingham. She had left Jamaica after the death of her husband, a part-time police officer. Morris worked in an engineering company and also enrolled in the Handsworth Technical College. In 1958, Morris joined the Transport and General Workers’ Union (TGWU) and began to hold a succession of increasingly influential posts in the union. He was elected as a shop steward at Hardy Spicers, an automobile part manufacture concern, in 1963, and showed keen interest in union activities. There was dispute over trade union recognitions and Morris was deeply involved in attempts to resolve the dispute. From the 1970s, Morris’s influence began to grow in the TGWU. He was a full-time official from 1973. He worked as district officer and later as secretary of the Northampton District from 1973 to 1979. As the national secretary for the Passenger Services Trade Group from 1979, Morris emerged in the national spotlight. The Trade Group was looking after interest of employees working in bus and coach. He had become knowledgeable about labor history, industrial relations, health programs, housing, and safety measures. In 1986, Morris was the deputy general secretary of the TGWU. His responsibilities included education programs, better service conditions, and equal opportunities. Morris had to look after TGWU’s white-collar workers as well as transport sectors. In 1991, Morris was elected general secretary of the TGWU and again reelected after four years. He was the first black person to hold such an important position. As a moderate trade union activist, his relationship with the radical elements was not always good. Morris never hesitated to defend the rights of workers. On many occasions, he criticized the ruling establishment and industrial organizations over racial policies. He challenged the blatant racial discrimination practiced in the Dagenham factory of the
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Mortenol, Sosthene (1859–1930) Ford Motor Company. Under the stewardship of Morris, the TGWU strived hard with the successive Labour governments for minimum wage and better pension benefits. The sound financial judgment of Morris resulted in the union’s surplus asset. When he took charge, it had a deficit of £12 million. When he gave charge to Tony Woodley upon retirement in October 2003, however, the TGWU had property worth £240 million. Morris occupied various positions on several boards in his long career, including the BBC advisory committee, the Commission for Racial Equality, the Employment Appeals Tribunal, and the TUC General Council. He was a board member of the International Transport Workers’ Federation, a director of Unity Trust Bank, and a nonexecutive director of the Bank of England. Morris was the recipient of the Order of Jamaica (2002) and a knighthood (2003). He was made a life peer in April 2006. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Brivati, Brian, and Richard Heffernan. The Labour Party: A Centenary History. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2000; Coates, Ken, and Tony Topham. The History of the Transport and General Workers’ Union. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1991; Fisher, John. Bread on the Waters: A History of TGWU Education, 1922–2000. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 2005.
Patit Paban Mishra
Mortenol, Sosthene (1859–1930) Sosthene Mortenol, whose parents were former black slaves, was a French naval captain appointed commander of the Air Defenses of Paris during World War I. He was born in November 1859 in Guadeloupe, an island in the West Indies (Caribbean), and went to school in France. He was the first nonwhite person to attend the Polytechnique School in Paris in October 1880. He began his military service in 1882 when he joined the French Navy. He served on many campaigns, seeing action in the battle for Madagascar in 1894. He also traveled to the Congo and China before World War I. Mortenol was one of more than 500,000 Africans serving in the French military during World War I (1914–1918). Most were from North and West Africa, but 30,000, like Mortenol, came from the West Indies. In 1916, General Joseph Galliéni (1849–1916) appointed Mortenol as commander of the Air Defenses of Paris, a position he held with great distinction and dedication until the end of World War I. He was rewarded for his service by being appointed in 1921 commander to the French Legion of Honor, the highest honor that can be bestowed on a citizen of France in recognition of a person’s service to the country. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Rogers, J. A. World’s Great Men of Color. vol. II. Reprint. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Robert Nave
Mpundu Akwa (1879–1914) Ludwig Paul Heinrich Dika Mpundo Niasam Akwa (Mpundu Akwa) was an African colonial delegate to Germany who won a legal battle to prove his innocence after
Mortenol, Sosthene (1859–1930) false accusations were brought against him because of his opposition to the German colonial administration. Mpundu Akwa was born on July 4, 1879. He was the son of King Dika Akwa, who became one of the signatories of the so-called Schutzvertrag (protectorate treaty) with the German representative Gustav Nachtigal that started German colonial rule in Cameroon. In 1888, Mpundu Akwa was sent to Germany and went to school in Paderborn. Four years later, he moved to Kiel to work as a trainee at a trading company, but he returned to Cameroon in 1893. During his stay in Germany, the little “Prince from Cameroon” was often invited to stay at the homes of the upper class and gentry for whom the “exotic” stranger was a “decorative” addition as well as a symbol of their cosmopolitanism. When Mpundu Akwa returned to Cameroon, he worked as an interpreter for the colonial government, but he soon antagonized the infamous governor Jesco von Puttkamer when he complained about the mistreatment of Africans. In 1902, Mpundu Akwa returned to Germany as a member of a delegation of Duala chiefs that tried to make complaints about the ongoing oppression and mistreatment by the colonial administration. After the departure of the delegation, he stayed in Germany. He hoped to establish himself as a businessman and to serve as a representative of the Akwas. The colonial administration in Cameroon tried to enforce his return, and Mpundo Akwa was expelled from the territory of Hamburg. Instead of returning to Cameroon, however, he settled in Altona, a nearby town. Shortly thereafter, Mpundu Akwa fell into financial trouble because the colonial authorities in Cameroon under Governor von Puttkamer prevented the collection of money for his support by the Akwas. In April 1904, he was accused of fraud. He was charged with having purchased goods on credit intending to defraud on several occasions and fraudulently using the title of “prince” to deceive his business partners. The trial took place more than a year after his arrest, but he was successfully defended by his lawyer, Moses Levi. Levi was convinced that the reasons behind Mpundo Akwa’s arrest and accusation were found in his position as a resolute opponent of German colonial administration, which by charging him, would be able to enforce his extradition to Cameroon. With a conclusive defense and final speech, Levi brought about a verdict of not guilty for Mpundu Akwa. In spite of being constantly under attack by colonial circles in Germany, he continued his political activities and published the bilingual journal Elolombe ya Kamerun (“Sun of Kamerun”) in 1908. Mpundo Akwa’s attempts to gain an economic foothold in Germany failed. In 1911, he finally returned to Cameroon to try his luck as a tradesman in his home country. A rumor was circulated either by the colonial authorities or by the Cameroonians that he planned to liberate Cameroon from German colonial rule. Consequently, he was arrested. In the summer of 1912, Mpundo Akwa was sentenced to prison and exiled to Banyo in Northern Cameroon. After he attempted break out, he was enchained and sentenced to 25 lashings. During his imprisonment, Mpundo Akwa wrote a history of Duala in the form of a letter to the governor. He died mysteriously, presumably in 1914, during his internment in northern Cameroon. See also: Colonies in Africa, German; Germany, Blacks in.
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Murat, Joachim (1767–1815) Further Reading: Joeden-Forgey, Elisa von. “Defending Mpundu: Dr. Moses Levi of Altona and the Prince from Kamerun.” In Leonard Harding, ed. Mpundu Akwa. Der Fall des Prinzen von Kmaerun. Das neuentdeckte Plädoyer von Dr. M. Levi. Münster: LIT, 2000, pp. 84–114.
Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst
Murat, Joachim (1767–1815) Joachim Murat was a renowned cavalry leader of Moorish descent who was made a grand marshall of France by Napoleon Bonaparte. Murat married Napoleon’s sister and later became king of Naples from 1808 to 1815. Murat was born in 1767 to an innkeeper in the Auvergne region of France. Many of the inhabitants of the Auvergne, including Murat, were descendants of the Moors that had settled in the region, driven from Spain as part of the Reconquista, which was the movement to drive the Muslims out of the Iberian Peninsula and unify the country. Murat maintained that he descended from Moorish kings and many of his contemporaries, particularly Laura, Duchess d’Abrantés, who was a famous chronicler of the era and wife of French Marshall Junot, commented on Murat’s biracial features. Murat enlisted in the French cavalry, later joining the King’s Constitutional Guard and then the regular army. During the French Revolution (1789–1799), Murat attained the favor of rising general Napoleon Bonaparte, who assisted the French Republic by containing counterrevolutionary factions. Napoleon made Murat one of his aides-de-camp during the campaign into northern Italy as part of the French Revolutionary Wars against the European coalition against the French Republic. Murat rose to become commander of the cavalry. During Napoleon’s 1798 Egyptian campaign, meant to weaken Britain by threatening its holdings in India, Murat served under General Thomas-Alexandre Dumas. Murat’s valor won him a promotion to division general. After Napoleon returned to France, he plotted the coup of the Eighteenth of Burmaire in 1799, in which he seized control of the government. Murat assisted Napoleon in seizing power and commanded the forces that dissolved the National Convention. Such loyalty won Murat the gratitude of Napoleon, who made Murat governor of Paris and gave him his sister, Marie Caroline, in marriage in 1800. Napoleon later became emperor of France in 1804. After Murat’s victories in subsequent campaigns, he became a marshall of the French Empire (1804) and later grand duke of Berg and Cleves (1806). When the Bourbon dynasty was overthrown in Naples, Napoleon made his brother Joseph king. After Napoleon transferred Joseph to rule Spain, Murat and Caroline became rulers of Naples in 1808. During Napoleon’s disastrous Russian campaign in 1812, Murat abandoned his military post to return to Naples. As Napoleon’s final defeat to a European coalition seemed imminent in 1814, Murat attempted to negotiate a deal with the Austrian Empire to retain the throne of Naples. In 1815, Murat, realizing that the European powers intended to restore the Bourbon dynasty in Naples, deserted his new allies and prepared to strengthen his rule in Italy by military strength. The Austrians defeated Murat in the Battle of Tolentino in 1815. He plotted an attempt to regain Naples through an insurrection in the southern
Music, African Influences on European Italian region of Calabria. During the attempt, Murat was arrested by the forces of the Bourbon dynasty and executed by firing squad. See also: Spain, African Invasions of; French Revolution, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Boers, Michael. Europe under Napoleon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Cole, Humbert. The Betrayers: Joachim and Caroline Murat. New York: Saturday Review, 1972.
Eric Martone
Music, African Influences on European African influences on European music were various during the twentieth century, given the colonial experience and many diverse exchanges. Many European audiences were open to jazz from the 1920s and 1930s and celebrated the African American performer Josephine Baker. That same openness was also made toward Africa. Some famous European singers were born in Africa, including Georges Moustaki (born Giuseppe Mustacchi, in 1934, in Alexandria, Egypt); Dalida (born Yolanda Gigliotti, in 1933, in Cairo, Egypt); and Enrico Macias (born Gaston Ghrenassia, in 1938, in Algeria), who grew in the French colonial era of the “Algérie française,” when Algeria occupied a status similar to a province of France. Although born in southern France, singer and composer Charles Trenet wrote a few songs that referred to Africa and even included some lyrics that were sung in African Creole, including “Béguine à Bango” (1938) and “Gala Poté” (1956). The latter was supposedly recorded on the island of Mauritius in Africa. The cross-cultural exchanges between Africa and Europe appeared in various situations and settings. Some European tours of “traditional” African shows were made in the 1950s in a mixture of intense songs and shaking dances, with flamboyant costumes and fake rituals that gave the impression of catching the essence of the obscure African soul. With an all-black cast, the show entitled “Ballets africains de la République de Guinée” was even recorded and released as an LP with the cover description “Orgie de rythme, de couleurs” (“Orgy of rhythm and colors”). The musical and traditional art from the colonies (or former colonies) enabled a wonderful cross-cultural spectacle that included simultaneously blacks and a few whites. For example, in Belgium, the Choir from King Baudoin (“Les Troubadours du Roi Baudoin”) recorded a sacred mass based on African rhythms, with drums and a black choir, entitled Missa Luba, that was quite influential in the early 1950s. Its main theme (“Gloria”) even became the musical leitmotiv for the soundtrack of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s feature film The Gospel according to St. Matthew (1964). The origins of this project lie in the Catholic tradition: a Belgian missionary, Father Guido Haazen, went to the Congo in 1953 and created a choir made of 45 young boys plus their 15 professors. This choir later toured in 1958 in Holland, West Germany, and even joined another choir from Vienna for a special concert. Missa Luba was released on LP by Philips Records around 1960 in two original versions, which were spontaneous and exuberant. Many commercial “remakes” of Missa Luba were produced from the 1970s, for instance in Kenya, but without the original choir, and without the magic of the authentic, vintage version.
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Music, African Influences on European Although jazz was a constant influence in Europe, French artists were in some cases inspired by African music. Early in his career, French songwriter Serge Gainsbourg (born Lucien Ginsburg, 1928–1991) wrote a few pop songs in French based on African rhythms and drums on an overlooked album entitled Gainsbourg Percussions (1964). In fact, on this album, Gainsbourg also copied a previously released song by Harry Belafonte called “The Jack-Ass Song” (from his famous Calypso LP from 1956). Gainsbourg gave the song new French lyrics (but without the mention of the true songwriters Lord Burgess and Bill Attaway) under the new title “Tatoué Jérémie.” In 1967, French songwriter Jacques Dutronc introduced a song entitled “La Compapade,” which is like a parody tribal jam with incantations that are repeated in an obsessive and funny mood. The parody preceded by two decades the ethnic fashion that would invade France in the 1990s. In “La Compapade,” Dutronc sings nonexistent words (in any language) that imitate primitive talking. When Dutronc reintroduced this odd song in his 1990s concerts during the World Music wave, audiences in France seemed to adore it and often sang along. In 1972, French songwriter Michel Fugain created a mainstream musical with African and French singers and dancers entitled “Big Bazar.” The songs “Là-bas dans les îles” and “La Fête” were inspired by African roots and had a tremendous success on the French airwaves. African artists like Ali Farka Touré (from Mali) had greater presence in Europe from the 1980s. Some signed contracts with multinational record companies and therefore had more exposure in Western Europe, but less in communist countries like East Germany, Hungary, and Poland. Still, in those days, many Europeans could think of only one artist from South Africa: the white South African Johnny Clegg. A compilation CD entitled Le Beau Temps Des Colonies (“The Glory Colonial Days’) gathered 19 vintage French songs from the colonial period, with humorous titles mainly recorded in the 1950s by French artists about everyday life in Africa. Songs in the collection included “Les Africains” (“Africans”), “On A Fait La Nouba” (“We Ball Tonight”), “Timicminé La Pou Pou” (“The Little Chick”), and “Le Petit Négro” (“The Little Negro”). This odd, confusing, long-forgotten heritage is also part of the history of the African presence in European culture during the French colonial days in Africa and elsewhere. Some lyrics depicting the African characters would likely be deemed racist by modern standards, but they were accepted as normal a century ago. All these songs were a mixture of popular French song writing from the 1930s and later, with an “exotic” instrumental atmosphere, or rhythms, borrowed from Africa. See also: Jazz, European Reception of; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Musicians in Europe, African-American Classical; Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading and Listening: Dutronc, Jacques. Jacques Dutronc au Casino de Paris. CD. Paris, Tristar, 1992; Fugain, Michel. Michel Fugain et le Big Bazar 1972, LP, Able, ABL7011; Gainsbourg, Serge. Gainsbourg percussions. CD. Polygram France, 1999 [1964]; Haazen, Guido, with the Choir of King Baudoin. Missa Luba. LP, Philips Records, B 14.723 L; La Troupe Nationale. Ballets africains de la République de Guinée. LP. Conakry, Éditions Syliphone, SLP 14. Distribution Sono Disc, Paris; Le Beau Temps Des Colonies. CD. Paris, Milan Music, 2006; Marshall, Bill, ed. France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005.
Yves Laberge
Music Industry, Blacks in the European
Music Industry, Blacks in the European In most cases during the twentieth century, the preservation of the African traditions, material culture, and musical heritage was made by European institutions (“International Music Council,” “International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation”), ethnographic museums, and by UNESCO from the 1950s. Recordings of African traditional music were made by anthropologists for decades, but few were released commercially. Paul Collaer, among the pioneers, created the series “UNESCO—Collection” on the Musicaphon label in 1965 with field recordings of songs by “primitive” African tribes like the Ba-Benzélé Pygmies. Other field recordings in this series included music from Rwanda, Ethiopia, and the Central Africa Republic. These LPs were available only in specialized record stores in France, West Germany, Switzerland, or through UNESCO offices. In France, the label Le Chant du Monde was somewhat similar to Folkways in the United States, which produced ethnic music. Le Chant du Monde ranks among the first labels to include traditional African music in its catalogue, beginning in 1950. Two decades later, also in Paris, Pierre Toureille produced many LPs of traditional African music on the label OCORA, affiliated with Radio-France, ORSTOM, and Musidisc (the latter replaced by distributor Harmunia Mundi). They released recordings (chants, rituals) made in Gabon, Burundi, and Zaïre in the early 1970s. Their 1987 CD Musiques urbaines à Kinshasa was so popular that it went out of print and was reissued only two years later, which is unusual in world music. During the same decade in Boulogne (near Paris), Frédy Bonnaud and JeanPierre Calvel created the label Playa Sound, dedicated to traditional African and Asian music and focusing on rhythm. They released instrumental LPs (and later CDs) of field recordings from Senegal, Mauritania, and two LPs with pygmies. In Switzerland, the precious recordings made in 1973 and 1974 with the “Aïzo” and “Gun” tribes in Bénin were released on a CD co-produced by the Musée d’Ethnographie in Geneva with the help of the collections of the “Archives sonores du Musée d’Ethnographie” in Neuchatel. NEW NETWORKS FOR BLACK ARTISTS. With the advent of the LP in the late 1950s, many independent record companies dedicated to jazz, blues, soul, and even traditional African music appeared in various European countries. Before 1970, few recording companies had the opportunity to distribute their LPs in both America and Europe, for many independent labels had to license their products for distribution abroad. In England, the Liberty recording label had agreements with independent companies like Fantasy in California, but they also recorded some original LPs in their “Groundhog Series” with a few African American artists who stayed near the Spot Studios in London. An example is Hand Me Down My Old Walking Stick by Big Joe Williams in 1968. Other British labels dedicated to U.S. blues singers included Joy Records (distributed by President Records) and Ember Records, both in London, which released albums by Lightnin’ Hopkins in the 1960s, and Indigo Records (part of Sanctuary Records) for CDs, for instance the Ivory Joe Hunter catalogue from the 1950s. These European reissues of previous U.S. recordings were sometimes the only way to get rare recordings originally made during the 1950s on 78 RPM on independent labels
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Music Industry, Blacks in the European (such as Baton, King, Ivory) and never released elsewhere. This is the case for New York singer Ann Cole, whose recordings were reissued only once, in England during the 1980s. Still active in England, JSP Records specializes in releases in the 4CD Box Set format, with re-releases of collections of about 100 songs by African American artists who recorded from the 1920s to the early 1940s to avoid legal issues regarding copyright material of less than 60 years. Selected artists are not always jazzmen and bluesmen, as proven by the inclusion of gospel singer Blind Willie Johnson, but also the jazz vocal quartet the Mills Brothers. Among other British companies operating in the 1980s and 1990s, Charly Records (also known as “Charly R&B”) and ACE Records specialized in the licensing and the re-release of albums made by African American singers who had recorded on U.S. labels owned by blacks, such as Vee Jay, or on the famous Chess label, mainly in the 1950s: Jimmy Reed, John Lee Hooker, Elmore James, and many more. Charly Records began issuing a compilation double LP with all the blues songs covered by the Rolling Stones presented in their obscure versions by the original artists (from Chuck Berry to Bo Diddley and Amos Milburn). The Charly label even released the CD of the famous blues reunion concert from 1963 with Muddy Waters, Willie Dixon, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Buddy Guy under the misguided title Live Action in 1992. In Italy, a similar record company, Blues Encore, also carried out the same catalogue as Charly and ACE, with African American artists such as Big Joe Turner, T-Bone Walker, J. B. Lenoir, and Jimmy Reed. A French record company, Disques Vogue, already known for its releases of French artists (like Françoise Hardy and Jacques Dutronc), included English singers such as Petula Clark. They also had a series of LPs with numerous African American artists, including Fats Waller, Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Erroll Garner, Thelonious Monk, Charlie Parker, Dizzie Gillespie, Johnny Hodges, Teddy Wilson, and Sarah Vaughan. In Denmark, Storyville recorded African American musicians in jazz and blues from 1952, producing original albums of black musicians Big Joe Williams, Otis Spann, and Big Bill Broonzy that were sometimes re-released in the United States through licensing with labels such as Everest Records (in Los Angeles, California), in their “Archive of Folk Music” series. Meanwhile, in Amsterdam, Diving Duck Records also specialized in African American music, with reissued albums by black musician Lightnin’ Hopkins released in the 1980s (from recordings made in the early 1950s). In France, new labels dedicated to blues and jazz emerged in the 1970s, such as Black and Blue and, later, Evidence. This label did not release a European version of albums made in the United States; they recorded original sessions of African American artists in their studio in Paris and then released exclusive records. For instance, legendary U.S. bluesman Robert Jr. Lockwood recorded a tribute to Robert Johnson entitled Robert Jr. Lockwood plays Robert and Robert, a CD with 13 songs recorded at the Sysmo Studio in Paris in 1982. Another African American bluesman, Eddy Clearwater, recorded an album entitled Blues Hang Out in the same Paris studio in 1989. The French labels ZETA and Blues Collection, part of EPM in Paris, specialized in re-released recordings from the 1930s and 1940s. They produced
Music Industry, Blacks in the European countless compilations, including Big Bill Broonzy in Chicago 1932/1937, Sonny Boy Williamson Vol. 1, and Blues with Girls. In Germany, the music series “Quadromania” released more than 200 low-priced box sets of African American artists between 2001 and 2008, mainly jazz and some blues, from Cab Calloway to Teddy Wilson, Big Bill Broonzy, and B.B. King. These box sets usually include four CDs with a total of about 80 songs, mostly early recordings that are more than 50 years old to avoid paying copyrights according to European legislation. In Austria, the label Document Records specialized in reissues of vintage blues music taken from original 78 RPM from the 1920s to the 1940s. Meanwhile, in Spain, the label Fresh Sound Records re-released some classic jazz LPs on CD, for instance Art Blakey’s Jazz Messengers groundbreaking album titled Cu-Bop (originally issued in the United States in 1958). WORLD MUSIC AND POP IN EUROPE. With world music becoming more popular in record stores and on the airwaves during the 1980s, some new record companies served as relays for African music in Europe, as CDs manufactured in African countries were almost impossible to find in European record stores. A label like World Circuit Records produced CDs (presented as “Music from Hot Countries”) with African artists like Ali Farka Touré and Oumou Sangare (both from Mali), Alex Konadu (from Ghana), Abdel Asis El Mubarak and Abdel Gadir Salim (both from Sudan), the Orchestra Baobab (from Senegal), Dimi Mint Abba (from Mauritania), and the group Black Umfolosi (from Zimbabwe). In the 1980s, some African producers based in Paris launched their own label sponsored by Nubia, the Association africaine d’auteurs-éditeurs (African Association of Authors and Publishers). Moustapha Cissé released an LP entitled Cissé/Danses rituelles d’Afrique in 1989 with ritual music from Sierra Leone, Mali, and Sénégal. On the pop scene, the British New Wave group Culture Club, cofounded by singer Boy George (George O’Dowd) and a black bass player, Mickey Craig, emerged in 1981. Some of their hits, such as “Church of the Poison Mind,” included a powerful black backup singer, Helen Terry. From the 1980s, other pop groups in Britain, such as The Specials, The Selecter, and The Beat, included black and white members who had lived most of their lives in Europe, or were dedicated to reworking black music (like Ska and Reggae) into a new sound. In the mid-1990s, the British pop group The Spice Girls included a black member who was born in northern England: the singer Melanie Janine Brown, or simply “Mel B” (aka Scary Spice). See also: Music, African Influences on European; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical; Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading and Listening: Borel, François, ed. Bénin, Rythmes et chants pour les Vodun / Rhythms and Songs for the Vodun. 1990. Neuchatel (Switzerland), Musée d’Ethnographie. Disques VDE- GALLO, VDE, CD-612; Lane, Jeremy. “Jazz.” In France and the Americas: Culture, Politics, and History. ed. Bill Marshall. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2005; Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Willie Dixon. Live Action. CD. Charly Blues Masterworks, Vol. 15. BM 15, 1992 [1963]; Zaïre. Musiques urbaines à Kinshasa. OCORA, C 559007 HM 65. 1989 [1987].
Yves Laberge
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Musicians in Europe, African American Classical African American classical musicians, whether performing in concert halls or singing in opera houses, have had a strong presence in Europe since the nineteenth century. Receiving support from both Europe and the United States, musicians studied and performed throughout Europe in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, often participating in major performances in its most prestigious concert halls. In the early nineteenth century, African American performers traveled to Europe to play for a more accepting audience than could be found in the United States, as well as to gain notoriety. William Henry Lane (ca. 1825–1852), for example, performed with a minstrel group in England in 1849, causing writer Charles Dickens to call him “the greatest dancer known.” Singers such as Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield (ca. 1824–1876), however, typify the kind of African American musician visiting Europe. Adopted by a Quaker at infancy, “The Black Swan,” as she was often called, received a strong education in Pennsylvania before studying in London in 1853, giving a command performance for the queen. Several other African American opera singers in the nineteenth century performed in Europe for royalty and the pope, including Marie Selika (1849–1937), heralded as the “Queen of Staccato”; Flora Batson Bergen (1864–1906); and Matilda Sissieretta Jones (1869–1933), also known as the “Black Patti,” in reference to the reigning prima donna of the time, Adelina Patti. Jones, who made her 1895 debut at the Wintergarden Theatre in Berlin, Germany, received high acclaim and praise from music critics and enthusiastic audiences alike for her vocal range and abilities. The nineteenth century also featured a rise in African American concert instrumentalists, including Francis “Frank” Johnson, who won wide acclaim in England in 1837. Thomas Green Bethune, also known as “Blind Tom” because of his visual impairment, was a pianist whose debut in England led to much praise in both Europe and the United States. Victor Eugene McCarty was one of the first African American musicians to study abroad by enrolling himself in the elite Paris Conservatory in 1840. String players, such as Will Marion Cook and Felix Weir, also benefited from an education in Europe. Cook, who lived in Berlin from 1887 to 1889, studied with the great violinist, Josef Joachim, and Weir studied at the Conservatory of Leipzig, Germany. African American classical musicians increasingly found more opportunities to study and perform in Europe in the twentieth century. African American composers, conductors, singers, and instrumentalists experienced an open-door policy in regard to professional engagements often lacking in the United States. African American opera singers dominated opera houses in Europe during the nineteenth century. The twentieth century continued to see a rise of African American instrumentalists performing and studying in Europe, including Raymond Lawson (1875–1959), a pianist who studied in Europe with Ossip Gabrilowitsch in 1911. Carl Diton (1886–1962), like many other students, received a scholarship to study in Europe and studied in Germany from 1910 to 1911, as did Helen Hagan (1896–1964), who studied in France with the famous composer Vincent D’Indy. Violinist Louia Vaughn Jones (1895–1965) also took the opportunity to study music in Europe.
Musicians in Europe, African American Classical It was Hazel Harrison (1883–1969), however, who brought about much praise and a wide audience, as the first African American musician to have studied exclusively in the United States and perform with a European orchestra. The career of Harrison, born in La Porte, Indiana, took off in 1904 when she performed both the Grieg and Chopin (Opus 11) piano concertos with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra. Her performance was so outstanding that it caused one newspaper to question whether the alleged “caucasian blood in her veins” was responsible for her talent, an argument that demonstrates the overt racism many musicians still struggled to overcome. As time passed, more African American instrumentalists traveled to Europe to study with great teachers and perform with top orchestras. Pianists like Andre Watts (b. 1946) are excellent examples of instrumentalists who, in the post–World War II era, appeared with leading symphony orchestras in Europe. Opportunities for African American conductors to study and conduct music especially grew in the twentieth century, as conservatories and orchestras in Europe were more willing to accept African American conductors than their American counterparts. Dean Dixon (1915–1976), for example, was one of the first to become a successful conductor, having studied at Julliard and debuted with the New York Philharmonic. As he could not find a position in the United States, he moved to Europe and resided there from 1949 to 1970, serving as the musical director of the Göteborg Symphony in Sweden and the Hesse Radio Symphony in Frankfurt, Germany. Everett Lee (b. 1919) studied at the Saint Cecilia Academy in Rome and privately with Max Rudolph, yet was also unable to find a position in the United States as a conductor. Eventually, he moved to Europe (1953–1973), conducting the Munich Traveling Orchestra in Germany and the Norrkoping Symphony in Sweden, as well as other orchestras. Orchestra conductors were eventually able to land positions in American orchestras; for example, Paul Freeman (b. 1936) studied at the Hochschule für Musik in Berlin and conducted the Helsinki Symphony in Finland. African American composers also studied in Europe, often working with some of the most famous teachers in both Europe and America. Howard Swanson (1907– 1978), whose works have been recorded by the Vienna Staatsoper Orchestra and the Vienna Orchestra, studied with Nadia Boulanger at the American Academy in Fontainebleau, France in 1938. He remained in Europe until World War II, when he was forced to return to the United States. Ulysses Kay (1917–1995), who would eventually win the prestigious Prix de Rome, studied in Rome as an associate of the American Academy. The role of the opera singer dominated the musical world in the twentieth century. From the 1920s until the 1980s, African American opera singers rose into the highest musical circles in Europe, causing sensations among European presses and audiences alike. Beginning in the 1920s, the idea that African American singers were expected to first receive critical acclaim in Europe before they could perform in American opera houses drove many to Europe. Also, opportunities for singers to perform in opera houses, in addition to concert halls, increased in the twentieth century. Before this time, those who traveled to Europe to perform usually toured as concert singers and did not receive professional engagements with opera companies.
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Musicians in Europe, African American Classical Making his debut in April 1920 at London’s Aeolian Hall, Roland Hayes (1887– 1976) was the first successful black male singer to achieve high praise from both European and American audiences alike. African American singer Marian Anderson (1921–1993), arguably one of the greatest figures in music history in the twentieth century, toured Europe in the 1930s under a professional European management, making her debut in Paris. As a result of her success in Europe, she would eventually break many barriers in the United States, including her performance in 1955 with the Metropolitan Opera Company (she was the first black artist to sing with the company). Singers such as Lillian Evanti (1890–1967), Paul Robeson (1898–1976), Caterina Jarboro (1903–1986), and Jules Blesdoe (1898–1943) were successful in the post–World War II era and performed throughout Europe. The wave of African American musical migration to perform in prestigious opera halls in Europe continued, and opera companies such as La Scala in Milan and Covent Garden in London welcomed the presence of “exotic” and glamorous African American singers to their stages. African American singers also benefited from the attention: Leontyne Price (b. 1927) made her European debut at the Staatsoper in Vienna, Grace Bumbry (b. 1937) caused a storm in 1961 as the first black singer to appear at the famous Bayreuth Festival in Germany, Simon Estes (b. 1938) received numerous professional contracts with German opera companies (and also sang at Bayreuth in 1978), and Jessye Norman’s (b. 1945) professional career in the United States and Europe took flight as a result of sher professional engagement with the Deutsche Opera in Berlin. Thanks to the postwar boom in Europe and the United States, opera singers truly became superstars, performing for audiences on the radio, on recordings, and even being seen and heard on television. The relationship between African American classical musicians and the European continent is an older one, albeit occasionally troublesome. Although the idea persisted (and continues to endure) that African American musicians went to Europe to escape the racially charged and turbulent atmosphere in the United States, there were still certain racial stereotypes that affected musicians abroad. African American opera singers, for example, were ironically able to gain acceptance in European opera companies in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries by performing roles in operas that featured black characters, such as Aida. As Grace Bumbry’s performance in Bayreuth indicated, however, the ability to transcend such roles and play nonblack characters was often met with conflict and tension. Like Hazel Harrison, instrumentalists faced the challenge of finding audiences who were willing to accept their inherent and natural talent and musical abilities in an age in which blacks were still deemed racially inferior. Nonetheless, opportunities still presented themselves to African Americans who, full of talent yet with very few outlets in the United States to perform, gladly welcomed an opportunity to share their gifts and musical ideas with the world. See also: Artists in Europe, African-American; Authors in Europe, African-American; Jazz, European Reception of; Music, African Influences on European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European. Further Reading: Southern, Eileen. The Music of Black Americans: A History. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 1983.
Kira Thurman
The Mysterious Island (1874)
The Mysterious Island (1874) Neb, depicted as an African American servant, is a character in French literary icon Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island (1874), which is a sequel to both 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1870) and Captain Grant’s Children (1868). The Mysterious Island, which takes place during the American Civil War, details the adventures of five Union prisoners who escape from a Confederate camp in a hot air balloon. Those five escapees are Captain Cyrus Smith, a railroad engineer; Neb (short for Nebuchadnezzar), Smith’s African American servant; Pencroff, a sailor; Harbert, the young son of Pencroff’s captain, who has died; and Gideon Spilett, a journalist. The group ends up on an uncharted island in the South Pacific, which they name Lincoln Island in honor of President Abraham Lincoln, who freed American slaves through his Emancipation Proclamation. Under the leadership of Cyrus Smith, the group develops a sustainable community on the island and overcomes many hardships for survival. The mystery of the island is the seemingly inexplicable occurrences and items on the island as characters, devices, and events suddenly appear to resolve situations or conclude plots. Eventually, the group discovers a message in a bottle that leads them to search for and discover Ayrton, a character from Captain Grant’s Children. The group returns to Lincoln Island through a tempest by following a fire beacon, which seemingly no one in the group had lit. The band of pirates, which Ayrton formerly associated with, decide to use the island as a hideout. Later, their ship is mysteriously destroyed and the crew killed with no visible wounds. Finally, the mystery of the island is revealed to be Captain Nemo, the lead character of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. He and his fantastic submarine, the Nautilus, were not destroyed and ultimately escaped to Lincoln Island. Volcanic eruptions destroy the island and the characters escape through the help of Nemo, who dies. Verne repeatedly tells the reader that Neb (who is called Nab in the original French after Nabuchodonosor) is not a slave, but rather a servant. Neb, the son of former slaves, had been freed by Smith, a native of Massachusetts, but Neb has refused to leave his former master’s side. There is a seeming contradiction in Verne’s depiction of Neb, at one hand praising the character and attempting to depict him as an equal, while simultaneously depicting him as naïve and under the paternalistic guidance of his former white master. Verne describes Neb as loyal, vigorous, agile, graceful, intelligent (although sometimes naïve), amiable, and kind. Consequently, although Verne’s novel presents a positive series of characteristics in its image of blacks in the character of Neb, he is still a servant to his white master. In addition, Smith demonstrates a paternalistic attitude toward Neb, although he is treated with respect by the other castaways. Furthermore, Neb equally uses his native ingenuity, along with the other castaways, to transform the island into a thriving haven of civilization. Consequently, through the character of Neb, Verne, at least in part, acknowledges the contributions of blacks to European and Western civilization. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; France, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Verne, Jules. The Mysterious Island. trans. Jordan Stump. New York: Modern Library Classics, 2004.
Eric Martone
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N Nassy, Josef (1904–1976) Josef Nassy was an artist of Jewish and black African descent who was interned in a Nazi German concentration camp during World War II (1939–1945). Nassy, who was living in Belgium at the time of the war’s outbreak, was one of the 2,000 holders of U.S. passports seized by the Nazis. Nassy was born in Surinam (Dutch Guiana) in 1904. His father, a successful businessman, descended from Jews who had fled Spain during the Inquisition, which sought to eliminate all dissenters from the Catholic faith. Nassy’s family, however, no longer practiced Judaism. In 1919, Nassy moved to New York, where he completed high school. In 1926, he received a certificate in electrical engineering. In 1929, Nassy left the United States to go to England for employment. Before his departure, Nassy acquired a U.S. passport by fraudulently claiming to have been born in San Francisco in 1899. In 1906, much of San Francisco’s public records had been lost during a devastating earthquake. Consequently, the U.S. government issued the passport because it could not refute the claim. Nassy acquired a position installing sound systems for a film company in England, later performing the same work in France and Belgium. In the 1930s, Nassy decided to become an artist and to study at the fine arts academy in Brussels, Belgium. He married a Belgian woman in 1939. At this time, Nassy attempted to gain money working as a portrait artist. The next year, Nazi Germany invaded Belgium. The United States remained out of World War II until Germany’s ally, Japan, attacked Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Consequently, in 1942, Germany and the United States were at war. The Germans seized Nassy, who had decided earlier against fleeing Belgium, on April 14, 1942, on the grounds that he was now an enemy national residing in territory under German occupation.
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Nazis and Black POWs Nassy was sent to the Beverloo transit camp in Leopoldsburg, Belgium. He remained there for seven months, when he was then transferred to Germany. In Germany, Nassy was imprisoned at the Laufen internment camp and Tittmoning in Bavaria. He remained a prisoner until the end of the war. During Nassy’s captivity, he created a visual diary composed of more than 200 illustrations, many of which document daily life in internment camps. At Laufen and Tittmoning, the Germans followed the rules of the Geneva Convention for prisoners. Consequently, Nassy, although under several restrictions, was not detailed for forced labor and usually received proper food rations from the Germans and from Red Cross packages. The international YMCA supplied Nassy with sketch pads and other materials to maintain his visual diary. By 1945, Nassy’s fellow inmates included about 850 other holders of American or British passports, about a dozen of whom were also of black descent. In May 1945, the U.S. Army liberated Nassy’s internment camp at Laufen. He was repatriated to Belgium and in the following years participated in several exhibitions showcasing Holocaust art. In 1984, art collector Severin Wunderman purchased Nassy’s entire collection of work and, in 1992, donated it to the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. See also: Artists in Europe, African American; Gilges, Lari; Nazis and Black POWs; Snow, Valaida; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Rothschild-Boros, Monica. In the Shadow of the Tower: The Works of Josef Nassy, 1942–1945. Irvine, CA: Severin Wunderman, 1989.
Eric Martone
Nazis and Black POWs During World War II (1939–1945), thousands of black soldiers from Allied armed forces became prisoners of war (POWs) of Nazi Germany. The French contingent of black POWs, mostly soldiers from French West Africa (tirailleurs sénégalais), was by far the largest. Many black POWs suffered massacres and abuses from members of the German army and, occasionally, civilians. During the German campaign in France in the spring of 1940, Nazi propaganda depicted the black African soldiers of the French army as savages who had mutilated German prisoners. In a perceived act of revenge, German army and SS units murdered several thousand black French prisoners after having captured them. According to a cautious estimate, at least 3,000 blacks were murdered after having surrendered, and a probably much larger number were killed in battles where no prisoners were taken. The massacres often occurred after prolonged close combat and wherever the tirailleurs sénégalais mounted determined resistance toward the end of the campaign. No general order to kill black prisoners existed, and the behavior of German units was inconsistent. Some German officers and soldiers, assisted by French medical personnel, actively prevented massacres. Still, on the way to prisoner-of-war camps, black soldiers continued to experience abuses from rearguard
Nazis and Black POWs troops. Many blacks received no water or food, and daily murders and beatings were common. A few black POWs were used for research in tropical medicine and pseudoscientific racial studies throughout the war, but the situation for most of them improved in the late summer of 1940, and remained stable until the evacuation of France in the summer and fall of 1944. Black prisoners from the French army (approximately 16,000 in mid-1941) were generally kept in German camps in occupied France and treated fairly, as camp inspections by the French government and the Red Cross report. The prisoners were working on farms, in forestry, and on public work projects. Many black prisoners suffered from pulmonary disease, but the German army was willing to liberate sick prisoners. Conditions deteriorated again in the summer and fall of 1944, as some prisoners became victims of Allied bombings as the remaining prisoners were moved from France to mainland Germany. There, they suffered from food shortages and intense bombings. Most French black prisoners were liberated by advancing Allied armies in France or Germany, whereas a significant number of them escaped and joined the French resistance shortly before the liberation. A few of these ex-prisoners were caught by the Germans and sent to concentration camps. A small number of African American soldiers also fell into German hands, particularly in the last months of the war. During the Battle of the Bulge, 11 black soldiers were murdered by a Waffen-SS unit in Wereth (Belgium) on December 17, 1944. German civilians and police occasionally mistreated or murdered black airmen belonging to downed bomber crews. In many cases, local Nazi leaders had called on the population to take revenge on downed allied aircrews. A small number of blacks from Britain and the British colonies also became prisoners of war in Nazi Germany. Some of them were held in separate barracks belonging to the German camps in France that housed French African prisoners. See also: British Army, Blacks in the; French Army, Blacks in the; Germany, Blacks in; Gilges, Lari; Gobineau on Races and Slavery; Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen; Nassy, Josef; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Olympics (1936); Rhineland Blacks; Scientific Racism; Snow, Valaida; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960. Portsmouth, NH, and London: Heinemann and James Currey, 1991; Fargettas, Julien. “Les massacres de mai-juin 1940.” In La campagne de 1940. ed. Christine Levisse-Touzé. Paris: Tallandier, 2001, pp. 448–464; Kesting, Robert. “Blacks Under the Swastika: A Research Note.” Journal of Negro History 83 (1998): 84–99; Killingray, David. “Africans and African Americans in Enemy Hands.” In Prisoners of War and Their Captors in World War II. eds. Bob Moore and Kent Fedorowich. Washington, DC: Berg, 1996, pp. 181–204; Koller, Christian. “Von Wilden aller Rassen niedergemetzelt.” Die Diskussion um die Verwendung von Kolonialtruppen in Europa zwischen Rassismus, Kolonial- und Militärpolitik (1914–1930). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001; Mabon, Armelle. “La singulière captivité des prisonniers de guerre coloniaux durant la Seconde Guerre mondiale.” French Colonial History 7 (2006): 181–197; Scheck, Raffael. Hitler’s African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Thomas, Martin. “The Vichy Government and French Colonial Prisoners of War, 1940–1944.” French Historical Studies 25:4 (2002): 657–692.
Raffael Scheck
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Nazis and Blacks in Europe Nazi ideology, based on racist and supremacist doctrines of the nineteenth century, assigned a very low value to black people. Given that Nazism believed that the mixing of races created degeneracy, people of mixed background were viewed with special contempt and were considered a danger to the health of the allegedly superior German race. Although blacks were not subjected to a bureaucratically organized genocidal program, as were the Jews, and, to some extent, the Sinti and Roma, blacks and mixedrace people suffered discrimination, abuse, and murder, both in Nazi Germany and, later, in the Nazi-occupied parts of Europe. Nazi doctrine with respect to blacks was influenced heavily by the crude Darwinist tenets of racist philosophers, such as Josephe-Arthur de Gobineau (1816–1882) and Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855–1927), which stressed a value-based hierarchy of races. These prejudices received scientific legitimation by the dubious, but influential, studies of anthropologists Fritz Lenz (1887–1976) and Eugen Fischer (1874–1967), who had written a book on mixed-race children in the colony German Southwest Africa (modern Namibia). Although some Nazi ideologists argued that Jews and blacks were related genetically, the Nazis always considered the threat emanating from Jews much more serious than the threat represented by blacks. Nevertheless, they made several public pronouncements against blacks. During the occupation of the German Rhineland by French troops in the years after World War I, the newly founded Nazi party latched on to the international propaganda campaign designed to discredit, in particular, the black soldiers in France’s occupation army, which culminated in 1921–1923. In his programmatic writing Mein Kampf, future German dictator Adolf Hitler made contemptuous remarks about black soldiers from the Allied armies in World War I and during the occupation of the Rhineland. Echoing a widespread anti-Semitic belief, he argued that Jews had masterminded the stationing of black troops on German soil in order to “contaminate” the pure German race. Once in power, the Nazis passed laws that declared marriages between white Germans and blacks illegal (October 1933) and organized a program for the sterilization of biracial children. From 1937 onward, German authorities tracked down and forcibly sterilized approximately 500 biracial children from the Rhineland. The infamous Nuremberg Laws (1935), although directed primarily against Jews, reiterated the principle that German citizenship could be based only on “blood,” and that mixed marriages between Germans and “non-Aryans” were illegal. There were about 3,000 blacks and biracial people in Nazi Germany, among them immigrants from the former German colonies in Africa, musicians and dancers, acrobats, a few diplomats and businessmen with their families, and some students from various African countries. During World War II, thousands of black civilians, particularly in France and Belgium, also fell under German control, and the German army took close to 16,000 black Africans as prisoners of war from the French army. Blacks did not experience the massive and pitiless persecution suffered by Jews in the Nazi empire, but they did suffer daily discrimination and intimidation. Those blacks who had German passports before 1933 lost their German citizenship. Deprived of citizenship and most forms of legal protection, blacks and biracial people in Germany
Nazis and Blacks in Europe were treated as outlaws and experienced many insults and attacks from white Germans. Black men and women might be ineligible for the ration cards distributed to the white population, and employers often refused to hire anybody but “Aryans.” Because unemployment insurance covered only citizens, jobless blacks were left without any state support. In school, any denunciation from a white child, or his or her parents, could induce the school administration to ban a black or biracial child from school. The memoirs of Hans-Jürgen Massaquoi, son of the Liberian Consul General in Hamburg and a German woman, paint a vivid picture of a biracial child wanting to fit in, yet being confronted with a multitude of racist-discriminatory acts, while being protected by some friendship networks, but also threatened because these networks themselves were suspect to the Nazis. Although Nazi propaganda created a public mood for racism, many of these acts of aggression and discrimination started from civilians without specific guidance from the authorities. Older prejudices against blacks seem to have motivated such outbursts of racism, and the Nazi state made sure that they could happen with impunity. The popular hostility toward blacks, however, proved to be an embarrassment to the German Foreign Office and to some circles of the Nazi party who wanted to recreate a German colonial empire in sub-Saharan Africa including, but not limited to, the former German colonies. News of blatant acts of racism in Nazi Germany spread in African countries and damaged Germany’s prestige. Still, for much of the Third Reich, the Nazi interest in African colonies mitigated at least the official persecution of blacks and biracial people. Given Nazi ideas about “cleansing” German culture of foreign and “degenerate” influences, the Nazis tried to eradicate black influence in the arts, fashion, and music. Jazz, in particular, was condemned by Nazi propagandists. During the war, however, Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels found it imperative to develop and broadcast a German form of jazz because the popularity of American music, including jazz, induced many Germans to break the law by listening to foreign radio programs that offered jazz music. Given the Nazis’ emphasis on sports and their claim that “Aryans” were physically superior to other peoples, athletic competitions involving blacks assumed special importance for the Nazi press. When German boxer Max Schmeling defeated the African American boxer Joe Louis in 1936, the Nazi press celebrated Schmeling’s victory as proof of Aryan superiority over black “sub-humans.” This confidence was shaken, however, when African American athletes, foremost Jesse Owens, won a large share of medals at the Olympics (1936) in Berlin. Hitler was so upset that he refused to shake hands with the black athletes. In 1938, moreover, Joe Louis defeated Schmeling in a rematch after only one round. The realm of film and the circus seem to have presented something of a safe haven for many blacks in Nazi Europe. Films with colonial content such as Germanin, showing the development of a revolutionary German medicine against tropical illnesses, and Carl Peters, focusing on the life of a German colonial pioneer, required large numbers of blacks for crowd scenes; consequently, prisoners of war, women from the Paris underworld, and Afro-German circus artists were drafted to play in such films. Film and the circus, traditionally associated with “exotic” artists, allowed some blacks to con-
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Nazis and Blacks in Europe tinue their careers in Nazi Germany in relative security. Actor Ludwig Mbebe Mpessa (alias Louis Brody, 1892–1951), who was famous before the Nazi rise to power, played in at least 23 films in the Third Reich. Nevertheless, blacks in the film and circus realm generally had to pay a humiliating price for their continued toleration by strictly adhering to the stereotypes and roles defined for them by German society and Nazi lawmakers. Denunciation and Nazi laws could rapidly become a mortal threat even for these blacks, as was experienced by the actor Bayume Mohamed Husen (1904–1944). Husen, who had played in the film Carl Peters, was arrested during the work for a new film because he had allegedly committed “racial shame,” meaning an amorous liaison with an “Aryan” woman, in 1941. He was sent to the concentration camp of Sachsenhausen near Berlin, where he perished on November 24, 1944. Husen belonged to an unknown number of black and biracial people who were sent to concentration camps. In most cases, skin color was not decisive for their deportation, but it appears to have exacerbated their experience in the camps by making them a special target for scorn and abuse from the guards, and sometimes even from fellow prisoners. Some blacks detained or killed by the Nazis were involved in anti-Nazi organizations. Lari Gilges, a 24-year-old communist from Düsseldorf, was arrested and murdered in the summer of 1933. Several black political activists and members of the resistance from France were also sent to concentration camps. The American jazz musician Valaida Snow was arrested by the Nazis in 1940 and badly mistreated during her captivity. During the German campaign against France in 1940, Nazi propaganda conjured up images of savage black French soldiers who would mutilate German prisoners, eat raw cows, and behave like “beasts.” These propaganda images, inspired directly by Hitler and Goebbels, created an intense hostility toward blacks and helped trigger massacres of black French prisoners of war. Hitler ordered that the surviving prisoners be held in German-occupied France, so that they would not spread tropical diseases to Germany and “contaminate” the German race by mingling with German women. Occasional German abuses of black prisoners from the French army and, in 1944–1945, the American army, did happen, but they were the exception rather than the rule. Altogether, the Nazi images of blacks and policies toward them were never consistent. One of many problems was the delineation between North Africans and black Africans: although North Africans, particularly the Arabs and Berbers, were considered of much higher racial stock than sub-Saharan (black) Africans, Nazi policies and popular racism did not always distinguish between them. It mattered little, for example, whether a biracial child from the Rhineland had an Algerian (North African) or black father. Moreover, the Nazi authorities themselves often acted at cross-purposes, with some institutions and organizations urging moderation toward blacks to avoid endangering Germany’s colonial claims, and others pushing for racial “purity” at all cost. See also: Afro-Germans; Central Europe, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, German; Film, Blacks in European; French Army, Blacks in the; Gall, Franz Josef; Germany, Blacks in; Jazz, European Reception of; Nassy, Josef; Rhineland Blacks; Scientific Racism; World War I, Black Participation in; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Campt, Tina. Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004; CoqueryVidrovitch, Catherine. Des victimes oubliées du Nazisme: Les Noirs et l’Allemagne dans la pre-
Négritude mière moitié du xxe siècle. Paris: Le Cherche-Midi, 2007; Kesting, Robert. “The Black Experience During the Holocaust.” In The Holocaust and History: The Known, the Unknown, the Disputed, and the Reexamined. eds. Michael Berenbaum and Abraham Peck. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1998, pp. 358–365; Kesting, Robert. “Blacks Under the Swastika: A Research Note.” Journal of Negro History 83 (1998): 84–99; Kesting, Robert. “Forgotten Victims: Blacks in the Holocaust.” Journal of Negro History 77 (1992): 30–36; Lusane, Clarence. Hitler’s Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era. New York: Routledge, 2002; Martin, Peter, and Christine Alonzo, eds. Zwischen Charleston und Stechschritt: Schwarze im Nationalsozialismus. Hamburg: Dölling und Galitz, 2004; Massaquoi, Hans J. Destined to Witness: Growing up Black in Nazi Germany. New York: W. Morrow, 1999; Mazón, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingröver, eds. Not so Plain as Black and White: Afro- German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005.
Raffael Scheck
Négritude Négritude is a literary, ideological, and political movement developed in the 1930s by a group of young Caribbean and African intellectuals in Paris, France. The founders of Négritude, known as “les trois pères” (“the three fathers”), were author and politician Léopold Sédar Senghor, Martinican poet Aimé Césaire, and the Guianian poet Léon Damas. Négritude was premised on the notion that solidarity in a common African diasporic identity was necessary to overcome the social and political rhetoric of French colonial racism and domination. The movement can be characterized by its Marxist ideals, denunciation of Europe’s lack of humanity, and valorization of African history, traditions, and beliefs. The term négritude was first used in 1935 by Césaire in L’Étudiant noir, the journal he started in Paris with fellow students, Senghor, Damas, Gilbert Gratient, Leonard Sainville, and Paulette Nardal. L’Étudiant noir also published Césaire’s “Négreries,” which is recognized not only for its disavowal of cultural assimilation as a strategy for resistance, but also for returning to the word nègre a positive meaning. Previously, especially during colonization, the word nègre had been used in an offensive, pejorative sense. The Négritude movement was highly influenced by African American authors of the Harlem Renaissance, particularly Langston Hughes and Richard Wright. The Harlem influence was shared by the Negrismo movement in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, which, of course, differed in language, but was in many ways united with the goals of Négritude. Another source of inspiration for Négritude came from Haiti, where there had been a burgeoning of black culture in the early twentieth century. Haitian history is also significant to the African Diaspora thanks to the Haitian Revolution for Independence led by Toussaint L’Ouverture in the 1790s. Césaire wrote of Haiti as the place where Négritude appeared for the first time. European and other forms of surrealism provided aesthetic influence and political support to the Négritude movement. In particular, Martinican Négritude writers including Césaire, Suzanne Césaire, and René Ménil took up surrealism as a revolutionary method and a means of criticizing rational, European culture. In 1940, they formed
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Netherlands, Blacks in the a journal entitled Tropiques, featuring their work, along with that of André Breton, Lucie Thésée, and Aristide Maugée, that was largely informed by this revolutionary surrealist aesthetic. In 1948, existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre analyzed Négritude in his essay, “Orphée Noir” (“Black Orpheus”), which served as the introduction to a volume of Francophone poetry called Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Anthology of New Black and Malgasy Poetry in the French Language), compiled by Senghor. Sartre characterizes Négritude as the opposite of colonial racism in a Hegelian dialectic. According to him, Négritude was an “anti-racist racism” that was essential for the ultimate goal of racial unity. In the 1960s, Négritude philosophy was criticized by certain black writers as being insufficiently militant and essentialist. South African poet and political activist Keorapetse Kgositsile argued that the movement was based too much on celebrating blackness in terms of a white aesthetic and was unable to put forth a new kind of black perception that would free black intellectuals and artists from white conceptual paradigms. Despite criticism, however, Négritude ideals have continued to inspire racial and cultural movements of liberation and justice throughout the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Arnold, James A. Modernism and Negritude: The Poetry and Politics of Aimé Césaire. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse Press, 2000; Bâ, Sylvia Washington. The Concept of Negritude in the Poetry of Léopold Sédar Senghor. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973; Chidi, Ikonne. Links and Bridges: A Comparative Study of the Writings of the New Negro and Negritude Movements. Ibadan, Nigeria: University Press PLC, 2006; Jones, Edward Allen. Voices of Négritude: The Expression of Black Experience in the Poetry of Senghor, Césaire, and Damas. Valley Forge, PA: Judson Press, 1971; Kesteloot, Lilyan. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1991; Markovitz, Irving Leonard. Léopold Sédar Senghor and the Politics of Negritude. New York: Heinemann Educational Press, 1969; Popeau, Jean Baptiste. Dialogues of Negritude: An Analysis of the Cultural Context of Black Writing. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2003; Sharpley-Whiting, T. Denean. Negritude Women. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2002.
Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard
Netherlands, Blacks in the Blacks have existed in the Netherlands in substantial numbers since the fifteenth century. Many Dutch were involved in the slave trade and in obtaining colonies in Africa and the Americas in the early modern period. Some former slaves managed to attain high status in early modern Dutch society. A notable example was Jacobus Capitein, a former African slave who earned a doctorate degree in the Netherlands during the eighteenth century. A sizable portion of the population of the contemporary Netherlands is from subSaharan Africa or is of black African descent. The majority of the sub-Saharan Africans
Netherlands, Blacks in the in the Netherlands originate from Somalia, Cape Verde, Ghana, Angola, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Congo, Nigeria, and Sudan. Many of those of black African descent come from the former Dutch colonies of Suriname and the Netherlands Antilles. The Netherlands Antilles, which are five islands in the Caribbean Sea, are an autonomous component of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Beginning in the postwar era, many Afro-Caribbeans migrated to the Netherlands for employment. Many immigrants in the Netherlands of sub-Saharan Africa are of recent origin. There are a variety of reasons for such a migration, including asylum, employment, family formation, family reunion, and education. Although sub-Saharan African immigrants and their children are dispersed throughout the Netherlands, many tend to congregate in areas between the major cities of Amsterdam, Rotterdam, and Utrecht. A portion of sub-Saharan African immigrants either return to their countries of origin or migrate to a third country after a few years. Sub-Saharan African immigrants in the Netherlands often have difficulty immediately entering the Dutch labor market. African immigrants have varying levels of education. Many need to adjust to the Dutch environment, such as learning to speak Dutch. African immigrants from English-speaking African countries can fall back on English. African immigrants from Francophone and Lusophone African states, however, have greater difficulty adjusting. Black immigrants often face discrimination in attempts to find employment and housing. The government has sought to cooperate with unions and employers’ groups to reduce minority unemployment rates to make them comparable to the national average. As a result, the rate of the increase of minority positions has been much higher than among the general population. The 1998 Act on the Stimulation of Labor Participation by Ethnic Minorities, for example, was established to increase job opportunities for minorities. The influx of sub-Saharan African immigrants has led to new cultural differences in the Netherlands. For example, many of the immigrants and their children are Muslims. The harsh social and political environment toward immigrants in general and Muslims in particular has made it hard for African immigrants to adjust to the Netherlands. The Dutch education system places African children in low-level courses because of their poor Dutch. Such children are often left behind in the Dutch educational system. Facing social ostracism, some Africans youths resort to crime. Many black immigrants from Africa and the Caribbean suffer from racially motivated incidents ranging from racist pamphlets to harassment, physical assaults, and the destruction of property. The National Bureau to Fight Racial Discrimination was established to collect nationwide statistics in incidents of discrimination. Collected data indicate an increase in the amount of reported acts of discrimination. The Equal Opportunities Committee has also reported the same trend. The increase in the amount of reported acts of discrimination has been attributed to greater awareness of the complaints process and changing societal attitudes. The Dutch government has pursued efforts to increase public awareness of racism and discrimination. In 1997, prosecution norms for discrimination were strengthened. Penalties were raised for discrimination committed by groups (political parties, corporations, etc.) because organizational discrimination was perceived as more dangerous than that of individuals. Police were mandated to report thoroughly complaints of dis-
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New Imperialism crimination. Police officers found guilty of discrimination face disciplinary measures and criminal charges. To give each other support, black residents in the Netherlands have formed various aid organizations. Some of these organizations are religious in nature, and some, such as those that united in 2004 as the Sudan Civil Society Forum in the Netherlands, are of a more political nature. The Sudan Forum was established to create a contact point for Dutch nongovernmental organizations. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Amo, Anton Wilhelm; Boer War; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Illegal African Immigration to Europe; Piet, Zwarte; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and; Race Riots in Europe; Slave Trade, Dutch; Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Blakely, Allison. Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1994; Cross, Malcolm, and Hans Entzinger, eds. Lost Illusions: Caribbean Minorities in Britain and the Netherlands. London: Routledge, 1988; Van Heelsum, A., and T. Hessels. Afrikanen in Nederland, een profile. Den Haag: Ministerie van Justitie, 2005.
E. Agateno Mosca
New Imperialism During the late nineteenth to early twentieth centuries, the major European powers used various forms of political control over weaker powers to dominate much of the world. The European expansion abroad was fueled by desires for raw materials and new markets to further European industrial and commercial expansion, as well as for prestige and strategic purposes. One of the primary areas targeted by European imperial expansion was Africa, resulting in a “scramble” that would devour most of the continent. During the era of the New Imperialism, conservatives in Europe often used colonialism as an occasion for national cohesion. Some European powers viewed overseas empires as outlets for a surplus home population. The imperial expansions that composed the New Imperialism occurred amid increasing competition between the industrialized countries (the major European powers, United States, and Japan) over raw materials, strategic power, prestige, and commercial markets. Such competition emerged after the breakdown of the general European peace and cooperation established by the Congress of Vienna in 1815, which reconfigured Europe after the defeat of Napoleon to restore a balance of power. Until 1871, when Prussia defeated France and subsequently unified Germany, Britain had prospered from its position as the supreme industrial and naval power in the world, which enabled it to act as a dominating force in world trade. As British dominance began to wane, changes occurred in the European and global economies, and in the internal composition of Europe. The unifications of Italy (1866) and Germany (1871) removed internal rivalries in Central and Southern Europe that had kept these areas out of external affairs. Newly industrializing powers, such as Germany, sought external commercial markets and sought to break Britain’s dominance in world trade. Furthermore, competition was intensified as a result of a depression (1873–1896) in Europe and a period of price deflation that ultimately put pressure on European governments
New Imperialism to promote home industry and the adoption of protectionist policies, rather than those of free trade. Therefore new colonies were perceived as sources of both cheap raw materials and new commercial export markets devoid of foreign competition. The New Imperialism led to new social views concerning colonialism. Social Darwinism became common during the late nineteenth century and European powers, particularly France and Britain, took on self-appointed civilizing missions to parts of the world. British writer Rudyard Kipling, for example, wrote his famous poem on the “White Man’s Burden” to encourage Europeans to bring their form of civilization, which they perceived as superior, to the world. In the late nineteenth century, European powers began to occupy Africa in greater proportions. In 1875, the major European possessions in Africa were French Algeria and the British Cape Colony. By the early twentieth century, however, only Ethiopia and Liberia were free of European control. An informal empire of dominance was replaced by formal empires of occupation. In the 1870s, explorers David Livingston and H. M. Stanley opened the way for European penetration of the African interior. In the late 1870s, King Leopold II of Belgium organized a corporation under his control to negotiate treaties with African chiefs to gain occupation of the Congo after the Belgian government refused to get involved in the colonial scramble. France in particular, but also Germany, soon began to expand their presence in Africa and began to make dubious territorial claims. Increased European competition in Africa led to the Berlin Conference (1884–1885), which sought to regulate European actions in Africa to maintain peace and mutual profit. At the Conference, Leopold II was granted control over the Congo Free State developed from land in Central Africa. He was supported in his claims by both Germany and Britain at the expense of territorial claims by the French and Portuguese. The Congo, however, became infamous for the atrocities committed against the local population and led to an international scandal that forced him to turn over the colony to the Belgian government in 1908. In 1882, Britain dissolved the dual control of Egypt between itself and France. Britain subsequently proceeded to launch initiatives, including the occupation of the Sudan, to control the Nile River Valley and the Suez Canal. Such actions increased tensions with France and its territories in Africa and almost led to conflict between the two powers at Fashoda in 1898. In 1899, Britain sought to complete its occupation of South Africa. British expansion in East Africa prompted British attempts to build a “Cape to Cairo” railroad linking the empire from north to south. German occupation of territory in East Africa, however, thwarted British efforts until after World War I. Meanwhile, France continued to establish its empire in northern and western Africa. By the time of World War I (1914–1918), Britain controlled more of Africa than any other European country, followed by France and then Germany. See also: Boer War; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spain; Scientific Racism; World War I, Black Participation in; Zulu War. Further Reading: Anstey, Roger. Britain and the Congo in the Nineteenth Century. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962; Ascherson, Neal. The King Incorporated. New York: Doubleday and Company, 1964; Bauer, Ludwig. Leopold the Unloved: King of the Belgians and of Wealth. trans.
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Notting Hill Carnival Eden Paul and Cedar Paul. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1935; Collins, Robert O., ed. The Partition of Africa: Illusion or Necessity. New York: John Wiley, 1969; Crowe, Sybil E. The Berlin West Africa Conference 1884–1885. New York: Longmans, Green and Company, 1942; Emerson, Barbara. Leopold II of the Belgians: King of Colonialism. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1979; Forster, Stig and Wolfgang J. Mommsen and Ronald Robinson, eds. Bismarck, Europe, and Africa: The Berlin Conference 1884–1885 and the Onset of Partition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988; Gavin, R. J., and J. A. Betley, eds. The Scramble for Africa: Documents on the West Berlin Conference and Related Subjects 1884/85. Ibadan, Nigeria: Ibadan University Press, 1973; Hochschild, Adam. King Leopold’s Ghost: A Story of Greed, Terror, and Heroism in Colonial Africa. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 1998; Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1991; Power, Thomas Francis. Jules Ferry and the Renaissance of French Imperialism. Morningside Heights, New York: King’s Crown Press, 1944; Sesay, Amadu, ed. Africa and Europe: From Partition to Interdependence or Dependence? London: Croom Helm, 1986; Taylor, A.J.P. Germany’s First Bid for Colonies 1884–1885: A Move in Bismarck’s European Policy. London: Macmillan, 1938.
Eric Martone
Notting Hill Carnival The Notting Hill Carnival, also known as the African-Caribbean fair, is the largest street fair in Europe and regularly attracts crowds of more than two million revelers. It is held in the Notting Hill area in London, England, over two days during the August Bank Holiday weekend, with a children’s day on Sunday, focusing specifically on the costumes, and the adult carnival on Monday. It takes its inspiration from pre-Lenten Catholic festivities, which in the Caribbean were transformed into carnivals, as freed slaves injected the celebrations with their own cultural metaphors, hybrid music, and dance. The first Notting Hill carnival, however, was more a street party than an expression of African-Caribbean heritage. Indeed, there is some debate about its origins. Guyanese activist Rhaune Laslett has long been credited with creating the Notting Hill carnival, as indeed has the journalist and community activist, Claudia Jones. Whomever its originator, the Notting Hill carnival is today a symbol of the endurance and continued vitality of African-Caribbean culture in Great Britain. Most West Indian (Caribbean) immigrants to the United Kingdom in the postwar period settled in London, although significant numbers also went to Midlands cities, like Nottingham and Birmingham. Widespread and pervasive housing discrimination meant that black people tended to congregate in areas where, for various reasons, landlords were more amenable. In West London, Ladbroke Grove and Notting Hill became the primary sites of black settlement, although tensions were evident between West Indian immigrants and the white working-class community from the outset. In the 1950s, working-class British youth culture was influenced greatly by the nationalist rhetoric of groups such as Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists, which promoted open hostility toward black immigration. Among the youth groups influenced by this ideology were the “teddy boys,” who were associated with American rock and roll music and a distinctive style of dress that was a parody of Edwardian attire.
Notting Hill Carnival In August 1958, a “teddy boy” gang attacked a Swedish woman who was married to a Jamaican as she walked to her home in Notting Hill. Rioting ensued, and over a two-week period, gangs of white youth combed the area attacking black people on the streets and in their homes. Such violence culminated in the murder of West Indian carpenter Kelso Cochrane. The violence continued until the beginning of September, when the police arrested the gang leaders. It was in this context that Jones organized the fair in January 1959 in Saint Pancras Town Hall to bring together the different communities. In 1965, lingering tensions between whites and West Indian immigrants led Laslett, also a community leader, to organize an outdoor event intended to build bridges within the community by celebrating its ethnic and cultural diversity. Many ethnic associations participated in the event, which was held over the August bank holiday weekend, including the Asian, Caribbean, African, Irish, and Scottish. It was a cultural festival that featured poetry, international song and dance, a folk concert, and darts matches in local pubs. The focus, therefore, was not exclusively on the West Indian community. Under the direction of Trinidadian schoolteacher Lesley Palmer, the carnival was transformed during the 1970s, acquiring a distinctly Caribbean identity. Palmer introduced Caribbean-style masquerade costumes, as well as the steel and costume, or “mas” bands, to Notting Hill. To attract black youth, he also introduced the “soundsystem” (mobile disco), and reggae music, which had a positive impact on attendance. By the mid-1970s, the carnival was attracting crowds of up to half a million people, although as it grew to a national scale, problems arose over policing of the event.
Notting Hill Carnival, 2006. Courtesy of Damian Rafferty, Flyglobalmusic.com.
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Notting Hill Carnival Police perceptions of black youth criminality encouraged the adoption of aggressive policing methods in urban areas during the 1970s that seemed intended to antagonize black youth. As a result, aside from the public safety issue of uncontrolled crowds at the carnival, there was also, in terms of policing, the problem of large numbers of black youth congregated in one place. On the last day of carnival in 1976, violence erupted as black youth rioted in reaction to continual harassment and arbitrary arrests by the police, whose numbers amounted to between 3,000 and 1,600 officers on that day. The Notting Hill carnival riot of 1976 left 300 police injured, 65 police vehicles damaged, and several shops looted and is credited with having influenced the passage of the Race Relations Act of 1976, which prohibited racial discrimination. Nonetheless, tensions between the police and black youth continued to mar the carnival for at least another decade, and for some time there were fears that it would be banned. By the late 1990s, however, it had become a firmly established part of London’s cultural calendar, with the number of participants and attendees rising. In 2002, concerns about the size of the carnival, and its financing and management, led to the mayor of London appointing the Carnival Review Group to look at ways of managing the event, which by then contributed approximately £93 million to the British economy. Upon the review group’s recommendation, changes were implemented to the carnival route in 2002. Community organizers who want the route to remain close to its geographical roots, however, have staunchly rejected proposals that it be moved to Hyde Park. As far as financing, the carnival now attracts corporate and government sponsorship and the Carnival Arts Committee receives funding from the Arts Council UK. In addition, the Notting Hill Carnival Enterprise Committee has encouraged an increase in the number of food stalls and vendors selling merchandise along the carnival route as a way of further raising the commercial value of the event. In 2002, a public limited company, The Notting Hill Carnival Trust Ltd., was brought in to run the carnival, but community organizers became disgruntled at the way in which the Trust managed financial resources and the lack of accountability. Consequently, in 2003, it was replaced by The London Notting Hill Carnival Ltd. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Race Riots in Europe. Further Reading: Drain, E. Twentieth Century Theatre: A Sourcebook of Radical Thinking. London: Routledge, 1995; Picard, D., and M. Robinson, eds. Festivals, Tourism and Social Change: Remaking Worlds. Clevendon, United Kingdom: Channel View, 2006.
Joyce A. Kannan
O Ogé, Vincent (?–1791) Vincent Ogé was a biracial merchant from Saint Domingue (Haiti) who tried to convince the French National Assembly to give free gens de couleur (people of color) the right to vote. Meeting no success, Ogé returned to Saint Domingue to enact his plan, by force if necessary; however, he was captured and tortured to death. Ogé’s failure to secure rights for individuals of biracial descent while leaving slavery untouched proved that emancipation was an all or nothing proposition: men of biracial descent and black Africans must overcome racial divisions and cooperate to make all free, or none would be free. Ogé was born into a well-to-do family in France’s most valuable colony, SaintDomingue, in the mid-eighteenth century. Ogé was well educated and wealthy. He ran a profitable trading business and held valuable property on Saint-Domingue. Even though his father was white, however, Ogé was still part black, so he was still considered a free “person of color.” Despite his wealth, Ogé was not allowed to vote because of his biracial status. Free gens de couleur, some of quite respectable wealth, were tolerated by white planters, but their rights were upheld by custom, tradition, and tacit white acceptance alone; there was no legal recourse or support otherwise for their freedoms. The French Revolution in 1789 represented the dawning of a new era. Ogé was encouraged by the possibilities that this moment seemed to represent. Accordingly, he appeared in October 1789 before the National Assembly to argue his case for the expansion of the right to vote to gens de couleur. Ogé contended that as free citizens born into the French empire, gens de couleur deserved equality under the law. His proposal was fairly conservative, and not all free gens de couleur were included; too much black African blood or a lineage only recently emancipated would exclude many from the law. Ogé had no intent to end slavery itself, but merely to grant legal rights to free
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Oguntoye, Katharina (1959–) gens de couleur. Despite Ogé’s best efforts, however, the political power of French slave masters triumphed. Although rebuffed by the National Assembly, Ogé returned home in the summer of 1790 all the more committed. He now saw coercion and violence as acceptable means to achieve his desired end. In October 1790, Ogé sent an ultimatum to the local assembly of Saint-Domingue, located at Le Cap François. He demanded suffrage for gens de couleur and claimed that pacifying the biracial population would ensure the continuance of slavery on the island. This was a covert threat, for Ogé was suggesting that if his demands were not met, he would unleash a slave revolt. Ogé received no response and began raising an army, perhaps a few hundred men strong. His force was mostly gens de couleur, and in keeping with his defense of slavery, he was unwilling to support slaves or let them join his rebellion. While leading his force toward La Cap François, Ogé met an army detachment of 600 men that was sent to quell the uprising. The rebels emerged victorious, but fear recruited a much larger colonial force, which soon met Ogé and destroyed his army. Ogé barely escaped with his life and fled to Spanish Santo Domingo. The Spanish returned him to SaintDomingue. On February 26, 1791, Ogé spent his last hours being broken on the wheel. His death, however, inspired others to rebel. In August 1791, a massive slave uprising rocked Saint Domingue, forcing the French National Assembly to give freedom to those of biracial descent and African alike. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Dubois, Laurent. Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2004; Ott, Thomas O. The Haitian Revolution, 1789–1804. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1973.
Joshua M. Rice
Oguntoye, Katharina (1959–) Katharina Oguntoye is a leading Afro-German feminist writer and historian. Oguntoye was born in 1959 in the former East Germany. Her father was Nigerian and her mother was German. Oguntoye spent her childhood in West Germany and, for a few years, lived in Nigeria. In West Germany, she suffered from racial abuse, and as a teenager in search of her identity, found a distinct lack of work on the Afro-German experience. At university, she met African American writer Audre Lorde, who helped her greatly, and May Opitz (May Ayim), with whom she traveled in Nigeria. In Nigeria, Oguntoye experienced blending into crowds easily and began to identify strongly with West Africa. In 1986, Oguntoye, along with Opitz and Dagmar Schultz, wrote Farbe Bekennen: Afro-Deutsche Frauen auf den Spuren ihrer Geschichte (published in English as Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out). The book details the lives of 14 AfroGerman women in both West Germany and East Germany. The book received much critical acclaim and was the first work to detail the Afro-German identity, tracing it back
Okri, Ben (1959–) to early German involvement in Africa, the establishment of the German colonies in Africa, and then recent developments in Afro-German cultural heritage. Many people in Africa, as well as in Britain and the United States, wanted an English-language edition of the book. Finally, in November 1991, the book was published in English with an introduction by Audre Lorde. The original publication of Farbe Bekennen led to the Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD), which was formed to bring Afro-Germans together, and the beginnings of an assertion of the Afro-German identity. Oguntoye has continued to write books that address the Afro-German female experience, focusing on both gender and racial issues. See also: Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Afro-Germans; Colonies in Africa, German; Germany, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European. Further Reading: Hodges, Carolyn. “The Private/Plural Selves of Afro-German Women and the Search for a Public Voice.” Journal of Black Studies 23: 2 (December 1992): 219–234; McCarroll, Margaret. May Ayim: A Woman in the Margin of German Society. Master of Arts Thesis, Florida State University, 2005; Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro-German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991.
Justin Corfield
Okri, Ben (1959–) Ben Okri is an internationally acclaimed black British poet, short story writer, and novelist from Nigeria. He has succeeded in projecting African history and culture (particularly that of Nigeria) in his literary works. His works comprise a variety of literary genres, including realism, modernism, and oral forms with African flavor. Okri was born in Minna, in north central Nigeria. After his birth, his father moved to England to study law. Consequently, Okri received his early education in London. In 1968, he and his family returned to Nigeria, where he continued his education. After high school, Okri worked as a clerk at a paint store. During this time, he started writing articles on social and political issues. By 1980, Okri had published his first novel, Flowers and Shadows. Okri later returned to England, where he attended the University of Essex to study comparative literature. During this period, he published a second novel, The Landscapes Within (1982). He became poetry editor of West Africa Magazine, a position he held until 1987. Between 1983 and 1985, Okri worked as a broadcaster for the BBC World Service on a program entitled “Network Africa.” In 1987, he published a short story collection, Incidents at the Shrine. That same year, the work won several prestigious awards, including the Commonwealth Writers Prize for Africa and the Paris Review/Aga Khan Prize for Fiction. Stars of the New Curfew was another short story collection published in 1988. It won the Guardian Fiction Prize later that year. In 1991, Okri published The Famished Road, the first volume of a new trilogy. The novel garnered international recognition and won the Booker Prize for Fiction. The trilogy continued in the novels Songs of Enchantment (1993) and Infinite Riches (1998). Other
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Oldfield, Bruce (1950–) fictional novels by Okri include Astonishing the Gods (1995); Dangerous Love (1996), which won the Italian Premio Palmi (2000); In Arcadia (2002); and Starbook (2007). Okri has also published a collected volume of poetry, An African Elegy (1992); an epic poem, Mental Flight (1999); and an essay collection, A Way of Being Free (1997). In his career, Okri has won many distinctions. He became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature in 1987. In 1995, he won the Crystal Award (World Economic Forum). Okri has also received honorary doctorates from the University of Westminster (1997) and the University of Essex (2002). He was also awarded an OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 2001. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Lim, David C. L. The Infinite Longing for Home: Desire and the Nation in Selected Writings of Ben Okri and K. S. Maniam. New York: Rodopi, 2005; Moh, Felicia Oka. Ben Okri: An Introduction to His Early Fiction. Enugu, Nigeria: Fourth Dimension, 2002; Nnolim, Charles E. Approaches to the African Novel: Essays in Analysis. London: Saros, 1992. Quayson, Ato. Strategic Transformations in Nigerian Writing: Caality and History in the Work of Rev. Samuel Johnson, Amos Tutuola, Wole Soyinka and Ben Okri. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997; Wilkinson, Jane, ed. Talking with African Writers. London: Heinemann, 1991.
Mary Afolabi Adeolu
Oldfield, Bruce (1950–) Bruce Oldfield is a black British fashion designer. Oldfield was born in 1950 to an Irish woman and a Jamaican boxer. He was entrusted to a Barnado’s home when he was six months old after his mother’s placement into a psychiatric hospital. Oldfield became the foster child of Violet Masters, a seamstress who lived in County Durham. Although living close to poverty, she had adopted three other biracial children and taught them how to sew at an early age. At eight years old, Oldfield was already designing dresses for his sister’s dolls. Oldfield was a student at the Ripon Grammar School in Yorkshire. He also attended Sheffield City Polytechnic in Yorkshire from 1961 to 1967. He then began to study fashion design at Ravensbourne College of Art in Kent from 1968 to 1971. Determined to be a star in the fashion industry, he applied to art school. Oldfield graduated from St. Martin’s School of Art in 1973. Thanks to his outstanding student shows, he was chosen to design a collection for Henri Bendel, the New York department store. After living in New York City for a couple of months, Oldfield moved back to London in 1975. He created his own company with a bank loan and a Barnardo’s grant. Starting as a ready-to-wear operation with chains of stores in Europe and America, his business developed into a couture store in 1978 for individual clients. In 1980, noticed for his work with actress Charlotte Rampling, Oldfield was asked to dress Lady Diana Spencer, who was then about to marry Prince Charles. Oldfield still dresses European and American actresses and international royalty. His most famous clients have included Sienna Miller, Jemima Khan, Anjelica Huston, Faye Dunaway, Melanie Griffith, Jerry Hall, Queen Noor of Jordan, and Queen Rania of Jordan.
Olympics of 1936 Oldfield was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) for services to fashion and industry in 1990. He holds Honorary Fellowships to the Royal College of Art, the University of Durham, and the University of Sheffield. He was governor of The London Institute in 1999 to 2001 and Trustee of the Royal Academy of Arts in 2000 to 2002. In 2001, Oldfield received an honorary doctorate in civil law from the University of Northumbria at Newcastle. In 2005, he received an honorary doctorate from the University of Central England. He is also a vice president of Barnardo’s. Oldfield published his autobiography, Rootless, in 2004. See also: Boateng, Ozwald; Britain, Blacks in; Campbell, Naomi. Further Reading: Oldfield, Bruce. Bruce Oldfield’s Season. London: Pan Books, 1987; Oldfield, Bruce. Rootless. London: Arrow, 2004.
Tristan Cabello
Olympics of 1936 The 1936 Summer Olympics remain a highly contested event. The International Olympic Committee (IOC) had awarded the games to Berlin in 1931, two years before the Nazis came to power. After 1933, countries both east and west debated whether to participate in games hosted by Germany’s Nazi government. Was it possible to participate in 1936 and not condone the regime, which as early as 1933, had already begun to euthanize its mentally disabled and persecute its Jews? Many argued that two-week games might become a massive publicity spectacle for Nazi Germany and therefore sought to boycott the 1936 Olympics or to change the location. Half a century after the end of World War II, observers continue to debate the moral outcome of having participated in the 1936 Olympics in Berlin now knowing how the Nazis sterilized Germany’s black population, and sent Jews, gypsies, homosexuals and other political “undesirables” to their deaths. Many observers refer to the 1936 Olympics as the “Nazi Olympics,” as public events that promoted the Nazi regime, or Third Reich. Others refuse this appellation, saying that the events at the Olympics, namely the triumph of African American athletes, disproved Nazi ideology itself. For people of black African descent, the games produced greatly ambivalent results: The 1936 Olympics proved a cultural breakthrough for African Americans in that they gained worldwide recognition as athletes, but the Olympics also became an opportunity for racism and the advancement of faulty racial theories. Sports have always been used as occasions to rally national and local pride, and, as such, sports are innately political. This was especially clear to the Nazis, who viewed athletics not merely as paramilitary training, but as a cultural practice with great powers of public persuasion. The Nazi government imagined the nation as a “total work of art,” in which the whole of cultural life had been reinvented according to Nazi racist and fascist aesthetics. Nazism infiltrated every aspect of daily life from the fonts used in newspapers, the handwriting taught in school, to laws regarding interracial marriages. Among the key concepts of Nazi Germany was a “healthy” Aryan aesthetic, which survived to strengthen the national character. Sports offered abundant images of “strength and beauty” according to the Nazi worldview. Joseph Goebbels, Minister of
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Olympics of 1936 Propaganda of the Nazi government, proclaimed in 1933, “German sport has only one task: to strengthen the character of the German people, imbuing it with the fighting spirit and steadfast camaraderie necessary in the struggle for its existence.” After 1933, “non-Aryans” (e.g., people of Jewish descent, gypsies, and Europeans not of Germanic descent) were refused entry to athletic clubs and public facilities. American newspapers published critical editorials about Germany and entreated the president of the American Olympic Committee, former American athlete Avery Brundage, to withdraw American participation. Brundage and the rest of the committee traveled to Berlin to evaluate the political climate, but were unable to access the political situation based on their findings. Ultimately, Brundage argued for attendance and insisted on the apolitical nature of the games. Yet, nothing was apolitical in Third Reich. Since Nazi Germany was a society in which every aspect of life was administered by the government, separating culture from politics was impossible. Indeed, the great success of the Nazis was their ability to politicize seemingly nonpolitical experiences. The 1936 Olympics was a perfect example of Nazi cultural politics and political subterfuge. Propaganda Minister Goebbels hired filmmaker Leni Riefenstahl to film the Olympics, but set up a front organization so that her Olympia would not appear to be funded by the government when it was, in fact, supposed to be a vehicle for Germanic “strength and beauty.” Riefenstahl leant her talents to the Third Reich to glorify “Aryan” beauty, and her film of the Olympics frames itself with many references to the ancient Greeks. Yet it is Riefenstahl who captured on celluloid the famous 100-meter gold medal race of African American athlete Jesse Owens. Jesse Owens, a collegiate sprinter and high jumper, was the son of a sharecropper and the grandson of American slaves. He won four gold medals in the 1936 Olympics, making history not only for the world and the Germans, but also for African Americans. African Americans had been ambivalent about attending the Olympics. They disdained the fascists and were concerned about the safety of blacks in a regime that was violently racist against Africans from anywhere in the African Diaspora; however, they also recognized an opportunity for public recognition. Once the IOC promised protection, most African American newspapers argued in favor of participation in the Olympics and took the position that seeing blacks succeed would persuade the world of the falsehood of Nazi racial ideology. After the campaign for an Olympic boycott was abandoned, 18 African Americans (16 men and 2 women) made the American teams and headed for Berlin. This was the greatest number of blacks to participate by that time, and was three times as many as had taken part in the previous 1932 Los Angeles Games. They were also the only blacks representing any country in the world (the only Africans were white South Africans). Three of the top American black athletes were returning Olympians. The African Americans participating in the 1936 Olympics included Thomas “Eddie” Tolan Jr., the first black athlete to win two Olympic gold medals; Ralph Harold Metcalfe, a sprinter who was known as the world’s fastest human; John Youie Woodruff, who had a come-from-behind victory in the 800-meter run and was the first to win a gold medal; Matthew “Mack” Robinson, the older brother of Baseball Hall of Famer Jackie Robinson who won the silver medal in the men’s 200 meters; Cornelius Cooper
Oroonoko (1688) Johnson, a high jumper whose winning height of 2.03 meters was an Olympic record; and Jackie Wilson, who won a silver medal in boxing for the United States. Most spectacular among these famous victories was Owens, whose four gold medals are said to have thoroughly scandalized the Nazis, who were still reeling from the initial shock of seeing Woodruff steal the first gold medal in his surprise win. There are greatly varying accounts of whether Hitler snubbed Owens after his first gold medal win. Hitler is said to have refused to shake Owens’s hand, but records also show that Hitler had decided to avoid Nazi embarrassment by refusing to shake the hand of any non-German winner. Owens’s triumph at the Olympics was a great moment for Americans, for it disproved Nazi ideas of Aryan superiority. Whatever the Nazi propaganda had hoped to show about white superiority, it had failed with Owens’s four gold medals and also with the popularity of Owens, for whom the German crowd went wild, shouting “Jesse” with a Teutonic accent. Such public adulation of an African American galled many Nazi leaders. The Nazi newspaper founded by Goebbels, Der Angriff, complained that the Americans had humiliated themselves by allowing their black “auxiliaries” to win gold medals for them. Ironically, Owens’s triumph had an unexpected racist outcome as well, in that it seemed to prove the Nazi biology of race, rather than the hard work that black athletes had devoted to their training. Attempting to regain their false sense of racial superiority, Nazis adopted a new tact and falsely asserted that the blacks won at the Olympics only because they were biologically different (closer to animals), with their big thighs and longer feet, and, therefore, it was unfair to let them compete at all. In the end, the African American athletes won 14 medals in total, and, for a moment, enjoyed public recognition. Yet, the return to America, with its “Jim Crow” laws intact, proved a dark reality for the African American athletes. For example, Owens was denied amateur status for having so many financial offers despite the fact that they never materialized. See also: Germany, Blacks in; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Scientific Racism; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Bachrach, Susan D. The Nazi Olympics: Berlin, 1936. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 2000; Cohen, Stan. The Games of ’36: A Pictorial History of the 1936 Olympic Games in Germany. Missoula: Pictorial Histories Publishing Company, 1996; Hilton, Christopher. Hitler’s Olympics: The 1936 Berlin Olympic Games. Stroud: Sutton Publishing, 2006; Large, David Clay. Nazi Games: The Olympics of 1936. New York: W. W. Norton, 2007.
Ruth Starkman
Oroonoko (1688) Oroonoko, or the Royal Slave, is a seventeenth-century novella by Aphra Behn (1640–1689), often claimed to be the first woman in English literature to make a living as an author, detailing the tragic story of an African slave in Suriname in the 1660s. Behn worked as a spy for King Charles II of England during the Second Dutch War; however, she did not receive all the money owed her for her ser services. On her return
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Oroonoko (1688) to England, Behn, who was also a widow, was desperately in need of money. Her poetry sold well and she began to write plays. After becoming a successful playwright, Behn turned toward extended narrative prose. Her last work participated in the amatory genre of British literature, which predated the invention of the novel and was an early predecessor of the romance novel. Oroonoko (1688) focuses on the heroic title character, who is the grandson of an African king. Oroonoko falls in love with Imoinda, who is the daughter of the king’s chief general. The king, however, also falls in love with Imoinda and gives her the sacred veil, which means that she is commanded to become his wife. After a short time in the king’s harem, Imoinda and Oroonoko plan a secret rendezvous; however, the two lovers are discovered. The king has Imoinda sold as a slave to punish her. Meanwhile, Oroonoko is captured by an English slaver captain. Imoinda and Oroonoko are both taken to Suriname, which at that time was an English colony in the Caribbean. In Suriname, the two African lovers are reunited under their new Christian names (Caesar and Clemene). The English deputy-governor, William Byam, becomes attracted to Imoinda’s beauty. Oroonoko organizes an unsuccessful slave revolt. The slaves surrender after obtaining Byam’s promise of amnesty. Oroonoko, however, is whipped as punishment. To prove his natural worth and to avenge his honor, Oroonoko plots to assassinate Byam. To protect Imoinda from being violated and sexually abused, Oroonoko murders her too after discussing the matter with her. Imoinda dies with a smile on her face. As Oroonoko is mourning the loss of his true love, he is found before he can commit suicide and is sentenced to be publicly executed by dismemberment. During his execution, Oroonoko bravely bares the pain without crying out and with the utmost dignity. Oroonoko is written in both the first and third person. The narrator related the events in Africa, but then portrays herself as a witness to the events in Suriname. The narrator is the daughter of a man sent to Suriname from England to serve as the new deputygeneral of Suriname; however, her father dies during the voyage. The narrator and her family are welcomed into the settlement and she describes her interactions with the people of Suriname interspersed with the main plot of the love story between Imoinda and Oroonoko. After the love story’s conclusion, the narrator returns to England. Behn most likely did not intend for the novella to serve as a protest against slavery per se, although the institution of slavery is not depicted in a positive light and the English slaver captain is one of the most despicable characters. The novel depicts Behn’s strong sense of monarchism. To Behn, without a true and natural leader, a king, Suriname could not prosper. Furthermore, the true measure of one’s worth was their ability to keep his word. Behn’s novel was written amid the political turmoil that culminated in the English Glorious Revolution of 1688, during which the Catholic English King, James II (bother of Charles II) was overthrown and replaced by his Protestant daughter, Mary, and her husband, the Dutch William of Orange, in the view that a Catholic could not be the head of the Protestant Church of England. In Oroonoko, written before the Glorious Revolution took place, Behn’s work was meant to criticize those elites in England who had sworn loyalty to James II, yet plotted to overthrow him, the true king. The novel is very anti-Dutch (Holland assumed control of Suriname in the late 1660s, shortly after the events of the novella), in part because of Behn’s experiences as
Ortíz, Leonardo (Dates Unknown) a spy in the Second Dutch War and because the nobles were seeking to replace James II with William of Orange, who was also Dutch. Oroonoko is the first English novel to depict a black African in a sympathetic manner; however, the novella is more concerned with the nature of kingship than with race. Oroonoko is a king (regardless of his race) and therefore his execution is an act of regicide and detrimental to the entire colony. Oroonoko possesses a character that is more noble than any other in the novella. Yet, he is described as having European features, and is therefore naturalized as a European aristocrat. He is not described as having an African appearance and therefore his greatness is connected to his European characteristics. Later criticism called Oroonoko a work of humanitarianism and Behn a precursor to Harriet Beecher Stowe, who wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin. Thomas Southerne adapted Behn’s novella as a play, which was staged in 1695 and published in 1696. The play was hugely popular and did much to increase the popularity of Behn’s novella, which had disappointing initial sales. The play made a major change in the story of the novella, however, by making the character of Imoinda white instead of black, thereby adding the element of interracial love to the tragedy. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Mirza (1795); Othello (1603); Ourika (1823); Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko and Other Writings. ed. Paul Salzman. New ed. New York: Oxford World’s Classics, 1998; Southerne, Thomas. Oroonoko. eds. Maximillian Novak and David Rhodes. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 2003; Todd, Janet, ed. Aphra Behn Studies. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1996; Todd, Janet, ed. The Secret Life of Aphra Behn. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1997.
Eric Martone
Ortíz, Leonardo (Dates Unknown) Leonardo Ortíz was an Afro-Spanish lawyer of the Royal Court in sixteenth-century Spain. The exact dates of Ortiz’s birth and death are unknown. The location of his birth is also unknown. As the interracial child of a black African mother and a white Spanish knight of a military order, it seems likely that he was born in Grenada, where he also spent most of his life. He probably studied law at the University of Grenada, earning the licenciado, which was the license needed to teach and practice law. In early modern Spain, where most blacks were either enslaved or struggling as poor freed people or runaways, Ortíz’s high social status was exceptional. The life of Ortíz thus represents a remarkable addition to the historical picture of black Africans living in Renaissance Europe. Ortíz was first mentioned by Francisco Bermúdez de Pedraza in his Antiguedades y Excelencias de Granada from 1608. Before turning to Juan Latino, the better-known Afro-Spanish professor of Latin at the University of Grenada, Bermúdez de Pedraza included a chapter entitled “On Three Famous Blacks of This City.” After briefly mentioning the black embroideress Catalina de Soto, Bermúdez de Pedraza also portrayed two other male contemporaries of Latino: the Dominican priest Cristóbol de Meneses
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Othello (1603) and the Licenciado Ortíz; however, the biographical information provided is scarce. According to Bermúdez de Pedraza’s church history of Grenada, published in 1638, Ortíz lived with his black mother and took care of her. The relationship with Ortíz’s white father, however, seems to have been broken. When asked about the reasons Ortíz hated his father, he offered a paradoxical response recorded in Bermúdez de Pedraza’s account that provides a glimpse into the complex dynamics in his interracial family: “I owe more to my mother who gave me such a good father than to my father who gave me such a despicable mother.” See also: Renaissance, Blacks in the; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Bermúdez de Pedraza, Francisco. Antiguedades y Excelencias de Granada. Madrid: Por Luis Sanchez, 1608; Bermúdez de Pedraza, Francisco. Historia eclesiástica de Granada. Granada: Por Andrés de Santiago, 1638; Casares, Aurelia Martín. “Free and Freed Black Africans in Granada in the Time of the Spanish Renaissance.” In Thomas F. Earle and Kate J. P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, pp. 247–260; Queija, Berta Ares, and Alessandro Stella. Negros, Mulattos, Zambaigos: Derroteros Africanos en los Mundos Ibericos. Sevilla: Escuela de Estudios Hispano-Americanos/Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Scientificas, 2000.
Holger Drössler
Othello (1603) The Tragedy of Othello, The Moor of Venice (1603), a masterpiece in British literature, is a dramatic tragedy by Renaissance literary icon William Shakespeare. The psychological drama focuses on the character of Othello, a Moorish general in Italy, who is betrayed by his companion, Iago. The drama, which explores themes such as racism and religious conflict, has remained popular for more than 400 years. Othello has gained critical acclaim through its portrayal of racial and religious themes, as it has a Muslim Moor in the lead role. Shakespeare knew much about history and literature and frequently used such knowledge as sources for his dramas. He would have been exposed to such writers as the Italian novelist and poet, Giovanni Battista Giraldi (also know as Cinthio), whose story, Hecatommithi (1565), likely inspired Shakespeare’s Othello. Shakespeare reinvented Cinthio’s text, not only by making it a play, but also by giving the characters deeper meaning and adding new plot developments. Cinthio’s plot unravels as the Ensign (Shakespeare’s Iago) accuses Disdemona (Shakespeare’s Desdemona) of having an affair with the Captain (Shakespeare’s Cassio). Some critics point to the fact that Iago’s desire to wrong Othello in Shakespeare’s plot is fueled not only by evilness, but also by jealously. In Cinthio’s version, the Ensign falls in love with Disdemona, but he feels that she does not choose him because she is in love with the Captain, rather than the Moor. The Moor and the Ensign conspire to murder both Disdemona and the Captain, provided that the Ensign can provide proof that the two are having an affair. The Ensign subsequently has his daughter steal a handkerchief given by the Moor to Disdemona. The Ensign then places the handkerchief on the Captain’s bed. The Moor encourages the Ensign to murder the Captain; however, the assassination attempt only results in the loss of the Captain’s leg. The Ensign then kills Disdemona with the support of her
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husband. After the Captain recovers, the Ensign conspires with him against the Moor by convincing the Captain that it was the Moor who was responsible for both the attempt on his life and the murder of Disdemona. The Moor is arrested and imprisoned and later killed by Disdemona’s family. The Ensign is later arrested following a dispute in Italy and tortured. Some major differences in the plot are apparent in Shakespeare’s adaptation. First and foremost, the Moor has a name: Othello. Othello elopes with Desdemona right before the Venetians gather to discuss the Turkish attack on Cyprus. Othello is summoned as an advisor. In front of the Senate, Desdemona’s father accuses Othello of witchcraft, seducing his daughter to marry him. Othello defends himself successfully before the Senate and he leaves Venice to command its army against the Turks. Meanwhile, Othello’s companion, Iago, harbors bitterness against him for Othello and Desdemona in Venice by Théodore promoting Cassio above him. Iago takes ad- Chassériau (1819–1856). Erich Lessing / Art Revantage of being away at war to make Othello source, NY. jealous of Desdemona. Iago manages to get Cassia drunk and involved in a fight; as a result of his behavior, Othello demotes Cassio and promotes Iago. After Cassio sobers up, Iago encourages him to entreat Desdemona to plead to Othello on his behalf. Meanwhile, Iago works on Othello, attempting to make him suspicious of Desdemona and Cassio. Desdemona drops her first gift from Othello, a handkerchief, which is stolen by Emilia, Iago’s wife, for Iago. The handkerchief is planted in Cassio’s quarters. Iago then goads Cassio to describe his affair with his mistress, Bianca, while Othello listens in secret. Bianca’s name is never mentioned, so Othello assumes that Cassio is describing an affair with Desdemona. Enraged, Othello begins to plan the murder his wife and orders Iago to murder Cassio. Iago convinces another soldier, Roderigo, to murder Cassio. The attempt fails and Iago murders Roderigo to prevent him from revealing Iago’s role. During the night, Othello smothers Desdemona in their bed in a rage of jealousy. Emilia arrives, and as Othello tries to explain his actions, she reveals to him that the affair was the invention of Iago. Emilia calls for the guard, hoping to get Iago arrested. Instead of facing his guilt, Iago rids himself of his wife, adding to the pervasive evilness portrayed by this character throughout Shakespeare’s plot. The guard attempts to arrest both Iago and Othello, but Othello commits suicide. In Shakespeare’s play, the figure of Othello is characterized as a well-respected noble Moor. In Europe at the time, the terms Moor and black were used interchangeably and in reference to Muslims from North or West Africa residing in the Mediter-
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Othello (1603) ranean area. Consequently, there has been argument as to whether Othello was a black character of sub-Saharan decent or an Arab from North Africa. Many have concluded with some controversy that Shakespeare intended for Othello to be black. Such a conclusion has been based on Othello’s physical description and the taunts concerning his origins used in the play’s dialogue as per its publication in the First Folio in 1623. For example, some scholars have argued that Othello’s description as having “thick lips” suggests a subjective characteristic common to black Africans. In addition, the play on language throughout the tragedy (such as black and white, as well as light and dark) may imply that Othello was of black African decent. Nonetheless, it is unclear to some whether Othello should be a black man. Certainly, in an era of globalization and increasing cultural diversity, many modern scholars and productions support the idea of portraying Othello as black man. Othello was a noble, heroic, and well-respected leader, as well as a warrior who won the heart of Desdemona, a Venetian. Such traits tended not to be recognized by the Elizabethans as Moorish qualities. Unlike the stigma attached to many brutish Moors, Othello was capable of establishing relationships such as his with Desdemona. Desdemona’s choice of Othello as her husband was something not easily accepted in European society and Othello knew this, which left him vulnerable to love her. The thought of Desdemona being unfaithful was something that Othello may have envisioned as possible, for he felt undeserving to have such a beautiful and virtuous woman; this, in turn, reflected his feelings of low self-esteem. When Othello falsely discovered that Desdemona betrayed him, his barbaric “ram”-like nature pervaded, enabling him to murder his wife. Although Othello murdered her by being deceived by Iago, thereby, in essence, also making him a victim, the Elizabethans would not have expected anything less from a Moor. Upon the revelation of Iago’s evil plot against Othello, Othello’s guilt overcame him and he committed suicide, once again making him seem a strong hero, while creating feelings of pity from the audience for his misfortune. The theme of racism has a presence in the play as well. For instance, the lead character, a Moor, eloped with Desdemona, a white Venetian woman, who was also a senator’s daughter. Such an act was something unheard of to many Elizabethans. In fact, many European countries even passed laws banning interracial marriage (and Elizabeth I tried to expel blacks from England, as she thought there were too many). In addition, the Elizabethans attributed the color black to death and evil, and the interracial marriage between Desdemona and Othello was, according to Brabantio, Desdemona’s father, “against all rules of nature,” (1.3.102). In addition, he accused Othello of casting a spell on her and using witchcraft, because to him, there was no other explanation: “[T]hou hast enchanted her/. . . .Thou has practic’d on her with foul charms/Abus’d her delicate youth with drugs or minerals (1.2.62–75).” These accusations must have been difficult for Othello to endure, especially from his father-in-law; yet, at the same time, they were inevitable. The character of Othello felt ostracized by a white, European community, which may be thought-provoking for viewers who connect their understanding of racism to their own experiences and culture. In terms of a political and historical context, the play also raises issues about the religious conflict between Christians and Muslims that pervaded Europe. At the time
Ourika (1823) of the play, Muslims had invaded and at times occupied parts of Spain and Italy. Furthermore, opposition between these two religious groups had escalated in the Middle Ages during the Crusades. Ironically, Othello, a Muslim Moor, had been sent to settle the religious conflict between the Turks and Christians on Cyprus. His treatment by the Venetians exemplifies the religious unrest present. The irony was that Othello did not fit the stereotype of a warrior Moor and Muslim. His political promotion and treatment as a soldier in European society did not fit the attitudes of the time. He was sent predominantly by a Christian society to end unrest because he did not behave as a Moorish brute, but as someone who proved that he could demonstrate civility, which was how he remained until the climax of the tragedy unfolded. Some argue that he held it together until the breaking point. Othello has been a timeless piece, and the lead role has been played by many popular actors. Several famous black actors who have played Othello on film or television include Ira Aldridge, Paul Robeson, Gordon Heath, James Earl Jones, Willard White, and Laurence Fishburne. Some famous white actors who have played Othello on film or television include Orson Welles, Lawrence Olivier, and Anthony Hopkins. Olivier played the role in blackface in the 1960s, which was controversial at the time. Some unique stage adaptations of Shakespeare’s Othello have included the depiction of Othello as a white man while using black actors for the rest of the cast. Such an idea toys with society’s conception of racial power and politics, emphasizing the play’s depiction of alienation through racial prejudice to make it a universal injustice. In addition, in the nineteenth century, Shakespeare’s play was also turned into an Italian opera, Otello, by Verdi. The role has been performed by such great tenors as Luciano Pavarotti and Placido Domingo. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Hamitic Myth; Italy, African Invasions of; Italy, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in British; Spain, African Invasions of. Further Reading: Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500–1850 (Online Exhibit from the British National Archives). http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/Pathways/black history/; Kaul, Mythili, ed. Othello: New Essays by Black Writers. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1997.
Nicole Martone
Ourika (1823) The best-selling novella Ourika (1823), the first full-fledged representation of a black person’s interiority in European literature, was published by the aristocratic Frenchwoman Claire Louise Lechat de Duras, née de Coëtnempren de Kersaint (1777–1828). It is also the first novella in French to focus on interracial love, the first novella set in Europe to have a black female protagonist, and the first French literary text narrated by a black heroine. Set around the time of the French Revolution, Duras’s Ourika relates the story of its eponymous Senegalese hero, rescued from slavery and placed under the protection of
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Ourika, Charlotte (1783?–1798) a French aristocratic family. A conversation she overhears awakens her sense of racial difference and of social exclusion. When Ourika later becomes aware that her sisterly affinity for the grandson of her benefactress has turned into love, she realizes her precarious position as an ineligible other because of prejudice against her skin color, and, feeling severed from humankind, she becomes a nun (a role in which she is often cast in visual portrayals). After she tells her story to a male doctor, whose first-person account makes up the narrative frame, he informs the reader eventually that Ourika has died. Based on a true story, Duras’s novella, with its embedded narrative on the impossibility of interracial love, written in the tone of larmoyance (tearjerker), started an international cult. Ourika appeared in four editions in 1824 alone and was translated into Italian, German, English, and Spanish. Furthermore, the novel inspired not only royal comment by French King Louis XVIII and artistic endorsement by German author Goethe, but also the writing of a sequel, a parody, several elegies, theatrical adaptations, and the creation of a famous 1825 painting by François Gérard. Duras’s Ourika is part of the second wave of the movement for the French abolition of slavery, a reaction to the 1802 reinstatement of slavery under Napoleon Bonaparte and the 1805 reaffirmation of the ever stricter Code Noir. The code, in turn, was mainly sparked by the violent slave revolt on Saint Domingue begun in 1791 that had largely wiped out the fledgling abolitionist momentum of the French Revolution. French colonists’ response to Ourika (resentment for the novella’s antislavery impetus) was in tune with escalating ideologies of the perceived black menace to French racial purity. It is against this problematic political context that readers must measure Duras’s phenomenal success, as well as her achievement in bringing Ourika to France, and in imagining, with her black protagonist, the equality of black and white. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Literature, Blacks in French; Ourika, Charlotte. Further Reading: De Jean, Joan, and Margaret Waller. “Introduction.” In Claire de Duras. Ourika: An English Translation. trans. John Fowles. New York: Modern Language Association of America, 1994. O’Connell, David. “Ourika: Black Face, White Mask.” French Review 47 (1974): 47–56; Sollors, Werner. “Endings.” Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 336–359.
Charlotte Szilágyi
Ourika, Charlotte (1783?–1798) The 1823 French novella Ourika, written by Claire de Duras, was based on the life of an actual Senegalese girl, Charlotte Catherine Benezet Ourika, who was captured as an infant and brought to France as a slave during the eighteenth century. She became a domestic servant before being raised in “high society” and living in the home of the Marshal-Prince of Beauveau under the protection of his wife. Ourika was separated from her family in Africa and brought to France by Stanislas Jean Boufflers, Chevalier de Boufflers, at the end of his term as governor of Senegal
Ourika, Charlotte (1783?–1798) (February 1786 to December 1787). Although the Chevalier de Boufflers was regarded often as one of the more enlightened administrators in the French Empire at the time, he exhibited little concern for slaves. A surviving 1788 letter from him to Madame de Sabran records that he had a number of gifts, including a parakeet for Queen Marie Antoinette, a horse for the Marshal de Castries, and a “little captive” for Madame de Beauvau. Chevalier de Boufflers was the nephew of Charles Juste de Beauvau-Craon (1720–1793), a powerful French nobleman who had been the governor of Languedoc and then governor-general of Provence. When de Boufflers returned to France, he became a regular at Madame de Beauvau’s salon. Although the salon was an interesting place for men like Bouflers, Ourika, adopted by Madame de Beauvau, was isolated. Although she was well cared for in terms of food, comforts, and luxuries, Ourika’s was lonely and her exotic appearance was meant to entertain guests and make a visit to the salon a more “interesting” experience. Madame de Beauvau’s grandson, however, did make friends with Ourika. When Ourika was small, she was treated deferentially, but as she grew up, she realized that she was in a difficult predicament. Ourika was kept isolated from everyday society, being solely a way of entertaining visitors by her presence. At one ball, in particular, she was dressed in exotic African clothes, but began to suffer from racist remarks, and realized that she would obviously have little chance of meeting any possible husband. This led to extreme depression, and Ourika likely suffered from self-hatred. Little is known for certain about Ourika’s thoughts, although there is a brief record of some of them (including her acquired Christian values) in Madame de Beauveau’s memoirs. Ourika survived the Reign of Terror during the French Revolution, and died in 1798, at the age of 15 or 16. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Kadish, Doris, and Françoise Massardier-Kenney, eds. Translating Slavery: Gender and Race in French Women’s Writing, 1783–1823. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press, 1994.
Justin Corfield
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P Padmore, George (1902–1959) George Padmore (born Malcolm Ivan Nurse) was a Trinidadian devoted to the emancipation and unification of Africans and those of African descent. He can be considered the “Father of Pan-Africanism,” even if African-American intellectual W.E.B. Du Bois (1868–1963) is generally given the title. Nurse was born in Arouca (the British colony of Trinidad) on July 28, 1902. He went to school in Trinidad, where he was a friend of C.L.R. James (1901–1989). Nurse was probably introduced to politics and Pan-Africanism by his father. After being an apprentice pharmacist, Nurse left Trinidad with his pregnant wife, Julia Semper, in 1924 for Fisk University in Tennessee. After enrolling at Fisk in medicine in 1925, he moved to Howard University in Washington, D.C. to study law. In 1927, during his political activism within the Communist Party, Nurse changed his name to George Padmore. Within the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers (ITUCNW), and as head of the new Negro Bureau, Padmore traveled to Moscow, Russia; Hamburg, Germany; and West Africa. He wrote pamphlets for the ITUCNW, including The Life and Struggles of Negro Toilers (1931). Padmore resigned from the Comintern in 1934 and settled in London in 1935. That same year, along with C.L.R. James, he formed the International African Service Bureau, which fought for Africans and colonial peoples for democratic rights and selfdetermination. The International African Service Bureau also created the Pan-African Federation, of which Padmore soon became the international secretary. Padmore established the Pan-African News Agency and became a founding member of the Asiatic-African United Front Committee and the Movement Against Imperialism. He opposed the British government with Africa: Britain’s Third Empire (1949). Pan-Africanism or Communism (1956) discredited the imperialists’ propaganda inferring that all political activism in Africa and the demands for independence were inspired by communism.
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Palamedes, Sir Probably before his move to Ghana, Padmore married Dorothy Pizer and became Kwame Nkrumah’s (1909–1972) personal representative and advisor. Padmore organized the Conference of Independent States, which was held in April 1958 in independent Ghana. He was soon elected secretary-general of the All African People’s Conference, which used the motto “Independence and Unity.” Padmore worked all his life for various newspapers, linking readers to the black world. By organizing conferences (including the Pan-African Congress held in Manchester, England in 1945), he tried to promote freedom for all colonized peoples. Padmore died in London in 1959. He was given a state funeral in Accra and his ashes were interred in Christianborg Castle in October 1959. Padmore’s many other books include How Britain Rules Africa (1936); African and World Peace (1937); with Nancy Cunard, The White Man’s Duty (1942); with Dorothy Pizer, How Russia Transformed Her Colonial Empire (1946); and The Gold Coast Revolution (1953). See also: African Diaspora; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Adi, Hakim, and Marika Sherwood. The 1945 Pan-African Congress Revisited. London: New Beacon Books, 1995; Friedland, William H., and Carl G. Rosberg. African Socialism. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1964; Hooker, James. Black Revolutionary: George Padmore’s Path from Communism to Pan- Africanism. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1967.
Laëtitia Baltz
Palamedes, Sir Palamedes, a Moorish knight, is a member of the Knights of the Round Table in Arthurian legend and a prominent character in the tale of Tristan and Isolde. In some tales, Palamedes also ventures on a hunt of the Questing Beast, a strange monster from Arthurian legend that had the head and neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, the haunches of a lion, and the feet of a stag. Palamedes is portrayed in literature as the son of King Esclabor, a lord of Babylon, who converts to Christianity. Palamedes and his two brothers, Safir and Segwarides, join King Arthur’s Knights of the Round Table in Britain. Palamedes appears in the Post-Vulgate Cycle, which is a collection of the major old French prose cycles in Arthurian literature; Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur (The Death of Arthur), which is one of the most famous and significant versions of the Arthurian legend in early modern English; and the Romance of Palamedes, which exists in fragments and as a component of late thirteenth-century Italian writer Rustichello da Pisa’s Roman de Roi Artus (Romance of King Arthur). In the Post-Vulgate Cycle, Palamedes converts to Christianity during the quest for the Holy Grail, the cup used by Jesus of Nazareth at the Last Supper. Such an act releases Palamedes from earthly desires, and Percival and Galahad, both fellow Knights of the Round Table, assist Palamedes in slaying the Questing Beast. Both the Post-Vulgate Cycle and Le Morte d’Arthur depict Palamedes, along with his brother and fellow knight, Safir, siding with Lancelot, King Arthur’s closest friend, after his affair with Queen Guinevere, Arthur’s wife, is exposed. Palamedes
Pamoja and Safir eventually travel with Lancelot to France, where Palamedes becomes duke of Provence. Palamedes also plays a significant role in the tale of Tristan and Isolde, an influential tragic romance retold in numerous sources and with many variations dating from the medieval period. The tale, whose earliest versions hail from twelfth-century Norman poets, details the adulterous and doomed romance between a Cornish knight, Tristan, who becomes a member of the Round Table, and an Irish princess, Isolde, who is destined to marry Mark, the Cornish king and Tristan’s uncle. Palamedes initially appeared in the Prose Tristan, an expansion of the Tristan and Isolde legend dating from the thirteenth century that fully connects the tale to the arc of the Arthurian legend. In the tale, Palamedes is one of the knights competing to marry Isolde in a tournament in Ireland. Palamedes ultimately loses to the handsome Tristan, a fact that delights the beautiful Isolde; however, Tristan fought as a representative of his uncle. In combat, Tristan spares Palamedes’s life on the condition that he refrain from bearing arms for one year or to pursue Isolde romantically. After Isolde marries King Mark, Palamedes saves Isolde’s servant, Brangaine, and eventually joins the Round Table. Palamedes’s unrequited love for Isolde leads to much animosity between him and Tristan, leading to a number of undecided or postponed duels. Tristan and Palamedes eventually reconcile, but they maintain a tempestuous relationship. See also: Moors; Morien, Romance of (1200s); Parzival, Feirefiz in. Further Reading: Grimbert, Joan. Tristan and Isolde: A Casebook. New York: Routledge, 2002; Lacy, Norris. The Arthurian Handbook. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1997; Malory, Thomas. La Morte d’Arthur. ed. Stephen Shepherd. New York. W. W. Norton, 2003; The Romance of Tristan. trans. Renee L. Curtis. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Eric Martone
Pamoja Pamoja (Movement of the Young African Diaspora in Austria) is an organization composed of young individuals of black African descent living in Austria founded in 1996. Austria has a small black population, prompting many black Austrians to feel isolated or ostracized from mainstream society. Furthermore, black Austrians face prejudice and discrimination, as well as negative stereotypes within Austrian society. Pamoja promotes black interests in Austria and attempts to unite the black community into a cohesive force to implement positive change. Consequently, Pamoja means “together” in Swahili, an African language, and its logo is an Adinkra symbol from Ghana called Pempamsie, which means “unity is strength.” In pursuit of this objective, Pamoja holds meetings, seminars, and other community activities. The organization attempts to promote positive aspects of black culture and identity to create better race relations through education and understanding. As part of this objective, in 1997, the organization introduced Black History Month celebrations in Vienna. See also: Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD); Central Europe, Blacks in; Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD); Literature, Blacks in German and Central European; Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN).
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Eric Martone
Pan-Africanism Pan-Africanism refers to a range of ideologies and practices that are by no means always in accord. There are two aspects to Pan-Africanism: its political focus with pragmatic objectives and its philosophical focus, founded on the idea that there is an African cultural essence possessed by Africans and their descendants, wherever they may be. Sometimes these two aspects are united in a single movement or ideology, sometimes not. Pan-Africanism arose as a response to European actions, such as the claims of African inferiority, lumping Africans into a single category, and racial discrimination. The trans-Atlantic slave trade is critical to the development of Pan-Africanism for two reasons. First, huge numbers of Africans from all over the continent were taken to the Americas, where they forged a new, common identity. Second, the trans-Atlantic slave trade ultimately led to the European colonization of Africa, giving peoples from all over the continent the shared experience of European imperialism. Both these processes led to the emergence of a consciousness as “black” or “African.” The development of a Pan-African consciousness began first in the Americas. Some African-identifying Americans argued that that descendants of Africa could never be free in the Americas and that they would achieve full freedom only in Africa. These were the sentiments that spurred the various “Back to Africa” movements that emerged in the Americas. Jamaica-born and longtime U.S. resident, Marcus Garvey, was the most famous proponent of this view. Most descendants of Africa in the Americas remained in the continent of their birth, but some migrated to Africa. Modern Liberia dates from the colonization efforts of African Americans in the first half of the nineteenth century; and Sierra Leone, which was founded in the late eighteenth century, also received a small, but notable, number of colonists from different parts of the Americas. The Virgin Islands-born polymath Edward Wilmot Blyden, who migrated to Liberia and spent the rest of his life in Africa, is considered by some to be “the father of Pan-Africanism.” In 1900, the Trinidadian lawyer Henry Sylvester Williams convened the first PanAfrican Conference in London. The conference was attended by Africans as well as people of African descent from the Americas. Subsequently, United States scholar W.E.B. Du Bois convened a series of Pan-African Congresses. The first was held in 1919 in Paris to run concurrently with the Versailles Peace Conference that ended World War I. The Second Pan-African Congress was held in 1921 in successive sessions in several European cities, including London, where the “London Manifesto” was passed. The Fifth Pan-African Congress met in Manchester, England in 1945 and was a turning point in the history of Pan-Africanism and the Congresses. For the first time, Africans, many of whom would later lead their respective countries after independence, took center stage. Like previous meetings, this Congress passed resolutions condemning racial discrimination around the world.
Pareja, Juan de (1610?–1670) In 1957, Ghana (formerly the Gold Coast) became the first sub-Saharan African country to gain its independence. Kwame Nkrumah, Ghana’s leader, was one of the organizers of the 1945 Pan-African Congress and had been involved in a variety of Pan-Africanist movements in the United States and United Kingdom, where he had studied. Nkrumah called for a United States of Africa. He had a Pan-Africanist vision that was staunchly continental. This view was reflected in the First Conference of Independent African States in Ghana in 1958. The only independent African countries at the time were Ghana, Liberia, Sudan, and the countries of North Africa. Some PanAfricanists rejected the inclusion of North African states on the basis that they were culturally different from sub-Saharan Africa. Pan-Africanism is often seen as belonging to the Anglophone world, but many prominent Francophone activists and intellectuals, such as the politician Blaise Diagne of Senegal, participated in the Pan-African Congresses. Négritude, a movement that developed in the Francophone world, is often regarded as the Francophone equivalent. As with Pan-Africanism, the views of the proponents of Négritude range over a wide spectrum. Some theorists of Négritude subscribe to the view that there is an African cultural essence, whereas others focus on the need for unified political action. Whatever their position, all promote black pride. In 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU) was founded in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to promote greater continental integration and cooperation. By this time, most African countries were independent, with the exception of the settler colonies of South Africa. The OAU maintained a position in support of black majority rule in these countries. The Pan-Africanist objective of greater African cooperation was taken up by the African Union, which was founded in 2002. See also: African Diaspora; Alcindor, John; Césaire, Aimé; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Fanon, Frantz; Horton, James; James, C.L.R. Further Reading: Adi, Hakim. West Africans in Britain, 1900–1960: Nationalism, Pan-Africanism and Communism. London: Lawrence and Wishart, 1998; Esedebe, Peter O. Pan Africanism: The Idea and Movement, 1776–1963. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1982.
Anene Ejikeme
Pareja, Juan de (1610?–1670) Juan de Pareja was a slave of African descent who worked in the household of Spanish painter Diego Velázquez of Seville, Spain. Pareja eventually earned his freedom and went on to become a noted painter of his time. Although there is conflicting scholarship on the date and circumstances of his birth, Pareja was born to Zulema, who was either a Moor or a West Indian slave. His father is unknown and speculation is that he was also either a Moorish slave, or a white Spaniard. When Pareja was five years old, his mother died and he became the property of the famous painter Diego Velázquez. Research suggests several different versions of Velázquez’s acquisition of Pareja.
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Although not employed to be a painter, Pareja watched Velázquez carefully. Velázquez would not allow Pareja to paint, but they developed a close bond as Pareja began working with Velázquez, serving as a color grinder and assistant. How Pareja became a free man is not certain, but there are two versions of note. The first is rather simple. It is suggested that on the death of his wife and recognizing their close bond of friendship, Velázquez freed Pareja. The other version is more complex. As the story goes, Velázquez was awaiting a visit from the king of Spain, Philip IV. Unknown to Velázquez, Pareja had begun painting in secrecy. Velázquez had many of his works of art on display for the king to view and, according to this story, Pareja put one of his paintings among the others. The king noticed Pareja’s painting and liked it, which was, in essence, the start of Juan de Pareja. Portrait by Diego de Velázquez, his own career as an artist. c. 1650 © The Metropolitan Museum of Art /Art There are two well-known paintings involvResource, NY. ing Pareja. One of the paintings is a portrait of Pareja by Velázquez. Research suggests that Velázquez made the portrait of Pareja in preparation for another painting that he was going to paint under difficult circumstances. The second painting, named the “Calling of St. Matthew,” is Pareja’s best-known work and currently hangs in the Prado in Madrid. See also: Art, Blacks as Represented in European; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Gomez, Sebastian; Latino, Juan; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: De Treviño, Elizabeth Borton. I, Juan de Pareja. New York: Bell Books, 1965.
Robert Nave
Parzival, Feirefiz in Feirefiz Angevin is a courtly knight and the biracial half-brother of the main character Parzival in the Middle High German epic poem Parzival (c. 1200–1210) by Wolfram von Eschenbach (1170?–1220?). Feirefiz, the son of the white knight Gahmuret of Anjou and the Queen Belakane, a Moor, has the checkered appearance of a magpie, with face and hair both black and white. As one of Wolfram’s creative additions to earlier romances of the quest for the Holy Grail, or the cup used by Jesus of Nazareth at the Last Supper, the story of Feirefiz is memorable, not only for its unusual representation of blackness, or its exploration of the moral coding of the black/white contrast, but also for the questions it raises about the relation between modern perceptions of race and religious color symbolism.
Phillips, Caryl (1958–) The presence of Feirefiz in the narrative of Parzival’s moral growth from birth to becoming Grail King is significant. On a quest after his father, the heathen Feirefiz challenges Parzival in a climactic duel and, through his knightly prowess and noble character, proves to be the only opponent equal to Parzival: Gaining strength by thinking of his wife Sekundille, Feirefiz recovers from a blow to his helmet, sees his opponent without a sword, and after flinging his own sword, even circumvents the chivalric code by revealing his identity first. Recognizing each other, the two embrace and go to the British King Arthur. Subsequently, Feirefiz is admitted to the legendary Knights of the Round Table and Parzival becomes Grail King. Feirefiz is baptized and later establishes Christianity in India, and Prester John, the son Feirefiz has with his second wife Repanse de Schoye, becomes the legendary Christian priest and king. Because of his appearance, Feirefiz is often regarded as a foil for Parzival, embodying and visually representing the flawed nature his half-brother must overcome in his journey to triumph, as well as symbolizing the black and white appearance of writing the text of the romance itself. The hierarchic contrast of black and white, however, introduced early in the poem as the metaphorical opposition between the darkness of hell and heaven’s brightness, and rooted in Christian symbolism, does not apply to racial difference; the representations of Belakane’s purity and virtue, and of Feirefiz’s heathen nobility as tantamount to its Christian counterpart in Parzival, are often regarded as examples of attitudes toward blackness that are unmarked by color prejudice. Some scholars, however, diverge from this interpretation of race, often citing the problematic act of conversion. Yet the character of Feirefiz raises issues not only of hierarchy, but also of heredity. Set in a text that emphasizes lineage, Feirefiz has also been regarded an early literary manifestation of the interest in questions of interracial genealogy, and of human origins in general. See also: Morien, Romance of; Palamedes, Sir. Further Reading: Lampert, Lisa. “Race, Periodicity, and the (Neo-) Middle Ages.” Modern Language Quarterly 65 (September 2004): 391–421; Sollors, Werner. “Origins.” In Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997, pp. 31–47; Swinburne, Hilda. “Gahmuret and Feirefiz in Wolfram’s ‘Parzival.’” Modern Language Review 51 (1956): 195–202.
Charlotte Szilágyi
Phillips, Caryl (1958–) Caryl Phillips is a black British novelist, essayist, and playwright. Much of his work is characterized by a concern with the themes and repercussions of the Atlantic slave trade, and the resulting ambiguity of black identity. Phillips was born in the village of St. Pauls, St. Kitts, in the West Indies (Caribbean), and moved with his family to England when he was 12 weeks old. After growing up in mostly white, working-class neighborhoods in Birmingham and Leeds, Phillips attended Queen’s College, Oxford, where he graduated with an honors degree in English language and literature in 1979.
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Piar, Manuel Carlos (1774–1817) Phillips began his career as a playwright. His first play, Strange Fruit, was produced in Sheffield in 1980, and was followed by a number of plays for stage and radio. In 1985, Phillips published his first novel, The Final Passage. Like much of Phillips’s early work, The Final Passage examines the cultural dislocation of West Indian immigrants in Britain. After the publication of The Final Passage, Phillips continued working in multiple genres. He published a second novel, A State of Independence, in 1986, and a screenplay, Playing Away, that same year. A travelogue, The European Tribe, was published in 1987, and a third novel, Higher Ground, in 1989. Higher Ground marked a shift in the complexity and scope of Phillips’s writing. It featured a global setting and multiple narratives, both of which would become hallmarks of the author’s later work. In 1991, Phillips won the London Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year award for his novel Cambridge, which he followed three years later by Crossing the River (1994). An epic, multithreaded story of 250 years of African Diaspora, Crossing the River was one of the most critically celebrated novels of the year, winning the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, and being short-listed for the Booker prize. In recent years, Phillips has confronted the subject of the African Diaspora most explicitly in his nonfiction. An anthology, Extravagant Strangers (1997), a second travelogue, The Atlantic Sound (2000), and a book of essays, A New World Order (2001) all directly address this theme. At the same time, the scope of Phillips’s fiction continues to widen. The Nature of Blood (1997) centers around a Holocaust survivor, and A Distant Shore (2003) concentrates on the relationship between a retired British schoolteacher and an African immigrant. Phillips’s recent novel, Dancing in the Dark (2005)—a fictionalization of the life of vaudevillian Bert Williams—is his first book set entirely in the United States. In addition to his writing, Phillips has taught at colleges and universities throughout the world. Along with full professorships at Amherst College and Barnard College, he has held visiting teaching positions in many countries, including Ghana, Poland, Canada, Singapore, and Barbados. In 2005, Phillips became a professor of literature and creative writing in the Yale University English Department. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Ledent, Bénédicte. Caryl Phillips. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002
Kristen Roupenian
Piar, Manuel Carlos (1774–1817) Manuel Carlos Piar was the biracial general-in-chief of the revolutionary army that fought the Spanish during the Venezuelan War of Independence. Piar was born in 1774 in Willemstad, Curacao. His father was a Spanish sailor and his mother was a Dutch woman of black African descent. Piar grew up facing racial discrimination, and when he was 10 years old, he and his mother moved to La Guaira in Venezuela, then a Spanish colony. Although Piar did not attend school, he was able to read and write, establish basic general knowledge, and learn to speak several languages. In 1797, Piar took part in the unsuccessful Gual and Espana Conspiracy to try to achieve independence from
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic Spain. In 1804, Piar was serving in the Spanish militia against the British, who were trying to take Curacao. Three years later, he was supporting the revolutionaries in Haiti against the French. Piar’s early military adventures inculcated in him a desire to achieve Venezuelan independence from the Spanish. He joined the revolutionary forces and served in the navy at Puerto Cabello, where he was put in command of a ship involved in fighting the Spanish at the 1812 Battle of Sorondo on the Orinoco River. The Spanish were soon able to gain the upper hand in the fighting, and Piar sought refuge on the island of Trinidad, which was controlled by the British. In 1813, he returned to Venezuela, where he was appointed a colonel in the army. Piar successfully led his men against the Spanish and enabling the eastern part of Venezuela to claim independence. In 1814, promoted to brigadier general, Piar led his troops in attacks on Spanish garrisons in Barcelona, Caracas, and Cumana, but he was defeated by José Tomás Boves near El Salado. In spite of Piar’s defeat, he was appointed major general and participated in the Los Cayes expedition. In 1816, Piar defeated the Spanish under Francisco Tomás Morales at El Juncál. He then led his soldiers in an attack on Guayana, and in early 1817, lay siege to Angostura. In April 1817, Piar defeated the forces of the Spanish general, Miguel de la Torre y Pando, at San Félix and was appointed general-in-chief of the revolutionary army. In spite of his success, Piar gained some important enemies in the independence movement, noticeably Simón Bolívar. Bolivar stripped Piar of his field command and gave him leave in June 1817. Part of the friction between Piar and Bolívar concerned the rights of the diverse racial groups in Venezuela. Piar wanted not only to end Spanish control of Venezuela, but also to create an independent country where all the citizens, including those of African (or Indian) descent would have equal rights. Piar started to conspire against Bolívar and joined with his opponents José Felix Ribas, Santiago Marino, and José Francisco Bermúdez. Bolívar, however, seemed to have feared Piar more than his other opponents, who were not interested in rights for Africans. In September 1817, Bolívar had Piar arrested and charged at a court martial with desertion, insubordination, and conspiring against the government. In October, Piar was sentenced to death, and Bolívar confirmed the sentence on the same day. Piar was executed by firing squad against the wall of the Angostura Cathedral. According to tradition, Bolívar, who chose not to observe the actual execution, is said to have heard the firing from within his office and tearfully remarked, “I have shed my blood.” See also: Haitian Revolution for Independence; Latin American Revolutions, Blacks in; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Trend, J. B. Bolivar and the Independence of Spanish America. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1946.
Justin Corfield
Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic Piracy and the slave trade had become intimately related since the beginning of European expansion west into the Atlantic. Some of the first Elizabethan “seadogs,” like Sir John Hawkins, began their careers attempting to engage in the potentially
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Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean lucrative trade of African slaves to Spanish America. Before the Assiento of 1713, in which England was contracted by Spain to supply its American colonies with slaves, pirates who preyed on the Spanish Main or off the Eastern and Western coasts of Africa were a major source of slave labor in fledgling Atlantic World communities from Port Royal, Jamaica to Boston, Massachusetts. Not only did most pirate crews before 1713 consider black peoples a valuable commodity for sale in maritime communities known as “pirate nests,” on a number of occasions when pirates were brought to trial, black and Amerindian men who worked alongside their white compatriots were found innocent because their racial status deemed them without free will. There have been numerous cases of individual black pirates before the Assiento who clearly fought with equal or greater status than their white cohort. Diego de los Reyes commanded a pirate vessel in league with the Dutch in the 1630s and 1640s, and runaway slaves held positions of authority under the buccaneer Sir Henry Morgan and the notorious William Kidd. One explanation for this break in racial expectations stems from the unusual nature of the maritime world where skill trumped all. Runaway slaves also provided pirates with valuable information about potential targets. There is greater evidence of multiracial crews during the two decades after the Assiento among the crews of infamous pirates like Blackbeard, Bartholomew Roberts, and Stede Bonnet. Some even speculate that Blackbeard himself was biracial. The specter of “interracial” pirate crews off their coasts made many colonial officials in slave societies fear that the presence of pirates might inspire slave revolts. Many historians believe that the existence of multiracial crews proves that pirates presented a radical protest against the socioeconomic and racial oppression of the early eighteenth century. Most of the colorful speeches used to support such interpretations can be found only in sources that have proven to be largely fiction and quite often satiric. For example, the French pirate Captain Misson, in the wildly popular The General History of the Pyrates (1724), described a pirate utopia that he allegedly established on Madagascar, where he espoused interracial harmony and challenged the very ideological basis of chattel slavery. Misson, however, was a fictional character likely imagined by Daniel Defoe, whose other work generally posed little challenge to the slave trade. British author John Gay dramatized the “Black Pirate” by turning his lovable rogue from The Beggar’s Opera, Macheath, into the black-faced pirate Murano in his sequel, Polly and the Pirates (1729). Although there were few black pirates in the Atlantic after the 1730s, excluding the Barbary pirates from Africa, they lived on as a literary device during the nineteenth century in popular works like The Florida Pirate. See also: Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean. Further Reading: Cordingly, David. Under the Black Flag: The Romance and the Reality of Life Amongst the Pirates. New York: Harvest Books, 1997.
Mark Hanna
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean The Barbary pirates, also known as Ottoman Corsairs, were groups of African pirates that operated in the Mediterranean off the coast of North Africa (the “Barbary
Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean Coast,” which comprises modern Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya), preying on Christian and non-Muslim ships and European cities along the Mediterranean. Many Christian European captives were sold as slaves in the Muslim world. It is estimated that between 1 and 1.25 million Europeans were captured and sold as slaves from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries in North Africa and West Asia. As a result of frequent pirate attacks, many Europeans refused to live too close to the Mediterranean coast and many European naval powers lost thousands of ships. There are many recorded incidents of attacks in such European countries as Italy, France, Portugal, Malta, Spain, and as far north as England, Scotland, Ireland, and even Iceland. In 1544, Kahir as Din captured about 9,000 inhabitants of Lipari and sold them into slavery. In 1551, Turgut Reis enslaved the entire population of Gozo, one of the islands comprising Malta, and, in 1555, took about 6,000 prisoners from Corsica as slaves. In 1563, Turgot Reis captured 4,000 Europeans in southern Spain and enslaved them. In 1554, Barbary pirates attacked the Italian city of Vieste, enslaving about 7,000 inhabitants. In 1558, Barbary pirates attacked Ciutadella in Minorca, destroying the town and slaughtering many of its inhabitants; the 3,000 survivors were enslaved. Between 1609 and 1616, Barbary pirates attacked more than 450 merchant ships; the survivors of such attacks were enslaved or ransomed. Those Europeans captured as slaves were sold along with slaves from the trans-Saharan trade routes within the Ottoman Empire, which spanned North Africa, West Asia, and parts of Eastern Europe. Slaves were used for hard labor, for work in the galleys, or in harems. The North African coast increased in its influence during the fifteenth century, when Ottoman rulers expanded their control over the area. Barbary revolts in the 1600s, however, reduced the Ottomans to little more than nominal rulers of the area. The coast received an influx of Moors, many of which had been expelled from Spain. The coast, with an expanding numbers of destitute immigrants, became a place known for piracy and criminal activity under the protection of the Ottoman Empire. The Barbary pirates came to be composed of black and Arab members. The most infamous Barbary pirates included the Ottoman Barbarossa brothers, who took control of Algiers in the early 1500s, and Turgut Reis (also known as Drugot). The Barbary pirates continued enslaving Europeans well into the nineteenth century. Ships from the Unites States also began to be attacked, prompting the Americans, along with some European countries, to take action against the pirates in the early 1800s. After a successful Anglo-Dutch raid of Algiers in 1816, which immobilized most of the pirate fleet, the pirates were forced to agree to stop enslaving Christians; but the pirates did not adhere to these agreements, prompting a British raid in 1824. Most of the remaining pirate communities along the Barbary Coast were eliminated during the French conquest of Algiers and Tunis in 1830 and 1831. The slave trade officially ended in the Barbary Coast when the European governments granted emancipation. See also: Italy, African Invasions of; Pirates, Blacks and Atlantic; Spain, African Invasions of. Further Reading: Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003; Gordon, Murray. Slavery in the Arab World. New York: New Amsterdam Books, 1990; Lewis, Berbard. Race and Slavery in the Middle East: An Historical Inquiry. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992.
E. Agateno Mosca
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Polish Legions in the Haitian Revolution During the Napoleonic period in Europe (1790s to 1810s), several Polish units served as a component of the French army. After the Third Partition of Poland by Prussia, Austria, and Russia in 1795, which temporarily erased Poland from the map of Europe, many Poles believed that the French Revolutionary government would support the Polish cause. The French Revolutionary government found itself at war with most of royal Europe. Consequently, Polish soldiers emigrated from Poland to other countries (such as Italy and France) to join local military forces and support the cause of the French Revolution. The number of Polish recruits soon numbered in the thousands, and Polish military units were created under Polish commanders. Such units became known as the Polish Legions and were considered a Polish army in exile under French command. The Polish Legions fought alongside the French army during the Napoleonic wars and took part in most of Napoleon Bonaparte’s major military campaigns. Despite Polish support, however, the French government did little to advocate the resurrection of a Polish state. In 1802, the French government under Napoleon Bonaparte sent the Polish Legions (then numbering about 5,280 men) to Haiti to reinforce the French army there in its attempt to regain the French colony of Saint Domingue. Napoleon sent the Polish Legion to avoid the loss of the units that comprised his main French army. Accompanying the Poles were German and Swiss contingents and other less favored units in the French army. A significant figure in the Polish Legion was General Jablonowski, who was of partial black descent and a prominent member of the Legion. He died of yellow fever on September 29, 1802 in Jérémie, the first Pole to die in Haiti. Many more Poles similarly fell victim to yellow fever and other tropical diseases. Many Poles became sympathetic to the cause of the natives in the Haitian Revolution for Independence; however, only 120 to 150 Poles defected in support of Haitian leader Jean-Jacques Dessalines. Most of the Poles followed their duty and supported the French. In general, the Haitians liked the Poles, whom they felt were less racist than the French. Dessalines had a brigade jokingly nicknamed Les Polonais, which was composed of newly arrived Africans. To the Haitians, these Africans, like the Poles, spoke poor Creole. There is some debate on whether the Poles participated in the massacre of 400 black French soldiers in Saint Marc. In 1803, the British declared war on France and the French forces faced increasing difficulties to maintain fighting on Haiti. In the defense of Jérémie, a group of Poles were allowed to sneak away safely to Cuba because their commander let it be known to the British commander that they were both Freemasons, a secret fraternal order. Many of the French and Haitian elites were members of the order of Freemasonry. By the 1803 French evacuation of Haiti, 4,000 Poles were dead (either from battle or from disease). Only about 700 members of the Polish legion returned to France. About 400 Poles decided to remain in Haiti; some others decided to migrate to nearby islands or the United States. Some of the Poles who immigrated to Cuba worked as privateers against the British. Those who remained in Haiti married Haitian women and had families. These Poles later received special status when the 1805 Haitian constitution barred white ownership of property (Poles, Germans, and Swiss married to
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European Haitians were exempted). Nevertheless, about 160 Poles received special permission to leave Haiti with their biracial families in 1805. The loss of thousands of patriotic and loyal Poles in the Haitian Revolution was a blow to the cause of Polish independence. Furthermore, the Haitian experience undermined Polish confidence in the good intentions of France toward resurrecting Poland. Consequently, the black revolutionaries of Haiti emerged as a warning among nineteenth-century Polish nationalists. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Russia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Pachonski, Jan, and Reuel Wilson. Poland’s Caribbean Tragedy: A Study of Polish Legions in the Haitian War of Independence, 1802–1803. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
Eric Martone
Pop Music, Blacks in Contemporary European Most black artists in contemporary European popular music emerged from the early 1980s hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues movements, especially popular in the United Kingdom, France, and Germany. These movements offered a music that blended elements from the African Diaspora. In the United Kingdom, Music of Life, the first British record label to specialize in the production of hip-hop and rhythm and blues, was founded by Simon Harris in 1982. Derek B, Hijack, the Demon Boys, Hardnoise, and MC Duke were their first artists to obtain critical and commercial success. Originally from Jamaica, Usher D. became Music of Life’s most recognizable artist. His style, a blend of reggae and hiphop, became instantly popular. Other labels, such as Mango Records and Kool Sweat, produced solo acts and groups that mixed different music styles of the African Diaspora. Caveman and Outlaw Posse created a jazzy hip-hop style. London Posse and Black Radical Mk II were influenced by reggae music. The Wee Papa Girl Rappers, Cookie Crew, and Movie Love created a radio-oriented hip-hop. MC Mell’O mixed jazz and hardcore. A new style of electronic music developed called “grime” (sometimes called “eskibeat” or “sublow”). Musical artists that are representative of this style in the early 2000s include Dizzee Rascal, J-Dawg, Wiley, Sway DaSafo, Lady Sovereign, Ghetto, AC, and Terra and Kano. In the late 1990s, the United Kingdom offered several regional hip-hop and rhythm-and-blues scenes. Several rappers, such as Blade, Black Radical Mk II, and Overlord X, were located in London. Bristol was also the home to a rise of black musicians, including Massive Attack, the Scratch Perverts, and Smith and Mighty. Bristol later emerged as home to trip hop, which was the name given to a new type of downtempo electronic music. Nottingham gave birth to the Stereo MCs. Leeds launched Braintax and Nightmares on Wax. Manchester was also home to many innovative black musicians including Ruthless Rap Assassins, Krispy 3, the Kaliphz, and MC Tunes. In France, the descendants from Berber, Arab, African, and West Indian immigrants in European popular music are influential in the rhythm and blues, hip-hop, rai,
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Popes, African rap, or zouk scenes. The first major hip-hop black French star, MC Solaar, was born in Dakar, Senegal. His 1991 hit “Qui sème le vent récolte le tempo” made him the first French hip-hop artist to go platinum. In the late 1990s, two different styles of hip-hop emerged on the French popular music scene. MC Solaar, Dee Nasty, and Alliance Ethnik represented a more mellow and commercial hip-hop style. Assassin and Suprême NTM were the leaders of the second trend, which was more aggressive and hardcore. Very controversial, these artists often glorified the murder of police officers and other crimes. Black artists from the 1980s and 1990s were restrained in their references to the African continent, as obvious Afrocentrism would have provided the French anti-Arab extreme right with racist arguments. Some black French artists addressed issues that caused poverty in African states. For example, Bisso Na Bisso’s song “Dans la peau d’un chef” refers to the corruption of African heads of state. IAM also included many African-related themes in its music. For instance, their 1991 song “Les tam-tam de l’Afrique” was one of the first French rap hits to deal explicitly with slavery. The group incorporated images associated with ancient Egypt as several of its members used names reflective of this influence. In Germany, a community of Turkish artists, including DJ Derezone, TCA, Eko Fresh, and the Microphone Mafia, created a style of “Oriental hip hop.” Eko Fresh, in its 1993 Konig von Deutschland album, describes the story of a Turkish boy growing up in Germany, torn between Turkish and German cultures and languages, illustrating the issues encountered by many Turkish immigrants in Germany. In Scandinavia, several black artists became popular in the early 1990s. In Sweden, for example, Neneh Cherry’s album Raw Like Sushi led the Swedish media to take a closer look at Sweden’s native artists. Some Danish English-language rappers, such as Static and NATiLL, Funk Flush, and Delireeus, are well known all around Scandinavia. Popular Danish-language artists include the members of Full Impact Productions (FIP), such as Orgi-E, Bai-D, TrooLS, LOC, Rune Rask, and U$O. In Ireland, several black artists became popular in the early 1990s. Marxman, for example, two Dubliners (Byrne, Lunny) and two British Jamaicans (Phrase, DJ KI) released the album 33 Revolutions Per Minute, which mixed Irish traditional music with hip-hop. Another group, Scary Éire, toured with U2, Gang Starr, Beastie Boys, House of Pain, and Public Enemy. See also: Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain; Jazz, European Reception of; Music, African Influences on European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Musicians in Europe, African American Classical. Further Reading: Mitchell, Tony. Global Noise: Rap and Hip Hop Outside of the USA. London: Ebury Press, 2004.
Tristan Cabello
Popes, African Three popes of the Roman Catholic Church, specifically Victor I (pope 189–199), Miltiades (or Melchiades) (pope 311–314), and Gelasius I (pope 492–496), have come from Africa. All three were later canonized by the Catholic Church. They originated
Portugal, Blacks in from the ancient Roman province of Africa (now Tunisia and Libya). The race of the African popes has been debated because of limited evidence, although it is conceivably possible that one or all of them were black African. Victor I, born in Africa, was pope from 189 to 199 during the reign of Roman Emperor Septimus Severus, who was also from Africa. Before his tenure as pope, the celebration of Easter, which celebrates the believed resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, was celebrated on different dates in the Roman and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Eastern Orthodox Church celebrated the feast day on the 14th day of the Jewish month of Nisan (the day before the Jewish holiday of Passover) regardless of what day of the week the 14th fell on since, for they believed that Jesus was crucified on the Friday preceding Passover. The Roman Catholic Church celebrated Easter on the Sunday after the 14th of Nisan. Victor I did not believe in maintaining the tolerance that had allowed two separate dates for the celebration of Easter. He consequently severed ties with those bishops, such as Polycratus, bishop of Ephesus, who opposed his views on Easter and Theodotus of Byzantium. In addition, Victor I changed the language of masses in the Catholic Church from Greek to Latin. Miltiades, African by birth, was pope from 311 to 314. Little is known about him or his life. During his tenure as pope, the Edict of Constantine, promulgated in Milan in 313, allowed the Christian religion to be practiced freely along with other religions in the empire. Without the persecution that had existed earlier, Christianity began to spread throughout the empire and eventually became the state religion. Constantine, who converted to Christianity, granted Miltiades a grotto in the Lateran Palace. Gelasius I, an African, had previously served as secretary to Pope Felix III. He unsuccessfully attempted to breach the division between the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. Part of his failure was in part due to his opposition to the views of the Eastern Roman emperor, Anastasius I, and the patriarch of Constantinople. Gelasius wrote a letter to the emperor arguing that spiritual power is higher than temporal power and that thus even emperors must bow to it. Gelasius also furthered the supremacy of the pope as the head of the entire Church. He worked to eliminate the remaining vestiges of pagan rites and festival in Europe and to suppress the Manicheans, a heretical Christian sect in Rome. Gelasius became known as “the pope of the poor people” because of his generosity, using the Church’s riches to ease the common people’s suffering during periods of disaster or famine. See also: Bakhita, Josephine; Benedict the Moor, Saint; Black Madonna Tradition; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Hamitic Myth; Heraldry, Blacks in European; Italy, Blacks in; Magi, Representations of the; Maurice, Saint; Roman Emperors, African; Roman Empire in Africa. Further Reading: Lopes, Antonio. The Popes: The Lives of the Pontiffs Through 2000 Years of History. trans. Charles Nopar. Rome: Futura Edizioni, 2005.
E. Agateno Mosca
Portugal, Blacks in The earliest inhabitants of Portugal were Lusitanian, believed by some to have been descendants of the southwest Asian Phoenicians. The region was under Castilian domination until it was given to Henry of Burgundy as a reward for his service against the
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Portugal, Blacks in Muslim Afro-Arab Moors. In 1143, under Afonso I, Portugal became fully independent. Lisbon was named the capital in the thirteenth century. Except for a brief period of Spanish colonization (1580–1640), Portugal has remained an independent kingdom. Because Portugal was declared the sovereign over Africa by Pope Nicholas V and produced the navigation that initiated the trans-Atlantic slave trade, relations between Luso-Portuguese and Africans are central to the black experience in Europe. Although parts of Iberia are only five miles from the northernmost tip of Africa, the Mediterranean Sea and Straits of Gibraltar provided historical barriers to African migration to Europe. Portugal was cut off from the major Mediterranean slave routes. Italy and Spain regularly imported Slavs and sub-Saharan Africans through Arab and Turkish merchants, but Portugal relied on the prisoners of the unending wars between the Moors and Christians. By the end of the thirteenth century, the Christians had reconquered Algarve, and all of the parts of Iberian Peninsula that would become Portugal were under Castilian sway. The Castilian sovereigns continued to conduct sporadic border raids but had no other reliable means of acquiring slaves. Although Portugal captured a few Canary Islanders, it remained focused on the kingdoms of its Muslim enemies. In 1317, Portugal hired the Italian Manuel Pesagno to raid Morocco for slaves. Portugal conquered Ceuta in 1415 and then was soundly defeated 20 years later at Algiers. The first Portuguese explorers to attempt the West African Coast were Anton Gonçalves and Nuno Trist. They went only as far as the coast of Mauritania, but captured 11 Berbers of the Idzzigen. Gonçalves and Nuno’s success encouraged Portuguese explorers to attack the Idzzigen; however, they met with the same organized states that had conducted the Moorish slave trade. In 1443, the Idzzigen negotiated the return of two of their nobles for 10 slaves and gold. Through negotiations and raids, the Portuguese were able to procure more than 200 Africans from the region, which they named Guinea in 1444. Relations between Africans and Portuguese took a dramatic turn during the early fifteenth century under the reign of Prince Henry the Navigator. Henry’s curiosity and determination to circumvent the Muslims led him to found a nautical college at Sagres. His explorers commenced voyaging down the coast of Africa, and eventually around the continent. In 1445, Prince Henry founded a slave market at Arguin Bay, Mauritania. This action formalized Portuguese relations with some West African sovereigns and led to the annual deportation of hundreds of persons to Portugal. Horses were used as a medium of exchange. As the demand for slaves increased, West African sovereigns, faced with the death of horses from the tse tse fly, drove up the price. Two legal victories were crucial to the ability of Portugal to expand southward along the African coast without confrontation with other European naval states. The first was the Romanus pontifix issued by the Catholic Church in 1455. The second was the Treaty of Alcáçovas signed between Portugal and neighboring Castile in 1479. Uninhabited Cape Verde was colonized in 1450; Sao Tome by 1500. The Africans deported to and enslaved on these islands were used as plantation workers. Their experiences preceded those of the Brazilians, but like Brazil, the sugar they produced was shipped directly to Portugal. The Portuguese settled at Santiago, Cape Verde to trade with Upper Guinea, as the region from Senegal to Cape Palmas was called. Their contacts were the Mandinga Muslim rulers, from whom they procured Djola, Papel, Balanta,
Portugal, Blacks in Beafada, and Nalu ethnics. Most of the peoples delivered to the Portuguese by the Mandinga were destined for Brazil, but others stayed in Cape Verde or were sent north to Portugal. By 1482, the Portuguese had sailed to the kingdom of Kongo, where they opened friendly relations with the Manikongo. They also established a northern fort called St. Jorge da Mina. The Portuguese were familiar with the skill set of the African ethnic groups they were enslaving. Africans in the western Sahara and savannah mined gold and salt, and cultivated crops. Within two decades, Lisbon had become the hub of Portugal’s slave market. In the first seven years of Portuguese slave trade, about 1,000 African people were sold to Iberia. Within a century, about 12,000 individuals passed through Lisbon. Senegal alone provided 400 people annually. That number was insignificant compared to more than 3,000 who were deported annually from Upper Guinea. Enslaved Africans were sold to Spain and Italy. The majority were retained in Portugal as domestic servants. The goods that the Africans produced were sold by individuals and taxed by the crown. Africans worked in drainage, cleared land, and worked the Iberian fields. African women were often employed as water-brokers, coal vendors, and midwives. They might also have done domestic duties such as wet-nursing and hairdressing. One domestic duty that was limited to African women was waste disposal. African women, known as regateiras, also sold food from corner eateries. From Lisbon, the African population was concentrated in Algarve and Evora. As the locales diversified, so did the tasks to which people were placed. By the mid-fifteenth century, Africans were employed in hospitals and homes, often to the detriment of the enslaved individual because they were the first deployed to the sick when plague struck. Some Africans worked in the Portuguese courts as pages, retainers, and ladies-in-waiting. Within Portugal, the African and European populations regularly intermixed and intermarried. Iberia had been under Moorish domination for seven centuries, and intermixture between Africans, Arabs, Berbers, and Iberians was by no means unusual. Most Iberian slaves had been of mixed-race, whether reflecting millennia of Afro-Euro-Asian mixture in North Africa, or having become Afro-Vandal on Iberian soil. Mixed-race Portuguese, such as the great orator António Vieira, brought international honor to Portugal. Don Sesnado, Count of Combra, was an Afro-Lusitanian Christian who had fought the Moors. Both King João IV and João VI were possibly of Afro-Lusitanian background. Sephardic Jews, who voluntarily or forcibly converted to Christianity, brought Afro-Iberian mixture to the islands of Cape Verde, where they mixed with full-blooded Africans. Jews had been royal advisers before the Reconquista, and even as “New Christians,” some bore the surname “Negro” or “Preto.” After the early sixteenth century, Afro-Portuguese, Africans, and Brazilians of varying origin were often sold by Portuguese merchants in Antwerp. Some Afro-Portuguese intermarried with the indigenous American slaves deported from Brazil and Newfoundland. Portuguese ships often carried African, Afro-Lusitanian, and Afro-Brazilian crews. These sailors contributed to Portugal’s successful colonization of Madagascar and even represented Portugal in Macao and Japan. Antonio de Albuquerque de Coelho, who was born in Brazil, sailed Portuguese ships, and served successively as Portugal’s governor in Macao, Goa, and East Africa, was descended from black Africans and Amerindians.
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Portugal, Blacks in Despite frequent ethnic intermixture, the Portuguese did not regard Africans as spiritual equals. First, the incident of religious difference was magnified by the fact that the Muslim Moors had been largely black or “tawny,” whereas Iberian Christians were usually white. Some lighter-skinned Muslims also regarded black Africans as “infidels,” no matter what religion the latter professed. The antiblack Hamitic doctrine was used by some white Christians, Asian and mixed-African Muslims, and Jews to denigrate the Malians, Ghanaians, and Ethiopians. The “tawny” and “black” Moors had also denigrated white Christians. Thus the Luso-Portuguese fixation with “purity” was in part an attempt to reclaim their heritage from the color prejudice of the Moors. James H. Sweet states that Alfonso X (king of Castile, Leon, and Galicia) can be largely credited with setting the environment for Luso-Portuguese antiblack rancor. Writing in the thirteenth century, Alfonso’s Cantigas de Santa Maria declared war on the Spanish Moors and their African allies. By the fifteenth century, the definition of a “true” Portuguese was “whiteness,” “Catholicism,” and “descent from Lusitanian stock.” The 11 Idzzigen kidnapped by Gonçalves were described as deserving bondage by evoking the theory that blacks were the cursed descendants of the biblical Cain. Baptism was an important way in which Africans were integrated into Portuguese society. The Portuguese monarchy insisted that Africans be baptized while in Africa or once they reached Portuguese shores. Part of the insistence on baptism was because the justification for enslavement was defeat of Muslims, but also spread of the Christian faith. Afonso V received a papal bull entitled Dum Diversas (1452) authorizing Portugal to claim all pagan lands for the Christian faith. The unfortunate inhabitants, according to Pope Nicholas V, were subject to eternal servitude whether or not they converted. The Romanus pontifex (1455) and Inter caetera (1456) defined the lands of “disbelief” as stretching as far away as the Indies. The lives of both free and enslaved Afro-Portuguese were regulated by slave codes. The major law was developed by King Manuel in the sixteenth century. This law made no distinction between free and enslaved Afro-Portuguese. This meant that free Africans were in danger of deportation to the Americas. It also meant that free African women were in constant danger of sexual assault without recourse to redress. The children of enslaved African women were slaves; thus the offspring of rape or concubinage could be, and were, sold by the fathers. Enslaved Africans could not testify, nor could they own property. Although murder of a slave carried the death penalty, in practice most killers simply paid a debt to the crown. Enslaved Africans were treated so poorly and subject to such harsh conditions that part of King Manuel’s motivation for drafting the slave codes was to decree lime-filled burial sites for the numerous corpses that were being “eaten by dogs.” In reaction to the draconian laws, Afro-Portuguese founded religious mutual aid societies, fraternities, and knighthoods. Free Afro-Portuguese oversaw the welfare of enslaved Africans. Sometimes free Africans petitioned the crown or sheltered runaways. Afro-Portuguese contributed to the musical heritage of the world by modifying the kora. The result was the guitar, a new form of Afro-Iberian music, and numerous dances. Some of the dances that can be linguistically tied to Africa are the mangana, arromba, guine, ye ye, caozinho, cubanco, gandu, sarambeque, cumbe and paracumbe.
Prester John The Afro-Portuguese language was known as fala de Guine. Elements of the fala de Guine indicate that many Bini and Kongo-speakers formed a large portion of the enslaved Afro-Portuguese communities. Afro-Portuguese continued the architectural tradition started by the Afro-Arab Moors by designing the Praca De Toiros bullfighting ring of Lisbon. They also designed the fishing boats, called rabelos, which Edward Scobie claims reflect a Nigerian origin. Even the city of Lisbon bears an Afro-Arabo-Lusitanian name; it was initially called Lashbuna by the Moors. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Afonso, King of Kongo; Age of Exploration; Berlin Conference (1884–1885); Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Congolese Nobility, Portuguese Education of; Hamitic Myth; Moor’s Head Symbol; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Spain, African Invasions of. Further Reading: Birmingham, David. Portugal and Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999; Forbes, Jack D. Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples. 2nd ed. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993; Metcalf, Alida C. “Millenarian Slaves? The Santidade de Jaguaripe and Slave Resistance in the Americas.” The American Historical Review 104:5. (1999): 1531–1559; Nowell, Charles E. “Portugal and the Partition of Africa.” The Journal of Modern History 19:1 (March 1947): 1–17; Obenga, Theophile, ed. Readings in Precolonial Central Africa: Texts and Documents. London: Karnak, 1995; Rodney, Walter. “Upper Guinea and the Significance of the Origins of Africans Enslaved in the New World.” The Journal of Negro History 54:4 (1969): 327–345; Rogers, J. A. Nature Knows No Color Line. St. Petersburg, FL: Helga M. Rogers, 1952; Sweet, James H. “The Iberian Roots of American Racist Thought.” The William and Mary Quarterly 54:1 (1997): 143–166.
Maryam Sharron Muhammad Shabazz
Prester John Prester John was a mythical figure who, from the twelfth to seventeenth centuries, was thought by Europeans to be a real personage, ruling over a distant Christian empire beyond the Islamic world, originally located in Asia, but from 1300 onward increasingly associated with Ethiopia. Europeans wanted to believe in the universality of Christianity and in a potential ally in their struggle against the Muslim powers. The first written reference to Prester John appeared in the Chronica of Otto van Freisingen (1145), which reports that he had set out with an army to help the Christian Crusaders in Jerusalem, but was unable to cross the Tigris. In 1165, a letter addressed to the Byzantine Emperor Manuel Comnenus (1143–1180) from the “supreme ruler of the three Indies,” Prester John, circulated around Europe. In 1177, Pope Alexander III sent a reply, but no response was received. The mythical emperor was, most important, a Christian: “Prester” signified “priest.” It was thought that he was descended from one of the Three Magi and from the queen of Sheba, and that his empire was vast, with 72 dependent kingdoms. Thus he had massive military power and untold wealth. The sultan of Cairo was said to pay him tribute, owing to his power to change the course of the Nile, which had its source in his kingdom.
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Prince, Mary (1788–1833?) The oldest surviving map that portrays Prester John is a portolan chart made by Angelino Dulcert (Mallorca, 1339). Increasingly, Ethiopia was marked on maps as the kingdom of Prester John, probably because of the arrival of regular Ethiopian embassies in Europe from 1329. These delegations visited Venice, Rome, Aragon, Naples, and Milan and established a permanent home in Rome at St. Stephen of the Ethiopians, where from 1537 to 1552, Tasfa Seyon, or “Peter the Ethiopian,” edited a New Testament in Ge’ez, the Ethiopian liturgical language. Geographers, however, were not entirely sure where Ethiopia was. The name appears in seven different locations on a Genoese world map of 1457. The Portuguese voyages to Africa from the late fifteenth century led to the modification and ultimately the dispelling of the myth that had partly inspired them. In 1484, the king of Benin told the Portuguese of a ruler named Ogàmé, a lord of lords, who lived 250 leagues east of Benin and gave his dependents a little cross to cement their friendship. This gave the Portuguese hope that they were close to finding the legendary ruler. In 1521, King Manuel of Portugal wrote to Pope Leo X to tell him that Portuguese captains had found Prester John in Ethiopia. Francisco Alvarez, who spent six years (1520–1526) at the Ethiopian court of Lebna Dengel (David II) and Queen Helena, wrote an account that exploded many of the myths. Europeans began to realize that the Prester’s territory was not so vast, his people so Christian, nor his treasury as bottomless as they had dreamed. Although it gradually became clear that even the name “Prester John” was a European invention rather than an Ethiopian reality, the myth lived on, inspiring writers from Shakespeare and Samuel Johnson to John Buchan and Umberto Eco. See also: Age of Exploration; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Italy, Blacks in. Further Reading: Gumilev, Lev Nikolaevich. Searches for an Imaginary Kingdom: The Legend of the Kingdom of Prester John. Trans. R.E.F. Smith. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988; Silverberg, Robert. The Realm of Prester John. New ed. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2001.
Miranda Kaufmann
Prince, Mary (1788–1833?) Mary Prince was an African slave from Bermuda who later moved to London, England, where she wrote an account of her life. Her book was the first slave narrative published in England by a black woman. Prince was born in Brackish Pond, Bermuda. She was the daughter of slaves; her father was a sawyer owned by David Trimmingham, a shipbuilder, and her mother was a household servant for Charles Myners. Myners died in 1788 and Prince and her mother were sold to Captain Darrell, who used them as household servants. Darrell gave Prince to his daughter, who in turn gave her to her own daughter, Betsey Williams. Betsey was the same age as Prince, and the two became playmates and friends. When Betsey’s father returned from his regular sea voyages, however, Prince’s treatment became worse. When Prince was 12 years old, she was “lent” to the Pruden family and then sold to Captain John Ingham of Spanish Point, where she was regularly
Prince, Nancy (1799–1856?) and Nero (?–1833) in trouble and flogged. Prince was then sold to another slave owner, probably Robert Darrell, who, in 1806, sent her to Grand Turks, where she was put to work in the saltpans working on gathering salt. Returning to Bermuda in 1810, Prince was sold to John Wood in 1818. Prince was then taken to the island of Antigua, where she became a domestic servant. On Antigua, Prince joined the Moravian Church and, in December 1826, married Daniel James, a widower and former slave who had already bought his freedom. James worked on the island as a carpenter and cooper. Prince’s owner, Wood, however, was angered by the marriage, which had occurred without his permission, and beat her severely. Wood then moved to London and took Prince with him to work as a servant. Slavery was illegal in Britain at the time, but Prince was unable to leave the family and fend for herself. Furthermore, if she returned to Antigua, she could be enslaved again. Eventually, the Woods threw her out of their household and Prince sought refuge with the Moravian Church in Hatton Garden. Soon afterward, she started working for Thomas Pringle, an abolitionist and secretary of the Anti-Slavery Society. Pringle had Prince dictate the story of her life, which was written down by Susanna Strickland and published in 1831 as The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave. The book had an immediate effect, with Prince’s former owner, Wood, unsuccessfully suing the publishers for libel. James MacQueen and James Curtin, however, who were prominent supporters of slavery, started denigrating Prince’s account of her life. Prince and her publisher then sued the pair and won their case. Prince was living in England until 1833, but nothing is known of her later life or when she died. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; British Anti-Slavery Society; Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman; Equiano, Olaudah; Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Prince, Mary. The History of Mary Prince: A West Indian Slave. Mineola, NY: Dover, 2004.
Justin Corfield
Prince, Nancy (1799–1856?) and Nero (?–1833) Most of what is known about the life of Nancy Gardener Prince, born free in Newburyport, Massachusetts, comes from her self-published Narrative of the Life and Travels of Mrs. Nancy Prince, Written by Herself (1850). A deeply religious woman, she contributed to the genres of spiritual autobiography and travelogue, chronicling her life in Russia, which she introduced with a description of the economic hardships that her family experienced in nineteenth-century America. As a child, she was forced to hire herself out as a servant to help supplement the family income. Having resolved to flee a life fraught with financial difficulties, on February 15, 1824, she married Nero Prince and sailed to Russia to enjoy the advantages of a life with this former seaman, who had become a servant in the royal court of Russian Tsars Alexander I and Nicholas I. Little is known about her husband, whom she refers to as Mr. Prince in her Narrative. Some believe that her formal address indicated that he was considerably older than she. Others speculate that she called him by his surname because she imitated the manners
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Prostitution in the Caribbean and Latin America Colonies, Blacks and of her former white women employers or because their marriage was a loveless one. Before migrating to Russia, Nero was a skilled cook who was one of the founders of the Prince Hall Masonic Lodge in Boston, later assuming the position of Grand Master of the Lodge, when Prince Hall died in 1807. Nancy’s Narrative details the life of upper-class society grounded in domestic politics, as well as a few of the customs and rituals of the working class that she observed during her nine-year stay in Russia. Having acquired the rudiments of literacy through religious education, she continued educating herself by learning the language of the educated classes. She also learned the art of sewing, specializing in making children’s garments. Descended from a lineage of enslaved ancestors who fought for freedom, Nancy proudly details the history of their accounts of the journey from slavery to freedom. Her story reveals the dramatic escape of her stepfather, Money Vose, who jumped from a slave ship, as well as the heroism of her African grandfather, who fought in the American Revolutionary War at Bunker Hill. Heir to a tradition underscoring emancipation, she took up the mantle in social institutions, including the church, the family, and the school. While in St. Petersburg in Russia, she undertook the task of establishing an orphanage for children in need of food and shelter. When the cold climate in Russia became unbearable, she returned to Boston in 1833. Her husband promised to join her in two years, after he had acquired some property; however, Nero never made the journey and died soon after her departure. After a failed attempt at opening an orphanage in Boston in 1839, Nancy used her talents as a teacher and missionary in the newly emancipated Jamaica. Her experiences with sexism and her efforts to educate free blacks in Jamaica were initially published as a separate pamphlet, now part of her Narrative. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Hannibal, Abraham; Russia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Braxton, Joanne M. Black Women Writing Autobiography: A Tradition within a Tradition. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1989; Peterson, Carla. Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; Shockley, Anne Allen. “Nancy Gardener Prince.” In Anne Allen Shockley, ed. AfroAmerican Women Writers, 1746–1933. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1993, pp. 48–55.
Lena Ampadu
Prostitution in the Caribbean and Latin America Colonies, Blacks and Prostitution, one of the oldest professions of women in history, was prevalent in the European-controlled colonies in the Caribbean and Latin America. The exact beginning of prostitution in the Caribbean is unclear. The local governments had a difficult time curbing and controlling it. Female slaves were used at times as “money-making instruments” by trading them for sex in exchange for money or other material gains. Female slaves were sexually exploited as concubines and slave breeders. Prostitution also became widespread as a means of livelihood for black women. In the European colonies in the Caribbean and Latin America, many black or biracial
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and slaves obtained their freedom and turned to prostitution. Such a choice was made in the face of difficulties in supporting themselves, the strict colonial social hierarchies based on race, and the common experience of previous sexual exploitation. Prostitution, combined with slave concubinage, led to the increase of biracial inhabitants in the colonies and the greater efforts of colonial governments to impose a complex social hierarchy based on degradations of blackness. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and. Further Reading: Kempadoo, Kamala, ed. Sun, Sex, and Gold: Tourism and Sex Work in the Caribbean. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1999.
Ayotunde Titilayo
Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and Prostitution is often described as the oldest profession. It can be defined technically as either extreme promiscuity or the act or practice of engaging in sexual acts for financial compensation. Because prostitution has been dominated by teenage females, adult women, and young boys, the business is linked to various forms of slavery, pornography, and domestic servitude. There are multiple forms of prostitution and a hierarchy of legitimacy within the profession. The streetwalker is the most visible face of prostitution and usually looked down on by other sex professionals. The indoor sex worker receives the most prestige. For example, in Nairobi, Kenya, Muslim prostitutes may work indoors (malaya), but non-Muslims may serve as streetwalkers (watembezi or wazi-wazi). Some prostitutes are well paid and the United Nations has reported that the current Western European sex trade is a multibillion dollar industry. Contemporary Europe has a large number of prostitutes, better known as “sex workers.” During the medieval era, some lawyers imaginatively defined a prostitute as a woman who had sexual intercourse with between 40 and 23,000 men. The demographics of prostitution in Europe are shifting. In Turkey, increasing numbers of female prostitutes from Africa and Arab lands are displacing the transvestite sex workers. Young male prostitutes, known as “beachcombers,” sell to a female clientele, replacing the better known gigolo. African and Asian prostitutes are replacing Latina American sex workers. African prostitutes originate from multiple countries. There are large numbers of prostitutes from Nigeria, Ghana, Equatorial Guinea, Cameroon, Algeria, Democratic Republic of Congo, Central African Republic, Morocco, Mali, Tunisia, Ivory Coast, and Senegal. Continental Africans join Afro-Latinas from Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Guadeloupe, Martinique, and Guiana. The majority of African prostitutes are trafficked (a term implying coercion) from Africa or are lured under false pretenses. Groups of traffickers, led by mesdames and madams, offer to arrange marriages for potential prostitutes. Mesdames or madams are often former prostitutes. Women receive legal permits to work in Mediterranean countries, especially Italy and Spain, and then are taken north illegally. Ghanaian prostitutes often enter the sex trade to cover the debts of arriving in Europe, or are presented with high debts by the traffickers. Many
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Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and are coerced into drug addiction to keep them in the trade. There is also a wide use of vodun (voodoo) to frighten young women into staying in prostitution. African prostitutes tend to be long-term sex workers because of the difficulties of getting into Europe, the cost of travel overseas, and the distance from their homes of origin. Long-term sex workers usually move in groups, are usually under the control of pimps or madams, have little or no control over their hours, and may work for more than 10 years to repay the usurious costs of getting into Europe. Because African prostitutes are often in situations of acknowledged debt, with no access to their passports, they are often subject to dangerous situations. Long-term sex workers need to make a large amount of money and therefore often take the clients with the riskiest behaviors. For example, European clients pay extra for sex without a condom, exposing the prostitute to sexually transmitted diseases, including HIV, and pregnancy. Long-term sex work has exploded in recent years, as communication has become easier, while the economies of Africa have deteriorated. The support network Solidarity With Women in Distress reports that 30 percent of sex workers are aware that they will be prostitutes before they leave their home countries. Prostitution is an investment for the sex worker, pimp and/or madam; therefore, the worker takes care of her or his health and seeks prophylactics in the form of regular antibiotics. At the same time, rates of gonorrhea, hepatitis B, and tuberculosis are increasing, and social planners link this phenomenon to the increase in long-term international prostitution. The misuse of medication may also lead to resistant forms of disease. Europe has long looked at prostitutes as potential sources of disease and has thus attempted to regulate the trade. Alexandre Jean-Baptiste Parent-Duchalet was the founder of the French maison de tolerance, a system of legal brothels linked to the penal systems. Europe has also historically blamed prostitution on immigration. At various times, the sex trade has been blamed on Jews, Romany, and Moors. Colonialism and the rise of market theories also changed the traditional relationships between prostitutes and their clients. For example, where much of the “indoor” prostitute’s work was to provide comfort, seduction, and a boost of the client’s morale, the nineteenth century saw what has been referred to as the “popularization of commercial sex.” Prostitutes began to focus strictly on debauched “sexual services” that were unavailable to married men. Prostitutes also began to work in assembly line fashion, with the introduction of “conveyor-belt sex” that was strictly for profit. European laws regarding prostitution vary from country to country, although the European Union regards the migratory sex trade to be a “crime against physical integrity and against freedom.” In an attempt to control prostitution and mitigate some of its worst effects, some countries, such as Germany and the Netherlands, legalized the trade. Others, such as France, legalize the trade, but with several limitations. In some European countries, such as Sweden, it is illegal to purchase sexual favors, but the act of selling them is legal. Increasing African prostitution has had a devastating effect on the image of African immigrants and native-born Afro-Europeans. Coupled with centuries-old European myths and racist fears of hypersexual Africans, the inequities in the global economy have contributed to a view of African women as fundamentally potential prostitutes.
Punic Wars See also: Immigration to Europe, Illegal African; Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, Blacks and. Further Reading: Carling, Jorgen. Trafficking in Women from Nigeria to Europe. International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO); Edlund, Lena, and Evelyn Korn. “A Theory of Prostitution.” The Journal of Political Economy 110:1 (Feb. 2002): 181–214; Roberts, Mary Louise. “Gender, Consumption, and Commodity Culture.” The American Historical Review 103:3 (June 1998): 817–844; Sharp, Lesley A. “The Commodification of the Body and Its Parts.” Annual Review of Anthropology 29 (2000): 287–328; Skilbrei, May-Len, Marianne Tveir, and Annette Brunovskis. “African Dreams on European Streets: Nigerian Women in Prostitution in Norway.” Jenda: A Journal of Culture and African Women Studies 8 (2006). Available at: http:// www.jendajournal.com.
Maryam Sharron Muhammad Shabazz
Punic Wars The Punic Wars were a series of three wars fought between the ancient Roman Republic and the Carthaginian Empire based in North Africa for control of the Mediterranean. The First Punic War, fought from 264 until 241 b.c.e., saw the Carthaginians and their allies being defeated in Sicily, with Rome taking control of the island and being able to seize Sardinia three years after the war’s end. The Second Punic War, fought from 219 to 202 b.c.e., involved Hannibal, the famous Carthaginian general, who brought the war to Italy with his invasion of the Italian peninsula. The Romans eventually won by landing a force near Carthage, causing Hannibal to return to North Africa, where he was defeated at the Battle of Zama. The Third Punic War resulted in the Romans attacking Carthage in 149 b.c.e., and the city’s destruction in 146 b.c.e. During the first two Punic Wars, the Carthaginians provided generals and fielded a small citizens’ army, using their wealth to hire large numbers of mercenaries, while also persuading many allied rulers to provide soldiers. As a result, although the Carthaginian command was almost exclusively drawn from the city of Carthage in North Africa, there were always many African soldiers, especially from Libya, which the Carthaginians had conquered, and from Numidia, which was traditionally allied to Carthage, although its kings did turn against their former allies at the end of the Second Punic War. The Carthaginians had established their capital city in what had been Libyan land, and many of the Libyans were forced into slavery. Gradually, they were raised to the level of tributary free cultivators, paying high taxes while having to provide soldiers for the Carthaginian army. During the First Punic War, the Libyans made up a large percentage of the Carthaginian army and the expeditionary force sent to Sicily in late 252 b.c.e. The Romans described this force as consisting largely of Libyans, suggesting that they were visibly darker and easily differentiated from those from Carthage. The Libyan soldiers were generally armed with javelins or spears, and they formed the central core of the Carthaginian army in a number of battles, especially in the First Punic War and at the Battle of Lake Trasimene during the Second Punic War. Many of the spearmen carried a large shield, whereas those with the javelin used a small hide shield. For clothing, they often wore a short-sleeved tunic made of soft red leather that later became known as Morocco leather, and many had their heads shaved except for
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Punic Wars a scalplock, making them look more ferocious on the battlefield. As well as the Libyans, the Carthaginians also used Moorish javelin soldiers, who mostly fought on foot, recruited from Mauretania (modern-day Morocco). Other Moors served as mahouts for the war elephants used by the Carthaginians. Throughout the First Punic War, it was common for the Carthaginians to use cavalry from Numidia (modern-day Algeria). The Carthaginians tended not to have large troops of cavalry, except for the Battle of Zama in 202 b.c.e., during which the Numidian mercenaries abandoned Carthage and fought on the Roman side. Most of the Carthaginian cavalry were Numidians who operated as skirmishers, riding without a bridle, and possibly using a rawhide noose over the lower jaw of their ponies. Some Numidian leaders wore skins from leopards or other wild cats that they specialized in hunting, with most tribesmen wearing a short, sleeveless tunic, armed with javelins and light spears, as well as knives and daggers, and protecting themselves with a small round shield. The Numidians were an effective cavalry and much feared by the Romans during their attacks on North Africa in 256 b.c.e. during the First Punic War, and also when Hannibal and his army invaded Italy in the Second Punic War. At the end of the latter conflict, the Romans attempted to persuade Syphax, prince of the Masaesyles tribe in Numidia, to support them. The defection of King Masinissa of Numidia before the Battle of Zama was a major factor in the eventual Carthaginian defeat. King Masinissa sided with the Romans again during the Third Punic War, although 6,000 Numidians fought for Carthage. The Romans later decided to use the Numidians on a more regular basis, and Julius Caesar mentions using Numidian horse archers in his fighting against the Belgae in 57 b.c.e. Furthermore, Numidian horsemen are depicted on Trajan’s Column dating from 106–113 c.e. Hannibal’s invasion of Italy during the Second Punic War, and his deployment of Libyans, Moors, and Numidians against the Romans, was the first time that large numbers of Africans fought in Italy. Hannibal used them extensively at the battles of Ticinius in November 218 b.c.e., at Trebbia in December 218 b.c.e., and at Lake Trasimene in April 217 b.c.e., they no longer formed the bulk of the Carthaginian forces at the battle of Cannae on August 2, 216 b.c.e., when Hannibal destroyed the largest army the Romans ever sent against him. This seems possible because the Africans had been depleted by battle and disease and had to be replaced by Spanish and Celtic tribesmen. The Africans had withstood the worst of the fighting at Trebbia, where they were used by Hannibal to outflank the Romans. Consequently, Hannibal made less use of them at Trasimene and held the African heavy infantry in reserve at Cannae. With the arrival of thousands of Africans in Italy with Hannibal in 218 b.c.e., and Hannibal not leaving until 203 b.c.e., it seems likely that significant numbers of Africans would have settled in the Italian peninsula, including those who were taken prisoner and enslaved. The account by the Roman historian Diodorus that Hannibal massacred the mercenaries whom he could not ship back to Africa seems unlikely, with some settling in southern Italy, and many others being enslaved or killed by the Romans. Certainly, the southern Italian city of Capua, which was Hannibal’s base during much of his time in Italy, became a popular center for African gladiators soon afterward. See also: Italy, Blacks in; Roman Army, Africans in the; Roman Empire in Africa.
Pushkin, Alexander (1799–1837) Further Reading: De Beer, Sir Gavin. Hannibal: The Struggle for Power in the Mediterranean. London: Thames and Hudson, 1969; Goldsworthy, Adrian. The Punic Wars. London: Cassell, 2000; Healy, Mark. Cannae, 216 BC: Hannibal Smashes Rome’s Army. Oxford: Osprey, 1998; Wise, Terence. Armies of the Carthaginian Wars, 265–146 BC. Oxford: Osprey, 1999.
Justin Corfield
Pushkin, Alexander (1799–1837) Alexander Sergeyevich Pushkin, one of the greatest writers in all of Russian literature, was a famous nineteenth-century Romantic poet, novelist, and playwright descended from a black African slave. Pushkin popularized the use of vernacular speech in his works, leading to a style of writing that combined romance, drama, and satire that has continued to influence Russian literature ever since. The Russian city of Tsarskoe Selo was renamed Pushkin in his honor in 1937. Pushkin was born in Moscow in 1799 to a distinguished Russian aristocratic family that traced its nobility to the twelfth century. One of Pushkin’s famous ancestors, however, was his great-grandfather Abraham Hannibal, a former slave from Africa who became a Russian general and favorite of Tsar Peter the Great. One of Hannibal’s sons, Joseph, was a naval commander and a navigator whose daughter, Nadejda, married Count Pushkin, whose grandfather had been privy counselor to Peter the Great and whose father had borne the scepter at the coronation of Catherine the Great. Pushkin published his first poem while still a teenager. By the time he graduated from the prestigious Imperial Lyceum in Tsarskoe Selo, he had already gained a reputation within the intellectual circles in Russia. After his graduation, Pushkin relocated to Saint Petersburg. During the course of his life, Pushkin became a committed social reformer and advocate of literary radicals. Such a position put him at odds with the Imperial Russian court. Consequently, in the 1820s, he was exiled temporarily (until he petitioned Tsar Nicholas I to release him from exile) and later placed under strict surveillance and censorship. During the 1820s, Pushkin also became a member of the Alexander Pushkin by Orest Adamovich Kiprenfreemasons and the secret society sky. Scala / Art Resource, NY.
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Pushkin, Alexander (1799–1837) Filiki Eteria (“Friendly Society”), which supported Greek independence from Ottoman Turkish control. Pushkin married Natalia Nikolaevna Pushkina-Lanskaya in 1831. The couple later became regular fixtures at the Imperial Russian court. The tsar bestowed on Pushkin the lowest court title, which angered the author who thought that the act was intended to humiliate him. Amidst rumors of his wife’s infidelity and increasing debts, Pushkin died in 1837 from wounds sustained in a duel against his wife’s alleged lover, GeorgesCharles de Heeckeren d’Anthès. Pushkin had four children with his wife, including a daughter, Natalia, who married into the Dutch royal house of Orange-Nassau. Fearing a political demonstration, the Imperial Russian government gave Pushkin a hurried and small funeral. Later, during the twentieth century, Pushkin, because of his influence on subsequent generations of Russian radicals, became a hero within the new Soviet Union as an opponent of bourgeois culture and the founder of Soviet literature. Pushkin’s most famous works include the poem, Ruslan and Ludmila (1820); the narrative poem, The Gypsies (1827); the drama, Boris Godunov (written in 1825, published in 1831); the poetic drama, The Stone Guest (1830); the poem, The Tale of Tsar Saltan (1831); the poetic drama, Mozart and Salieri (1831); the novel in verse, Eugene Onegin (published serially from 1825 to 1832); the short story, The Queen of Spades (1833); the poem, The Bronze Horseman (1833); the novel, The Captain’s Daughter (1836); and the unfinished novel based on the life of his ancestor, The Moor of Peter the Great (begun in 1827). See also: Dumas père, Alexandre; Mirsky, D. S.; Russia, Blacks in; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and. Further Reading: Bethea, David, ed. The Pushkin Handbook. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 2006; Binyon, T. J. Pushkin: A Biography. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2003; Briggs, A.D.P. Alexander Pushkin: A Critical Study. Lantham, MD: Barnes and Noble, 1982; Nepomnyashchy, Catharine, Nicole Svobodny, and Ludmilla Trigos, eds. Under the Sky of My Africa: Alexander Pushkin and Blackness. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press, 2006.
Eric Martone
Q Quassia Quassia amara is a shrub or small tree generally growing three meters tall in South America. It is used to make a bitter tasting, exotic stomach tonic that became popular in Europe and the Caribbean during the eighteenth century as a cure for vomiting and fever. The plant was named after a former slave from Suriname named “Graman” (Greatman) Quassi. Quassi was a healer or medical man, who also sold amulets to free African soldiers in Suriname. It seems that the European colonists used Quassi as an informant, seeking him out for information pertaining to such matters as the location of slaves accused of poisoning their masters. He was likely not the discoverer of the plant named after him or its medicinal use, but he was possibly the one who introduced the tonic to European scientists in the colonies. The Amerindians of Suriname were likely the first to discover the medicinal use of the plant. Quassi somehow learned of this use and then sold this information to Daniel Rolander, a student of the Swedish scientist Carl Linnaeus, known as “the father of modern taxonomy.” Rolander subsequently brought this information to Europe in 1756. Linnaeus received a specimen of the plant in 1761. Linnaeus then wrote a dissertation on the plant, which named, described, and categorized it in the field of European botany. Linnaeus’s naming system emerged as the natural sciences were becoming more professionalized. Historians such as Londa Schiebinger have argued that through the renaming of plants located in the non-European areas under its domination, European powers reinforced hegemony. Plants were usually named after an illustrious scientist or patron of science associated with the plant’s discovery. Therefore the recognition of a former slave whose connection with science was dubious as the “discoverer” of the Quassia was an anomaly within Linnaeus’s naming system. Quassi was the only former slave to receive such recognition in the European scientific community.
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Quassia The naming of the Quassia met with the disapproval of many European scientists. Other botanists of the period, however, sought to praise the former slave and present him as a heroic figure. Such actions were connected to the rise of antislavery movements in Europe at the end of the eighteenth century. Celebrating Quassi as a great discoverer helped the abolitionists’ cause by providing an intelligent, reasoning, and heroic former slave to present to the European community. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Schiebinger, Londa. Plants and Empire: Colonial Bioprospecting in the Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2004.
E. Agateno Mosca
R Race Riots in Europe Since the end of World War II in 1945, Europe has been undergoing an increased demographic shift. The European colonial empires of the nineteenth century finally collapsed and colonies achieved independence. Yet the European labor shortage led to the mass immigration of immigrants from the former colonies to Europe. Immigrant laborers continue to be a significant component of the new European economy. Many of the immigrant laborers who came or are coming to Europe are from sub-Saharan African or of black African descent. In most European countries, immigrant communities are often located in urban centers and are relegated to slums and poverty-stricken areas. Many immigrants think that they are treated inferior to white Europeans. In the decline of the European nationstate and periods of economic recession, many white Europeans have reacted negatively to immigrants and minorities. Yet in general, racial tensions are rarely addressed constructively in Europe; the trend is to ignore them. In many urban immigrant communities, the police force, which is usually white, has emerged as a symbol of the perceived injustices from the white majority. The police have often been accused of using excessive force on minorities. The combination of these conditions established the setting in which European race riots have occurred. Britain has had several race riots in the postwar era. The worst race riots in British history occurred in 1958. A group of white men attacked an interracial couple in Notting Hill, a suburb of London. The attack sparked several nights of violence between blacks and whites. A heavy police presence was blamed for escalating the tensions that erupted into the riots in the Brixton area of London in 1981. Police were attacked, shops were vandalized, and hundreds of people were injured. Police arrested more than 200 people and recorded more than 700 serious crimes. A reporter also died from injuries sustained in
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Race Riots in Europe the riots. A few days after the Brixton riots, violence erupted in the rundown Toxteth area of Liverpool, in which more than 100 buildings were burned. Throughout 1985, British police clashed with youths, many of whom were black, in London and Birmingham. Although different incidents sparked these riots, they arose from similar conditions, such as perceptions of racial discrimination, unemployment, poverty, poor living conditions, and hostile relations with the police. The violence in Birmingham spread to Coventry and Wolverhampton in the West Midlands and the St. Paul’s district of Bristol. The worst race riot in 1985 occurred at the Broadwater Farm Housing estate, where most of the residents were minority Britons, in the mostly white Tottenham district of London. Residents claimed that the police had set up a heavy police presence in Broadwater without justification. Tension brewed as many black youths felt harassed and treated unfairly. British police had to use plastic bullets to stop the rioting, which culminated in the machete murder of a police officer. Asians rioted in the Manningham district of Bradford in 1995, vandalizing shops and cars and fighting police. Britain’s 2001 race riots occurred initially in April in Bradford. The riots, which escalated, were the result of rising tensions between white and Asian Britons. The most serious outbreak took place in Oldham in May. A fight between a white teenager and an Asian teenager escalated into three nights of pitched battles and street riots. In June, rioting spread to Leeds and then Burnley, after a gang of white men attacked an Asian taxi driver. In July, violence raged for two nights in Bradford as gangs of white and Asian youths fought police. Other European countries, such as Spain, have experienced recent race riots. In 2000, days of rioting broke out against African immigrants to Spain. Violence erupted after a Moroccan man was arrested on accusations that he stabbed and killed a Spanish woman. The death came two weeks after the prior arrest of a Moroccan man in connection with the deaths of two people. Hundreds of Spaniards marched through towns, shouted racist slogans, and destroyed property. The minority communities under attack requested government protection. France, too, has been rocked by racial violence in the twenty-first century. In 2005, riots broke out in the suburbs outside of Paris after two minority youths were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation. The riots, which lasted for three weeks, exposed the issue of racial conflict in France. Blacks and Arabs, many of whom are Muslim and from immigrant backgrounds, have been forced to remain in the most disadvantaged neighborhoods. In 2007, riots broke out in Villiers-le-Bel, located north of Paris, after two minority youths whose families hailed from Morocco and Senegal were killed in a motorbike crash with a police car. Gangs attacked police and burned cars and buildings. The French government attributed the riots to several causes, including poverty, unemployment, and crime, yet failed to address the issue of racial tensions. Such incidents are not confined to Britain, Spain, or France. Similar incidents of racial violence, often directed against immigrants, have occurred across Europe, including Italy, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Sweden, Denmark, and Russia. Increasing incidents of urban violence along racial lines is forcing Europe to confront the issue of racism and redefine its own identity. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Britain; France, Blacks in; Illegal African Immigration to Europe; May 10 Holiday; Notting Hill Carnival.
Rastafarianism Further Reading: Hargreaves, Alec. Immigration, Race, and Ethnicity in Contemporary France. New York: Routledge, 1995; Rowe, Michael. The Racialisation of Disorder in Twentieth Century Britain. Aldershot, UK: Ashgate, 1998.
Eric Martone
Rastafarianism Rastafarianism is a comprehensive term for a set of discursive principles that has laid the foundation of the Rastafari movement, a religiopolitico movement, which emerged in Jamaica among working-class and peasant blacks in the early 1930s. The central belief that unites the professed, or those who identify themselves as Rastafarians (also known as “Rastas” or “Rasta wo/man”), is that Haile Selassie I, the former emperor of Ethiopia, is God incarnate. Rastafarians refer to him as Jah and consider him the Messiah promised in the Bible. Rastafarianism was named after his precoronation name, Tafari Makonen, with a prefix “Ras” (which can be translated as “head” or “duke”). Upon his accession to the throne in 1930, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church conferred on him the name Haile Selassie, meaning “Power of the Trinity,” and the biblical titles “King of Kings, Lords of Lords” and “Conquering Lion of the Tribe of Judah.” Selassie was considered to have personified these scriptural statuses and the indicated prophecies. Why Rastafarianism emerged within the African Diaspora among British-ruled Jamaicans remains open to interpretation. Ethiopianism had been common among working-class blacks through the denomination’s missionary work, which, like Baptist sects, actively recruited members from current and former slaves. Ethiopianism is a theological tradition in Christianity and is based on biblical references to Ethiopia and the assumption that Ethiopia is the “promised land” for Africans and members of the African Diaspora. Selassie appeared before the deprived African Diaspora in Jamaica as the sovereign of Ethiopia, the only fully independent African nation, as well as the “savior” leading them to “Ethiopia,” a home, or Zion, to which they could return. In Jamaica, the introduction of Ethiopianism did not cause, but rather gave momentum to, the ongoing idealization of Africa. This idealization began within secluded Maroon communities and provided the ideological basis for recurring slave revolts. Before the emergence of Rastafarianism, Marcus Garvey, a Jamaican-born publisher and entrepreneur, had already begun equating enslaved blacks with an African Diaspora and the “promised land” with Africa as part of a mass repatriation movement in Jamaica and the United States. Many Rastafarians refuse to use the term Rastafarianism, and instead use livity, which is derived from “divinity” and “living.” The term indicates their belief that a way of life is more important than doctrine. Livity consists of, but is not limited to, several components: living on a diet of ital food approved of according to laws of the Old Testament (basically vegan or vegetarian diet, characterized by the exclusion of “scavenger” meats, such as pork and shellfish); smoking cannabis, popularly known as ganja or “herb,” which they consider a sacrament that cleans the body and mind; wearing dreadlocks (often simply called “locks” or “dreads”) out of their belief that it
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Remond, Sarah Parker (1826–1894) is legitimized by the Bible; and symbolic use of the three colors of the Ethiopian flag (red, gold, and green) to sanctify the body and space. Rastafarianism, both as an ideology and as a lifestyle, has already spread throughout much of the world, largely through Jamaican migration and interest generated by Jamaican-born reggae music. See also: Afro-Caribbean Music in Britain; Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Edmonds, Ennis Barrington. Rastafari: From Outcasts to Culture Bearers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Teruyuki Tsuji
Remond, Sarah Parker (1826–1894) Sarah Parker Remond was an African American abolitionist and antislavery campaigner in Europe during the nineteenth century. An upholder of human values and a lifelong messenger against segregation, she impressed people on both sides of the Atlantic. Remond was born on June 6, 1826, in Salem, Massachusetts, to John and Nancy Remond, who were both free. Remond faced racial discrimination along with her family, and they left for Newport, Rhode Island. In 1841, the Salem schools were desegregated and the family returned. Like her family members, Remond joined the crusade against slavery. Her reading habits and listening to speeches helped her become an antislavery lecturer. She worked for the American Anti-slavery Society and in 1856 toured New York as a speaker against slavery. Her eloquence drew crowds in Massachusetts, Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Remond showed concern for blacks, not only in her own country, but also abroad. She wrote in the Daily News in 1856 criticizing attacks on blacks in Britain after the rising in Jamaica. Her oratory, determination, dedication, and ability to raise funds resulted in an invitation to Britain. Remond sailed from Boston on the steamer Arahia on December 28, 1858, and reached Liverpool on January 12, 1859. Her first meeting was in the Tuckerman Institute on January 21, 1859, where she spoke forcefully about racial prejudice and brutal treatment of black women. Remond received a rousing welcome from the white women and the abolitionists present. In her tour, she drew crowds and raised funds for the cause of antislavery. Between 1859 and 1861, she addressed 45 meetings in 18 cities in England, 3 in Scotland, and 4 in Ireland. Remond attended the Bedford College for Ladies in London from 1859 to 1861, studying English literature, French, Latin, and history. During the American Civil War, Remond lectured on behalf of the Unionists. She again undertook tours raising funds to help freed African Americans. She took active part in the deliberations of organizations such as the Emancipation Society and the Freedman’s Aid Association of London. The Ladies’ London Emancipation Society published her work, The Negroes and Anglo-Africans as Freedmen and Soldiers (1864). Remond left Britain in 1866 and lived in Florence, Italy, for the rest of her life. She enrolled in the Santa Maria Nuova Hospital of Florence as a student at the age of 42. She became a physician and, in 1877, she married Lazzaro Pinto. The later years of
Renaissance, Blacks in the her life is shrouded in mystery, except that she met her old friend Frederick Douglass (1817–1895), a fellow African-American antislavery crusader, in 1887. Remond died on December 13, 1894 and was buried in Rome. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Italy, Blacks in. Further Reading: Bogin, Ruth. Sarah Parker Remond: Black Abolitionist from Salem. Salem, MA: Essex Institute, 1974; Loewenberg, Bert, and Ruth Bogin. Black Women in NineteenthCentury American Life. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1976; Lyman, Darryl. Great African-American Women. New York: Gramercy, 2000; Peterson, Carla. Doers of the Word: African-American Women Speakers and Writers in the North (1830–1880). New York: Oxford University Press, 1995; Remond, Sarah Parker. The Negroes and Anglo-Africans as Freedmen and Soldiers. London: Emily Faithfull, 1864; Yellin, Jean, and John van Horne. The Abolitionist Sisterhood: Women’s Political Culture in Antebellum America. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994.
Patit Paban Mishra
Renaissance, Blacks in the Blacks were in England for more than 1,000 years before the Renaissance, possibly as early as 235 c.e., as slaves, soldiers, and officers. The engravings on an altar excavated in 1934 documents that a division of African soldiers stationed near Carlisle defended Hadrian’s Wall. These African soldiers came to England with the ancient Roman army. This division of soldiers is not the only evidence of an early black presence in England. Skeletal remains of a young African girl that dates from 1000 c.e. has been found and archeological excavations during the 1950s unearthed 350 human remains at York, several of which are believed to be those of black Africans. There is no evidentiary trace of blacks in England after the first millennium for several centuries, and when they reappear in the early sixteenth century, they are commodities of the modern slave trade. During the Renaissance, blacks were brought to many European countries, either directly from Africa or by way of the Caribbean, as musicians, court performers, servants, and slaves. They are found in such European countries as Scotland, England, Portugal, Spain, and Italy. It is not until the eighteenth century that blacks began to record their own histories in Europe; therefore an examination of blacks in the Renaissance relies largely on royal proclamations, court documents, parish records, diaries, advertisements for the sale of slaves, and notices to recuperate those who had fled. The commodification of those of black African descent as slaves suggests that the Renaissance was not a renaissance for blacks in Europe. The Renaissance is the humanistic revival of classical art, architecture, literature, and learning. It originated in Italy in the fourteenth century and later spread throughout Europe, arriving in England by the sixteenth century. The Renaissance was the age of Copernicus (1473–1543) and Galileo (1564–1642), who advanced the theory that Earth and the other planets revolve around the sun, disrupting the Ptolemaic system of astronomy. The Renaissance was also the age of Shakespeare (1564–1616). This was also the era not only of the new science and incredible literary output, but also of geographical explorations. In 1492, Christopher Columbus sailed west to find a new commercial route to the East and, in the process, “discovered” a new continent. The
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Renaissance, Blacks in the discovery opened the floodgates for European’s unprecedented economic exploitation of this new world and Africa, often cruel and devastating to the native peoples. Europe was breathlessly transforming itself from a system of feudal states into dominant naval and mercantile nations. While innovative art and architecture, and new learning and science, spread light on old superstitions, the influx of immense wealth and new products, such as coffee, tea, and chocolate, fueled the ever-increasing demand for slave labor. The earliest evidence of a black presence in Britain during the Renaissance is found in Scotland. Early in the sixteenth century, Scottish records document a small group of Africans at the court of King James IV of Scotland. These Africans were probably stolen Portuguese slaves. James authorized the seizure of Portuguese ships to recoup the loss of a Scottish ship to the Portuguese; these slaves were taken along with other booty. Although slavery had not ceased during the Middle Ages, only a small number of Africans were scattered across Europe. At the beginning of the fourteenth century, however, the demand for black slaves increased substantially. The Bubonic Plague, which devastated the labor force in such countries as Italy in 1348, fueled the demand for slaves in many European countries. These slaves came from such diverse areas as Africa, Spain, the Balkans, Constantinople, and Cyprus. Portugal and Spain dominated the traffic in African slaves. Among this group of slaves attached to James’s court, one was employed as a drummer and choreographer. Court records indicate that James was especially fond of this drummer for whom he purchased clothes, paid his doctor’s bills, and even gave money to his wife and child. James reportedly took this drummer with him on a pilgrimage. The Scottish poet William Dunbar recorded the presence of several black women attached to King James’s court. On December 11, 1504, one of these women was baptized. Two women are referred to as “Blak [sic] Elene” and another as “blak [sic] Margaret.” Among Queen Anne’s attendants was an unnamed black woman. James loved to be entertained and sometimes even took an active role in the festivities. Dunbar writes of a tournament in 1507 featuring a black knight and a black lady. James himself played the part of the knight. The role of the lady was played by an African woman. The tournament was so successful that it was repeated in 1508. The winner of the tournament was rewarded with a kiss and embrace from the black lady. She was regally dressed in a damask dress and was carried in a chair especially made for the tournament. Although this black lady was dressed in an expensive gown and had the king and other aristocratic men competing for her, her status in this event should not be forgotten. As a slave/courtesan, she could not refuse who kissed and embraced her, or indeed presumably with whom she had sexual relations. During the Renaissance, blacks in Europe were often stripped of their real names. They were also denuded of their dignity and humanity. The unnamed black lady is a case in point. Often they were compelled to perform for the amusement of aristocratic audiences. Such is the case of four unnamed black men who danced naked in the snow as part of James’s court entertainment to celebrate his marriage to Anne. The four young men died later of pneumonia. In England, blacks also played a part in court entertainment. At the aristocratic courts of King Henry VII (1457–1509) and his son King Henry VIII (1491–1547),
Renaissance, Blacks in the records document the presence of a black musician. Although his real name has not survived, he was called John Blanke. Another popular form of aristocratic entertainment was the court masque. James VI of Scotland succeeded Elizabeth I to the throne of England where he became James I. During his reign, the masque became popular at the English court. Written at the request of Queen Anne, The Masque of Blackness and The Masque of Beauty featured the queen herself and other aristocratic ladies performing with their faces and arms disguised with black paint. Other actual black performers also participated. These masques celebrated the supremacy of whiteness. The conditions that brought blacks to England as slaves were economics and avarice. During the reign of Queen Mary I (1516–1558), England barely participated in the slave trade. This practice was to change during the monarchy of her half-sister Elizabeth I (1533–1603). The first English man to profit from the slave trade was John Lok, who, in 1552, sold some slaves he captured in Guinea. Three years later, five Africans arrived in England. Although England was not involved officially in the slave trade, it wanted a share of the profitable trade in African gold and ivory. John Lok desired access to this market, and for this purpose, he brought the Africans to England to learn English. On their return to Shama (now part of present-day Ghana), they were to act as interpreters. John Hawkins, however, has the dubious distinction of being the first Englishman to fully traffic in African slaves. Although Elizabeth publicly denounced Hawkins’s abduction of Africans and their transportation to other countries without their consent, she nevertheless financed his second voyage in 1564–1565 to secure slaves. Through such voyages, England’s black slave population steadily increased from the 1570s. They were engaged in English households primarily as servants, but some were prostitutes and the sexual partners of wealthy Englishmen, as well as court entertainers. In 1596, and again in 1601, Elizabeth responded to the growing number of “divers [sic] blackmoores [sic]” with deportation orders; however, neither of these orders was successful. It was fashionable among England’s wealthiest citizens to have a black slave or two. They simply refused to give up their status symbols. Of course, not all Englishmen of the Renaissance approved of the exploitation of Africans for profit, and there are documented cases of their resistance. Also important is the extant evidence of black resistance to their ill treatment. The first documented court case involving a black slave is recorded in 1677. There is also the interesting case of a black woman who protested against her mistress’s intention to ship her off to a plantation. The case ended up before the courts in 1687. In 1691, an unidentified Englishman wrote that as soon as a foreign slave sets foot in England, he or she was no longer a slave. This did not free the slave from servitude; it was not until the early eighteenth century that Lord Chief Justice Holt confirmed this idea. The experiences of blacks in the Renaissance varied. Some were entertainers for royalty, whereas others were employed as menials in English and Scottish households. Many blacks in this period were deprived of their freedom as well as of their birth names. In some cases, black women contended not only with economic exploitation, but also with sexual victimization. Although some blacks resisted their conditions and took their fight to the courts, the conditions of blacks in the Renaissance could differ in direct relation to their geographical location. The case of a black woman protesting
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Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) her impending exportation to a plantation suggests that the condition of blacks in the Caribbean and in Europe differed. In many ways, the fourteenth through seventeenth centuries was a period of economic, social, and cultural flowering; but for many others, such as nonwhites and non-Christians, this period was not a renaissance. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Common Law, Slavery and English; Free Soil Principle; Literature, Blacks in British; Othello; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and; Roman Army, Africans in the; Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984; Hall, Kim F. Things of Darkness: Economies of Race and Gender in Early Modern England. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995.
Richardine G. Woodall
Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN) In the wake of the Paris race riots in 2005, in which youths, many of whom were black or Arab, protested against social and economic inequalities, blacks in France established the Conseil Représentative des Associations Noires (“Representative Council of Black Associations,” CRAN). The council, which had been in the planning stages before the riots, united about 60 organizations to form a common front against perceived racism and the lack of (positive) representation in the public sphere. Some of its leading members include Patrick Lozes, politician Christiane Taubira, human rights activist Fodé Sylla, and scholars Pap Ndiaye and Francoise Vergès. In the early twentieth century, France was perceived by African American intellectuals as a haven from the racism that they encountered in the United States. Indeed, the topic of race emerged as a frequent topic of French intellectual debate. The French debate on racism, however, revolved around French conduct toward its Arab and black African colonies as well as the status of its Pacific territories. After the independence of France’s colonies, the topic of race receded from the public arena. CRAN argues that contemporary France does not adhere to the principles of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” that are the foundations of French republicanism. Many members of CRAN challenge the French model of assimilation, arguing that they can be both black and French. CRAN draws its inspiration from 1960s African American Civil Rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. and advocates an American-like policy of affirmative action to support black employment. Leaders of CRAN have been developing a strategy to realize its goals. The group hopes to mobilize France’s black population into a cohesive pressure group or voting bloc. More than 130 local black civic associations make up its membership across France. The group regularly protests perceived racist images or descriptions in the media such as television. It has also protested the way standard French dictionaries define “colonialism” and laws prohibiting the collection of racial and ethnic statistics.
Rhineland Blacks See also: Artists in Europe, African American; Authors in Europe, African American; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; May 10 Holiday; Race Riots in Europe; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Thomas, Dominic. Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006; Winders, James. Paris Africain: Rhythms of the African Diaspora. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
Eric Martone
Rhineland Blacks The armistice after World War I and the Treaty of Versailles gave France and other victorious powers the right to occupy some western provinces of Germany for a limited number of years. The French army of occupation stationed in the Rhineland included soldiers from North Africa and some black soldiers from West Africa (tirailleurs sénégalais). These soldiers became the focus of a slander campaign aiming to discredit the use of black troops by the French army and, to some extent, the French occupation of German lands in general. This campaign triggered a strong response, not only in Germany itself, but also in Britain, the United States, Italy, and the Vatican. Not the least a result of this international pressure, the French army agreed to withdraw its black army units from Germany by 1923, although a few black soldiers remained in North African units. The public campaign against the black soldiers depicted the blacks as uncontrollable rapists and perverts. That most accusations remained unproven did nothing to dent the credibility of the campaign. Children from liaisons between black soldiers and German women, called Rheinlandbastarde (“Rhineland Bastards”), were later sterilized by the Nazis. The term Rhineland blacks refers to the children of African soldiers and German women, regardless of whether the fathers were from black Africa or from North Africa. Of the 95,000 French soldiers stationed in Germany’s westernmost provinces after World War I, there were approximately 20,000 people of color. Most of these soldiers came from North Africa, and only a minority were black tirailleurs sénégalais. The French army, which itself did not recognize African soldiers as equal to white French soldiers, at first attempted to establish bordellos with women drafted from Africa; but this program failed miserably because not enough volunteers from Africa could be found, and because African soldiers preferred to use the same German bordellos as white French soldiers. Soldiers of color and German women began relationships, some of which led to marriage. The contacts between Africans and German women triggered much outrage, inspired partly by British journalist E. D. Morel (1873–1924), whose pamphlet The Horror on the Rhine claimed that the black troops stationed in Germany were committing outrages and should be withdrawn. The allegations of rape soon became the centerpiece of a massive German press campaign against the “black horror on the Rhine” that enjoyed widespread public support and received funding from the German government. This campaign reflected the German fear of racial miscegenation and the spread of tropical diseases, and it also aimed at discrediting the French army and its occupation of German lands. The smear campaign against the African soldiers
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Rhineland Blacks usually implied that sexual contacts between Africans and German women were involuntary and emphatically denied that most of these relations were consensual. In fact, the German press campaign notoriously failed to report that almost all of the alleged outrages could not be proven, and that the African soldiers perpetrated proportionally far fewer crimes than those by white French or prewar German units stationed in the Rhineland. The number of biracial children from the Rhineland occupation was never established with precision, but estimates range from 380 to 800. Already during the Weimar Republic in post-World War I Germany, government officials talked about the alleged dangers these children presented for the “purity” of the German race once they reached puberty. Believing that biracial people were of lesser genetic value, but more likely to have more children than “pure” Germans, some government officials saw the Rhineland blacks as the start of a racial epidemic that would weaken the German nation. One influential proposal was to sterilize these children, but it proved impossible to do this legally. The radical right-wing press suggested that Jews in France had deliberately sent Africans to the Rhine to cause a racial “epidemic” in Germany. Having come to power, the Nazis decided to do something about the threat allegedly emanating from the Rhineland blacks. In 1933, Prussian Interior Minister Hermann Goering ordered the official registration of all mixed-race children from the Rhineland. On the basis of these data, racial hygienists began their dubious research into the believed racial inferiority of the children. If the biracial children showed severe hereditary illnesses, they could be forcefully sterilized on the basis of a Nazi law passed in July 1933. The experts did their utmost to have their prejudices about the racial “inferiority” of these children confirmed, but they could not classify them as hereditarily ill. Legal sterilization therefore was not possible. An alternative measure was expulsion to another country, but it was dismissed as impractical because it was likely to trigger negative foreign reactions. Finally, a special commission of the German Secret State Police was formed with the purpose of sterilizing the Rhineland blacks illegally. It is possible, although not proven, that Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler had the decisive say in this matter. From 1937 onward, the biracial children from the Rhineland that the German administration had tracked down were sterilized. The mothers often opposed this measure, but the threat of deportation to a concentration camp usually overcame their resistance. German physicians, although probably aware of the illegality of the program, collaborated. Some of the “Rhineland blacks” were later drafted into the German army. The sterilization of the “Rhineland blacks,” although affecting only a small number of people, is generally recognized as an important aspect of Nazi Germany’s effort to “purify” the race through a broad range of policies from expulsion to sterilization, euthanasia, and genocide. A concise and influential book by German historian Rainer Pommerin (Sterilisierung der Rheinlandbastarde), published in 1979, brought this Nazi policy to public attention. See also: French Army, Blacks in the; Germany, Blacks in; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; Scientific Racism; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Campt, Tina. Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender, and Memory in the Third Reich. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004; Le Naour, Jean-Yves. La honte noire. L’Allemagne et les troupes coloniales françaises 1914–1945. Paris: Hachette Littérature, 2003; Marks, Sally. “Black Watch on the Rhine: A Study in Propaganda,
Richmond, Bill (1763–1829) Prejudice and Prurience.” European Studies Review 13 (1983): 297–334; Maß, Sandra. “Das Trauma des weißen Mannes. Afrikanische Kolonialsoldaten in propagandistischen Texten, 1914– 1923.” L’Homme. Zeitschrift für feministische Geschichtswissenschaft 12:1 (2001): 11–33; Nelson, Keith. “‘The Black Horror on the Rhine’: Race as a Factor in Post-World War I Diplomacy.” Journal of Modern History 42:4 (1970): 606–627; Pommerin, Rainer. Sterilisierung der Rheinlandbastarde. Das Schicksal einer farbigen deutschen Minderheit 1918–1937. Düsseldorf: Droste, 1979; Reinders, Robert C. “Racialism on the Left: E. D. Morel and the ‘Black Horror’ on the Rhine.” International Review of Social History 13 (1968): 1–28.
Raffael Scheck
Richmond, Bill (1763–1829) Bill Richmond was a former African slave in America who executed Revolutionary War hero Nathan Hale. He was born a slave in New York in 1763. His parents were slaves from Georgia. Richmond became a servant of Lord Percy, the Duke of Richmond (later Duke of Northumberland), from whom he gained his name. Lord Percy was then commanding general of the British forces in New York during the American Revolution. Richmond came to Lord Percy’s attention after a tavern brawl involving Richmond and some British soldiers. Lord Percy arranged contests for Richmond against British soldiers in New York as entertainment for guests. Richmond was in Manhattan when Nathan Hale, the American revolutionary agent regarded as the first spy for the United States, was captured by the British in September 1776. The British declared Hale a spy, and Richmond, at the age of 13, was chosen to be the hangman at the execution at the Park of Artillery (modern-day 66th Street and Third Avenue). Richmond presided at the execution on September 22. In 1777, Richmond went to England with Lord Percy and attended a school in Yorkshire before being apprenticed to a tradesman in York. Although Richmond was small in stature, he became a professional boxer in England. He developed his own style, which involved side stepping his opponents’ bull rushes. During the late 1770s, his most notable victories were against boxers George Moore, Paddy Green, and Frank Mayers. Richmond won numerous bouts in the early 1800s despite suffering a key loss to George Maddox at Wimbledon Commons in 1804. Richmond’s loss to Tom Cribb, later the British and then world champion, at Hailsham, Sussex slowed his career. Richmond boxed less frequently after his loss to Cribb, although he did have several more matches. In 1809, Richmond won 100 guineas for defeating George Maddox in a match. During his boxing days, Richmond was a friend of, and later a coach for, Tom Molineaux, another freed slave from America who became a boxer. After marrying a wealthy woman, Richmond retired from boxing and bought the Horse and Dolphin public house in Leicester Square. He also set up a boxing academy. He died in his home in London in December 1829. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Ashe, Arthur. A Hard Road to Glory: A History of the African American Athlete in Boxing. New York: Amistad, 1988; Rose, Alexander. Washington’s Spies: The Story of America’s First Spy Ring. New York: Random House, 2006.
Justin Corfield
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Riley, Joan (1958–)
Riley, Joan (1958–) Joan Riley is a Jamaican-born writer who has become a major figure in black British literature since the publication of her first novel, The Unbelonging (1985). Her work often reflects the influence of her experience moving from the Caribbean to Britain. Born in 1958 in Jamaica, Riley was the youngest of eight children and grew up in a working-class family. At school, she studied the major works of British literature and moved to England, studying at the University of Sussex. She graduated in 1979, and five years later, completed a graduate degree at the University of London. Riley’s move from the Caribbean to England influenced her dramatically, and most of her writing deals with the experiences of West Indian (Caribbean) women moving from the West Indies to England. Riley’s first novel, The Unbelonging (1985), was about Hyacinth, an 11-year-old girl, who grew up in Jamaica, living with her aunt, and then left the Caribbean to join her father in Britain. There she found the life in inner-city Britain gloomy, and the title refers to her own view of herself. Hyacinth experiences isolation and racial hostility at school and violence from her father; she spends some of her time in daydreams of Jamaica or success in school in England. The story was based partly on the life of a girl that Riley had met while being a social worker, and the book became controversial because some writers perceived it as portraying a negative view of the West Indian community in Britain. Riley’s next novel, Waiting in the Twilight (1987), follows the life of an older migrant, Adela. A seamstress in the West Indies, Adela later tries to make a living in Britain. The title of the novel comes from Adela’s reflections on her life after she has become a grandmother and has been crippled by a stroke. She has been let down by her husband and lover, but her desire to maintain her dignity at all times never fades. Riley’s third novel, Romance (1988), is set in the London suburb of Croydon and is about two sisters who contrast their real lives with the fictional imagery associated with romance. Riley’s fourth novel, A Kindness to the Children (1992) details the lives of three women, one a Jamaican housewife, the second a first-generation migrant, and the third a second-generation migrant. Between them, they have a range of differing and contrasting views of postcolonial society; the failure of one of them is compared graphically to the relative success of the other two. Riley teaches black history and culture in Britain and is involved in work for a drugs advisory service, as well as being active in campaigning for single parents. She regularly campaigns on behalf of Afro-Caribbean women in both Jamaica and Britain. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Riley, Joan, and Briar Wood, eds. Leave to Stay: Stories of Exile and Belonging. London: Virago, 1996; Stringer, Jenny, ed. The Oxford Companion to TwentiethCentury Literature in English. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.
Justin Corfield
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth
Rio Branco Law of Free Birth The Rio Branco Law of Free Birth (also known as the Law of the Free Womb and the September 28 Law), which was passed on September 28, 1871, aimed to reform the institution of slavery in Brazil by mandating a process of gradual emancipation. The law’s main provision granted freedom to the newborn children of slaves. Although Brazil had long faced pressure from England on the slavery question, the violence surrounding the ending of slavery in the United States, together with the abolition of slavery throughout Latin America and the European colonies, brought a renewed urgency to the issue. Responding to an 1866 letter from the French Comité pour l’Abolition de l’Esclavage (“Committee for the Abolition of Slavery”) that had urged the freeing of all Brazilian slaves, the government relayed the Brazilian emperor Pedro II’s commitment to emancipation and his plans to enact changes as soon as Brazil had ended its participation in the Paraguayan War. The war itself had prompted new questions about the morality of the system, as many slaves had been granted freedom in exchange for their service in battle. Eventually, after several changes in ministry leadership after the war, the Viscount of Rio Branco, a conservative politician from the northeastern state of Bahia, pushed through a proposal for reform. The Rio Branco Law stipulated that children born to slaves would continue to work for their mother’s master until reaching the age of 21. Masters had the option of turning slave children over to the state at the age of eight and receiving indemnification for the expense of raising them. The law also granted slaves the right to a pecúlio, or personal savings, that could be used for buying freedom; established the creation of an emancipation fund to free a select number of slaves; freed all slaves belonging to the imperial government; mandated an official national slave registry; and created provisions for young slaves abandoned or turned over to the government by their owners. The Rio Branco Law set off a heated debate in the Chamber of Deputies and galvanized public debate on the issue of slavery. Slave owners believed the law failed to compensate them sufficiently for substantial loss of property and feared it would usher in a rapid end to slavery. Supporters of abolition described the proposal as “Herod’s Law,” arguing that it would result in widespread infanticide, as slave owners would have little financial incentive to care for the newborn children. They also criticized the law for its failure to grant freedom to those who had already spent their lives in bondage. Much debated was the status and fate of the newborn children, who became know as ingênuos and how they might be affected by the experience of living their early lives under slavery. The law and its failures would later become a focus of the renewed abolitionist struggle of the 1880s. Brazil finally abolished slavery in 1888. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Moret Law, Spanish; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Chalhoub, Sidney. “The Politics of Silence: Race and Citizenship in Nineteenth-Century Brazil.” Slavery and Abolition 27:1 (2006): 73–87; Conrad, Robert. The Destruction of Brazilian Slavery 1850–1888. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1972; Nabuco, Joaquim. Abolitionism: The Brazilian Antislavery Struggle. trans. and ed. Robert Conrad. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1977.
Jessica Callaway Smolin
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Roar
Roar Roar was an internationally syndicated television series developed by Shaun Cassidy and Ron Koslow comprised of 13 episodes that aired on the Fox network in the United States in 1997. The television series detailed the adventures of a Celtic prince named Conor in ancient Ireland circa 400 c.e. and his band of followers in their attempts to unite the clans to defeat the invading Roman army. The show was significant for featuring a black African character named Tully (played by African American actor Alonzo Greer) as a member of Conor’s band, thereby depicting blacks in Ireland during ancient times. Tully was introduced to Conor as part of a group of displaced slaves and outcasts under the protection of Galen, a wise man who possessed the secrets of magic and power. Galen serves as a mentor to Conor after the young prince is orphaned and helps him hear the “roar” of the land and of the people, a voice that echoes through every living creature and is the power of life. After Galen’s disappearance, several of those under his protection, including Tully, join Conor in his efforts against the Romans. Tully, an apprentice to Galen, is depicted as headstrong and arrogant, but such characteristics are attributed to his youth. Tully served as an equal within the band and experienced no form of racism within ancient Ireland. The inclusion of the character was to appeal to a multicultural society and reflect modern Western civilization. Historically, the presence of Africans in ancient Ireland was minimal at best. Most of those of African descent in the ancient British Isles arrived with the Romans, either as slaves or from dispatched units of soldiers from their provinces in North Africa. Furthermore, although the Romans interacted with Ireland, they never launched a proper invasion. The series launched the career of film star Heath Ledger (who played the role of Conor) and won a Golden Reel Award (1998) for Best Sound Editing, an Award of Distinction (1999) from the Australian Cinematographers Society, and an Emmy Award nomination (1998) for Outstanding Music Composition for a Series. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Ireland, Blacks in. Further Viewing: Roar—The Complete Series (DVD). 3 disc set. Universal Studios, 2006.
Eric Martone
Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Paul Robeson was an African American concert singer and theater and film actor whose career spanned more than 50 years. Renowned for his activism in the United States and abroad, Robeson was a controversial figure throughout his life and remains the subject of critical interest for both his artistic achievements and social investments. Robeson was born in Princeton, New Jersey, in 1898. He graduated Phi Beta Kappa from Rutgers University in 1919, the valedictorian of his class, and the first African American man to be named all-American in college football. In 1921, he married Eslanda Cardozo Goode, known as “Essie,” a pathology laboratory technician at
Robeson, Paul (1898–1976) Presbyterian Hospital. Robeson played professional football while enrolled at Columbia Law School, from which he graduated in 1923. After a brief time in a law firm, Robeson embarked on an acting career, starring most notably in Eugene O’Neill’s The Emperor Jones and All God’s Chillun Got Wings with the Provincetown Players in New York City in 1924, the latter of which received considerable media attention because of its portrayal of interracial marriage. In 1925, Robeson starred in the London production of The Emperor Jones and returned to Europe for a concert tour in 1927. He settled in London until 1939. The son of an escaped slave who became a minister, Robeson achieved wider fame through his critically acclaimed performances of African American spirituals and secular traditionals before a global public. He immortalized the song “Ol’ Man River” with the London company of Show Boat in the late 1920s and again on Broadway in 1932 and in Los Angeles in 1940. His success in London led to his legendary portrayal of Othello in 1930, a role that he revisited in the United States from 1942 to 1945 with great acclaim. Robeson’s film career began with the 1925 Oscar Micheaux film, Body and Soul, followed by the European Close-Up group’s avant-garde film, Borderline, filmed in Switzerland in 1930. In 1933, he filmed The Emperor Jones, his first role in a sound film. This was followed by the 1934 Sanders of the River, of which Robeson was deeply critical because of its ultimate procolonial stance. He appeared in the film version of Show Boat in 1935 and Song of Freedom in 1936. In 1937, he was featured in King Solomon’s Mines, Big Fella, and Jericho, which was filmed in Cairo. In The Proud Valley, released in 1940, Robeson championed the cause of Welsh miners. At the completion of The Proud Valley, Robeson left London and returned to New York at the onset of World War II in Europe. He filmed Tales of Manhattan in 1941, attempting to call attention to the difficulties faced by black sharecroppers. Frustrated with Hollywood stereotyping, Robeson served as narrator for the film Native Land, a 1942 documentary championing civil liberties. In 1945, the NAACP awarded him the prestigious Springarn Medal. A gifted linguist, Robeson mastered Russian and German, and in the early 1930s, he began to study African languages and developed an interest in African cultures and societies. He was committed to using his fame in the service of social change, championing the causes of labor, the lower classes, and oppressed peoples worldwide. In 1934, the Russian filmmaker Sergei Eisenstein invited Robeson to the Soviet Union. In 1935, he performed in Stevedore, a political play featuring working-class oppression and championing interracial worker solidarity. He appeared in C.L.R. James’s play about Toussaint L’Ouverture, Black Majesty, in London in 1936. In 1937, he publicly supported the Republican government of Spain and spoke out against the spread of fascism and the Japanese aggression toward China, and continued to speak out for workers’ causes. In 1938, Robeson visited Spain and sang for soldiers he met, a trip that would mark the intensification of his political activism. He subsequently performed in the left-sympathizing play Plant in the Sun at London’s Unity Theatre. Although Robeson never officially joined the Communist Party, his antifascist activism caught the critical attention of American FBI director J. Edgar Hoover, ultimately leading to his appearance before the Tenney Committee in 1946 and leading to the lifting of his passport by the State Department in 1950. The right to travel was not restored
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Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the to him until 1958. He appeared before the House Un-American Activities Committee on June 12, 1956, and defiantly told the committee, “I am not being tried for whether I am a Communist, I am being tried for fighting for the rights of my people, who are still second class citizens in this U.S. of America.” After the return of his passport, he performed Othello in Stratford in 1959. In the early 1960s, he was plagued with depression and poor health from which he never fully recovered. He died in New York in 1976. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Film, Blacks in European; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and; Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the. Further Reading: Duberman, Martin. Paul Robeson. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1988; Robeson, Eslanda Goode. Paul Robeson, Negro. New York: Harper, 1930; Robeson, Paul. Here I Stand. New York: Othello Associates, 1958.
Allyson Nadia Field
Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the The Robin Hood legend, which details the adventures of a band of outlaws who steal from the rich to assist the poor in medieval England, is an evolving narrative within American and British literature, and characters have been added over the centuries to Robin Hood’s band. For example, the characters of Maid Marian and Friar Tuck, both modern fixtures within the outlaw band, were not components of the original ballads, which are the oldest versions of the Robin Hood tales. During the twentieth century, an additional character was added to the Robin Hood legend in the form of a Muslim. This character has no standardized name, but has quickly become a fixture within the Robin Hood legend. Azeem, a character from the 1991 Warner Brothers blockbuster film Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, is the most famous version of this character and is also significant for being portrayed as a black Muslim from Africa. The first mainstream depiction of a Muslim character in Robin Hood’s band emerged in the British television series Robin of Sherwood, which aired from 1984 to 1986 on the British station ITV. The series was developed by Richard Carpenter. The Muslim character, Nasir, was depicted as an Arab, rather than an African Moor, and was portrayed by British actor Mark Ryan. In the series, Nasir worked as a professional assassin in Palestine before his capture by a European crusader and practitioner of black magic named Baron Simon de Belleme. Belleme placed a spell over Nasir that forced him to do his bidding on their arrival in England. In the pilot episode, Nasir is freed from the spell when Robin Hood kills Belleme. Nasir, grateful at being set free and having great respect for Robin’s prowess in battle, decides to join Robin’s band of outlaws in Sherwood Forest. Nasir appeared in all 26 episodes of the series, remaining a mysterious and quiet character, distinguishable by always battling with two swords at the same time. According to Carpenter, the character of Nasir was supposed to die in the pilot episode, but the popularity of actor Mark Ryan among the cast and crew inspired Carpenter to retain the character and have him join Robin’s band. The series’s developers were wary of the audience’s and ITV regulator’s reaction to a Muslim within Robin’s band, as no character had existed previously in any of the original tales or screen adaptations.
Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the The inclusion of the character, however, reflected the changing multicultural society within Britain, resulting in the revamping of a literary tradition to meet the needs of and reflect modern society. The series was a ratings success and almost every major popular depiction of Robin Hood on television or film since this production has included a Muslim character in the outlaw band, making Robin of Sherwood one of the most influential depictions of the Robin Hood legends in recent history. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, which starred American actor Kevin Costner in the title role, drew much of its influence from Robin of Sherwood. In the film, Azeem, played by African American actor Morgan Freeman, is rescued by Robin Hood, who left England to fight in the Crusades, when they break free from a prison in the Middle East. Azeem believes that he owes his life to Robin; consequently, he devotes his life to Robin’s service. The two return to England, where Robin discovers that his father has been murdered over false accusations of practicing black magic. In his attempt to reclaim his lands, Robin is outlawed and Azeem joins Robin’s band as his primary confidant. The sheriff of Nottingham, the villain, has an evil sorceress who seems to have a connection to Azeem, who vanquishes her in the film’s finale. Since the production of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, the Muslim character in Robin’s band has often been depicted as black. A unique take on the Robin Hood legend drawing inspiration from Robin of Sherwood and later from Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves was Maid Marian and her Merry Men, a children’s television series that aired on the BBC from 1989 to 1994. The show was a comic retelling of the legend, delegating Marian as the head of the band while depicting Robin as an incompetent former tailor. The series, written by British comic Tony Robinson, was a popular family show. Like many British television programs, there was substantial social and pop cultural commentary interwoven within the episodes. Many of the plots spoofed popular films of the era, including Jurassic Park. The variation of the black character in the series, named Barrington, was played by British actor Danny John-Jules. The character, known as the “Rasta” merry man from the British Caribbean, would often rap during the episode’s songs. Much of the humor was anachronistic. Barington also served as a semi-omniscient narrator in several episodes, similar to the character of Alan-a-Dale in previous versions of the legend. The BBC launched a series entitled Robin Hood in 2006. The British television series includes, yet modifies, the Muslim member of Robin Hood’s band. The character Djaq is a dark-skinned Muslim slave brought to England by the villainous Sheriff of Nottingham to work in a mine. Djaq is unique for being a woman and is portrayed by British actress Anjali Jay, who is of South Asian descent. Djaq helps Robin free her fellow slaves and destroy the sheriff’s mine using her knowledge of alchemy before joining his band of outlaws. During the series, both Allan-a-Dale and Will Scarlett, two members of Robin’s band, develop romantic feelings toward her. The character of Djaq again reveals the changing society of modern British society, in which a character of another race and gender is depicted as an equal and suitable romantic interest for her medieval English (and white) companions. Such a depiction reflects a modern Britain coming to terms with its colonial past and increasingly diverse society. The adoption of a black Muslim character in British adaptations of Robin Hood has also spread to America. The success of Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves inspired a
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Roman Army, Africans in the parody from director Mel Brooks entitled Robin Hood: Men in Tights. The 1993 film emphasized the role of the black characters, Asneeze, portrayed by African American actor Isaac Hayes, and his son, Achoo, played by African American comedian Dave Chappelle. Asneeze and Achoo are parodies of Azeem. When Asneeze arrives in England, he seeks out his son, Achoo, who is in England as an African exchange student. Much of the humor revolving around the two characters was anachronistic and focuses on stereotypes of African American men. In one scene, Achoo parodies American civil rights figure Malcolm X in a speech to rally Robin’s outlaw band. The film also depicts Robin’s men rapping and indulging in behavior stereotypical of the modern African American archetype in popular culture. The New Adventures of Robin Hood, an American television series that aired from 1997 to 1999 on the Turner Network (TNT), also incorporated a black Muslim character in Robin Hood’s band. The character, Kemal, debuted during the series’s second season and was portrayed by African American actor and martial arts expert Hakim Alston. The character of Kemal, both African and a master warrior, clearly derived its inspiration from the earlier characters if Azeem and Nasir. The inclusion of a black Muslim character in the popular American series further solidified the role as a fixture in the Robin Hood legend. Such adaptations for modern audiences reveal the versatility of the Robin Hood legend and its ability to transcend time. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Rastafarianism. Further Reading: Carpenter, Richard. Robin of Sherwood. New York: Penguin, 1985; Knight, Stephen. Robin Hood: A Mythic Biography. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2003; Pearce, Garth. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves—The Official Movie Book. New York: Mallard Press, 1991.
Eric Martone
Roman Army, Africans in the Africans played a significant role in the expansion of ancient Rome beyond Italy. The success of the Carthaginian army from North Africa on Roman soil and in other theaters of the Punic Wars led to changes in the Roman army. Ultimately, the incorporation of African fighters in Roman forces strengthened the Roman army, as the army provided a pathway for social advancement for Africans. Until the wars against Carthage, Roman warfare was conducted on land in Italy. Rome relied on superior numbers and in its ability to sustain casualties because of those numbers. The high numbers came from a pool of those who were citizens of Rome throughout the Italian regions, as well as aid from other groups who were allied to Rome and thus obligated to contribute troops. The Carthaginians were primarily a naval power located in modern Tunisia. Their seamanship allowed them to exploit markets and natural resources lying beyond the Mediterranean into the Atlantic coasts of Africa and Europe. Citizenship was restricted to the city of Carthage. Armies were thus composed of mercenaries with Punic generals.
Roman Army, Africans in the Among these forces were the Numidians, who lived to the south and west of Carthage (modern Tunisia and Algeria). This collection of tribal groups was best known for their ability as cavalrymen, especially their precision in hurling javelins while riding. Mauretanians from farther west (modern Morocco and western Algeria) were employed as light (without armor) infantry. The inferiority of the Roman cavalry was evident during Hannibal’s invasion of Italy at the end of the third century b.c.e. Hannibal’s mounted forces composed of Numidians, Spanish tribal groups, and Celtic groups from modern France, were decisive elements in his victories. According to Roman historian Livy (first century b.c.e.–first century c.e.), the Numidians did not have infantry. They were trained on horseback from youth. The Numidian tribal chief Syphax considered switching sides to support the Romans during the Second Punic War (221–202 b.c.e.). One of the members of the Roman delegation sent to discuss the alliance remained behind to train Numidians in Roman heavy infantry tactics and formations. Syphax was pleased enough with the results that he was credited as saying that he trusted this new infantry now as much as he trusted his cavalry. He would remain loyal to Carthage, however. The Romans were able to buy off the leader of another of the dominant Numidian tribes, Masinissa, with the promise of being left in control of the bulk of Numidian lands and the ability to encroach on Carthaginian land at will. His cavalry played a decisive role at the Battle of Zama in 202 b.c.e., which left the Carthaginian general, Hannibal, outflanked and unable to defeat the Roman force. This battle marked the end of the Second Punic War. The first appearance of Africans in the Roman ranks was earlier in the Second Punic War. Numidian cavalry switched from Carthaginian to Roman sides after the Roman victory near Nola in Spain in 215 b.c.e. These riders were faithful and effective fighters for the Romans throughout the war. Livy notes that “African” deserters aided the Roman siege of Iliturgi in Spain in 206 b.c.e. Despite the success of employing these fighters, it would be nearly a century before the use of the Numidian cavalry would become commonplace. Numidians and Mauretanians also were used as light troops during the first century b.c.e. Even then, the use of all auxiliaries (units comprising non-Italian persons) was usually limited to particular campaigns in which Roman armies would negotiate with local peoples for troops and horsemen. Numidian cavalry were an exception, as they were used all over the empire. At the very earliest, it was not until the reign of the Roman Emperor Augustus (21 b.c.e.–14 c.e.) that auxiliaries became permanent components of standing armies. Under Augustus and those who followed, auxiliary troops would be rewarded with citizenship and land after 25 years of service. This was the primary path to citizenship for Africans of indigenous birth (those who were not descendents of Italian colonists or lived in cities that were granted citizenship privileges for service to Rome). Mauretanian and Numidian auxiliaries were recorded in areas of Europe ranging from Britain to Greece. This path was necessary until the Roman emperor Caracalla, who was from Africa, issued a proclamation that made all freeborn males citizens of Rome. Most prejudice in Roman society against Africans was rooted either in cultural differences or lesser
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Roman Emperors of African Origin economic status, rather than genetic or physical differences. The Romans understood that any person could assimilate into Roman culture. Tolerance of any person was proportionate to economic power. There was no hindrance to social mobility for Africans in the Roman army or in society, although the military generally provided a quicker path to status elevation. As African provinces were annexed into Rome, Roman civil wars were fought in Africa as well, and African auxiliary forces swelled the Roman ranks for these campaigns. Pompey’s Numidian cavalry nearly destroyed Julius Caesar’s forces repeatedly. It was not until Caesar’s infantry charged the cavalry at Pharsalus in Greece (48 b.c.e.) that Pompey’s African cavalry was checked. The charge was successful because the Numidians typically did not wear armor and avoided direct contact with troops, especially with Roman troops who were skilled swordsmen. A Numidian rebellion by Tacfarinas (17–24 c.e.) required the Roman army to learn and adopt the guerilla tactics used by the Numidians in order to defeat them. Curiously, it was his training in Roman tactics that led to early successes against the Romans. Numidian cavalry tactics were also adopted by the Romans, and African horses became prized as well. The African-born Roman emperor Septimius Severus made a number of noticeable changes in the Roman army. Severus became emperor after a civil war. To bring stability and create loyalty, Severus increased the soldiers’ pay by half. Another enormously popular move was allowing soldiers to marry local women while in service in frontier regions. Further, promotion from within the ranks was made easier, both for military posts and civil positions. After Severus’s son, Caracalla, extended citizenship to all freeborn males in the empire, it became increasingly difficult to trace Africans in the ranks, as they were no longer distinct from Roman contingents. See also: Italy, Blacks in; Moors; Popes, African; Roar; Roman Emperors, African; Roman Empire in Africa; Terentius Afer. Further Reading: Dixon, Karen and Pat Southern. The Roman Cavalry. New York: Routledge, 1992; Goldsworth, Adrian. Roman Warfare. London: Cassell, 2000; Thompson, Lloyd. Romans and Blacks. Norman: Oklahoma University Press, 1989.
Mark Anthony Phelps
Roman Emperors of African Origin Five ancient Roman emperors were of African origin: Septimius Severus, Geta, Caracalla, Marcus Opellius Macrinus, and Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus. The exact race of each of these emperors is often debated because of limited evidence, conflicting descriptions, and the fact that many ancient Europeans settled in Africa, some intermarrying with locals during the time of the Roman Empire. The Romanization of ancient northwest Africa began soon after the Punic Wars and the incorporation of Carthage into the Roman Empire in 148 b.c.e. Colonization began in earnest with the settling of Marius’s veterans at the end of the second century b.c.e., a practice followed by Julius Caesar and Augustus. By the first century c.e., Roman Africans populated the Senate. Africa’s economic power, fueled primarily by wheat exports, had translated into political power.
Roman Emperors of African Origin The first African emperor was Septimius Severus (145–211 c.e.). He was born in Lepcis Magna, in modern Libya, and was probably of Liby-Phoenician and Roman ancestry. His grandfather was likely the Septimius Severus praised by the poet Stratius at the end of the first century c.e. One of his cousins, who obtained consular rank, enabled Septimius to enter the Senate. He held posts throughout the Empire. While he held the post of governor of Upper Pannonia (eastern Austria and western Hungary), the emperor Pertinax (r. 192–193 c.e.) was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard (the personal bodyguard of the emperor). Pertinax was chosen by the Senate to bring order back to the empire after the reign of Commodus (r. 180–192 c.e.). The emperorship was then infamously auctioned by the Praetorian Guard, with Didius Julianus the highest bidder; however, Severus’s Pannonian army proclaimed him the new emperor. Severus marched on Rome, not only to eradicate Didius Julianus, but also to convince the Senate and the rest of the Roman elite that he wanted to both avenge Pertinax and assume his mantle of restoring order. Didius was killed by his own bodyguard, and Severus entered Rome without a fight. Severus’s claim did not go unchallenged, however. He did have to fight Pescinnius Niger, a Syrian general with a rival claim to emperorship. Niger was killed within a year, and the east was pacified by 195 c.e. Severus pacified another rival (and fellow African), Clodius Albinus, the governor of Britain. Severus initially named Albinus as Caesar, which denoted Albinus as successor to him. After defeating Niger, Severus set forth to legitimize his reign. He claimed to be the son of former emperor Marcus Aurelius by adoption. He renamed his eldest son Bassianus Marcus Aurelius Antoninus (better known as Caracalla). He also named him to the position of Caesar. He gave his wife, Julia Domina, the epithet “mother of the camp,” a title that previously had been used only by Marcus Aurelius’s wife. Albinus, incensed by the granting of the title to Caracalla, led his army against Severus in 196 c.e. Albinus was defeated and killed near modern Lyons, France, in 197 c.e., and order was restored. Severus is best known for reforms in the military and legal realms. He increased the pay of the soldiers by half. He made the path to both military promotion and to civilian civil service posts by soldiers more routine. Severus dis- The Roman Emperor Septimus Severus (r. 193– missed the old Praetorian Guard 211 c.e.), his wife, Julia Domna, and his children and reformed it with soldiers who Caracalla and Geta. From Egypt, Roman Period, were promoted from the field. He ca. 200 c.e. Bildarchiv Preussischer Kulturbesitz / also allowed for soldiers stationed Art Resource, NY.
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Roman Emperors of African Origin in garrisons to marry locals. Severus made these extraordinary moves to inculcate devotion to the emperor. According to tradition, his last words to his sons were, “Get along, pay off the soldiers, and ignore everyone else.” Roman law had yet to be codified (and would not be for another three centuries). Severus relied heavily on a panel of lawyers who held the equivalent of a cabinet post. The lawyers on whom he relied were the three most significant Roman legal minds ever, namely Ulpian, Paul, and Papinian. His reign is known as the golden age of Roman law. The legal bureaucracy expanded during his reign. Severus had ruled for 18 years by the time he died in York, England, in February 211 c.e. His successor was his eldest son, Caracalla, who secured his position by murdering his younger brother, Geta, in December 211 c.e. (while their mother held the latter, according to tradition). The two were at the time of the death of their father both titled Augustus, meaning both were in theory co-emperors with their father. During the Middle Ages, British historian Geoffrey of Monmouth listed Caracalla (under the name of Bassianus) as an ancient king of Britain. The most significant event of Caracalla’s reign was his proclamation that all freeborn inhabitants of the Roman Empire were now to be considered citizens. This move created uniformity on three fronts. It made all subject to Roman taxation and military levies. It also made a single set of laws applicable for the inhabitants of the empire. Caracalla visited and participated in a variety of temple rituals for a number of gods throughout the empire. His curiosity can be blamed for the immediate circumstances of his death, as he was murdered by the small bodyguard that accompanied him to a temple in Edessa (in modern Syria) during a lull in his campaign in Mesopotamia. His murder in 217 c.e. brought about the end of the biological descendents of Septimius Severus, although the dynasty continued until 235 c.e. The Severan dynasty was interrupted after the murder of Caracalla by the 14-month reign of Marcus Opellius Macrinus. Macrinus, likely of Moorish descent, was born in Caesarea Iol in Mauretania (modern Cherchell, Algeria). He held a number of posts during the reigns of the first two Severans. The Senate proclaimed him emperor after the assassination of Caracalla. He was the first emperor who did not come from a senatorial background. His reign unraveled as the Syrian sister-in-law of Septimius Severus, Julia Maesa, paid off an Eastern garrison to support her son (Elagabalus) for emperor. Civil war ensued, and Macrinus was killed as he tried to flee to Rome after a defeat. The last Roman emperor of African origin was Marcus Aemilius Aemilianus, who ruled in 253 c.e. His origins are obscure, but he was likely born on the island of Gerta, off the west coast of Tunisia. He is called a Moor in one source, and a Libyan in another. Either title designates a person of indigenous descent. Most figures who obtained political prominence in the empire were ultimately descended from colonists, who were often of Italian descent. The event that propelled Aemilianus to the emperorship was his defeat of invading Gothic tribes while he commanded the armies stationed in Moesia. In the wake of his victory, his troops proclaimed him emperor. Whether this elevation was the result of conscious manipulation on the part of Aemilianus or the result of spontaneous emotion is a matter of debate among sources.
Roman Empire in Africa What is known is that Aemilianus ruled for three months. After the proclamation of his troops, he made his way to Italy to confront the emperor Gallus and his son and coemperor Volusianus. The emperors expected to be reinforced by the armies under Valerian, who arrived far too late. Instead, they were killed by their own troops. Valerian’s forces arrived to engage Aemilianus, who was killed. Valerian was then proclaimed the new emperor. The rule of Aemilianus is a paradigm for the era of the Barracks Emperors (235–284 c.e.), as he never left the battlefield to rule. This chaotic period lasted from the end of the Severan dynasty to the advent of Diocletian (284–305 c.e.). See also: Britain, Blacks in; Italy, Blacks in; Popes, African; Roar; Roman Army, Africans in the; Terentius Afer. Further Reading: Birley, A. R. Septimius Severus, the African Emperor. 2nd ed. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1988; Southern, Pat. The Roman Empire from Severus to Constantine. New York: Routledge, 2001.
Mark Anthony Phelps
Roman Empire in Africa The area of western Africa between the Mediterranean coast and the Sahara became an integral part of the ancient Roman Empire after its incorporation, a centurylong process that began in the second half of the second century b.c.e. Its impact was primarily economic, but there were also some substantive cultural forces that came from this region. The region eventually consisted of the provinces of Africa (most of the land that had at one time been controlled by Carthage, incorporated in 146 b.c.e.): Africa Novo, comprising primarily Numidia, the region to the west in modern day Algeria (incorporated 46 b.c.e.); Cyrenaica, the region extending east along the Mediterranean coast from Africa into modern day Libya (incorporated 74 b.c.e.); and Mauretania, the region comprising modern day Morocco (incorporated for the last time in 40 c.e.). The economic value of the land consisted primarily in the production of grain. This production was spurred by the settling of Roman colonists in the land. By the beginning of the second century b.c.e., retired army veterans (beginning with Marius’s troops, with Julius Caesar and Augustus following suit with their veterans) were given land throughout the region. These settlers brought irrigation technology to the region, greatly expanding areas of production. Local populations also took up large-scale agriculture on seeing the wealth it created with the direct access to the markets of Rome. It was claimed that Egypt produced the grain for Rome four months of the year, and Africa produced it for the other eight months. Olive production became significant with the settlement of Roman colonists. The most celebrated of exports from Cyrenaica was a plant known as silphion. Its root was used primarily for medicinal purposes, but it also had some culinary value. Silphion was traded widely in the Greek world, but the plant disappears from history within the first century of Roman occupation, although its memory persisted in literature for centuries.
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Roman Empire in Africa Another significant economic value in the land lay in its strategic value for shipping. With the advent of Roman domination of the southern Mediterranean coast, Rome no longer had rivals for transport of goods in the region. Further, there were fewer areas that viewed piracy against Roman shipping as a viable economic option. As well, Rome now dominated the sea trade route coming from the Atlantic beyond the Mediterranean. Last, the region also provided access to game animals of sub-Saharan Africa. This trade became increasingly important during the Imperial era of Rome (31 b.c.e.–476 c.e.), as enormous numbers of animals were required for the plethora of games in Rome and other venues. Ivory was also prized, initially from local elephants, which became extinct in the fourth century c.e. The economic importance of the region was substantive. The potential for disruption of the grain trade made military maneuvers in the region understandable to the population in Rome. The Roman civil wars of the first century b.c.e. all were fought on African soil as well, with serious repercussions for local leaders who sided with the eventual winners or losers. Romans in Italy considered this region economically integrated into the empire. The region became heavily Romanized as a result of the settlement there of thousands of veterans and Roman colonists. Carthaginian culture had penetrated the region before the coming of the Romans, and there were Greek colonies in the eastern reaches of the region. As was generally the case in the expansion of Rome, the urban areas were more affected by Roman culture than the rural areas. This was especially true as one traveled farther south, as settled life gave way to the pastoralism of the Sahara and its fringes. Latin was the language of the cities, Punic that of the villages (with inscriptions attested to the fourth century c.e.), and native dialects were found in mountains and among desert dwellers. Punic social, religious, and political influences were still attested outside the cities for centuries. By the arrival of Christianity in this region in the second century, Punic and native religions were completely Romanized. Africa’s political power was best evidenced in the rise of African Roman emperors. Septimius Severus was the first African to become Emperor of Rome (r. 193–211 c.e.). He was followed by his son, Caracalla (r. 211–217 c.e.). Marcus Opellius Macrinus, a holder of a number of offices under these two, ruled as emperor for just over one year (r. 217–218 c.e.). Aemilius Aemilianus rose to that office later in the century (253 c.e.). Apuleius (125?–180? c.e.) was the best known Roman writer to emerge from the region before the rise of Christianity. He was born in the Roman colony of Madaurus, Numidia (modern Mdaouroach, Algeria). He is best known for his novel The Golden Ass, a satirical adventure as the main character experiences salvation through the Roman/Egyptian mystery cult of Isis after mistakenly being turned into a donkey. The greatest cultural influence that Africa ever exerted in the course of Western history is the period from the advent of Christianity in the region (the first literary attestation is in the late second century; nothing is attested archaeologically until the middle of the third century) until the invasion of the Vandals and its aftermath (429–435 c.e.). The first literary giant of early Christianity to emerge from the region was Tertullian of Carthage (160–240 c.e.), an often venomous defender of Christian theology.
Le Roman d’un Spahi (1881) His disdain of philosophy (“What has Athens to do with Jerusalem?”) was a hallmark of his thought, as was his lack of tact. The greatest Latin theologian was Saint Augustine (354–435 c.e.). He was born in Tagaste, Numidia (modern Souk Ahras, Algeria). Like Apuleius, he was likely of Berber descent. Augustine embraced the Roman Catholic Church while living in Italy. He returned to Numidia, eventually becoming the bishop of Hippo. His best-known works include The Confessions, On the Trinity, On Christian Doctrine, The City of God, and a number of treatises explaining theology, as well as defenses against heretical and pagan thought. He was canonized and became the patron saint of brewers, printers, theologians, and those with sore eyes. Roman Catholic Christianity nearly perished from the face of Africa after the invasion of the Vandals (beginning in 429 c.e.). By the time the initial invasion concluded, churches were left standing only in Hippo, Cirta, and Carthage. The latter church disappeared by 439 c.e. With the advent of the Vandals, North Africa ceased to serve a literary or economic role in the Western Roman Empire. See also: Italy, Blacks in; Popes, African; Punic Wars; Roar; Roman Army, Africans in the; Roman Emperors of African Origin; Terentius Afer. Further Reading: Cherry, David. Frontier and Society in Roman North Africa. Oxford: Clarendon, 1998; Frend, W.H.C. The Rise of Christianity. Philadelphia: Fortress, 1984; Raven, Susan. Rome in Africa. 3rd ed. London: Routledge, 1993.
Mark Anthony Phelps
Le Roman d’un Spahi (1881) Le Roman d’un Spahi (1881) is Julien Viaud’s (1850–1923) third novel written and the first signed with his pseudonym Pierre Loti. A sub-lieutenant in the French Navy, Viaud served in Senegal in 1873–1874 when the navy supported the Spahis, an elite French colonial force fighting local armed rebellions in the so-called French protectorate. Viaud/Loti was also an idealist whose unhappy Senegalese experience permeates his predominantly autobiographical novel. Set in Senegal, Le Roman is a tragic story spanning five years and centering on 22-year-old French Spahi Jean Peyral’s life from rural Cévennes. Displaying the turn of the nineteenth century characteristics of French writing about French colonization, Le Roman is generally phobic of black West Africa, which is equated to primitive sexuality and death. Overflowing with racial stereotypes, Le Roman infantilizes the Senegalese, assimilating them to perverts and comparing them to monkeys. Indeed, an important part of Le Roman’s thematic construct regarding Peyral’s moral and cultural deterioration relies on binary symbolisms of skin color and physical descriptions, such as pure whites/impure blacks, with connotations of white moral purity and black moral defect, compounded by depraved, sensual, and vicious biracial women like Cora. That the black inferiority evident in Le Roman was symptomatic of a wider European mindset channeled through popular novels is nowadays unquestionable. Such novels, including Le Roman, assisted Europeans in justifying their conquest and rule
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Roselmack, Harry (1973–) of Africa and represent a crucial stage in European literature’s crystallization of black inferiority, which was sustained in Europeans’ minds for more than 50 years. Peyral’s ambivalence and alterity, which refers to the cultural construction of “otherness,” could be read in this context. He resents having become part African but, at the cost of promotion in the Navy, persistently seeks refuge from alienation in an affair with married Cora, and sex and cohabitation with the black girl, Fatou Gaye. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; French Army, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Hargreaves, Alec G. The Colonial Experience in French Fiction: A Study of Pierre Loti, Ernest Psichari and Pierre Mille. London: Macmillan, 1981; Hughes, Edward G. Writing Marginality in Modern French Literature: from Loti to Genet. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001; Loti, Pierre. Le Roman d’un Spahi. Paris: Gallimard/Edition de Bruno Vercier, 2006.
Saër Maty Bâ
Roselmack, Harry (1973–) Harry Roselmack is a leading French radio and television journalist of Afro-Caribbean descent. He was born in March 1973 in Tours, France, although some accounts state that he was born on the French Caribbean island of Martinique, which was where his parents came from. Roselmack studied history and then completed a postgraduate course in journalism before staring to work with a small French radio station. He also wrote sports reports for the newspaper La Nouvelle République du Centre-Ouest. Roselmack then worked with Radio France and finally joined Canal+. In 2006, the television station TF1 appointed Roselmack the official summer replacement for Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, the anchorman on the evening news. Thus Roselmack became the head of the most popular news bulletin in the country. Part of this move came after French President Jacques Chirac urged the mainstream French media to use more journalists from ethnic minorities. Many French politicians viewed ethnic communities as being marginalized in news coverage. The main reason, however, was a major change in staff at TF1. Thomas Hugues, who had been the summer replacement for Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, left the station for that of a rival. Hugues’s departure was followed by that of his wife, Laurence Ferrari, who was another presenter. Roselmack has long been active in the Club Averroes, which was founded in 1997 to improve the diversity of the staff in the French media. He had also occasionally substituted at TF1 during holiday seasons, and many in France greeted his appointment favorably. The daily newspaper Le Parisien hailed the appointment, stating that never before had a black journalist been given such an important post in the French media. Roselmack debuted on July 17, 2006, and became the first black evening news broadcaster for TF1. His program, Sept à huit (“Seven to Eight”), has proved extremely popular. It was not long before he started to attract as many as 8 million to 10 million viewers, nearly half of the total evening television viewers. Some press comment soon after the appointment pointed to evidence that Roselmack had been able to include
Roumain, Jacques (1907–1944) far more news into his show than his predecessor, Patrick Poivre d’Arvor, who preferred commentaries on major stories. See also: Black History Month; France, Blacks in; May 10 Holiday; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European. Further Reading: Sloane, Lester. “The News from Paris: There are only three TV anchors who are ‘coloring’ the French airwaves (Harry Roselmack, Audrey Pulvar, and Christine Kelly).” Ebony Magazine 62:10 (August 2007): 94(3).
Justin Corfield
Roumain, Jacques (1907–1944) Jacques Roumain, a writer, editor, political activist, and ethnographer, was one of the most remarkable Haitian intellectuals of the twentieth century. Throughout his relatively short life, Roumain published numerous works of fiction, poetry, essays, and articles promoting the goals of social justice and cultural respect, while warning against the dangers of racism and color prejudice, fascism, classism, and ethnocentrism, both in Haiti and elsewhere. Born in Haiti to an aristocratic, light-skinned biracial family, Roumain spent several years in Europe, both as a student and as a political exile. During his adolescence, which was marked by a period of U.S. military occupation in Haiti (1915–1934), Roumain was sent by his family to study in Switzerland, first in Bern and then in Zurich. From Switzerland, Roumain traveled to Spain to study agronomy and became interested in bullfighting. His early prose poem “Corrida” was written in Madrid during this period in 1926. Roumain returned to Haiti at age 20 in 1927, and began writing for, and editing, nationalist periodicals with overtly anti-occupation messages. In 1928, he was arrested, and in 1929, he was imprisoned for contributing to these publications. Shortly after his release, Roumain resumed publishing, only to be arrested and imprisoned again. He was released two months later after a general amnesty was declared for all political prisoners. In 1930, Roumain’s collection of short stories, La proie et l’ombre (“The Prey and the Shadow”) was published, followed the next year by his novels Les fantoches (“The Puppets”) and La montagne ensorcelée (“The Bewitched Mountain”). In 1934, Roumain founded the Haitian Communist Party and published Analyse schématique 1932/1934, an analysis of Haitian society suggesting that Marxism could provide a solution to the numerous social and economic conflicts in Haiti. Roumain’s open declaration of his commitment to communist ideas was followed by his arrest and subsequent imprisonment for subversion this same year. In 1936, Roumain was released from prison and sent into exile. After spending time in Brussels, Roumain and his family settled in Paris. While in Paris, he studied ethnology at the Sorbonne and paleontology at the Museum of Man. He traveled to Spain, where he participated in antifascist activities and wrote his famous antifascist poem “Madrid.” In 1939, Roumain briefly studied anthropology at Columbia University in New York City and became close friends with the poet Langston Hughes. In 1940, Roumain traveled to Havana where he met with the poet Nicolás Guillén.
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Russia, Blacks in In 1941, Roumain returned to Haiti and founded the Bureau of Ethnology. In 1943, he was appointed to a diplomatic post at the Haitian embassy in Mexico, where he finished his poetry collection Bois d’ébène (“Ebony Wood”) and his highly acclaimed novel about Haitian peasant life, Gouverneurs de la rosée (“Masters of the Dew”), shortly before his unexpected death in August 1944. Both works were published posthumously and have been translated into several languages. See also: Authors in Europe, African American; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in French; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Dash, Michael. “Postcolonial Thought and the Francophone Caribbean.” In Francophone Postcolonial Studies: A Critical Introduction. eds. Charles Forsdick and David Murphy London: Arnold, 2003, pp. 231–241; Fowler, Carolyn. A Knot in the Thread: The Life and Work of Jacques Roumain. Washington DC: Howard University Press, 1980; Laraque, Paul. “Introduction.” In When the Tom-Tom Beats: Selected Prose and Poems. Jacques Roumain. trans. Joanne Fungaroli and Ronald Sauer. Washington DC: Azul Editions, 1995, pp. 7–12.
Sara Scott Armengot
Russia, Blacks in The encounter between black Africans and people of black descent and Russia was reflective of the ambivalence with which Russians viewed their place in the Eurocentric world during the New Imperialism. Russian identity as a European nation has often been the subject of heated internal debates and widespread suspicion by other Europeans. Imperial Russia did not take part in the trans-Atlantic slave trade and never established colonies in Africa. The last European nation to emancipate its own serfs, Russia had a small but vocal educated class, or intelligentsia, whose prominent representatives routinely condemned the depravity of American slavery. In the eyes of many black observers, Russia’s absence from the histories of slave trade and European colonialism in Africa contributed to its image as a relatively tolerant society, less affected by the curse of European and North American racism. After 1917, the new Communist rulers of Soviet Russia continued to advocate racial tolerance and acceptance as essential elements of their Marxist ideology. For the Soviets, any expression of racism undermined their own multiethnic project and, as such, was antithetical to the country’s new identity and interests. With the rise of the cold war, the rhetoric of antiracism and anticolonialism came to color much of the Soviet Union’s interaction with its ideological opponents in the West. With the Soviet economy and society entering a protracted period of stagnation and eventual decline, however, the colorblind ideals articulated by Soviet propaganda were increasingly devoid of genuine meaning and often at odds with the sentiments of the “Soviet street.” The disintegration of the Soviet Union was accompanied by increased ethnic tensions and the rise of ethnic nationalisms in the country that had been built on the principles of ethnic coexistence. Black Africans and African Russians residing in late Soviet Union and post-Soviet Russia had to bear the brunt of Russian chauvinism, much of it born out of the society-wide disillusionment with Soviet ideals and values. PRE-1900. For many Russians, their connection to Africa is embodied in the genealogy of the country’s greatest poet and the national cultural icon, Alexander
Russia, Blacks in Pushkin (1799–1937). Pushkin’s great-grandfather Abraham Hannibal arrived in Russia as a little African slave boy, purchased at an Ottoman slave market by an emissary of Russian Tsar Peter the Great. Hannibal’s origins remain murky, but most historians agree that he was most likely born somewhere in Abyssinia, modern-day Ethiopia. Adopted by the tsar, who also served as his godfather, Hannibal entered Russian nobility and made an illustrious career in the Russian military. Hannibal distinguished himself as a talented engineer and reached the rank of general-major. Pushkin did not shy away from his African ancestry and proudly acknowledged it in verse and prose, celebrating the life of his famous progenitor in an unfinished biography, The Negro of Peter the Great. That a person of African descent could be embraced by Russians as the most important cultural symbol underscores how differently they viewed race from most other nineteenth-century Europeans. Few black people ever visited Imperial Russia, but those who did reported encountering generally benign attitudes, in stark contrast to the racism prevalent elsewhere in Europe and North America. One such traveler, an African American woman Nancy Prince, spent more than a decade at the Russian imperial court in St. Petersburg during the early decades of the 1800s. Her memoir contains a perceptive analysis of early nineteenth-century Russian society, which she deemed welcoming to blacks. Black American tragedian Ira Aldridge found fame on the Russian stage. A close friend of the great Ukrainian bard, Taras Schevchenko, Aldridge toured Russia extensively and attained a cultlike status with the theater goers in St. Petersburg, Moscow, and in the provinces. His popularity with the Russian public had little to do with his race and a lot to do with his acting talents. Yet inadvertently to Russia’s educated class, Aldrige also represented a group of people benighted by American slavery. Translated into Russian, Harriet Beecher Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin became an instant bestseller. Prominent social critics, such as Vissarion Belinsky and Nicholas Chernyshevsky, drew parallels between America’s “peculiar institution” and the institution of serfdom in Russia. Belinsky, in his famous Letter to Gogol (1847), spoke of Russian serfs as “our white Negroes,” and Chernyshevsky sent free copies of Uncle Tom’s Cabin to the subscribers of his journal, The Contemporary. An iconoclastic dissident intellectual, Alexander Herzen, writing from his exile in Britain, contemptibly compared Russia’s slave-holding class with the American planters. The two institutions of slavery, Russian and American, were abolished at about the same time (1861 and 1863, respectively). Not surprisingly, a trickle of African American adventurers, performers, musicians, and entrepreneurs began to reach Russia toward the end of the nineteenth century. They were searching for new opportunities in the country that seemingly harbored and practiced less racial prejudice toward black people than other “white” countries. With the enormous Eurasian landmass open to its imperialist expansion, Russia took no part in the European “Scramble for Africa” during the last two decades of the nineteenth century. Although not immune to the standard Victorian images of Africa that depicted the continent and its people as savage and in need of civilization, Russians felt no obvious need to civilize Africans. Toward the end of the nineteenth century, the country experienced a period of close and intensely emotional contacts with Christian Ethiopia, an independent African country that many Russians considered
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Russia, Blacks in fraternal because of its Orthodox faith. Russian military advisors, medics, and volunteers were reportedly in the ranks of the Ethiopian army of Menelik II, which inflicted a humiliating defeat on the Italian colonial army at Adwa in 1896. Subsequently, Russians founded a hospital in Addis Ababa that for decades to come would become a fixture of the Ethiopian capital. 1900 TO 1945. The presence of blacks visiting Russia during the nineteenth century did result in biracial offspring, some of whom became prominent individuals. Mikhail Egypteos, for example, was a biracial general in the Imperial Russian army in the early twentieth century. His father was a black artist commissioned by the Imperial Russian court and his mother was a Russian noblewoman. He graduated from the Tsar Nicholas I Academy in 1881. He later graduated from the Naval Construction Department of the Kronstadt Engineering College and the Naval College. In 1904, Egypteos served as senior naval constructor of the Saint Petersburg dockyard. In 1911, during the reign of Tsar Nicholas II, he was promoted to the rank of major-general. Russia’s connection to Africa again became the focus of public discourse a few years later when, on the eve of World War I, reports surfaced in the Russian press of a strange “African colony” in the Caucuses. An ethnographic expedition to the Abkhasian coast of the Black Sea had come across several villages whose residents had black skin and distinctly African features. These “Black Sea Negroes,” as they were sometimes referred to in the press, appeared to have descended from a group of Ottoman slaves who had settled the area back in the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries. Their numbers were small, but their very presence on the territory of the Russian Empire connected it to the general history of global exchanges. In the aftermath of the Great October Socialist Revolution of 1917, the new Bolshevik regime sought to forge a new Soviet identity, rooted in the ideology of MarxismLeninism. Because class distinctions were the only meaningful differences between humans recognized by the communists, the new Soviet rulers decried racism as a harmful vestige of capitalism, the system they had set out to destroy. From that point on until the very end of the Soviet Union, the Soviets, at least in their official pronouncements, would continue to make use of the rhetoric of antiracism and anticolonialism. Needless to say, for African Americans living under the Jim Crow laws and the fear of arbitrary lynching, as well as for the African subjects of European colonial administrations, the Soviet Union represented a refreshing alternative to the routine of racial humiliation and colonial domination. As a result, during the first two decades of the Soviet Union’s existence, it received plenty of positive publicity in the black press, especially in the United States. Dozens (and probably hundreds) of black “pilgrims,” most of them African American and Afro-Caribbean, trekked to the “Red Mecca.” Few of them were committed communists, but most shared expectations of a qualitatively new society, free of racism and its attendant oppression. Among those enchanted with the promise of the Soviet Union were some of the most prominent African American intellectuals and cultural figures of the day. Poets Claude McKay and Langston Hughes, the famous actor Paul Robeson, and the great advocate of Pan-Africanism, W.E.B. Du Bois, all traveled to the U.S.S.R. and even resided there for extended periods of time. Besides these celebrities, there were numerous lesser known individuals who came to the Soviet Union in pursuit of their colorblind dream, but also in search of
Russia, Blacks in employment opportunities and the opportunities to contribute to the new socialist experiment in Russia. In 1932, for example, a group of agricultural engineers, most of them the graduates of the historically black Tuskegee University and Hampton Institute, arrived in Soviet Central Asia to help develop new cotton production techniques. Oliver Golden, the leader of the group, and George Tynes, one of the experts, would permanently settle in the U.S.S.R. In doing so, they established the foundations for a small, but culturally and politically significant, African Diaspora in the Soviet Union. Oliver Golden’s Soviet-born daughter, Lily Golden, would become a prominent Soviet intellectual and a fixture in Moscow cultural elite circles. Lily Golden’s daughter, Yelena Khanga (Oliver Golden’s granddaughter), would rise to fame as a popular journalist and television celebrity in post–Soviet Russia. The romance between black radicals and Soviet Russia began to wither away toward the end of the 1930s, as the Soviet Union proceeded to assert itself more as a nationstate than a revolutionary force in world affairs. In 1933, it established diplomatic relations with the United States and subsequently toned down its antiracist propaganda. The Soviets lost some of their earlier clout among black sympathizers when it came to the surface that they had been secretly supplying Italian troops during their 1935 invasion of Ethiopia. The Nazi-Soviet Pact of 1939 came shortly thereafter. The pact was dubbed the “great betrayal” in a famous editorial in the African American periodical, The Crisis. Considering the well-publicized racial policies of the Third Reich, the rapprochement with the Nazis undermined the Soviets’ antiracist credentials. There is also some evidence, reported by such black residents in the Soviet Union at the time as journalist Homer Smith and mechanical engineer Robert Robinson, that the consolidation of Stalin’s dictatorship and the atmosphere of paranoia and fear that surrounded the bloody Soviet purges of the late-1930s affected some of the early black enthusiasts of the Soviet Union. Jomo Kenyatta, the future founder of independent Kenya, left the country disillusioned after a brief stint at Moscow’s Communist University of the Toilers of the East (KUTV). George Padmore, a prominent Caribbean communist, broke with the Soviets over what he saw as their heavy-handed approach to the issue of race. Padmore would eventually trade his communist convictions for pan-Africanist beliefs. At least one African American communist perished in the cauldron of Stalin’s Great Terror. Only recently, Russian archives revealed the fate of Lovett Fort-Whiteman, a black Chicagoan, who died in a remote gulag camp in the late 1930s. By the beginning of World War II, only a few of the original black “pilgrims” to the Soviet Union remained in the country. POST-1945. In the aftermath of World War II, much of the former colonial world, including Africa, gained independence from the former colonial masters. The process of decolonization coincided with the rise of the cold war, the historical circumstance that left an indelible mark on the relations betweens the Soviet Union and the newly independent countries of Africa. The Soviets cultivated friendships with the young African states, seeking to present the Soviet development model as a viable alternative to Western capitalism. They also extended material and political support and military training to several liberation movements, especially in southern Africa. Gradually, Africa moved from the periphery of Soviet foreign policy concerns to the center stage of cold war politics. During the cold war decades, the Soviets involved themselves
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Russia, Blacks in in the Congo crisis of the early 1960s, the Nigerian Civil War of 1967–1970, the Angolan Civil War, the Ethiopian-Somali war of the late 1970s, and a number of other African conflicts. In Africa, the U.S.S.R. sought closer relations with the regimes sympathetic to Marxism, such as Ghana under Kwame Nkrumah, Guinea under Sekou Toure, Ethiopia under Mengistu Haile Miriam, Angola, Mozambique, and others. Increasingly, however, the Soviet Union’s approach to Africa combined ideology and pragmatism. For example, during the Nigerian civil war, the Soviets opted to support the pro-Western federalist camp against the secessionist Republic of Biafra. They also established close links with the regime of Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, turning a blind eye to Nasser’s merciless persecution of Egyptian communists. In response to demands of the increasingly global foreign policy, but also as a reflection of a greater openness after the death of Stalin, the U.S.S.R. began to pay more attention to the academic study of Africa and its people. In 1959, a special institution for a comprehensive and interdisciplinary research on Africa (Africa Institute) was founded in Moscow under the aegis of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. Simultaneously, the Soviet Union made a concerted effort to enhance its image in Africa by extending generous educational scholarships to African students. After the 1957 Youth Festival in Moscow, thousands of Third World students started arriving in the Soviet institutions of higher learning. Many of them would enter a new Moscow Friendship University, also known as Lumumba University, specially created to cater to the needs of these students. The appearance of these young, exotic-looking foreigners in the midst of a society largely isolated from the rest of the world had some unintended social and cultural consequences for the Soviet Union. The Soviet officials had clearly hoped that by bringing thousands of African students to the U.S.S.R., they would score a major propaganda victory against their cold war rivals in the West and also consolidate their country’s prestige in the Developing World; however, they had failed to foresee the impact of African students on Soviet society. Instead of serving as symbolic ideological allies of the regime, once in the Soviet Union, Africans often functioned as its opponents. In 1963, for example, hundreds of African students participated in an unsanctioned demonstration in Red Square, protesting a suspicious death of a Ghanaian student in Moscow. Africans routinely petitioned university and state authorities for better living conditions, demanding more freedom of movement and expression, and challenging the Soviets to clamp down on the instances of everyday racism. African students presented yet another headache for the regime because they often practiced lifestyles and embraced cultural aesthetics in stark contrast to official Soviet values. Funded by generous state stipends, usually speaking several languages, and having more opportunities for foreign travel than an average Soviet citizen, young Africans in the U.S.S.R. became the conduits of Westernization. They introduced their Soviet friends, spouses, and fellow students to Western fashions, jazz and rock-n-roll records, and the view of the world that was often cosmopolitan and devoid of the ideological rigidity inherent in Soviet education. It is not a coincidence that African themes would come to feature prominently in some of the countercultural production in the late Soviet Union. The ideas of freedom and liberation, which in the course of the decades of vociferous anticolonial and antiracist propaganda had become intrinsically linked to the idea of Africa, challenged the Soviets to think critically about their own condition.
Russia, Blacks in During the period of reforms, generally known as perestroika and glasnost, ushered in by the last Soviet leader, Mikhail Gorbachev, the Soviet press commentary on Africa grew increasingly negative. Both political commentators and people in the street often attributed the economic decline of the once-powerful Soviet Union to “too much aid for Africa.” The eventual dissolution of the U.S.S.R. released the pent-up forces of ethnic nationalisms, including extreme forms of Russian chauvinism. At the time, black Russians and African residents in the Soviet Union found themselves targets of racial slurs and even physical attacks, an unfortunate sociocultural phenomenon that has persisted into the post-Soviet era. Since the late 1990s, on more than one occasion international media has been alerted to an alarming increase in the number of racially motivated attacks in Russia. At the same time, African students continue to arrive in Russia in search of affordable education, and a growing number of African expatriates and Russians of black descent have achieved prominence as educators, journalists, television personalities, musicians, and athletes. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Russian; Authors in Europe, African American; Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and; Television, Blacks in European. Further Reading: Blakely, Allison. Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1986; Fikes, Kesha, and Alaina Lemon. “African Presence in Former Soviet Spaces.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002): 497–524; Golden, Lily. My Long Journey Home. Chicago: Third World Press, 2003; Hughes, Langston. I Wonder as I Wander: An Autobiographical Journey. New York: Hill and Wang, 1994; Khanga, Yelena. Soul to Soul: A Black Russian American Family, 1865–1992. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994; Matusevich, Maxim, ed. Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2006; McClellan, Woodford. “Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925–1934.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 26 (1993): 371–390; Quist-Adade, Charles. In the Shadows of the Kremlin and the White House: Africa’s Media Image from Communism to Post-Communism. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001.
Maxim Matusevich
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S Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de (1739?–1799) Joseph Boulogne, le Chevalier de Saint-Georges, was an eighteenth-century revolutionary figure who embodied superior athletic skill, musical creativity, and courtly charm. With his remarkable accomplishments in music, fencing, and athletics, and his engaging presence, he overcame the disadvantage of his biracial ancestry to become one of the most visible and popular figures in eighteenth-century French aristocratic society. Adopting the title “Chevalier de Saint-Georges” from his paternal family, SaintGeorges was born in Guadeloupe, possibly in 1739, to a West African slave woman and an aristocratic French plantation owner. Although his date of birth and paternity are disputed, Saint-Georges’s father secured for him privileges in France that were rare for people of color in the eighteenth century. He became a student of the fencing master, Texier de La Böessière, and in a few years, his form and athleticism earned him plaudits as France’s premier swordsman. Moreover, Saint-Georges regaled audiences with his displays in swimming, skating, riding, and marksmanship. Alone this would have been an extraordinary story in a society where several thousand people of color, whether enslaved or free, could expect only servile and domestic roles in Paris and the port cities. Saint-Georges, however, also became a violin virtuoso, composer, and conductor of two of France’s leading orchestras, the Concert des Amateurs and the Concert de la Loge Olympique. His own concerti, quartets, and operas were played and admired throughout Europe on programs with those of famous composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Frantz Joseph Haydn. Saint-Georges also helped to pioneer eighteenth-century music techniques such as the symphonie concertante for soloists and orchestra. With enormous personal appeal to accompany his various talents, Saint-Georges was courted by upper-class French society. He was the first person of color within the ranks of French freemasonry, as he was welcomed into the Lodge of the Nine Sisters of the Grand Orient of France. Counting the French king, Louis XVI, and queen, Marie-
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Antoinette, and the duc d’Orléans among his many patrons and friends, Saint-Georges was the toast of the Parisian salon world. Yet, as exceptional as he was, Saint-Georges was never beyond the snares of racial prejudice. Although he was often referred to as “the famous Saint-Georges,” he was equally “the black Don Juan,” and simply, “the mulatto.” Regardless of his fame and attention, he was never allowed to forget his origins. In 1789, Saint-Georges espoused the republican ideals of the French Revolution, eventually fighting for the revolution as organizer and commander of a regiment of 1,000 free blacks. Later, Saint-Georges returned to the Caribbean to greet the Haitian Revolution for Independence, which had erupted in the late summer of 1791. Accompanying Julien Raimond, the leading champion of people of color in the French world, in 1796, Saint-Georges Le Chevalier de Saint-Georges. found the former colony still in the delirium of emancipation, but also beset with factious strife. Three years later, in June 1799, his own death from abdominal ailments just preceded the end of the century of the Enlightenment that he had helped to glorify. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Dumas, ThomasAlexandre; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Cohen, William B. The French Encounter with Africans: White Responses to Blacks, 1530–1880. Reprint ed. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003; Gallaher, John G. General Alexandre Dumas: Soldier of the French Revolution. Carbondale and Edwardsville: Southern Illinois University Press, 1997; Guédé, Alain. Monsieur de Saint-George: Virtuoso, Swordsman, Revolutionary. trans. Gilda M. Roberts. New York: Picador, 2003; Peabody, Sue. “There Are No Slaves in France”: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Smidak, Emil. Joseph Boulogne, Called Chevalier de Saint-Georges. trans. John M. Mitchell. Lucerne: Avenira Foundation, 1996.
William H. Alexander
Salvador, Henri (1917–2008) Henri Salvador was a famous French singer and songwriter. He was born on the American continent in Cayenne, Guyane (French Guiana) on July 18, 1917. His father was from the French island of Guadeloupe, and his mother was an aboriginal from the Caribbean. The young Salvador spent his childhood in Guiana until 1924, when his family migrated to Paris. Being black, he was fascinated by African American music, and especially jazz in all its forms as epitomized by Louis Armstrong, Duke Ellington, Cab
Sancho, Ignatius (1729?–1780) Calloway, and Nat King Cole. While in Paris in the 1930s, Salvador also had the chance to see the legendary guitar player Django Reinhardt play, and Reinhardt remained Salvador’s main influence for his guitar style. While in his twenties, Salvador also wanted to be a crooner. His career really began to rise in the mid-1940s, when he received the chance to tour Europe and South America with the famous Ray Ventura Orchestra. Salvador also recorded a few songs (on 78 rpm) for Polydor beginning in 1947. As a prolific songwriter and virtuoso musician, Salvador was innovative in two ways. During the 1950, he was among the first artists in France to record rock ’n’ roll songs and African American classics, either adapting American standards like “Oh Quand les Saints” (translated from “When the Saints go Marchin’ in”), or even composing original upbeat songs with French novelist Boris Vian (1920–1959). These salient songs (all in French) were first released in 1956 under the comical title: “Henri Salvador alias Henry Cording and his original rock ’n’ roll boys” on the Philips label. Later, Salvador also composed comical lyrics for songs in which he played a lazy-type character that pretended to be too tired to work in songs like “Je n’peux pas travailler” (“I am unable to work”). Another one of his comical songs, “Blouse du dentiste” (“The Dentist’s Coat”), was orchestrated in the early 1960s by arranger Quincy Jones. Salvador recorded countless songs in all genres, from jazz and blues to calypso, AfroCuban ballads, and MOR (middle of the road). Many of his classics are gathered in The Long Box, a compilation that spans six decades. His most famous titles remain “Le loup, la biche et le chevalier” (“The Wolf, the Hind, and the Knight”), sometimes known as “Une chanson douce” (“A Sweet Song”), a famous lullaby that now is almost part of folklore, and “Faut rigoler” (“We ought to laugh”). In “Faut rigoler,” he humorously refers to “nos ancêtres les Gaulois (“our ancestors, the Gauls”), which was the common way to define the French nation in old history books made in France; this inclusive sentence remains ironic, as most people in Guadeloupe and Guyane are black and therefore without much European roots. Among the other songs Salvador is remembered for is “Maman, tu es la plus belle du monde” (“Mom, you are the most beautiful in the world”), which he did not compose, but recorded with huge success in France. He also had a parallel career as a host on French and Italian television during the 1960s. Salvador made a sort of “comeback” in 2001 with a CD that gave him a new, younger, and wider audience: Chambre Avec Vue (Room With a View), with soft songs in the “Bossa-Nova” vein. He did a farewell tour until December 2007 and died at the age of 90 on February 13, 2008. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; France, Blacks in; Music, African Influences on European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Television, Blacks in European. Further Reading and Listening: Salvador, Henri. Attention ma vie. Paris: J. C. Lattès, 1994; Salvador, Henri. Le Long Box. Paris: Barclay (France)—Universal CD, 2006.
Yves Laberge
Sancho, Ignatius (1729?–1780) Ignatius Sancho, a former slave, was the first black African prose writer to publish his work in England. In addition, he was also the first black Briton known to have voted
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Sancho, Ignatius (1729?–1780) in a British election. Sancho also composed music and performed in the theater as an actor, where he attained a degree of celebrity status. It is believed that Sancho was born aboard a slave ship crossing the Atlantic Ocean from Africa to the Caribbean. In New Granada, one of the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, his mother died and his father committed suicide. Shortly thereafter, Sancho was taken to Greenwich, England. While still a young man, he met the Duke of Montagu, who supported Sancho’s education. In 1749, Sancho ran away from his home and petitioned the Montagu family to take him in. The Montagu family subsequently made Sancho their butler. After the deaths of both the Duke and Duchess of Montagu, Sancho received an annuity of 30 pounds and one year’s salary. Sancho quickly became a spendthrift. Sancho befriended the famous English actor, David Garrick. Garrick suggested that Sancho assume the theatrical roles of Othello and Oroonoko, both theatrical characters of African descent; however, Sancho suffered from a speech impediment that limited his theatrical career. In 1766, Sancho gained employment as a valet to the new Duke of Montagu, the son-in-law of his earlier patrons. With assistance from Montagu, Sancho and his wife, Ann Osborne, opened a grocery in Westminster in the 1770s. It was in this position that he traded letters with many influential figures including Garrick, the Montagues, Nollekins (a sculptor), and author Laurence Sterne. A large collection of his letters was published in 1782 as The Letters of the Late Ignatius Sancho, an African. During this time, Sancho also wrote and published his Theory of Music, two plays, and newspaper articles (sometimes under the pen name of Africanus). As a male householder of financial independence, he was able to partake in parliamentary elections of 1774 and 1780. Sancho died from the effects of gout in 1780. He was the first black Briton to receive an obituary in a British newspaper. To eighteenth-century abolitionists, Sancho emerged as a symbol of Africans’ humanity and potential. It is believed that Sancho served as the inspiration for the character of Shina Cambo in the novel Memoirs and Opinions of Mr. Blenfield (1790). In the novel, white men visit the home of a black family as equals, demonstrating blacks as integrated into white English society. In 2007, a plaque was unveiled in Sancho’s honor in Greenwich, England, on the remaining wall of the Montague House.
Ignatius Sancho, 1802. © Mary Evans Picture Library.
See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Aldridge, Ira; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British; Oroonoko (1688); Othello (1603); Slave Trade, British; Slave Trade, Spanish.
Sarbah, John Mensah (1864–1910) Further Reading: Gerzina, Gretchen. Black London: Life before Emancipation. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1995; King, Reyahn, ed. Ignatius Sancho: African Man of Letters. London: National Portrait Gallery, 1997; Sancho, Ignatius. Letters of the Late Ignatus Sancho, an African. New York: Cosimo Classics, 2005.
Eric Martone
Sarbah, John Mensah (1864–1910) John Mensah Sarbah, the son of a wealthy Fante merchant and civic leader, was part of the African elite privileged to study abroad in England. Although he began his education at Wesleyan High School, Cape Coast, he completed his secondary studies in England at Wesleyan College, Taunton, Somerset. Sarbah studied law at Lincoln’s Inn in London. In 1887, he became the first and youngest barrister from the Gold Coast, gaining admission to the British bar at the age of 23. He used his British education to defend the legal rights of the Fanti people and argued to restore the authority of the chiefs to exercise traditional leadership roles. In Britain, Sarbah authored several publications, including Fanti Customary Laws, with editions published in 1897 and 1904. Its nationalistic impulse educated the British about Fanti customs to foster in them a respect for Fanti traditions. His second major publication, Fanti National Constitution, which also upheld the dignity of Fanti customs, was published in London in 1906. Sarbah’s pioneering scholarship, which, combining oral history, legal studies, and sociology, was in high demand by Europeans studying West Africa and educated Africans. His other publications included articles in the Liverpool publication West African Mail in 1905 and in the Journal of the African Society. When Sarbah returned to the Gold Coast in the late 1880s, he worked to inform people of their rights and helped them fight and negate British colonial domination and ideology. Mensah and other English-trained lawyers, such as Joseph Ephraim Casely-Hayford, were regarded suspiciously by the British because they openly criticized colonial rule. One of Sarbah’s major successes that thrust him into a prominent leadership role among West Africans was defeating the Lands Bill of 1897, which would have usurped traditional property rights and allowed the British government to dispose of the people’s land without compensation. Sarbah maintained that the British administration had illegally occupied land in the Gold Coast, subjecting the people to direct taxation, an alien concept among traditional Africans. After refusing the legal retainer for his work on the Lands Bill case, Sarbah designated the money should be used to help found the Aborigines’s Rights Protection Society. The society helped to prevent the appropriation of indigenous people’s lands by the British and other Europeans. An ardent cultural nationalist, Sarbah argued that the traditional customs of the Fanti should be blended with those of the British colonial governments to form an independent nation-state of the Gold Coast. Following the lead of his father, who had served as a schoolmaster and mission agent for the Wesleyan Missionary Society in Cape Coast, Sarbah advocated developing and promoting education, while fostering pride in indigenous institutions. Sarbah,
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Scandinavia, Blacks in a former student of the prestigious Methodist all-boys Mfantsipim School (formerly Wesleyan High School), founded in 1876, supplied the new name of the school, which means “countless numbers of Fantes.” Today, the school counts among its graduates a number of political leaders, including the former secretary general of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British. Further Reading: Dumett, Raymond E. “John Sarbah, the Elder, and African Mercantile Entrepreneurship in the Gold Coast in the Late Nineteenth Century.” The Journal of African History 14 (1973): 653–679; Green, Jeffrey. Black Edwardians: Black People in Britain, 1901– 1914. New York: Routledge, 1998; Lynch, Hollis R. “Introduction.” In Sharbah, John Mensah. Fanti Customary Laws. 3rd ed. London: Frank Cass, 1968, pp. v-xiii.
Lena Ampadu
Scandinavia, Blacks in There are no figures on how many blacks are currently in Scandinavia, as no data concerning ethnicity in Scandinavia have been collected. The description of being “black” in Scandinavia differs somewhat from, for example, being “black” in the United States. To be a black Dane/Norwegian/Swede or an Afro-Dane/Norwegian/Swede usually means having a black parent and a white parent. In Scandinavian countries, however, because transracial and transnational adoptions are a widespread phenomenon, black children can be adopted by white families. Thus many black children have grown up without black role models to identify with or any historical roots. At the same time, they must cope with the necessity to stand their ground and survive in a white world from early childhood. In addition, women and men of African descent have immigrated to Scandinavia to the current era of increasing European multicultural diversity. In all Scandinavian black communities, giving themselves a name was significant in the process of self-identity. The labels Afro-Danes/Norwegians/Swedes, or black Danes/Norwegians/Swedes, or other self-descriptions help to break the barriers of dominant designations by others, while expressing being black and Scandinavian at the same time. Black Scandinavians cannot fall back on any cultural background of collective memories and traditions. Until recently, the existence and contributions of people of African descent have not been acknowledged adequately. The role they play, both in official historiography and in public discourse, is marked by stereotyped racial clichés. Scandinavian countries were involved in the Atlantic slave trade, colonization, and missionary work in Africa. For the most part, however, Scandinavian countries have yet to examine their colonial past and their traditions resulting from it. Consequently, they pass such traditions on without major change. As the established patterns in the thinking and acting of white Scandinavians are shaped by these traditions, so is the life and experience of blacks in Scandinavia. In the Scandinavian context, the issue of the colonial past has only recently started to emerge in a fuller context. Conferences and
Scandinavia, Blacks in projects in 2006, such as Rethinking Nordic Colonialism (Kuratorisk Aktion Berlin/ Copenhagen) or Denmark and the Black Atlantic (University of Copenhagen), testify to this changing awareness. People of African descent in Scandinavia are mostly connected by one common experience: They are confronted with racism in their daily lives, both as individuals and as a group, usually being considered transitory or exceptional in a society assumed to be homogenous. The common history of immigration starts in most cases with the experiences of postcolonial migration. This migration was difficult to integrate into the self-image of solidarity and conscientious welfare in the Scandinavian concept of society. In Denmark, the black Danish journalist Philip Sampson has collected about 400 biographies of blacks living in Denmark from 1600 to 1945, including Moors at courts in the sixteenth century; enslaved people and servants in the seventeenth century; semifree enslaved people in the beginning of the eighteenth century; black Americans coming to Denmark from the mid-eighteenth century as minstrels, musicians, and entertainers; people from the Danish West Indies (now the U.S. Virgin Islands); black jazz artists in the 1920s; and blacks emigrating from Germany in the 1920s and 1930s because of the political situation. Transcending its national context, this work will surely prove to be a milestone in re-accessing black Scandinavian history. In the contemporary political landscape of Norway, Manuela Ramin Osmundsen was the first black woman to receive a prominent political post when she was appointed cabinet minister in 2007. In Norway, the first efforts to support and empower awareness in order to overcome invisibility, and finally to establish collective activities, have been made in the founding of the Young Africans in Norway (AYIN) in 1995. The work of this movement does not just concern itself with the remapping of Norway’s history and language, but also with the empowering of self-descriptions, perceptions, and identities for black youths and black people in Norway. In Sweden, one also finds community structures headed by the Afrosvenskarnas riksförbundet that aim at constituting a voice for blacks in Sweden. Such groups strive to empower and to challenge the contemporary reality with statements on numerous topics. In Sweden, Nyamko Sabuni, a black woman, also achieved a prominent political post when she was appointed minister for integration and equality. Black Scandinavian studies, which has emerged as part of the research on a common black history, continues to grow in the twenty-first century. It faces the challenge to write black history into the dominating historiography. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; African Diaspora; Jazz, European Reception of; Larsen, Nella. Further Reading: Arter, David. “Black Faces in the Blond Crowd: Populist Racialism in Scandinavia.” Parliamentary Affairs 45 (1992): 357–372; Gullestad, Marianne. “Normalising Racial Boundaries: The Norwegian Dispute about the Term ‘neger.’” Social Anthropology 13:1 (February 2005): 27–46; Hällgren, Camilla. “‘Working Harder to be the Same’: Everyday Racism among Young Men and Women in Sweden.” Race Ethnicity and Education 8:3 (September 2005): 319– 342; Pred, Allan. Even in Sweden: Racisms, Radicalized Spaces, and the Popular Geographic Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000; Sawyer, Lena. “Routings: ‘Race,’ African
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Scientific Racism Diasporas, and Swedish Belonging.” Transforming Anthropology 11:1 (January 2002): 13–35; Weisbord, Robert G. “Scandinavia: A Racial Utopia?” Journal of Black Studies 2:4 (June 1972): 471–488.
Nadine Golly
Scientific Racism Scientific racism refers to nineteenth-century theories or arguments that purportedly used scientific evidence to further notions of evolutionary differences between members of diverse races and/or ethnic groups. Scientific racism draws from such academic disciplines as craniometry, physical anthropology, phrenology, physiognomy, and anthropometry to establish a typology of various human races that revolve around a concept of “race.” The popularity of theories that could be classified under the term scientific racism increased during the period of European global expansion in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. These theories were used to provide ideological justifications for racism and the subordination of certain races or ethnic groups as slaves and/or colonial subjects. EARLY SCIENTIFIC THEORIES OF RACE. The modern notion of “race” as human type of classification, using predominantly physical characteristics such as skin color, dates from the eighteenth century. In 1735, a Swedish scientist named Carolus Linnaeus included humans as a species within the primate genus. He subsequently subdivided that species into several different types. Linnaeus’s scientific classification efforts were primarily concerned with accounting for the differences between Europeans, Amerindians, Asians, and Africans. Linnaeus attributed to each type certain biological characteristics, which were inherited, and certain cultural characteristics, which were learned. At one end of his classification scale was “Homo European,” who had light-colored skin and was governed by laws; at the other end of the scale was “Homo African,” who had black-colored skin and was governed by impulses. Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s On the Natural Varieties of Mankind (1776) emerged as one of the most authoritative Enlightenment classifications of races. Blumenbach divided humans into five groups (Caucasians, Mongolians, Ethiopians, Americans, and Malays) based on the known dominant physical characteristics of each type on each of the continents/regions of the known world. In his racial descriptions, Blumenbach emphasized somatic characteristics instead of intellectual or moral ones. He argued that all humans belong to the same species and had a common ancestry. His depiction of a progression from primitive societies to industrialized civilization became popular among later philosophers, including Friedrich Hegel, Immanuel Kant, and Auguste Comte. In addition, such notions of a common ancestry complemented Christian beliefs in the divine creation of Adam and Eve, from which all of humanity descended. In contrast to such ideas, polygenist theory argued that there were multiple origins of humans, and it was therefore possible to conceive of various biological human races. Although Blumenbach refuted the common claim that Africans were more animalistic (and hence nearer to apes than other men), his work is marked by an ethnocentric bias.
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He was the first to trace whites to the Caucasus, but he arrived at this conclusion because of the legendary beauty of its inhabitants. He believed that Caucasians were the first human race, and it was from this race that all others had diverged. Thus with their work, Linnaeus, Blumenbach, and other eighteenth-century ethnologists paved the way for a secular (or scientific) racism. CRANIOMETRY AND PHYSICAL ANTHROPOLOGY. During the nineteenth century, further research gave racial theories seemingly more legitimacy. Data analyses were conducted from such activities as the measurement of skulls, foreheads, and noses, and the weight of brains. Pieter Camper (1722–1789), a Dutch scholar, was an early proponent of craniometry (the measurement of skulls) to justify racial differences. In 1770, Camper developed the concept of the “facial angle,” a measurement to determine intelligence among different species. According to his technique, a “facial angle” was calculated by drawing a horizontal line from the nostrils to the ear of a subject and an additional perpendicular line from the advancing part of the upper jawbone to the most prominent compo- Drawings from Josiah C. Nott and George Glidnent of the subject’s forehead. Camper conclu- don’s Indigenous Races of the Earth (1857), which sions reinforced a hierarchic and racist view suggested black people ranked between white of humans: he argued that Europeans had an people and chimpanzees in terms of intelligence. angle of 80 degrees, blacks had an angle of 70 degrees, and orangutans had an angle of 58 degrees. Other scientists continued such research, including Etienne Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (1772–1844), Paul Broca (1824–1880), and Samuel George Morton (1799–1851). Morton was a founder of physical anthropology, which involved the collecting of hundreds of skulls from different parts of the globe. Morton sought to classify the skulls according to certain criteria. He argued that he could determine the intellectual capacity of different races based on their cranial capacity, which is the skull’s interior volume. Larger skulls were believed to imply larger brains and hence higher capacity for intelligence. Conversely, smaller skulls were believed to imply smaller brains and lower capacities of intelligence. In his examinations of various skulls, Morton determined the point that Caucasians diverged into Africans. He possessed several Egyptian skulls and from these concluded that ancient Egyptians were not black African, but rather white. EUGENICS. Georges Vacher de Lapouge (1854–1936), a theoretician of eugenics, developed one of the earliest typologies used for the classification of different
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Scientific Racism human races. He published The Aryan and His Social Role (1899), an anti-Semitic work that classified humans into different hierarchical races. He believed that the most advanced race was the “Aryan white race,” and the lowest type of race was best exhibited by the Jews. William Ripley advanced similar faulty theories in his The Races of Europe (1899), which influenced American racist groups. Joseph Deniker (1852–1918) opposed many of Ripley’s ideas. Whereas Ripley (and Vacher de Lapouges) argued that Europe was composed of three races, Deniker argued that there were 10 races in Europe (six primary races and four subraces). One of Deniker’s longest-lasting ideas was the designation of a “race nordique” (“Northern race”). Madison Grant (1865–1937) built on both Ripley’s and Deniker’s ideas. Grant used Ripley’s notion of three European races and adopted Deniker’s notion of a “race nordique” (which he transliterated as “Nordic race”), which Grant placed at the top of his racial hierarchy. Grant’s Nordic theory became especially popular in Germany during the racial hygiene movement of the early twentieth century. Racial hygiene was historically connected ideas of public health, but with an emphasis on heredity. Francis Galton (1822–1911) was one of the earliest scholars to advocate using social measures to preserve (or enhance) certain biological characteristics. Galton coined the term eugenics to describe this process. The popularity of both eugenics and racial hygiene influenced racial policies of the Nazis and their eugenics program in Germany. RACIAL CATEGORIES. The idea of “racial differences” implies that there are distinct biological differences between different groups of humans that can be determined by definable physical and/or social features; however, there are no clear, established demarcations of humans who fit coherent sets of physical features. Within any identified racial group are variations of skin color, hair color and texture, body shape, facial structure, etc. Furthermore, there are certain features that transcend more than one racial group. Although there is no clear link between observable physical and social differences, racial classifications have long presupposed that such a connection exists. The demarcation of socially significant and distinct races, on which racial classifications are based, fetishizes the characteristics that it determines distinctive and artificially fills them with social meaning. Although this does not necessarily imply the division of humans into inferior and superior groups that is how such classifications have historically been used. The practice of assigning importance to physical characteristics such as skin color, eye color, and nose shape have been racialized to give way to racial classifications constricted and based on subjective physical characteristics, which are not historically or socially fixed, rather than on any biological reality. See also: Black Athena Controversy; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gall, Franz Josef; Gobineau on Races and Slavery; Hamitic Myth; New Imperialism. Further Reading: Back, Les, and John Solomos, eds. Theories of Race and Racism. New York: Routledge, 2000; Donald, James, and Ali Rattansi, eds. Race, Culture, and Difference. New York: Sage, 1992; Fredrickson, George M. Racism: A Short History. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2002; Gates, Henry Louis. Race, Writing and Difference. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1986; Kohn, Marek. The Race Gallery: The Return of Racial Science. New York: Vintage, 1996.
Charlotte Baker
Seacole, Mary (1805–1881)
Scotland, Patricia (1955–) Patricia Janet Scotland, a barrister and politician, became the first woman attorney general for England and Wales in 2007. She was born on August 19, 1955 in Dominica to Antiguan and Dominican parents. Her family migrated to Britain at the age of three. Scotland attended Walthamstow School for Girls. She had a brilliant academic record, earning a law degree at the age of 20 from London University. She specialized in family and children’s law from the Middle Temple bar. In her career as an attorney, Scotland took cases pertaining to social justice, immigration, child abuse, mental disorder, domestic violence, and housing. Scotland became well known in 1991 when she became the first black woman in the legal history of Britain to be appointed as Queen’s Counsel. She was also the youngest since William Pitt the Younger (1759–1806). In February 1994, Scotland became the millennium commissioner. Her rise was phenomenal at the time of Tony Blair’s tenure as prime minister. She became a bencher of the Middle Temple in 1997 and subsequently a judge two years afterward. Scotland received the coveted position of peer as Baroness Scotland of Asthal in the County of Oxfordshire in 1997. As the parliamentary undersecretary of state at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office from 1999, Scotland looked after the country’s overseas territories. A bill was mooted at her behest for ratifying International Criminal Court in Britain. After two years, she became a member of the Privy Council, as well as parliamentary secretary in the Department of Lord Chancellor. Scotland became the first female lawyer to hold the rank of a minister of state in the Lord Chancellor’s Department. She had the challenging task of the Department’s Bills in the House of Lords. In 2003, Scotland was the Home Office minister of state for Criminal Justice System and Law Reform. After two years, she became the Home Office minister of state. She also had the additional charge of gender and equality issues of the Trade and Industry Department. Between 2002 and 2003, Scotland was the government’s alternate representative to the European Convention. She became the first woman to become attorney general in June 2007 under Prime Minister Gordon Brown. As the highest law enforcement officer of the nation, she reached the pinnacle of glory in her professional career. Scotland is active in many organizations such as Frank Longford Charitable Trust, British American Project, Thomas More Society, and Women and Children’s Welfare Fund. She has not forgotten her Caribbean origin. She is a member of the bar in Dominica and has visited her country of origin. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Adler, Sue, and Catherine Ward. Baroness Scotland of Asthal: A Profile. Northwood: Tamarind Books, 2001.
Patit Paban Mishra
Seacole, Mary (1805–1881) Mary Seacole was a devoted Jamaican nurse of biracial descent during the nineteenth century known for risking her life to save others. Despite the British government’s refusal to let her serve as a nurse during the Crimean War due to her ethnicity,
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Séjour, Victor (1817–1874) Seacole self-financed her journey to the Crimea, where she ran a hotel to assist the British army’s wounded. Seacole was born Mary Jane Grant in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1805 to a white Scottish officer in the British army and a Jamaican woman who practiced herbal healing and medicine. Seacole’s mother also ran a boarding house, Blundell Hall, for injured soldiers. During her adolescent years, Seacole learned herbal cures and traveled throughout the Caribbean and to London. After briefly returning to Jamaica in 1825, she resumed her travels to several places, including Cuba, Haiti, and the Bahamas. Seacole married Edwin Horatio Hamilton Seacole, a white British merchant, in November 1836. Shortly after her husband’s and mother’s death in 1844, Seacole took over Blundell Hall until 1851. The next year, she cared for cholera patients in Panana and yellow fever victims in Jamaica. Her success as a nurse encouraged her to tend the wounded in the Crimean War. In 1854, Seacole traveled to London to join the group of nurses established by Florence Nightingale. Despite her skills, the British War Offices refused to employ her because of her skin color. Seacole used her own financial means to reach Crimea and went to Balaclava in 1855. After receiving another refusal to work as a nurse, she built a lodging for ill soldiers named British Hotel. While running the hotel, Seacole also became a battlefield nurse, sold medicine, and gave medical advice. Her dutiful attention and bravery of helping the wounded on the front earned her the title “Mother Seacole” with the soldiers. Using a large portion of her assets to travel to the Crimea and run British Hotel, Seacole returned to England destitute when the Crimean War ended in 1856. She also earned a poor reputation with Florence Nightingale and some English Victorians for giving alcohol to soldiers and allegedly running a brothel instead of a hotel. Seacole’s reputation was restored when an 1856 letter in The Times praised her skills and bravery and pushed for her celebration. From July 27 to July 30, 1857, a festival in Seacole’s honor was held with more than 1,000 performers; it received support by several Crimean war commanders including Lord Rokeby and Lord Paget. During this same period, she received several honors and medals. In 1857, Seacole published her autobiography, The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. The text became a bestseller and received critical acclaim. Seacole spent the next two decades traveling between Jamaica and England, and attending to patients like the Princess of Wales. After Seacole’s death in 1881, her accolades continued. She was voted the Greatest Black Briton in 2004, her portrait hung in the National Portrait Gallery of London in January 2005, and she received an exhibit at the Florence Nightingale Museum in London from 2005 to 2007. See also: Black British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British. Further Reading: Ramdin, Ron. Mary Seacole. London: Haus, 2005; Seacole, Mary. The Wonderful Adventures of Mrs. Seacole in Many Lands. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.
Dorsía Smith
Séjour, Victor (1817–1874) Victor Séjour was an African American writer who wrote in French and made his career in nineteenth-century France, where he achieved notable success and received the prestigious Légion d’Honneur. He was born a free Creole in New Orleans, Louisiana in 1817.
Séjour, Victor (1817–1874) His father was a free man of biracial descent from Haiti and his mother was a free woman of biracial descent from the United States. Séjour’s parents were relatively prosperous and encouraged their son’s education. In 1836, Séjour’s parents sent him to Paris to study under fewer racial restraints. Such a practice was common among prosperous Creoles. In Paris, he met Cyrille Bissette, who was also black and edited the abolitionist journal La Revue des Colonies. Bissette published Séjour’s short story, “Le Mulâtre” (“The Mulatto,” 1837), which condemned slavery. “Le Mulâtre,” one of the earliest known pieces of fiction published by an African American writer, tells the story of a slave who exacts revenge on his master for his wife’s death only to discover that he has murdered his father. Although the story in general made little impact in the United States at the time (and was not translated into English until the twentieth century), it did have an effect on educated former slaves who became abolitionists, such as Frederick Douglass. In 1841, Séjour wrote “Le retour de Napoléon” (“The Return of Napoleon”), an ode honoring the former French emperor, to celebrate the return of his remains for burial in France. Séjour remained an admirer of Napoleon throughout his life. “Le retour de Napoléon” was reprinted later in the United States as part of Les Cenelles (1845), an early anthology of African American poetry. The poem’s success brought him admittance to the highest French literary circles, where he met Alexandre Dumas père, author of The Three Musketeers and himself of African descent. In 1844, Séjour began his career as a dramatist with the verse play Diégarias (The Jew of Seville), which was performed at the Théâtre-Français. His success continued with La chute de Séjan (The Fall of Sejanus, 1849). Séjour’s work reflected the influence of Shakespeare and other Renaissance English writers, as well as contemporary writers in France, such as Victor Hugo. For example, The Jew of Seville was inspired by Shakespeare’s The Merchant of Venice and Christopher Marlowe’s The Jew of Malta. Séjour also wrote a play about the English King Richard III in 1852 that paid homage to Shakespeare’s play on the same subject. Séjour’s works reflected the intense emotionalism of the French Romantics, and his use of monologue and rhetoric are reminiscent of the work of Hugo. Séjour became a popular and admired dramatist in Paris during the 1850s and 1860s, writing more than 20 performed plays in his career. During this period of success, he brought both his parents to live in France. In 1860, Séjour became a member of the Légion d’Honneur. Shifts in literature and popular taste resulted in the decline of Séjour’s popularity. In the 1870s, he was in poor health and with little finances. He died in 1874 in the process of finishing his serialized novel, Le Comte de Haag (The Count of Haag), which was set in revolutionary France. See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Authors in Europe, African American; Bug-Jargal; France, Blacks in; Georges; Othello. Further Reading: O’Neill, Charles Edwards. “Theatrical Censorship in France, 1844–1875: The Experience of Victor Séjour.” Harvard Library Bulletin 26:4 (Oct. 1978): 417–441; Perret, J. John. “Victor Séjour: Black French Playwright from Louisiana.” The French Review 57:2 (Dec. 1983): 187–193; Séjour, Victor. “The Mulatto.” trans. Philip Barnard. In The Norton Anthology of African- American Literature. ed. Nellie McKay and Henry Louis Gates. 2nd ed. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004.
Eric Martone
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Senghor, Léopold Sédar (1906–2001) Léopold Sédar Senghor was a French writer and the first leader of the newly independent state of Senegal from 1960 to 1980. Born in a coastal village near Dakar in Senegal in 1906, he had the chance to spend his childhood in a relatively wealthy family. He began learning French at the age of seven, when he attended the French missionary school, and later on, when he studied in Paris from 1928. In Paris, Senghor met the young Aimé Césaire. During the 1930s, both men began to forge the concept of Négritude, a positive affirmation of the African identity and culture, with the retelling of Africa as the source of all blacks on Earth. During his school days at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand in Paris, Senghor also met Georges Pompidou (who would later become the president of France in 1969). During World War II, Senghor served with the French army for a short time, but he was soon taken prisoner by the Nazi German forces, which occupied France from 1940 to 1942. From 1945 to 1990, Senghor wrote more than a dozen books, mostly poetry, but also some short essays. Among his most important books is an anthology of young African poetry entitled Anthologie de la nouvelle poésie nègre et malgache de langue française (Anthology of the new Negro and Madagascar poetry in French, 1948), which was often quoted in French studies. Senghor is mostly remembered for his term as president of Senegal, which spanned two decades. He had already been active in politics for 15 years when he became the head of the new Senegalese government in 1960. Before Senegalese independence, Senghor was first elected MP (“député”) in 1945 to represent the colonial Senegal in the French National Assembly in Paris. He was reelected three times until 1960. Later, while president of Senegal, Senghor organized in Dakar the first World Festival of Negro Arts in 1966. The organization of the festival confirmed his attachment to the arts, literature, and culture. Senghor maintained strong links with the democratic governments of France and remained distant from communist states such as the Soviet Union. When he retired from politics at the age of 74, Senghor stayed in Normandy, France with his second wife until his death at the age of 95 in 2001. Senghor was among the first “celebrities” from black Africa to obtain many recognitions, distinctions, and literary prices from European institutions. Among many other awards, he received the Grand prix international de poésie in 1963, the medal from Dag Hammarskjoeld in 1965, the Cino del Duca in 1978, the Athénaï in Greece in 1985, and the Intercultura in Rome in 1987. Senghor was elected a member of the prestigious French Academy on June 3, 1983. In addition, he received more than 35 “Honoris Causa” doctorates in Europe, the United States, and Canada. During the World Francophone Summit that reunited the heads of French-speaking states in 1989, he had the privilege to see the birth of an institution that still bears his name, the Université Léopold Sedar Senghor in Alexandria, Egypt, which is dedicated to many disciplines, all given in French, to adults over the age of 36. See also: African Diaspora; Colonies in Africa, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French; Pan-Africanism; World War II, Black Participation in.
Shinebourne, Janice (1947–) Further Reading: Kluback, William. Léopold Sédar Senghor: From Politics to Poetry. New York: Peter Lang, 1997; Senghor, Léopold Sédar. The Collected Poetry. trans. Melvin Dixon. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 1991; Vaillant, Janet. Black, French, and African: A Life of Léopold Sédar Senghor. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1990.
Yves Laberge
Shakespeare’s Sonnets, The Dark Lady of Several of the sonnets (numbers 127 to 152) of William Shakespeare, the great Renaissance English playwright and poet, refer to a mysterious woman known only as the “Dark Lady.” These sonnets are sexual in nature and imply that the speaker has had a torrid affair with the Dark Lady, who is unfaithful to him, possibly with a younger man. The life of Shakespeare is not well documented and little is known about the details of his personal life. Scholars have long debated the identity of this Dark Lady and have offered many suggestions, including that she was perhaps the writer’s mistress. Shakespeare describes the color of the Dark Lady’s skin as “dun,” which referred to a dull or brown color. One of the popular hypotheses for this mistress’s identity is that she was a courtesan called Luce Negro, whom it is believed became acquainted with the writer in the 1590s. Luce Negro was a famous black courtesan in England and ran a brothel in Clerkenwell in London. This Luce may also have been known as Luce Morgan. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Othello; Prostitution in Europe, Blacks and. Further Reading: Forbes, Thomas R. Chronicle of Aldgate: Life and Death in Shakespeare’s London. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1971; Harrison, G. B. Shakespeare at Work. London: Routledge, 1933; Hotson, Leslie. Mr. W. H. London: Rupert Hart-Davis, 1964; Salkeld, Duncan. “Black Luce and the ‘Curtizons’ of Shakespeare’s London.” Signatures (Winter 2000). Available at: http://www.chiuni.ac.uk/info/Signatures.cfm; Vaughan, Alden, and Virginia Vaughan. “Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans.” The William and Mary Quarterly 54:1 (1997): 19–44.
Nicole Martone
Shinebourne, Janice (1947–) Janice Shinebourne (née Lowe) is a prominent Guyanese writer in Britain who wrote novels about the complex web of nationalities in twentieth-century Guyana. She was born in 1947 in Guyana and attended Berbice High School. After leaving school, she became a reporter in Georgetown, Guyana, and then studied at the University of Guyana. During this period, Shinebourne was writing and had already won prizes in the National History and Arts Council Literary Competition. She moved to London in 1970. Shinebourne has studied literature as a postgraduate at the University of London, edited several journals, and worked as a university lecturer. A major cultural activist and author, Shinebourne has also been a Visiting Fellow at New York University and has embarked on reading tours in Europe, the Caribbean, the United States, and Asia.
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Sierra Leone Shinebourne’s first novel, Timepiece (1986), is partly autobiographical. The main character, Sandra Yansen, leaves her family and village behind to become a newspaper reporter in Georgetown. Saying farewell to her friends in the village in Berbice, Sandra is divided between her mother, Helen, who likes town life, and her father, Ben, who remains attracted to the village life and country values. Sandra’s settling into city life explores the experiences that many other Guyanese felt. Shinebourne’s second novel, The Last English Plantation (2001), has the 12-year-old June Lehall confronting her Indian-Chinese heritage at a time of rising political tensions in British Guiana as the colony heads toward independence. The girl wins a scholarship to the local high school and, from there, observes the arrival of British soldiers in a dispute on a nearby sugar plantation. As with Shinebourne’s first book, some of the novel draws from her own life and experiences, also showing the rising political consciousness in Guyana and the treatment of the black population. The predicament of the largely Indian heroine contrasts with many other accounts of racial problems in Guyana written by those without Shinebourne’s understanding of the Guyanese Indian psyche. Shinebourne’s third book, The Godmother and Other Stories (2003), explores colonial and postcolonial themes, with a number of people of African and other heritages struggling to find a role in colonial British Guiana and in independent Guyana. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Gafoor, Ameena. “The Depiction of Indian Female Experience in the Contemporary Novel of the Anglophone Caribbean.” Guyana Chronicle (April 27, 2003); King, Bruce. The Oxford English Literary History, 1984–2000: The Internationalization of English Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004; Scott, Helen. Caribbean Women Writers and Globalization: Fictions of Independence. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2006.
Justin Corfield
Sierra Leone Sierra Leone is a multiethnic republic situated on the Atlantic coast of West Africa between Liberia and Guinea. The history of modern Sierra Leone is typically traced to 1787, when a group of “Black Poor” from London arrived there to establish a colony for ex-slaves and their descendants from the Americas and Britain. The Sierra Leone settlement was the project of abolitionists, among them Olaudah Equiano, who was to have taken part in the 1787 voyage. The land to which these colonists sailed was no virgin territory. Some of the states, chieftaincies, and other African communities living along the coast had been trading with European merchants since the arrival of the Portuguese in the area in the fifteenth century. One aspect of the social organization of many of the groups in the area was the important role assumed by the male and female secret societies (Poro and Sande/ Bundu, respectively) in politics. The 1787 experiment failed and most of the would-be colonists perished. In 1792, another boatload of settlers arrived from Nova Scotia, Canada. These settlers were American blacks who had fought on the British side in the American Revolution for
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean Independence on the promise of freedom from the British Crown. In 1800, a third wave of immigrants arrived, this time Jamaican “Maroons,” who were slaves that had escaped from slavery and established independent communities in the mountains of Jamaica. In 1808, Britain took control of the settlement (“Freetown”) from the Sierra Leone Company and declared Freetown and its surrounding areas a Crown Colony. The previous year, Britain had abolished the slave trade. With abolition, the British navy established a patrol off the coast of West Africa to enforce its ban against the slave trade. Freetown served as the base of the British patrol, and the slaves liberated from intercepted slavers were resettled in Sierra Leone. The tens of thousands of these “recaptives,” as they were called, constituted the largest single group in the settler community, greatly outnumbering the Nova Scotians and Maroons. The settlers, as a whole, are known as Krio (formerly “Creole”). Although most Krio are identified with Christianity and harbingers of Western civilization, a significant proportion of “recaptives” were Muslim and maintained their religious affiliation through the years. Islam in the area dates from at least the eighteenth century and probably before, when Muslim Mande and Fulani began settling in parts of present-day northern Sierra Leone; conversions by locals ensued. During the era of European imperialism in Africa, Sierra Leone was as a major center for British rule in West Africa. Fourah Bay College, the first Western-style school of higher education in British West Africa, was established in Sierra Leone in 1827. From Sierra Leone, administrators, doctors, lawyers, and missionaries especially traveled throughout the West African subregion, sometimes settling permanently and establishing Sierra Leonean enclaves. During the “Scramble for Africa,” Britain extended its colonial rule from its coastal base into the interior, declaring a protectorate over the interior in 1896. In 1898, the British imposition of a “hut tax” resulted in war between Britain and a number of chiefs in the interior, most notably Bai Bureh. The protectorate and the colony were administered separately until 1951, when the two were brought under a single system. British colonial rule ended on April 27, 1961. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in Africa, British; Crowther, Samuel Adjai; Missionaries in Africa, European; New Imperialism; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Alie, Joe A. D. A New History of Sierra Leone. New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1990; Fyfe, Christopher. A History of Sierra Leone. London: Oxford University Press, 1962; Fyle, C. Macbaily. Historical Dictionary of Sierra Leone. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2006; Wyse, Akintola. The Krio of Sierra Leone: An Interpretive History. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1991.
Anene Ejikeme
Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean Since ancient times, enslaved persons have revolted against their masters. Some of the major slave insurrections in history occurred in the British colonies in the Carib-
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Slave Revolts in the British Caribbean bean. These insurrections had a far-reaching impact on the colonies as well as the mother country. In the Caribbean (West Indian) region, the islands of Anguilla, Antigua, Bahamas, Barbados, Bermuda, British Guyana, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Jamaica, Montserrat, Nevis, Trinidad, and Tobago were under British domination. Although many of the sporadic revolts were aborted, three rebellions flared up with serious dimensions. These rebellions occurred in Barbados (1816), Guyana (Demerara Rebellion, 1823), and Jamaica (Insurrection of 1831–1832). The Caribbean slave revolts not only compelled British abolitionists to take a radical posture, but also changed the social, economic, and political profile of the colonies. The enslaved blacks under the leadership of African-born Bussa (d. 1816) revolted in Barbados on April 14, 1816. With the objective of bringing the plantations under the control of the blacks and ending slavery, the insurrection began with the burning of sugarcane in St. Phillip. The insurrection spread to the neighboring regions and the colonial government imposed martial law. The premature beginning of the insurrection resulted in its failure and the government soon regained control. The rebellion was crushed by the West Indian Regiment and militia on April 17 and Bussa was killed. About 4,000 to 5,000 slaves participated in the revolt. After two major battles, the death toll of the rebels was about 1,000. About 144 slaves were executed and about 123 were deported. There was extensive damage to property and sugar plantations. The slaves, however, received some respite by the 1825 Consolidated Slave Law, which gave them the right to property and to testify in court cases. The Bussa, or Eastern Rebellion, also strengthened the cause of abolitionists in Great Britain in their struggle to end slavery. In 1833, the British Parliament abolished slavery in its territories and more than 83,000 slaves were freed in Barbados. Bussa has become a national hero in Barbados. The 1823 Demerara rebellion occurred in the colony of Demerara-Essequibo, which was incorporated with Berbice eight years afterward to form British Guyana. This massive rebellion, which involved 1,100 to 1,200 slaves across 55 plantations in the East Coast of Demerara, was the result of accumulated slave grievances. Social tension was brewing. Aging slaves had to work for longer hours in the sugarcane plantations (in Demerara-Essequibo, the production of coffee and cotton had been eliminated). Slave owners would not allow slaves to attend the church prayers. The planters also asked slaves to work on Sundays, thereby making it impossible for the slaves to attend churches. The insurrection began on August 18, 1823 on Plantation Success and spread quickly to other regions of eastern Demerara. The leaders of the revolt, however, were not able to extend their operation to Georgetown and the western Demerara regions. The official retribution was harsh and several hundred slaves were killed. Many were tried for treason. John Smith of Bethel Chapel in Plantation Le Ressouvenir, for example, was condemned to death for instigating the slaves. The majority of the slaves who had taken part in the revolt were not African-born slaves. They were Creoles born locally who were slaves from birth. The insurrection in 1823 shattered the myth that Creoles were docile and accommodative to the life of a slave. Another notable feature of the revolt was that it was the first major insurrection in the British Caribbean in which religion played an important role. The 1831–1832 slave rebellions on the British colony of Jamaica, known variously as the Baptist War or the Christmas Rebellion, became a contributing factor in
Slave Trade, British dismantling the institution of slavery throughout the British Empire. After Jamaica’s acquisition in 1655, the sugar economy had developed rapidly, and there had been an uninterrupted importation of enslaved persons from Africa. Whereas the planter elite had expanded its enterprise, the condition of blacks was miserable. The 1831–1832 rebellions received an impetus from the reports that the emancipation of enslaved Africans was imminent. Numerous churches had established parishes in Jamaica and the Baptist Mission Society had dispatched Thomas Burchell (1799–1846), William Knibb (1803–1845), and Henry Bleby (1809–1882) as ministers and missionaries. Samuel Sharpe (1801–1832), a literate slave, was allowed to work as a lay minister. The biblical sermon about equality of humankind acted as a catalyst in stirring up the rebellion. The timing of the revolt was perfect. Sugarcane harvesting was done in winter and planters depended on its continuous harvesting for their economic well-being. A black slave had been arrested after he attacked the person who was flogging his wife, who was also a slave. The rebellion, which resulted in the destruction of more than $3 million worth of homes and sugarcane fields and the deaths of 15 whites, began on December 27, 1831. About 40,000 slaves participated in the revolt near the Monego Bay region. Within three weeks, it was crushed by the militia, who unleashed a reign of terror. Villages and chapels were burned. Many missionaries returned to Britain. About 201 slaves were killed in the revolt and about 326 were executed. Sharpe was the last to be executed and he has become one of the national heroes of Jamaica. The conditions for blacks did not improve after the abolition of slavery by the Emancipation Act of 1833, however, because of the low rate of wages, high rents of land, and pitiable living conditions. The later October 1865 Morant Bay rebellion was suppressed ruthlessly. Jamaica reverted to the status of a Crown Colony until its full independence in 1962. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Latin American Revolutions, Blacks in; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Beckles, Hilary. Black Rebellion in Barbados: The Struggle against Slavery, 1627–1838. Bridgetown: Antilles Publication, 1987; Craton, Michael. Testing the Chains: Resistance to Slavery in the British West Indies. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1982; Gelien Matthews. Caribbean Slave Revolts and the British Abolitionist Movement. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2006; Heuman, Gad J. “The Killing Time”: The Morant Bay Rebellion in Jamaica. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1994; Higman, B. W. Slave Populations of the British Caribbean, 1807–1834. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984; Mullin, Michael. Africa in America: Slave Acculturation and Resistance in the American South and the British Caribbean, 1736–1831. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1992; Viotti da Costa, Emilia. Crowns of Glory, Tears of Blood: The Demerara Slave Rebellion of 1823. New York: Oxford University Press, 1994.
Patit Paban Mishra
Slave Trade, British The British were involved in the trans-Atlantic slave trade for almost 300 years. The Portuguese were the pioneers of the trans-Atlantic trade, but by the eighteenth century, Britain was the leading slave-trading nation. It is estimated that British ships
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Slave Trade, British were responsible for carrying between three and four million slaves from Africa to the Americas from the mid-seventeenth century until the passage of the Abolition of the Slave Trade bill in 1807. Slavery in the British Empire was finally abolished in 1833. The ship that initiated the British slave trade left Plymouth for West Africa in 1562 and was headed by John Hawkins. He was by no means the first to undertake this journey or to engage in trade with the Africans. British explorers, like John’s father, William Hawkins, or John Lok, had ventured into Africa a couple of decades earlier and raised the interest of English merchants who were willing to invest in ships and supplies for the journeys in return for expected goods such as gold, ivory, and pepper. In addition, plantations where much labor was needed were already established in the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean, and the Portuguese had been carrying African slaves across the Atlantic since the early sixteenth century. White indentured servants, former convicts, and Amerindians initially made up the work force, but there would soon be a shortage of labor. Overexertion and diseases were a common problem. The Africans were used to working in an extremely hot climate and knew how to raise crops with which the Europeans were not familiar. They appeared to be the sturdy alternative that the plantation owners urgently needed. By the time Hawkins set out for the West African coast, there was thus already an established market for slaves in the Caribbean. The trade across the Atlantic is often referred to as “the triangular trade” in recognition of the three parts involved. British iron or copper products, such as guns, buttons, and cooking utensils, and textiles, leather, and ceramics were brought to Africa as payment for slaves. The slaves were brought to the sugar plantations on the British colonies in the Caribbean, primarily Barbados and Jamaica, and to the tobacco and cotton plantations in the North American colonies. Sugar, tobacco, and rum were some of the most important goods shipped back to England. British cities like Liverpool, where the majority of the British slave ships were constructed, and Bristol, which had long been a significant seaport, thrived on the slave trade. The main focus of the British trade was the islands of Jamaica, Barbados, and the Leeward Islands of the Lesser Antilles. After the British acquisition of Jamaica in 1655, the island became the major British producer of sugar. By the end of the eighteenth century, there were about 300,000 slaves on Jamaica and the island was responsible for half of the total sugar production within the British Empire. British monarchs openly endorsed the slave trade. Queen Elizabeth I was keen on expanding the British Empire and supported the voyages into Africa, well aware of their ultimate purpose. In 1660, Charles II endowed the Company of Royal Adventurers into Africa, more commonly known as the Royal African Company, with a royal charter and a monopoly of trading rights with western Africa. During the next 150 years before the slave trade was abolished, Britain emerged as the major slave-trading nation. This was a time when the English developed plantations in the Americas and required a steady supply of African slaves. In the 1713 Treaty of Utrecht, the English won the asiento, the contract to import slaves, into the Spanish Caribbean. England had become a major mercantile power and participant in global trade. But at this time, the trade in slaves became increasingly brutal as raiding parties went deep into the African interior and frequently left whole villages devastated in their search for more recruits.
Slave Trade, British The British slave trade was fundamentally a commercial enterprise. Profit was its main motive, and a weak moral foundation centered on religious and pseudoscientific racial beliefs was created almost as an afterthought. Racial stereotypes were both an innate part of, and a result of, the institution of slavery. Stereotypes of blacks’ inferiority were ancient when British slavery began, but they were to be reinforced by the ethnocentrism that was part of British colonialism. As the profit and scope of the trade grew, pseudoscientific theories of the inferiority of black people were used to justify oppression and cruelty on the part of the slave owners. A common fiction was, for example, that the Africans were like animals, unable to experience pain or other emotions in the same way as their masters. It was essentially a trade that corrupted those who conducted it and destroyed the lives of millions of slaves. That the trans-Atlantic slave trade was based on racial distinctions is only one of its particular characteristics. Although the practice of slavery has ancient roots in European civilization and has been part of the rise of almost all civilizations, whether in classical Greece and Rome, China, Africa or the Middle East, the trans-Atlantic slave trade was in many ways historically unique. The term chattel slavery is often used to describe this particularity; it meant that the slaves were the property of their masters and were considered commodities that could be bought and sold at their owner’s will. In ancient times, the state of enslavement was often a punishment for the inability to pay debts or other transgressions. When the sentence was served, the slave could become a free person again. Now, slavery became a permanent condition, as children inherited their slave status from their mother. Another key component of the British slave trade was the social disruption that followed in its wake. Never before had so many people been abducted from their native land, families, and homes and transported to a new continent to live a life in bondage from which they were never to return. It is difficult to give definite figures on the total number of Africans removed from their homelands, but about 10 to 15 million arrived to their destination in the Americas, and about 4 to 6 million died on the journey. Conditions on the crossing of the Atlantic, known as the Middle Passage, were horrific. Between 10 and 30 percent of the transported Africans never made it to their final destination. Illnesses such as dysentery thrived, and severe dehydration was a general problem. Quite a few captives threw themselves overboard in a desperate attempt to escape their misery. Many refused to eat and insurrections were common, but not often successful. A firsthand account of the atrocities of the Middle Passage is provided by Olaudah Equiano, the author of The Interesting Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa (1789). Equiano’s autobiography describes how he was captured by slavers as a young boy in Africa and brought to work in Barbados and Virginia, before he was manumitted and able to lead a free life in England. The book became a bestseller in England and went through several editions. It would be of use in the abolitionist movement, and Equiano is now considered Britain’s first black political leader. He describes how the abducted Africans, who were kept in chains in cramped conditions throughout the journey, had to put up with filth, stench, sickness, hunger, floggings, and other forms of punishment for any misbehavior. His narrative also includes a description of the sale of the slaves on arrival at their destination in Bridgetown, Barbados. This was a sordid business characterized by a great commotion in which buyers would rush in
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Slave Trade, British and claim their victims. They all tried to get the slaves best suited for their own purpose, paying no mind to whether they separated relatives and friends. Once the slaves had arrived on the plantations, they were in the hands of their master. Even small children were forced to work long hours and were severely punished for any failure to perform according to the master’s wishes. The strict colonial slave laws that regulated the relationships between blacks and whites stated, for example, that blacks could be killed for thieving, whereas whites could take a black slave’s life with impunity, or possibly risk a fine. Equiano relates various instances of brutality and torture of the slaves. Slaves were often whipped for misbehaving, for example, or made to wear iron handcuffs, thumbscrews, or iron muzzles on the head, making it difficult or even impossible to speak, eat, and drink. The slaves often did not quietly accept such treatment. There were several slave rebellions that would be part of the process leading to the final emancipation of the slaves. In Jamaica, runaway slaves, called maroons, hid in the mountain ranges, where it was difficult for the British to find them, and from where they could stage attacks on their former owners. Examples of slave rebellions in Jamaica were Tacky’s rebellion in 1760 and the Jamaican Christmas Rebellion in 1831, also known as Sam Sharpe’s Revolt and the Baptist War. In Barbados, Bussa’s rebellion of 1816 is famous, and there were numerous other instances of revolt, both in the Caribbean and in North America. Demands for the British abolition of slavery would be heard increasingly often in the second half of the eighteenth century. Many devout Christians condemned the slave trade on moral grounds. The politician William Wilberforce, the lifelong crusader against slavery Thomas Clarkson, and the radical civil servant Granville Sharp, are some of the most ardent and well-known advocates of the abolitionist cause. Together with a group of Quakers, these men formed the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in 1787. After 20 years of petitions and argumentation, their efforts were finally rewarded and the slave trade was abolished. The legacies of the British slave trade are still in evidence today. The social disruption it caused in many African countries partly explains present-day instability. For example, the triangular trade naturally affected demographic patterns. In addition, traditional modes of farming and political organization were disturbed, and local industries were often undermined as a result of the dependence on imported goods. In England, a black population has been resident since the sixteenth century in consequence of the British involvement in the slave trade. By the end of the eighteenth century, London had a structured black community made up of 10,000 to 15,000 people. Most of them were servants returning with their plantation masters, some were musicians or sailors, and a few were students. At the beginning of the twenty-first century, the recognition of this black presence is transforming the meaning of British identity. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Common Law, Slavery and English. Further Reading: Craton, Michael. Sinews of Empire: A Short History of British Slavery. London: Temple Smith, 1974; Equiano, Olaudah. “The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, or Gustavus Vassa, the African.” In Henry Gates, ed. The Classic Slave Narratives.
Slave Trade, Dutch New York: Penguin, 1987; Gerzina, Gretchen. Black England: Life Before Emancipation. London: Allison and Busby, 1999; Martin, S. I. Britain’s Slave Trade. London: Macmillan, Channel 4 Books. 1999; Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade. London: Macmillan, 1997; Walvin, James. Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001.
Lena Ahlin
Slave Trade, Dutch From 1620 to 1655, the Netherlands was at war with Portugal. The struggle between the two came to be increasingly determined by the needs of the slave trade. Compared with some other European powers, the Dutch were latecomers to Africa. When the Dutch attempted to set up African trading posts, they came into conflict with the Portuguese, who were already well established in Africa. At first, the Dutch were interested in accumulating gold from Africa. After they captured some sugar plantations in northern Brazil, however, they came to rely on slavery to help develop the plantations. The Dutch captured the Portuguese headquarters of São Jorge da Mina, which they renamed Elmina, in 1637 in the hopes of securing a steady supply of African slave labor. When Brazil fell in 1654, the Dutch continued trading slaves, with colonies like Curaçao emerging as a significant slave base. Amsterdam, which was the capital of Holland, the largest of the seven provinces that comprised the Netherlands, emerged as the most significant trading center in the world by the mid-1600s. As a result, it provided substantial support to the slave trade. The Dutch West India Company (WIC), headquartered in Amsterdam, was one of the largest single slave traders in the history of the slave trade. The WIC was chartered in 1621 and was granted a monopoly on the African slave trade until 1730. Dutch financiers also financially supported Danish, Swedish, and German slavers. The ports of Vlissingen and Middleburg in the Dutch province of Zeeland came to emerge as the main departure points of slavers. By 1750, slave trading was the most significant commercial activity in Vlissingen. In the late 1500s, the province had staunchly refused to open a slave market in Middleburg on the grounds that Dutch law did not support slavery. Yet attitudes toward slavery had changed and the slave trade and Dutch commerce expanded. Middleburg was the site of the largest independent Dutch slaving company, the Middleburg Commercial Company, which was at its peak in the eighteenth century. The Netherlands had to import its wood for shipbuilding from abroad. To save money, the Dutch developed the means of making efficient ships from cheap materials. The fluyt, or “fly boat,” was one such design. The fluyt’s ability to hold a vast cargo and its shallow draft made it ideal for slave voyages. As a result, the fluyt was a common site across Europe, Africa, and the Americas. The Dutch captured the British colony of Suriname during the Second AngloDutch War (1667). Under the WIC, Suriname was turned into a plantation slave society. The colony became a primary destination for African slaves seized by Dutch slavers. Although no large-scale slave revolts ensued on Suriname while it was under Dutch control, slaves resisted through “maroonage.” Maroons, or fugitive slaves, fled toward
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Slave Trade, Dutch the interior and established permanent communities. The size of these communities became substantially high. The maroon communities engaged the Dutch in a type of guerilla warfare. By the 1760s, the Dutch were forced to acknowledge the maroon communities as independent. Coffy, a slave in the Dutch colony of Berbice (now British Guyana), led a slave rebellion in 1763. An outbreak of yellow fever had swept across the colony, and the slaves saw this as an opportunity to obtain their freedom. Coffy had intended to negotiate a treaty with the white slave owners in the colony that would enable a peaceful coexistence; however, Coffy had a falling out with the other leaders in the rebellion and he committed suicide. The rebellion was crushed in 1764. In 1623, the WIC gained permission to establish the province of New Netherland in North America. The Dutch themselves were largely unwilling to become settlers. As a result, the colony was developed with mostly foreign settlers. The shortage also encouraged the reliance on slaves. The first African slaves arrived in 1625. From the 1630s onward, the Dutch also controlled most of Brazil, which occupied a central position in the slave trade. After the loss of Brazil in 1654, the Dutch placed their hopes on New Netherland. Slaves were used to build roads, homes, and defenses. Slaves were mostly in demand in the urban townships. Skilled slaves were able to exploit the labor shortage to achieve more freedom than the slaves in the Caribbean. The relaxed slave arrangements enabled slaves to assimilate into the colonial culture more easily than elsewhere, but the British captured the province of New Netherland in 1664. The Dutch East India Company was established in 1602 to trade with Asia. The company, which had headquarters throughout the Asia region, owned a large number of slaves. The Dutch East India Company occasionally conducted raids on Madagascar for slaves. The company also established an African base at the Cape of Good Hope, which led to the establishment of Cape Colony. The Dutch wished to use slave labor to develop the region; however, the company wished to maintain good relations with the local inhabitants. The company’s rival, the WIC, captured its slaves from West Africa; therefore the company could not get its slaves from there. As a result, the company gathered slaves from Madagascar, Mozambique, and Asia. Toward the end of the seventeenth century, the Dutch faced increased colonial competition from other European powers such as England and France. Although the Dutch slave trade began to decline, independent slavers perpetuated the practice. During the eighteenth century, Spain had liberalized its colonial policies, and Curaçao became less useful as a slaving base. When the British took control of Curaçao in the early nineteenth century, they ended what remained of the area’s slave trade. Britain abolished the slave trade in 1807 and began to pressure other countries to follow suit. By the time Curaçao was returned to Dutch control, international sentiment against the slave trade and the institution of slavery was on the rise. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Netherlands, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Emmer, Pieter. The Dutch Slave Trade, 1500–1850. Trans. Chris Emery. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006.
E. Agateno Mosca
Slave Trade, French
Slave Trade, French The French became substantially involved in the African slave trade in the sixteenth century. The French government wished to develop plantation economies in its Caribbean colonies. These islands began to thrive as centers for the exportation of sugar with the addition of capital, credit, technology, and slaves. Rather than trade with other European powers for slaves, the French government assisted in the development of the West India Company, a monopoly company, in 1664. In the 1670s, French fleets seized factories from the Dutch in Gorée and the Senegambia. Bases were established in West Africa to secure a steady supply of slave labor. In 1672, the French government offered bounties for slaves brought to the French Caribbean; such bounties would be increased periodically. Such incentives inspired the establishment of another monopoly company, the Senegal Company, in 1673. The French government in the seventeenth century set up strict rules for the slave trade, particularly in regard to buying from, or selling to, other European empires. In 1685, Louis XIV signed the Code Noir to establish regulations for slavery. By the 1720s, French private traders had broken the monopolies and the French slave trade expanded greatly. The majority of French slaves were taken from West Africa, although French slave traders took slaves from the Indian Ocean area as well. Slaves were taken from Madagascar and Mozambique to work on plantations in the French colonies of Bourbon (now Réunion) and the Ile de France (Mauritius). The plantations in the French colonies in the Caribbean were run on slave labor. Conditions on the plantations were harsh. The demand for slaves was high, particularly as slaves were often worked to the point of death and replacements were needed. During the transfer of slaves from Africa to the Caribbean, slave revolts often occurred. A notable revolt occurred on the ship Diamant in 1774. The slaves managed to seize control of the ship, forcing the captain and his crew to abandon ship off the coast of an island near Gabon. In France, several cities were involved in the slave trade, particularly Nantes, Bordeaux, Le Havre, La Rochelle, Saint-Malo, Harfleur, and Rouen. The city of Nantes, on the Atlantic coast of France, however, was the major French slaving port. It retained this position until the 1780s. Even after the official end of the slave trade in 1818, illegal trade continued. Beginning in the sixteenth century, the city of La Rochelle expanded because of its trade with the colonies. By the late eighteenth century, slavers accounted for about one-third of the traffic that passed through the medieval towers of the Old Port. The slave trade contributed to the city’s commercial power and led to extravagant projects to develop the city. The port of Lorient, in Brittany, was established in 1664. By 1719, the French West India Company made the port its primary base for shipbuilding and supplies for the Caribbean colonies. The company’s monopoly on slave trading lasted until 1725. It then adopted a new system that made the slave trade an even more global enterprise. The company traded in the Indian Ocean for textiles and Cowry shells, which were used as currency in West Africa. The shells were subsequently sold to private traders who used them to acquire slaves in Africa, which were in turn traded in the Americas for sugar. Some ships sailed directly from Lorient to the Caribbean to bring back all the sugar that the slave ships alone could not bring back to France.
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Slave Trade, French The rise of the French slave trade also resulted in the increase in the number of blacks in France, and the French government issued legislation attempting to regulate their presence. In 1571, some slaves were put on auction in Bordeaux, but the parlement ordered their release, claiming that slavery did not exist in France. This rule was broken in 1716 when slave owners from the Antilles retained their slaves on French soil. The Parlement of Paris refused to register legislation containing the word slave. Consequently, the Free Soil Principle remained in effect in one-third of France. Beginning in the 1750s, more than 150 slaves petitioned for their freedom. Several monumental court cases, including the 1738 case of Jean Boucaux and the 1759 case of Francisque, inspired several more lawsuits and set precedents for upholding the Free Soil Principle, prompting administrators to adopt new discriminatory legislation. In 1777, Louis XVI signed the Déclaration pour la police des noirs, prohibiting the new arrival of blacks and gens de couleur, ordering depots for slaves accompanying their owners as they traveled to France, and requiring the registration of all blacks in France. In 1778, an arret du conseil required all registered blacks to carry identification cards. Failure to comply resulted in deportation to the colonies. Although bans on interracial marriages had been removed from an earlier version of the police des noirs, a ban on such unions was declared on April 5, 1778. Yet efforts to extend the police des noirs in the 1780s ultimately failed. During the French Revolution, the revolutionary government issued the Declaration of the Rights of Man and the Citizen. The revolutionary values of “liberty, equality, and fraternity” ultimately led to a discussion of slavery. The Society of the Friends of the Blacks, an abolitionist group, petitioned the government to take action. Moderates were willing to extend rights to free blacks, but withdrew support after pressure from white colonial planters and influential slave traders. Free gens de couleur (people of color) from Saint Domingue traveled to Paris to request citizenship for gens de couleur and the right to be seated as colonial delegates. Both requests were denied. As the revolution became more radical, the Code Noir was abolished and, in 1794, slaves were emancipated throughout the French colonies. When Napoleon came to power, however, he reinstated slavery in the colonies as part of his attempts to develop an overseas French Empire. The British government came to increasingly support a position against the slave trade. British abolitionists influenced their counterparts in France. The French government finally declared the slave trade illegal in 1818, but slave traders continued in secret and also sold their slaves to such foreign markets as Cuba and Brazil. In the 1830s, the French government made an effort to enforce the illegality of the slave trade. It even signed a treaty with Britain allowing the British navy limited rights to search French ships suspected of engaging in slave trading. Abolitionist Victor Schoelcher became secretary of state for the colonies after the Revolution of 1848. That year, the French government abolished slavery throughout the French colonies. Shortly thereafter, legislation was passed to grant slave owners financial compensation for the loss of their slaves. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, French; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Colonies in
Slave Trade, Italian the Caribbean, Spanish; French Ministry of the Marine; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Dutch; Slave Trade, Portuguese; Slave Trade, Spanish. Further Reading: Dorigny, Marcel, ed. Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848. trans. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003; Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000; Peabody, Sue. “There are No Slaves in France”—The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996; Stein, Robert L. The French Slave Trade in the Eighteenth Century. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1979; Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997.
Eric Martone
Slave Trade, Italian As ancient Rome consolidated its authority within the Italian peninsula and then the Mediterranean region, a proportion of conquered peoples were taken as slaves. Thus slaves came from a variety of places in Europe and the Mediterranean including Greece, Africa, Thrace, Gaul, the Middle East, and the Near East. Slaves were used for several purposes, including labor, entertainment, and sex. Runaway slaves were often crucified. Slave revolts often occurred in ancient Rome, the most significant being the First (135 b.c.e.–132 b.c.e.), Second (104 b.c.e.–103 b.c.e.), and Third (73 b.c.e.–71 b.c.e.) Servile Wars. By the late Republican period, the use of slaves and the slave trade were essential components of the economy. After the fall of Rome in 476 c.e., Europe was plagued by invasion from Germanic tribes. The Franks, however, managed to establish the Carolingian Empire and restore a degree of order. In the Carolingian Empire, which encompassed much of France, Germany, and Italy, about 20 percent of the population were slaves. Magyars often raided parts of Germany, Italy, and Greece to capture men, women, and children for sale on the slave market. The bulk of the early medieval slave trade was mainly to the Byzantine Empire, based in Greece and at times parts of Italy, and Muslim areas. At that time, the bulk of slaves were taken from Central and Eastern Europe, as well as areas in Central Asia. So many Slavs living in Eastern Europe were taken captive that the word “slave” derived from their name. The slave trade was conducted primarily by merchants of Scandinavian (Viking), Arab, Greek, and Jewish origin. The Roman Catholic Church attempted to intervene, prohibiting the export of Christian slaves (Council of Koblenz in 922, Council of London in 1102, Council of Armagh in 1171). The Late Middle Ages slave trade was conducted primarily by Italian merchants from Venice and Genoa who dealt with the Mongols, who had expanded their conquests and had pushed into Europe, and Muslims. For example, between 1414 and 1423, about 10,000 Eastern Europeans were sold as slaves in Venice. The city of Genoa was heavily involved in the slave trade and its operations spread from West Asia to North Africa. The wars between the Byzantine Empire and the Ottoman Turks, which ended in 1453 on the Ottoman conquest of Constantinople (now Istanbul) brought large supplies of slaves on both sides. Christians were highly involved in the sale of
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Slave Trade, Portuguese captured Muslims from West Asia and Africa as slaves, many of which the Mediterranean countries used as galley slaves. In the 1300s, the Bubonic Plague, or Black Death, destroyed the European population. The large number of deaths created a deficiency in the supply of labor in the Mediterranean area. A number of Italian merchants prospered by selling slaves in higher numbers. Because labor supplies were scarce and highly needed, the price of slaves rose substantially. In the fifteenth century, the Portuguese exploration of the African coast marked the beginnings of European colonialism and the African slave trade. In 1452 and 1455, Pope Nicholas V issued papal bulls granting the right to reduce pagans, Muslims, and other non-Christians to slavery. Thereafter direct Italian involvement in the slave trade declined. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Age of Exploration; Italy, Blacks in; Italy, African Invasions of; Moors; Roman Empire in Africa; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005; Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1999; Yavetz, Zvi. Slaves and Slavery in Ancient Rome. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1988.
E. Agateno Mosca
Slave Trade, Portuguese West Africa became the main provider of labor for Portuguese plantations that spread from Cape Verde to the colonies in the New World. The Portuguese leaned how to work from within a network of ancient slave routes controlled by the Muslims. The modest start during the 1450s and 1460s, when around 800 slaves were taken to Europe each year mainly to serve as domestic servants, was drastically increased to more than 2,000 individuals per annum in the 1480s an 1490s. After 1500, these numbers rose from 2,600 to 4,500 captives being sold on an annual basis directly to the Americas in the 1530s. The participation of America in the slave trade would later transform not only its routes and outreach but also the sources from where Africans were put in bondage and carried away, many of them crossing the Atlantic never to see Africa again. Before the Americas became the final destination for the majority of the slaves during the trans-Atlantic slave trade, Spain, Portugal, and its Atlantic islands were the main destinations. In the 1550s, for example, the black population in Lisbon was estimated to account for 10 percent of its entire population. During the same time in Spain, there were more than 5,000 slaves, 4,000 of which were blacks and individuals of biracial descent. The second half of the sixteenth century saw large structural changes in the setup of the trans-Atlantic slave trade. Portugal decided to move its sugar production from its Atlantic islands (Madeira, Príncipe, and São Tomé) to the northeast of Brazil. An expanding new industry of sugar cane derivates, beyond the sugar itself, established in the Caribbean and Brazil demanded a dedicated operation that absorbed the vast majority
Slave Trade, Spanish of all Africans enslaved and shipped to the New World. In comparative terms, from the 1500s to the 1870s, the Portuguese colony of Brazil received more than 41 percent of the slaves brought from Africa. As early as the 1600s, Brazil’s profits from sugar exportations were higher than previous profits derived from the Asian spice trade. The other colonies in the Caribbean, which belonged to the Dutch, French, Spanish, and British together, imported about 48 percent of all African slaves brought to the Americas. About 5 to 6 percent of African slaves went to North America and about 4 percent went to the Spanish colonies in South America. The Portuguese control over slaves was maintained with rigorous discipline and harsh physical punishments. Common punishments included flogging male or female slaves and then rubbing a mixture of several foul liquids in the wounds. Slaves also suffered extreme punishments that were barbarous, such as being burned alive in furnaces. This environment was in part responsible for the continued need for the importation of new African slaves. The slaves brought to Brazil were often so badly treated that they were literally worked to death or were killed, thereby creating the need for replacements. This situation also caused the amount of newborns from slaves in Brazil to be very low. The need for new slaves forced the Portuguese to expand their slave sources from the west of Africa to the south of the continent, with new areas in Angola and its hinterlands. The need for slaves was so great that Brazil, Cuba, and some other Spanish colonies effectively clashed with the British government, which was determined to put an end to the slave trade. The strong hand of the British helped to contain the oceanic slave trade but, at the same time, increased the cost of slaves as a result of the illegal commerce of Africans that continued in Brazil and in Cuba. Brazil agreed to conform to the British desire to put an end to the slave trade in 1850, although the institution of slavery lasted until 1888. Cuba agreed to stop the slave trade almost two decades after Brazil. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Latin American Revolutions, Blacks in; Portugal, Blacks in; Rio Branco Law of Free Birth. Further Reading: Boxer, Charles Ralph. The Golden Age of Brazil, 1695–1750: Growing Pains of a Colonial Society. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1962; Boxer, Charles Ralph. The Portuguese Seaborne Empire, 1415–1825. 2nd ed. Manchester: Carcanet/Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, 1991; Davis, David Brion. Inhuman Bondage: The Rise and Fall of Slavery in the New World. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006; Klein, Herbert S. The Atlantic Slave Trade, New Approaches to the Americas. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1999; Landers, Jane, and Barry Robinson. Slaves, Subjects, and Subversives: Blacks in Colonial Latin America. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 2006.
Augusto Ciuffo
Slave Trade, Spanish To a large extent, the Spanish slave trade must be linked to its conquest of a large chunk of the American continent, the New World. In 1532, Spain became the first country to transport African slaves to Latin America. The slaves were used for work in
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Slave Trade, Spanish mines and plantations. The bulk of the Spanish slave consignment was directed to the Americas up to the end of the trade in the nineteenth century. Early into the commencement of slave trade in Spanish America, the Spanish monarchy exercised control over the slave trade, at first, as a source of revenue. Through royal legislations, the government granted asientos (contracts) to European companies that shipped slaves of a specified quality and origin to Spanish America. The companies that won the asientos were monopolies that paid taxes to the royal court. At this stage, the trade was dominated by non-Spaniards, as most of those who won the contracts were the French, Portuguese, and English slave merchants who controlled the trans-Atlantic slave route. This arrangement lasted for about 150 years. Later, the Spanish monarchy attempted to liberalize the slave trade to accommodate Spanish merchants against the foreign monopolies that had hitherto dominated the trade. This was a response to the high demand for slaves for mining and agricultural purposes in the Spanish American territory of Cuba, as well as other territories such as New Granada, Peru, and Chile. Thus in 1789, King Charles III of Spain issued the free slave trade cedula. The free slave trade cedula of 1789 made provision for the exemption of Spanish merchants from the payment of duties, and they were also to be adequately compensated for the slaves that they brought. The slaves were deemed pivotal for the development of the Spanish colonies in the Americas and thus for the development of Spain itself. The Spanish monarch followed the rationale that exemptions and privileges in the slave trade would encourage agriculture. Further, taxes were to be paid for the use of slaves for nonagricultural purposes. Because the slaves were needed for the mine fields and plantations, the legislation made provision for an inspection of incoming ships to ensure that only healthy and able-bodied slaves were brought in. Likewise, the number of women was not expected to be more than one-third of the total slave population in each consignment. Consequently, the large importation of slaves to Spanish America culminated in enormous economic growth and prosperity for Spain and its Spanish-American colonies up to the point of the final abolition of the slave trade in the nineteenth century. Between the beginning and end of the Spanish slave trade, Spain became a major player in the global trade of slaves. Spanish slave exports were directed predominantly to Spanish colonies in the New World. Of all these territories, Cuba emerged as the main importer of slaves as a result of its growing and sophisticated sugar industry, which accounted for 30 percent of total world production by 1868. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Las Casas, Bartolomé de; Moret Law, Spanish; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Eltis, David. “The Volume and Structure of the Transatlantic Slave Trade: A Reassessment.” The William and Marry Quarterly 58 (2001): 17–46; Fisher, John. “Commerce and Imperial Decline: Spanish Trade with Spanish America, 1797–1820.” Journal of Latin American Studies 30 (1998): 459–479; King, James. “Evolution of the Free Slave Trade Principle in Spanish Colonial Administration.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 22 (1942): 34–56; Murray, D. R. “Statistics of the Slave Trade to Cuba, 1790–1867.” Journal of Latin American Studies 3 (1971): 131–149; Restall, Matthew, and Jane Landers. “The African Experience in Early Spanish America.” The Americas 57 (2000):167–170; Schmidt-Nowara, Christopher. “National Economy and Atlantic Slavery: Protectionism and Resistance to Abolitionism in Spain and the
Snow, Valaida (1903?–1956) Antilles, 1854–1874.” The Hispanic American Historical Review 78 (1998) 603–629; Tomich, Dale. “World Slavery and Caribbean Capitalism: The Cuban Sugar Industry, 1760–1868.” Theory and Society 20 (1991): 297–319.
Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale
Snow, Valaida (1903?–1956) Valaida Snow was an African American jazz sensation and entertainer arrested by the Nazis in Europe during World War II (1939–1945) and likely placed in an internment camp. Snow was born in Tennessee in the early twentieth century and was probably of biracial descent. The exact date of her birth is disputed. The situation is complicated further by the fact that she provided different birth dates for herself, including 1900, 1903, and even 1909. Some researchers have suggested 1904 or 1905. Her family was highly involved in music and at an early age, Snow learned to how to sing, dance, and play a variety of musical instruments. After focusing on the trumpet, Snow became a sensation, nicknamed “Little Louis” in Europe after African American jazz great Louis Armstrong. Snow recorded frequently and toured throughout the United States, Europe, and China on several occasions, both with her own bands and as part of other leaders’ bands. During the 1920s, one of the most famous musical reviews that she was associated with was “The Chocolate Dandies.” Snow was at the height of her popularity during the 1930s when she became extremely popular in Europe. She was part of the touring review “Blackbirds” and famous musical show “Rhapsody in Black.” In addition, during the 1930s, Snow appeared as an actress in several films in the United States and France. Although Snow was a sensation in Europe, she still faced racism and sexism. Furthermore, her role as a jazz bandleader, a role dominated by men, made her a curiosity to American and European audiences. In 1939, around the outbreak of World War II, Snow, fearing for her safety, left France for Holland. Once it became clear that Holland was about to fall to the Nazi Germany, she headed to Denmark; however, in 1940, Denmark succumbed to Nazi control. The Nazis arrested Snow in Denmark shortly thereafter. The mysteries surrounding her capture, torture, and imprisonment have increased as time has passed owing to a lack of documents and conflicting accounts. According to most sources, Snow remained a prisoner for 18 months at the Wester-Faengle internment camp in Copenhagen. She may have spent a brief period in Westerbork, a transition camp originally used to house Jews before deportation to concentration camps in Eastern Europe. Some sources claim that Snow was imprisoned for theft and misuse of drugs, which was an outgrowth of a developing drug problem. Other sources claim that she was under Nazi house arrest, rather than internment. She was released in the early 1940s, possibly as part of a prisoner exchange, and returned to New York. Snow spoke little about her experience afterward, and her claims of Nazi abuse were often dismissed during the 1940s and 1950s. Nevertheless, Snow’s experience affected her physical and mental health, and she was never the same again. In the 1950s, Snow’s career sagged and she had difficulties maintaining success.
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Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade See also: Baker, Josephine; Gilges, Lari; Jazz, European Reception of; Nassy, Josef; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Charles, Mario. “The Age of a Jazzwoman: Valaida Snow, 1900–1956.” The Journal of Negro History 80:4 (Fall 1995): 183–191; Lusane, Clarence. Hitler’s Black Victims: The Historical Experience of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans and African Americans in the Nazi Era. New York: Routledge, 2002; Reitz, Rosetta. “Hot Snow: Valaida Snow (Queen of the Trumpet Sings and Swings).” Black American Literature Forum 16:4 (Winter 1982): 158–160.
Eric Martone
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade In existence from 1787 to 1807, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade was one of the first organized British antislavery societies. The members launched a largescale campaign to mobilize national opinion in support of calling on Parliament to declare the slave trade illegal. To accomplish this goal, the abolitionists created a network of political lobbyists. The society actively sought Parliament members who were willing to present their views to government representatives. Further, the group appealed to the British public to put pressure on Parliament to take action through popular agitation techniques, including circulating petitions, distributing literature, boycotting slave produce, and holding public meetings. These tactics proved to be a model for abolitionist organizations in the United States and elsewhere. Their efforts were so successful that in 1807, the British government outlawed the slave trade with its passage of the Slave Trade Act. Quakers, with their political lobbying experience and financial backing, were instrumental in the formation of the society. In 1783, a small committee of Quakers became one of the first organized groups to launch an attack on the British slave system. Because the slave trade was legal, it could be abolished only by new legislation. To achieve this goal, the Quaker committee lobbied Parliament members by circulating petitions, distributing pamphlets, and establishing a national network of supportive members. These were the same techniques that they had used years earlier in their own defense from persecution. Quakers were not the only people who opposed slavery at this time. They realized that the base of the antislavery effort needed to be broadened to strengthen their support from regional and local bodies, as well as to increase their funding resources. The establishment of the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade in May 1787 did just this by combining Quakers and non-Quakers. The members of the founding Committee of Twelve consisted of nine Quakers (some had been members of the 1783 committee) and three non-Quakers: Thomas Clarkson, Philip Sansom, and Granville Sharp. The committee chose Sharpe as the first chair. The society’s objective was to procure and publish information on the abominations of the slave trade and to secure the support of Parliament to legislate its abolishment. Although opposed to both the institution of slavery and the slave trade, the group resolved to confine their attention to ending the trade, which was viewed as the more vulnerable target. The British public was becoming aware of the horror stories of poor ship conditions and mistreatment. In addition, an attack on slavery would have involved
Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade interfering with private property, a highly sensitive subject for Parliament, whereas the regulation of trade had always been recognized as one of their functions. One of the society’s first tasks was to establish active auxiliary organizations in the main towns throughout the country. Clarkson took on the task of organizing provincial support during a series of tours in 1787 and 1788. This organizational structure enabled the society to maintain a national network of supporters. At its center stood the London-based national committee and its Parliamentary spokesmen, jointly responsible for formulating policy and coordinating action. The auxiliaries were given the dual roles of circulating antislavery material supplied by the society’s leaders in London and collecting gifts and subscriptions on behalf of the central committee. This successful arrangement served as a model for antislavery organizations worldwide. The group enlisted William Wilberforce as their main parliamentary spokesperson. Sympathetic to their cause, he had already put a question about the slave trade before the House of Commons and had proven to be an influential and persuasive orator. Wilberforce advised the society that he would need additional evidence and reports to strengthen their case to Parliament. Clarkson agreed to gather the necessary information during his campaign tours. His investigative reports and analyses proved to be pivotal to the cause. In 1787, Clarkson wrote a 10-page pamphlet entitled “A Summary View of the Slave Trade and the Probable Consequences of Its Abolition,” which the Society published and had printed in a run of 2,000 copies as its first propaganda pamphlet. Clarkson faced opposition from supporters of the trade that sometimes involved physical risk because the slave trade was a lucrative business that many slavers, as well as port cities depended on for prosperity. One of his most influential works to raise public awareness was the detailed specifications of a slave ship, the Brookes, which he and his colleagues secured in 1789. The drawings graphically depicted the deplorable conditions of stowing 609 slaves on the vessel. The group used the drawings to produce powerful political posters and a wooden model that Wilberforce showed to Parliament. Wilberforce unsuccessfully introduced a bill to abolish the slave trade in 1791, initiating a prolonged Parliamentary campaign in which he continued to introduce a similar motion in subsequent sessions. Parliament, however, refused to pass any legislation on the trade and the outbreak of war with France effectively prevented further debate for many years. The slave trade campaign revived again in 1804. In 1806, a bill providing for the abolition of the trade to the conquered colonies successfully passed both Houses. In 1807, this bill was superseded by a stronger measure, the Slave Trade Act, which forbade the carrying of slaves in British vessels and their importation into any British colony. With the slave trade now declared illegal, the Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade had completed its work. It was replaced later that year by a new organization, the African Institution, which would focus on combating the slave trade carried on in foreign vessels. See Also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; British Anti-Slavery Society; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Anstey, Roger. The Atlantic Slave Trade and British Abolition 1760–1810. Atlantic Highlands, NJ: Humanities Press, 1975; Coupland, Reginald. The British Anti-Slavery Movement. 2nd ed. London: Frank Cass, 1964; Gray, Richard A. “Thomas Clarkson and the
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Society of the Friends of the Blacks Anti-Slavery Society.” Reference Services Review 21 (Winter 1993): 53–66; Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005; Klingberg, Frank J. The Anti-Slavery Movement in England. Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1968.
Donna Smith
Society of the Friends of the Blacks The Society of the Friends of the Blacks (“Société des Amis des Noirs” or “Amis des noirs” in French) was an association created to oppose the French slave trade. The society’s story proves that abolition was a long-lasting and complex process in which the abolitionist lobby played a great role during the French Revolution and the Directory. Founded in Paris in February 1788 by group mostly composed of white abolitionists, The Society of the Friends of the Blacks was the first wave of French antislavery campaigns. The society was led by Jacques-Pierre Brissot (1754–1793), who was advised by Thomas Clarkson (1760–1846), one of the leaders of the abolitionist movement in Britain. Sentiments to end the slave trade had been spreading throughout Europe, particularly in England, and influenced those in France. In the spirit of the Enlightenment ideas of freedom, equality and fraternity; the French Revolution (1789–1799); and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen (August 26, 1789), the society believed in the abolition of slave trade and that political rights should be granted to religious minorities. Brissot believed that the society should also campaign against the institution of slavery as well, but the immediate realization of this objective was met with some opposition among abolitionists. The society’s first objective was to obtain international cooperation on the abolition of slavery, then to plan a way to phase out slavery in the colonies in two or three generations, and to reorganize the colonial system. This approach was believed to be more successful than the immediate emancipation of the blacks, which was perceived as leading to a fatal economic impact on the colonies and in France. The society held activities, such as meetings, registers, and speeches. Within the public sphere, it agitated for new government legislation. The outbreak of slave violence in Saint Domingue (which became the Haitian Revolution for Independence), however, unhinged the society. Moreover, it soon faced financial difficulties and political divisions as the French Revolution faced colonial issues in contradictory ways. Thus the society faded away in the early 1790s. The society reformed in 1796 and would last until 1799 under the dominance of Abbé Grégoire. The focus then was on the future of the French colonies. The original society counted between 141 and 200 members (even if the most important meetings never reached more than 23 participants) and the second only 92. These members were publicists, philosophers, politicians, and intellectuals and included such well-known figures as the Marquis de Condorcet (1743–1794), Dominique de la Rochefoucauld (1712–1800), Comte Mirabeau (1749–1791), and Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826), who joined the society when he came to Paris. The society also included
Soliman, Angelo (1721?–1796) blacks and individuals of biracial descent, including Julien Raimond (1744–1801) and Vincent Ogé (1750/55–1791). See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Abolition of Slavery, French; Belley, Jean-Baptiste; Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; France, Blacks in; Free Soil Principle; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530–1880. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003; Dorigny, Marcel, ed. Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848. trans. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003; Hunt, Lynn, ed. The French Revolution and Human Rights: A Brief Documentary History. Boston and New York: Bedford/St. Martin’s Press, 1996; Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.
Laëtitia Baltz
Soliman, Angelo (1721?–1796) Angelo Soliman was a former African slave during the eighteenth century who became a royal tutor and celebrity at the imperial court in Vienna, Austria. He was born Mmadi-Make in Africa in around 1721. As a small boy, he was kidnapped and sold into slavery. Soliman’s exact origins in Africa remain obscure, for his vague descriptions in later life of his homeland cannot be assigned to any particular geographic area with much certainty. Soliman was probably purchased in a Mediterranean slave market, subsequently being owned by a string of aristocratic Europeans until he became at favorite at the imperial Habsburg court in Vienna. Soliman worked as a secretary to his master, General Johann Christian Lobkowitz, until his master’s death in 1755. He then became the chamberlain of Prince Wenzel Liechtenstein. At court, Soliman was dressed in the Oriental garb commonly worn by other Africans and received the title “Chief Princely Moor.” Eventually, Soliman took advantage of the opportunities at court to become educated, gaining skill in several foreign languages. He served in several diplomatic missions and worked as a tutor to members of the royal Habsburg family. He also became a noted chess player and favorite of Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. Soliman joined the freemasons, eventually becoming grand master of his lodge, and an associate of noted composers Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and Joseph Haydn. In addition, Soliman married an aristocratic widow. It has been suggested that the character of Monostatos in Mozart’s opera The Magic Flute is based on Soliman. While he was grand master, Soliman revised Masonic ritual, and lodges throughout Europe copied his modifications. When Soliman died in 1796, the current Holy Roman Emperor, Francis II of Austria, who possessed a morbid collection of stuffed human corpses, claimed the former slave’s body and had it flayed and stuffed to be put on display in his private museum along with two other Africans. Soliman’s daughter unsuccessfully attempted to regain her father’s remains. Soliman’s body remained on display in an elaborate costume until
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Somerset Case the Austrian Revolution of 1848, when it was destroyed, as the museum it was housed in burned down amid the rioting. See also: Baartman, Saartjie; Central Europe, Blacks in; Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gall, Franz Josef; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1650–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Eric Martone
Somerset Case In the Somerset case of 1772, William Murray, Lord Chief Justice Mansfield, ruled that it was unlawful for Charles Stewart, a Boston, Massachusetts, customs official, to transport James Somerset, an African he had bought in Virginia, forcibly out of England. The decision was popularly taken to mean that slavery was illegal in England, but Mansfield had only meant to give a narrow judgment, and even that was not enforced. James Somerset came to England from Boston in November 1769 with his master, Charles Stewart, who had purchased him in Virginia. Somerset was baptized on February 12, 1771 at St. Andrew’s Holborn. He left his master, but on November 26, 1771, was kidnapped and put on board the Ann and Mary, a ship bound for Jamaica under Captain John Knowles to be sold. Two days later, however, his godparents, Thomas Walkin, Elizabeth Cade, and John Marlow, obtained a writ of habeas corpus (which protects the individual from arbitrary imprisonment); and Somerset enlisted Granville Sharp (1735–1815), a known sympathizer to the plight of slaves, to the cause. The case first came to court on February 7, 1772. Judgment was given on June 22. Somerset’s case was pleaded by William Davy, John Glynne, Francis Hargrave, James Mansfield, and John Alleyne. They were opposed by John Dunning and William Wallace, whose services were funded by the West India interest. It was argued that, since the expiration of villeinage, no positive law relating to slavery existed in England and the law of Virginia was not applicable in England. Furthermore, Somerset could not be accused of breach of contract, because contract law required the two parties to be free to make the agreement. The case attracted much popular attention, as evidenced by the many newspaper reports and the crowds that flocked to Westminster Hall to hear the proceedings. Lord Mansfield was reluctant to give judgment because of the “inconveniences” that might ensue, given that there were thought to be 15,000 blacks in England at that time. He was careful in his final judgment to make a narrow decision that, as forcible removal from the country was illegal, Somerset should be discharged. Despite Mansfield’s best efforts, the case was reported in the press, and internationally, as ending slavery in England. About 200 black men and their ladies, who could afford a ticket price of 5 shillings, celebrated the event at an assembly at a public house in Westminster a few days later.
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité (1763–1813) Some blacks were able to exploit the ruling to gain their freedom, such as one Mr. Dublin, who ran away from his master John Riddell of Bristol Wells, telling fellow servants that “he had received a letter from his Uncle Sommerset acquainting him that Lord Mansfield had given them their freedom and he was determined to leave.” Joseph Knight, whose case against his former master, John Wedderburn, resulted in the 1778 ruling that one could not be a slave in Scotland (which had a separate jurisdiction) had read about the Somerset case in the Edinburgh Advertiser and took it to mean that he was a free man. The Mansfield decision did not bring an end to slavery in England, however, as it was not enforced, even it its most narrow sense. Within a year, The London Chronicle was to report that an African (immortalized in Thomas Day’s poem “The Dying Negro”) shot himself to avoid being transported back to the colonies. Furthermore, as late as 1823, one Grace Jones was forcibly removed to Antigua by her mistress. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Common Law, Slavery and English; Slave Trade, British; Strong, Jonathan. Further Reading: Shyllon, F. O. Black Slaves in Britain. London: Oxford University Press, 1974; Wise, Steven M. “Though the Heavens May Fall”: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery. New York: Da Capo Press, 2006.
Miranda Kaufmann
Sonthonax, Léger Félicité (1763–1813) Léger Félicité Sonthonax was a politician during the French Revolution (1789– 1799) who abolished slavery in the French colonies. He was born into a wealthy French merchant family in 1763 and became a lawyer and later a rising politician during the French Revolution. Sonthonax was sympathetic to the abolition of slavery and joined the Society of the Friends of the Blacks. In April 1792, the French Revolutionary government passed legislation granting full citizenship to all free people of color. Later that year, the French government sent Sonthonax on a mission to the colony of Saint Domingue (now Haiti). Saint Domingue had been plagued by an increasingly complex racial conflict between the white minority that controlled the island, biracial property owners, and the black and biracial majority, which served as slaves and free people. The outbreak of the French Revolution in 1789 only added to this conflict, dividing members of the colony between those who supported the revolution and those who supported the Old Regime. Consequently, violent conflict ensued. Sonthonax’s duties were to preserve French control over the island, where a slave rebellion had erupted, and to enforce recent, controversial legislation from the French government granting social equality to free people of color. On his arrival in Saint Domingue, Sonthonax found that the white and biracial plantation owners had developed a degree of cooperation against the rebelling slaves. Sonthonax exiled whites who refused to obey the law of social equality and contained the slave rebellion. In 1793, however, France declared war on Britain. Sonthonax’s efforts to enforce the directives of the French government had created much opposition
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Sousa Martins, José Thomás de (1843–1897) that could now rally to the side of the British, heightening conflict with the British colonies in the Caribbean. In 1793, Sonthonax radically proclaimed the freedom of all slaves, albeit with certain restrictions. In 1794, the government of France passed an act to make Sonthonax’s emancipation of the slaves official and extended the French abolition of slavery to all of its colonies. The new support that Sonthonax had hoped for from his former opponents with his act of emancipation was not forthcoming, however. The newly emancipated slaves did not flock to his side, and white and biracial plantation owners still opposed him, now with British assistance. After the French government’s 1794 act, however, Toussaint L’Ouverture, a leader of the rebelling slaves, temporarily sided with French Revolutionary forces. Changes in the French government prompted Sonthonax’s recall to France, where he was required to defend his actions. In 1796, Sonthonax was vindicated of any wrong doing and allowed to return to Saint Domingue. L’Ouverture, however, had consolidated his position and eventually forced Sonthonax to return to France in 1797, where he died in 1813. French General Napoleon Bonaparte, shortly after gaining control of the French government in 1799, reimposed slavery on the colonies, leading to escalated violence that ultimately led to Haitian independence in 1804. See also: Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard; Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Delgrès, Louis; France, Blacks in; French Revolution, Blacks in the; Haitian Revolution for Independence; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Ogé, Vincent; Slave Trade, French. Further Reading: Gaspar, David Barry, and David Patrick Geggus, eds. A Turbulent Time: The French Revolution and the Greater Caribbean. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1997; Stein, Robert L. Léger Félicité Sonthonax: The Lost Sentinel of the Republic. Rutherford: Farleigh Dickinson University Press, 1985.
Eric Martone
Sousa Martins, José Thomás de (1843–1897) José Thomás de Sousa Martins was a revered biracial doctor in Portugal during the nineteenth century known for his generosity and medical assistance to the poor in Lisbon. During his career, he became a leader in the international community in the field of medicine. Sousa Martins was born in Alhandra, Portugal in 1843 of mixed African and Portuguese parents. He grew up in Alhandra and attended the local elementary school. At the age of 12, he left Alhandra and traveled to Lisbon, Portugal. His father had died and he moved to live with his maternal uncle, Lázaro Joaquim de Sousa Pereira. His uncle worked in pharmaceuticals, which led to Sousa Martins’s interest in medicine. By 1868, Martins had become a doctor and was made a member of the Society of Medical Science. In 1872, Sousa Martins became a professor in Lisbon. Two years later, he became a doctor at the Hospital de S. José, where he became director of Saint Michael’s Ward. From this time until his death in 1897 Sousa Martins was involved in the International Medical Conferences, becoming vice-president of the group in 1897. During his career, he was noted for his efforts to provide medical care for the poor and oppressed in Lisbon.
Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and In 1897, Sousa Martins died after contracting tuberculosis. In death, Sousa Martins has gained a following that lasts to this day. He has become an icon to many people, leading experts to call his followers a quasi-cult. His followers look to his spirit to intervene in their recovery, as they believe that he is an intermediary between them and God. As Portugal has a strong Roman Catholic tradition, some have used his name as if he were a saint. At several locations, his grave, his childhood home, and at the place of his work in Lisbon, statues have been erected. At any time, but mostly on the anniversaries of his birth and death, flowers are laid, candles are burned, and there are many personal notes left in hopes of invoking his power of healing. Many of the messages are engraved in marble tablets left at the foot of his statue. In recognition of his status during his lifetime and in death, his homestead in Alhandra has been turned into a museum. See also: Portugal, Blacks in. Further Reading: Alhandra Museum’s Web Page: http://www.museusousamartins.org/uksite. html; Rogers, J. A. World’s Great Men of Color. vol. II. Reprint. New York: Touchstone, 1996.
Robert Nave
Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and From its early days, the Soviet Union (U.S.S.R.) exerted a considerable effort in promoting and sustaining propagandist campaigns against racism and colonialism. Soviet leaders considered the subjugated nonwhite colonial populations, as well as the American blacks, to be the most obvious victims of global capitalism and therefore the Soviet Union’s “natural allies.” The state-sponsored campaigns against various manifestations of racism in the West became an integral part of the official public discourse in the U.S.S.R. During the cold war decades, American and West European racism was routinely subjected to devastating critique in the Soviet media. Images of oppressed dark-skinned colonial subjects or African Americans, depicted as deprived of basic human and civil rights, were contrasted with the apparent achievements of Soviet internationalism. The sources of this concerted effort to expose Western racism were both ideological and pragmatic. Soviet Marxist ideology attacked racism as a bourgeois phenomenon, most symptomatic of capitalism’s degeneracy. At the same time, Soviet leaders sought to upstage their rivals in the West by cultivating close ties and trumpeting their solidarity with the newly independent colonial nations, including those in Africa. Black Africans and African Americans continued to be featured prominently in Soviet propaganda into the last years of the Soviet rule. During the first two decades of its existence, in the aftermath of the Bolshevik Revolution of 1917, the Soviet Union attracted scores of black travelers, who trekked to the “Red Mecca” in search of racial equality and ideological fulfillment. Some of these visitors, most of them African Americans or Afro-Caribbeans, arrived in Soviet Russia under the auspices of the newly founded (1919) Communist International, also known as the Comintern. Others came to experience firsthand life under a supposed colorblind communist regime. Such prominent figures of the Harlem Renaissance, such as Claude McKay, Langston Hughes, and Paul Robeson, all found fame in the U.S.S.R. By all accounts, the Soviet society warmly accepted them because, for the Soviets, they represented the millions of people of color suffering from capitalist op-
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Soviet Propaganda, Blacks and pression. Soviet propaganda celebrated their success in the Soviet Union and played it up to showcase Soviet values. Flagships of Soviet propaganda, such as the communist dailies Pravda and Izvestia, took every opportunity to expose the real and, sometimes, imaginary horrors of black existence in the West. During the 1930s, thousands of Soviet citizens signed petitions in defense of the so-called Scottsboro Boys, a group of black American teenagers, falsely accused of raping two white girls. The 1935 Italian invasion of Ethiopia gave Soviet media another reason to decry the evils of Western racism. American racism was mocked in a 1936 cinematic classic Circus. This feel-good movie told the story of a white American circus performer who travels to the Soviet Union with her little black son. Rejected by American racists, she and her child find love and acceptance among the Soviets. Another popular Stalinist-era film, Maksimka (1951), struck a similar theme by depicting a crew of grizzly Russian sailors saving a black slave boy at sea. Soviet propaganda focusing on racism gained in intensity with the onset of the cold war. In their ideological contest with the United States and its allies, the Soviets rarely failed to excoriate America’s mistreatment of its black citizens. Similarly, Soviet newspapers and popular magazines, such as Krokodil (The Crocodile), Ogonek (The Little Light), and Rabotnitsa (The Working Woman) published numerous accounts and cartoons highlighting African struggles against colonial domination. Soviet support for “third world causes” and an intense competition between the superpowers for the “soul” of the developing world informed Moscow’s decision to host the 1957 International Youth Festival. The festival brought hundreds of Africans to the previously isolated Soviet Union and presented Soviet citizens with a rare opportunity to interact with the people whose liberation struggle they had been so vociferously supporting for decades. Soon after the festival, the Soviets undertook two major initiatives to solidify their country’s links to the decolonizing Africa. In 1959, the Soviet Academy of Sciences created a special research institution to facilitate a multidisciplinary study of Africa in the U.S.S.R. The Africa Institute continued to churn out Africa experts and to develop intellectual links with African countries into the post-Soviet era. In 1960, the Soviet leadership undertook an ambitious project to cultivate the good graces of the developing world by establishing a new university specifically for the purpose of educating third world students. The Friendship University of Moscow, also bearing the name of the slain Congolese Prime Minister Patrice Lumumba, would gain an international reputation for extending generous educational scholarships to foreign students, many of whom were from Africa. Simultaneously, the Soviet media extended its coverage of the Civil Rights movement in the United States, appropriating African American struggles for equal rights in the ongoing critique of American political and social system. Although never quite comfortable with the religious message of such civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King Jr., the Soviets readily embraced the more radical black activists. Black activist Angela Davis, for example, became a high-profile celebrity in the Soviet Union in the aftermath of her famous 1972 trial. As the cold war intensified into the late 1970s, so did the Soviets’ propaganda effort to adopt Africa’s liberation causes. Subsequently, the Soviet Union would deepen its
Spain, African Invasions of involvement in a number of African conflicts (such as in southern Africa, in Angola, in Mozambique, in the Horn of Africa), siding with the forces deemed more “progressive.” Soviet involvement in Africa and the high pitch of propaganda campaigns against racism and neocolonialism would be greatly diminished with the advent of Mikhail Gorbachev’s perestroika. The 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union also spelled the end of the cold war and thus the end to seven decades of Soviet propaganda campaigns targeting Western racism and colonialism. See also: Authors in Europe, African American; Briggs, Cyril; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Colonies in Africa, French; Colonies in Africa, German; Colonies in Africa, Italian; Colonies in Africa, Portuguese; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; James, C.L.R.; Russia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Blakely, Allison. Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1986; Eribo, Festus. In Search of Greatness: Russia’s Communications with Africa and the World. Westport, CT: Ablex Publishing, 2001; Fikes, Kesha, and Alaina Lemon. “African Presence in Former Soviet Spaces.” Annual Review of Anthropology 31 (2002): 497–524; Khanga, Yelena. Soul to Soul: A Black Russian American Family, 1865–1992. New York: W. W. Norton, 1994; Matusevich, Maxim, ed. Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters, Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2006; Matusevich, Maxim, ed. “An Exotic Subversive: Africa, Africans, and the Soviet Everyday.” Race and Class, 49 (2008): 57–81; McClellan, Woodford. “Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925–1934.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 26 (1993): 371–390; Quist-Adade, Charles. In the Shadows of the Kremlin and the White House: Africa’s Media Image from Communism to Post-Communism. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 2001.
Maxim Matusevich
Spain, African Invasions of African invaders have often sought to penetrate Europe through the Iberian Peninsula because of its close proximity to Africa. In the third century b.c.e., the Carthaginians controlled much of what is now southeastern Spain. During the Punic Wars, the ancient Carthaginian general, Hannibal, based his Numidian horsemen there for his march on the Italian peninsula in 218 b.c.e. During the period of Roman rule, there were also many soldiers and civilians in Spain from Africa; however, the Umayyad Conquest of the Iberian peninsula in 710 marked a major change in European history. The Umayyad Conquest of Hispania, then a kingdom of the Visigoths, started when, in 710, the Berber general, Tariq ibn Ziyad, captured the city of Tangier on the southern side of the Straits of Gibraltar. This was quickly followed by raids across the straits, the largest of which was led by Tarif ibn Malluk. In the next year, Tariq ibn Ziyad led 7,000 soldiers (mainly Berbers) onto the Iberian Peninsula. These soldiers encountered a Visigoth army raised by King Roderic of Hispania. In the Battle of Guadalete, on the Guadalete River, the African Muslim forces of Tariq ibn Ziyad routed the Visigoths and took the city of Toledo, sending another force under Mugit al-Rumi
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Spain, African Invasions of to take the city of Córdoba. This left two major cities formerly held by the Christian Visigoths now under Muslim rule. In 712, Musa ibn Nusayr, the Muslim governor of Northern Africa, also crossed the Straits of Gibraltar. He brought with him a large army of about 18,000 men and captured Medina-Sidonia, Seville, and Mértole. In the next year, Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa, the son of Musa ibn Nusayr, led his forces against Jaén, Murcia, Granada, and Sagunto. Although the campaign captured all those cities, it was hindered when large numbers of Christians in Seville and Toledo revolted against the newly imposed Muslim rule. The revolts were put down harshly, with Toledo badly destroyed in the fighting. By 715, most of modern-day southern Spain was held by the Moors, with Abd al-Aziz ibn Musa using Seville as his capital. He also married Egilona, the widow of King Roderic. Lisbon was captured in 716. In the next year, the Moors established Córdoba as their capital. The Christians, however, rallied around Pelayo, a Visigoth nobleman from Asturias in northwestern Spain, who was probably a former soldier in the service of King Rodrigo. In 718, Pelayo held off the Moors, but the Moors then launched a massive campaign against him and drove him into the mountains in northern Spain. This allowed the Moors to concentrate on attacking Septimania, the kingdom that straddled the modern Spanish-French border. In 720, the Moors took Barcelona and Narbonne. In the next year, however, when they attacked southern France, the Frankish soldiers surrounded the large Moorish army and defeated it at the battle of Toulouse. The battle was one of the worst military defeats in medieval Moorish history and was followed by the defeat of the Moors by Pelayo at the battle Covadonga in 722. This victory is often seen as the beginning of the Reconquista, by which Pelayo and his descendants would later retake the whole of Spain from the Moors. In spite of these defeats, with further reinforcements arriving from Africa, the Moors were able to continue their advances into northern Spain and France. A Moorish army under the command of Abdul Rahman Al Ghafiqi defeated Duke Eudo (or Odo) of Aquitaine at the battle of Bordeaux in mid-732. The Moorish victory, however, was followed by a massive Frankish counterattack in which Charles Martel, “The Hammer,” defeated 60,000 Moorish soldiers at the battle of Tours (sometimes called the battle of Poitiers). This victory blunted the Moorish advance into France, but left them in control of the Iberian peninsula. In 739–740, a major Berber revolt in Spain and northern Africa led to a Moorish-dominated Spain and Morocco, with the Syrian soldiers of Kulthum being defeated and dispersed. Although the descendants of Pelayo continued to fight, it was not until the fall of Granada in 1492 that the whole of Spain was once again in Christian hands. In 756, the Umayyad Emirate of Córdoba was established by Ad bar-Rahman I. Three years later, however, the Moors lost control of Narbonne. King Pepin the Younger drove all the remaining Moorish armies back across the Pyrenees. Several revolts against Umayyad rule in the Iberian Peninsula followed. Some of these were launched by rival Muslims, especially Syrians, who were defeated at the Battle of Bembezar in 774. Others were led by Abbasids, with yet more by Christians. Indeed, in 778, the Franks from modern-day France under Charlemagne were able to attack Zaragoza, but were forced to withdraw. Charlemagne did take Barcelona in 800.
Spain, Blacks in Moorish rule in Spain and Portugal, which lasted until the fifteenth century, witnessed many changes. It resulted in the migration to the Iberian peninsula of many Moors and others from Africa. It saw the construction of large mosques and palaces, such as the Grand Mosque of Córdoba, built from 785 in the grounds of a former Visigothic church, and the Alhambra at Granada. For the Moors, the Iberian Peninsula, became a great center of learning and culture, with universities, medical schools, and law schools. An exchange of culture and inventions took place. Gradually, however, the Moors, certain of their continued rule over most of the Iberian peninsula, became overconfident. They started fighting with each other, leading to a fragmentation of the region and the appearance of a number of independent Moorish kingdoms. This led to power struggles, which the Christian kingdoms were able to exploit, although they also had their differences with each other. The emergence of Rodrigo Diaz de Vivar, or “El Cid,” in the 1070s and 1080s led to a rallying of many of the Christians. El Cid managed to exploit the differences between them, and also between the various Moorish kingdoms, to great advantage. With help from English crusaders, the Portuguese were able to reassert themselves and retake Lisbon. By this time, El Cid was in control of Valencia, and Moorish cities started to fall to the Christians gradually over the forthcoming centuries. In 1487, the Christians captured Málaga. A few years later, the Christians captured the city of Granada, the last Muslimcontrolled city on the Iberian Peninsula, thereby making Queen Isabella of Castile and her husband, King Ferdinand II of Aragon, rulers of the city on January 2, 1492. See also: Italy, African Invasions of; Moor’s Head Symbol; Portugal, Blacks in; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Collins, Roger J. H. The Arab Conquest of Spain, 710–797. Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1994; Dozy, Reinhart. Spanish Islam: A History of the Muslims in Spain. London: Frank Cass, 1972; Fletcher, Richard A. Moorish Spain. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1994; Harvey, Leonard P. Islamic Spain, 1250 to 1500. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990; Watt, W. Montgomery. A History of Islamic Spain. Edinburgh: University Press, 1965.
Justin Corfield
Spain, Blacks in As a result of its geographic location, the southern coast of Spain is less than 10 miles from Africa, the two separated by the Strait of Gibraltar. During the course of Spanish history, blacks migrated from Africa to Spain as conquering soldiers, slaves, freemen, and immigrants. Consequently, Spain has often emerged as the meeting place between African and European cultures. This intermingling of cultures has had a profound influence on Spanish culture. During the Punic Wars, the ancient African city of Carthage used Spain as a base in its battles with Rome. Many of the soldiers in the Carthaginian army were black Africans. Later, the Roman army, which was stationed and received conquered property throughout the Empire, including Iberia, counted black Africans among its members. African invasions of Spain in the 700s resulted in large portions of the Iberian Peninsula falling under the control of Muslim African forces. French forces managed
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Spain, Blacks in to prevent the Muslims from pushing farther into Western Europe. The Muslims, or Moors, however, retained parts of Spain until the Spanish Christian forces rallied to expel them completely in 1492. Moorish control of Spain brought the migration of Moors and others from Africa to the Iberian Peninsula. As a result, Spanish culture became a fusion of different cultural traditions. Large Islamic mosques and palaces were built throughout Spain. The Moors transformed Spain into a center of learning and culture in the Mediterranean world. Spain had been involved in the trade of Moors and other peoples as slaves in the Iberian Peninsula. Spain was also active in exploring the possibility of African alliances to fight the Muslims. In the early 1300s, for example, an Ethiopian delegation arrived in Europe to seek an alliance. In the 1400s, the ruler of the Spanish kingdom of Aragon considered a marriage with an Ethiopian princess to secure an alliance. The depiction of black characters in Spanish literature testified to the African presence in Spain. In the seventh century, the Etymologiae, an encyclopedic work by SaintIsidore of Seville, gave geographic information on Africa and described Africans as dark because of the continent’s hot weather and the sun’s intensity there. In the 1300s, Don Juan Manuel’s El Conde Lucanor featured a prominent black servant character. La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes, written by an anonymous author in 1554, depicted one of the first interracial love stories in European literature. The love story revolves around Antona Perez, a Spanish peasant girl, and Zaide, an African Moor who works as a stableman In the Renaissance Era, Andrés de Claramonte’s El Valiente Negro de Flandes features the former black slave Juan de Merida, who joins the Spanish army. After the expulsion of the Moors in 1492, the newly unified Spain became involved in the Age of Exploration. After Columbus’s discovery of the Americas, Spain focused on establishing an empire in the New World. Many black conquistadors and black settlers from Spain were involved in the founding of the Spanish American empire. Some of these blacks achieved status and wealth. The lack of white women in the Spanish colonies in the Caribbean and Latin America resulted in the rise of biracial offspring of all social rankings. A strict racial categorization developed based on the percentages of one’s black and white ancestry. Many individuals of biracial descent traveled from the Americas to Spain during the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries. Some of these individuals were servants or students, but many were also from the middle and upper classes. In Renaissance Spain, the presence of both free and enslaved blacks in previous and current centuries resulted in several blacks and individuals of black descent rising in prominence. Some notable blacks in Renaissance and early modern Spain included the painters Juan de Pareja and Sebastian Gomez, as well as Juan Latino, the noted scholar and poet. The Spanish slave trade developed around Spain’s American colonies, which were built on the use of slave labor. Initial attempts to enslave the Amerindians did not generate the volume of slaves needed. Africans became used increasingly during the early sixteenth century and continued until the nineteenth century. Under pressure from Britain and the decline of Spain as a world power, the Spanish abolition of slavery and the slave trade finally occurred in the nineteenth century.
Spanish Army, Blacks in the In the 1930s, during Spain’s Civil War, individuals from various parts of the world flocked to Spain, either as journalists, writers, or to fight against General Franco’s attempt to become dictator. Some of these international figures, such as Nicolás Guillén, were black and came from former Spanish colonies. African Americans in the Spanish Civil War formed their own unit. In the postwar era, immigrants from the former Spanish colonies in Africa, such as Equatorial Guinea, and North Africa have increased the presence of blacks in Spain. Illegal African immigration to Europe is quite frequent. Because of its proximity to Africa, Spain is often the site where illegal immigrants attempt to enter Europe. Spain is concerned with efforts to curb illegal immigration from Africa, which is often attempted under dangerous circumstances. The increase of African immigrants, both legal and illegal, in Spain has resulted in race riots, such as those in 2000. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Spanish; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Conquistadors, Black; Courts, Blacks at European Aristocratic; Immigration to Europe, Illegal African; Ladinos, Black; Meneses, Cristóbol de; Moor’s Head Symbol; Moret Law, Spanish; Ortiz, Leonardo; Pirates, Blacks and Mediterranean; Race Riots in Europe; Renaissance, Blacks in the; Roman Army, Africans in the; Slave Trade, Spanish; Spanish Army, Blacks in the; Spanish Civil War, African Americans in; Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Seminario, Lee. The History of the Blacks, the Jews, and the Moors in Spain. Madrid: Playor, 1975.
Eric Martone
Spanish Army, Blacks in the Black soldiers in the Spanish army date to the beginning of modern Spain and the conquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Muslims. Black soldiers took an active role as conquistadors in the Spanish conquest of the Americas. They were later formed into separate companies to defend the Spanish colonial empire from foreign invaders and as special border companies in Spain itself. By the twentieth century, both the colonies and a separate black identity had been lost, but black soldiers continued to serve in the Spanish Army. Battalions of dark-skinned Berber tribesmen helped Francisco Franco in the 1930s defeat the Republicans during the Spanish Civil War. The end of Spain’s colonial empire in Africa has resulted in the virtual end to separate black units in the Spanish army. Black warriors fought for the Muslims before they were defeated by the Spanish. By 1492, the population of blacks in Spain was considerable. Although most were slaves, many were free blacks or of biracial descent. All were familiar with Spanish and Spanish culture. They suffered under various restrictions, because the Spanish authorities did not fully trust them. Many were converted Christians whose faith was questionable to authorities. Free blacks were limited in the professions that they could follow and the organizations to which they could belong. Free blacks were not allowed to carry weapons for their own defense, even in areas where crime was rampant.
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Spanish Army, Blacks in the Many blacks saw the New World as an opportunity. The first blacks recorded as settling in the Americas were some who accompanied Nicolas de Ovando to Hispaniola in 1502. Although some blacks were domestic servants, others were intended to help keep the Amerindian population subdued. Many of Ovando’s blacks ran away and established their own free settlements in the mountains. Even so, hundreds of other blacks soon arrived in the Caribbean as slaves or free men. At least some blacks participated in the noted conquistador Cortes’s conquest of the Aztecs in modern Mexico. One unfortunate, named Francisco de Eguia, is believed to have spread smallpox among the defenders of Tenochtitlan, the Aztec capital, facilitating the conquest. Another, Juan Garrido, left a biography of his deeds in a petition to the Spanish king. These black conquistadors fought for the Spanish against the Amerindians. Historians believe many had fought in earlier campaigns on Caribbean islands. As experienced soldiers, they were highly prized by Cortes and his commanders. All were considered ladinos, who were blacks familiar with Spanish culture. Some had lived in Spain, whereas others had been captured in African wars before being sent to Mexico. Rewards for fighting with the Spanish could be great. If they were not already free men, they were freed. They were also given government positions with a salary. These positions were usually lower ranking, such as a crier or gatekeeper, which in Spanish culture was usually identified with blacks. Some exceptions were made, however. Juan Valiente, a slave probably born in Africa who spent some time in the Caribbean, was active in the conquest of Peru and Chile. Although not formally freed, he received the rank of captain, was given an estate, and an encomienda (estates), which required local Amerindians to labor for him and share their produce. As the Spanish became more established, many blacks intermarried with Amerindian women. These biracial individuals continued to play an important role in the later conquests in South and Central America. They also were used to enforce laws among Amerindians under Spanish colonial rule. By the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, free biracial individuals were the most numerous people with African backgrounds. Known as pardos, they were formed into separate militia companies. These companies were usually stationed at strategic points to defend against European raiders such as the Dutch or British. The pardo companies often had black or biracial officers. By the last half of the eighteenth century, pardo officers received equal rights to white officers, including access to promotions and exemption from tribute to the crown. In some Spanish colonies, pardos formed a majority of the militia that defended the colony. Thousands later fought on both sides during the Latin American revolutions during the nineteenth century. In Spain itself, the importation of black slaves became insignificant during the sixteenth century. Interracial marriage led to the end of a separate group of people with African heritage. An exception could be found during the eighteenth century in southern Spain. African slaves from the Portuguese region of Alentejo escaped across the border to gain their freedom in Spain. Most settled in the towns of Gibraleon and Niebla in western Andalusia. The Spanish government organized independent companies composed of former black slaves and used them to patrol the border in this region. By the twentieth century, few blacks remained in the Spanish army. The Spanish Empire had been reduced to Spanish Morocco, Western Sahara, and Equatorial
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the Guinea. When Berber tribes rose in revolt in 1909, the Spanish army had difficulty restoring order. A reorganization was undertaken in 1911 to create a professional, longserving army. A battalion of indigenous troops was organized in Morocco with Spanish officers. Known formally as Regulares, these African troops quickly became an elite unit. Spanish officers with the Regulares were regarded as leaders within the army. When the Rif War broke out in Morocco in 1921, most Regulares remained loyal. They played an important role in defeating the rebels. The Regulares expanded to five Grupos, based on Melilla, Tetuan, Ceuta, Alhucemas, and Larache. In addition to keeping order in Africa, they were sent in 1934 to put down an uprising by Asturian miners. The dark complexions and brutality of the Regulares earned them the nickname “Moors” from the Spanish people. The Spanish government was criticized by internal and external observers for using the Africans against whites. In July 1936, much of the Spanish army revolted against the government. Francisco Franco took command of the Army of Africa, which he had once led. Using aircraft loaned by German Nazi leader Adolf Hitler and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini, many Regulares were flown to Spain. The Regulares were the shock troops that led Nationalist forces to the outskirts of Madrid. Their presence caused many government supporters to flee without fighting. The urban fighting that followed caused many casualties among the African troops without much gain. The Regulares were soon withdrawn. They spent much of the remainder of the war occupying conquered territory. The fear the Regulares had once caused turned to racial hatred and caused many Republicans to fight harder. After the war, the Regulares returned to Spanish Morocco. When Morocco became independent in 1956, most were transferred to the new country. Although a single regiment of Regulares remains in the Spanish army, it is no longer an exclusively black organization. Black recruits are uncommon and are now integrated into the rest of the Spanish army. See also: Age of Exploration; Colonies in Africa, Spanish; Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish; Conquistadors, Black; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Latin American Colonial Revolutions, Blacks in; Spain, African Invasions of; Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Civil War, Africans Americans in the. Further Reading: Archer, Christon I. The Army in Bourbon Mexico, 1760–1810. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1977; Balfour, Sebastian. Deadly Embrace: Morocco and the Road to the Spanish Civil War. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002; Beevor, Antony. The Battle for Spain: The Spanish Civil War, 1936–1939. New York: Penguin Books, 2006; Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003.
Tim J. Watts
Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the Civil war erupted in Spain in July 1936, after an uprising led by Francisco Franco and several other generals against the Spanish Republic, which was led by a “Popular Front” of liberal and leftist parties. Nazi Germany and Benito Mussolini’s fascist Italian
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Spanish Civil War, African Americans in the government provided massive aid to Franco’s nationalists, and tens of thousands of volunteers from around the world traveled to Spain to fight on behalf of the Republic. Among the 40,000 international volunteers were 3,000 U.S. citizens, including approximately 100 blacks. A large majority of the American volunteers served in battalions that came to be known as the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Most African Americans who fought to defend the Spanish Republic were organized by the Communist Party USA, which had a substantial black membership in the 1930s, in large part a result of its advocacy of civil rights at a time when African Americans had few political allies. Some of the international volunteers, such as Harry Haywood, had risen to leadership positions within the Communist Party; others were sympathetic to the party but not necessarily members. Black Americans also had opportunities within the Lincoln Brigade that were not yet open to them in the U.S. armed forces. For example, Oliver Law, assigned to lead a Lincoln Brigade battalion in 1937, became the first black officer to command an integrated American military force. Law, who was killed in action in July of the same year, had served six years in the U.S. Army, but was denied promotion and remained a private. Other African American volunteers served as pilots, an occupation from which they were virtually excluded at home, either in civilian or military life. Prominent African -American artists, writers, and intellectuals such as Langston Hughes and Paul Robeson lent their talents and prestige to the anti-Franco effort. Hughes wrote several poems about the war and interviewed many black volunteers while reporting from Spain for the Baltimore Afro-American newspaper. Other African American writers and spokespeople also linked the defense of the Republic with the struggle against racism at home and colonialism in Africa. Leading black newspapers, including the Pittsburgh Courier and the Chicago Defender, editorialized in defense of the Republic, and popular black entertainers raised money for the anti-Franco effort. The Harlem Musicians’ Committee for Spanish Democracy, for example, enlisted the services of famed musicians such as Count Basie and Fats Waller. As the cold war set in shortly after the conclusion of World War II, the U.S. government initiated a widespread persecution of leftwing political activists, especially those associated with the Communist Party. Pierre Duvalle, Oscar Hunter, and other African American “internationalists” were harassed by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation at their workplaces; others were called before Congressional committees. Several black veterans of the Spanish Civil War, such as Ray Durem, left the United States to avoid further repression. The upsurge in civil rights activism of the 1950s and 1960s, however, eventually led to some recognition of African Americans who had fought in Spain. The city of Chicago, for example, proclaimed an “Oliver Law and Abraham Lincoln Brigade Day” in 1987. See also: Spain, Blacks in; Spanish Army, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Carroll, Peter. The Odyssey of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade: Americans in the Spanish Civil War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1994; Collum, Danny Duncan, ed. AfricanAmericans in the Spanish Civil War: “This Ain’t Ethiopia, But It’ll Do.” New York: G. K. Hall, 1992; Eby, Cecil. Comrades and Commissars: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2007; Yates, James. Mississippi to Madrid: Memoir of a Black American in the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Seattle: Open Hand Publishing, 1988.
John M. Cox
Storm, Theodor (1817–1888)
Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell (1897–1961) Valaurez Burwell Spratlin was a renowned historian who conducted much research into the history of blacks in Europe and the Americas during the early twentieth century. Spratlin was born in December 1897 in Colorado. His father, who was from Alabama, was an African American physician in general practice in Denver, and his mother was a teacher from New Orleans, Louisiana. Spratlin attended the University of Denver, earning both his bachelor’s and master’s degrees there. Spratlin also developed an interest in playing the piano and remained a keen enthusiast of music and opera. From 1920 until 1921, Spratlin worked at Armstrong Manual Training High School (later Armstrong High School), one of the two African American high schools in Washington, and then taught at the State College of West Virginia. In 1927, Spratlin traveled to Europe, returning to New York in September. He had a deep interest in Spanish and Portuguese colonial history, and on his return, he started working at Howard University as director of the department of Romance languages, a position he held until his death. Spratlin also started work for his doctorate at Middlebury College, completing it in 1931. Over succeeding years, Spratlin used his university vacations to travel extensively in Latin America and the Caribbean. In 1945, Spratlin was awarded the National Order of Honor and Merit of Haiti, and eight years later was invested with the Order of Vasco Nuñez de Balboa in Panama. Spratlin’s pioneering book on Juan Latino Juan Latino: Slave and Humanist, was published in 1938. The book focuses on the life of Juan Latino, the famous black figure of the Spanish Renaissance. Spratlin’s other works included Slave Painters in Spain (1937), in which he made a major study of Sebastian Gomez. In 1949, he wrote to The New York Times complaining about racial discrimination in theaters in Washington, D.C. Spratlin also reviewed many books for The Journal of Negro History, The Journal of Negro Education, and other journals. He was a member of the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese. See also: Pareja, Juan; Portugal, Blacks in; Renaissance, Blacks in the; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Ferrer Canales, José. “Valaurez Burwell Spratlin (1897–1961).” Hispania 45:3 (September 1962): 446–450.
Justin Corfield
Storm, Theodor (1817–1888) The novellas of Theodor Storm are among the finest in German literature. Although Storm is better known for novellas such as Immensee (1849) and The Dykemaster (Der Schimmelreiter, 1888), which are set on the North Sea Plain, he also wrote about international themes. Storm’s 1865 novella, Von Jenseits des Meeres (From Across the Sea), is a conventional love story exploring the trope of a beautiful biracial woman and contains some obvious and conscious racist passages. Jenni was sent by her white father, a rich plantation owner in the Caribbean (West Indies), to
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Storm, Theodor (1817–1888) Germany to be educated and to visit his family. It is unspecified how her father, who later appears on the scene as a cruel and dominating man, has made his fortune. He is the prototypical colonial master, used to commanding and getting his way. The colonial background needs no explanation because it is obvious that through hard work and ruthless behavior, he amassed a fortune and fathered a child with a beautiful dark-colored woman. When 12-year-old Alfred meets his white-complexioned cousin, it is implied that her beauty and “naturally” passionate character have their origin in her dark mother’s heritage. In a scene reminiscent of many American slave narratives, the young girl is literally handed over to the boy to be his companion. The German word “gespielin” alludes to a sexual relationship that foreshadows later developments. When Jenni and Alfred meet again 10 years later, Jenni is a mature, beautiful, and seductive woman. The narrative is steeped in allusions, direct and indirect, to her race; she is repeatedly called Alfred’s “räuberbraut,” or “robber-bride.” Alfred seems to detect a primordial wildness in her that attracts him. The narrator is credited with real affection and love for her, seemingly without any concern for her black heritage. Jenni herself, however, is aware of the racial barrier. In a noble gesture, she wants to prevent Alfred from committing the sin of marriage with her. Jenni rebels against her father’s rule and his deeply prejudiced view of her mother’s race. Her return to the West Indies, and her visit with her mother, is by far the most problematical part of the story. The plot now foregrounds the racist assumptions. Jenni has become a stranger and she is shocked by her mother’s behavior. She cannot cope with the open passion, the colorfulness, and the lack of restraint in her mother’s boarding house. Two full pages abound in descriptions that spell her horror. She is unsettled by the realization that she is part of this race, that her blood contains traces of the animal-like noises of the people in the West Indies. By presenting the scenes in the West Indies from the point of view of the young girl, rather than that of her white father or lover, Storm disguises the racism behind it as criticism of one of their own. It is the voice of despair of a young girl caught between a deeply ingrained racism and a perception of herself as different. As with so many other novels and plots of the nineteenth century, interracial relationships are accepted on an individual basis, but do not lead to any heightened tolerance against the race itself. In Storm’s story, Jenni fares well in the end and is allowed to marry her beloved. In many other stories, some of them set in Germany, many of them set in the United States, the girl has to die a tragic death. See also: Germany, Blacks in; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European; Von Kleist, Heinrich. Further Reading: Pastor, Eckart. “Theodor Storms Novelle ‘Von jenseits des Meeres’ oder: Überlegungen zur Frage, ob ‘es möglich ist, einen Mohren weiß zu waschen.” Theodor Storm— Narrative Strategies and Patriarchy/ Theodor Storm: Erzählstrategien und Patriarchat. ed. David A. Jackson and Mark G. Ward. Lewiston: Edwin Mellen, 1999, pp. 61–84; Storm, Theodor. “Von Jenseits des Meeres.” Gedichte, Novellen, 1848–1867. ed. Dieter Lohmeier. Frankfurt: Deutscher Klassiker Verlag, 1987, pp. 649–693.
Hanna Wallinger
Strong, Jonathan (1747?–1773)
Strong, Jonathan (1747?–1773) Jonathan Strong was a former slave who became involved in a major court case in eighteenth-century England concerning slavery and the slave trade. He had been a slave in Barbados before being brought to London While in London, his master, David Lisle, beat him savagely with a pistol in 1765. Strong’s head was swollen severely and he was nearly blinded in the assault. Although Strong was barely able to walk, Lisle abandoned him in the street; however, Strong made his way to William Sharp, a surgeon known to treat London’s poor free of charge. Sharpe’s brother, Granville Sharp, an abolitionist and government clerk, questioned Strong about his injuries, which had almost led to his death. William Sharp assisted Strong in gaining admittance to a hospital, where he was treated for his injuries for four months. After Strong was released from the hospital, the Sharps assisted him in gaining employment running errands. Strong was baptized on July 22, 1765, when he was about 18 years old. During the eighteenth century, popular belief posed that the act of baptism rendered African slaves free. Theological ideas had been used to support slavery on the grounds that blacks were divinely cursed. If blacks became Christian, many believed that this also meant that the slave could no longer remain in forced servitude. Consequently, many slaveholders refused to allow their slaves to be baptized, and many British colonies passed laws outlawing freedom by baptism. In 1729, both the attorney general and solicitor general confirmed the legality of outlawing freedom by baptism in the Yorke-Talbot ruling. Nevertheless, popular belief persisted. After baptism in England, a slave was no longer a “slave,” but rather a “servant” and could no longer be bought or sold. Many slaves brought to England, therefore, were baptized. By chance, Lisle encountered Strong after abandoning him a few years previously and followed his former slave home. Lisle attempted to recapture Strong and gained £30 for him, payable when Strong was aboard a West Indian (Caribbean) vessel set for departure. Lisle then hired two men to capture Strong and bring him to a London jail until a West India vessel was ready for departure. Strong sought Granville Sharp for aid. Consequently, Sharp took Strong’s case to court. On September 18, 1767, Sir Robert Kite, the lord mayor, discharged Strong on the grounds that he had not committed any crime. In the court, the captain of the ship attempted to seize Strong, but he was prevented from being carried off. The Jamaican planter who had purchased Strong attempted to sue the Sharps on the grounds that they had deprived him of his rightful property. The Sharps furthered the position that since Strong was in England, he was no longer a slave. During the suit, the Yorke-Talbot ruling of 1729 was brought up, confirming that despite his baptism, Strong was still a slave and not free by baptism. Consequently, a master could rightfully force his slave to work in the Caribbean. In 1768, however, the courts ruled in Strong’s favor, as Lisle lacked funding to continue the case, which received national publicity. The case helped set the principle that any slave was free upon setting foot on English soil. Sharp used the case to further the abolitionist cause and took up the cases of other slaves such as Thomas Lewis and James Somerset. Strong, however, never recovered fully from his beating and died in 1773.
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Strong, Jonathan (1747?–1773) See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Common Law, Slavery and English; Free Soil Principle; Hamitic Myth; Slave Trade, British; Somerset Case. Further Reading: Schama, Simon. Rough Crossings: Britain, the Slaves, and the American Revolution. New York: Ecco, 2006; Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade, 1440–1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997; Wise, Steven. “Though the Heavens May Fall”: The Landmark Trial that Led to the End of Human Slavery. New York: Da Capo Press, 2006.
Eric Martone
T Tanner, Henry Ossawa (1859–1937) Henry Ossawa Tanner, who spent the last period of his life in self-imposed exile in France, was the first African American artist to gain international acclaim. He was born in June 1859 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. His father was a minister from the African Methodist Episcopal Church and his mother was a private school teacher. The oldest of a large family, Tanner accompanied his family when they moved to Philadelphia. When he was 13 years old, Tanner saw a painter at Fairmount Park and decided to become an artist himself. Using much of his free time to draw, Tanner went to watch other artists at the various art galleries in Philadelphia. Tanner enrolled at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in 1879 and studied under the celebrated painter, Thomas Eakins (1844–1916). Seven years later, Tanner opened his own studio in Philadelphia. He then moved to Atlanta, Georgia, where he opened an unsuccessful photography studio and taught drawing at Clark University. In 1891, Tanner went to France, where he studied under Jean-Paul Laurens. Two years later, back in Philadelphia, Tanner painted one of his most famous paintings featuring African Americans, The Banjo Lesson. The painting depicts a small boy in a log cabin learning how to play the banjo from a patient old man. Tanner found the racial discrimination in the United States oppressive and decided to return to France in 1895. He then lived in Paris for much of the rest of his life, although he returned to the United States during 1901 to 1904. In 1900, Eakins painted a portrait of Tanner. In Paris, Tanner remained a teetotaler and always observed the Sabbath, which distinguished him from many of the other painters there. Tanner’s early paintings were on religious themes, including Daniel in the Lion’s Den, which won an honorable mention in the Paris Salon of 1896. Consequently, Tanner’s father seems to have had a major influence on his interest in religion. Tanner continued exhibiting at the Paris Salon in 1897, winning silver medals in 1900 and 1906. His Raising of Lazarus (1897)
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Television, Blacks in European is regarded as one of his best works. During World War I, Tanner served with the Red Cross Public Information Department. Two of his paintings of this period, both of wartime camp scenes, were displayed in the War Museum of the American Red Cross in Washington, DC. Tanner was also involved in painting images of the conflict. Many of Tanner’s paintings were bought by the Atlanta art collector J. J. Haverty, founder of the Haverty Furniture Company. Haverty used his fortune to establish the High Museum of Art, which now holds some of Tanner’s best works. See also: Artists in Europe, African American; France, Blacks in; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Bruce, Marcus. Henry Ossawa Tanner: A Spiritual Biography. New York: Crossroad 8th Avenue, 2002; Gale, Robert. The Gay Nineties in America: A Cultural Dictionary of the 1890s. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1992; Matthews, Marcia. Henry Ossawa Tanner: American Artist. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1969.
Justin Corfield
Television, Blacks in European Contemporary television programming has a large impact in shaping and developing national identities and cultures. The depiction of certain group identities on European television influences how such groups are perceived by the country at large and how they perceive themselves. Furthermore, the common and positive depictions of certain minority group identities on television can play a crucial role in integrating minority cultures within the larger mainstream culture of the country. In general, blacks are underrepresented on European television, although many European countries are increasing the black presence on television and are attempting to develop increased programming for blacks. BRITAIN. Since the 1980s, British television has made strides to represent cultural and ethnic minorities in its programming. Nevertheless, British television still has a long way to go before a true sense of equality and diversity is attained. According to recent surveys conducted by the Open University and the University of Manchester on behalf of the British Film Institute, the major British minority groups feel alienated from much of British television culture, particularly soaps. Much of British programming still caters almost exclusively to white, middle-class Britons. The survey found that although minority groups integrate with national culture, aspects of television culture does not integrate ethnic interests or identities. The BBC created a new executive position to review and track programming content to work with the network and independent companies toward improving diversity. The logic behind the initiative was that because the British viewing audience is becoming increasingly diverse, these diverse groups will desire to see themselves and their experiences reflected in television culture. While the focus was, therefore, not on establishing quotas, a 2005 study by the Cultural Diversity Network revealed that although minorities accounted for almost 7.8 percent of Britain’s population, they were represented in only 6.6 of the roles on television soaps and 7.5 percent of roles on factual shows.
Television, Blacks in European The BBC has made several efforts, some successful and some not so successful, to provide programming for black Britons in the 2000s. The BBC recently attempted to integrate an African theme into its regular programming. For example, it adapted a ballroom dancing program into a game show entitled Strictly African Dancing. The program featured African and Caribbean celebrities who traveled to Africa to train with dance troupes to perform live on television before a panel of judges. Another example is the BBC television show Holby City, which chronicled the life of a black British doctor who returned to Ghana to practice medicine. A notable failure was The Crouches, a sitcom about a black family. Nevertheless, minorities are represented on British television and the television industry in a much more proportional rate than on American television. The Writers Guild of America reported that although minorities make up almost 30 percent of the American population, only 12 percent of the writers for American television during the 2005–2006 season were minorities. FRANCE. French television rarely portrays cultural and racial minorities. The most visible roles for minorities on French television are as hosts and news personalities. Minority issues are often limited in French television programming, in which minorities are often victims of negative stereotyping. France has historically been a country of immigrants, which have been used to offset the declining French birthrate. Before World War II, however, most French immigrants were of European descent. During the postwar period, many of the immigrants to France have come from areas formerly under French colonial rule, particularly Africa. Yet, French television often reinforces the notion of a white France devoid of multiethnic diversity. The French population, therefore, is disproportionately represented on television. The topic of minorities on French television was first studied in 1991 by the Center for Information and Research on International Migrations. The study made several conclusions. First, few professionals of foreign origin appeared on French television. Second, although minorities were visible in news and general information programming, their onscreen presence was limited, and the topics associated them were negative (crime, poverty, unemployment, etc.). Third, minorities, especially blacks, were visible in musical and nonfiction entertainment programming. Fourth, commercials often ignored or presented reduced roles for minorities. Fifth, French shows often relegated minorities to roles as extras or as petty criminals. In 1999, the Conseil Superieur de l’Audiovisuel (Audiovisual Supreme Council, CSA) conducted a similar study. The study reaffirmed that few minority professionals appeared on French television, and revealed that blacks were the minority group most represented of all minorities on French television. Minorities were revealed often as occupying marginal or inconsequential roles. They were depicted in a stereotypical manner and associated with negative phenomena or situations. Furthermore, minorities were not presented as integrated components of a multicultural French society. The discussion of the issue of minorities and multiculturalism on French television is still, to an extent, taboo in France, and minorities still retain a marginalized role on French television. The notions of affirmative action and quotas are often criticized as running counter to the ideas of French republicanism. North Africans began to push
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Terentius Afer (195/185?–159 b.c.e.?) for equality in the 1980s, but blacks from Africa and the Caribbean did not to begin to collectively agitate for equality until the late 1990s. In 1999, Calixthe Beyala, a black writer, even filed a complaint calling for quotas for blacks on French television. Some positive changes have occurred during the 2000s. Minority journalists and news personalities have been recruited to a larger extent. For example, in 2006, Harry Roselmack, a black news reporter, made headlines in France when he temporarily assumed the lead anchor position on television’s most popular news program. In addition, more films have been made with minority actors. GERMANY. Blacks also occupy a marginal role on German television, although entertainment remains the most visible field in which blacks appear in German society. For example, Cherno Jobatey, an Afro-German, has had a successful career on German television as a host of a popular morning show. Afro-Germans are also seen frequently in musical programming. Some famous Afro-German television personalities include hosts and announcers Nadja Abd el Farrag, Mola Adebisi, and Pierre Geisensetter. Some famous Afro-German actors and actresses include Liz Baffoe, Karin Boyd, Charles Huber, and Ron Williams. See also: Afro-Germans; Black British; Cinema, Blacks in European; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Kiesbauer, Arabella; Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen; May 10 Holiday; Media, Blacks in Contemporary European; Music Industry, Blacks in the European; Robin Hood Legend, Blacks in the. Further Reading: Blackshire-Belay, Carol, ed. The African-German Experience: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996; Bourne, Stephen. Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television. London: Continuum, 2001; Gilman, Sander. On Blackness Without Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982; Mazon, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingrover, eds. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro- German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005; Scriven, Michael, and Emily Roberts, eds. Group Identities on French and British Television. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003; Scriven, Michael, and Monia Lecomte, eds. Television Broadcasting in Contemporary France and Britain. New York: Berghahn Books, 1999.
Eric Martone
Terentius Afer (195/185?–159 B.C.E.?) Publius Terentius Afer (also known as Terence) was a former African slave and ancient Roman playwright known for his comedies. Ancient Roman historians debate Terentius’s date of birth, placing it at either 195 b.c.e. or 185 b.c.e. Terentius was born in Carthage in North Africa, but he was not Carthaginian as demonstrated by the use of ethnonym Afer, which referred to Africans in general, rather than Punicus, which referred exclusively to Carthaginians. Terentius was from a wealthy family that went bankrupt; consequently, Terentius was sold as a slave to a Roman senator, who educated and later freed him. On his release from slavery, he was named Terentius (the name of his former master) and Afer (where he was from); his family’s original name is unknown. Terentius’s comedies were first performed circa 170–160 b.c.e. He wrote six known plays, including Andria (The Girl from Andros, 166 b.c.e.), Hecyra (The Mother-in-Law,
Terrell, Mary Church (1863–1954) 165 b.c.e.), Heauton Timorumenos (The Self-Tormentor, 163 b.c.e.), Eunuchus (The Eunuch, 161 b.c.e.), Phormio (161 b.c.e.), and Adelphoe (The Brothers, 160 b.c.e.). Some famous lines from his work are “Charity begins at home” (Andria, act IV, scene I), and “You are harping on the same string” (Phormio, act III, scene II). Terentius, whose works were adapted from Greek plays and used many Greek dramatic conventions, wrote in conversational Latin. His work, based on the Greek New Comedy of Menander, can be divided into two groups: close translations of the later Greek comedy writers (particularly Menander), and more original combinations of two or more Greek dramas into a new Romanized play. Terentius became friends with elite Romans, particularly Publius Cornelius Scipio, who served as his patrons. Terentius died while still a young man, possibly in 159 b.c.e. in Greece or during a sea journey back to Rome. His work received a revival in Europe during the Medieval and Renaissance periods. New Comedy became the precursor to the modern European comedy of manners, demonstrated by such writers as Molière and Oscar Wilde. Earlier European writers, such as Chaucer and Shakespeare, also drew inspiration from Terentius’s work. See also: Italy, Blacks in; Punic Wars; Roman Army, Africans in the; Roman Emperors, African; Roman Empire in Africa. Further Reading: Terence. The Complete Comedies of Terence: Modern Verse Translations. trans. Palmer Bovie, Constance Carrier, and Douglass Parker. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1974.
Nicole Martone
Terrell, Mary Church (1863–1954) Mary Church Terrell was a prominent biracial writer and civil rights activist in the United States. She traveled extensively to Europe and was the only black woman to attend the Berlin International Congress of Women in Germany in 1904. Terrell was born on September 23, 1863, in Memphis, Tennessee. Both of her parents were former slaves. Terrell’s father, the son of his white master Charles Church, made a fortune from real estate speculation in Memphis and became the first African American millionaire in the southern states. Terrell went to Oberlin College, where she graduated in 1884. She was one of the first African American women to gain a college degree. Terrell then studied for two years in Europe, where she became fluent in French, German, and Italian. On Terrell’s return to Memphis in 1891, she married Robert Heberton Terrell, a lawyer who was to become the first African American municipal court judge in Washington. Terrell started work as a teacher and was promoted to the position of principal. She was appointed to the District of Columbia Board of Education from 1895 to 1906, and was the first African American woman to hold such a position in the United States. In 1896, along with Josephine Ruffin, she founded the Federation of Afro-American Women. In the same year, Terrell was elected the first president of the National Association of Colored Women, which was responsible for raising money for kindergartens, nurseries, and orphanages. She also founded the National Association of College Women (which later
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Thompson, Daley (1958–) changed its name to the National Association of University Women). In 1904, Terrell spoke at the International Congress of Women in Berlin, Germany. She was the only black woman in attendance. Terrell spoke at the conference in English, French, and German to much acclaim. Campaigning against racial discrimination, Terrell was present at the organizational meeting of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. During World War I, she was involved in picketing the White House for the Congressional Union of Women’s Suffrage. After the war, Terrell worked with the War Community Service to help returning African American troops. For the next decade, she worked in the suffrage movement campaigning for the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which became law in 1920. Terrell wrote her autobiography, A Colored Woman in a White World, which was published in 1940. She was an articulate speaker, highlighting the lynching of African Americans in the southern states, and the discrimination against African Americans in employment and housing. During the early 1950s, Terrell led a campaign against segregated restaurants in the United States. On February 28, 1950, she and some friends entered a segregated restaurant, where they were refused service. Terrell filed a lawsuit and for the next three years, she and her supporters began a series of boycotts, picketing, and demonstrations against segregated eating places. Eventually, on June 8, 1953, the Supreme Court ruled that regulations allowing restaurants to refuse to serve people on account of their race were unconstitutional. See also: Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain; Du Bois, W.E.B.; Germany, Blacks in; King Jr., Martin Luther; Malcolm X in London; Pan-Africanism; Race Riots in Europe; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Andrews, William, Frances Smith Foster, and Trudier Harris, eds. The Oxford Companion to African American Literature. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997; Fradin, Dennis, and Judith Fradin. Fight On! Mary Church Terrell’s Battle for Integration. New York: Clarion Books, 2003.
Justin Corfield
Thompson, Daley (1958–) Daley Thompson is a black British decathlete whose performances during the 1980s made him one of the most successful athletes of all time. Setting world records on several occasions, he was only the second British decathlete in history to win the decathlon twice at the Olympics, winning gold medals in 1980 and 1984. Thompson’s flamboyance and personality helped increase the popularity of the decathlon in Britain. Thompson, born Francis Thompson in London in 1958, is of Scottish and Nigerian descent. He later adopted the name Daley, a form of the African name Adodele given to him by his father. He competed in his first decathlon (which is composed of 10 events: shot put, discus, javelin, long jump, high jump, pole vault, 100 meter run, 400 meter run, 1500 meter run, and the 110 meter hurdles) when he was 16 years old. The next year, Thompson won the AAA title. Despite an unimpressive 18th-place finish in the 1976 Montreal Games, he went on to win the European junior title shortly
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859) thereafter. In 1978, Thompson first achieved international fame by winning the Commonwealth title. In 1980, Thompson competed in the Olympics, winning a gold medal and setting a world record. In 1982, Thompson was the BBC Sports Personality of the Year and set two more world records, one of which occurred when he won his second European title. Despite injuries, he won the initial World Championships in 1983. Thompson set his best score in the decathlon 8,797 in the 1984 Olympics, winning his second gold medal and defeating his rival Jürgen Hingsen. The score remained a world record until 1992. In 1986, he won both European and Commonwealth titles. Thompson attempted to win a third gold medal by competing in the 1988 Olympics, but he was hampered by injury and finished fourth. Thompson was inducted by Queen Elizabeth II in 1983 as a member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) and in 2000 as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE). In 1992, he retired from athletics. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Rozin, Skip. Daley Thompson: The Subject Is Winning. London: Arrow Books, 1984.
Mark Cordery
Tocqueville, Alexis de (1805–1859) Alexis de Tocqueville was a French political thinker and historian whose Democracy in America, published in two volumes in 1835 and 1840, greatly influenced European opinion of the United States and its inhabitants. Racialist thinking infused European thought about blacks, even extending to the normally detached French social scientist de Tocqueville. In the final chapter of volume one of Democracy in America, de Tocqueville presents the position of African Americans within the United States of the 1830s. De Tocqueville offered sympathy to African Americans held in slavery, but nevertheless generally believed that a black slave had no family, for to “him a woman is no more than the passing companion of his pleasures, and from their birth his sons are his equals.” De Tocqueville ascribed animalistic qualities to African American slaves, calling them an “intermediate between beast and man.” He also shared the pseudoscientific belief that blacks could work “without danger” in the tropical environments of the South. Recognizing the ills of slavery for a democratic society, de Tocqueville made the case that slavery was the “most formidable evil” facing the United States. De Tocqueville argued that slavery posed a pernicious threat to all of Western society; however, like many racialist thinkers of this era, de Tocqueville desired to eliminate slavery more for the benefit of white citizens than black slaves. He pointed to the gradual emancipation and eventual segregation in the North as an ideal way to eliminate slavery and maintain the low status of blacks. Noting the alarmingly high ratios of blacks to whites in the southern states, de Tocqueville feared no easy solution was possible in the South. So powerful was slavery that de Tocqueville believed, “all marked differences in character between northerners and southerners have their roots in slavery.” He presented the examples of Kentucky and Ohio, two states sharing a common border of
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Tombouctou (1883) the Ohio River, but with very different results. In Kentucky, where slavery existed, the laborers were idle and slothful. On the other side of the river in free Ohio, the idealized free labor society of whites and European immigrants produced industry and prosperity. De Tocqueville, who has been called by scholars one of the first proponents of American exceptionalism, thus argued for slavery’s elimination under the perception that it would allow for the best possible route to success for his beloved Americans. For de Tocqueville, the only solution to the slavery problem in America was abolition followed by deportation. De Tocqueville believed that abolition without deportation would inevitably produce a violent conflict between whites and free blacks in the southern United States, possibly leading to the formation of a separate black nation. De Tocqueville held this belief throughout the remainder of his life. In the Liberty Bell: Testimony against Slavery (1855), he urged the deportation of blacks, but he acknowledged that segregation, as already conducted in the northern United States, presented the second best option. Although de Tocqueville believed in segregation for blacks, he adamantly opposed the scientific racism theories of Arthur Gobineau in the latter’s essay on The Inequality of Human Races (1853–1855). See also: Abolition of Slavery, French; Cain, Theory of Descent of Blacks from; Enlightenment Philosophers and Race; Enlightenment Philosophers and Slavery; Gobineau on Races and Slavery; Interracial Marriages, European Laws Banning; Scientific Racism. Further Reading: Tocqueville, Alexis de. Oeuvres Completes. Volume VII: Correspondance Américaine et Européenne. Paris: Gallimard, 1986; Tocqueville, Alexis de. Democracy in America. trans. George Lawrence, ed. J. P. Mayer. New York: Perennial Classics, 2000.
Thomas Balcerski
Tombouctou (1883) Tombouctou (Timbuctoo) is a story by celebrated nineteenth-century French writer Guy de Maupassant that details the adventures of French colonial soldier from Africa named Timbuctoo. In the story, Timbuctoo, arrives in Paris and bumps into two French officers, one of whom he had served under at Bezieres. The officer inquires what Timbuctoo is doing in Paris. Timbuctoo, extremely giddy, informs him that he had made a lot of money opening a restaurant catering to Prussians. After Timbuctoo leaves, the officer explains to his friend how he met Timbuctoo during the FrancoPrussian War (1870–1871). In the war, the officer commanded a garrison at Bezieres that included rowdy, drunken troops from the French colonies, including Timbuctoo. The officer learned that Timbuctoo was supplying the troops with alcohol from a mysterious source, later revealed as coming from a special vineyard. The officer could not comprehend Timbuctoo’s African name, and therefore referred to him as Timbuctoo, his native place. One day, some Prussians ventured too closely to Timbuctoo’s vineyard, and he and some other French colonial soldiers ambushed the Prussians and paraded their decapitated heads. The officer remarked to his friend how Timbuctoo looted the bodies of anything valuable, placing items in a pocket that stretched from his waist to his ankles. As the fighting progressed, the officer noticed that his African soldiers, including Timbuctoo, became increasingly fat, yet there were no more meat
Tombouctou (1883) rations. He speculated that the meat derived from the bodies of Prussian soldiers. Timbuctoo developed a fondness for the officer, offering him presents and even bringing him a mysterious filet to eat. When Bezieres fell, the French soldiers fled or were captured. The French officer later found Timbuctoo at the head of a restaurant bearing a sign stating that he was an army chef and former cook to the emperor. Timbuctoo continued to feed the Prussians from the same “mysterious” meat source that he and his African companions ate from, which inspired Timbuctoo to laugh. After concluding his tale, the officer remarks to his friend that Timbuctoo’s restaurant was the first step of revenge for the Franco-Prussian War. The story Tombouctou is full of racist stereotypes and is representative of the late nineteenth-century attitude toward blacks. In the story, Timbuctoo is described as “an enormous negro, dressed in black, with a paunch beneath his jean waistcoat, which was covered with charms.” We learn that this pocket is for Timbuctoo to hide stolen goods; therefore this description presents Timbuctoo, and hence blacks, as thieves whose primary motivation for action is profit. Furthermore, as Timbuctoo walks, his face was “shining as if it had been polished,” revealing “dazzling white teeth” that shown “like a crescent moon in a black sky.” The story also makes note that the giddy Timbuctoo gesticulates as he walks, causing Parisians to think that he is crazy. Consequently, Timbuctoo is depicted as mischievous and childlike, apt to pull pranks, and frequently in trouble. This image is further solidified through the officer’s own remarks that Africans possessed “characteristics of overgrown frolicsome children.” Consequently, because the story depicts Africans as childlike, Europeans are depicted as paternal, attempting to teach the Africans how to behave in a “civilized” manner. The French officer believes that Timbuctoo “worshipped” him because of his leadership. The officer even recounts how Timbuctoo kisses his white commander’s hand, which is “according to negro and Arab custom.” Therefore the story depicts Africans as happily subservient to their white masters and teachers. Such depictions justified racism and the subjugation of the African people through colonialism. While the story depicts the job of Europeans to civilize Africans, the story simultaneously mocks Timbuctoo for trying to speak French, for the character of Timbuctoo speaks in broken French that causes everyone who is French to laugh. The French characters also demonstrate disrespect for African culture. Timbuctoo is referred to as a “brute,” and his African companions-in-arms are referred to as “savages.” Africans are depicted as drunks, undisciplined, and cannibals. The French officer makes no attempt to learn Timbuctoo’s African name, jokingly remarking that it was something like “Chavaharibouhalikranafotapolara.” Such a nonsensical jumble of letters is meant to imply that the Africans spoke “gibberish.” He then gives Timbuctoo a new name, similar to the way Europeans renamed Africans captured as slaves. See also: Colonies in Africa, French; France, Blacks in; French Army, Blacks in the; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: De Maupassant, Guy. The Complete Short Stories of Guy de Maupassant. trans. New York: Halcyon, 1947.
Eric Martone
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Trouillot, Hénock (1923–1988) Hénock Trouillot, an important Haitian historian and novelist, was born on January 19, 1923 in Haiti. He was the second son of Emmanuel Trouillot and Marianne (née Alvarez). Trouillot was also the great-grandson of Duveneau Trouillot, a senator of the Republic of Haiti. From a family much interested in history, Trouillot immersed himself in Haitian history, spending many years working in the National Archives and in the museums and libraries around the country. During his career, he wrote a number of important books on Haitian history and historiography. His first book, Historiography of Haiti (1953), was coauthored with Cattes Pressoir and his brother, Ernst. Trouillot subsequently wrote La Condition des Nègres Domestiques à SaintDomingue (1955), Economie et Finances de Saint-Domingue (1965), Dessalines; ou, Le sang du Pont-Rouge (1967), La Vengeance du Mapou (1967), and Le Gouvernement du Roi Henri Christophe (1974). Over many years, he had become a critic of what became known as “mulatto hegemony,” claiming that Haitian literature was becoming used (or as he would argue, abused) by a small elite to repress other people. Further, Haitian literature had become characterized by its defense of the African origins of the people. These ideas permeated through Trouillot’s work, which coincided with the changes in Haitian politics introduced by François Duvalier and Jean-Claude Duvalier, who tended to use the “mulattoes” as scapegoats to gain political support. Trouillot died on September 13, 1988. His older brother, Jean-Jacques Dessaline Ernst Trouillot (1922–1987), jurist and historian, was the coauthor of the Biographical Encyclopedia of Haiti. His son, Michel-Rolph Trouillot, is a historical theorist and anthropologist at the University of Chicago. His second wife, Ertha PascalTrouillot, a lawyer, was appointed to the Haitian Supreme Court by the government of Henri Namphy. She went on to serve as president of Haiti from March 1900 until February 1991. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Literature, Blacks in French. Further Reading: Degraff, Michel. “Linguists’ Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Creole Exceptionalism.” Language in Society 34 (2005): 533–591; Nicholls, David. From Dessalines to Duvalier: Race, Colour and National Independence in Haiti. Piscataway: Rutgers University Press, 1995.
Justin Corfield
Turquia, Nugaymath (?–1099) Nugaymath Turquia led a contingent of 300 female Moorish archers, called “Amazons” in the stories of the Spanish hero El Cid, during the historic Almoravid siege of Valencia in 1099, which led to the death of El Cid himself. The Romance of El Cid, the main epic story about the Spanish military hero Rodrigo Diaz de Bibar (“El Cid”) against the invading Muslims from Africa, mentions that there were Berber women fighting the Christian Spanish, but it does not record much about them. A slightly more detailed description, which includes the reference
Tuskegee Airmen that they were led by a female warrior called Nugaymath Turquia, can be found in the Primera Cronica General of Afonso X, king of Castile and Léon, which was completed in about 1289. The account describes Turquia’s actions at the siege of Valencia and also mentions that the women had originally come to the Moorish king on a pilgrimage to seek a pardon. The women then joined the Moorish army, with the women in battle always being armed with Turkish bows and carrying cuirasses. They also had most of their heads shaven except for a topknot (the hairstyle worn for their original pilgrimage). In the siege of Valencia in July 1099, about 100 of the Moorish women following Turquia into battle were killed by El Cid’s men. During the fighting, El Cid was hit by an arrow, but legend does not relate whether it was fired by one of the Berber women under Turquia. When the body of El Cid was strapped to his horse and sent out in death to lead his men against the Moors in a final charge, Turquia and what remained of her supporters rallied and managed to kill large numbers of El Cid’s men before they were eventually overcome and Turquia herself was killed. Initially, scholars studying the Primera Cronica General suggested that the women could be Turks, with the name Nugaymath Turquia being translated as “little star of Turkey.” It was certainly possible for people from Asia Minor to have been involved in the fighting in southern Spain. Linguistic and historical research by L. P. Harvey and others, however, pointed to the idea that Turquia was originally a Tuareg, a nomadic pastoral group of people from the Sahara, and her name in Arabic, Nugaymath al-Tarqiyya, means the “star of the Tuareg archers.” Her origin as a Tuareg certainly seems more probable and is now accepted by most scholars. See also: Spain, African Invasions of; Spain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Harvey, L. P. “Nugaymath Turquia: Primera Cronica General, Chapter 956.” Journal of Semitic Studies 13:2 (1968): 232–241; Norris, H. T. The Berbers in Arab Literature. London: Longman, 1982; Van Sertima, Ivan. The Golden Age of the Moor. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1992.
Justin Corfield
Tuskegee Airmen African American aviation units were established by the United States Army during World War II in response to pressure from the black community for equal access to military training and service. The men trained mostly at segregated facilities, and they served in segregated units in northern Africa and Italy, flying the P-39, P-40, P-47, and P-51 Mustang. Their outstanding record proved that African Americans were courageous and effective in aerial combat. The 99th Pursuit Squadron was activated on March 22, 1941, at Chanute Army Air Field (AAF), Illinois, in response to pressure from African American political leaders, newspapers, and individuals. In July 1941, the Army Air Corps established a segregated pilot training facility, Tuskegee Army Air Field (TAAF), near Tuskegee Institute, the historically black Alabama college. Five men graduated in the first class of pilots in March 1942, including Benjamin O. Davis, Jr., a 1936 graduate of West Point. Davis
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Tuskegee Airmen later commanded the 99th Pursuit Squadron, the 332nd Fighter Group, and the 477th Bombardment Group. Racial discrimination was always present. It was nearly a year before the combatready 99th was ordered to North Africa, flying its first mission in June 1943. White commanders soon recommended that the unit be removed from combat for alleged unsatisfactory performance, but the men were provided additional time to prove themselves. The 332nd Fighter Group arrived in Italy in January 1944 and was first stationed in southern Italy, but was finally based at Ramitelli Air Base. The unit was assigned strafing missions and later bomber escort over southern and central Europe. Downed pilots were sometimes assisted by local residents. By the end of the war, the men had completed more than 15,000 combat sorties, including 200 escort missions and many thousands of ground attack sorties. They destroyed more than 260 enemy aircraft, as well as the only destroyer sunk solely by machinegun fire. A total of 66 men were killed in the combat zone and 32 became prisoners of war, where they were treated equally with their white colleagues. The 477th Bombardment Group, activated in January 1944, never deployed overseas. The men of the 477th challenged segregation on army installations within the United States, including the illegally segregated officers’ clubs at Freeman Field, Indiana. The decorated combat veterans of the 332nd returned from the war to a segregated America and a segregated military, where they were still treated as second-class citizens. The army’s flying training school at Tuskegee graduated 992 single- and twin-engine pilots, who, along with the ground crews, bombardiers, navigators, and administrative personnel, came to be known as the Tuskegee Airmen. In July 1948, United States President Harry Truman issued Executive Order 9981 calling for “equality of treatment and opportunity for all persons in the Armed Services without regard to race,” and in 1949 the Air Force desegregated. In March 2007, the Tuskegee Airmen were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal in recognition of their military accomplishments that served as an inspiration for military desegregation (S 392, 109th Cong., 1st sess.). See also: Italy, Blacks in; Nazis and Black POWs; World War II, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Davis, Benjamin O., Jr. An Autobiography. Benjamin O. Davis, Jr.: American. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1991; Dryden, Charles W. A-Train: Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 1997; Gropman, Alan. The Air Force Integrates, 1945–1964. 2nd ed. Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1998; Jefferson, Alexander, with Lewis Carlson. Red Tail Captured, Red Tail Free: The Memoirs of a Tuskegee Airman and POW. New York: Fordham University Press, 2005. Tuskegee Airmen, Inc. Web Site: www.tuskegeeairmen.org.
Rosemary F. Crockett
U Uncle Tom’s Cabin in London After its publication in 1852, London theaters readily adapted American writer Harriet Beecher Stowe’s novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin for the stage, thereby trying to capitalize on the commercial success of the book. The novel, which became tremendously popular in Britain, inspired an antislavery petition and was translated into British melodrama. Numerous dramatizations appeared and were produced by London theaters of all kinds, reflecting the cross-class appeal of the story. On the whole, the British adaptations made up a distinct tradition that altered the material of the novel to suit the specific cultural, as well as theatrical, framework. Generally, the most violent and Gothic scenes from Uncle Tom’s Cabin were selected to attract an audience expecting this kind of spectacle. Some plays even depicted slave revolts and the downfall of American slavery. All stage adaptations were necessarily politically charged and frequently represented popular British views on slavery and the United States. Many dramatizations not only showcased the moral superiority of the British over Americans, but also displayed a certain degree of theatrical tourism by emphasizing the foreignness of the United States, or even attempting to create an overarching impression of America. Although an abolitionist standpoint was favored, London’s Uncle Toms did not always articulate a clear and unambiguous attitude toward slaves or “the peculiar institution,” making the plays agreeable to spectators of different political opinions. British licensing laws caused the productions to leave out those scenes of Uncle Tom’s Cabin that promoted Christianity and referenced religion: Little Eva was sometimes omitted and Uncle Tom’s faith only hinted at. In other plays, these two characters were given a Cockney accent and thus turned into the audience’s representatives on stage. In this way, British laborers may have identified with the slaves, but only a few parallels between the working poor and American slaves were drawn. Overall, the
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Ustinov, Peter (1921–2004) dramatizations did not show any overt concern with workers and were only slightly interested in women. In the main, interracial sex was much more an issue and many of the novel’s subtleties were lost during the adaptation process. London’s Uncle Tom’s also relied heavily on the British blackface tradition. In Britain, blackface often was enacted on the streets and was viewed as cross-class (family) entertainment in theater, where it functioned as a sign of theatricality. Many dramatists exploited the blackface moments and scenes in their adaptations without including their original ironic context. They also incorporated minstrel-like material with which the viewers were already familiar (e.g., songs by the Ethiopian serenaders). Especially among London’s lower classes, the Tom plays were a prominent and popular phenomenon. Because of this, theater critics felt the need to comment on this “Uncle Tom Mania,” but were critical of most plays for not meeting the standards of high culture. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Meer, Sarah. Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850s. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005; Waters, Hazel. Racism on the Victorian Stage: Representations of Slavery and the Black Character. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007.
Katharina Gerund
Ustinov, Peter (1921–2004) Peter Alexander Ustinov was a humanitarian and Academy Award–winning British actor and director. His ethnic background was quite diverse and included French, Italian, German, Russian, and Ethiopian ancestry. As a result of his African ancestry from the monarchs of Ethiopia, the country asked him to serve as a spokesperson for Ethiopia in the media, serving as a cultural liaison between Africa and the West. As a result of the culture and racial attitudes of his era, Ustinov was reluctant to publicly acknowledge his interracial ancestry until well into his career. Ustinov was born in London in 1921. His parents were Nadia Benois, a Russian painter and ballet designer, and Iona, Baron von Ustinov, a German subject of Russian and German descent who had fought in World War I (1914–1918) as a pilot. The couple had met while Iona was on business in Russia. After their marriage, they moved to London. In the 1930s, Iona worked in London at the German Embassy as a press officer. In addition, he worked as a correspondent for a German news agency. He later served in M15 (British Security Service, Counterespionage) as an agent and runner, and became a British citizen. Ustinov descended from Russian nobility on his paternal side.His paternal grandfather was an officer in the tsar’s army who was exiled because of his religious beliefs. Ustinov’s mother was of Russian, French, Italian, and Ethiopian ancestry. Jules-César Benois, one of her ancestors, had been a chef who had fled to Russia from France during the French Revolution. He later worked as chef to Tsar Paul. Ustinov’s mother was also descended from the Ethiopian royal family, thereby making him one-eighth Ethiopian. Ustinov’s great-grandfather, a Swiss military engineer, married the daughter of Ethiopian emperor Tewodros II. The emperor had many Europeans in his ser-
Ustinov, Peter (1921–2004) vice in an attempt to westernize Ethiopia. The most valued of these Europeans were forbidden to leave the country. The marriage to Tewodros’s daughter was therefore a form of compensation and a means to ensure loyalty. Ustinov was proud of his multicultural descent and became fluent in English, French, German, Italian, Russian, and Spanish, while also learning Greek and Turkish. He was educated at Westminster School and made his stage debut in 1938 after receiving training in acting as a teenager. Ustinov served in World War II as a private and made several propaganda films for the war effort. During his acting career, Ustinov received two Tony Award nominations in 1958 for his play “Romanoff and Juliet,” a cold war satire; two Golden Globes; an Academy Award for his role in Spartacus (1960); and another Academy Award for his role in Topkapi (1964). Thus Ustinov is possibly the first recipient of an Academy Award to be of African descent. He starred in several celebrated films and portrayed many memorable characters, including six films as Agatha Christie’s famous Belgian detective, Hercule Poirot, and the voice of the anthropomorphic lion, Prince John, in Walt Disney’s animated film, Robin Hood (1973). Ustinov was highly involved in humanitarian and educational efforts. From 1968 until his death in 2004, Ustinov served as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, frequently assisting the poor in several areas including Africa. He was a humanist laureate and a member of the International Academy of Humanism. In addition, Ustinov functioned as the World Federalist Movement’s president from 1991 until 2004. In 1992, Ustinov became chancellor of the University of Durham. Previously, in the 1970s, he had served as rector of the University of Dundee. In addition, the Vrije Universiteit in Belgium awarded Ustinov an honorary doctorate. In 1975, Queen Elizabeth II awarded Ustinov the CBE (Commander of the Order of the British Empire), paving the way for his knighthood in 1990. Because of his high profile in the entertainment and humanitarian arenas, the Ethiopian legation to Canada, in cooperation with the Department of Multicultural Affairs in Quebec, requested on several occasions for Ustinov to serve as a spokesman for Ethiopia to the media. Ustinov had performed a similar function for the Soviet Union during the height of the cold war, serving as a cultural link between the Soviet Union and the Western powers. The racial climate of the era, however, hindered Ustinov’s efforts to assist Ethiopia. In his autobiography, he refused to acknowledge his African ancestry, claiming that his great-grandmother was a Portuguese woman at the Ethiopian court. Many years later, he finally acknowledged his descent from the Ethiopian royal family in a radio interview. Ustinov died in 2004 from heart failure. As a testament to his humanitarian efforts, the Executive Director of UNICEF spoke at Ustinov’s funeral as a representative of the secretary general of the United Nations. See also: Britain, Blacks in; Civil Rights Movement in Twentieth-Century Great Britain. Further Reading: Miller, John. Peter Ustinov: The Gift of Laughter. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2003. Ustinov, Peter. Dear Me. London: Heinemann, 1977.
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V Vieira, António (1608–1697) António Vieira, a Jesuit missionary and Portuguese diplomat during the seventeenth century, is renowned in the Lusophone world for his eloquent oratory and unrivaled written prose. Vieira is also well known for his staunch denunciations of the cruelty of slave masters, his interest in indigenous Brazilians and “New Christians,” and his belief in a central, prophetic role for Portugal in Christian world history. Vieira, whose paternal grandmother was a woman of color, most likely of African origin, was born in Lisbon and moved to Bahia, Brazil with his family when he was six years old. Against his family’s wishes, Vieira joined the Society of Jesus, commonly known as the Jesuits, in 1623. As a novice studying at the Jesuit College in Bahia, he received what he believed to be a divine revelation from Mary, the mother of Jesus. Thereafter, he dedicated himself to missionary work. He developed his literary and oratory skills while preaching to the Portuguese, enslaved Africans, and indigenous Brazilians in Bahia. Vieira learned the Tupi-Guarani language of Brazil and shared the Jesuit enthusiasm for learning languages spoken by non-Christian communities. He was ordained in 1635. The Restoration ended Spanish rule of Portugal in 1640, and in 1641, Vieira traveled to Portugal, where he became an adviser to King João IV. In the service of the Portuguese king, Vieira performed diplomatic missions in Paris, The Hague, London, and Rome. In 1648, Vieira spent eight months in Amsterdam and engaged in discussions with the Rabbi Menasseh ben Israel on the relationship between Judaism and Christianity. He returned to Brazil in 1652, but after publicly denouncing slave masters for their cruelty, he was briefly forced to leave Brazil for Portugal from 1654 to 1655. After returning to Brazil, he worked with indigenous Brazilians for six years, until he was again forced to return to Portugal along with other Jesuits in the area. Under King Afonso VI, successor to João IV, Vieira was condemned by the Portuguese Inquisition
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Villa-Lobos, Heitor (1887–1959) and imprisoned from 1665 to 1667. This sentence was later reversed, and Vieira moved to Rome, where he lived comfortably from 1669 to 1675. His first volume of sermons was published in 1679 in Portugal. From Portugal, Vieira returned in 1681 to Brazil, where he died in 1697. Vieira preached against the mistreatment of all enslaved people throughout his life, but he never openly opposed the enslavement of African people or their descendents. He maintained the belief that enslaved Africans in Brazil were in a better position than those of Africans in Africa. Vieira fervently advocated for the rights of indigenous Brazilians and was a voice of reform in much the same way as the Spaniard Bartolomé de Las Casas had been in the sixteenth century. See also: Abolition of Slavery, Portuguese; Age of Exploration; Portugal, Blacks in; Slave Trade, Portuguese. Further Reading: Boxer, Charles Ralph. A Great Luso-Brazilian Figure: Padre António Vieira, S. J., 1608–1697. London: Hispanic and Luso-Brazilian Councils, 1957; Cohen, Thomas. The Fire of Tongues: António Vieira and the Missionary Church in Brazil and Portugal. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1998; Cohen, Thomas, and Stuart Schwartz, eds. Luso-Brazilian Review 40:1 (Summer 2003).
Sara Scott Armengot
Villa-Lobos, Heitor (1887–1959) Heitor Villa-Lobos was a Brazilian composer whose music raised the profile in Europe of South American classical music and the African rhythm incorporated into his compositions. Born in Rio de Janeiro in 1887, Villa-Lobos was the son of a wealthy musician, amateur astronomer, and book collector whose family came from Spain. He grew up at a time when Brazil was changing dramatically, abolishing slavery in 1888 and becoming a republic in the next year. European compositions dominated the music scene in Brazil, and Villa-Lobos initially studied music surreptitiously. He learned how to play the cello, guitar, and clarinet. When Villa-Lobos was 12 years old, his father died. After leaving school, Villa-Lobos was able to find work playing in theaters and cinemas in Rio de Janeiro. In 1905, Villa-Lobos decided to travel around the interior of Brazil and became interested in the native Brazilian music scene. His travels had a great influence on his life and his future music. Villa-Lobos later wrote of his capture and subsequent escape from cannibals; many people believe these accounts were exaggerated, if not entirely fabricated. He became interested in the music of the former African slaves in remote Brazilian settlements and made copious notes of the rhythms during this period. Back in Rio de Janeiro, Villa-Lobos incorporated some of this music into his own work. From 1915 until 1921, he was involved in composing a number of pieces for chamber concerts. Although Villa-Lobos was fascinated by African music, much of the style of music that he followed involved classical themes. He met Sergei Diaghilev, Russian art critic and patron, during the Russian Ballet tour of Brazil in 1917. Villa-Lobos also became friends with pianist Arthur Rubenstein. In 1923, Villa-Lobos went to Paris,
Von Kleist, Heinrich (1777–1811) France, where he planned to play some of his new music, and remained there for one year. He returned to Paris in 1927 and remained until 1930. During these two visits, Villa-Lobos managed to raise his profile and that of Brazilian music and African rhythms. Back in Brazil, Villa-Lobos turned his hand to “patriotic” music with a number of compositions that gained him much acclaim under the dictatorship of President Getúlio Vargas. Such compositions made Villa-Lobos’s work famous throughout Brazil. After World War II, he decided to travel to Europe again. Villa-Lobos was now able to be a full-time composer, writing concertos for the guitar, harp, and harmonica. He also composed some film music. See also: France, Blacks in; Music, African Influences on European; Portugal, Blacks in. Further Reading: Appelby, David P. Heitor Villa-Lobos: A Life (1887–1959). Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2002; Peppercorn, L. M. The World of Villa-Lobos. Aldershot, England: Scholar Press, 1996.
Justin Corfield
Von Kleist, Heinrich (1777–1811) Heinrich von Kleist was an important poet, dramatist, novelist, and short story writer of the German Romantic movement. In his 1811 Die Verlobung in St. Domingo (The Engagement in San Domingo), he explores the topic of racism and imperialism, and the trope of the tragic biracial heroine, the nearly white woman with a torn personality, driven by divided loyalties and tragically succumbing to a history built on black and white opposition. The novella is set in 1803 during the Haitian Revolution for Independence. The young Swiss officer Gustav von Ried seeks refuge on an estate controlled by a black man, Congo Hoango, and his biracial wife, Babekan. Babekan’s beautiful daughter, Toni, who looks white, heroically saves Gustav’s life, but is killed in the course of events by Gustav, who then commits suicide. Congo Hoango is a “fürchterlicher alter Neger” who killed his master and his family, although they have treated him well. He is described as cruel, unthankful, and barbaric, and he embodies the inferior physical appearance and consequent mental degeneracy of the African well known to the German reading public of that time. Kleist’s narrator mentions that in his youth on the Gold Coast, Hoango was a righteous person; therefore his enslavement is blamed for having produced this meanness and cruelty in him. It is emphasized, however, that his master behaved well and in a friendly way toward him, and that this has corrupted rather than improved his character. Hoango is described as not capable of benefiting from the system of slavery that the slave holders see as right and superior. Kleist chooses not to write a criticism of slavery itself, but rather focuses on the presumably innate barbarism in a slave. Babekan is the equally cruel, deceptive, and mean woman. Her mixed racial origin and the cruel treatment she received from her former master have made her bitter and vindictive toward white people. Babekan’s light-colored, beautiful daughter, Toni, is part of the plotting against Gustav and his family and friends; however, she is torn between her loyalties because she is deeply in love with Gustav.
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Von Kleist, Heinrich (1777–1811) In this story, Kleist’s narrator invites the reader to condemn the less than human and barbarian acts committed by Congo Hoango and his family against white people in general. It is not so clear, however, whether Kleist himself endorses this view. In the substantial body of criticism about this novella, several critics have paid attention to Kleist’s own attitude toward the French Revolution, his imprisonment in Strasbourg in the same prison that had held Haitian slave rebel Toussaint L’Ouverture some years earlier, and his obvious attempt to displace an argument against the French onto the black Haitians. On close textual analysis, much irony is apparent on the side of the narrator who creates a distance between his own view and the attitude of the reader. It becomes obvious that Hoango has ameliorating character traits (he loves his children, for example), that Babekan is fully justified in her desire to revenge herself, and that Gustav is more scheming than appears at first sight. And yet, despite all narrative attempts to present at least a somehow complex constellation of characters, there can be no denying that race and racist attitudes are prominently displayed. Displaying the “natural” supremacy of the white European, Gustav, for example, thinks that the revolt is so cruel because the blacks could not cope with freedom. They have regressed into a state of frenzy. In the most often mentioned episode of the novella, he tells the story of a young slave woman who took revenge on her master by infecting him with yellow fever. The deceptiveness of the freed slaves and hence their moral degeneration and state of uncivilized barbarity are thus particularly referred to. See also: Bug-Jargal (1820); Colonies in the Caribbean, French; Germany, Blacks in; Haitian Revolution in Francophone Literature; Literature, Blacks in German and Central European. Further Reading: Angress, R. K. “Kleist’s Treatment of Imperialism: Die Hermannsschlacht and ‘Die Verlobung in St. Domingo.’” Monatshefte 69:1 (1977): 17–33; Fleming, Ray. “Race and the Difference It Makes in Kleist’s ‘Die Verlobung in St. Domingo.’” The German Quarterly 65:3–4 (1992): 306–317; Gilman, Sander. “The Aesthetics of Blackness in Heinrich von Kleist’s ‘Die Verlobung in St. Domingo.’” Modern Language Notes 90 (1975): 661–672.
Hanna Wallinger
W Walcott, Derek (1930–) Derek Alton Walcott is an acclaimed West Indian (Caribbean) poet and postcolonial writer who won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992. He was born on January 23, 1930 in Saint Lucia in the West Indies. Both of his grandmothers were former slaves. Walcott’s father, a Bohemian watercolor painter, died when Walcott and his twin brother were only a few years old. Consequently, Walcott’s mother, a teacher at the local Methodist school, raised him. He studied at Saint Mary’s College, Saint Lucia, and then at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. Walcott moved to Trinidad in 1953. Walcott’s first published work was 25 Poems, a collection of poetry, published in 1948. The next year he published his second collection of poems, Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos. Walcott then gained enough confidence to complete plays. His first play, Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes (1950), focused on the life of one of the leaders of the Haitian Revolution for Independence. Subsequent plays included Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio Production (1951), Wine of the Country (1953), The Sea at Dauphin: A Play in One Act (1954), Ione (1957), Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama (1958), and Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958). In 1959, Walcott became involved in the founding of the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, which was later involved in producing many of his plays. From 1966 until 1997, Walcott wrote 15 more plays: Malcochon (1966); Dream on Monkey Mountain (1967); In a Fine Castle (1970); The Joker of Seville (1974); The Charlatan (1974); O Babylon! (1976); Remembrance (1977); Pantomime (1978); The Isle Is Full of Noises (1982); The Last Carnival (1986); Beef, No Chicken (1986); A Branch of the Blue Nile (1986); Steel (1991); Odyssey: A Stage Version (1993); and The Capeman (1997). Many collections of Walcott’s poems have been published; his most famous collections were The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden (1983) and Selected Poems (2007).
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Waters, Billy (1778?–1823) As a postcolonial writer, Walcott was critical of the role of European colonialism in the West Indies. His epic poem, Omeros, deals with the complex interplay between African, Amerindian, and European cultures and heritage in the West Indies. It uses some of the style of the Greek poet Homer and includes the West Indian heritage in London, England, and the American West. See also: Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Literature, Blacks in British. Further Reading: Breslin, Paul. Nobody’s Nation: Reading Derek Walcott. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2001; Hamner, Robert, ed. Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott. Washington, DC: Three Continents, 1993.
Justin Corfield
Waters, Billy (1778?–1823) Billy Waters was a black African sailor who became famous as an eccentric street musician and actor in eighteenth-century London known as the “king of beggars.” Waters wore a soldier’s uniform with feather in his hat and had a wooden peg leg, having lost his leg in war, while he played his fiddle in the West End, entertaining onlookers. Waters was one of the many black personalities featured in Pierce Egan’s book Life in London (1821), which was adapted into a popular stage play. Waters even played himself in some performances. Many runaway slaves tended to flee to London’s East End, where they congregated in overcrowded lodgings surrounded by brothels and hangouts for thieves and sailors. Many of them lacked marketable skills. Most blacks who found gainful employment in London during the eighteenth century worked as servants, soldiers, sailors, musicians, actors, or peddlers. Others, who could not find employment, resorted to prostitution, begging, and thievery. Waters served as a sailor and lost his leg before settling in London. Although he received a pension, it was too meager to support his family, which included a wife and two children. Waters became a street musician in London. Playing his fiddle, he was a common sight outside the Adelphi Theatre, in the Strand. Waters’s peculiar antics gained attention from passersby who were amused. He became a celebrity within the local underworld. In 1820, Pierce Egan began publication of a monthly journal, Life in London. His articles were later collected in his book Life in London, or The Day and Night Scenes of Jerry Hawthorn Esq. and His Elegant Friend Corinthian Tom in 1821 and included a famous caricature of Waters by cartoonist George Cruickshank. The tales told of life on the streets and that of London’s poor. Such efforts were among the first in British journalism to cover common life rather than politics and the elite. Included were several black personalities including Waters, African Sal, her baby Mungo, and Massa Piebald, another sailor who became a beggar whose real name was Charles M’Ghee. The book was adapted into a successful stage play by William Moncrieff that was performed in Britain from 1821 to 1823 and then in New York in 1823. Waters’s notoriety led to roles on the stage. He appeared as himself in Moncrieff’s play Tom and Jerry, or Life in London at the Adelphi and Caledonian Theatres. He
Wedderburn, Robert (1762–1835/36?)
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spoke his lines in a strong African accent and sang a song, which included the following lyrics: “That all men are beggars, ’tis very plain you see; only some they are of lowly, and some of high degree.” Soon afterward, Waters became ill and spent his final days at Saint Giles’s Workhouse. Without work, he pawned his fiddle to raise money for his family. While at the workhouse, because of his notoriety, a party of beggars elected him as “king.” He died in 1823 around the age of 45. Later, Waters was immortalized in the Billy Waters figurines produced by Staffordshire Potteries. See also: Britain, Blacks in. Further Reading: Edwards, Paul, and J. Walvin. Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade. Baton Rouge: Louisiana University Press, 1983.
Eric Martone
Wedderburn, Robert (1762–1835/36?) Robert Wedderburn, a radical born to a slave woman in Jamaica, campaigned for an An image of Billy Waters taken from a scrapbook end to slavery and the oppression of the work- of prints by Thomas Lord Busby. © Mary Evans ing class. His fiery comments and provocative Picture Library. speeches led to his being charged with treason and to several terms in prison. Wedderburn’s refusal to accept the subordinate role that his society subscribed to his race helped raised British consciousness of the problems of slavery and the working class, as well as the need for freedom of speech. Wedderburn was born in Kingston, Jamaica, in 1762. His mother, Rosanna, was an African-born slave. His father, a sugar planter named James Wedderburn, was part of a well-known Scottish family. Wedderburn’s mother was sold by his father while she was pregnant to Lady Douglas. A condition of the sale was that the child would be free when born. Wedderburn was baptized into the Anglican Church and received a minimal amount of schooling. He witnessed his mother and grandmother being whipped for violations of rules, and he became an opponent of the slave system. When he was old enough, Wedderburn enlisted in the Royal Navy and left Jamaica. He may have been involved in a mutiny at the Nore. Wedderburn arrived in London in 1778. He survived by doing menial jobs, as well as some petty thievery. Eventually, he established himself as a tailor. Little is known about his activities until 1813. In that year, Wedderburn was licensed as a Unitarian preacher. He accepted the Unitarian
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Weimar Republic, African Activists in the ideal that social problems were created by man and that man could correct those problems. He became a familiar figure among lower class radicals. Wedderburn was influenced by Thomas Spence, whom he met shortly before Spence’s death in 1814. Spence was apparently buried by 40 disciples, including Wedderburn, who pledged to spread his ideals and work for a revolution. They formed the Society of Spencean Philanthropists. In 1818, Wedderburn and Thomas Evans, leader of the Spenceans, were licensed to operate a “Church of Christian Philanthropists.” Wedderburn soon quarreled with Evans and opened his own chapel in Soho in 1819. His sermons quickly became famous for their libertarian ideas. Wedderburn’s chapel was regarded by the authorities as a center of sedition. Wedderburn often compared black slaves to British factory workers. To him, the slave masters and the factory owners were the same. He called for a change in society, by violent means if necessary. A spy named John Castle was hired by the police to attend meetings at which Wedderburn was present. In September 1819, Castle reported that Wedderburn prompted a discussion of whether a slave had the right to murder his master. His listeners understood the question to include whether workers had the right to kill factory owners. Castle’s report included the comment attributed to Wedderburn that “before six months were over, there would be slaughter in England for their liberty.” He also called on the workers to learn how to use “the gun, the dagger, the cutlass and pistols.” Wedderburn believed that simultaneous uprisings by slaves in the West Indies (Caribbean) and workers in Britain would overthrow the existing system. Wedderburn was arrested for blasphemous libel and tried in May 1820. He was convicted and sentenced to two years in prison. When he was released, he wrote an autobiography entitled The Horrors of Slavery (1824) with the assistance of radical lawyer George Cannon. Wedderburn’s book helped to make the working class more aware of slavery’s evils and is credited with assisting the movement to outlaw slavery. Wedderburn maintained his radical politics during the 1820s and 1830s. He was arrested and convicted in 1831 for keeping a brothel. His last recorded public appearance was in March 1834, when he was among the audience at a speech by Robert Taylor at the Theobalds Road Institute. He is believed to have died in 1835 or 1836. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Cuffay, William; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Hoyles, Martin. The Axe Laid to the Root: The Story of Robert Wedderburn. London: Hansib Publishers, 2004; Linebaugh, Peter, and Marcus Buford Rediker. The ManyHeaded Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic. Boston: Beacon Press, 2000; Wedderburn, Robert, and Iain McCalman. Horrors of Slavery and Other Writings. New York: Marcus Wiener, 1991.
Tim J. Watts
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the From the outset of the colonial conquest by the German Kaiserreich, Africans in Cameroon and the other African colonies resisted not only by violence but also by
Weimar Republic, African Activists in the organizing and conducting different forms of political opposition. After unsuccessfully sending a delegation to Berlin, Cameroonian chiefs wrote a petition to the German Imperial Chancellor complaining about the mistreatment by the German Governor von Puttkamer in 1905. It listed more than 20 points of discontent with the colonial administration and asked for changes. Several petitions by Cameroonians and Togoans followed during the next few years. The political activities of Africans living in Germany intensified after the country lost its colonies at the end of World War I. On May 1, 1918, the Afrikanische Hilfsverein e.V. (“African Beneficial Association”) was founded in Hamburg. Ernst Anumu, a Togoan businessman, served as the chairman of the association. On the surface, this association functioned as a nonpolitical support group that helped its members deal with the everyday problems of living in a foreign country. The members lived throughout Germany, and the association actually advanced the integration of people of African descent independent of national or ethnic affiliation. One of the leaders of Afro-German political movement was Martin Dibobe, born in Cameroon in 1876, who had come to Germany in 1896 for the German Colonial Exhibition in Berlin. Dibobe stayed in the capital and was trained as a train driver for the Berlin Public Transport Company. He was a representative for the Cameroonians in Germany and wrote a 32-point petition, dated June 27, 1919, to the Weimar National Assembly. In a letter accompanying the petition, Dibobe protested against the rape of the colonies and requested a German government that recognized the initial treaty between the Deutsche Reich and the Cameroonian authorities, which according to Cameroonian understanding, guaranteed their independence. Provided that their demands were met, the Cameroonians were willing to manifest their loyalty to the German Republic. Among other things, the petition asked for the German Code of Civil Law to be introduced to Africa with the same effect as in Germany and for the abolishment of corporal punishment in the colonies. As a result of the difficult living conditions of Afro-Germans in the 1920s, the work of the African Beneficial Association came to a halt by the end of 1924. Henceforth, the home of Liberian consul Momulu Massaquoi served as a meeting place for AfroGerman political activists. There they met with black intellectuals, such as W.E.B. Du Bois, Marcus Garvey, and George Padmore, who was supposed to play a central role in the Africa oriented policy of the Comintern. After Massaquoi left for Liberia at the end of 1929, the “Negerbüro” (“negro bureau”) of the Internationale Gerwerkschaftskomitee der Negerarbeiter (“International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers”) became the center of African political activities in Germany. The First International Conference of Negro Workers was organized in Hamburg by James W. Ford (1893–1957), a prominent African American Communist, and took place illegally in July 1930. The International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers began to publish the radical journal The Negro Worker. In 1931, Padmore, who had been a leading member of the Comintern in Moscow, was in charge of the “Negerbüro.” Joseph Ekwe Bilé and Victor Bell, who were among the signatories of the 1919 petition formulated by Martin Dibobe, were the founding members of the German Section of the League for the Defense of the Negro Race in 1929. The main organization had been created in 1924 by the Senegalese Lamine Senghor and its headquarters were
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Wells, Nathaniel (1779–1852) located in France. In 1930, the League had 30 members and its main purpose was to form a union for all Africans working and living in Germany. Their mission was to organize workers in their home countries, which mostly consisted of the former German colonies Togo and Cameroon. Bilé was active as an agitator and participated in the First International Conference of Negro Workers, where he had a speech criticizing the French and British colonial authorities in Cameroon. Bilé gained respect among the German communists and presumably joined the German Communist Party (KPD) as a functionary. His activities with the German communists led to a breakup between him and other members of the League for the Defense of the Negro Race. After the Nazis came to power in 1933, all political activities of Africans in Germany came to an abrupt end. The few who continued their political activities had to fear for their lives. The Afro-German Lari Gilges, a young communist from Dusseldorf, was murdered by members of the SS in June 1933. Among the first to be arrested was Padmore, secretary of the International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers in Hamburg. He and many of those who had been politically active were then deported from Germany. Those who stayed, mostly those from the former German colonies, tried to live their lives without attracting any attention from the authorities. See also: Colonies in Africa, German; Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf; Germany, Blacks in; Mpundu Akwa; Nazis and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Lusane, Clarence. Hitler’s Black Victims: The Historical Experience of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era. New York: Rouledge, 2003; Martin, Peter. “Anfänge politischer Selbstorganisation der deutschen Schwarzen bis 1933.” In Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst and Reinhard Klein-Arendt, eds. Die (koloniale) Begegnung. Frankfurt: Peter Lang, 2003, pp. 193–206.
Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst
Wells, Nathaniel (1779–1852) Nathaniel Wells, the son of a Welsh merchant and his black slave, inherited his father’s Caribbean estates in Saint Kitts and became a wealthy proprietor in Britain and the Caribbean. Wells became a British magistrate and Britain’s first black sheriff. Nathaniel’s father, William Wells, from a prosperous family in Wales, moved to Saint Kitts in the Caribbean, where he became a successful slave trader and plantation owner. After the death of his wife, he fathered numerous illegitimate children by several different slaves, including Juggy, who gave birth to Nathaniel. William Wells looked after his illegitimate children and their mothers, granting them freedom and sums of money to help them become established on their own. In the case of Nathaniel Wells, William had him baptized and freed in 1783, later sending him to Wales to be educated in preparation to attend Oxford University. On his graduation, Wells seems to have been accepted by members of his social class, at least in the area around Chepstow in Wales. Wells established himself as a landowner in his own right in Britain and became a magistrate, or judge. Consequently, Wells held legal authority over white Britons at a time when most black people in the British colonies held hardly any legal rights.
Wharton, Arthur (1865–1930) Wells inherited the bulk of his father’s sugar plantations in Saint Kitts, governing them as an absentee owner. The estates were leased out to local managers, who controlled the way the estates were operated. At least one of these managers was particularly brutal to his slaves, and he was targeted by British abolitionists for excessive brutality. Wells retained possession of his plantations and slaves until 1833, when slaves were emancipated in Saint Kitts and Wells received financial compensation from the government. Wells married the only daughter of the prosperous Charles Este, former chaplain to King George II. In 1802, Wells purchased Piercefield house and estate from Colonel Mark Wood and continued to expand it into a lavish home. Despite Well’s success, it seems that he was still subjected to racism. An excerpt from a document by Wood in Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500–1850, sponsored by the British National Archives, states that, “Mr. Wells is a West Indian of large fortune, a man of very gentlemanly manners, but so much a man of colour as to be little removed from a Negro.” During the early 1800s, Wells was likely the wealthiest person of black descent in Britain. He followed up his appointment as justice of the peace in 1803 by becoming, in 1818, the sheriff of Monmouthshire and the deputy lieutenant of the County. He was also an absentee plantation owner in Antigua and became governor of Saint Vincent in the Caribbean. In 1850, because of ailing health, Wells sold Piercefield. He also married a second time and had 22 children. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in the Caribbean, British; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500–1850 (Online Exhibit from the British National Archives): http://www.nationalarchives.gov.uk/pathways/ blackhistory/; Debrunner, Hans. Presence and Prestige, Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1979; Shyllon, Folarin. Black People in Britain, 1553–1833. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977.
Eric Martone
Wharton, Arthur (1865–1930) Arthur Wharton was the first black professional footballer (soccer player) in the world and is a member of the English Football Hall of Fame. He was born in the Gold Coast (now Ghana) in 1865. Both of Wharton’s parents were of biracial descent; his father, a Protestant minister, was of Grenadian and Scottish descent, and his mother, a member of the Fante royal family of Ghana, was of Scottish and Ghanaian descent. In 1884, Wharton moved to England for training as a Protestant missionary at Cleveland College, Darlington. He abandoned his religious studies, however, and became a fulltime athlete, competing as a “gentleman amateur.” Wharton excelled in all athletics. In 1886, he won the 100-yard sprint in the Amateur Athletics Association national championship in London. In 1887, Wharton set a record cycling time between Preston and Blackburn. In addition, Wharton played
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Wheatley, Phillis (1753–1784) cricket as a member of local teams in Yorkshire and Lancashire. Wharton, however, turned his attention to football. Amateur player Andrew Watson, the first black footballer in the United Kingdom, paved the way for blacks in football slightly more than a decade before Wharton, who became the first amateur black footballer to turn professional. Wharton began his football career as a goalkeeper for the Darlington Football Club. At that time, the FA Cup was the primary competition, along with district and county matches. While at Darlington, Wharton was selected to the Newcastle and District team, which was then the best in the city. He gained attention for his eccentric playing style, remaining in crouching position at the side of the goal before charging out to save the ball. While at Darlington, he was spotted by the Preston North End, which signed him to their team. Wharton was part of their team that played the FA Cup semifinals in 1886–1887, while still turning out for Darlington. In 1888, he left football to become a professional runner in Sheffield. Wharton returned to football in 1889 and signed with Rotherham, where he played for six years. He then played for Sheffield United for a season. Wharton played for a year at Stalybridge, but had a disagreement with management. He then played for their rivals Ashton-under-Lyme in 1897, playing with them until they went bankrupt in 1899. Consequently, Wharton returned briefly to Stalybridge. He then returned to the Football League in 1901, signing with Stockport County in 1901–1902. On the team, Wharton played goal and occasionally outfield as a winger. Wharton retired from football and descended into alcohol abuse. During his career, he had never received any major recognition. He spent the last 15 years of his life working as a laborer and died in poverty in 1930. He was buried initially in South Yorkshire in an unmarked grave. In 1997, however, Football Unites-Racism Divides, an antiracism group, campaigned for a gravestone for Wharton; and in 2003, he was inducted into the English Football Hall of Fame. See also: Batson, Brendon; Britain, Blacks in; Colonies in Africa, British. Further Reading: Official Web Page of Football Unites, Racism Divides: http://www.furd. org/; Vasili, Philip. Colouring Over the White Line: The History of Black Footballers in Britain. Edinburgh: Mainstream Publishing, 2000; Vasili, Philip. The First Black Footballer, Arthur Wharton, 1865–1930: An Absence of Memory. London: Frank Cass, 1998.
Mark Cordery
Wheatley, Phillis (1753–1784) Phillis Wheatley was the first African American woman to publish an original book. In 1773, her Poems on Various Subjects was printed in England after it was rejected by publishers in the British American colonies. She was born in 1753 in Gambia, Africa, and brought to North America when she was seven or eight years old. In July 1761, she was sold to John and Susanna Wheatley of Massachusetts. She took her surname from her master and her first name from Phillis, the ship that brought her to America. In North America, the merchants who bought her ensured that she was educated and their daughter, Mary, taught the slave girl how to read and write. Wheatley became
Wheatley, Phillis (1753–1784) proficient in English, geography, history, Latin, and religious education. She became interested in poetry and soon started writing her own poems. Throughout her poetry, Wheatley, whose owners had converted her to Christianity, praised the divine through verse and viewed her conversion as a path to spiritual salvation. Wheatley’s earliest recorded poems were On Messrs Hussey and Coffin (1765), An Address to an Atheist (1767), and An Address to the Deist (1767). Her first published poem appeared in the Newport Mercury in 1767. Wheatley’s first major work was her poem, On the Death of Rev. Mr. George Whitfield (1770). The poem, which revolves heavily around Christian moralism in an elegiac style with classical, religious, and literary allusions, became the talk of Boston. White colonial settlers could not believe that a slave was capable of writing such a complex and beautiful poem. Consequently, two years later, Wheatley was examined in court to verify that she did indeed write the poems. After a public examination, it was clear that she was the author. The support that Wheatley gained ultimately led to the publication of her first collection of poems. Her collection of poetry, Poems on Various Subjects, Religious and Moral, was submitted to various publishers in Boston; however, each of them declined to print the book. Wheatley became unwell and was prescribed “fresh sea air.” As a result, she traveled with her master’s son to London. In England, Wheatley gained the patronage of Selina Hastings, Countess of Huntington, and others who assisted in helping publish her poetry collection. Despite owning estates abroad that contained slaves, Huntingdon encouraged the writings and independence of former slaves who promoted religious viewpoints in accordance with her own beliefs. Some of the former slaves whom she promoted included Olaudah Equiano and Ukawsaw Gronniosaw. Consequently, in 1773, Wheatley’s poetry collection was published in London. Wheatley’s popularity as a poet in both North America and England resulted in her being freed in October 1773. American revolutionary leader George Washington met her in March 1776. In response, Wheatley wrote a poem entitled To His Excellency George Washington and became a strong supporter of United States independence during the American Revolutionary War. Wheatley married John Peters, a free black grocer, and they had three children, two of whom died as infants. Peters tried his hand at a number of jobs, but he was hampered in his career prospects by his lack of education. His wife, desperate to publish another book of poetry, was unable to find a publisher; for the death of the Wheatley family, her former owners, eliminated her ability to transcend into white society. Peters deserted her and soon Wheatley was working as a servant. In 1784, she had fallen on hard times and was living in a boarding house in Boston, where she died in childbirth in 1784 at the age of 31. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Literature, Blacks in British; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Gates, H. The Trials of Phillis Wheatley: America’s First Black Poet and Her Encounters with the Founding Fathers. New York: Basic Civitas Books, 2003; Hunter, Jane Edna. Phillis Wheatley: Life and Works. Cleveland: National Phillis Wheatley Foundation, 1948; Renfro, G. Herbert. Life and Works of Phillis Wheatley. Salem: Ayer Company, 1993; Shockley, Ann Allen. Afro-American Women Writers, 1746–1933: An Anthology and Critical Guide. New Haven: Meridian Books, 1989.
Justin Corfield
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Wilberforce, William (1759–1833) William Wilberforce, a member of the British Parliament and vocal supporter of reform in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century England, was one of the driving forces behind Great Britain’s abolition of the slave trade. Wilberforce was born in Yorkshire, England, in 1759 and grew up in a wealthy family. From childhood, Wilberforce was sickly, although, even at a formative age, he impressed others with his ability to communicate. When he was only 10 years old, his father died. Wilberforce then lived for a number of years with his uncle, who introduced him to Evangelical Christianity, a force that would drive Wilberforce’s life work. His uncle also later died. These two tragedies, combined with the death of Wilberforce’s grandfather, left him with a vast inheritance. At the age of 17, Wilberforce enrolled in St. John’s College in Cambridge. At Cambridge, Wilberforce was far from studious and he spent much of his time gambling, playing cards, and drinking. He made a number of important connections, however, that would help during his legislative career. Indeed, at the age of 21, in 1780, Wilberforce secured a position in the House of Commons. In 1785, he experienced a religious conversion and became an Evangelical Christian. With this renewed sense of purpose and with the backing of many other Evangelical Christians, Wilberforce aimed to end slavery. In 1790, Wilberforce spoke before Parliament and condemned the slave trade as morally unethical, although he met little success. After the chaos of the French Revolution, the Parliament moved in a decidedly conservative direction, and abolition would receive little support or attention through the rest of the 1790s. During this period, Wilberforce married Barbara Ann Spooner. In the first years of the nineteenth century, support for abolition began to grow again. Wilberforce aimed to outlaw participation in the slave trade for all British subjects, regardless of a ship’s affiliation. In 1807, the bill passed the House of Lords. In the House of Commons, members of Parliament, rather than use their time to debate, instead praised and congratulated Wilberforce. All knew that it was his unwavering support, especially through the difficult 1790s, that made possible the Slave Trade Act of 1807. The Slave Trade Act failed to end the slave trade, however. Foreign vessels and even some British ships ignored the law. By the early 1820s, Wilberforce’s health was failing, and he could no longer actively work toward further abolition. Yet it was not legislation but popular support that pushed final abolition through. Public opinion was so strongly against slavery that in 1833, the Whig government was prepared to pass a new, more comprehensive abolitionist bill. Wilberforce received word of this, and he died three days later. A month later, the Slavery Abolition Act passed. The law generously compensated slave owners, but it marked the end of slavery throughout the British Empire. See also: Abolition of Slavery, British; Britain, Blacks in; Slave Trade, British. Further Reading: Hague, William. The Life of the Great Anti-Slave Campaigner. London: Harper Press, 2007; Tomkins, Stephen. William Wilberforce: a Biography. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2007.
Joshua M. Rice
World War I, Black Participation in
Woodson, Carter G. (1875–1950) Carter Goodwin Woodson was a prominent African American historian and journalist who founded the Journal of Negro History (now the Journal of African-American History), which has resulted in much scholarship covering many aspects of African history and heritage throughout the world, with strong emphasis on Latin America and Europe as well as North America and the Caribbean. Furthermore, Woodson founded Black History Month, a month-long celebration of black contributions and achievements in society that has been adopted in the United States and several European countries, including Britain and Germany. Woodson was born in December 1875 in Virginia. He was the son of former slaves and one of a large family. Woodson’s father had worked with the Union soldiers during the American Civil War, moving to West Virginia after he heard that a high school for African Americans was under construction in Huntington. Although Woodson was desperate to go to school, he was not able to maintain regular attendance, for he had to work as a miner in the coalfields in Fayette County. He learned much at home, however, and gained his diploma from Douglass High School. He was allowed to teach in Fayette County, becoming, in 1900, the principal of Douglass High School. Woodson earned a bachelor’s degree in literature from Berea College in Kentucky and, from 1903 to 1907, worked in the Philippines as a school supervisor. He then earned his master’s degree from the University of Chicago in 1908 and his doctorate in history from Harvard University in 1912. Always interested in African American history, Woodson joined Jesse Moorland in 1915 to found the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (which later became the Association for the Study of African American Life and History). Woodson also became active with the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People and, in 1916, founded the Journal of Negro History. Woodson managed to get out the first issue by himself. The journal, which is still published, changed its name to the Journal of African-American History in 2002. Woodson also became a regular columnist in African American leader Marcus Garvey’s weekly magazine, Negro World. Woodson wrote many books, including The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861 (1915), A Century of Negro Migration (1918), The Negro in Our History (1922), and The History of the Negro Church (1927). He was working on the six-volume Encyclopedia Africana at the time of his death on April 3, 1950. Woodson donated 5,000 items to the Library of Congress, some of which were used in a 1992 exhibition there entitled Moving Back Barriers: The Legacy of Carter G. Woodson. Further Reading: Conyers, James, ed. Carter G. Woodson: A Historical Reader. New York: Garland, 2000; Logan, Rayford. “Carter Godwin Woodson.” Journal of Negro History 35 (1950): 344–348.
Justin Corfield
World War I, Black Participation in The French, American, and British armed forces in particular deployed thousands of blacks in Europe during World War I as combat soldiers or support troops. The
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World War I, Black Participation in French army used the largest contingent of black men in the frontlines. The United States Army formed two black divisions under mostly white command, but deployed African Americans primarily in support duties. The British army was reluctant to use black troops in combat with European nations and therefore used most of its black units deployed in Europe in supportive roles. France, Britain, and Germany all used black soldiers in combat outside of Europe. FRANCE. The French army recruited 181,512 men in western and central Africa, 45,803 men in Madagascar, and several thousand men in French Somalia. Some of these forces secured regions of the French empire, notably French North Africa, and conquered the German colony Cameroon in 1916. Strong black African forces also fought in mainland France, on the Gallipoli Peninsula, and in Macedonia. A large number of black Africans was drafted for war-related work in mainland France. These soldiers helped fill vacant spots in industry and agriculture and provided crucial supportive services such as unloading ships and constructing defensive fortifications. On the western front, black troops (primarily tirailleurs sénégalais) participated in almost all of the major battles of the war. They played an important role in securing the French defenses in September 1914, and fought in the first Battle of Ypres in November and December 1914. In 1915, black African troops made up approximately half of the French contingent landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula in the Ottoman Empire; for half a year, 18,000 West Africans in vain battered Ottoman defenses, suffering 8,000 casualties. The appalling French losses on the western front dictated a return of the black forces to France, where they fought in the battles of Verdun (1916), the Somme (1916), the Chemin des Dames (1917), Reims (1918), and during the final offensives in the fall of 1918. Several units of French black soldiers also fought against the Bulgarians and Austro-Hungarians in Macedonia (1916–1918). The record of the black French troops is controversial. Advocates of the black forces had argued that many Africans were ideal assault troops because they belonged to martial races whose nervous system made them less sensible to fear. Critics charged, however, that the black Africans had proven undisciplined, ineffective, and prone to panic under fire. Clearly, black French troops fought with courage and distinction in many places throughout the war, but they were often hampered by poor training, leadership, and equipment. On the western front, moreover, black units were highly vulnerable to pulmonary disease during the winter. The French army command, therefore, decided to withdraw the black troops from the front during the winter months and let them train and rest in the warmer regions of southern France. It also made some tactical changes: whereas it had initially sent larger black units into battle without much support, it later adopted a more effective “panache” system, whereby small black units were mixed with white units and fought in a larger, more heterogeneous unit. Still, in 1917, the French recruitment of black soldiers almost collapsed after the recruitment campaigns in West Africa had triggered local revolts. The French army was desperate for manpower, however, and a major reorganization of recruitment under the leadership of the Senegalese deputy to the French National Assembly, Blaise Diagne, yielded a record number of West African recruits in 1918. Some historians argue that the French army increasingly deployed its black troops as shock troops in the most dangerous spots to save the lives of white soldiers, but other historians see no major differences in deployment. The
World War I, Black Participation in Germans accused the black French soldiers of atrocities. Responding to the charge that Germany was conducting the war in a barbaric manner, German propaganda depicted the black French soldiers as savage hordes let loose against “civilized” Europeans by cynical Western statesmen. French propagandists, in appreciation of the terror black troops could strike in the hearts of German soldiers, did not always contradict these accusations and presented the alleged wildness of black troops as a positive feat. In some battles, blacks and Germans seem to have killed their prisoners. UNITED STATES. The American army was still segregated when the United States declared war on Germany in April 1917. African Americans were recruited in large numbers, but the army was reluctant to deploy them as frontline troops and to station them in Europe. Most African American recruits, even those trained for combat, were therefore used in labor battalions, some of which were sent to France. Only two black frontline divisions were formed, the 92nd and 93rd Infantry, and deployed on the western front during the last months of the war under the command of predominantly white officers. The 93rd Infantry was integrated into a French division and, equipped and led by the French army, fought well. The 92nd Infantry was temporarily loaned to the French but fought mostly under American command. It suffered from poor training, leadership, and equipment. Many U.S. Army commanders shared the widespread racist prejudice that African Americans were not intelligent enough to fight in a modern war and worried that earning military glory in combat units would boost African Americans’ claims to civil rights and political power. African American soldiers often perceived the French army as more respectful toward blacks than was the U.S. Army. BRITAIN. The British government, concerned about a loss of authority in the colonies, shared the reservations about using black troops against white nations (it even opposed the planned stationing of the American 92nd Infantry Division on British soil). The British army deployed most of its own black troops, which were recruited in British Africa and the Caribbean, in non-European theaters of the war. Blacks from the British Southern African colonies fought together with Indian and white South African troops against the German East African protective force, which itself consisted mostly of black soldiers. In the Middle East, the British army used African and Caribbean units against the Ottoman armies. If black British units were sent to Europe, they usually received supportive tasks. The British West Indies (Caribbean) Regiment, for example, unloaded supply ships in Italy in 1918. Poor pay and working conditions, in addition to the humiliation of not being sent to the frontline, led to a mutiny. Whereas black soldiers participated in most campaigns of the Western powers, they faced much racism clouded as doubts about the quality of their performance, the wisdom of their deployment, and allegations of atrocities. Blacks encountered particularly high obstacles if they desired to become officers, at least in the American and British armies, and there was a consensus that white men should never have to serve under a black officer. In the long run, the experiences of blacks in World War I helped to boost political expectations for more civil rights in the United States and for more autonomy in the colonies of the European powers. See also: British Army, Blacks in the; Bullard, Eugene; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa; French; Colonies in Africa, German; Des inconnus chez moi; Diallo, Bakary; French Army, Blacks in the.
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World War II, Black Participation in Further Reading: Astor, Gerald. The Right to Fight: A History of African Americans in the Military. Novato, CA: Presidio, 1998; Barbeau, Arthur, and Florette Henri, The Unknown Soldiers: Black American Troops in World War I. Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1974; Conklin, Alice. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997; Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960. Portsmouth, NH, and London: Heinemann and James Currey, 1991; Killingray, David. “Race and Rank in the British Army in the Twentieth Century.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 10 (1987): 276–290; Koller, Christian. “Von Wilden aller Rassen niedergemetzelt”. Die Diskussion um die Verwendung von Kolonialtruppen in Europa zwischen Rassismus, Kolonial- und Militärpolitik (1914–1930). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001; Lunn, Joe. Memoirs of the Maelstrom: A Senegalese Oral History of the First World War. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann, 1999; Michel, Marc. Les Africains et la Grande Guerre: l’appel à l’Afrique (1914–1918). Paris: Karthala, 2003; Rives, Maurice, and Robert Dietrich. Héros méconnus, 1914–1918, 1939–1945. Paris: Association Frères d’Armes, 1990.
Raffael Scheck
World War II, Black Participation in As in World War I, the French, American, and British armies used black soldiers in World War II. The French mobilized a large force from its African colonies. These soldiers fought in the defense of France in 1940, often suffering massacres and abuses at the hands of their German captors. From 1940 onward, the Free French forces continuing to fight Germany also enlisted African soldiers. Until the end of 1944, blacks made up a large part of these forces, fighting in Syria, North Africa, Italy, and mainland France. The U.S. armed forces sent African soldiers to Italy, France, Belgium, and Germany. It deployed the majority of its black soldiers in auxiliary roles. Nevertheless, some of its units fought with great distinction. The British armed forces used few black soldiers in Europe, entrusting the guarding and the defense of its empire to many units drafted in the African colonies. FRANCE. The introduction of the draft in French West Africa after World War I had established a steady recruitment system in France’s most important sub-Saharan colony. More than 100,000 tirailleurs sénégalais were mobilized in French West Africa in 1939–1940, and smaller contingents from French Central Africa and Madagascar also made their way to mainland France. The French government made a special effort to enlighten African recruits about the blatant racism of Nazi Germany and to interpret the war as a defense of the values of French civilization, above all, racial tolerance. Some African units were already stationed in France at the outbreak of hostilities and were quickly moved to the border. Given that the western front remained quiet for the time being, the black units, following the practice established in World War I, were withdrawn to camps in the warmer south of France during winter 1939–1940. Meanwhile, reinforcements from Africa arrived. When the German offensive started on May 10, 1940, most black units were near the border again or in transit to the frontline. Many black soldiers were involved in heavy combat with German troops within a few days. A unit from Madagascar and two West African regiments fought heroically against German forces during their
World War II, Black Participation in breakthrough in northeastern France, but to no avail. Black African units later experienced the hardest fighting during the second wave of the German offensive, starting on June 5, 1940 along the Somme River. Surrounded and out of ammunition, black soldiers often resisted for a long time, even during the last days of the campaign. The German troops, believing Nazi propaganda that black soldiers were mutilating German prisoners, killed several thousand black soldiers after capture and in some cases decided not to take any black prisoners at all. Abuses and massacres continued in the makeshift POW camps throughout the summer of 1940 before conditions stabilized and treatment of POWs improved. Nearly 16,000 black French prisoners were still in German army camps in occupied France in the middle of 1941, but several thousand of them were dismissed in the following years because of to illness. The French collaborationist Vichy regime under Marshall Philippe Pétain continued to employ black soldiers among the forces guarding its African colonies and the French mandate in Syria. Meanwhile, the Free French forces under General Charles de Gaulle also began recruiting black Africans, especially after the defection of French Central Africa to de Gaulle in the summer of 1940. In Syria, black soldiers fighting for de Gaulle defeated the Pétainist protective force that also included many black soldiers. In Madagascar, troops loyal to Pétain fought a bitter defensive battle against a British invasion in 1942. When the U.S. Army and the British army landed in French North Africa in November 1942, they encountered some resistance from black troops under the command of Pétainist officers. Vichy’s gradual loss of control over the empire swelled the ranks of the black units in the Free French armies, which played a major role in slowing German Field Marshal Erwin Rommel’s last big offensive in North Africa in 1942, and joined in the invasion of Italy (July 1943) and southern France (August 1944). In the fall of 1944, black units played a major role in liberating the southern and eastern parts of France from Provence to Alsace. At the end of the year, however, they were withdrawn from the frontline and transferred to camps in southern France, a move that many Africans now perceived as a humiliating measure meant to reserve the ultimate glory of invading and defeating Germany to white French troops. Many black soldiers (former POWs, resisters, and members of the Free French forces) found themselves deeply frustrated at this stage of the war because of inadequate living quarters, missing pay, and continued discrimination. Several riots and mutinies occurred, the most spectacular of which happened in Thiaroye outside of Dakar in Senegal. UNITED STATES. The United States drafted approximately 1,100,000 African Americans into its armed forces during World War II. As in World War I, however, many white commanders were reluctant to send African Americans into theaters of war and into combat. Most African Americans were therefore assigned to service units, and only about half of the recruited soldiers were ever sent overseas. It did not help that many allied countries, including Australia, opposed the stationing of African American units on their soil. The U.S. armed forces were still segregated in 1941, but civil rights groups mobilized much pressure to end segregation. In 1944, the navy gradually abolished segregation for practical reasons, and the army in some emergency situations also disregarded it. Among the most important units deployed in the European theater of war was the 92nd Infantry Division (re-created after Word War I), which fought in Italy from October
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World War II, Black Participation in 1944 to the end of the war. The 2nd Cavalry Division, also an African American unit, was assigned to service roles in North Africa even though it was a combat unit. The African American 761st Tank Battalion, however, was allowed to fight and did so with great distinction. Known as the Black Panthers, the battalion landed in France in October 1944 and participated in the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 to February 1945). After breaching the Siegfried Line on the western border of Germany, it reached Austria at the end of the war. During the Battle of the Bulge, the U.S. Army called for volunteers among the African American service units behind the front to shore up its endangered defenses. Approximately 4,500 African American soldiers volunteered for frontline duty, and 2,500 of them were quickly trained and sent into battle. At the onset of the Battle of the Bulge, 11 black soldiers were murdered by a German Waffen-SS unit in Wereth (Belgium) on December 17, 1944. Perhaps the most famous group of African American soldiers in Europe was the Tuskegee Airmen, African Americans trained at the U.S. Army Air Force school in Tuskegee, Alabama. Deployed foremost in the 332nd Fighter Group, the Tuskegee Airmen became highly accomplished fighter pilots. They participated in combat in North Africa in 1943 and later in Italy. In addition, some African American women from the Women’s Army Corps were sent to Britain in early 1945. Some African American forces fought in the Pacific theater of war, both in the Army (notably the 93rd Infantry Division) and in the Navy. Overall, black soldiers in the U.S. armed forces still faced much prejudice and discrimination; that some black units fought very well helped to undermine segregation, however, and the political climate was less favorable to it than it had been in the previous world war. The larger scale of American military involvement in World War II, and its longer duration, also went a long way to erode segregation by exposing not only the injustice, but also the inefficiency of segregation. See also: British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in Africa, British; Colonies in Africa, French; Éboué, Félix; French Army, Blacks in the; Nazis and Black POWs; Nazis and Blacks in Europe; World War I, Black Participation in. Further Reading: Buchanan, Albert R. Black Americans in World War II. Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio, 1977; Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960. Portsmouth, NH, and London: Heinemann and James Currey, 1991; Koller, Christian. “Von Wilden aller Rassen niedergemetzelt”. Die Diskussion um die Verwendung von Kolonialtruppen in Europa zwischen Rassismus, Kolonial- und Militärpolitik (1914– 1930). Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 2001; Lawler, Nancy Ellen. Soldiers of Misfortune: Ivoirien Tirailleurs of World War II. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992; MacGregor, Morris, Jr. Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1985; Moore, Christopher Paul. Fighting for America: Black Soldiers—The Unsung Heroes of World War II. New York: Ballantine Books, 2005; Morehourse, Maggi M. Fighting in the Jim Crow Army: Black Men and Women Remember World War II. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 2000; Rives, Maurice, and Robert Dietrich. Héros méconnus, 1914–1918, 1939–1945. Paris: Association Frères d’Armes, 1990; Scheck, Raffael. Hitler’s African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006; Thomas, Martin. The French Empire at War 1940–45. New York: Manchester University Press, 1998.
Raffael Scheck
Wright, Richard (1908–1960)
Wright, Richard (1908–1960) Richard Wright was an African American writer whose novel, Native Son, and subsequent autobiographical work, Black Boy, garnered him critical acclaim in national and international contexts. Wright’s corpus addressed the visceral and existential reality of black life in the American system of Jim Crow segregation, discrimination, and racism. His work was well received in the United States, but it received particular attention in France as a result of a growing European interest in African American literature and culture. Wright was one of the first African American writers invited to Paris as a guest of the French government. While in Paris, Wright met, befriended, and developed enduring intellectual relationships with prominent persons in French scholarly circles, including philosophers Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir. Wright’s presence provided these French thinkers with firsthand information about the reality of race relations in the United States, encouraging their own empirical and theoretical investigations into the subject. Beauvoir traveled in the 1940s throughout the United States and published America Day by Day. Similarly, Sartre was inspired to travel to the United States and write an essay, “Return from the United States: What I Learned about the Black Problem.” Wright’s articulation of American racial oppression helped inspire Europe as a whole to think more about the history of racial oppression in the world, and the relationship between racial oppression and African American lives. Wright was born in 1908 on a small plantation in Roxie, Mississippi. His family moved several times during his early life, from Roxie to Memphis, Tennessee, to West Helena, Arkansas. During this series of moves, Wright’s father left the family, and his abandonment was a turning point in Wright’s young life that would eventually land him, along with his younger brother, in an orphanage and away from his mother for 10 years. After graduating from high school in Mississippi, Wright moved back to Memphis to pursue a writing career. The collectivity of his experiences in Memphis and the rural south inspired his two critically acclaimed novels, Native Son and Black Boy, along with numerous articles, including “The Ethics of Living Jim Crow.” Frustrated with his experiences of segregation and racism in the South, Wright migrated to Chicago just two years after moving to Memphis. Despite his fantasies of Chicago as a promised land for African Americans, Wright found the city to be mired in what he saw as the same problems of racism, African American pathology, and social disappointment as the rural South. Wright sought an answer to the problems of racism in African American life and African American families. Although Wright’s experiences of Chicago were not as he expected, he settled there for 10 years, joined the Chicago John Reed Club (a literary club), and later became affiliated with the Communist Party. During his time with the Reed Club, Wright published many essays, short stories, and poems in their magazine, Left Front. Wright left Chicago in 1937 for New York. While Wright lived in New York, his reflections on his experiences in the South, his observations of the oppression of African American populations in Chicago, and his membership in the Reed Club led him to question the relationship between African American poverty and racial oppression, and African Americans and the Communist Party. In 12 Million Black Voices, Wright drew on the theories of the Chicago School of Sociology to examine the condition of
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Wright, Richard (1908–1960) the black poor in segregated spaces in northern urban centers. Wright’s essay, “I tried to be a Communist” expressed his disappointment with the Communist Party in its lack of a solution to the problems of African Americans. Scholarship on Wright has focused on his relationship to existential philosophy, especially that of Sartre. What has been undertheorized in scholarship is his own organic, indigenous, existential thought developed early in his intellectual career. Wright’s novel, The Outsider, considered the most existential novel of his corpus, was written in London, England before his formal engagement with French existential thinkers. Throughout Wright’s intellectual career, he expressed concern for individual freedom and the influence of environment. For Wright, there were two main concerns in his corpus: the possibility of individual freedom in a society that oppresses him and the possibility of a core self from which one cannot be alienated. Both of these concerns dealt with the issue of whether an individual can develop a personality outside of, and against, that which a society attempts to place on him. Inversely, Wright posed the question of whether society determines individual personality. These existential concerns were primary for Wright in that it went to the heart of his reflections on his life in the rural South, urban South, and in the urban North. Wright was concerned with whether African Americans could have individual freedom in a racist society. He tried to negotiate these two concerns, leading him to pose existential questions in his work. In France, Wright found a receptive audience for his work, as well as a less oppressive living environment. His novels and essays appealed to French intellectuals, who were concerned about the nature of human freedom and responsibility, specifically having to do with the relationship between individuals, their environment, and the state. Europe’s fascination with existentialism, and France in particular, was due to the recent events of World War II and Nazi Germany. In the aftermath of the German invasion of several European countries, including France, Europeans began to question the nature of human freedom and responsibility, and the role of environment and the state to limit this freedom and responsibility. Sartre, who wrote about the freedom and responsibility of the individual, emerged in the early 1940s as one of the leading philosophers of existentialism with his publication of Being and Nothingness and several essays, the most significant of which was “Existentialism Is a Humanism.” Beauvoir’s relatively less obtuse work, The Second Sex, was published in the latter half of the 1940s and grappled with issues of women’s oppression in France and Europe. Wright’s work appealed to both Sartre and Beauvoir in that it combined Sartre’s esoteric theorization with Beauvoir’s interest in the concrete in literary form. Wright developed a close intellectual relationship with both Sartre and Beauvoir. With Sartre, Wright found a thinker with whom he could discourse seriously about the human condition and the possibility of freedom therein. With Beauvoir, Wright found a thinker with whom he shared the concrete lived experience of oppression. During Wright’s decade in France, he expanded his analysis of oppression, from African Americans of the rural South and urban North in the United States, to people of color throughout the world. He traveled to Ghana (then still the Gold Coast), Indonesia, and throughout Europe, visiting Spain, Germany, and Scandinavia. While in
Wright, Richard (1908–1960) Spain, Wright reflected on his travels in Indonesia and Ghana, and the nature of oppression and its effects on oppressed peoples. His novel, Pagan Spain, was concerned with the origins of European enslavement of African people, and the psychology of oppressed people. While in Germany and Scandinavia, Wright lectured on the history of Africa, the psychological problems of oppressed people, and African American literature. Toward the end of his life, Wright’s published White Man, Listen, a series of essays on racial injustice. Eight Men, Lawd Today, and American Hunger were published posthumously. Wright’s development of an African American literary voice to tell an American narrative of oppression and overcoming of oppression inspired an entire generation of African American novelists, as well as entire generation of European thinkers. See also: Authors in Europe, African American; France, Blacks in. Further Reading: Fabre, Michel. From Harlem to Paris: Black Writers in France, 1840–1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1993; Gates, Henry Louis, and K. A. Appiah, eds. Richard Wright: Critical Perspectives Past and Present. New York: Amistad Press, 1993; Gayle, Addison. Richard Wright: Ordeal of a Native Son. Garden City, NY: Anchor Press/Double Day, 1980; Mackssey, Richard, and Frank E. Moorer, eds. Richard Wright: A Collection of Critical Essays. Englewood, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1984; Rowley, Hazel. Richard Wright: Life and Times. New York: Henry Holt, 2001; Walker, Margaret. Richard Wright: Daemonic Genius. New York: Amistad Press, 1988; Wright, Ellen, and Michel Fabre, eds. The Richard Wright Reader. New York: Harper and Row, 1978.
James B. Haile
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X Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe Since the 1980s, racism and xenophobia, which is a fear or contempt of that which is foreign or unknown, particularly of strangers or foreigners, have increased in Europe. In the wake of the Islamic terrorist attack on September 11, 2001, in the United States and subsequent attacks in Britain and Spain, xenophobia has primarily manifested itself as a fear of all Muslims, some of whom are also black Africans. Anti-Semitism has persisted, as well as negative perceptions and actions toward Roma (derogatorily known as gypsies). In addition, immigration and asylum-seekers to Europe have been on the rise. Many of the immigrants and refugees to Europe are foreign, often originating from Asia, Africa, or the Caribbean. Many, particularly from Africa, sneak into Europe illegally. Minority groups in Europe are often associated with such negative phenomenon as unemployment, poverty, and crime. Many black Europeans unfortunately face the threat of physical violence, discrimination, and verbal harassment. Far-right and neofascist groups have helped spread the growth of xenophobia and racism; however, memories of the horrors of the Nazi Holocaust have thus far kept such fears in check. Fear of increased numbers of foreigners, many from Africa, has made many European Union (EU) members question existing asylum laws to deny European access to large numbers of refugees. In the years after 1992, EU members generally resorted to the practice of allowing refugees to be sent back to their countries of origin if it was determined to provide guarantees for refugees’ safety. In some cases, readmission agreements had already been made requiring countries to take back their repatriates. European fear of an uncontrolled influx of foreigners encouraged xenophobic electioneering, as foreigners were seen as a danger and their invasion as out of control. Although the EU insists on the inclusion of equal rights in the law of all its members, equal rights are not always put into practice. In the early 2000s, the rise of far-right groups, such as the Front National in France; and the BNP and United
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Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) in Britain; the Alleanza Nazionale and the Alternativa Sociale in Italy; the Liga Polskich Rodzin (Polish League of Families), Prawo i Sprawiedliwosc (Law and Order) and Samoobrona (Self Defense) in Poland; the Lijst Pim Fortuyn in Denmark; the Vlaams Blok in Belgium; and the Freedom Party in Austria, used xenophobic and racist rhetoric to score votes in national or European elections, although with varying degrees of success. Some successful far-right groups have included the Freedom Party, which managed to briefly make up part of the governing coalition in Austria in 2001 and the Front National in France, whose presidential candidate, Jean-Marie Le Pen, managed to make it to the final round of candidates in 2002. In general, however, such far-right groups have not been able to dominate any European country’s government, or the European parliament, thus far. Yet many mainstream conservative political groups have adapted the new right’s antiimmigration discourse. In general, the EU has sought to eliminate racism, xenophobia, and all forms of hate and intolerance. In the EU Race Equality Directive (Directive 2000/43/EC), distinctions were made between “direct” and “indirect” discrimination based on racism and xenophobia. “Direct” discrimination was defined as having occurred when “one person is treated less favourably than another is, has been or would be treated in a comparable situation on grounds of racial or ethnic origin.” On the other hand, “indirect” discrimination was defined as occurring when “an apparently neutral provision, criterion or practice would put persons of a racial or ethnic origin at a particular disadvantage compared with other persons, unless that provision, criterion or practice is objectively justified by a legitimate aim and the means of achieving that aim are appropriate and necessary.” The wording of the law legally enables indirect discrimination under certain conditions. In the following fictitious example to illustrate such conditions, if a doctor’s office needed to hire a medical assistant, the assistant would be required to wear coverings over his or her hands and mouth for health reasons. The law would discriminate against individuals or groups who forbid the covering of hands and mouth in this way. The doctor’s office can justify discriminating against this group because the primary and legitimate aim is the safety of their patients and such a requirement is reasonable and necessary under standard safety regulations. In 2000, the EU signed a Charter of Fundamental Rights and played a key role in the United Nations’ 2001 World Conference Against Racism. The EU also established a monitoring center on racism, xenophobia, and anti-Semitism in Vienna to study the rise of extreme-right groups in attempts to understand how they gain support and how to isolate them. Other organizations, such as the European Network Against Racism, have developed to encourage the equal treatment of all Europeans. In the late 2000s, the EU agreed to new rules to criminalize racism and xenophobia; however, the measures were mostly symbolic. Under the new rules, members of the EU had to establish minimum jail terms for those who publicly incite violence or hatred toward any individual or group “defined by reference to race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin.” The legislation did not establish any minimum fines and left it up to national courts to define what constituted publicly inciting violence or hatred. The EU also banned the use of Nazi symbols and made it illegal to deny crimes of genocide, crimes of humanity, and war crimes if these crimes have
Xenophobia and Blacks in Europe been defined as such by international courts and if the statements are meant to incite violence or hatred. See also: Immigration to Europe, Illegal African; Nazis and Blacks in Europe. Further Reading: Baumgartl, Bernd, and Adrian Favell, eds. New Xenophobia in Europe. London: Kluwer Law International, 1995; Holmes, Douglas. Integral Europe: Fast Capitalism, Multiculturalism, Neofascism. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000; Lahav, Gallya. Immigration and Politics in the New Europe: Reinventing Borders. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004; McClintock, Michael. Everyday Fears: A Survey of Violent Hate Crimes in Europe and North America. New York: Human Rights First, 2005.
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Y Young Africans in Norway (AYIN) Young Africans in Norway (AYIN) was founded in 1995 as a youth nongovernmental organization in Norway. AYIN’s purpose was to help teenagers who are black African or of black African descent combat racial discrimination and to create multicultural awareness in Norwegian society. AYIN received attention for its efforts to launch a critical debate over how black Africans and those of black African descent are identified in Norway. Terms such as negro, mulatto, half-caste, darkie, and other terms deemed derogatory were still in common accepted usage during the 1990s. In 1997, AYIN produced an informational brochure in an attempt to educate the Norwegian public about racism in language and why such terms were offensive to minority Norwegians. AYIN’s efforts did result in less usage of such terms by teachers and the media. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Afro-German Women (ADEFRA); Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD); Initiative of Blacks in Germany (ISD); Pamoja; Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN); Scandinavia, Blacks in. Further Reading: Arter, David. “Black Faces in the Blond Crowd: Populist Racialism in Scandinavia.” Parliamentary Affairs 45 (1992): 357–372; Gullestad, Marianne. “Normalising Racial Boundaries: The Norwegian Dispute about the Term ‘neger.’” Social Anthropology 13:1 (February 2005): 27–46; Weisbord, Robert G. “Scandinavia: A Racial Utopia?” Journal of Black Studies 2:4 (June 1972): 471–488.
E. Agateno Mosca
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Z Zulu War (1879) The Anglo-Zulu War of 1879 was a conflict between the British Empire and the native Zulu tribe for control of South Africa. The war was part of the European “scramble for Africa” and British attempts to expand its colonial empire. The war followed a British ultimatum on December 11, 1878, demanding that the Zulu leader, Cetewayo, grant the British a virtual protectorate over Zululand. On January 11, 1879, the British commander, General F. A. Thesiger, Viscount Chelmsford, led 5,000 British and 8,200 African native troops into Zululand. They marched in three widely dispersed columns while Cetewayo raised a force of 40,000 Zulu warriors. The Africans who served with the British did so in a number of capacities. Recruited in Natal, many were from tribes that had traditionally been hostile to the Zulus, making them loyal supporters of the British. Chelmsford raised three regiments of the Natal Native Contingent. Lieutenant-Governor Sir Henry Bulwer opposed the use of levy units, however, which he felt might worsen relations between the various African tribes, as did others in Natal who feared the arming and training of Africans. Initially, it was hoped that the entire Native Contingent could be issued with red coats, but this was impossible to achieve. Instead, the Native Contingent received red cloth to tie as headbands. In the end, only a tenth of the contingent was issued with firearms (often obsolete models), with most of the rest armed with spears and shields. There were also the men of the Natal Native Horse. They wore European clothing with a red hatband for identification and were armed with carbines, although some carried spears on the back of their horses. The Natal Native Pioneers formed a 273-strong unit divided into five companies and was used for reconnaissance and skirmishing by all three columns. British commander Sir Henry Evelyn Wood used the other African units in the northern theater of the Zulu War. These were also Swazi warriors, who traditionally hated the Zulus. Added to these were the Zulu supporters of African Prince Hamu kaNzibe, who
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Zulu War (1879) supported the British. These combined African forces formed what became known as Wood’s “irregulars.” Facing the British forces was a large Zulu force, highly organized and operating in a number of skilled regiments formed from the moment the boys had reached puberty. As a result, most men were serving with others of the same age, although imprecise records and the filling of places caused by casualties did lead to some divergences from this trend. The Zulus were well trained and followed orders given by the induna enkulu, or field commander, who was appointed by the Zulu king from his own family or from his close advisers. The appointments were always for the length of the conflict, after which the commanders returned to their peacetime roles. The men in the army were armed with rifles or spears, the latter used for throwing or thrusting as circumstances dictated. In January 1879, Viscount Chelmsford led the central column of the British forces of 1,800 Europeans and 1,000 Africans to establish a camp at Isandhlwana. Early the next morning, while Chelmsford was leading half of the Europeans in an attempt to intercept the Zulus, 10,000 Zulus attacked the British base, killing most of the British forces. Only 55 Europeans and 300 Africans survived. After their victory at Isandhlwana, half the Zulu force turned and attacked the nearby encampment at Rorke’s Drift, where 85 British soldiers who had escaped from Isandhlwana held off six major Zulu attacks, with a loss of 17 killed and 10 severely wounded. On his return to Isandhlwana, Chelmsford found the destroyed camp and hundreds of dead bodies strewn across the battlefield. He retreated toward Rorke’s Drift, the defense of which was hailed in the British press as one of the greatest victories of the British Empire, with 11 Victoria Crosses subsequently awarded. The other British advance columns also did not fare as well. Colonel C. K. Pearson was forced to take refuge at Eshowe, where the British forces held out from January 28 until April 4, when Chelmsford broke the siege. The mounted force from the northern column was attacked at the Battle of Hlobane on March 28, with the main force attacked the next day. The British government hastily dispatched large numbers of reinforcements and Chelmsford went on the offensive again at the end of May. On June 1, the Zulus ambushed a British column and killed Louis Bonaparte, son of the former French Emperor Napoleon III. The death of the “Prince Imperial,” as the young man had been known, focused world attention on the conflict. By this time, the exploits of the British columns were described daily in the British press. Eventually, British numbers, weaponry, and planning led to success. Chelmsford led 4,200 Europeans and 1,000 native Africans to the Zulu capital. There, at the battle of Ulundi, on July 4, more than 10,000 Zulus attacked the British. The British immediately formed a defensive square with the Natal Native Corps placed at its center. The Zulus attacked the square from every side, with about 100 British casualties being sustained. The Zulus lost 1,500 killed and many more severely injured. Such losses forced the Zulus to retreat from the field. Cetewayo, the Zulu king, fled, but was captured and deposed on August 28. On January 29, 1883, however, Cetewayo was restored to power and fought a civil war against his rival for the throne. Cetewayo was defeated in December 1883, but Dinuzulu, a son of Cetewayo, becoming the next king. The Zulu War marked the end of an independent Zulu nation and enabled the British to further their control over South Africa, which became a vital part of the British Empire.
Zwarte Piet See also: Boer War; British Army, Blacks in the; Colonies in Africa, British; New Imperialism. Further Reading: Barthorp, Michael. The Zulu War. Poole, Dorset: Blandford, 1980; Knight, Ian. British Forces in Zululand, 1879. Oxford: Osprey, 1991; Knight, Ian. The Zulu War, 1879. Oxford: Osprey, 2003; Lloyd, Alan. The Zulu War. London: Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1973; Wilkinson-Latham, Robert. Uniforms and Weapons of the Zulu War. London: Batsford, 1978.
Justin Corfield
Zwarte Piet Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) is a character in European folklore that accompanies Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas) as he brings gifts to children in celebration of his feast day on December 6. The character of Zwarte Piet is popular in the Netherlands and parts of Belgium, where he has emerged as a central character in Dutch/Flemish holiday traditions. The figure of Sinterklaas is derived from a medieval bishop from Anatolia who was made a saint by the Byzantine Church. The bishop is remembered in an annual celebration widely celebrated in the Low Lands in which celebrants give each other gifts and write poems in jest. Children are taught to believe that they will receive gifts from Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet if they have behaved during the year. Zwarte Piet is one of a variation of several companions of Saint Nicholas in Germanic traditions sometimes associated with Satan or devils. He is portrayed often as a mischievous character, and in earlier traditions, distributing punishment to naughty children in the form of physical beatings or stuffing them in a large sack, where they would be whisked away to some unknown place of torment. According to modern legend, Zwarte Piet is a Moor of African descent commonly depicted in colorful pantaloons, feathered cap, and Renaissance-style page dress. In contemporary Dutch celebrations, the character of Zwarte Piet is depicted in blackface, which is a style of theatrical makeup used to depict a racist archetype of those of African descent. Consequently, such practices have provoked accusations of racism and the promotion of intolerance. In the Germanic tradition, Saint Nicholas is accompanied by a sinister figure frequently carrying a stick or whip and a sack, usually dressed in black rags or fur, and bearing a black face and black hair. In many such depictions, the character resembles rustic depictions of the Santa Claus character in early American folklore. The traditions of the Saint Nicholas feast derive from the pre-Christian customs of Europe that emphasized nature. In the Sinterklaas tradition before the nineteenth century, Zwarte Piet acted both as a foil to the good Saint Nicholas and as a depiction of the triumph over evil as the devilish Piet was held in chains and under the domination of the saint. Some of the most recognized companions of Saint Nicholas in central and northern Europe include Knecht Ruprecht, Krampus, Klaubauf, Pelznickel, Rumpelklas, Bullerklaas, Julgubben, Hanstrapp, and Père Fouettard. It is uncertain whether all such characters are variations of the same tradition or a mixture of various traditions. Zwarte Piet is connected to, and yet distinct from, these companions. Earliest depictions of Zwarte Piet depict him as a hairy, chained, black, devilish monster. Holiday customs varied according to the idiosyncrasies of individual families.
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Zwarte Piet (Black Pete) with Sinterklaas (Saint Nicholas). Courtesy of Isis Wegman.
In general, Sinterklaas tested the children on their catechism while Zwarte Piet intimidated them. Children who performed well were rewarded; those who performed poorly were beaten. Sinterklaas usually intervened to save the children from being taken away in Zwarte Piet’s sack. In other versions, children would be asleep and would wake to find their shoes filled with sweets, sticks, or ashes. Children who misbehaved often received ashes or a stick, understanding it as a warning to behave; otherwise Zwarte Piet would return to dole out punishment. In some traditions, Zwarte Piet’s blackness is explained by his traveling through chimneys; therefore his face is covered in soot. In 1845, Jan Schenkman wrote Saint Nicholas and his Servant, which greatly influenced the legend of Zwarte Piet. In the book, Zwarte Piet is presented as an Indian servant of the gift-giving Sinterklaas. In an 1850 version of the book, Sinterklaas’s servant has an African origin. In subsequent editions, Zwarte Piet is depicted in a Renaissance page costume. The book remained in print until the middle of the twentieth century, greatly influencing contemporary Dutch celebrations of the holiday. Stories developed to explain the origin of the character, including that he was an African orphan saved from slavery by Sinterklaas. As the legend evolved, Sinterklaas was said to arrive in Holland from Spain. Consequently, his assistant became a Moor and the naughtiest children would be stuffed in his sack and taken to Spain. Such connections derive from the time when the Spanish Habsburg royal family also ruled the Netherlands during the early modern period, as well as the longstanding Muslim influences on traditionally Christian Europe. Zwarte
Zwarte Piet Piet’s costume resembles those worn by the Spanish at the time of William of Orange, who initiated an uprising for Dutch independence against the Habsburgs in the early modern period. Until well into the twentieth century, Zwarte Piet was depicted as a comical fool, consistent with colonial traditions. In the emerging multiethnic Europe, the character was modified into a more respectable character and multiplied, so that there are several Zwarte Pieten assisting Sinterklaas. In the present Netherlands, a great spectacle is organized around Sinterklaas’s arrival from Spain in a steamboat full of gifts, Zwarte Piet, and his horse, an idea found in Schenkman’s book. They are welcomed by bells and a huge crowd of children and parents, which is filmed for television. In recent years, the character of Zwarte Piet has caused controversy. The origin of the character is perceived by some as a form of racism that promotes a negative view of dark-skinned individuals as fools and lacking intelligence. Zwarte Piet’s role as a subservient figure is especially sensitive within the context of the pivotal Dutch role in colonization and in the development of the Atlantic slave trade. Since the end of the twentieth century, there have been several attempts to modify Zwarte Piet, replacing his traditional black makeup for a variety of colors to render him acceptable to a diverse population, but such efforts have failed to attract mass support. See also: Abolition of Slavery, European; Colonies in Africa, Dutch; Netherlands, Blacks in the; Slave Trade, Dutch. Further Reading: Fox, Anna, and Mieke Cal. Zwarte Piet. London: Black Dog, 1999; Russ, Jennifer. German Festivals and Customs. London: Wolff, 1982; Siefker, Phyllis. Santa Claus, Last of the Wild Men. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1997.
Eric Martone
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Resource Guide
SUGGESTED READING Alt, William, and Betty Alt. Black Soldiers, White Wars: Black Warriors from Antiquity to the Present. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002. Andell, Jacqueline. Gender, Migration, and Domestic Service: The Politics of Black Women in Italy. Bulington, VT: Ashgate, 2000. Andrews, William. To Tell a Free Story: The First Century of Afro-American Autobiography, 1760–1865. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1986. Barthelemy, Anthony Gerard. Black Face, Maligned Race: The Representation of Blacks in English Drama From Shakespeare to Southerne. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987. Berliner, Brett. Ambivalent Desire: The Exotic Black Other in Jazz-Age France. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 2002. Birmingham, David. Portugal and Africa. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 1999. Birnbaum, Lucia. Black Madonnas: Feminism, Religion, and Politics in Italy. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1993. Blackett, R.J.M. Building an Antislavery Wall: Black Americans in the Atlantic Abolitionist Movement, 1830–1860. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983. Blackshire-Belay, Carol, ed. The African-German Experience: Critical Essays. Westport, CT: Praeger, 1996. Blakely, Allison. Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1993. ———. Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1986. Bourne, Stephen. Black in the British Frame: The Black Experience in British Film and Television. London: Continuum, 2001. Boxer, C. R. Race Relations in the Portuguese Colonial Empire, 1415–1825. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1963.
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Resource Guide Bridgman, Jon, and David Clarke. German Africa: A Select Annotated Bibliography. Stanford: Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace, 1965. Brock, Colin. The Caribbean in Europe: Aspects of the West Indies Experience in Britain, France, and the Netherlands. London: Routledge, 1986. Campbell, James. Paris Interzone: Richard Wright, Lolita, Boris Vian, and Others on the Left Bank, 1946–60. New York: C. Scribner’s Sons, 1995. Campt, Tina M. Other Germans: Black Germans and the Politics of Race, Gender and Memory in the Third Reich. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2004. Carretta, Vincent. Unchained Voices: An Anthology of Black Authors in the English-Speaking World of the Eighteenth-Century. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1996. Cazenave, Odile. Afrique sur Seine: A New Generation of African Writers in Paris. New York: Lexington Books, 2005. Chapman, Herrick, and Laura Frader, eds. Race in France: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on the Politics of Difference. New York: Berghahn Books, 2004. Christophe, Marc. “Changing Images of Blacks in Eighteenth Century French Literature.” Phylon 48:3 (1987): 183–189. Cohen, William. The French Encounter with Africans: White Response to Blacks, 1530–1880. Reprint. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2003. Colatrella, Steven. Workers of the World: African and Asian Migrants in Italy in the 1990s. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2001. Conklin, Alice. A Mission to Civilize: The Republican Idea of Empire in France and West Africa, 1895–1930. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 1997. Cook, Mercer. “The Negro in French Literature: An Appraisal.” The French Review 23:5 (March 1950): 378–388. Cullen, Paul. Refugees and Asylum-Seekers in Ireland. Cork: Cork University Press, 2000. Dabydeen, David, ed. The Black Presence in English Literature. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1985. Davis, David Brion. The Problem of Slavery in the Age of Revolution, 1770–1823. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1975. ———. The Problem of Slavery in Western Culture. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988. Davis, Robert C. Christian Slaves, Muslim Masters: White Slavery in the Mediterranean, the Barbary Coast and Italy, 1500–1800. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2003. Debrunner, Hans. Presence and Prestige, Africans in Europe: A History of Africans in Europe Before 1918. Basel: Basler Afrika Bibliographien, 1979. Diop, Cheikh Anta. The African Origin of Civilization: Myth or Reality? Chicago: Lawrence Hill, 1974. Donnell, Alison, ed. Companion to Contemporary Black British Culture. London: Routledge, 2002. Dorigny, Marcel, ed. Abolitions of Slavery: From L. F. Sonthonax to Victor Schoelcher, 1793, 1794, 1848. trans. New York: Berghahn Books, 2003. Duffield, Ian. “Blacks in Britain: Black Personalities in Georgian Britain.” History Today (Sept. 1981): 34–36. ———. “Identity, Community and the Lived Experience of Black Scots From the Late Eighteenth to the Mid-Nineteenth Centuries.” Immigrants and Minorities 11:2 (1992): 105–129. Dunbar, Ernest. Black Expatriates: A Study of American Negroes in Exile. New York: Dutton, 1968. Earle, T. F., and K.J.P. Lowe, eds. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2005.
Resource Guide Echenberg, Myron. Colonial Conscripts: The Tirailleurs Sénégalais in French West Africa, 1857–1960. Portsmouth, NH and London: Heinemann and James Currey, 1991. Edwards, Paul, and James Walvin. Black Personalities in the Era of the Slave Trade. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1983. El-Tayeb, Fatima. “‘If You Can’t Pronounce My Name, You Can Just Call Me Pride’: Afro-German Activism, Gender, and Hip-Hop.” Gender and History 15:3 (Nov. 2003): 460–486. Ellis, David. “Free and Coerced Transatlantic Migrations: Some Comparisons.” American Historical Review 188:2 (1983): 251–280. Emmanuel Eze, ed. Race and the Enlightenment: A Reader. Cambridge: Blackwell, 1997. Epstein, Steven. Speaking of Slavery: Color, Ethnicity, and Human Bondage in Italy. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2001. Fabre, Michel. From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840- 1980. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1991. Fanning, Bryan. Racism and Social Change in the Republic of Ireland. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2002. Farrell, Fintan, and Philip Watt, eds. Responding to Racism in Ireland. Dublin: Veritas Publications, 2001. Fehrenbach, Heide. Race after Hitler: Black Occupation Children in Post-war Germany and America. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2005. Field, Frank, and Patricia Haikin. Black Britons. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971. Fikes, Robert. “Blacks in Europe, Asia, Canada, and Latin America: A Bibliographical Essay.” A Current Bibliography on African Affairs 17:2 (1984–85): 113–128. Fletcher, Richard. Moorish Spain. 2nd ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2006. Foner, Nancy. “Race and Color: Jamaican Migrants in London and New York City.” International Migration Review 19:4 (1985): 708–727. Foney, E. L. “A Visual Arts Encounter: African Americans and Europe.” The International Review of African American Art 11:4 (1994). Available at: http://museum.hamptonu.edu/iraaa_ publication.cfm. Fryer, Peter. Staying Power: The History of Black People in Britain. London: Pluto Press, 1984. Garner, Steve. Racism in the Irish Experience. London: Pluto Press, 2004. Genovese, Eugene. From Rebellion to Revolution: Afro-American Slave Revolts in the Making of the Modern World. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1979. Gerzina, Gretchen H. Black London: Life Before Emancipation. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1997. ———, ed. Black Victorians, Black Victoriana. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2003. Gilman, Sander. On Blackness Without Blacks: Essays on the Image of the Black in Germany. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1982. Gilroy, Paul. The Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness. London: Verso, 1993. ———. “There Ain’t no Black in the Union Jack”: The Cultural Politics of Race and Nation. Reprint. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991. Gould, Philip. Barbaric Traffic: Commerce and Antislavery in the Eighteenth-Century Atlantic World. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2003. Gray, John, ed. Black Theatre and Performance: A Pan-African Bibliography. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1990. Grimm, Reinhold, and Jost Hermand, eds. Blacks and German Culture. Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1986. Hargrove, Hondon B. Buffalo Soldiers in Italy: Black Americans in World War II. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1985. Hellie, Richard. Slavery in Russia: 1450–1725. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1982.
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Resource Guide Hiro, Dilip. Black British, White British: A History of Race Relations in Britain. Rev. ed. London: Grafton Books, 1991. Hochschild, Adam. Bury the Chains, Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire’s Slaves. Wilmington, MA: Houghton Mifflin, 2004. Hodges, Carolyn. “The Private/Plural Selves of Afro-German Women and the Search For a Public Voice.” Journal of Black Studies 23:2 (1992): 219–234. Innes, C. L. History of Black and Asian Writing in Britain, 1700–2000. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Jackson, John, and Nadine Weidman. Race, Racism, and Science: Social Impact and Interaction. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2004. Jacobs, Sylvia M. The African Nexus: Black American Perspectives on the European Partitioning of Africa, 1880–1920. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1981. Jenkinson, Jacqueline. “The Black Community of Salford and Hull, 1919–21.” Immigrants and Minorities 7:2 (1988): 166–183. ———. “The Glasgow Race Disturbances of 1919.” Immigrants and Minorities 4:2 (1985): 43–67. Jennings, Lawrence C. French Anti-Slavery: The Movement for Abolition of Slavery in France, 1802–1848. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000. Jules-Rosette, Bennetta. Black Paris: The African Writers’ Landscape. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1998. Katznelson, Ira. Black Men, White Cities: Race, Politics, and Migration in the United States, 1900–1930, and Britain, 1948–1968. London: Institute of Race Relations/Oxford University Press, 1973. Kaul, Mythili, ed. Othello: New Essays by Black Writers. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1997. Kenney, William H. “‘Le Hot’: The Assimilation of American Jazz in France, 1917-1940.” American Studies 25:1 (1984): 5–24. Kesteloot, Lilyan. Black Writers in French: A Literary History of Negritude. New ed. Washington, DC: Howard University Press, 1991. Kesting, Robert. “Forgotten Victims: Blacks in the Holocaust.” Journal of Negro History 77:1 (1992): 30–36. Killingray, David. “Race and Rank in the British Army in the Twentieth Century.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 10 (1987): 276–290. Kolchin, Peter. Unfree Labor: American Slavery and Russian Serfdom. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1987. Lawler, Nancy Ellen. Soldiers of Misfortune: Ivoirien Tirailleurs of World War II. Athens: Ohio University Press, 1992. Lewis, Shireen. Race, Culture, and Identity: Francophone West African and Caribbean Literature and Theory from Négritude to Créolité. New York: Lexington Books, 2006. Little, Kenneth. Negroes in Britain: A Study of Racial Relations in English Society. Revised ed. London: Kegan Paul, 1972. Lorimer, Douglas. “Black Slaves and English Liberty: A Re-Examination of Racial Slavery in England.” Immigrants and Minorities 3:2 (1984): 121–150. ———. Class, Colour, and the Victorians: A Study of English Attitudes Toward the Negro in the Mid-Nineteenth Century. Leicester: Leicester University Press, 1978. Lusane, Clarence. Hitler’s Black Victims: The Historical Experiences of Afro-Germans, European Blacks, Africans, and African Americans in the Nazi Era. London: Routledge, 2002. McClellan, Woodford. “Africans and Black Americans in the Comintern Schools, 1925–1934.” International Journal of African Historical Studies 26:2 (1993): 371–390.
Resource Guide McCloy, Shelby. The Negro in France. Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1961. McGregor, Morris, Jr. Integration of the Armed Forces, 1940–1965. Washington, DC: Center of Military History, United States Army, 1985. McKernan, James. “Value Systems and Race Relations in Northern Ireland and America.” Ethnic and Racial Studies 5:2 (1982): 156–174. McVeigh, Robbie. “The Specificity of Irish Racism.” Race and Class 33:4 (1992): 31–45. Malik, Sarita. Representing Black Britain: Black and Asian Images on Television. London: Sage Publications, 2001. Mark, Peter. Africans in European Eyes: The Portrayal of Black Africans in Fourteenth and Fifteenth Century Europe. Syracuse: Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, 1974. Marks, Sally. “Black Watch on the Rhine: A Study in Propaganda, Prejudice and Prurience.” European Studies Review 13 (1983): 297–334. Marques, Joao Pedro. The Sounds of Silence: Nineteenth-Century Portugal and the Abolition of the Slave Trade. trans. Richard Wall. New York: Berghahn Books, 2006. Matusevich, Maxim, ed. Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters. Trenton, NJ: Africa World Press, 2006. Mazon, Patricia, and Reinhild Steingrover, eds. Not So Plain as Black and White: Afro-German Culture and History, 1890–2000. Rochester: University of Rochester Press, 2005. Miller, Christopher. Theories of Africans: Francophone Literature and Anthropology in Africa. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990. Morgan, Philip, and Sean Hawkins, eds. Black Experience and the Empire. New York: Oxford University Press, 2004. Morrison, William. Blacks in Ancient Greece. Santa Barbara: Bellerophon Books, 2000. Mtubani, Victor C. D. “The Black Vote in Eighteenth-Century Britain: African Writers Against Slavery and the Slave Trade.” Phylon 45:2 (1984): 85–97. Murithi, Timothy. The African Union: Pan-Africanism, Peacebuilding and Development. Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2005. Myers, Norma. “Servant, Sailor, Soldier, Tailor, Beggarman: Black Survival in White Society 1780–1830.” Immigrants and Minorities 12:1 (1993): 47–74. Northrup, David. Africa’s Discovery of Europe, 1650–1850. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Obenneier, Karin. “Afro-German Women: Recording Their Own History.” New German Critique 46 (1989): 172–180. Oguntoye, Katharina, May Opitz, and Dagmar Schultz. Showing our Colors: Afro- German Women Speak Out. trans. Anne Adams. Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1991. Oliver, Paul, ed. Black Music in Britain: Essays on the Afro-Asian Contributions to Popular Music. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press, 1990. Owuso, Kwesi. Black British Culture and Society: A Text Reader. New York: Routledge, 1999. Pakenham, Thomas. The Scramble for Africa. New York: Avon Books, 1992. Paul, Kathleen. Whitewashing Britain: Race and Citizenship in the Postwar Era. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1997. Peabody, Sue. “There are No Slaves in France”—The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancien Régime. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Peabody, Sue, and Tyler Stovall, eds. The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2003. Phillips, Mike. London Crossings: A Biography of Black Britain. London: Continuum, 2001. Poikane-Daumke, Aija. African Diasporas: Afro-German Literature in the Context of the AfricanAmerican Experience. London: Lit Verlag, 2007.
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Resource Guide Pommerin, Reiner. “The Fate of Mixed Blood Children in Germany.” German Studies Review 5:3 (1982): 315–323. Popeau, Jean Baptiste. Dialogues of Negritude: An Analysis of the Cultural Context of Black Writing. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2003. Potts, E. Daniel, and Annette Potts. “The Deployment of Black American Servicemen Abroad During World War Two.” Australian Journal of Politics and History 35:1 (1989): 92–96. Powell, Eve Troutt, and John O. Hunwick, eds. The African Diaspora in the Mediterranean Lands of Islam. Markus Weiner, 2002. Pred, Allan. Even in Sweden: Racisms, Radicalized Spaces, and the Popular Geographic Imagination. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. Preto-Rodas, Richard. Negritude as a Theme in the Poetry of the Portuguese-Speaking World. Gainsville: University of Florida Press, 1970. Pryce, Everton A. “The Notting Hill Gate Carnival: Black Politics, Resistance, and Leadership, 1976–1978.” Caribbean Quarterly 31:2 (1985): 35–52. Raphael-Hernandez, Heike, ed. Blackening Europe: The African American Presence. New York: Routledge, 2003. Reese, Joan. “Two Enemies to Fight: Blacks Battle For Equality in Two World Wars.” Colorado Heritage 1 (1990): 2–17. Restall, Matthew. Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest. New York: Oxford University Press, 2003. Rogers, J. A. World’s Great Men of Color. 2 vols. Reprint. New York: Touchstone, 1996. ———. Sex and Race: Negro-Caucasian Mixing in All Ages and All Lands. New York: J. A. Rogers, 1940. Russell, Francis. “Liberty to Slaves: Black Loyalists in the American Revolution.” Timeline 4:2 (1987): 2–15. Saunders, A. A Social History of Black Slaves and Freedmen in Portugal, 1441–1555. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1982. Schäfer, Wolf. “Global History and the Present Time.” In Writing Prometheus: Globalisation, History, and Technology,. ed. Peter Lyth and Helmuth Trischler, 103–125. Aarhus, Denmark: Aarhus University Press, 2004. Scheck, Raffael. Hitler’s African Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006. Scobie, Edward. Black Britannia: A History of Blacks in Britain. Chicago: Johnson, 1972. Seminario, Lee Anne Durham. The History of the Blacks, Jews, and Moors in Spain. Madrid: Playor, 1975. Sertima, Ivan Van, ed. African Presence in Early Europe. Somerset, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1986. Sesay, Amadu, ed. Africa and Europe: From Partition to Interdependence or Dependence? London: Croom Helm, 1986. Sherwood, Merika. After Abolition: Britain and the Slave Trade Since 1807. London: I. B. Tauris, 2007. Shyllon, Folarin. Black People in Britain, 1553–1833. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1977. Small, Stephen. Racialized Barriers: The Black Experience in the United States and England in the 1980s. London: Routledge, 1994. Smith, Graham. When Jim Crow Met John Bull: Black American Soldiers in World War II Britain. London: I. B. Tauris, 1987. Snowden, Frank. Blacks in Antiquity: Ethiopians in the Greco-Roman Experience. Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 1970.
Resource Guide Sollors, Werner. Neither Black Nor White Yet Both: Thematic Explorations of Interracial Literature. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997. Spratlin, V. B. “The Negro in Spanish Literature.” The Journal of Negro History 19:1 (January 1934): 60–71. Stevens, Christopher. Soviet Union and Black Africa. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1976. Stouffer, Allen P. “Black Abolitionists in Britain and Canada.” Canadian Review of American Studies 19:2 (1988): 249–252. Stovall, Tyler. Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1996. Stovall, Tyler, and Georges Van Den Abbeele, eds. French Civilization and Its Discontents: Nationalism, Colonialism, Race. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2003. Sweet, James. Recreating Africa: Culture, Kinship, and Religion in the African-Portuguese World, 1441–1770. Charlotte: University of North Carolina Press, 2006. Tabili, Laura. “We Ask for British Justice”: Workers and Racial Difference in Late Imperial Britain. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1994. Taylor, Julie. Muslims in Medieval Italy: The Colony at Lucera. New ed. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2005. Thomas, Dominic. Black France: Colonialism, Immigration, and Transnationalism. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2006. Thomas, Hugh. The Slave Trade: The Story of the Atlantic Slave Trade: 1440–1870. New York: Simon and Schuster, 1997. Walvin, James. Black and White: The Negro in English Society, 1555–1945. London: Allen Lane, 1973. ———. Black Ivory: Slavery in the British Empire. 2nd ed. Malden, MA: Blackwell, 2001. ———. The Black Presence: A Documentary History of the Negro in England. New York: Schocken Books, 1972. Washington, Joseph. Anti-Blackness in English Religion, 1500–1800. Lewiston, NY: Edwin Mellen Press, 1985. Whitfield, James. Unhappy Dialogue: The Metropolitan Police and Black Londoners in Post-war Britain. Portland, OR: Willan Publishing, 2004. Whyte, Iain. Scotland and the Abolition of Black Slavery, 1756–1838. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2006. Winders, James. Paris Africain: Rhythms of the African Diaspora. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.
WEB SITES Black in Britain. http://blackinbritain.co.uk/ This Web site hosts a variety of news and pieces of interest for black Britons. Black European Studies. http://www.best.uni-mainz.de/ This Web site, hosted by the Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, follows current scholarship and conferences on black European studies. It also allows scholars to share information about their research and forthcoming publications in the topic. Black Presence: Asian and Black History in Britain, 1500–1850. http://www.nationalarchives.gov. uk/Pathways/black history/ This online exhibit from the British National Archives traces the history of the early modern black presence in Britain. Blacks during the Holocaust. http://www.ushmm.org/wlc/article.php?lang=en&ModuleId=1000 5479 This Web site, hosted by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, presents an overview of the Nazi persecution of blacks in Europe.
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Resource Guide SUGGESTED FILMS 100 % Arabica (Director: Mahmoud Zemmouri, 1997). This French feature film (available with English subtitles) presents a comedic take on the struggles of African immigrants living in the housing projects located on the outskirts of Paris. Respectable Trade (Director: Suri Krishnamma, 1998). This lavish BBC mini-series, based on the historical novel by Philippa Gregory, is an eighteenth-century drama about the African slave trade in Bristol, England. Alexandre Dumas fils (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of French author Alexandre Dumas fils, author of The Lady of the Camelias. His great-grandmother was an African slave. Alexandre Dumas père (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of French author Alexandre Dumas, author of The Three Musketeers. His grandmother was an African slave. Alexander Pushkin (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of nineteenth-century Russian author Alexander Pushkin, who was descended from an African slave. Amazing Grace (Director: Michael Apted, 2006). This feature film chronicles the nineteenthcentury efforts of William Wilberforce to pass a law in parliament to abolish the British trans-Atlantic slave trade. Ben Okri (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of British Caribbean author Ben Okri. Black and White in Color (Director: Isaac Julien, 1992). This documentary film chronicles the history of black people in British television. Black Girl (Director: Ousmane Sembene, 1966). This black and white French feature film (available with English subtitles) details the life of a black girl from Senegal who becomes a servant in contemporary France. Black Dju (Director: Pol Crutchen, 1995). Black Dju (in French and Portuguese with English subtitles) follows Dju Dele Dibonga’s quest from Cape Verde to Luxembourg to find his father. The main character experiences racism and harassment from immigration authorities on his arrival in Europe. Black Knight (Director: Gil Junger, 2001). This comedic film, inspired by Mark Twain’s A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court, substitutes the “Connecticut Yankee” with African American comedian Martin Lawrence as a modern-day man transported to medieval Camelot. The film also takes its inspiration from the numerous black knights that have become a component of the Arthurian legend, such as Morien, Palamedes, and Feirefiz. Black Orpheus (Director: Marcel Camus, 1959). This Portuguese film (available with English subtitles) updates the ancient Greek myth by featuring an all-black cast and setting the tale during Carnival in Brazil. Black Survivors of the Holocaust (Director: David Okuefuna, 1997). Known outside of the United States as Hitler’s Forgotten Victims, this monumental documentary focuses on the Afro-German experience of persecution in Nazi Germany and includes interviews with individuals who had experienced the era. Blacks Britannica (Director: David Koff, 1978). This documentary film traces the role of blacks in British society within a historical perspective. Borders (Director: Mostefa Djadjam, 2002). This French feature film (available with English subtitles) chronicles the attempts of seven sub-Saharan Africans to illegally enter Europe in the hopes of having a better life.
Resource Guide Burning an Illusion (Director: Menelik Shabazz, 1981). This film feature follows the life a young black woman in London, whose experiences make her question her identity, torn between the white European society that she has grown up in and the black African society of her ancestors. Catch a Fire (Director: Menelik Shabazz, 1995). This docudrama recounts the life and legacy of Deacon Paul Bogle, a nineteenth-century Jamaican black advocate of civil rights. The 1865 Morant Bay Rebellion left a lasting racial impression on Victorian Britain. Colin Jackson (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of the black British athlete Colin Jackson. Colour Blind: The Murder of Stephen Lawrence (Director: Paul Greengrass, 1999). This British television film, based on a true story, dramatizes the murder of a young black Briton by a group of white hooligans. The subsequent investigation is botched by the police department and reveals the racial tensions in contemporary Britain. Congo: White King, Red Rubber, Black Death (Director: Peter Bate, 2003). This feature film (in French and Dutch with English subtitles) chronicles the abusive administration of the Congo under King Leopold II of Belgium. The subtitled American DVD release also includes the documentary Boma-Tervuren: The Journey, which focuses on the exhibition of several Congolese at the 1879 World’s Fair in Brussels. Diane Abbott (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of black British politician Diane Abbott. Flyboys (Director: Tony Bill, 2006). This feature film follows the exploits of the Lafayette Escadrille, a collection of volunteers, mostly American, who fought as part of the French air force during World War I. A prominent member of the group was African American pilot Eugene Bullard, who became a noted French celebrity and military hero, despite remaining an unknown in America. Four Feathers (Director: Shekhar Kapur, 2002). This blockbuster film, based on the novel by A.E.W. Mason, depicts the British in the Sudan during the era of nineteenth-century colonialism and explores issues of race and racism. Frantz Fanon (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of black Francophone author Frantz Fanon. Glass Ceiling [Le Plafond de Verre]. (Director: Yamina Benguigui, 2004). This documentary (in French with English subtitles) chronicles the struggles of black and Arab Africans as they seek employment in modern France. Hope in My Heart: Oral Poetry—May Ayim (1997). This documentary features the work of poet May Ayim (May Opitz), one of the founders of the Afro-German Movement. The Josephine Baker Story (Director: Brian Gibson, 1991). This HBO Emmy award-winning feature film chronicles the life of African American entertainer Josephine Baker, who became a celebrity in jazz-age France. Mestizo (Director: Mario Handler, 1989). This Spanish feature film (available with English subtitles), set in Venezuela, follows the attempts of Jose Ramon, the son of a Spanish aristocrat and a black fisher-woman, to define his identity. Le Mozart Noir: Reviving a Legend (Media Headquarters Film and Television Inc., 2003). This documentary chronicles the life and music of the famous black composer, swordsman, and soldier of the French Revolution. Names Living Nowhere (Director: Dominique Loreau, 1994). This docudrama (in French with English subtitles) follows the adventures of an African griot, or storyteller, as he travels to Brussels and reveals the struggles of Belgian African immigrants. Othello (Director: Oliver Parker, 1995). An excellent cinematic adaptation of Shakespeare’s play set in Italy featuring Laurence Fishburne in the title role and Kenneth Branagh as Iago.
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Resource Guide Otomo (Director: Frieder Schlaich, 1999). This German feature film (available with English subtitles), based on a true story, re-creates the attempts of a West African man to seek asylum in Germany and the manhunt that follows. The film exposes racism at all levels toward Africans in German society. Papa’s Song (Director: Sander Francken, 1999). This Dutch family drama (available with English subtitles) touches on race relations in the Netherlands. Playing Away (Director: Horace Ove, 1986). This feature film follows a charity cricket match between a white team from a small English village and a black West Indian team from London. Underlying the game is intense racial tensions. Roar (Executive Producer: Shawn Cassidy, 1997). This television series features a black character named Tully who assists the hero in his quest to unite the Irish clans and expel the ancient Roman invaders. Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (Director: Kevin Reynolds, 1991). This blockbuster film was the first to feature a black Moor as a member of Robin Hood’s outlaw band in medieval England. Most subsequent film and television versions now include a black character, which was parodied in Mel Brook’s spoof, Robin Hood: Men in Tights (1993). Samuel Coleridge-Taylor (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of British composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor. Samuel Adjai Crowther (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of Samuel Adjai Crowther, an Anglican missionary from Africa. Tasumi (Director: Daniel Kollo Sanou, 2003). This French comedic film (available with English subtitles) chronicles the struggles of an African World War II veteran to obtain his deserved pension. Toussaint L’Ouverture (A&E Biography). This episode from the television documentary series on the Arts and Entertainment Network details the life of Francophone revolutionary leader Toussaint L’Ouverture. Tropiques Amers (Director: Jean-Claude Flamand-Barny, 2007). This French mini-series, set in French Caribbean colony of Martinique during the eighteenth century, is a drama revolving around a French plantation owner, his aristocratic wife, and his black mistress. The film reflects the inhumanity of the institution of slavery and sexual exploitation of female slaves. The mini-series debuted in May 2007 as part of the national celebrations in France to commemorate the abolition of slavery. Waalo Fendo: Where the Earth Freezes (Director: Mohammed Soudani, 1998). The dialogue of this feature film, set in Milan, Italy, is in Wolof, an African dialect (available with English subtitles). The film follows the attempts of two brothers from Senegal to immigrate to Italy and start a new life, but they are met with a harsh reality.
Index
Abba Gregoryus, 165 Abboctt, Diane, 1 – 2 Abolition of slavery, British: advancements toward, 2 – 6, 7, 88 – 89, 147, 170, 203, 547; black involvement, 5, 89, 169, 170, 183, 210, 211, 543 – 44; pressure groups for the, 4, 5, 92, 93, 500 – 502 Abolition of slavery, European, 7 – 8, 106 Abolition of slavery, French, 8–12; attempts, 7, 8, 9, 11, 72, 114, 154, 230, 253, 258, 283, 328; commemoration of the, 344, 345; literature in support of, 10, 11, 66, 67, 71, 72, 207, 208, 209, 253, 254, 352, 401 – 2; pressure groups for the, 9, 10, 11, 114, 115, 209, 502 – 3 Abolition of slavery, Portuguese, 7, 12 – 13 Abolition of slavery, Russian, 13 – 15, 462 Abolition of slavery, Spanish, 7, 15 – 17, 156, 358 – 59, 512 Abrahams, Peter, 128 Abyssinia. See Ethiopia Achebe, Chinua, 322 Act of Vienna, 10 Adams, John, 259 Adams, John Quincy, 117 Adebari, Rotimi, 17 – 18 Aemilianus, Marcus Aemilius, 454, 456 – 57, 458 Aesop, 18
Affleck, William, 94 Afonso I (king of Kongo), 19 – 20, 159 Afonso I (king of Portugal), 420 Afonso III (king of Portugal), 243, 244 Afonso V (king of Portugal), 422 Afonso VI (king of Portugal), 537 – 38 Afonso X (king of Castile and Léon), 531 Africa Institute, 466, 508 African Beneficial Association, 545 African Blood Brotherhood, 86 African Diaspora, 20 – 22, 26, 37, 42, 76, 94, 110, 111, 157, 236, 241, 243, 287, 297, 342, 394, 407, 412, 417, 437, 465 African National Congress, 128 African National Council, African Progress Union, 31, 36 African Reparations Movement, 252 African Union, 409 Africanus, Leo, 22 – 23, 275, 349 Africa Show, 241 Afro-Caribbean Education Resource, 234 Afro-Caribbean Family and Friends, 234 Afro-Caribbean Music, in Britain, 23 – 25, 302, 303 Afrocentrist movement, 73 Afro-Germans, 25, 26, 46, 242, 277, 278, 281, 282, 346, 390 – 91, 545 Afro-German Women (ADEFRA), 25 – 26, 281, 326
584
Index afro look (magazine), 346 Age of Exploration, 26–29, 159, 218, 292, 512 Agloval, 359, 360 Aida (musical), 30 Aida (opera), 29 – 30, 372 Albinus, Clodius, 455 Albuquerque de Coelho, Antonio de, 421 Alcindor, John, 30 – 31 Aldridge, Ira, 31 – 32, 89, 90, 108, 110, 401, 463 Alencar, José de, 107 Alexander I (tsar of Russia), 14, 425 Alexander II (tsar of Russia), 14, 15 Alexander III (pope), 423 Alexander the Great, 120 Alexis, Stéphen, 261 Alfonso X (king of Castile), 422 Algarve: back population of, 243, 421; Muslim control of, 420 Algeria: as a French colony, 133; struggle for independence, 135, 136, 213, 214, 221 Alhambra, 511 Ali G Indahouse (television show), 106 Alvarez, Francisco, 424 Alves, Rodrigues, 107 American Civil War, 40, 187, 189, 284, 358, 438 American Revolution for Independence: blacks in American forces, 61, 426; blacks in British forces during the, 3, 75, 353, 445, 484–485; 549; and black solidarity, 262 Amistad case, 116, 117 Amo, Anton Wilhelm, 32 – 33, 165, 240 Amos, Valerie Ann, 33 – 34, 277 Amsterdam, as a slave port, 32, 491 Anderson, Viv, 80 Angelou, Maya, 45, 235 Anglo-Portuguese Treaty, 64 Anglo-Zulu War. See Zulu War Angola, 509; Portuguese control of, 143, 144; relations with Soviet Union, 466 Aniaba, 34 – 36 Aniabi. See Aniaba Anne (queen of England), 441 Anne (empress of Russia), 267 Anti-Slavery Monthly Reporter (journal), 92 Apuleius, 458 Apulia, black African iconography in, 274 Arabella (television show), 305
Aragon, relations with Africa, 512 Arc de Triomphe, 102, 196 Archer, John, 31, 36 – 37 Archive and Museum of Black History, 234, 235 Armah, Esther, 347 Armattoe, Raphael, 287 Armstrong, Louis, 59, 101, 470 Art, blacks as represented in, 37 – 40 Art Deco, 43, 52 Arthur (king of England), 359, 361, 406, 411 Artists in Europe, African American, 40 – 42, 375 – 376, 521 – 22 Asiento, 309, 414, 498 Aspire, 347 Atar-Gull (novel), 100 Atlantic Charter, 128 Attruia, Stefano, 293 Aubame, Jean-Hilaire, 197 Augustin, Marie, 261 Augustine, Saint, 459 Augustus (Roman emperor), 453, 454, 457 Austria. See Central Europe Authors in Europe, African American, 42 – 46, 54 – 55, 311 – 12, 333 – 34, 342, 480 – 81, 557 – 59 Ayim, May, 25, 26, 46 – 47, 281, 326, 327, 390, 391 Bâ, Mariama, 325 Baartman, Saartjie, 49 – 50 Baden-Powell, Robert, 83 Bagdad Café (f ilm), 217 Baker, Josephine, 50 – 53, 59, 80, 101, 214, 221, 241, 312, 365 Bakhita, Josephine, 53 – 54, 293 Balboa, Nuñez de, 27, 160 Baldwin, James, 44, 45, 54 – 55 Balkans. See also Eastern Europe Balzac, blacks in the works of, 55 – 57, 193 Banda, Hastings, 128 Banks, Tyra, 106 Barbados: colonial economy of, 96, 147; legislation for racial equality, 95, 96, 97; slave revolts in, 486, 490 Barbarossa brothers, 415 Barbary Coast, 414 – 15 Barbary Pirates. See Pirates, blacks and Mediterranean
Index Barber, Francis, 57 – 58, 88 Barcelona: African control of, 510 – 11; black slaves in, 309 Bardales, Juan, 159 Barnes, John, 80 Bassianus. See Caracalla Batouala (novel), 339 Batson, Brendon, 58 – 59 BBC, 76, 172, 176, 295, 332, 347, 362, 451, 523, 527 Beauvais, Louis-Jacques, 61 Beauvoir, Simone de, 235, 557 – 58 Bechet, Sidney, 59 – 60 Bechuana, Le, 50 Behn, Aphra, 208, 395 – 97 Beethoven, Ludwig van, 86 Beggar’s Opera, 414 Bell, Victor, 545 Belle, Dido Elizabeth, 60 – 61 Belley, Jean-Baptiste, 61 – 62 Beltrán, Juan, 159 Benbarek, Larbi, 62 – 63 Benedict XIV (pope), 64 Benedict XVI (pope), use of blacks in heraldry, 271 Benedict the Moor, Saint, 63 – 64, 293 Benin. See Dahomey Bennett, Gwendolyn, 44 Berlin, center for African immigration, 241 Berlin Conference, 64 – 66, 124, 157, 385 Berlin Seminar for Oriental Languages, 240 Bernal, Martin, 72, 73, 74, 75 Bernardin de Saint-Pierre, Jacques-Henri, 56, 66 – 67 Besatzungskinder, 67 – 68, 242, 326 Bessora, 325 Best, Clyde, 80 Best, Lloyd, 149 Beti, Mongo, 324 Beyala, Calixthe, 325, 524 Bhamjee, Moses, 287 Biassou, Georges, 68 – 70, 100, 258, 261, 328 Bilé, Joseph Ekwe, 545 – 546 Bin Adam Mohamed, Mahjub, 70 – 71 Bismarck, Otto von, 64, 65 Bissette, Cyrille, 11, 71 – 72, 481 Black Athena Controversy, 72 – 75 Black British, 75 – 76, 117, 148 Blair, Tony, 82
Blackamoors. See Moors Blackbeard, 414 Black Cultural Archives. See Archive and Museum of Black History Black Death. See Bubonic Plague Blackface, 401, 441, 534, 569 Black history month, 76–77; in Austria, 407; in Britain, 76, 77; in Canada, 76; development of, 76 – 77, 551; in Germany, 76, 242; in the United States, 76, 77 Black Legions of Buenos Aires, 314 Black Madonna tradition, 77 – 79 Black Militia Officers of Salvador, 315 Black Panthers, 235, 302 Black Panthers (military unit), 556 Black Pete. See Zwarte Piet Black Sea Negroes, 464 Blain d’Estambuc, Pierre, 151 Blake, William, 170 Blanco, Roberto, 79 – 80 Blanke, John, 163, 441 Blissett, Luther, 80 Blue Note (jazz club), 299 Blumenbach, Johann Friedrich, 204, 205, 476, 477 Blyden, Edward, 21, 43, 408 Boateng, Ozwald, 80 – 81 Boateng, Paul, 1, 81 – 82 Bock, Jacob, 110 Bodin, Jean, 224 Boer War, 82 – 83, 125 Bolívar, Simón, 413 Bonaparte, Joseph, 364 Boothe, Ken, 23 Bossi-Fini Law, 292 Botteghi, Taismary Agüero Leiva, 293 Boucaux, Jean, 494 Bourbon royal family, 122, 194, 364, 365 Bourgeois, August-Anicet, 185 Bovell, Dennis, 24 Bowelle, Behanzin Hossu, 84 – 85 Boxing, blacks in, 317 – 18, 445 Brazil: abolition of slavery in, 12, 13, 107, 172, 249, 447; Dutch control of, 29, 130, 185, 491 – 92; music in , 249, 538 – 539; Portuguese control of, 12, 143, 184, 185, 496 – 97; slavery in, 12, 13, 143, 172, 496 – 97
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Index Breton, André, 112, 382 Bridgetower, George, 85 – 86 Briggs, Cyril, 86 – 87 Brindis de Sala, Claudio, 87 Brissot, Jacques-Pierre, 9, 209, 502 Britain, blacks in, 88–91; abolitionism, 88 – 89, 147, 169, 170, 183, 203, 210, 211, 500 – 502, 543 – 44, 547; contemporary snapshot, 91; early history, 88, 163, 165; modern social issues, 75 – 76, 82, 90 – 91, 104, 105, 117 – 20, 148, 246 – 47, 252, 304, 307, 308, 331, 337, 435 – 36; nineteenth century, 89 – 90; world wars, 90 British and Foreign Anti-Slavery Society, 92, 93 British Anti-Slavery Society, 92 – 93, 425 British Army, blacks in the, 3, 75, 82, 83, 90, 94, 95, 117, 275, 553 British-Caribbean Association, 119 British East Africa Company, 125 British Hotel, 480 British Nationality Act, 118, 148 British Navy, blacks in the, 57, 90, 162, 176, 200, 209, 246, 542, 543 British South Africa Company, 125 Brixton Riots, 82, 119, 436 – 37 Broadwater Estate riots, 252 Broca, Paul, 477 Broglie, Duc de, 10, 11 Broonzy, Big Bill, 298, 299 Brothers Keepers, 242, 243 Brown, Dennis, 24 Brown, Gordon, 479 Brown, James Jackson, 94 – 95 Brown Baby Plan, 68 Browne, Thomas, 320, 321 Browning, Elizabeth Barrett, 97 – 98 Browning, Robert, 97, 98 Brown Privilege Bill, 95 – 97 Bubonic Plague and blacks, 98 – 99, 292, 440 Buckingham Palace, 59 Bug-Jargal (novel), 99 – 101, 260 – 61 Bullard, Eugene, 101 – 2 Bumbry, Grace, 372 Burchell, Thomas, 6, 487 Burgkmair, Hans, 274 Butts vs. Penny, 201
Byron, Lord, 56 Byzantine Empire, 38, 288, 289, 290, 291, 423, 495 Cabeza de Vaca, 27, 160 Cabot, John, 27, 29 Cabral, Amilcar, 144 Cabral, Pedro Álvares, 27, 28 Caesar, Julius, 454, 457 Cain, theory of descent of blacks from, 103 – 4, 313, 422 Calypso music, 23, 471 Camille (play). See Lady of the Camellias (novel) Cameroon, 138, 139, 190, 191, 363, 544 – 46 Campaign Against Racial Discrimination (CARD), 44, 104 – 5, 307 Campbell, Naomi, 105 – 6 Camper, Pieter, 39, 477 Canary Islands: African immigration and the, 279; Portuguese control of, 142 Canossian Sisters, 53, 54 Cape Colony, 49, 124, 125, 473; Dutch control of, 130, 132, 492 Cape to Cairo Railroad, 385 Cape Verde, 142, 496, 421 Capitein, Jacobus, 103, 106 – 7, 382 Capua, center for African gladiators, 430 Caracalla, 453, 454, 455, 456, 458 Carl Peters (film), 379, 380 Carmichael, Stokely, 308 Cartier, Jacques, 27 Cartwright case, 201, 224 Cary, Elizabeth, 321 Casement, Roger, 158 Castro Alves, Antônio de, 107 – 8 Castro, Fidel, 52, 256 Catherine I (empress of Russia), 267, 431 Catherine II the Great (empress of Russia), 4 Catholic Church, prohibition of use of Christian slaves, 292, 420, 495, 496 Cato Street Conspiracy, 175, 176 Cedula, 498 Celoso Extremeño (novel), 108 – 9 Central Europe: blacks in, 109 – 11; slavery and, 7, 14 Centre national de recherches scientifiques (CNRS), 215
Index Cervantes, 108 Césaire, Aimé, 111 – 13, 154, 172, 213, 262, 323, 381, 482, 482 Césaire, Suzanne Roussy, 112, 324, 381 Chamberlain, Houston Stewart, 248, 378 Chamoiseau, Patrick, 325 Champlain, Samuel de, 27 Charlemagne, 291, 510 Charles I of Anjou, 224 Charles II of Anjou, 224 Charles II (king of England), 395, 396, 488 Charles III (king of Spain), 498 Charles IV (duke of Luxembourg), 274 Charles IV (king of Spain), 69 Charles V (emperor), 274, 348 Charles X (king of France), 100, 133 Charlier, Ghislaine Rey, 263 Charlotte (queen of England), 244 Chartist Movement, 168, 169 Chartres Cathedral, 37 Chaucer, 525 Chaumette, Pierre Gaspard, 114 – 15 Chauvet, Marie Vieux, 262 Chernyshevsky, Nicholas Chirac, Jacques, 194, 222, 344, 345, 460 Choiseul, duc de, 229 Christianity, and the abolition of slavery, 313, 519, 550 Christmas rebellion. See Baptist War Christophe, Henri: in the Haitian Revolution, 61, 115 – 16, 259; in literature, 32, 112, 262, 541, 530 Chuka, Stefano Okaka, 293 Churchill, Winston, 128 Cid, El, 511, 530 – 31 Cinqué, Joseph, 116 – 17 Circus (film), 508 Cissé, Souleymane, 215 Civil Rights: in Britain, 44, 90 – 91, 104, 105, 117 – 20, 307, 308, 331, 337; in the United States, 44, 45, 52, 54, 104, 307, 337, 442, 508, 516 Claramonte, Andrés de, 349, 350 Clarkson, Thomas: British abolition movement, 2, 4, 5, 92, 209, 490, 500 – 501; French abolition movement, 9, 209, 253, 502 Clash, The, 24
Clement VII (pope), 348 Cliff, Jimmy, 23 Clitus of Macedonia, 120 – 21 Club Averroes, 346, 460 Clyde Workers Committee, 247 Cocteau, Jean, 235 Code Noir, 121 – 22, 153, 177, 219, 229, 283, 402, 493, 494 Coffy, 492 Cohen, Sasha Baron, 106 Cohn-Bendit, Daniel, 235 Colbert, Jean-Baptiste, 121, 151 Coleridge, Samuel, 322 Coleridge-Taylor, Samuel, 5, 31, 123 – 24, 211, 212 Collins, Ansell, 23 Collins, Dave, 23 Colonial Charter of 1833, 71 Colonies in Africa, British, 124–30; conflicts, 82 – 83, 124, 125, 126, 567 – 69; decolonization and, 129; development of, 124 – 26; economy of, 126 – 27; indirect rule and, 64, 65, 125, 125; New Imperialism and, 125 – 26, 384, 385; world wars and, 127 – 29 Colonies in Africa, Dutch: conflicts over, 130, 132; development of, 130 – 32 Colonies in Africa, French 132–37; developments of, 84, 132 – 33; French law and, 135; independence, 136 – 37; New Imperialism and, 64, 65, 66, 221, 384, 385; policies of assimilation and association in, 133 – 34; World War I and, 134 – 35; World War II and, 135 – 36 Colonies in Africa, German, 137–39; delegations to Germany, 190, 191, 362, 363; development of, 64, 65, 137 – 38; independence, 138 – 39; World War I and, 138 Colonies in Africa, Italian, 139–41; East Africa, 139–40, 354, 465; Libya, 139, 140–41 Colonies in Africa, Portuguese, 141–45; decline of, 143; development of, 141 – 42, 420, 421; independence, 144 – 45; New Imperialism and, 64, 65, 66, 143 – 44; slave trade and, 143 Colonies in Africa, Spanish, 145–47; Northern Africa, 145–46; Sub-Saharan Africa, 146
587
588
Index Colonies in the Caribbean, British, 147–49; conflict with European states over, 5, 147, 219, 258, 259, 260, 328, 329, 416, 506; destination for slaves, 2, 147 – 48, 488; development of, 147; economy of, 147 – 48; immigration from, 148 – 49 Colonies in the Caribbean, Dutch, 149 – 50 Colonies in the Caribbean, French, 150–55; abolition of slavery, 121, 154, 220, 258, 505 – 6; conflict with other European powers, 5, 69, 150, 180, 219, 258, 259, 260, 328, 329, 416, 506; dates and origins of French settlement, 151; destination for slaves, 121, 151, 152, 153, 219, 257, 493; development of, 150 – 151; independence, 152, 154; racial hierarchies, 152, 219; sugar revolution and plantation system, 151 – 53; working conditions, 153 – 54, 219 Colonies in the Caribbean, Spanish, 155–56; conflict with other European powers, 69, 155, 156, 219, 258, 259, 328; development of, 155 – 56; use of black slaves in, 155,156, 313, 488 Columbus, Christopher, 27, 28, 150, 151, 155, 160, 309, 313, 439, 512 Combra, Count of. See Sesnado, Don Comédie humaine, La, 55 Commerson, Philibert, 319 Commission for the Abolition of Genital Mutilation, 236 Commonwealth Immigrants Act, 119, 148 Communauté, 136, 221 Communism, blacks and, 36, 37, 86, 112, 118, 189, 241, 244 – 45, 255, 256, 296, 297, 303, 304, 334, 405, 406, 449 – 50, 461, 507, 545, 557 – 58; involvement in Spanish Civil War, 255, 516 Communist Manifesto (essay), 14 Comte, Auguste, 476 Condorcet, 9, 208, 209, 502 Confiant, Raphael, 325 Congo: Belgian control of, 158, 385; diplomatic relationship with Portugal, 19, 158 – 59, 165, 420, 421 Congo Free State: development of, 65, 66; protest against, 157 – 58, 385 Congress of Vienna, 384 Conquistadors, black, 28, 159 – 61, 309, 512, 513 – 14
Conrad, Joseph, 158, 171, 322, 323 Constantine (emperor of Rome), 419 Constantine, Learie, 162 – 63, 296 Constantinople. See Istanbul Cordoba: African control of, 355, 509 – 11; black slaves in, 315 Coronado, 27, 160 Corsica: Barbary pirate attacks on, 415 Cortés, Hernán, 27, 161 Cosimo I de Medici, 164, 349 Count of Monte Cristo (novel), 191, 193, 239 Courts, blacks in European aristocratic, 34, 35, 88, 109, 110, 163 – 66, 240, 397, 440 – 41, 503 – 4 Cousturier, Lucie, 180, 181 Craniometry. See Scientific racism Cranioscopy. See Phrenology Créolité, 325 Cricket, blacks and, 94, 95, 162 – 163, 547 – 48 Crimean War, 14, 479 – 80 Criminality in eighteenth-century England, blacks and, 166 – 67 Crowther, Samuel Adjai, 167 – 68 Crusades, 109, 271, 273 Cuba, slavery in, 13, 16, 17, 116, 156, 358, 359, 497, 498 Cuffay, William, 168 – 69 Cugoano, Quobna Ottobah, 5, 169 – 70, 254 Cullen, Countee, 44 Culture Club, 105, 369 Cunningham, Laurie, 58 Curaçao, 491 – 92 Cuvier, Georges, 49 Czech Republic. See Central Europe D’Abrantés, Duchess, 364 Dabydeen, David, 171 – 72 Dadié, Bernard B., 262 Da Gama, Luis, 172 – 73 D’Aguiar, Fred, 173 – 74 Dahomey: French education in, 135; resistance to French, 84 Damas, Léon, 174 – 75, 323, 381, 382 Damingue, Joseph, 175 Dankworth, Johnny, 300 Danse banana, 52 Danse sauvage, 51 Darwin, Charles, 198
Index Davidson, William, 175 – 77 Davis, Angela, 508 Davis, Clive, 234 Davis, Miles, 299, 300 Declaration of the Rights of Man, 9, 257, 258, 328, 494, 502 Déclaration pour la police des noirs, 177 – 78, 220, 225, 229, 494 Decolonization. See Colonies in Africa Defoe, Daniel, 414 De Gaulle, Charles, 136, 197, 221, 228 Dekker, Desmond, 23 Delafosse, Maurice, 179 Delgrés, Louis, 179 – 80 Deniker, Joseph, 478 Denmark. See Scandinavia Des inconnus chez moi (book), 180 – 81 Desroussels, Félix. See Alexis, Stéphen Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 115, 259, 260, 262, 329, 416 Diagne, Blaise, 182, 184, 227, 408, 552 Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman, 183 Diallo, Bakary, 180, 184 Diamant revolt, 493 Dias, Bartolomeu, 27 Dias, Henrique, 184 – 85 Dibobe, Martin, 545 Dickens, Charles, 370 Diocletian (emperor of Rome), 343 Diodorus, 430 Diop, Alioune, 214 Diop, Birago, 324 Dixon, Melvin, 45 Dixon, Willie, 300 Domingo, Placido, 401 Dorkenoo, Efua, 236 Dorsinville, Roger, 262 Douglas, Keith, 24 Douglass, Frederick: as an African American leader, 77, 186 – 88, 439, 481; and Britain, 43, 186, 187; and Ireland, 43, 186, 187, 188, 286, 287 Douglass, Robert, 40 Doyle, Arthur Conan, 158 Drake, Francis, 27 Drugot. See Turgut Reis Duala Manga Bell, Rudolf, 190 – 91 Du Bois, W.E.B., 188–89; African Americans and, 43, 188, 189; communism
and, 189; Pan-Africanism and, 21, 31, 120, 128, 188, 189, 405, 408, 464, 545; studies in Germany, 188; Soviet Union and, 189, 464 Du Chaillu, Paul, 189 – 90 Dumanoir, Philippe, 185 Dumas, Thomas-Alexandre, 191, 193, 195 – 96, 219, 230, 231, 364 Dumas fils, Alexandre, 191 – 92, 194 Dumas père, Alexandre, 191, 192, 193 – 95, 196, 220, 238, 239, 481 Dumouriez, Charles François, 196, 230, 231 Duncanson, Robert Stuart, 40 Duras, Claire de, 401, 402 Dürer, Albrecht, 38, 39, 271, 336 Dutch East India Company, 32, 131, 132, 492 Dutch West India Company, 106, 131, 149, 491 – 92 Dying Negro (poem), 505 Eastern Europe. See Russia Eastern Rebellion. See Bussa Ebony (magazine), 341 Éboué, Félix, 135, 197 – 98 Ecole coloniale, 197 Edmonstone, John, 198 – 99 Edward VI (king of England), 163 Edward VIII (king of England), 199 Egypt: Britain and, 125, 127; race in ancient times, 72, 73, 74 – 75; relations with Soviet Union, 466 Egypteos, Mikhail, 464 Elisabeth I (empress of Russia), 267 Elizabeth I (queen of England): blacks at the court of, 88, 163, 165, 441; expulsion of blacks and, 88, 400, 441; slave trading and, 272, 441, 488 Elizabeth II (queen of England): jazz and, 199; knighting prominent black Britons, 58, 81, 347, 527; possible black ancestry of, 244 Ellington, Duke, 59, 199 – 200, 368, 470 Ellison, Ralph, 45 Emancipation Act, 92, 93, 487 Emancipation Manifesto of 1861, 14, 15 Emidy, Joseph, 200 Encomiendas, 160, 313, 514 English Common Law, slavery and, 3, 89, 200 – 203, 210
589
590
Index Enlightenment: and race, 203 – 6, 220, 476 – 77; and slavery, 67, 206 – 9, 220 Equatorial Africa, 197 Equiano, Olaudah, 5, 89, 170, 209 – 11, 225, 254, 255, 286, 287, 484, 489 – 90, 549 Esteban, 159, 160 Estonia. See Eastern Europe Ethiopia, 534 – 535; Italian invasion of, 465; “promised land” for Africans, 437; relations with Aragon, 512; relations with Soviet Union, 466 Eugene Onegin (novel), 432 Eugenics. See Scientific racism Europe, Mary L., 211 – 12 European Network Against Racism, 562 European Union: efforts to combat female genital mutilation, 236; efforts to combat racism, 562 – 63; and illegal African immigration, 279, 280, 292 Every Generation (Web site), 76, 81 Fall, Aminata Sow, 325 Fanon, Frantz, 112, 154, 213 – 14 Ferrari, Matteo, 293 Fascist Groups. See Right-Wing groups Fashion, blacks and, 80, 81, 105, 106, 392 – 93 Fashoda, 385 Fassbinder, Rainer Werner, 216 Faubert, Pierre, 261 Fauset, Jessie, 44 Feirefiz, 361, 410 – 11 Female genital mutilation in Europe, 236 – 38 Ferdinand I (king of Spain), 310, 511 Ferdinand VII (king of Spain), 220 Fernandez, Wilhelmenia, 215 Fignolé, Jean-Claude, 263 Film, blacks in, 214–17; British, 217, 449; Central European, 216; critical reception, 215; French, 52, 214, 215, 216, 217; German, 71, 80, 216, 217, 379 – 80; silent era, 52, 214 – 15; Swiss, 217 Finland. See Eastern Europe Fischer, Eugen, 378 Fishburne, Laurence, 401 Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 54 Flaubert, Gustave, 334 Follies-Bergère Theater, 52
Football (European): blacks in, 58, 62 – 63, 182, 270, 332 – 33, 547 – 48; racism and, 58, 270, 548 “Football Unites-Racism Divides” campaign, 548 Fort-Whiteman, Lovett, 465 Fortuna, Ignatius, 217 – 18 FORWARD, 236 Foucault, Michel, 186 Fournier de Pescay, François, 220 Foy, Florville, 40 Frampton, Peter, 24 France, Anatole. See also Le chat maigre (novel) France, blacks in, 218–23; abolition of slavery and, 220; as freedmen, 219; colonialism and, 220, 221; Enlightenment and, 206, 207, 208, 209, 220; French Revolution and, 220; jazz and, 221; nineteenth century and, 220, 221; postwar immigration, 221, 222, 280, 339 – 40; regulation of, 219, 220; as slaves, 165, 218, 219; World War II and decolonization, 221 Francia, Mirka, 293 Franciscan monks, 63, 64 Francis I (king of France), 151 Francis II (Holy Roman Emperor), collection of stuffed human corpses, 110, 503 – 4 Francisque, 225, 494 Franco, Francisco, 250, 251, 255, 513, 515, 516 Franco-Prussian War, 40, 133, 382, 528, 529 Franc Zone, 136 Frederick II, 38, 223–24, 273, 274 Frederick III (emperor), 274 Frederick William I (king of Prussia), 164 Free French, 52, 101 – 2, 135, 197, 213, 228, 555 Freemasonry, black participation in, 416, 426, 431, 469, 503 Free Soil Principle, 224–26; in England, 201, 202, 224, 225, 519; in France, 177, 219, 224, 225, 226, 229; in Portugal, 225; in the Netherlands, 225; in Spain, 226; origins of, 224 – 25 French Army: blacks in the, 35, 61, 101, 102, 134, 174, 175, 181, 184, 213, 220, 226 – 29, 267, 350, 351, 482, 552 – 53, 554 – 55;
Index as Nazis prisoner of war, 228, 376 – 77, 378, 380; occupation of Central Europe, 110, 111; occupation of Germany, 67, 68, 227, 241, 284, 378, 380, 443 – 45 French Ministry of Cooperation, 137 French Ministry of the Marine, 178, 229 – 30 French Revolution: abolition of slavery, 5, 9, 61, 110, 114, 154, 220, 230, 253, 258, 283, 328, 402, 494, 502, 505 – 6; blacks in the, 191, 193, 195, 196, 219, 230 – 31, 345, 351, 364, 470; citizenship for blacks, 9, 220, 230, 283, 319, 389, 390, 494, 502 French Society for the Abolition of Slavery, 10, 11 Frobisher, Martin, 27 Fuller, Meta Vaux Warrick, 41 Fulupo, Pedro, 159 Gabon, 493 Gaillard, Robert, 262 Galahad, 360 Gall, Franz Josef, 233 – 34 Galton, Francis, 478 Gama, Vasco de, 27 Gambia, 548 Gandhi, 307 Garcia, Juan, 159, 161 Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 194 Garrick, David, 472 Garrido, Juan, 159, 161, 514 Garrison, Len, 234 – 35 Garvey, Marcus, 43, 287, 334, 408, 437, 545, 551 Gawain, 360 Gaylads, 23 Gelasius I (pope), 418, 419 Genet, Jean, 235 – 36 Genoa, involvement in the slave trade, 495 Gens de couleur, 152, 153, 219, 220, 283, 389, 390, 494 Geoffrey of Monmouth, 456 George II (king of England), 547 George III (king of England), 115, 175, 244 George IV (king of England), 85, 170 George VI (king of England), 199 Georges (novel), 194, 238 – 39 Germany, blacks in, 67, 68, 240 – 43; at courts, 164, 165, 240; German colonialism
and, 240 – 41; postwar era and, 67, 68, 242 – 43; as slaves and freedmen, 240; World War II and, 68, 241 Geta, 454, 456 Getulino. See De Gama, Luis Ghana, 130, 406, 466, 547, 558 – 59. See also Gold Coast Gibraltar, 279, 420, 509, 510, 511 Girodet de Roussy-Trioson, Anne-Louis, 39, 61 Gil, Mourana, 243 – 44 Gilges, Lari, 244 – 45, 380, 546 Gilles, Bernard, 262 Gilroy, Beryl, 245 – 46 Gilroy, Paul, 20, 21 Givenchy, 81 Glasgow race disturbances, 246 – 47 Glissant, Édouard, 112 Glorious Revolution, 396 Gobineau and race, 247 – 48, 378, 528 Goebbels, Joseph, 299, 379, 380, 393, 394 Goethe, 402 Gold Coast, 126, 130, 297, 473 Golden, Lily, 465 Golden, Oliver, 465 Goldie, 25 Gomes, A. Carlos, 249 Gomez, Sebastian, 250, 512, 517 Gorbachev, Mikhail, 466, 509 Gordon, Michael, 24 Goree, 493 Gossett, Louis, Jr., 235 Goytisolo, José, 250, 251 Goytisolo, Juan, 250 – 51 Goytisolo, Luis, 250, 251 – 52 Granada, New, 472, 498 Grant, Bernie, 252 – 53 Grant, Cy, 23 Grant, Eddy, 23 Grant, Madison, 478 Gratton, George Alexander, 50 Greater London Council, 1, 77, 82, 104, 276 Gregor Maurus, 38 Greece, ancient, blacks in, 18, 72, 73, 74, 120 Greenfield, Elizabeth Taylor, 370 Grégoire, Abbé, 9, 10, 170, 253 – 54, 502 Grenada: African control of, 22, 355, 510 – 11; blacks from, 22, 165, 315, 316, 349, 397, 398
591
592
Index Gronniosaw, Ukawsaw, 254 – 55, 549 Grosvenor, Natalia, 268 Guadeloupe, 11, 152, 154, 469, 471, 179, 180 Guillén, Nicolás, 255 – 56, 461, 513 Guiana, 154, 470, 484 Guinea Company, 131 Guyana, 433 – 34, 471, 484; Dutch control of, 131, 491 – 92; slave revolts in, 486 Habsburg royal family, 109, 274, 503, 570 – 71 Haile Selassie I (emperor of Ethiopia), 437 Haiti: abolition of slavery, 258, 505 – 6; delegates to France, 61, 230, 389, 494; French colonial administration in, 151, 152, 154, 530; influence on Negritude, 112, 262, 381; intellectuals in, 461, 462; significance to African Diaspora, 381 Haitian Revolution for Independence, 5, 9, 68 – 70, 115, 152, 154, 239, 257 – 60, 328, 329, 314, 352, 381, 390, 402, 413, 470, 502; in British literature, 296, 449; in Francophone Literature, 99 – 101, 112, 260 – 64, 541, 530; in German literature, 263, 326, 539 – 40; Polish Legions in the, 416 – 17; United States and the, 61, 258, 259 Hale, Nathan, execution of, 445 Haley, Alex, 341 Hall, Stuart, 264 – 65 Ham. See Hamitic myth Hamburg, center for African immigration, 241 Hamburg Colonial Institute, 240 Hamitic Language, 265, 266 Hamitic Myth, 88 – 89, 103, 207, 265 – 66, 313, 320 Hannibal, Abraham, 109, 110, 165, 266 – 68, 431, 463 Harlem Renaissance, 41, 43, 44, 45, 254, 311, 333, 381, 507 Harmon, Harriet, 1 Harper, William, 41 Harrison, William, 224 Hastings, Selina (countess of Huntington), 549 Haussmann, Georges, 340 Haverty, J. J., 522
Hawkins, John, 88, 272, 413, 441, 488 Hayden, Palmer, 41 Haydn, Joseph, 85, 110, 200, 503 Hayes, Rutherford, 188 Haywood, Harry, 516 Heart of Darkness (novella), 158, 171 – 72, 322, 323 Heath, Gordon, 401 Hegel, G.W.F., 203, 206, 476 Hemings, James, 268, 269 Hemings, Sally, 268 – 70 Hemingway, Ernest, 54 Henry, Thierry, 270 Henry III (king of France), 344 Henry VI (emperor), 163, 223, 273 Henry VII (king of England), 163, 440 Henry VIII (king of England), 88, 163, 440 Henry of Burgundy, 419 – 20 Henry the Navigator, Prince, 27, 141, 142, 420 Heraldry, blacks in European, 271 – 72 Herder, Johann Gottfried von, 204, 205 Herzog, Werner, 216, 217 Hewitt, Patricia, 1 Hiawatha’s Wedding Feast (musical composition), 123, 124, 211, 212 Hill, Richard, 272 – 73 Himes, Chester, 44, 45 Hitler, Adolf, 70, 196, 228, 248, 341, 378, 380, 444, 515 Hogarth, William, 171, 172 Holland. See Netherlands, The Holocaust, blacks and the. See Nazis Holt, Lord Chief Justice, 201, 441 Holy Grail, 360, 361, 406, 410, 411 Holy Lance, 343, 344 Holy Roman Empire, black iconography and the, 273 – 75, 367 Hopkins, Anthony, 401 Horton, James, 89, 275 – 76 Hottentot Venus. See Baartman, Saartjie Howbsbawm, Eric, 298 Howe, Andrew, 293 Howells, Rosalind, 276 – 77 Hudson, Henry, 27 Hügel-Marshall, Ika, 277 – 78, 327 Hughes, Langston, 44, 326, 381, 461, 464, 507, 516 Hugo, Victor, 99, 100, 107, 186, 193, 260, 481
Index Hugues, Victor, 180 Hume, David, 33, 203, 205, 208 Hungary. See Central Europe Hunnigale, Peter, 24 Hurston, Zora Neale, 44 Husen, Bayume Mohamed, 380 Île Bourbon. See Réunion Île de France. See Mauritius Immigration to Europe: asylum seekers, 561; illegal African, 221, 279 – 81, 292, 513 Independent Television (ITV), 332, 450 – 51 Independent Television News (ITN), 332, 347 Initiative of blacks in Germany (ISD), 25, 76, 242, 281 – 82, 326, 346, 391 Inner London Education Authority, 234 International African Service Bureau, 405 International Conference of Negro Workers, 545 – 46 International Trade Union Committee of Negro Workers, 405, 546 Interracial marriages, laws banning, 282–86; in England and its colonies, 283 – 84, 285, 400; in France and its colonies, 121, 283, 284, 285; in Germany and its colonies, 241, 284 – 85, 378; in Italy and its colonies, 285; in Spain and its colonies, 283, 284; in the United States, 284, 285 Ireland, 286–88; abolitionists in, 286 – 87; African Americans and, 186, 187, 188, 286, 287; African immigration to, 17, 18, 287, 288; IRA and Pan-Africanism, 287; negative depiction of blacks in, 287 Isabella I (queen of Spain), 309, 511 Islam: in Africa, 127, 140, 141, 168, 183, 291, 355, 485; in Europe, 222, 223, 224, 271, 280, 288, 289, 290, 383, 509 – 12; practitioners used as slaves, 22, 99, 109, 183, 224, 309, 310, 495 – 96 Istanbul, involvement in slave trade, 266 – 67, 495 – 96 Italy, African invasions of, 288–91; early Muslim attacks, 288 – 89; invasions of Sicily and Southern Italy, 223, 289; Sicily under Muslim rule, 223, 273, 289 – 90 Italy, blacks in, 291–93; from African control, 223, 224, 288–90, 291; postwar immigration,
279, 280, 292–93; from Punic Wars, 430; as slaves, 53, 54, 164, 165, 224, 292 Jackson, Colin, 295 – 96 Jackson, Michael, 105, 301, 302 Jacobo, Juan Jorge, 69, 70 Jacobs, Harriet, 42, 43 Jamaica: Rastafarianism and, 437 – 38; slave revolts in, 6, 486 – 87, 490 James, C.L.R., 118, 128, 296 – 97, 405, 449 James I (king of England), 88, 441 James II (king of England), 396, 397 James IV (king of Scotland), 163, 165, 440, 441 James VI (king of Scotland). See James I (king of England) Jaucourt, Louis de, 208 Jazz: African American performers of, 43, 59, 60, 199, 221, 299 – 300; during World War II Europe, 298 – 99; European audiences and, 199, 298; European reception of, 59, 50, 199, 221, 297 – 301, 311, 365, 366, 368, 379, 466, 499; European writings on, 298; influence on European musicians and writers, 23, 174, 300 – 301, 365, 366, 470 – 71 Jean-François, 258, 328 Jefferson, Thomas, 209, 267, 268, 502 Jesus of Nazareth, 77, 79, 271, 313, 335, 343, 360, 406, 410, 419 Jews: blacks and, 21, 95, 104; blamed for prostitution, 428; Nazis and, 282, 285, 378, 393, 394; persecution in France, 121, 253; persecution in Italy, 285; persecution in Spain, 309, 310, 375; Sephardic, 150, 421; xenophobia and, 561 Jim Crow laws, 395, 464 João I (king of Portugal), 19, 141 João II (king of Portugal), 165 João III (king of Portugal), 19, 164 João IV (king of Portugal), 421, 537 João VI (king of Portugal), 421 Jobatey, Cherno, 301 – 2, 346, 524 Johannesson, Albert, 80 John Paul II (pope), 54 Johnson, Linton Kwesi, 24, 302 – 3 Johnson, Samuel, 57, 88 Joliet, Louis, 27
593
594
Index Jones, Claudia, 23, 303 – 4, 386, 387 Jones, James Earl, 235, 401 Jones, Quincy, 106, 300 Joseph, Jean-Claude, 263 Joseph II (Holy Roman Emperor), 110, 503 Journal of Negro History, 76, 77, 551 Juan Guerra de Resa Expedition, 160 Kane, Sheikh Hamidou, 324 Kant, Immanuel, 203, 204 – 5, 206, 476 Kantara, Jeannine, 346 Kelly, Christine, 345, 346 Kenya, colonial economy of, 126 Kenyatta, Jomo, 118, 128, 129, 465 Kidd, William, 414 Kiesbauer, Arabella, 305 – 6 Kincaid, Jamaica, 306 – 7 King, Martin Luther, Jr., 44, 52, 54, 104, 307 – 8, 442, 508 Kingstonians, 23 Kgositsile, Keorapetse, 382 Knights of the round table, 359, 360, 361, 406, 407, 411 Kohl, Helmut, 302 Kongo. See Congo Kwanzaa, 77 Kwela, 23 La Böessière, Texier de, 469 Ladinos, black, 160, 309 – 10, 514 Ladnier, Tommy, 59 Lady of the Camellias (novel), 192 LaFayette, 9, 209 Lafayette Flying Corps, 101 Laine, Cleo, 300, 310 – 11 Lamartine, Alphonse de, 100, 193, 261 Lancelot, 360 Lane, William Henry, 370 Larsen, Nella, 311 – 12 LaSalle, Robert de, 27 Las Casas, Bartolomé de, 313, 538 Laslett, Rhaune, 386, 387 Lateran Palace, 419 Latin America, Slavery and, 155 – 56, 497 – 98 Latin American Revolutions, blacks in, 155, 156, 309, 313 – 15, 412, 413, 514 Latino, Juan, 165, 315 – 16, 397, 512, 517 Laveaux, Etienne-Maynard, 259 Law, Oliver, 516
Laye, Camara, 324 League for the Defense of the Negro Race, 545 – 46 League of Colored Peoples, 118, 162, 354 League of Nations, 138 Le Bon, Gustave, 316 Le Chat maigre (novel), 113 – 14 Leclerc, Charles Victor Emmanuel, 259, 261, 260, 329 Leclerc, Georges-Louis, 207 Ledger, Heath, 448 Le Docteur noir (play), 185 – 86 Leopold II (king of Belgium), 65, 157, 158, 382 Leo X (pope), 22, 165, 424 Lepsius, Karl Friedrich, 266 L’Étudiant noir (journal), 174, 381 Levi, Moses, 363 Levy, Andrea, 316 – 17 Lewis, Edmonia, 41 Lewis, Lennox, 317 – 18 Libya, 429, 430 Lincoln, Abraham, 77 Lincoln Brigade. See Spanish Civil War, blacks in the Linnaeus, Carl, 207, 433, 476, 477 Lion, Jules, 40 Lisbon: African control of, 511; as a slave market, 421; black population of, 145, 159, 165, 312, 421, 496; prominent blacks in, 165, 200, 506 – 7 Lislet-Geoffroy, Jean-Baptiste, 318 – 19 Literature, blacks in British: black writers in, 97 – 98, 171 – 72, 173 – 74, 234, 245 – 46, 302 – 3, 306, 316 – 17, 339, 391 – 92, 411 – 12, 446, 483 – 84; representations of, 319 – 23, 406 – 7 Literature, blacks in Dutch, 359 – 61 Literature, blacks in French: black writers in, 111 – 13, 174 – 75, 191 – 92, 193 – 95, 213 – 14, 235 – 36, 323 – 25, 339, 381, 382, 409, 482, 483; representations of blacks, 99 – 101, 113 – 14, 185 – 86, 238 – 39, 352, 373, 401 – 2, 459 – 60, 528 – 29 Literature, blacks in German and Central European: black writers in, 46 – 47, 326 – 27, 390 – 91; representations of, 263, 326, 410 – 11, 539 – 40, 517 – 18 Literature, blacks in Portuguese, 107 – 8, 172 – 73, 334 – 35
Index Literature, blacks in Russian, 431 – 32 Literature, blacks in Spanish: black writers in, 250, 251, 252, 255 – 56, 381; representation of blacks, 108 – 9, 349 – 50, 512 Lithuania. See Eastern Europe Liverani, Fabio, 293 Liverpool: blacks in, 162; slave trade and, 88, 207 Livingston, David, 385 Livingstone, Ken, 1, 82 Livy, 453 Lloyd, Clive, 332 Locke, Alain LeRoy, 44 Locke, John, 33, 205, 206, 208 Lok, John, 441, 488 London Manifesto, 408 Longinus, 343 Lord Beginner, 23 Lorde, Audre, 278, 281, 326, 390, 391 Lord Kitchener, 23 Lorenzo I de Medici, 347, 348 Lorenzo II de Medici, 347, 348 Loti, Pierre, 459 – 60 Louis XIV (king of France): legislation concerning blacks, 121 – 22, 177, 494; Man in the Iron Mask and, 338; royal court of, 34, 35, 165 Louis XV (king of France), 269, 338 Louis XVI (king of France), 69, 469; legislation on blacks, 220, 494 Louis XVIII (king of France), 10, 175, 220, 402 Louis, Joe, 341, 379 Louisiana. See New Orleans Louisiana Code, 121 Louis-Philippe (king of the French), 122, 133, 193, 194 L’Ouverture, Toussaint: in British literature, 296, 449; in Francophone literature, 100, 261, 262, 263; in German literature, 539 – 40; in the Haitian Revolution, 9, 61, 69, 115, 257, 258, 259, 260, 328 – 30, 506 Louvre Museum, 345 Loving v. Virginia, 285 Lucera, black Muslim population of, 223, 224, 273 Lumumba University, 466, 508 Lynott, Philip, 287
Mabanckou, Alain, 325 Macaulay, Herbert, 127, 128 Macaulay, Thomas, 92 Machado de Assis, Joaquim María, 107, 333 – 34 Machiavelli, Niccolò, 347 – 48 Macrinus, Marcus Opellius, 454, 456, 458 Madagascar, 421, 492, 493 Madonna, 105, 106 Mad Professor, 24 Madrid, 155 Madubuko, Nkechi, 346 Magdeburg Cathedral, 274 Magellan, Ferdinand, 27, 28 Magi: connections to Prester John, 423; in heraldry, 271; representations of the, 38, 274, 335 – 37 Magic Flute (opera), 326, 503 Maginot Line, 228 Maïga, Aïssa, 217 Malcolm X, 44, 173, 308, 337 – 38, 452 Malta: African control of, 290; Barbary pirate attacks on, 415 Mangin, Charles, 226, 227 Man in the Iron Mask, 338 – 39 Man in the Iron Mask (novel), 193 Mansfield, Lord, 60, 89, 202, 225, 504 – 5 Manuel I (king of Portugal), 19, 159, 422, 424 Manumission, 13 Maran, René, 181, 339 Marché Dejean, 280, 339 – 40 Marie Antoinette (queen of France), 469 – 70 Marie-Teresa (queen of France), 165, 338 Marks, Louisa, 24 Marley, Bob, 24, 105 Marquette, Jacques, 27 Martínez, Magdelin, 293 Martinique, 11, 71, 150, 151, 152, 154, 460 Maroons: and Dutch colonies, 491 – 92; and French colonies, 154; immigration to Sierra Leone, 485 Marxism. See Communism Mary I (queen of England), 441 Massaquoi, Hans-Jürgen, 327, 340 – 42, 379 Massive Attack, 25 Matheus, John 342 – 43 Maugée, Aristide, 382 Maupassant, Guy de, 528 – 29
595
596
Index Mauretanians, 355, 430, 453 Maurice, Saint, 38, 274, 343 – 44, 357 Mauritius, 56, 66, 67, 185, 186, 238, 239, 318, 319, 493 Maurus, Johannes, 223, 273 Maximilian I of Habsburg, 274 Maxi Priest, 24 May, Fiona, 293 Maytals, 23 May 10 Holiday, 76, 344 – 45 McCalla, Val, 331 McCartney, Paul, 24 McDonald, Trevor, 332, 347 McGrath, Paul, 332 – 33 McKay, Claude, 44, 287, 334 – 35, 464, 507 Media, blacks in contemporary, 345–47; Britain, 1, 303, 304, 306, 331, 332, 333 – 34, 346 – 47; France, 345 – 46, 460 – 61, 524; Germany, 346, 524; Russia, 465 Medici, Alessandro de, 165, 293, 347 – 49 Melchiades (pope). See Miltiades (pope) Menelik II (emperor of Ethiopia), 139, 140, 464 Meneses, Cristóbol de, 349, 397 Ménil, René, 112 Merida, Juan de, 349 – 50, 512 Métellus, Jean, 263 Métisse (film), 216 Michael, George, 105 Michel, Jean-Louis, 350 – 51 Michelangelo, 349 Middleburg Commercial Company, 491 Middle Passage, 489 – 90 Milan: black performers in, 249, 372; black population of, 54, 175, 292 Mills Brothers, 298 Miltiades (pope), 418, 419 Milton, John, 334 Mirabeau, 9, 209, 502 Mirsky, D. S., 351 – 52 Mirza (short story), 352 Miscegenation laws. See Interracial marriages, Laws banning Missionaries, Christian: black participation as, 106 – 7, 167, 168, 487; in European colonies, 19, 35, 127, 151, 158 – 59, 167, 168, 275, 287, 313, 353, 537 – 38 Mission civilisatrice, 133, 221 Mixed Commissions, 16, 17
Moldova. See Romania Molineaux, Tom, 445 Montagu, Duke of, 472 Montesquieu, 207, 208 Moody, Harold, 118, 354 Mooress of Moret, 338 Moors, 355–56; in ancient times, 355; blamed for prostitution, 428; in Central Europe, 109, 503 – 4; in Eastern Europe, 109, 110, 266, 267; in England, 88, 165, 320, 440 – 41, 455, 456; in European Christmas traditions, 569 – 71; in European literature, 109, 398 – 401, 406 – 7, 410 – 11; in France, 356, 357, 358, 364; in Germany, 240; in Italy, 22, 164, 223, 224, 273, 288 – 90, 291, 356, 357, 358, 430; in Malta, 290; in Portugal, 12, 142, 243, 244, 356, 358, 419 – 20, 421, 422, 423; 511; in Scotland, 163, 164, 165, 440; in Spain, 22, 27, 355, 356, 357, 358, 356, 349, 409, 410, 509 – 11, 512, 530 – 31; origin of term, 355 Moor’s Head Symbol, 356–58; in the Algarve, 356, 358; in Aragon, 356, 357, 358; in Corsica, 356, 357, 358; in Sardinia, 356, 357, 358 Morel, Edmund, 158, 443 Moret Law, 156, 358 – 59 Morien, Romance of (epic poem), 359 – 61 Morgan, Henry, 27, 414 Morocco, 141, 142, 145, 146, 514 – 15 Morris, Bill, 361 – 62 Mortenol, Sosthene, 362 Morton, Samuel, 248, 477 Moscow Friendship University. See Lumumba University Mosley, Oswald, 386 Mountbatten, George, 268 Mozambique, 143, 144, 492, 493, 509; relations with Soviet Union, 466 Mozart, 110, 200, 326, 503 Mpessa, Ludwig Mbebe, 380 Mpundu Akwa, 362 – 64 Mulâtre, Le (novel), 56 Mungo, 32, 90, 108 Murat, Joachim, 364 – 65 Murillo, Bartolomé Esteban, 250 Musée de l’Homme, 50 Music, African Influences on European, 365 – 66, 538 – 39
Index Musicians in Europe, African American Classical, 370 – 72 Music industry, blacks in the, 367–69; in France, 367, 368 – 69; in England, 106, 367 – 68, 369; in Germany, 80, 369; in Italy, 368; in Scandinavia, 368 Muslims. See Islam Mussolini, Benito, 141, 515 Myers, Carlton, 293 The Mysterious Island (novel), 373 Nabo the Moor. See Man in the Iron Mask Nabuco, Joaquim, 107 Nantes, involvement in slave trade, 207, 219, 225, 345, 493 Naples, black king of, 364 Napoleon I: black admiration of, 180, 481; blacks in France and, 175, 193, 195, 196, 283; French Revolution and, 350, 351, 364; Haitian Revolution and, 5, 9, 100, 329, 416; plans for Algeria, 133; reinstatement of French colonial slavery, 7, 8, 61, 154, 180, 220, 230, 253, 259, 260, 283, 329, 402, 506; revolt on Guadeloupe and, 180 Napoleon III: death of heir, 568; seizure of power, 194 Nardal sisters, 154 Naroji, Dadabhai, 31 Nassy, Josef, 375 – 76 National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), 43, 189, 334, 526 National Congress of British West Africa, 127 Nazis: black POWs and, 228, 241, 376 – 77, 378, 380, 482, 555; internment of blacks and, 71, 241, 375, 376, 380, 499; persecution of blacks and black culture, 70, 101, 102, 241, 244, 245, 285, 298, 299, 326, 340, 341, 378 – 79; racial purity and, 282, 378, 379, 393 – 95, 444, 558; sports and, 379, 393 – 95; sterilization of blacks and, 241, 378, 393, 443, 445; use of blacks in films and the circus, 71, 241, 379 – 80 N’Dour, Youssou, 216 Nègre, Le (play), 55, 56 Negrismo movement, 381 Négritude: connections with Harlem Renaissance, 43, 381; connections with
pan-Africanism, 409; criticism of, 325, 382; development of, 181, 323, 324, 339, 381 – 82; founders of, 111 – 13, 174, 262, 323, 381, 482; French intellectuals and, 381, 382; inspiration from Haiti, 381 Netherlands, The: abolition of slavery in, 7, 8; blacks in the, 165, 382 – 84; Christmas traditions of, 569 – 71 Netherlands Antilles, 149, 150 Neto, Agostinho, 144 New Imperialism, 64 – 66, 143, 221, 276, 285, 353, 384 – 86, 462, 463 – 64, 485, 567 – 69 New Orleans, 40, 43, 59, 106, 259, 260, 261, 283, 301, 480, 517 New World. See Age of Exploration Nicholas, Saint: black companions of, 569 – 71; in Germanic holiday traditions, 569; in the Netherlands, 569 – 71 Nicholas I (tsar of Russia), 425, 431 Nicholas II (tsar of Russia), 464 Nicholas V (pope), 420, 422, 496 Nigeria, civil war, 466 Nightingale, Florence, 480 Niño, Pedro Alonso, 159, 160 Nkonde, Mutale, 347 Nkrumah, Kwame, 81, 128, 287, 406, 408, 466 Normans, 223, 273, 290 Northwest Passage, 29 Northwest Ran, 244 Norway. See Scandinavia Notes of a Native Son (novel), 54 Notting Hill Carnival, 23, 119, 148, 303, 304, 331, 386 – 88 Notting Hill riots, 118, 119, 148, 304, 387, 388, 435 Nova Scotia, 4 Numidia, 429, 430, 453, 454 Nuremberg Laws, 282, 285, 378 Nutcracker (story), 194 Ocelot, Michel, 216 O’Connell, Daniel, 187, 287 Ogé, Vincent, 261, 262, 389 – 90, 503 Oguntoye, Katharina, 25, 26, 281, 326, 390 – 91 Okri, Ben, 391 – 92 Olano, Nuflo de, 159, 160
597
598
Index Oldfield, Bruce, 392 – 93 Oliver, Paul, 298 Olivier, Laurence, 401 Olvera, Isabel de, 160 Olympia (film), 394 Olympics of 1936: African American athletes in the, 341, 379, 394 – 95; Nazis and the, 379, 393 – 95 O’Neill, Eugene, 449 Opitz, May. See Ayim, May Oprah Winfrey Show (television show), 305 Organization of African Unity, 409 Oroonoko (novel), 395–97; historical context, 395, 396, 397; plot, 208, 396; stage adaptation, 32, 90, 397, 472 Ortiz, Leonardo, 397 – 98 Osmundsen, Manuela Ramin, 475 Otaviano, Francisco, 107 Othello (play), 398–401; background, 22, 398 – 99; black actors and, 31, 32, 90, 401, 449, 450, 472; inspiration for other works, 39, 55 – 56, 334, 335; operatic adaptation, 401; plot, 399; race of title character, 322, 399 – 400; themes, 321, 398, 400, 401 Ottoman Empire: abolition of slavery in, 8; conflict with Europe, 27, 109, 140, 291, 349, 495; protection of Barbary pirates, 415; slavery and the, 53, 54, 109, 110, 142, 266, 267, 415, 463 Ouologuem, Yambo, 324 Ourika (novel), 401 – 2 Ourika, Charlotte, 402 – 3 Ovando, Nicolas de, 309, 310, 514 Owens, Jesse, 341, 394, 395 Oyono, Ferdinand, 324 Pace University, 253 Padlock, The (play), 32, 90, 108 Padmore, George, 118, 128, 405 – 6, 465, 545 Palamedes, Sir, 406 – 7 Pelayo, 510 Palermo, black patron saint of, 63, 64 Palmer, Lesley, 397 Pamoja, 407 – 8 Pan-African Congress, 31, 36, 117, 128, 157, 189, 406, 408, 409 Pan-African Federation, 117, 157, 405 Pan-African News Agency, 405
Pan-Africanism, 117, 128, 157, 189, 297, 405, 464, 465; intellectual development of, 20, 21, 30, 43, 275, 276, 339, 408 – 9 Pánfilo de Narváez Expedition, 160 Panthéon, 194, 198 Paoli, Pasquale, 358 Paragons, 23 Pardos, 514 Pareja, Juan de, 409 – 10, 512 Paris Jazz Festival, 59 Parlements, slavery and, 177, 219, 224, 225, 494 Paris, African markets in, 340 Parzival (epic poem), 361, 410 – 11 Pasquet, Fabienne, 263 Patterson, Orlando, 149 Paul et Virginie (novel), 56, 67 Pavarotti, Luciano, 401 P. Diddy, 105 Pedro II (emperor of Brazil), 107, 249, 315, 447 Peele, George, 320 Pélage, Magloire, 180 Pena, Afonso, 107 Pétain, Marshall Philippe, 135, 555 Peter I the Great (tsar of Russia), 13, 14, 165, 266, 267, 431 Peter II (tsar of Russia), 267 Pétion, Alexandre, 61, 115 Perceval, 360, 361, 406 Percival. See Perceval Perez, Antonio, 159 Philip III (king of France), 224 Philip II (king of Spain), 130, 349 Philip III (king of Spain), 63 Philip IV (king of Spain), 338, 410 Phillips, Caryl, 411 – 12 Phrenology. See Scientific Racism Physical anthropology. See Scientific Racism Physiognomics. See Scientific Racism Piar, Manuel Carlos, 412 – 13 Pinel. See Dumanoir, Philippe Pirates, blacks and Atlantic, 413 – 14 Pirates, blacks and Mediterranean, 291, 292, 414 – 15 Pitt, David, 104 Pizarro, Francisco, 27 Playboy (magazine), 106, 306
Index Poirot, Hercule, 535 Poland, See also Central Europe Police, The (rock band), 24 Polo, Marco, 27 Pombal, Marquis de, 225 Ponce de León, Juan, 27, 161 Pop music, blacks in contemporary: in Britain, 417; in France, 417 – 18; in Germany, 79, 80, 418; in Ireland, 418; in Scandinavia, 418 Popes, African, 418 – 19 Portugal, blacks in, 419–23; contact with Africa, 19, 141, 142, 143, 158, 159, 165, 420, 421, 422; cultural contributions of, 422 – 23; intermarriage of, 421, 422; slave codes and, 422; slavery and, 142, 143, 163, 164, 165, 420, 421, 422; wars with Moors and, 142, 420 Portugues, Juan, 159 Prague, black African iconography in, 274 Présence Africaine (journal), 43, 44, 214, 323 Prescod, Samuel, 97 Prester John, 39, 274, 411, 423 – 24 Preston, Billy, 301 Prince, 105 Prince Buster, 23 Prince, Mary, 424 – 25 Prince, Nancy, 425 – 26, 463 Prince, Nero, 425 – 26 Princess Tam-Tam (film), 52, 215 Prophet, Nancy Elizabeth, 41 Prostitution in Caribbean and Latin American Colonies, blacks and, 426 – 27 Prostitution in Europe, blacks and, 427 – 29 Prussia. See Germany Puerto Rico: abolition of slavery in, 17, 156, 358, 359; use of slaves in, 17, 155 – 56 Pulvar, Audrey, 345, 346 Punic Wars, 267, 291, 355, 429 – 31, 452 – 53, 454, 509, 511 Pushkin, Alexander, 86, 110, 268, 351, 431 – 32, 462 – 63 Puttkamer, Jesco von, 191, 363 Quadru, Serge, 262 Quakers, abolition of slavery, 2, 4, 92, 208, 490, 500 Quassi, 433
Quassia, 433 – 34 Quay of the Goldsmiths (film), 215 Questing Beast, 406 Race Relations Act, 90, 119, 307 Race riots: in Britain, 82, 90, 117, 118, 119, 148, 246 – 47, 252, 304, 435 –37; in Europe, 242, 282, 436, 466; in France, 222, 228, 345, 346, 436, 442; in Spain, 436, 513 Racial Adjustment Action Society, 119 Raimond, Julien, 61, 230, 470, 503 Raleigh, Walter, 27 Rastafarianism, 24, 234, 302, 437 – 38, 451 Raynal, Abbé, 61, 207, 208, 209 Rayonnement, 133 Reconquista, 27, 28, 356, 365, 421, 530 – 31, 510 – 11, 513 Redmond, Charles Lenox, 287 Reggae, 23, 24, 302, 369, 438 Regis, Cyrille, 58 Regulares, 515 Reinhardt, Django, 298, 471 Remond, Sarah Parker, 438 – 39 Renaissance, blacks and the, 22, 38, 271, 272, 292, 315 – 16, 319 – 22, 347, 348, 349, 397, 439 – 42, 512 Renouvier, Charles, 133 Representative Council of Black Associations (CRAN), 442 – 43 Réunion, 66, 493 Revolutions of 1830, 133, 194 Revolutions of 1848, 11, 110, 194, 503 – 4 Revue des colonies (journal), 71, 72 Revue Nègre, La (theater show), 51, 59, 214 Rhineland blacks, 67, 68, 241, 284, 378, 380, 443 – 45 Rhodes, Cecil, 125 Rhodesia, colonial economy of, 126 Richards, Viv, 332 Richepanse, Antoine, 180 Richmond, Bill, 445 Riefenstahl, Leni, 394 Rigaud, André, 61, 259, 260, 262, 329 Right-Wing groups: in Europe, 561 – 62; xenophobic and racist tendencies of, 561 – 62 Riley, Joan, 446 Rio Branco Law of Free Birth, 13, 447
599
600
Index Ripley, William, 478 Roar (television series), 448 Roaring Lion, 23 Robespierre, 9, 10, 115 Robeson, Paul, 44, 241, 296, 372, 401, 448 – 50, 464, 507, 516 Robin Hood legend, blacks in the, 450 – 52 Rochambeau, Donatien, 259 – 60 Rochefoucauld, Dominique de la, 502 Rocksteady, 23 Rodney, Walter, 149 Rollet Museum, 234 Roma, 378, 393, 428 Roman Army, Africans in the, 291, 343, 452 – 54, 509, 511 Roman d’un spahi (novel), 459 – 60 Roman Emperors, African, 291, 454 – 57, 458 Romania. See Eastern Europe Rome, Ancient, in Africa, 291, 355, 454, 457 – 59, 524 – 25 Roosevelt, Franklin D., 128 Rose, George, 94 Roselmack, Harry, 345, 346, 460 – 61, 524 Rossini, 249 Rouch, Jean, 215 Roumain, Jacques, 461 – 62 Rousseau, 67, 208 Royal African Company, 125, 208 Royal Niger Company, 125 Royal Pragmatic, 283 Ruiz, Miguel, 159 Russia, blacks in, 462–67; years after 1945, 465 – 67; years before 1900, 165, 462 – 64; years 1900 – 1945, 464 – 56 Russian Revolution, 189, 246, 296, 297, 351, 464, 507 Sabac el Cher, Gustav, 240 Sabuni, Nyamko, 475 Saint Domingue. See Haiti Saint-Georges, Le Chevalier de, 196, 219, 220, 230, 231, 350, 469 – 70 Saint-Lambert, François de, 207, 208, 209, 352 Saint Lucia, 541 Saladin, 271 Salazar, António de, 144 Salieri, Antonio, 326 Salvador, Henri, 300, 470 – 71
Sambo, William, 240 Samkange, Thompson, 129 Sam Wooding Orchestra, 241 Sancho, Ignatius, 88, 254, 471 – 73 Sansom, Philip, 500 Santa Claus. See Nicholas, Saint São Tomé and Príncipe, 143, 496 Sa Panasco, João de, 165 Sarbah, John Mensah, 89, 473 – 74 Sartre, Jean-Paul, 214, 235, 298, 382, 557, 558 Savile Row, 80, 81 Scandinavia, 474–76; abolition of slavery in, 7; African American celebrities and, 559; African colonization and, 474 – 475; African missionary work and, 474; blacks in Denmark, 312, 475; blacks in Norway, 475; blacks in Sweden, 475; identification of blacks in, 474; slavery and, 474 Schmeling, Max, 341, 379 Schoelcher, Victor, 10, 11, 72, 494 School of Friendship, 242 Schultz, Dagmar, 25, 26, 278, 281, 326, 390 – 91 Scientific racism, 476–78; craniometry and physical anthropology, 50, 233, 234, 477; early scientific theories of race, 204, 205, 206, 207, 476 – 77; Eugenics, 284, 477 – 78; psychology, 316; racial categories and hierarchies, 94, 234, 247 – 48, 478, 528 Scotland, Patricia, 277, 479 Scotland and slavery, 7, 89, 505 Scott, Dred, 226 Scott, William Eduoard, 41 Scottsboro Boys, 508 Scramble for Africa. See New Imperialism Seacole, Mary, 479 – 80 Sebastian (king of Portugal), 142 Sebbo, Akyaaba Addai, 77 Secrets and Lies (film), 217 Se´jour, Victor, 43, 480 – 81 Sembène, Ousmane, 215, 324 Senegal, 135, 182, 482 – 83 Senegal Company, 493 Senghor, Léopold Sédar, 112, 172, 323, 381, 382, 482 – 83 Septimus Severus, 419, 454 – 56, 458 Sesnado, Don, 421 Seville: African control of, 510 – 11; black slaves in, 161, 164, 250, 309, 409
Index Shakespeare, 90, 439, 525; works of, 31, 320, 321, 322, 323, 334, 335, 481, 483, 399 – 401 Shakespeare’s sonnets, dark lady of, 483 Sharp, Granville, 2, 3, 4, 5, 203, 209, 210, 490, 500, 519 Sharpe, Samuel, 6, 487 Sheba, Queen of, 38, 423 Shinebourne, Janice, 483 – 84 Sicily. See Italy Sierra Leone: abolitionist project, 5, 89, 170, 210, 484; British base to suppress slave trade, 16, 485; as a British colony, 75, 275, 485; maroons from Jamaica and, 485; resettlement for American blacks, 75, 170, 353, 408, 484 – 85 Silk Road, 27 Sinn Féin, 18, 287 Sinterklaas. See Nicholas, Saint Siren of the Tropics (film), 52 Sissle, Noble, 59 Size, Roni, 25 Ska, 23, 369 Slave revolts in the British Caribbean, 6, 485 – 87, 490; Baptist War or Christmas Rebellion, 6, 486 – 87, 490; Bussa or Easter Rebellion, 486, 490; Demerara Rebellion, 486; Morant Bay Rebellion, 487; Samuel Sharpe and, 487 Slavery Abolition Act, 6, 550 Slave trade, British, 487–91; based on racial distinctions, 489; beginnings of the, 88, 487, 488; triangular trade, 2, 88, 488; social disruption that followed, 489; view of British monarchs and the, 488 Slave trade, Dutch, 32, 106, 491 – 92 Slave trade, French, 493–95; beginnings of the, 218, 219, 493; British pressure on France to end the, 220, 494, 502; French cities involved in the, 219, 493; French Revolution and the, 154, 220, 121, 494; need for slaves, 121, 151, 152, 219, 257, 493; regulations for slavery, 153, 219, 493; revolts on slave ships, 493 Slave trade, Italian: ancient era, 495; early modern era, 496; medieval era, 495 – 96 Slave trade, Portuguese: destination for slaves, 116, 143, 488, 496 – 97; European pressure to abolish the, 7, 64, 65, 116, 497;
maintaining the, 64, 65, 497; structure of the, 496 – 97; use of Muslim slaves, 420 Slave trade, Spanish, 497–99; commercial control of, 16, 498; destination of slaves, 16, 116, 497 – 98, 512; European and American pressure to abolish the, 7, 16, 17, 116; legislation of, 498; need for slaves, 16, 313, 498; royal control of, 498 Slave Trade Act, 5, 89, 500, 501, 550 Slovakia. See Central Europe Small, Millie, 23 Smith, Adam, 149, 208 Smith, Bessie, 59 Smith, William Gardner, 44 Snow, Noah, 346 Snow, Valaida, 380, 499 – 500 Soccer. See Football (European) Social Darwinism, 284, 385 Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, 5, 92, 490, 500 – 502 Society of the Friends of the Blacks, 9, 10, 209, 253, 494, 502 – 3, 505 Solanke, Ladipo, 118 Soliman, Angelo, 110, 240, 254, 503 – 4 Solomon, Job Ben. See Diallo, Ayuba Suleiman Somerset, James. See Somerset Case Somerset Case, 3, 201, 202, 225, 504 – 5 Sons of Africa, 170 Sonthonax, Léger Félicité, 9, 258, 259, 505 – 6 Soto, Catalina de, 397 Soto, Hernando de, 27 Soul II Soul, 25 Sousa Martins, José Thomás de, 506 – 7 South Africa, 409, 567, 568 Southerne, Thomas, 397 Soviet Union, blacks and the, 86, 111, 432, 449, 507 – 9 Spain, African Invasions of, 355, 509 – 12 Spain, blacks in, 511–13; African colonies, 512; ancient era, 511; former slaves, 164, 165, 512; Latin America, 512; Muslim influence of, 511 – 12; postwar immigration, 279, 280, 513; racial unrest, 513 Spanish Army, blacks in the, 69, 70, 156, 159 – 61, 258, 328, 512, 513 – 15
601
602
Index Spanish Civil War, blacks in the, 250, 251, 255, 449, 513, 515 – 16 Spence, Thomas, 175, 544 Spencer, Lady Diana, 392 Spice Girls, 369 Spiralist movement, 263 Spratlin, Valaurez Burwell, 517 Spurzheim, Johann, 233 Staël, Madame de, 10, 352 Stalin, Joseph, 296, 297 “Stand Up Speak Up” campaign, 270 Stanley, Henry Morton, 157, 385 Star Chamber, 201, 224 Stein, Gertrude, 54 Stephen I (king of Hungary), 7 Sterne, Laurence, 472 Storm, Theodor, 517 – 18 Stowe, Harriet Beecher. See Uncle Tom’s Cabin (novel) Strong, Jonathan, 2, 3, 519 – 20 Sue, Eugène, 100 Suez Canal, 125, 385 Surinam or Suriname. See Guyana Surrealism, 112, 174, 381, 382 Swan (novel), 106 Sweden. See Scandinavia Sweet Movie (film), 216 Symarip, 23 Talbot, Charles, 201, 225 Tam’si, Tchicaya U, 324 Tancred of Lecce, 223 Tanganyika, colonial economy of, 126 Tanner, Henry Ossawa, 41, 521 – 22 Taormina, stand against African invaders, 289 Television, blacks in: Austria, 305; Britain, 450 – 52, 522 – 23; European, 522 – 24; France, 460 – 61, 471, 523 – 24; Germany, 79, 80, 301, 302, 305, 524; Italy, 471; Russia, 465 Tella, Sylvia, 24 Terentius Afer, 524 – 25 Terrell, Mary Church, 77, 525 – 26 Tertullian of Carthage, 458 – 59 Thatcher, Margaret, 252, 302 Theban Legion, 343 Thésée, Lucy, 324
Thiam, Awa, 236 Thin Lizzy (music group). See Lynott, Philip Thompson, Daley, 526 – 27 Three Degrees, 80 Three Musketeers (novel), 191, 193, 239, 481 Tirailleurs sénégalais. See French Army Tocqueville, Alexis de, 527 – 28 Togo, 137, 138, 545 – 46 Toledo, African control of, 355, 509 – 11 Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, 102 Tombouctou (short story), 528 – 29 Toomer, Jean, 44 Toral, Sebastián, 159, 161 Tosquelles, François de, 213 Touadi, Jean-Leonard, Tours, Battle of, 355, 510 Toxi (film), 242 Traviata, La (opera), 192 Treaty of Ryswick, 151, 155 Treaty of Tordesillas, 28, 130, 142 Treaty of Utrecht, 488 Treaty of Versailles, 189, 408, 443 Tristan and Isolde (epic), 406, 407 Tropiques (journal), 112, 382 Trotskyist movement, 296, 297 Trouillot, Hénock, 530 Troyes, Chrétien de, 361 Tucher Brewery, 272 Turgut Reis, 415 Turkey. See Ottoman Empire Turquia, Nugaymath, 530 – 31 Tuskegee Airmen, 531 – 32, 556 Tyson, Cicely, 235 Uncle Tom’s Cabin (novel): in Britain, 397, 533 – 34; in Central Europe, 110; in Russia, 463 United Nations, 141 Usher, 105 Ustinov, Peter, 534 – 35 Vacher de Lapouge, Georges, 477 – 78 Valencia: African control of, 511; black slaves in, 309 Valiente, Juan, 159, 160, 161, 514 Valiente Negro de Flandes, El (novel), 349, 350 Vanilla Ice, 106 Vassa, Gustavus. See Equiano, Olaudah
Index Vause, Anthonie, 163 Velázquez, Diego, 39, 409, 410 Vendée, 196, 231 Venice, involvement in slave trade, 53, 54, 495 Verdi, 29, 30, 192, 249, 401 Verne, Jules, 373 Vernon, Patrick, 76 Verona, black African iconography in, 274 Verrazzano, Giovanni da, 27, 29 Vespucci, Amerigo, 27 Vian, Boris, 298 Vicaire des Ardennes, Le (novel), 56 Vichy government, 135, 221, 555 Victor Emmanuel II (king of Italy), 249 Victor I (pope), 418, 419 Victoria (queen of England), 168 Vieira, António, 421, 537 – 38 Vienna, black population of, 111 Villa-Lobos, Heitor, 538 – 39 Voice, The (journal), 331 Voltaire, 206, 207, 208 Von Kleist, Heinrich, 263, 326, 539 – 40 Vulgate Cycle, 361 Wagner, Richard, 248 Walachia. See Romania Walcott, Derek, 541 – 42 Walker, Annie, 41 Walker, David, 21 Warburg, Eugene, 40 Waring, Laura Wheeler, 41 Washington, Booker T., 333 Washington, George, 4, 549 Waterloo, Battle of, blacks in the, 94 Waters, Billy, 542 – 43 Watson, Andrew, 548 Wedderburn, Robert, 543 – 44 Wedderburn case, 505 Wedgwood, Josiah, 4 Weimar Republic: African activists in the, 241, 544 – 46; African immigration during the, 241; rhetoric of racial purity, 67 – 68, 444 Welles, Orson, 401 Wells, Nathaniel, 546 – 47 West African Students’ Union, 117, 118, 128 West India Company, 151, 493
West Indian Gazette (newspaper), 303, 304, 346 West Indian National Party, 104 Westminster Tournament Roll, 163 Wharton, Arthur, 547 – 48 Wheatley, Phillis, 42, 103, 254, 548 – 49 While, Willard, 401 Wiedenroth-Coulibaly, Eleonore, 281, 282 Wilberforce, William, 2, 5, 6, 92, 209, 490, 501, 550 William of Orange, 6, 396, 397 Williams, Clarence, 59 Williams, George Washington, 157 Williams, Sylvester, 31, 36, 157, 408 William II (Kaiser of Germany), 87 Wilson, William, 94 Windrush, H.M.S., 317 Woodruff, Hale, 41 Woodson, Carter G., 76, 250, 551 World War I: American forces and blacks during, 101, 553; black participation in, 101, 551 – 54; British forces and blacks during, 90, 95, 117, 127, 128, 285, 310, 553 – 54; French forces and blacks during, 67, 68, 101, 134, 180, 182, 184, 221, 227, 284, 285, 362, 552 – 53; German forces and blacks during, 70; Red Cross and blacks during, 522 World War II: American forces and blacks during, 67, 68, 118, 241, 326, 531 – 532, 555 – 56; black participation in, 52, 90, 101, 102, 128, 535, 554 – 56; French forces and blacks during, 68, 101, 102, 135, 174, 228, 376, 377, 482, 554 – 55 Wright, Richard, 44, 45, 54, 221, 381, 557 – 59 Wunderman, Severin, 376 Xenophobia: and blacks in Europe, 117, 242, 561 – 63; and Jews in Europe, 561; and Roma in Europe, 561 Yeats, William Butler, 22 Yorke, Philip, 201, 202, 225 Yorke-Talbot ruling, 519 Young, Robert, 21, 37 Young Africans in Norway (AYIN), 475, 565 Young Nigerian National Democratic Party, 127, 128
603
604
Index Zaragoza, African control of, 510 Ziegfeld’s Follies, 52 Ziméo (novel), 352 Zola, Emile, 334 Zong incident, 4, 202, 203 Zoos, human, 49, 50, 110 Zouk, 418
Zou-Zou (film), 52, 215 Zululand, 567 Zulu War, 567 – 69 Zwarte Piet, 569–71; African origin of, 570; contemporary Dutch celebrations, 571; depictions of, 569 – 70; Germanic holiday traditions and, 569
About the Editor and Contributors
EDITOR Eric Martone is instructor of history in the School of Professional Development at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and a history teacher at John F. Kennedy High School in Waterbury, Connecticut. He has a master’s degree in global history from Iona College, a master’s degree in European history from Western Connecticut State University, and is currently a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He has published articles on European history, essays on teaching methods, and numerous articles for historical references. CONTRIBUTORS Adebusuyi Isaac Adeniran teaches in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. He is finishing his doctorate in sociology. Mary Afolabi Adeolu holds a master’s degree in history from the University of Ibadan in Nigeria. Lena Ahlin has a doctorate in English from Lund University in Sweden. Ahlin’s dissertation dealt with the representations of Europe in African American literature, particularly in the works of James Weldon Johnson, Jessie Fauset, and Nella Larsen. Ahlin’s research interests include the role of “race” in Swedish modernity. Robbie Aitken is a research fellow in the German Department at the University of Liverpool in England.
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About the Editor and Contributors William H. Alexander is professor of history at Norfolk State University. He specializes in modern European intellectual and cultural history, and comparative world history. Lena Ampadu is associate professor of English at Towson University, where she directs the African and African American Studies program. Her research focuses on comparative traditions of the literature of women of African descent. Sara Scott Armengot is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Pennsylvania State University. Her area of specialization is Inter-American literature. Saër Maty Bâ is research fellow at the National Institute for Excellence in the Creative Industries, Bangor University (UK). His research interests blur boundaries between film, media, cultural studies, and black Diaspora studies. He has a particular interest in the visual and sonic cultures of the “Black Atlantic,” primarily Francophone Africa, the Francophone Caribbean, France, Britain, and the United States. Charlotte Baker is a lecturer at Lancaster University in England. Her research interests center broadly on twentieth-century French and Francophone African fictional writing. Thomas Balcerski is a graduate student in the Department of History at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Laëtitia Baltz is a doctoral candidate at the Bordeaux Institute of Political Studies in France specializing on the links between politics, culture, and human rights; identity; and Africans and blacks. Marianne Bechhaus-Gerst is professor of African Studies at the University of Cologne in Germany specializing in the history of Africans in Germany, German colonial history, and the images of Africa and Africans in German popular culture. Her books include Treu bis in den Tod. Von Deutsch-Ostafrika nach Sachsenhausen–eine Lebensgeschichte (2007), Koloniale und postkoloniale Konstruktionen von Afrika und Menschen afrikanischer Herkunft in der deutschen Alltagskultur (coauthor, 2006), AfrikanerInnen in Deutschland und schwarze Deutsche–Geschichte und Gegenwart (coauthor, 2004), and Die (koloniale) Begegnung. AfrikanerInnen in Deutschland 1880–1945—Deutsche in Afrika 1880–1918 (coauthor, 2003). Gábor Berczeli is a doctoral candidate in Budapest, Hungary. Brett A. Berliner is associate professor of history at Morgan State University. He has written on the reception of black Africans in France in the 1920s and the rejuvenation movement. Amanda Bidnall is a doctoral candidate at Boston College. She focuses on modern British and imperial history, in particular the cultural politics of Caribbean artists in postwar England. Allison Blakely is professor of European and comparative history and the George and Joyce Wein Professor of African American Studies at Boston University. His publications
About the Editor and Contributors include Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought (1986) and Blacks in the Dutch World: The Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society (1994). Jennifer Westmoreland Bouchard is a doctoral candidate in the Department of French and Francophone Studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. Pierre H. Boulle is professor of history (post-retirement) at McGill University in Canada. He is the author of numerous articles on colonial commerce, the slave trade, slavery, and race, principally in France in the early modern period. His books include Esclavage et Race dans la France d’Ancien Régime (2007). Tristan Cabello is a doctoral candidate in history at Northwestern University and in American studies at the Universite Denis Diderot—Paris VII. His research and publications focus mainly on the history of gay communities in the United States and Europe. Marcia Chatelain is Reach for Excellence assistant professor of Honors and AfricanAmerican Studies at the University of Oklahoma Honors College. Augusto Ciuffo is a professional journalist, filmmaker, and academic. His main areas of research are African and Brazilian cinemas, race relations, urban slave riots, and ethnicity and Diaspora issues. Mark Cordery is a student at Central Connecticut State University in New Britain. His research interests include ancient Greece and Rome, and sports history. Robert A. Cordery is research fellow at Pitney Bowes Inc. Prior to joining Pitney Bowes, he earned a doctorate in physics from the University of Toronto and held teaching positions at Rutgers University and Northeastern University. He has published numerous academic articles and has over 100 patents. Justin Corfield teaches history and international relations at Geelong Grammar School in Australia. He has authored numerous books on aspects of colonial history. John M. Cox is assistant professor of European History at Florida Gulf Coast University. His research and teaching interests include the Holocaust, fascism and antifascism, and social and working-class history. Rosemary F. Crockett, the daughter of an original Tuskegee Airman, graduated from Harvard University after a career as a foreign service officer. Tommy J. Curry is a doctoral candidate in philosophy at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale. His areas of interest include critical race theory and Africana philosophy. Holger Drössler is currently finishing his graduate studies at the Ludwig-MaximiliansUniversity in Munich, Germany. His thesis analyzes West German discourse on AfroGerman “occupation children” between 1945 and 1960 from a trans-Atlantic perspective. Anene Ejikeme teaches history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. Allyson Nadia Field is completing a doctoral degree in comparative literature at Harvard University. Her research focuses on race and representation in cinema.
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About the Editor and Contributors Gérard Gengembre is professor of French literature at the University of Caen in Normandy, France specializing in nineteenth-century studies. He has published numerous articles and books, including La Contre-Révolution ou l’Histoire désespérante (1989), Balzac: Le Napoléon des lettres (1992), Le Romantisme en France et en Europe (2003), and Napoleon: The Immortal Emperor (2003). Katharina Gerund is a doctoral fellow in American studies at Bremen University in Germany. Her dissertation project deals with the German reception of African American women’s cultural production and the trans-Atlantic exchanges involved. Gretchen Holbrook Gerzina is Kathe Tappe Vernon Professor in Biography and chair of the Department of English at Dartmouth College. She has published several books and articles on blacks in England and in English literature, including Black London (1997) and Black Victorians/Black Victoriana (editor, 2003). Her most recent book, Mr. and Mrs. Prince (2008), focuses on the life of Mary T. Prince, the first African American poet, and her husband. Rachel Gillett is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Northeastern University. Her dissertation examines the intersection between jazz, race, and gender in interwar Paris. Nadine Golly is teaching and working on a doctoral project at the Justus-LiebigUniversity in Giessen, Germany, on the emigration of Afro-German children to Denmark. Golly’s research interests are blackness and critical whiteness, racism, (post)colonialism, migration, cultural politics, resistance, biographies, and memory in the context of black Diaspora in Europe (particularly Denmark, Sweden, and Germany). Annette Gordon-Reed is professor of law at New York Law School and professor of history at Rutgers University. Her publications include Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings: An American Controversy (1997) and Race on Trial: Law and Justice in American History (editor, 2002). James B. Haile is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Memphis. His research has engaged the intersection of black American existential thought and Continental existential thought, and a project that situates Ralph Ellison as a black American existentialist thinker and positions Invisible Man in conversation with traditional existentialist thought. Mark Hanna is assistant professor of early American history at the University of California at San Diego. His dissertation, entitled “The Pirate Nest: The Impact of Piracy on Newport, Rhode Island and Charles Town, South Carolina, 1670–1740,” explains why piracy was actively supported by maritime communities on the periphery of European empires. Jennifer Heuer is assistant professor of history at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. Her research interests include modern France, Europe, and gender history. She is the author of The Family and the Nation: Gender and Citizenship in Revolutionary France (2005).
About the Editor and Contributors Lawrence F. Hundersmarck is Edward J. Mortola Scholar and professor of philosophy and religious studies at Pace University in Pleasantville, New York. He has published on a wide range of topics about the history of Christianity. Dawn P. Hutchins is an independent scholar. Her research areas include the history of the family unit and Native American history, specifically focusing on southeastern tribes and gender roles. Deborah Janson is associate professor of German in the Department of Foreign Languages at West Virginia University. Her scholarly interests focus on post-Wende and GDR literature, including the theme of national and personal identity in works by minority and East German writers. In addition to publications in these areas, she has written about the literature of the German Enlightenment and Romantic periods. Jeannette Eileen Jones is assistant professor of history and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska at Lincoln and the Deutsche Bank Junior Scholar-in-Residence Fellow at the Heidelberg Center for American Studies at the University of Heidelberg in Germany. S. Marina Jones is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Her research interests include modern European and gender history, the African Diaspora, and race relations. Joyce A. Kannan is an independent researcher in London, England. She has a doctorate in history from the University of London and has taught courses on African history. Paul H. D. Kaplan is professor of art history in the School of Humanities at the State University of New York, Purchase College. He is the author of The Rise of the Black Magus in Western Art (1985) and many essays on Africans in European art. Miranda Kaufmann is a doctoral student at Christ’s Church, Oxford studying Africans in Britain, 1500–1640. Bénédicte Laberge is a student at the Polyvalente de Charlesbourg in Quebec City. Yves Laberge is a cultural historian. The author of numerous scholarly articles, he is the associate French editor for the journal Canadian Ethnic Studies/Études ethniques au Canada and the series editor for the book series “L’espace public” and “Cinéma et société” at the Presses de l’Université Laval, Québec City. Christine Levecq is assistant professor in the humanities at Kettering University. She specializes in African American and African Diaspora literatures. She is the author of Slavery and Sentiment: The Politics of Feeling in Black Atlantic Antislavery Writing, 1770–1850 (2008). Tobe Levin teaches at the University of Maryland University College, Europe and at the University of Frankfurt. She serves as editor-in-chief of Feminist Europa and has translated Fadumo Korn’s Born in the Big Rains: A Memoir of Somalia and Survival (2006).
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About the Editor and Contributors Karen A. Macfarlane is an independent scholar. Her doctoral dissertation at York University in Canada illuminated ethnic minorities and criminal justice in eighteenthcentury London. Thomas Martin teaches history at Shippensburg University. His research has dealt with Renaissance humanism and its mutations when applied to the problem of Ireland in the sixteenth century. Nicole Martone teaches composition and developmental writing at Naugatuck Valley Community College and English at John F. Kennedy High School, both in Waterbury, Connecticut. Her research interests include Shakespeare, the Renaissance, and ancient Greek literature. Maxim Matusevich teaches in the Department of History at Seton Hall University. His books include No Easy Row for a Russian Hoe: Ideology and Pragmatism in Nigerian-Soviet Relations, 1960–1991 (2003) and Africa in Russia, Russia in Africa: Three Centuries of Encounters (editor, 2006). Alexander Mikaberidze teaches European history at Louisiana State University at Shreveport. His publications include the Russian Officer Corps in the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, 1792–1815 (2004), The Czar’s General: The Memoirs of a Russian General in the Napoleonic Wars (2005), Historical Dictionary of Georgia (2007), and The Battle of Borodino: Napoleon versus Kutuzov (2007). Patit Paban Mishra is professor of history at Sambalpur University in India specializing in world history with particular reference to South Asian and Southeast Asian history. E. Agateno Mosca is an independent scholar living in Connecticut. His main areas of research include Italian history and the history of Christianity. Laura Murphy is a doctoral candidate in the Department of African and African American Studies at Harvard University. She is writing a dissertation on representations of the trans-Atlantic slave trade in West African literature. Robert Nave is a social studies teacher at Terryville High School in Connecticut. Ayokunle Olumuyiwa Omobowale teaches sociology at the University of Lagos in Nigeria. He has a special interest in the areas of development, political, rural, and medical sociology. Sue Peabody is professor of history at Washington State University at Vancouver. Her research interests include France and modern European colonialism from 1450 to 1800. Her publications include There are No Slaves in France: The Political Culture of Race and Slavery in the Ancient Regime (1996), The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France (co-editor, 2003), and Slavery, Freedom and the Law in the Atlantic World: A Brief History with Documents (co-editor, 2007). She is currently working on a book entitled Free Soil: Slavery, Freedom, Statehood and the Law in the Atlantic World and is president of the French Colonial Historical Society.
About the Editor and Contributors Mark Anthony Phelps is a doctoral candidate at the University of Arkansas, where he is finishing his dissertation in ancient Mediterranean history. Heike Raphael-Hernandez is professor of English at the University of Maryland University College, Europe. Her books include Blackening Europe: The African American Presence (editor, 2003), AfroAsian Encounters: Culture, History, Politics (co-editor, 2006), and The Construction of a Utopian Aesthetic for African-American Literature: Ernst Bloch’s Principle of Hope and Contemporary African-American Women Authors (2008). Joshua M. Rice is a graduate student at the University of Nebraska at Kearney. His research centers on the cultural aspects of Native American and European relations via Christian missions. Cambridge Sena Ridley specializes in urban studies of Paris and New York in the midnineteenth century. Kristen Roupenian is a doctoral student in English literature at Harvard University. Her work focuses on the politics of language choice in East African fiction. Raffael Scheck is associate professor and chair of the Department of History at Colby College. His publications include many articles and books on German right-wing politics, including Hitler’s Black Victims: The German Army Massacres of Black French Soldiers in 1940 (2006). Alyssa Goldstein Sepinwall is associate professor of History at California State University at San Marcos. A specialist in French history, she is the author of The Abbé Grégoire and the French Revolution: The Making of Modern Universalism (2005). Maryam Sharron Muhammad Shabazz is a doctoral student at Howard University. Her research focuses on Afro-Asian communities. Kenneth L. Shonk, Jr. is a doctoral candidate in the Department of History at Marquette University specializing in modern European history, with a geographic emphasis on Ireland and a thematic emphasis on nationalism, gender, and intellectual history. Donna Smith is associate professor of library services at W. Frank Steely Library of Northern Kentucky University in Highland Heights, where she is the assistant head of technical services. Dorsía Smith teaches English at the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras. Her primary interests include Caribbean and African American literature. Jessica Callaway Smolin is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University and specializes in nineteenth- and twentieth-century Brazilian and American literature. Her research focuses on the literature of the Brazilian abolitionist movement. Ruth Starkman is professor of philosophy and comparative literature at the University of San Francisco. She has published on Germany, German philosophy, race relations and ethics, and Riefenstahl and the 1936 Olympics.
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About the Editor and Contributors Tyler Edward Stovall is professor of history at the University of California at Berkeley. His research interests are twentieth-century France and the history of race. His books include Paris Noir: African Americans in the City of Light (1996), The Color of Liberty: Histories of Race in France (co-editor, 2003), French Civilization and Its Discontents: Nationalism, Colonialism, Race (co-editor, 2003), and Josephine Baker: Image and Icon (co-author, 2006). Charlotte Szilágyi is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Comparative Literature at Harvard University. Her dissertation focuses on frame narratives and otherness in nineteenth- and twentieth-century German, Jewish-American, and African American literature. Ayanna Thompson is assistant professor of English and Women and Gender Studies at Arizona State University. She specializes in depictions of race in the Renaissance. Her books include Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance (editor, 2006) and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage (2007). Kira Thurman is a doctoral candidate in modern European history at the University of Rochester. Her studies focus on German cultural history in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Ayotunde Titilayo teaches population and research methodology courses at Obafemi Awolowo University in Nigeria. His interests are in qualitative research methods with a bias in child and maternal health, social epidemiological research relating to adolescents’ sexual health, and population development. Teruyuki Tsuji is a visiting professor at Nova Southeastern University. His research has focused on transnational identity construction and its relations with religious practices in both contexts of the Caribbean and of West Indian migrant communities in South Florida. Hanna Wallinger is associate professor of American Studies at Salzburg University in Austria. She is author of Pauline E. Hopkins: A Literary Biography (2005), Transitions: Race, Culture, and the Dynamics of Race (editor, 2006), Critical Voicings of Black Liberation in the Americas (co-editor, 2003), Daughters of Restlessness: Women’s Literature at the End of the Millennium (1998), as well as numerous articles. Her main fields of research include African American studies and women’s studies. Tim J. Watts is the subject librarian for history at Hale Library, Kansas State University. His research interests include early modern and modern European history, military history, and popular perceptions of libraries and librarians. Richardine G. Woodall teaches at York University in Canada. Her research interests are the literatures of the English Renaissance, particularly Shakespearean drama. Arising out of her interests in postcolonial and feminist studies, her research frequently focuses on the overlap of race and gender in literary texts.