Kallistrate

creolesoul:

A History of Black people in Europe

It is generally known that black people have been residing in European countries since the early colonial times. But even before the 15th century and during Roman times, a time when colour of skin still wasn’t a racist stigma but just another physical feature, black people lived in Europe. Remains of a man with black African features were found in England recently, dating his life back to the 13th century. Read this article for more info.

Besides that, facts have been found of black people living in different parts of Europe, although I don’t want to overstate their presence or influence. But it is generally known that during the Muslim era of the Iberian Peninsula (from the 8th century AD until the 15th century AD) people with dark skin were part of daily live. The Muslims who invaded Spain and Portugal around 700 AD were a mixture of black and dark people from North-Africa. They were often referred to as Maures, wrote about and painted, way before the dehumanization of black people started. 

I added above Jan Mostaert’s portrait of a nobleman, guest of the Queen of Austria. This painting dates back to the early 1500’s in what we now call Belgium, then part of the Duchy of Brabant. There is no doubt this man has African roots while being a respected member of European culture. We can only guess that this man is of Maure origin, i.e. a Muslim having converted to Christianity or even the second or third generation of converts. 

Below I will go deeper into the subject. I will give you some internet links, book references and a list of early Europeans of African descent, each time linked to their wiki page. If you know more about the subject I invite you to add information in a comment.


Al Andalus

Many blacks who were Muslims converted to Christianity after the emirate ofAl Andalus was abolished (end of 15th century). But the Reconquista took centuries (8th-15th century) and during those times black people gradually integrated the Christian and Northern European world. Among them were noble men and scholars. The negative image of blacks, as natural slaves, only gained prominence in the 18th century when the transatlantic slave trade became a central piece of European economical activity and later when European nation-states were being established. 

Slavery and racism

Of course slavery existed before racism. In the 15th century blacks and whites were enslaved indiscriminately. Blacks in the America’s could become free men and own their own slaves and land (which was rather common in colonial Brazil for instance). It is only in later years that being black made you a slave forever and by birth, or at least a kind of human always inferior to white people. This racial perspective on identity and humanity only gained authority in later modern times. Read more on the subject here.

Coat of Arms

Black people were part of European imagination and reality from very early times. Read more here and here. We can say with certainty that there were black people in Europe before that white people reached the area south of the Sahara. North Africa, Iberia and the Middle East were the crossroad where black and white intermingled. In Europe references to blacks was a positive sign of strength and military power. Still today you can find many blacks in coat of arms for towns all over Europe, central, south and north, dating back to the middle ages. 



Some Literature

After the 15th century, Portugal entered an intense relationship with African kingdoms in the Gulf of Guinea and the Congo coasts. Slave trade (although not based on race) and exchange between the kings led to the presence of Europeans on the West- and Central African shores, just as Africans in Portugal. Accounts from those days tell us that the sight of black people in the streets of Lisbon wasn’t a rarity during the Middle Ages, more on the contrary. I want to refer to following books for those who want to know more about this topic: 
Black Africans in Renaissance Europe, Thomas Foster Earle,K. J. P. Lowe(eds.)
Africa’s discovery of Europe, David Northrup 

As a consequence of the slave trade free blacks also arrived in Europe between the 16th and 19th century. Blacks lived in London, Liverpool, Lisbon, Seville, … during the 17th and 18th century. Other historical books with scientific authority give you in depth knowledge of this:
Hugh Thomas’s ‘The Slave Trade’
Ivan Van Sertima’s ‘African Presence in Early Europe’
All this publications teach us something about this hidden part of European history.

Leo Africanus

Leo Africanus is often stated as one of these black and European noble men and scholars. But it is rather speculation to state if he was black or white. He was definitely a Maure but as racism, whiteness and blackness were unknown concepts as we know it today, we can’t know his ‘race’ for sure. This shouldn’t surprise anyone. Even very common socio-cultural concepts of today such as ‘French’, ‘German’ or ‘English’ didn’t exist in those days such that it would be silly to argue whether historical figures of those days were German or French. Same thing is valid for the white and black race as defined today. 

Famous Europeans with African ancestry (1500-1900)

Below I will list some of the most famous figures of European modern history (after 1500) who happened to be black or have African ancestry, but were integral parts of European (high) society. Most of the time the African ancestry of these people is ignored by history books although acknowledged and accepted by most history scholars. I think it throws a new light on the concepts of race and the meaning of blackness in the 21st century. 

Alessandro ‘il Moro’ de Medici 1510-1537 
Duke of Florence


Abram Petrovich Ganibal 1696-1781 
Major-general, military engineer, governor of Reval and nobleman of the Russian Empire


Anton Wilhelm Amo 1700-1775 
German Philosopher


Ignatius Sancho 1729–1780 
Author and abolitionist, UK

Olaudah Equiano a.k.a. Gustavus Vassa 1745-1797Author and abolitionist, UK

Chevalier de Saint Georges 1745-1799A famous musican, composer and swardsman of his times
Listen to his music here. 

Thomas Alexandre Dumas 1762-1806A general of the French Revolution

George Polgreen Bridgetower 1780-1860Musician and composer
Listen and watch here 


Alexandre Pushkin 1799-1837
Famous author, great-grandson of Abraham Petrovich Ganibal

Alexandre Dumas 1802-1870 
French author of the world famous tale of ‘The Three Musketeers’, Thomas Alexandre Dumas’s son

John Archer 1863-1931 
Presumably UK’s first black mayor, political activist

Samuel Coleridge-Taylor 1875-1912Musician and composer
Listen to his music here

(via afroeurope.blogspot.nl)

(via beyondvictoriana)

anarcho-queer:

NYPD Data Proves White People Are More Likely To Possess Drugs Or A Weapon Than Racial Minorities When Stopped, Yet 84% of Stop & Frisk Victims Are Black/Latino

During the just-concluded trial on the New York Police Department’s stop-and-frisk program, the city argued that officers’ disproportionate targeting of black and Latino New Yorkers was not due to racial profiling but because each stopped individual was doing something suspicious at the time. The data, however, tells a different story: weapons and drugs were more often found on white New Yorkers during stops than on minorities, according to the Public Advocate’s analysis of the NYPD’s 2012 statistics.

White New Yorkers make up a small minority of stop-and-frisks, which were 84 percent black and Latino residents. Despite this much higher number of minorities deemed suspicious by police, the likelihood that stopping an African American would find a weapon was half the likelihood of finding one on a white person.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded a weapon was half that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered a weapon in one out every 49 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 71 stops of Latinos and 93 stops of African Americans to find a weapon.

• The likelihood a stop of an African American New Yorker yielded contraband was one-third less than that of white New Yorkers stopped. The NYPD uncovered contraband in one out every 43 stops of white New Yorkers. By contrast, it took the Department 57 stops of Latinos and 61 stops of African Americans to find contraband.

It’s unlikely that the appropriate lesson to take from these findings is that stops of white people should increase because they are more likely to carry weapons and drugs. Rather, they suggest that police are excessively targeting minorities. Officers may be netting more successful stops of white New Yorkers because they are only likely to stop a white person when they actually suspect that person of committing a crime. Considering one officer’s testimony that superiors explicitly directed him to target young black men, minorities are judged by a much more flexible definition of “reasonable suspicion.”

In general, stop-and-frisk has proven to be remarkably ineffective; nearly 89 percent of all stops result in no charges. The city has also had to settle a surging number of civil rights lawsuits against police to the tune of $22 million in one year.

(via pillz89)

todayonbroadway:

February 15, 1952
Bill T. Jones created the Tony-winning choreography for Spring Awakening and Fela!, which he also co-conceived and directed. He celebrates his 61st birthday today. 

(via blacktheatrix)

(via teenlycanthropy)

jabbla:

april-likes-things:

briannaclawson:

xekstrin:

lizawithazed:

beeftony:

This comic accurately sums up my feelings towards those who complain about The Hawkeye Initiative.

look, I am a huge David Willis fan. He is funny, brilliant, and bang on the mark.

But this? This is the single best and most important comic he has ever done and I am going to keep reblogging it until people stop making the argument in the first panel.

I will never get tired of this

I think I need to print this out and keep it in my pocket.

Hell, if you want to know what women find sexually attractive, hang out on tumblr.

There is definitely a difference in how characters are drawn with more sexual extras on the females….but this idea that men all should look sensitive and lean doesn’t represent all men either its women embracing the same bullshit they learned from men.

That’s the point. It’s saying that if men were drawn with comparitive objectification it would be similar to this. It’s not saying that men should be objectified this way but that if they were to be it would look like this, and feel gross so that the arguments about dudes with muscles in comics being objectified is false equivalence. 

It’s not arguing for the objectifying of men in comics, it’s trying to make a point.