NationStates Jolt Archive

If it's ok I continue in this manner

I believe the early Europeans believed that African people were highly intelegent and respected African virtues and that mutual respect was something that by and large lasted up unill the trans-Atlantic slave trade, does anyone have any counter-examples I'd be interested in them

note: (thats just what everything I've read says but I could be reading the wrong things so I want to know)

"Birth of the primitive negro myth"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1i2dB2mIXhk

middle ages, quotes from white people at end
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9M0xTgJWwW4

(both narrated by Basil Davidson whom I consider credible)

quotes on black people
http://endingstereotypesforamerica.org/black_and_white_intelligence.html

http://endingstereotypesforamerica.org/black_and_white_morality.html

Actually, up until comparatively recently, Europeans had a fairly high opinion of the residents of Africa.

WTB [Care].

When you say "early Europeans," just how "early" do you mean?

Because from the Romans on (not all that "early"), you can ask them yourself - i.e. go read a book.

If earlier, then...how the hell are we supposed to know?

the third link is dead, can you please also post some non-youtube link?

Actually, up until comparatively recently, Europeans had a fairly high opinion of the residents of Africa.

Thats the point of view I've been lead to believe

new link:

http://www.colorq.org/Articles/article.aspx?d=1999&x=blackwhite#encounters

their piety has been published abroad among all men, and it is generally held that the sacrifices practised among the Ethiopians are those which are the most pleasing to heaven.

early Europeans as in people in the links. Personally I trust Basil Davidson

youtube + dial up = me not looking at the links because life is too short.

And the third link doesn't work for me.

It would be simpler for me to point this out; what caused the volte face in European opinion that replaced respect with slavery.

youtube + dial up = me not looking at the links because life is too short.

And the third link doesn't work for me.

I got the link working sorry about that

It would be simpler for me to point this out; what caused the volte face in European opinion that replaced respect with slavery.

good question, it's the same reason Jews have been hated in Europe.

Groups that can't defend themselves are usually scape goated, Africans didn't have the military technology to protect themselves so attitudes turned grim so Europeans could justify taking advantage of Africa

Here is something from Howard Zinn

European travelers in the sixteenth century were impressed with the African kingdoms of Timbuktu and Mali, already stable and organized at a time when European states were just beginning to develop into the modern nation. In 1563, Ramusio, secretary to the rulers in Venice, wrote to the Italian merchants: "Let them go and do business with the King of Timbuktu and Mali and there is no doubt that they will be well-received there with their ships and their goods and treated well, and granted the favours that they ask..."


A Dutch report, around 1602, on the West African kingdom of Benin, said: "The Towne seemeth to be very great, when you enter it. You go into a great broad street, not paved, which seemeth to be seven or eight times broader than the Warmoes Street in Amsterdam. ...The Houses in this Towne stand in good order, one close and even with the other, as the Houses in Holland stand."


The inhabitants of the Guinea Coast were described by one traveler around 1680 as "very civil and good-natured people, easy to be dealt with, condescending to what Europeans require of them in a civil way, and very ready to return double the presents we make them."
-From "A People's History of the United States," by Howard Zinn

http://www.worldfreeinternet.net/archive/arc9.htm

It would be simpler for me to point this out; what caused the volte face in European opinion that replaced respect with slavery.

Well, slavery was originally comparatively color blind, especially in the classical world. Racism, though, allowed for a far easier justification of the increasingly important African slave trade.

its not just slavery.

its also the eurpean settlement/conquest of africa.

when you are running people off their land and taking it for your own you have a powerful psychological incentive to think that you deserve it and they dont.

It would be simpler for me to point this out; what caused the volte face in European opinion that replaced respect with slavery.

In the link on my original post "Birth of the primitive negro myth" Basil Davidson claims the reason was to justify profiting off of the massive slave trade

Personally I guess that a very great portion of the early Europeans had never heard of Africans. Not being educated and not traveling outside their village etc...
I haven't got a clue how the ones that did have contact reacted since I'm not really educated in this matter.

This truly does depend what you classify as "African". For the late Roman, Africa is a colony; Ethiopia refers to what the OP no doubt considers Africa. Equally, after the rise of Islam, Africa remains a divided continent for European purposes. North Africa is Islamic, whereas that which is south of it is what the OP, I imagine, would consider "Africa".

If you seek to explain why the slave trade began, it was not because Europe suddenly began to see central and southern Africa as contemptible; rather, it was because it now possessed the means to do that which it always would have done had it had the capacity.

As for African kingdoms of Timbuktu and Mali, I am staggered at how the OP interprets the evidence he deploys; that certain areas of southern and central Africa were "civilised" to the western definition of the term is not a new revelation. What is odd is that the OP fails to appreciate that an early modern statesman could be impressed by a state, and still feel nothing but a desire to subjugate it.

It would be simpler for me to point this out; what caused the volte face in European opinion that replaced respect with slavery.

That one's easy: Money.

Also, it's a faulty dichotomy. Both Europe and Africa, as well as Asia and...well pretty much the whole world, once made widespread use of slavery. What that actually meant -- the nature of those ancient slavery systems -- was very different from what it became during the 17th and 18th centuries. In ancient cultures, it was possible to enslave people and still respect them. In modern cultures, slavery was a sign of the ultimate lack of respect, even to the extreme of claiming that the enslaved people were not truly human at all. It's the kind of mental trick people play when they know they are doing something wrong.

So why did European cultures adopt the kind of slavery that depends on racist hatred and dehumanization of other people? Because the age of colonization required cheap labor, and there just weren't enough convicts and debtors to go around.

http://www.africanculturalcenter.org/4_5slavery.html

http://www.nmm.ac.uk/freedom/viewTheme.cfm/theme/triangular

http://www.mersey-gateway.org/server.php?show=ConWebDoc.253

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/1523100.stm

In the link on my original post "Birth of the primitive negro myth" Basil Davidson claims the reason was to justify profiting off of the massive slave trade

And presumably you believe this explains away my question? I ask why European values could suddenly change, and you suggest that it was so they could profit from the slave trade? Such a response is credible only if you accept that European "respect" for tribal Africa was superficial, whereas their desire for domination and profit was not.

This proposition hardly casts your argument in a good light.

And presumably you believe this explains away my question? I ask why European values could suddenly change, and you suggest that it was so they could profit from the slave trade? Such a response is credible only if you accept that European "respect" for tribal Africa was superficial, whereas their desire for domination and profit was not.

This proposition hardly casts your argument in a good light.
I'm sorry, but your counter argument doesn't seem any less shallow. So what if Europeans really did, underneath a veneer of contempt and hatred, respect African nations and cultures? This presumed respect did not stop them from exploiting -- and vastly expanding -- African slavery in order to make themselves rich at the Africans' expense. From the African point of view, I think it would be fair to dismiss European "respect" as trivial, if not actually insulting.

Also, you pose the question of why Europeans engaged in a slave trade out of Africa, yet you seem intent on ignoring the obvious and readily available answer. It was the money, plain and simple. Any attitudes towards Africans that may or may not have been used to justify the slave trade are irrelevant to why the slave trade existed. If it had not been profitable, the Europeans would not have done it, no matter what they thought of Africans.

As for African kingdoms of Timbuktu and Mali, I am staggered at how the OP interprets the evidence he deploys; that certain areas of southern and central Africa were "civilised" to the western definition of the term is not a new revelation. What is odd is that the OP fails to appreciate that an early modern statesman could be impressed by a state, and still feel nothing but a desire to subjugate it.

In the 16th century they wanted to come in peace

I guess no one is going to want to listen to the whole 30 min program but this is from BBC the story of Africa on the Kongo kingdom, it kind of takes you from the transition from mutual respect to racism

http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/africa/features/storyofafrica/index_section16.shtml

program 11. Central Africa & the Coming of the Portuguese

When I was studying the slave trade a while back, their justification was that blacks were sub-human, possible evolutionary influences there? (note: this is in no way intended to be an attack on evolution).

I'm sorry but youtube is not a credible source, especially after the whole "Egyptian pharaohs where black but the white man be keepin em down!"

also the term "European" should be used with great caution at anytime considered "early" (thats only an area 10,180,000 square kilometres in size)

When I was studying the slave trade a while back, their justification was that blacks were sub-human, possible evolutionary influences there? (note: this is in no way intended to be an attack on evolution).
Extremely unlikely, since those beliefs were expressed long before Darwin came along.

When I was studying the slave trade a while back, their justification was that blacks were sub-human, possible evolutionary influences there? (note: this is in no way intended to be an attack on evolution).

Engaging in something as terrible but lucrative as slavery is a lot more palatable if you can convince yourself (and others) that it's not morally wrong.

Personally I guess that a very great portion of the early Europeans had never heard of Africans. Not being educated and not traveling outside their village etc...
I haven't got a clue how the ones that did have contact reacted since I'm not really educated in this matter.


When some people learn that the Greeks and Romans had a high regard for black intelligence and morality they assume it was because they had little contact with black people. Greeks and Romans not only had contact with blacks from Africa, but they had contact with their black neighbors. Frank Snowden discovered that, "The exact number of Ethiopians who entered the Greco-Roman world as a result of varied military, diplomatic, and commercial activity is difficult to determine, but all the evidence suggests a sizable Ethiopian element, especially in the population of the Roman world….The black population in Greece and Italy was larger than has been generally realized."

http://endingstereotypesforamerica.org/blacks_in_greece_and_rome.html

I'm sorry but youtube is not a credible source, especially after the whole "Egyptian pharaohs where black but the white man be keepin em down!"

also the term "European" should be used with great caution at anytime considered "early" (thats only an area 10,180,000 square kilometres in size)

Basil Davidson (who wrote many books on Africa and narrated some videos) is a credible source, I'll take down the video that doesn't have him in it

Engaging in something as terrible but lucrative as slavery is a lot more palatable if you can convince yourself (and others) that it's not morally wrong.

I agree. By the standards of Christian Europe, slavery (as we know it from the slave trade that we are talking about) was morally wrong. But we all know that when the money amounts are high enough, moral standards start to get very fuzzy. The fact is that, by their own moral standards, the Europeans who profited from the slave trade were doing wrong, and the racist justifications of it were just that -- justifications for why they let their greed trump their guilt.

Extremely unlikely, since those beliefs were expressed long before Darwin came along.

Well, Darwin didn't actually invent evolution.

Well, Darwin didn't actually invent evolution.
Well, if you can link to some papers on evolutionary theory from about the time of the development of the European-African slave trade (say between 1500-1700), I'll be glad to read them.

its not just slavery.



It's M&S slavery.;)

Well, if you can link to some papers on evolutionary theory from about the time of the development of the European-African slave trade (say between 1500-1700), I'll be glad to read them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#History_of_evolutionary_thought

"Evolutionary ideas such as common descent and the transmutation of species have existed since at least the 6th century BC"

When I was studying the slave trade a while back, their justification was that blacks were sub-human, possible evolutionary influences there? (note: this is in no way intended to be an attack on evolution).

More likely it was the whole sons of Ham are distined to be enslaved by other races theory

(religious reasons)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evolution#History_of_evolutionary_thought

"Evolutionary ideas such as common descent and the transmutation of species have existed since at least the 6th century BC"
You're joking, right?

The best you can do is wiki? And you call the random floating around of an idea that would not be developed into anything like a theory until the late 19th century, evidence that the people who claimed it was okay for them to get rich off the slave trade because the Africans weren't human were thinking about evolution?

Trust me, Hydesland, the assertion that black people were sub-human had nothing at all to do with evolutionary ideas.

Here's a better source:

http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/article-24171

It's a link to the most immediately germane page of a much longer, multi-page article.

You're joking, right?

The best you can do is wiki? And you call the random floating around of an idea that would not be developed into anything like a theory until the late 19th century, evidence that the people who claimed it was okay for them to get rich off the slave trade because the Africans weren't human were thinking about evolution?


I didn't assert it, I merely suggested it as a possibility. And Wiki is not the best I can do, but wiki is sufficient. The basic principles of evolution was floating around as you say, so why wouldn't it have influenced thought?


Trust me, Hydesland, the assertion that black people were sub-human had nothing at all to do with evolutionary ideas.


Here's a better source:

http://search.eb.com/blackhistory/article-24171

It's a link to the most immediately germane page of a much longer, multi-page article.

Well I can't be bothered to read the whole article, can you quote where the article explicitly states why people thought Africans were less human?

I didn't assert it, I merely suggested it as a possibility. And Wiki is not the best I can do, but wiki is sufficient. The basic principles of evolution was floating around as you say, so why wouldn't it have influenced thought?
Wiki is never sufficient. It is an unreliable source. Therefore, I never accept it.

You did make an assertion, and you're making it again now, even though you put a question mark at the end of it. If you think evolutionary theory influenced the racist attitudes of the slave traders, show me some evidence of slave traders citing evolutionary theory as justification of their views.

If you insist you were merely suggesting it, then you're just going to have to accept that I dismiss the suggestion for the reasons I have already given you. If you want to defend it, then it sounds a lot more like an assertion than a suggestion.

Well I can't be bothered to read the whole article, can you quote where the article explicitly states why people thought Africans were less human?
Lazy you. It is the page I linked to. The one entitled:

slavery

The sociology of slavery > Attitudes toward slavery: the matter of race

It's only a few paragraphs long, for crying out loud.

Wiki is never sufficient. It is an unreliable source. Therefore, I never accept it.


Why? Whenever an article on wiki is even the tiniest bit questionable by a few users, there is a huge notice at the top stating so.


You did make an assertion

No I didn't, what part of "possible evolutionary influences there?" is even in the least bit assertive?

and you're making it again now, even though you put a question mark at the end of it.

Yes, i'm asserting that it is a possibility.


If you think evolutionary principles possibly influenced the racist attitudes of the slave traders

Fixed.


show me some evidence of slave traders citing evolutionary theory as justification of their views.


I never said they used evolutionary theory, I just said that they thought Africans were sub human, and I said that this could possibly be attributed to evolutionary principles.


If you insist you were merely suggesting it, then you're just going to have to accept that I dismiss the suggestion for the reasons I have already given you. If you want to defend it, then it sounds a lot more like an assertion than a suggestion.


I want to get a concrete answer, you have a right to question my suggestions as much as I have a right to question your dismissals. And I'm defending myself from your up tight attitude more then anything else.


Lazy you. It is the page I linked to. The one entitled:



It's only a few paragraphs long, for crying out loud.

I'm still not seeing any explanation in the first page (I had already read that).

The first paragraph states what people thought of slaves, the second paragraph deals with religious attitudes, the third was different levels of contemptment to different races of slaves.

the actions preceded the justifications.

europe went on an expansion binge. it started grabbing the land, people and resources of foreign lands. when that started going splendidly well, they needed a justification for why it was the right thing to do.

so they invented the idea of racial and cultural superiority. they justified it with religion and (pseudo) science. if they had not been stealing from others, they never would have needed these justifications so the theories never would have been invented.

In the writing of Tacitus (The Roman Emperoro) he is clearly "racist", as he goes on and on talking about the racial purity of the germanic tribes and how he admires them for how they havn't been mixed and such and such...

We learned about it when I was studying in Bavaria about the Germanic tribes that used to live there, just beyond the Romans.

Well I can't be bothered to read the whole article, can you quote where the article explicitly states why people thought Africans were less human?

Let's look at a few "Knowns" here. To the ancient Greeks and Romans, if you were not a Greek or a Roman, you were a Barbarian. The word "Barbarian" has the same root as "Babble"- to speak incoherently. So yes, obviously they thought Africans, black or otherwise, were beneath them. They thought EVERYONE was beneath them. They had African slaves. They had Celtic and Scandinavian and Slavic slaves too.

The Colorq website someone mentioned is clueless. When I read "The only nation which successfully resisted Roman domination was the Ethiopians.", it tells me here is someone who hasn't done a single sniff of research. Ethiopia the ONLY one? Hello? Ireland? The Sassanians? The catastrophe (for the Romans, at least) at the Teutoburger Wald? Sheesh. Ignore colorq.

Bear in mind the Romans had no word for "Africa" in the sense that we do. Africa was the name of a province. Other than Ethiopia and the records of a handful of explorers, nothing was known. Even the explorers, like Strabo, didn't know much- Strabo thought there were TWO groups of Ethiopians, one being in Asia!

So, I think the historical record of the Greco-Roman period is clear: from their point of view, there were "us" and "people sort of like us" and "barbarians". Barbarians could come in any color, like pale pinkish white, bronze-tan, very dark brown, or even blue (the Picts!). They probably didn't care about race as we know it.

Or think we know it.

the actions preceded the justifications.

europe went on an expansion binge. it started grabbing the land, people and resources of foreign lands. when that started going splendidly well, they needed a justification for why it was the right thing to do.

so they invented the idea of racial and cultural superiority. they justified it with religion and (pseudo) science. if they had not been stealing from others, they never would have needed these justifications so the theories never would have been invented.


Very nice, Ashmoria. Now explain the Bantu invasion of southern and eastern Africa.

You are looking at things with a very modern lense. Until quite recently in the history of Humanity, no one ever suggested that grabbing land, people, and resources was the WRONG thing to do. It was simply a thing stronger powers did to weaker powers- and sometimes those stronger powers were European, but sometimes, their leaders were named Khan. Or Shaka. Or Umar. Empires rose and fell everywhere, and to come up with some sort of special complaint that apparently singles out Europeans is racist.

In the writing of Tacitus (The Roman Emperoro) he is clearly "racist", as he goes on and on talking about the racial purity of the germanic tribes and how he admires them for how they havn't been mixed and such and such...

We learned about it when I was studying in Bavaria about the Germanic tribes that used to live there, just beyond the Romans.

that was probably when Romans started learning more about northern Europe, very interesting

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html

Very nice, Ashmoria. Now explain the Bantu invasion of southern and eastern Africa.

You are looking at things with a very modern lense. Until quite recently in the history of Humanity, no one ever suggested that grabbing land, people, and resources was the WRONG thing to do. It was simply a thing stronger powers did to weaker powers- and sometimes those stronger powers were European, but sometimes, their leaders were named Khan. Or Shaka. Or Umar. Empires rose and fell everywhere, and to come up with some sort of special complaint that apparently singles out Europeans is racist.

The Mongols didn't have to label Chinese as Apes, the Bantu had other people assimilate into their groups, European's were different in their form of slavery because of the kind of plantation labor needed



Bear in mind the Romans had no word for "Africa" in the sense that we do. Africa was the name of a province. Other than Ethiopia and the records of a handful of explorers, nothing was known. Even the explorers, like Strabo, didn't know much- Strabo thought there were TWO groups of Ethiopians, one being in Asia!


Wasn't there regular trade that developed like with Aksum

Let's look at a few "Knowns" here. To the ancient Greeks and Romans, if you were not a Greek or a Roman, you were a Barbarian. The word "Barbarian" has the same root as "Babble"- to speak incoherently. So yes, obviously they thought Africans, black or otherwise, were beneath them. They thought EVERYONE was beneath them. They had African slaves. They had Celtic and Scandinavian and Slavic slaves too.


First, thanks for answering my question in a civil approach.

Anyway, ok, this is a good approach, but is this a viable explanation for every country, or just the Roman empire? Can we extrapolate from this, and say that other countries must have adopted the same kind thinking?

First, thanks for answering my question in a civil approach.

Anyway, ok, this is a good approach, but is this a viable explanation for every country, or just the Roman empire? Can we extrapolate from this, and say that other countries must have adopted the same kind thinking?

Every nation/tribe thinks they are the special people.

that was probably when Romans started learning more about northern Europe, very interesting

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/tacitus1.html
He was actually talking to the people of the German lands not Scandinavia (not sure what you mean by "Northern Europe").

In my example, these were the people living in the forest in Bavaria where I was studying, around Regensburg.

Interesting:
Physical Characteristics. "For my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany are free from all taint of intermarriages with foreign nations, and that they appear as a distinct, unmixed race, like none but themselves. Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population. All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion. They are less able to bear laborious work. Heat and thirst they cannot in the least endure; to cold and hunger their climate and their soil inure them. "

He was actually talking to the people of the German lands not Scandinavia (not sure what you mean by "Northern Europe").

In my example, these were the people living in the forest in Bavaria where I was studying, around Regensburg.

Interesting:
Physical Characteristics. "For my own part, I agree with those who think that the tribes of Germany are free from all taint of intermarriages with foreign nations, and that they appear as a distinct, unmixed race, like none but themselves. Hence, too, the same physical peculiarities throughout so vast a population. All have fierce blue eyes, red hair, huge frames, fit only for a sudden exertion. They are less able to bear laborious work. Heat and thirst they cannot in the least endure; to cold and hunger their climate and their soil inure them. "

oops I meant north of the Mediterranean

Very nice, Ashmoria. Now explain the Bantu invasion of southern and eastern Africa.

You are looking at things with a very modern lense. Until quite recently in the history of Humanity, no one ever suggested that grabbing land, people, and resources was the WRONG thing to do. It was simply a thing stronger powers did to weaker powers- and sometimes those stronger powers were European, but sometimes, their leaders were named Khan. Or Shaka. Or Umar. Empires rose and fell everywhere, and to come up with some sort of special complaint that apparently singles out Europeans is racist.

i dont understand your point.

or maybe you didnt understand mine.

i wasnt suggesting that europeans were unique in conquest of foreign lands. i was suggesting that once it turned out to be something they were good at, they needed justification. so they thought some up.

that doesnt negate the actions of any other culture. im sure they also dreamt up reasons why it was Ok for them to steal the land, people and resources of other people.

oops I meant north of the Mediterranean
Do you find it interesting what I quoted about the Germanics.

Do you find it interesting what I quoted about the Germanics.

ya it caught my eye when I first read it, all it needed was a reference to blonde hair lol

ya it caught my eye when I first read it, all it needed was a reference to blonde hair lol
It's weird that it doesn't have it...as they did most certainly had blonde hair....