First of two parts
Quentin Tarantino’s DJANGO-Unchained (2012) and subsequently a series of Hollywood films on slavery, have stirred up strong emotions among Blacks, both pro and con. However, there’s been little follow up, one way or the other. Most Blacks have internalized the white majority’s values and tend to view these movies through substantially the same lens as whites, even though their experience differs light years from their oppressors.’
Given that films about slavery trigger a strong response, today’s column provides the perspective of John Henrick Carke, one of the 20th century’s pre-eminent Black scholars. His book, Slavery and the Slave Trade, is a seminal work that offers a much needed non-European historical backdrop to slavery in America. It gives a much broader context for assessing “slavery films” and slavery its self’s devastating effect on Black life. Dr. Clarke’s afro-centric assessment of the full impact of slavery is beyond Tarantino’s, and Hollywood’s, experiential and emotional sensibilities.
“The discovery of Africa by the Europeans was a fortunate incident in the history of the European and a most tragic occurrence in the history of the African. These two peoples were at the crossroads of history at a time when they could have complimented each other; they could have changed the world by forming a partnership. Instead, one chose to subdue the other and traffic them as slaves. The results of this decision reverberate throughout the world until today.
Between 1400 and 1600, Europeans made the decision that the world would be European-dominated, politically, economically and culturally. This decision was made despite the fact that Europe and the Europeans were just emerging from what they called their Middle Ages, from the aftermath of the Crusades, which was a drain on their economy and from the famine and plagues, a drain on their population. The main unifying factor in Europe at that time was a uniquely organized political organization, better known as the Catholic Church. Without its sanction, arguably, the Europeans would not have gone into African slave trade.
Arab slave trade in North and East Africa had been a well-established institution long before the Arabs accepted Islam. With the rise of Islam in the seventh century, they used this new religion as further justification for their involvement in the slave trade. Islam, like Christianity, declared war on all forms of African religion and culture and later denied that Africans had anything worthy of being called a religion or a culture. The Africans were totally unprepared to deal with this kind of mentality at the time of its initial emergence and they are totally unprepared to deal with it now.
Eric Williams’ book, Capitalism and Slavery, starts with information that reflects the temper and temperature of this period in history. “When in 1492, Columbus discovered the New World he set in motion the long and bitter international rivalry over colonial possessions for which no solution has yet been found. Portugal, which had initiated the movement of international expansion, claimed the new territories on the ground they fell within the scope of a papal bull of 1455 authorizing her (sic) to reduce to servitude all infidel peoples. The two powers, to avoid controversy, sought arbitration and Catholics turned to the Pope when the universal claims of the Papacy were still unchallenged by individuals or governments. In 1493, a series of papal bulls established a line of demarcation between the colonial possessions of the two states; the East went to Portugal and the West to Spain.”
The above accounting reflects the extreme arrogance of the Europeans of that day in assuming that they could arbitrarily take what did not belong to them and make decisions about the lives of millions of people without consulting a single one of them. This arrogance has not changed to this day, regardless of European religion and politics or lack of same. This is the essence of worldwide racism.
Dr. A. Adu Boahen’s book, The Horizon History of Africa, summarizes the impact of the European coming to the West Coast of Africa and the establishment of the West African slave trade. Prior to this time, Europeans had b been mainly at war with each other over territory, sometimes for religious reasons and other times for reasons that made no sense to anyone except themselves.
When Europeans started looking outside of Europe for ways to satisfy their needs, they were not looking for Africa. They were searching for trade routes to the sweets and spices of Asia. They stopped in Africa in hopes of soliciting the help of the Christian African King, Prestor Juan, hoping he would help in their fight against what they called the infidel Arabs. While they called Arabs infidels, Arabs, likewise, called them infidels.
Much of the maritime information coming out of China, then the leading maritime nation in the world, had been preserved by the Africans and the Arabs, who had been militarily and intellectually in control of Spain and parts of the Iberian peninsula since 711 A.D. What the Europeans learned from this information renewed their interest in shipbuilding and the skills of the sea. Whether the earth was round or flat was not settled during this period, what was settled was that whatever the shape, Europeans wanted to control it. The years between 1400 and 1600 were a major turning point in human history.”
