18th century: Enlightenment, but...
also cradle of modern racism:
1) Enlightenment (radical attempt to define man's
place in nature; preoccupation with a rational
universe; obsession for classification)
2) Christian Pietism (emphasis upon instincts,
intuition, emotional life of the community)
End 18th century:
phrenology (reading the skull)
physiognomy (reading the face)
From Samuel Wells, How to Read Character: A New Illustrated Handbook of Phrenology and Physiognomy, 1891
«Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall
he be unto his brethren»
(Genesis 9:25)
The curse of Ham: Noah pronounces a curse on
Ham's son, Canaan, who represents the African
tribes
Joseph Arthur de Gobineau, Essai sur l'inégalité
des races humaines (1853-1855)
Hegel, Lectures on the philosophy of
history
“The negro . . . exhibits the natural man in his
completely wild and untamed state. We must lay
aside all thought of reverence and morlity – all
that we call felling – if we would rightly
comprehend him; there is nothing harmonious
with humanity to be found in this type of
character”
“The condition is capable of no development or
culture, and as we see them at this day, such
have they always been. The only essential
connection that has existed and continued
between the Negroes and the Europeans is that
of slavery”
“There is absolutely no bond, no restraint upon
that arbitrary volition. Nothing but external force
can hold the State together for a moment. A
ruler stands at the head, for sensuous
barbarism can only be restrained by despotic
power.”
"At this point we leave Africa, not to mention it
again. For it is no historical part of the World; it
has no movement or development to exhibit....
What we properly understand by Africa, is the
Unhistorical, Undeveloped Spirit, still involved in
conditions of mere nature”
‘Special’ mixing of racism, aesthetic
ideals, colonization, imperialism,
philosophy, religion…
Resistance to racism: special
mixing of politics, aesthetics and
folk culture
Phyllis Wheatley (made slave at 7 and sold
to an American family in Boston)
“On Being Brought from Africa to America” (1773)
'Twas mercy brought me from my Pagan land,
Taught my benighted soul to understand
That there's a God, that there's a Saviour too:
Once I redemption neither sought nor knew.
Some view our sable race with scornful eye,
"Their colour is a diabolic die."
Remember, Christians, Negros, black as Cain,
May be refin'd, and join th' angelic train.
numbers in this map would be different in light of more recent statistics, but the
map still gives a graphic idea of the relative intensity of the Atlantic slave trade
to New World areas through time
From J. W. Buel, Heroes of the Dark Continent (New York, 1890 - captioned
"victims of Portuguese slave hunters" (actually the slavers are Africans)
African American time-line, from the Norton
Anthology of African American Lit.)
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1492 Pedro Alonzo Nino, traditionally
considered the first of many New World
explorers of African descent, sails with
Christopher Columbus
1526: First African slaves brought to what is
now the United States by the Spanish
1619: 20 Africans brought to Jamestown,
Virginia, on Dutch ship and sold as indentured
servants
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1641: Massachusetts becomes the first colony
to legally recognize slavery
1645: First American slave ships sail, from
Boston; triangular trade route brings African
slaves to West Indies in exchange of sugar,
tobacco and wine
1646: John Wham and his wife are freed,
becoming first recorded free blacks in New
England
"Stowage of the British Slave Ship
'Brookes' under the Regulated
Slave Trade, Act of 1788"; it
shows each deck and crosssections of decks and "tight
packing" of captives. One of the
most famous images of the
transatlantic slave trade. After
the 1788 Regulation Act, the
Brookes (also spelled Brooks)
was allowed to carry 454 slaves,
the approximate number shown
in this illustration. However, in
four earlier voyages (1781-86),
she carried from 609 to 740
slaves
Strangely enough “the soil of slavery” had turned
out to be a fertile ground for the creation of a new
literature: Black slaves in England and the U.S.
created a genre of literature (the ex-slave
narrative) that testified against their captors and
bore witness to the urge to be free and literate: European dream of reason + American dream of
civic liberty
1787: Constitution ratified, classifying one slave
as three-fifths of one person for congressional
apportionment – Congress passes Northwest
Ordinance, banning slavery in Northwest
Territories and all land north of the Ohio river
From the Slave Heritage Resource Center. 1857 map.
(The Dark green states are the free states. The light green are the free
"Territories", which were not yet states. The Red States were Slave Importing
States, and the Pink States Were Slave States that Exported Slaves.)
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Jupiter Hammon (1711 - 1806)
Lucy Terry (?1730 – 1821)
Olaudah Equiano (1745 – 1797)
“the slave found himself without a system of
written language...he first had to seize the
word. His being had to erupt from
nothingness”
(Houston Baker Jr.)