Short Essay Two

Any treatment of Christianity as it existed in Europe during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries must, in order to be accurate, be divorced from modern (American) notions of religion as an exercise in personal preference. During this period, the European identity and the differing strains of emerging nationalism were so tightly intertwined with the concept of Christianity that to be European (or English, French, Spanish, ect.), also meant that one was, by default, Christian, regardless of the level of one’s personal devotion to religious beliefs or practices.

 For Africans living in Europe during this time, this idea of the European identity as a Christian identity meant that engagement with Christianity was a prerequisite to assimilation and to successful navigation within the European social and commercial spheres. This is not to suggest that by simply converting to Christianity or learning to address the world using a Christian perspective that Africans in Europe would automatically be seen as European, simply that without doing these things, an African would have no real prospect of assimilation or of attaining social and commercial standing within his or her respective European society of residence. Thus, for the African living in Europe during this time, the adoption of Christianity or, at the very least, the ability to express oneself using a Christian worldview can be viewed only as a gateway to European society, rather than a wholesale method of gaining social acceptance.

The idea of Christianity as a gateway to European society for Africans is closely related to the idea of the African as “other”. Visibly different and culturally alien, Africans in Europe during this period found themselves firmly on the outside of social, commercial, and political spheres of influence. Apart from the visible differences, it was African “paganism” that was one of the most salient characteristics of African otherness[1]. Indeed, Boulle asserts that in early modern France, the main basis for prejudice against Africans was not racial inferiority but the fact that they “were not Christians and therefore remained uncivilized”[2]. Brown goes even further by characterizing Christianity as “a distinctive marker of (European) identity”[3]. As the Nineteenth Century progressed, the emerging field of Eugenics would provide alternate explanations for the supposed inherent inferiority of Africans, but for the time period in question, African assimilation was still a possibility, with an engagement with the Christian worldview being a central condition of European acceptance of Africans living in Europe. In short, the path to erasing “otherness” began with Christianity.

It is interesting to note that the Christian worldview was so integral to what it meant to be a European during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries that even when scholars are not explicitly addressing issues relating to religion, they still must contend with the implications of the Christian worldview. For example, in Peabody’s work , Race, Slavery, and the Law in early Modern France, although she is approaching legal issues regarding slavery from the framework of racial prejudice, we find the adoption of Christianity by the slaves in question very much residing at the heart of the legal arguments put forth in the French court system. Along with legal French citizenship and civility, adherence to the Christian religion is put forth as evidence that one “Beaucoux”, a slave from the New World, should be considered to be “French, because he was born the subject of our Monarch; our equal, as much by humanity as by the religion which he professes; and citizen because he lives with us and among us.” [4] Additionally, Walvin, whose  brief overview of the Black Atlantic largely focuses on the demographics and the economic aspect of the slave trade still grapples with the idea that when African slaves encountered Europeans in a European setting (both the Old and New Worlds), they tended to adopt European cultural norms as a way of dealing with their social circumstances[5]. Christianity would have undoubtedly been one of the major European cultural norms that Africans had to reconcile themselves to. An interesting side note to this idea is that in the New World there did emerge distinctly “African” or, more precisely, Creole, forms of Christianity that were distinct from traditional European Christianity, and one wonders to what extent these hybrid forms of Christianity may or may not have facilitated assimilation into white society.

Among those authors who deal directly with issues of religion, the idea of Christianity as a gateway to a European identity is much more explicit. Perhaps the most forceful example of this idea can be found in the writings of Equiano, who is quite candid about the link between Christianity and what it means to be European. After having spent several years among the English, Equiano considered himself “almost an Englishman” but saw Christian baptism as a necessary next step in his assimilation[6]. This should be viewed as a continuation of Equiano’s fascination with, and adoption of, Christianity, and is simply a concrete point in Equaino’s professed spiritual transformation that would have served him very well as evidence of his “Englishness”.

Transformation, however, proved to be bi-directional and the experience of the Africans in Europe, for whom Christianity was a crucial gateway into society, soon began to inform the purpose of the Christian establishment. Gerzina recognizes the paradox that , as Africans gained social capital through their engagement with Christianity, among other things, they began attempts to “reconcile their enslaved status with the freedom conferred by a Christianity” and also began to “feel the need to address the difficulties of reconciling their beliefs and actions as slaves with those of Christianity as it was professed and practiced by whites”[7]. The acceptance of Africans into the institutions of Christianity may have been an initial step in the “civilization” of the heathen, but it was also destined to alter the Christian establishment. When European slaveholders railed against the dangers of assimilation through Christianity,  including the danger of “admitting slaves to the Christian fellowship [which] would blur the social boundaries essential to the preservation of slavery”[8], they may not have been that far off the mark.

Both Brown and Hudson seem to recognize that the Atlantic slave trade galvanized Christianity on both sides of the Atlantic, and this stemmed in no small part to the idea that many African slaves were fellow Christians to whom a certain loyalty was owed. In this too, we see the idea of Christianity as a gateway, or as a necessary, but incomplete, means of achieving cultural standing. Brown does note that although some Christians advocated abolition, there were also many who simply sought a kinder, “more gentle form of slavery”[9]. Hudson, for his part, seems mainly concerned with the debates that occurred in High Church settings among Anglican elites, and, perhaps, it is the distance between this setting and the sticky social and economic reality of the slave trade that allowed for early calls for what can only be considered a drastic move- abolition of the slave trade entirely[10]. It is necessary to keep in mind that these early abolitionists were not necessarily believers in racial equality, nor were they overly concerned with the fate of millions of Africans still in Africa (missionary endeavors notwithstanding), but they did have a belief in “the community of believers”[11]. In this way, early abolitionists can be seen as products of their (European) societies, given the fact that they believed Christianity certainly conferred something to its African converts, even if that something fell short of equality.

            Perhaps Equaino’s experience best illustrates the role that Christianity played in the social status of Africans in Europe. Although Equiano initially sought to become a Christian and an Englishman through his own actions such as becoming literate, learning a trade, being baptized, and seeking English patronage, these things only propelled him so far. Ultimately, in order to become a true Christian, he had to receive a transformative experience from God and only then was he “able to believe to the salvation of [his] soul [12]. Similarly, Equiano’s status as an Englishman was dependent upon acceptance by English society[13] and without such English approval there would have been very little Equiano could do that would have erased his status as a foreigner. Therefore, for Equaino and millions of other Africans living in Europe in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, navigating Christianity was a crucial first step toward achieving social status, but was not the only thing that must be achieved for successful assimilation.

Bibliography

Boulle, Pierre H.. "Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France." The Journal of The Historical Society 6, no. 1 (2006): 19-46. EBSCO. [Database Online].

Brown, Christopher L.. "Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade." Cambridge Histories Online no. 4 (2008): 517-535. Cambridge University Press.

Equano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. 1789. Ebrary, 2004.

      http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/lib /asulib/docDetail.action?docID=10063722 (accessed June 16, 2011).

Gerzina, Gretchen H.. "Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic." The South Atlantic Quarterly 100 no. 1 (2001): 41-59. . EBSCO. [Database Online].

Hudson, Nicholas. "National Myth, Conservatism, and the Beginnings of British Antislavery." Eighteenth-Century Studies 34 no. 4 (2001): 559-576. . EBSCO. [Database Online].

Peabody, Sue. "Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France." Historian 56, no. 3 (2004): 501-510. ProQuest. [Database Online.]

Walvin, James. Questioning Slavery. 1996. Ebrary. http://site.ebrary.com.ezproxy1.lib.asu.edu/lib /asulib/docDetail.action?docID=10058108

      (accessed June 13, 2011).

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[1] Walvin, James. Questioning Slavery. 1996. p.15. Walvin contrasts  slaves who are in close proximity to whites and those who are not. He postulates that those who did not work in close proximity to whites were more likely to develop a “Black” or “African” identity and cultural norms.

[2]  Boulle, Pierre H.. "Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France." The Journal of The Historical Society 6, no. 1 (2006). p. 21.  It may be likely that Catholic France was influenced by the Iberian Model in which the Church provided a well worn social pathway for Africans and other foreigners to participate in Spanish and Portuguese society.

[3] Brown, Christopher L.. "Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade." Cambridge Histories Online no. 4 (2008). p.518. Obviously, this raises the question of cause and effect. Did the Europeans consider themselves superior because they were Christian or did they think that their acceptance (as opposed to Islamic and Jewish rejection) of Christianity was simply evidence of their inherent superiority?

[4] Peabody, Sue. "Race, Slavery, and the Law in Early Modern France." Historian 56, no. 3 (2004). p. 503

[5] Walvin, James. Questioning Slavery. 1996. p. 15

[6] Equano, Olaudah. The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano. 1789. p. 62

[7] Gerzina, Gretchen H.. "Mobility in Chains: Freedom of Movement in the Early Black Atlantic." The South Atlantic Quarterly 100 no. 1 (2001). p 43

[8] Brown, p.523

[9] Ibid., p. 525

[10] Hudson, Nicholas. "National Myth, Conservatism, and the Beginnings of British Antislavery." Eighteenth-Century Studies 34 no. 4 (2001). p. 562

[11] Brown, p.524

[12] Equiano, p. 200

[13] As I have previously stated in other writings, this scenario raises the question of how valid is a social equality that exists at the whim of another.

Short Essay One

When addressing the concept of how European images of Africans evolved over time, it must be appreciated than one can, at most, speak only of general social trends. That is to say, that for every set of arguments and supporting examples put forth, there will be a set of counter arguments and corresponding examples that can be found. Here, the trend under consideration is the evolution of the European image of the African as it occurred in Mediterranean Europe and how this contrasts with the same process as it occurred in Atlantic Europe.

To the European mind, the African has always been representative of “the other”, but this concept of “otherness” played out differently in the Mediterranean and Atlantic European cultures. However, in both of these settings the evolution of the image of the African was closely tied to two factors -the nature of the economic relationship between Africans and the European power in question, and the availability and legitimacy of pathways for cultural assimilation available to Africans living in a given European state.

            Although the presence of Africans in Europe dates to the Roman times, it is the Iberian and Italian spheres that seem to have had the earliest sustained and most developed relationship with Africa. This is not to say that there was no African presence in Northern Europe during the early Middle Ages, but it does suggest that the states of the Mediterranean sphere did have more experience at creating social mechanisms to deal with large numbers of Africans in their societies. There is evidence of a significant presence of Africans in the retinues of Italian nobility from at least the Twelfth Century onward[i]. This shows that, from a very early stage, there was some sort of European awareness of Africans and, presumably, African culture. It is interesting to note that these earliest representations of Africans were associated with the elite strata of society and were meant to serve a political purpose, which may be to reinforce the notion of the universal power of the Hohenstaufen kings[ii]. This sort of cultural interaction can be viewed as a form of propaganda and, as such, represents a social novelty as opposed to a true social trend. Still, it does indicate that there was a European awareness and interest in Africa that dates back to the time of the Crusades.

            Although the earliest records of Africans in Europe are found in the Italian realm, it is the Iberians who pioneered the first widespread commercial relationships with the kingdoms of Africa. While the Italians were seeking trading partners from Asia, the Spanish and the Portuguese were developing trade along the coasts of Africa. It is from this emergence of trading relationships that two distinct ideas about Africans emerged in the Iberian mind. This first idea was that there was a class of African that could be considered to be a kind of nobility, and with whom diplomatic and commercial relationships could be established[iii]. Secondly, was the idea that Africans could be used as a ready source of labor, that is to say African slaves could be put to work in domestic and agricultural settings as well as mines and plantations[iv]. This is in stark contrast to the earlier Italian idea of the African slave as a political or military retainer. Diplomatic, and religious endeavors proved to be difficult, costly and mostly unsuccessful (from the Iberian point of view), and the Iberian focus of political interest eventually shifted to Asia[v] even as commercial contacts with Africa remained strong. Thus, with the eventual extinction of the view of Africans as possessing something akin to cultural parity, the dominant Iberian view came to be one of Africans as slaves or to be more blunt, Africans as inherently inferior.

            During this period, the social landscape of the Iberian Peninsula was not static. As commercial contact with Africa increased, the number of Africans in Spain and Portugal also increased, until large numbers of African slaves became a large part of the “general population”[vi]. One of the interesting things about the Iberian society at this time is that it developed widespread and effective ways to assimilate Africans. By adopting the cultural and religious norms of the host society, Africans were able to become good subjects of the crown and church. It must here be noted that such mechanisms for assimilation cannot in truly be viewed as an acceptance of the African identity since the whole point of assimilation was to make Africans into Europeans, not to accept Africans as African[vii]. Thus the Mediterranean and, more specifically, the Iberian view of Africans can be seen as a kind of evolutionary contest of ideas wherein, when political and diplomatic concerns were at the forefront, deference was paid early on to the culture of Africans. Yet when commercial relationships, specifically the trade in slaves, became the ascendant dynamic between the Iberian world and Africa, deference to African culture was no longer necessary and African identity became a negative thing that the Iberian world sought to assimilate away.

            By the time that the Atlantic powers, most notably England, began their ascent to eventual European dominance, the idea of Africans as a commodity like gold or ivory had been firmly established. Even before this point, English audiences were treated to lurid accounts of Africa as being populated by cannibalistic, deformed, and repellent peoples, which likely served to reinforce the notions that Africans were certainly inferior and possibly not quite human[viii]. Thus, the evolutionary trajectory from African as exotic novelty to African as inferior being was significantly shorter.

            From the start, it seems that English society had little incentive to create paths for assimilation or even to show deference to cultures that English missions to Africa encountered[ix]. It must also be noted that the English economy was very different from the Spanish and Portuguese economies of the time, the former based primarily upon trade (and piracy) and the latter highly agricultural with an additional emphasis on mineral extraction. This difference in the economic base of the states in question was likely influential in determining the labor needs of the respective powers. Simply put, the Spanish needed African slaves for labor, while the English only saw African slaves as one more commodity to be traded[x]. As can be expected in any society that has the luxury to disengage from distasteful economic practices with only a modicum of financial loss, there was a segment of English society that sought to abolish the trade in slaves[xi]. Not surprisingly, such calls for the restriction of the slave trade went largely unheeded as commercial concerns won out.

            Although there are examples of Africans successfully entering into English society, such as the case of Olaudah Equaino, the far more prevalent view was that Africans were “naturally inferior” and that it was neither desirable nor possible for them to assimilate into English society [xii]. This is not to say, however, that the English were opposed to dealing with Africans, and there are many records that illustrate how English pragmatism overcame English prejudice when the situation dictated. For example, Hakluyt proposed creating an outpost on the Straight of Magellan which would be manned by Africans in service to the crown and would exist for the sole purpose of restricting passage for all non-English ships[xiii]. This rather novel use of Africans as pawns in a trade war shows just how morally flexible the English could be in their views of Africans. None of this is to suggest, however, that there were English notions of cultural parity that were in play, instead, this is more accurately viewed as an example of arrogantly naïve English self interest.

The student of history must recognize that the preceding paragraphs are only representative of the initial arc of English sentiment, and that in the years after 1600, when the English would begin to engage in plantation based agriculture on a large scale, their views of African inferiority and non-assimability would create a model of dehumanization and exploitation that would rival the worst of the Iberian New World excesses.

            Like the Mediterranean World, the arc of evolution in the Atlantic world was driven by practical considerations of politics and economy. However, unlike the Mediterranean world, the Atlantic world of 1400-1600, had no widespread history of Africans as royal elites, no need of deep diplomatic relations with African powers, and no overriding economic need for inexpensive and disposable labor. Therefore the Mediterranean world was forced to deal far more directly with questions posed by the presence of Africans than the Atlantic world did. Although neither segment of European society viewed the African identity as desirable or with anything approaching equality, the Mediterranean world, and specifically the Iberian sphere did create methods to assimilate Africans that the Atlantic world did not have.

           

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[i] Kaplan, Paul H. D.. "Black Africans in Hohenstaufen Iconography." Gesta 1, no. 26 (1987): 29.

[ii] Kaplan, 30.

[iii] Elbl, Ivana. "Cross-Cultural Trade and Diplomacy: Portuguese Relations with West Africa, 1441-1521." Journal of World History 2, no. 3 (1992): 197-198.

[iv] Rodney, Walter. "Africa in Europe and the Americas." Cambridge Histories Online no. 4 (2008): 5. The plantations in question here are not the large operations that would become synonymous with New World slavery, but rather smaller sugar plantations in the Mediterranean and along the African coast. The important fact is that this still represents a shift to menial and expendable labor.

[v] Elbl, 204.

[vi] Clayton, Lawrence. "Bartolome' de las Casas and the African Slave Trade." History Compass 7 no. 6 (2009): 2.

[vii] Ivory, Annette. "Juan Latino: The Struggle of Blacks, Jews, and Moors in Golden Age Spain." Hispania 4, no. 62 (1979):214. “…the Spaniards delighted in negating the customs of their Black immigrants…”

[viii] Vaughan, Alden T., Vaughn, Virginia M.. "Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans." The William and Mary Quarterly Third Series, 1, no. 54 (1997):23-24. See also the Vaughans’ relation of an early description of Ethiopians as one legged creatures with a giant foot, 22.

[ix] Vaughan, 25.

[x] Guasco, Michael. ""Free from the tyrannous Spanyard'? Englishmen and Africans in Spain's Atlantic World." Slavery and Abolition 29 no. 1 (2008): 3.

[xi] Guasco, 5.

[xii] Vaughan, 21.

[xiii] Gausco, 1.

Bibliography

Clayton, Lawrence. "Bartolome' de las Casas and the African Slave Trade." History Compass 7 no. 6 (2009):

Elbl, Ivana. "Cross-Cultural Trade and Diplomacy: Portuguese Relations with West Africa, 1441-1521." Journal of World History 2, no. 3 (1992): 165-204. Jstor. [Database online.] 15/07/2010.

Guasco, Michael. ""Free from the tyrannous Spanyard'? Englishmen and Africans in Spain's Atlantic World." Slavery and Abolition 29 no. 1 (2008): 1-22.

Ivory, Annette. "Juan Latino: The Struggle of Blacks, Jews, and Moors in Golden Age Spain." Hispania 4, no. 62 (1979): 613-618. Jstor. [Database online.] 16/07/2010.

Kaplan, Paul H. D.. "Black Africans in Hohenstaufen Iconography." Gesta 1, no. 26 (1987): 29-36. Jstor. [Database online.] 15/07/2010.

Rodney, Walter. "Africa in Europe and the Americas." Cambridge Histories Online no. 4 (2008): 578-622. Cambridge University Press.

Vaughan, Alden T., Vaughn, Virginia M.. "Before Othello: Elizabethan Representations of Sub-Saharan Africans." The William and Mary Quarterly Third Series, 1, no. 54 (1997): 19-44. Jstor. [Database online.] 16/07/2010.