HST 498 - Project Synopsis

                                                                 Confraternities: The syncretism of Catholic and  African religions, a  partnership for Black African slave survival.

With twelve Africans by his side Portuguese captain Antao Goncalves made his point. His mission was to prove to Prince Henry that he was capable of obtaining West African slaves directly from the source, without the assistance of a purchasing agent. The trade in slaves was not a new development in Iberia, African slaves had been distributed throughout the Middle East, Egypt, China and India since the first century. But this event in 1441 was the catalyst to an increase of black Africans taken to Iberia to meet the needs of industrialization and the expansion of sugar, tobacco and rice production.               

Forced to leave their individual cultures and to be surrounded by people of differing religious practices, foods, and social behavior surely would be a cause of loss of identity for these African slaves.  This would not be wise to have a slave labor suffering from such feelings of alienation and grief, how productive could this labor class be? A suffering labor class can lead to revolt and dissention as was the case with Spartacus of the Servile War against the Roman Republic. Thus it was wisdom of the Spanish Crown to permit members of the African slave class to practice a level of corporatism and create brotherhoods, and for the Crown to listen to complaints of cruelty submitted by slaves and providing them with a chance to have a hearing before the criminal court. An example of this is found in a documented court case in fifteenth century Valencia found in the Archivo del Reino, Justicia Criminal 102, Cedes M of July 14, 1452 a female slave named Joliana filed charges of mistreatment against her master Francesch Martinez. Martinez had caused a head injury to Joliana which left her extremely ill, when he was unable to sell her off in her current condition Martinez took her to a house of black Africans, whereupon Joliana was left in the care of the housemother. The reference of, “la casa dels negres”  found in the Archivo del Reino, Gobernacion 2348, M 7 fol 2r provides evidence of the position the black Africans were allowed to have within Spanish society in having a place they could go to for charitable assistance and medical attention.. This house is also evidence that the black African was allowed to forge bonds of solidarity and cooperation which led them to create a black confraternity. Founded in Valencia, members of this black confraternity collected alms and negotiated contracts of manumission on behalf of their enslaved fellow black Africans. The development of this confraternity reinstated a feeling of corporate identity once lost upon their capture, enslavement and forced migration to the Iberian Peninsula.

The previously mentioned court case involving Joliana and Francesch Martinez helped to identify members of the black confraternity, how the confraternity selected the individual beneficiaries of their charitable acts and how they assembled the funds to redeem their fellow black African slaves from enslavement. This institution impacted about forty percent of the slave community of Valencia which according to notarial records was the estimated population of black Africans who were purchased and sold in public auctions and private sales throughout the city.  Between 1445 and 1516 6,740 black African slaves arrived in the port of Valencia. All captives entering the kingdom of Valencia had to be presented before Crown officials to confirm the legitimacy of their enslavement and a 20 per cent tax assessed on their sale price. (Earle and Lowe 2005:228,229)

These numbers are indicative of the value a support network such as the black confraternity has for the African community, a slave labor class is more productive when the members of its body are in a positive frame of mind by which the support of a black brotherhood could provide and as we shall see would provide. Evidence of the existence of these confraternities was found in court documents of the Crown in 1472, when the Crown issued confirmation and ratification of statutes contained in the confraternity’s charter of foundation. The court case mentioned earlier provided transcripts which provided identification of four black men as negotiators of Johana’s redemption from slavery. Of these four one was a mattress maker, Johan Monpalau, the second was a black porter and a freeman, Johan Moliner, and the last two were slaves, Pedro and Anthoni. Their testimonies can be found in the Archivo del Reino, Gobernacion 2411, M. 22, fol. 4R, in which the notary states the alms collection box was managed by Pedro a slave belonging to the nobleman Pallars. This is impressive evidence of the capabilities of the black African community converse to statements made by such authors as Felicien Champsaur and many others who would deprive the African people of their abilities to form grand empires such as the Ashante and the Benin and as sophisticated traders and merchants, and for the purpose of this paper the recorded testimonies are evidence of the Crown’s allowance of the black African to forge a brotherhood.                                                                                                                                                                   Thus we have evidence that the black African slave had the freedom to form a support network, but by means of what foundation? The Catholic Church provided the foundation for these confraternities as they saw this as a method of salvation for the black Africans. As the black African slave was assimilated into Spanish society they created fraternal orders for themselves in association with Catholic orders who oversaw their development. This not only provided the black African a method of networking and association with their peers it also acted as a method of self governance and a means to retain their cultural heritage in the light of their forced migration. This also promoted social services such as food and medicine for the needy, and participation in funeral and religious observances. (Landers 1999:8)

The benefit to the Spanish Crown is the efforts these slaves undertook in the level of assimilation into Spanish society. They learned the language, customs and laws of this strange land. They adopted the Catholic religion with an open mind and heart as evidenced in their efforts to prepare the symbols needed for religious ceremonies such as Corpus Cristi and adapting their own use of a pantheon of gods as the Catholics have saints. In the Iberian Peninsula the black African slave demonstrated complete conformance to a socially accepted form of confraternity which won them an important place and for some an elevated status within the community which was a wise move considering the religious environment of the time. Their Church sanctioned brotherhoods afforded them much needed protection in a time of heightened religious suspicion and persecution. In sixteenth century Seville there was an influx of migration due to the huge labor demand for this growing industrial metropolis and thus many foreigners incurred a heightened sense of xenophobia in the shadow of the Inquisition. Thus the influence towards total conversion of the Catholic religion on the part of the black African slave. (Webster 1998.34)

However this is not the same scenario we see develop when the black African slave is introduced to the New World. Their adoption of the Catholic religion does not have the same outcome. They do not adopt the Catholic religion but rather adapt the Catholic doctrines in syncretism to their own African rooted religious practices which manifests itself into the phenomenon of the creation of several new forms of religion, the three dominant religions being Candomble, Santeria and Vodun. This is a most fascinating subject and a topic for future research, however this paper will only address the resultant birth of these forms of religion as an outcome to the black African slave’s total conversion to the Catholic religion when introduced to the Iberian Peninsula.

Primary sources:

Earle, Thomas F, Kate P. Lowe. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York. Cambridge University Press. 2005.

  Forbes, Jack.  Africans and Native Americas: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-  Black Peoples. Urbana. University of Illinois-Press. 1993.

Webster, Verdi S. Art and Ritual in Golden Age Spain: Sevillian Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week. Princeton. 1998.

Secondary sources:                                                                                         

Fraginals, Manuel Moreno. Africa in Latin America: Essays on History, Culture, and Socialization; translated by Leonor Blum. New York. Holmes & Meier Publishers. 1984.

Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. Chicago. University of Illinois Press. 1999.

Miriam, Joel. African Traditions in Latin America. Cidoc Cuaderno, No 73. Cuernavaca,      Mexico. 1972.

Ortiz, Antonio Dominguez. The Golden Age of Spain. New York. Basic Books Inc. Publishers. 1971.

HST 498 - Project Proposal

  Deborah Sanders 

    HST 498 - Project Proposal 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                Confraternities: The syncretism of Catholic and African religions, a partnership of survival for African Slaves.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                              Thesis:

Historically religion and its institutions have been the backbone to many a human rights violation. The Inquisition and the Crusades are prime examples. However, various religious institutions played a more positive role during the Black African slave trading during the fifteenth through the eighteenth centuries. From the initial slave trading begun in the Iberian Peninsula from the fifteenth century to the Atlantic Slave Trade which brought Black Africans to the New World. In each of these methods of forced migration of the Black African slave Catholic confraternities provided a means of assimilation into Spanish society or colonial life as is the case in the New World. From the perspective of the Catholics of Spain and Portugal, slavery provided salvation for the Africans. As the African population grew there were efforts to assimilate these individuals into Spaniard society and culture. The role of religion would have an important impact on the attempts towards enculturation of the African and Afro-Hispanic American communities.                                                                                                              

Enslaved and free Africans were able to create public social spaces for themselves as residents of Spain. This manifested itself by means of the development of ethnic enclaves. The ethnic enclaves thereby grew into the establishment of religious confraternities which contributed to the social networking of people of African descent. This is unique in that, traditionally, national leaders would determine it a threat to national security to allow enslaved groups to bond and organize together. Yet the Spanish Crown did not discourage the development of these Black African confraternities. This raises the following questions, what was the resultant benefit to the
Spanish Crown? What benefits if any did this provide the Black African slaves? Did this provide total conversion to Catholicism? What features of syncretism of the Black African culture and religious practices and Catholicism were created and do we find examples of this in modern times?                                             

I intend to address these questions by means of my chosen sources and associate a link between the Black African confraternities established in medieval Iberia and the level of syncretism allowed by the Catholic order present in the New World. The allowance under Spanish law to permit the Black African slave to retain a semblance of human rights promoted a productive response to their condition of slavery while residing on the Iberian Peninsula. The added benefit to Spanish society is proven by how instrumental Africans were in administering aid in the Hospital of Our Lady of the Angels which was an extension of a local cofradia in Seville that provided medical care for its members.

The African slave not only served his master’s needs but also served the needs of the community and the members of the fraternal organization that he or she might have been associated with. This practice of syncretism also resulted in the phenomenon of the creation of three new religions based in the New World, Candoble, Santeria and Vodun.

Bibliography  

Earle, Thomas F, Kate P. Lowe. Black Africans in Renaissance Europe. New York. Cambridge University Press. 2005.

Fisher, Andrew B, Matthew D. O’Hara. Imperial Subjects: Race and Identity in Colonial Latin America. Durham and London. Duke University Press. 2009.

Fraginals, Manuel Moreno. Africa in Latin America: Essays on History, Culture, and Socialization; translated by Leonor Blum. New York. Holmes & Meier Publishers. 1984.

Forbes, Jack.  Africans and Native Americas: The Language of Race and the Evolution of Red-Black Peoples. Urbana. University of Illinois-Press. 1993.

Landers, Jane. Black Society in Spanish Florida. Chicago. University of Illinois Press. 1999.

McNight,Kathryn Joy and Garofalo, Leo J. Afro-Latino Voices. Indianapolis/Cambridge. Hackett Puclishing Company, Inc. 2009

Miriam, Joel. African Traditions in Latin America. Cidoc Cuaderno, No 73. Cuernavaca,      Mexico. 1972.

Ortiz, Antonio Dominguez. The Golden Age of Spain. New York. Basic Books Inc. Publishers. 1971.

Webster, Verdi S. Art and Ritual in Golden Age Spain: Sevillian Confraternities and the Processional Sculpture of Holy Week. Princeton. 1998.

                                                                                                                                

  

Short Essay # 3

                                                Summer 2011 HST 498 Short Essay # 3

The European perspective of the African transitioned from a viewpoint of their right of mastery over them during the period of the slave trade to developing mastery over them due to their technological and scientific advances and inventions. The European perspective was founded on  racial bias, formerly this racial bias was based on the biblical right of enslavement and religious assumption that due to God’s allowance for slaves as mentioned in the bible married with the biological differences between white Europeans and black Africans that this made the African the logical subject for enslavement and that enslavement was a means of exposure to Christianity and if converted would save their souls. During the nineteenth and twentieth centuries the European perspective still maintained superiority over the inferior black African and more so in the light of the thrust in technology that dominated the European commercial world and caused a new set of values by which to judge the black African. These values were key to the ideology of the civilizing mission.

Michael Adas addresses this ideology in his article, “Contested Hegemony: The Great War and the Afro-Asian Assault on the Civilizing Mission Ideology”, he defines the formulation of this ideology coming from colonial administrators and advocates of colonial expansion. They proposed that the civilizing mission would promote good government, economic improvement and Christian proselytization. Adas states that the former gauges of superiority and inferiority such as differences in physical appearance and religious beliefs which dominated the European world view remained instilled in European society. However by the middle of the nineteenth century European thinkers whether they were racists or antiracists, expansionists or anti-imperialists shared the conviction that through their scientific discoveries and inventions Westerners had gained an understanding of the physical world and the ability to tap its resources in a manner which was vastly superior to anything achieved by other peoples, past or present.(pg 32) During the late Victorian era the champions of the civilizing mission saw the colonized people  and cultures as given to fatalistic, passive and excessive emotional behaviors. They regarded Africans and Asians as superstitious, indolent, reactionary, out of control and oblivious to time. These traits exhibited by the colonized people were the foundation by which Western theorists and colonial administrators determined the  inferiority of the colonized people. This value system was overwhelmingly based on bourgeois sentiments. The bourgeoisie esteemed rationality, empiricism, progressivism, systematic inquiry, industriousness and adaptability. Key civilizing mission attributes such as discipline, curiosity, punctuality, honest dealing and taking control were gauges by which the colonized people were judged. To further distort the judgment placed on the Africans, European observers assumed that due to the Africans response of astonishment, awe and mystified reactions of seeing the inventions of the Western world such as motor cars, bicycles, gramophones, telegraphy and the telephone that Africans were racially incapable of rational thought, discipline, scientific investigation and technological innovation.(pg. 39) This misinterpretation was a cause for few opportunities before World War I for colonized Africans to pursue serious training in the sciences, medicine, or engineering, instead they were relegated to the operation and maintenance of the most elementary machines.

In Hallett’s article, “Changing European Attitudes to Africa”, he points out that due to the lack of literacy within Africa, the published works of the exploits of outsiders are richly embellished and is a cause of bias which tends to overstress the importance of external influences which has to be constantly combated with publishing of the achievements of African societies in developing their own varied and elaborate cultures. These European writings which contributed to the European perspective of the African continent may have overemphasized the impact European techniques and institutions had on Africa, especially in comparison to the revolutionary innovations Africa adopted from its contact with Asia over millennia. (pg. 458,459) Hallett states that between 1790 and 1875 a change in European attitudes towards Africa developed in response to a steady expansion of European activities and the growing assurance of European power. In medieval times the technologies and political structures between these two cultures were not so different, however that changed with the rise of advancements in European technology. The European technological revolution caused a gap between the European and African continents which caused Europeans to adopt new attitudes towards people of alien culture whose way of life seemed increasingly different from their own. Two factors now contributed to a change in the European perspective towards Africa, 1) Europeans now contemplated their own societies with a heightened sense of pride, confidence and arrogance when comparing themselves to other parts of the world, and 2) a great increase in the number of Europeans with a stake in Africa and the steady expansion of European activity in the frontiers of the African continent. Each nationality of European involved in some operation in Africa, be it an English missionary, a French army officer, a Greek trader all had a sense of cultural superiority over the indigenous people of Africa. This sense of superiority was perceived by means of judgment using the value system of the European age. Hallett attributes this to the written material provided to the reader at that time which would reflect the way the author felt in response to the success of an agenda, for example a European missionary is likely to show little sympathy for those who reject or revile his teaching. Thus the European theorist found himself free to select those facts that accorded best with his own preconceptions, and by the late eighteenth century there was enough material available on the subject of those African peoples whom Europeans had been in fairly regular contact to allow Europeans with an interest in the issues of race and culture to develop a number of different theories. (pg 473,474)

The African response to European imperialism is documented in the Mackenzie article regarding the partitioning of Africa and as each European nation attempted to stake a claim to Africa’s resources, either a battle ensued between the tribal group of which their territory was in danger, or a treaty or agreement was made between a competing tribe with the European administration who would encroach on another tribes territory. Mackenzie provides a historically detailed account of each area of Africa and the European nation attempting to acquire a partition of this continent, their strategy and affected African state or tribal group’s response to protect their homeland.

The Adi article, Pan-Africanism and West African Nationalism in Britain, is an account of another response to European imperialism with the development of various organizations whose purpose was to promote solidarity, a sense of identity and nationalism among those in the diaspora and in Africa. According to Adi during the entire period of slavery and colonial rule West Africans have been compelled to leave their homeland either from forced migration of slavery, looking for employment or educational opportunities and arriving in Britain. The Africans had to endure the effects of racism in Britain and thus moved Africans in Britain and in the diaspora to create organizations such as the West African Student’s Union, the West African National Secretariat, the African Association and the Ethiopian Association to name a few. 

Thus the European perspective did change due to a response to their own commercial successes from the technological and scientific advancements which increased the expansion of imperialism. The European now looked at the colonized people with an ethnocentric world view motivated by the pride and power of imperialism as opposed to the religiously based racial ideologies of former centuries.  

       

Summer Short Essay # 2

Short essay # 2 – Christianity and social status of Africans

The connection between Christianity and social status for Africans seemed to have a political foundation or agenda. The series of readings referred to in this essay provide evidence of the existence of a similar vein regarding the laws set forth pertaining to the African black slave and antislavery initiatives. These topics of social reform existing within the French and English governing bodies and religious practicing citizens lacked sincere regard for the welfare of the African as a fellow human being. The African had to either be a convert of Christianity to garnish the lowest level of respect or go through countless hours of litigation to be considered the freeman that French law, for example, had already granted him just being a human being on French soil.
According to Sue Peabody in, Race, Slavery and the Law in Early Modern France, slavery was illegal in France and the principle that a slave became free once he or she entered France had been recognized by French jurists since the sixteenth century. Peabody states historically hundreds of slaves won their freedom in French courts on the basis of this principle. The highest echelon of the French court system, Parlement, refused to register two of the King’s laws allowing a conditional slavery to exist within the kingdom. However despite the judicial tradition that found it unacceptable to associate slavery with French society, French jurists embraced the notion that dark-skinned people were innately inferior to whites and this biological difference was acceptable cause for this race to be subjected to slavery. This racist ideology laid the groundwork for years of legal reform to be initiated to either prevent entry of Black Africans onto French soil or to legally define the physical differences of Africans from the other dark-skinned minorities as an acceptable reason for being an enslaved individual. (pg. 501,507) Peabody referred to legal scholars Jean Bodin and Antoine Loysel and their citing statute and case law as precedent for the principle, “any slave who sets foot on French soil is free.” She also notes, early modern lawyers used case law to argue that the freedom enjoyed by French citizens should be extended to anyone who arrived in France, citing a 1402 case in which four slaves escaped to Toulouse and were considered free by the privilege of that city, and a 1571 case in which the Parlement of Bordeaux arrested a slave merchant attempting to sell slaves who were thereby released from slavery. But attitudes changed when in the late seventeenth century an increase in black slaves who arrived in France as domestic servants accompanying their masters, caused the mayor of Nantes to urge the King’s minister to draw up definitive legislation for cases involving slave masters attempts to reaffirm their property rights over escaped slaves. The King’s ministers responded in the form of the Edict of October 1716, which establishes two conditions by which slaves could be brought to France, 1) for religious instruction or 2) for secular training in a particular trade. The condition of religious instruction as an allowance for a slave’s being brought to France would seem such an honorable and brotherly act in offering a religious education culminating in conversion and the saving of the slave’s eternal soul, however French society by evidence of their legislature regarding the black slave, would not accept them as brothers and thus Christianity did nothing to elevate the social status of the African and did not even recognize them as deserving of God given freedom that was allowed the white slave.
The reading by Pierre H. Boule further cements this phenomenon in French society in his article, Racial Purity or Legal Clarity? The Status of Black Residents in Eighteenth-Century France, in which he compares the handling of the question of black slaves in the French judicial system on land and sea. Boulle points to the French perception of nonwhites was one of acute interest as exotic beings, and if any prejudice was exhibited it was due to their not being of the Christian persuasion. But as the establishment of black slavery in the French colonies brought exposure to the blacks, a feeling of suspicion and fear began to be expressed and a specific prejudice to the black in comparison with other nonwhites was growing. (pg. 21) The judicial atmosphere in the early eighteenth century was a breeding ground for racial prejudice in this Christian country. A royal declaration stated Negroes contract habits and a spirit of independence which could have unfortunate results and that some Negroes are for the most part useless and dangerous. Marriages were prohibited among the Negro community in hopes of hastening a return of the slaves back to the colonies, and the quicker the better so they do not acquire a revolutionary spirit and take this back to the colonies. Fear of the black with resultant racial prejudice is evidenced by Boulle’s account of a West Indian governor, Francois-Louis de Salignac upon arriving in Martinique he wrote in a letter, “with all the European prejudices against the severity with which the blacks are treated here and in favor of the instruction that religious principles require for them. Once there I became convinced that blacks must be kept in the most absolute ignorance…the safety of the whites required it.” (pg.24) An extreme act of segregation in the formulation of the Depots des Noirs was initiated to keep newly arrived blacks from French society as they traveled from overseas with their masters in hopes of avoiding any exposure to a spirit of independence that may be taken back to the colonies. The fear of corruption of the French population and morals in France resulted in the Committee on Colonial Legislation proposing to purge the French interior of blacks by limiting their residence to the ports, “because of the sea’s great consumption of men and one could say that the sea purges the land as well as it fertilizes it”.(pg..31, 37) With this depth of racial prejudice it is no wonder Christianity in this nation did nothing to elevate the status of Africans, but conversely created legislation to suppress the growth of the African population in French society and segregate them from contact with members of society that could contribute to their feeling of solidarity to initiate any ideas or acts of securing freedom from slavery.
In England the movement towards the abolition of slavery was spearheaded by members of the Christian community whom after what author Christopher Leslie Brown describes as an antislavery impulse, realized an antislavery initiative was a necessity. In Brown’s article, Christianity and the campaign against slavery and the slave trade, he notes British abolitionist Thomas Clarkson as stating the abolitionist movement was attributed to religious progression and was a vindication of Christian teachings and the faith. Brown’s critique of this attitude provides a very important aspect of this movement to consider and that is that the target of the abolitionist movement was the Atlantic slave trade and not slaveholding itself. This is a crucial fact of evidence that Christianity did nothing to elevate African social status, the ideal of Christian servitude as recorded in Scripture and biblical custom was used to justify the practice of African slavery for the individual. But at the least many ecclesiasticals spoke out against the act of kidnapping Africans as is the basis of the Atlantic slave trade. Those that were preoccupied with the welfare of captive Africans advocated the conversion of slaves to Christianity, not the release of the Africans as slaves but just they at least be Christianized. This also resulted in the cleansing of the slave owners soul as long as he was allowing the slaves to be Christianized he was not committing a sin.
In conclusion the readings of Hudson and Brown focused on representatives of the various Christian faiths and their direct actions towards the slave trade, despite the evidence it did nothing to elevate African social status. The reading by Gerzina and Equiano provided evidence of the outcome of an African’s social status after conversion to Christianity and how individually the fight and activity on the part of the individual such as Cuffe and Equiano and the successes of assimilation they experienced. The readings of Boulle and Peabody focused on a Christian nation and the legislation undertaken that reflected moderate to extreme racial prejudice against the African arriving to France and the laws intended to deny freedom for the African slave and even entry into the country of France. All of these readings are evidence of my thesis that no Christian entity mentioned in these readings provided elevation of social status for the African collectively as a race.

1st Short Essay - Summer 2011

Perception of Africans in Mediterranean Europe vs. Atlantic Europe Religion played a major role in the outcome of life for the enslaved and free Africans of the Iberian Peninsula. As the African progressed in the assimilation process of sixteenth century Spain and converted to Catholicism they were able to develop confraternities that served as welfare associations and a foundation by which to retain their cultural identity. This occurred predominantly in the cities of Lisbon, Barcelona and Seville, and was an outcrop of the confraternities created by European Catholics in these regions. These African confraternities provided for the functions of burials and participation by free and enslaved Africans in the numerous religious celebrations and festivals. This level of assimilation and the benefits it brought to the African was contingent on the hope of conversion to Christianity. Was this restricted to the Iberian Peninsula? Were Blacks in other locations of Europe given higher standards of social status and mobility without the cost of their spiritual identity?
The phenomenon of the treatment and perception of the African in Iberia and the Atlantic European countries of Britain, France and Germany during the fifteenth thru the seventeenth centuries varies from disdain to a respectful consideration and is the subject of several articles on this issue. These articles can be compared and contrasted to arise at an understanding that there were differing levels of perceptions and conditions of the African slave throughout the historical introduction of African slaves into European societies. The Iberian Peninsula is a focus of authors such as Annette Ivory whose article “Juan Latino: The Struggle of Blacks, Jews, and Moors in Golden Age Spain”, presents a time in Spanish history during the Spanish Inquisition which places the Black minority above the Jewish and Moorish minorities. The motivating factor behind the introduction of the Black protagonist in a good vs. evil drama is Spain’s attempt to play a smoke and mirrors game with the known world to give an image of strength and stability within its religious, monarchical and academic institutions. Comparable to the Roman Caesars use of the gladiator games to win over the mob, Rome’s subjects of the Republic, the Spanish theater was vital as a medium of communicating reconstructed historical facts of Spain. The object of playwright Diego Jimenez de Enciso is Juan Latino, a black slave who ascends in society to become a scholar and achieves upward mobility by marrying a white European noblewoman. The latter achievement earned by overcoming a converted Jew and two Moors. Ivory points to the socio-political tensions existent between the three minorities in Spanish society, the Blacks, Jews, and the Moors and their struggle with the oppression of the Inquisition fostered by traditional Christian Spaniards. Of interest however is how de Enciso portrays Latino as a sole figure and his ability to overcome the ambitions of the Jewish and Moorish minorities when a brotherhood of Blacks were actively organizing riots against the features of the Inquisition that disallowed minorities from entry into certain schools and jobs, thereby negating the abilities of the Blacks to organize and rise against unfair treatment, and giving the idea it is just one man’s fate. Another indicator of how the Black was considered in Spanish society in pointed out by Ivory in de Enciso’s play where Dona Ana’s brother entreats her to basically not consider Latino’s blackness, which in response to her hostile reaction of having a Black as her teacher. Ivory makes a good point that the author just couldn’t get past the current tide of racism in his day and actually used the Black to propagate Spanish propaganda. Enciso accomplishes this by utilizing a Black minority to defeat the oppressed minorities which in reality the Spaniards were the oppressors not the other two minorities and in the end after all Latino’s noble accomplishments, his social status stays the same, as a slave.
Another example of assimilation with an outcome converse to the visible role in Spanish society Ivory portrays is found in Carmen Fracchia’s article, “(Lack of) Visual Representation of Black Slaves in Spanish Golden Age Painting”, she points to the contradiction in the amount of slaves within the population of Seville and yet the lack of visual representation of the Black in a common medium as paintings. Fracchia states during the sixteenth century the slave population of Seville was the largest in Spain with a Black population of 30,000 which would logically mean they were a common sight in Spanish society and few artists incorporated this social class in their representations of Spanish society. Fracchia turns to one of these artists, Diego Velazquez whom she states gave greater attention to the Black as a subject for his paintings. His painting, “Kitchen Maid with Supper at Emmaus” is contrary to the typical art works that depict Black people as exotics dressed in a turban or ostrich plumes or in religious representations of Hell. In the Kitchen Maid a female slave in a domestic setting with her gaze lowered lends to the invisibility Fracchia refers to. The painter removes the identity of this girl not allowing the viewer to see her facial details but clearly identifies her as a domestic slave which according to Fracchia historically the condition of the female domestic was of no concern in Spanish society because they were commonly never up for auction or public sale. Fracchia’s historical knowledge of the condition of the slave in sixteenth century Seville confirms this is more than a biblical representation of the last supper, but represents the social and economic outlook on the slave as an infidel that needed conversion and conversion was paramount to successful assimilation into Spanish society. Fracchia sees this assimilation as the steps to invisibility of the slave.
To look to the reading by Lawrence Clayton on Bartolome de Las Casas as evidence of the condition of the slave in sixteenth century Seville is of historical value. Las Casas grew up in late fifteenth century Seville at a time when the slave population is estimated to be 10 percent of the population. Las Casas saw the integration of the slave into Spanish society as workers in urban industries, as church goers and in some cases as freed men. This is converse to the inhumane treatment and demonizing of the native people of the Americas when Las Casas voyaged to the Espanola in the early sixteenth century. As Clayton helps us to appreciate to look past the initial view of placing blame on Las Casas for suggesting the Spanish bring African slaves from Iberia to the New World and the end result of that action, but rather study what Las Casas was used to seeing as the condition and perception of the slave in his hometown. We could surmise that yes indeed he thought that surely the African slave would be treated humanely when used as labor as what he was used to seeing, why would it be any different, these are the same Spaniards that were also used to seeing the integration of the African slave and would share the same perception in the new land. This is logical to assess, most importantly however is the value of Las Casas viewpoint in substantiating the role religion played in the condition and perception of the African slave on the Iberian peninsula from the eyes of a Dominican priest of sixteenth century Spain.
For the African slave outside Iberia their condition was secular based and led to a slightly different outcome. Slightly different in terms of service, the Black slave was still exposed to the limitations of acceptance into the white societies of the French and English. West Africans were introduced to England as a result of the expeditions of Lok and Wyndham, despite their small numbers in the populace Queen Elizabeth perceived them as a national threat and sought for their deportation. The higher echelon of English society hired black servants as domestics within the household or were like household pets to courtesans and ladies of leisure who placed decorated dog-collars on them. As servants they exercised choice in seeking positions and a fortunate few were able to obtain a secular education within the home of the elite according to the Rodney reading. He notes that due to the social framework of England and France a black slave was not permitted anything more than a qualified form of feudal service.

Short Essay 3

                                                                                                                                                                 A phenomenon was created when Parisians were exposed to jazz music and dance from the United States. In 1925 the initial introduction to jazz music and dance by means of the La Revue Negre was accepted by Paris and other European artistic circles far more openly than it's own country of origin. The Dalton and Gates article on Josephine Baker and Paul Colin mentions the African-American experience upon landing in France during World War I as being in such contrast, like night and day in comparison to the highly racist treatment they experienced in the United States. In the United States segregation was a way of life for the African-American, in France segregation is illegal. Thus this environment of acceptance provided the African-American a feeling of being human which they had never felt in their own homeland. Dalton and Gates describe the French reaction to the theater act of Le Tumulte in conjuction with the Charleston  as spellbound and quick to imitate the dance themselves.

The African-American artist found a forum that nurtured the artistic and creative mind of an intelligent human being, and the result was a level of appreciation  that traveled from the theatre audience to great classical composers such as Claude Debussy and Antonin Dvorak. The article explains a motivating factor to the French acceptance of the African-American music and dance as "degree of mirth and hedonistic and voyeuristic pleasure that they had not known for some time" which was sorely needed due to the trauma experienced from the savagery of World War I. (pg 907) The response of the French to this new dance form spearheaded the career of Paul Colin in his promotional postered advertising for the Le Tumulte act. His depictions of the lead characters were portrayed in a manner which was considered progressive in his era and are now historical artifacts. This made celebrities of Josephine Baker and her fellow artists, which they may have never experienced in the highly racist environment of the United States.

This success story was not the norm for all of African descent in Europe. For West Africans in Britain the level of racism they experienced moved them to solidarity and to create nationalistic groups that were intended to protect their human rights and provide a support network to express and explore their political ideologies. Their goal of identifying their own political and cultural needs as displaced Africans was in response to the prejudice they experienced in Britain. Hakim Adi's article gives recognition to the formation of several student unions, the National Congress of British West Africa, the Nigerian Progress Union and several outlier groups that organized to formed to provide a foundation of stabilization Africans in the diaspora and those living in Britain.

Thus the result to their treatment was a development of Pan-Africanism and activities that were influential in anti-imperialist and  anti-racist intiatives. Thus in this area of Europe socialization between the Brits and Africans was hostile due to the ethnocentric attitudes from the British, in which the African response was to organize and create networks of support to negate the harmful effects of racism and imperialism. 

2nd Essay

I propose in this essay that the articles relating to Christianity indicate that the African slave's conversion to  Christianity had a major impact on the level of success of assimilation in European society. The article by Olaudah Equiano, Christopher Brown and Nicholas Hudson provide direction to evidence that  Christianized institutions played a role in anti-slavery movement and social reform for the African slave class. The African slave benefited by means of the evangelizing Christian class who in the nurturing of the converted African slave, engaged in petitions of reform for humane treatment and recognition of the rights and value as a fellow Christian. Conversion to Christianity provided the African slave a source of empowerment towards acquiring human rights in European society. Which opened the door to freedom and the ability to being a participant in the commercial and political forums of European society as exampled by Olaudah Equiano and Paul Cufee.

A few points that support this in Christopher Brown's article are 1) the spiritual revival within Protestant communities of mid 17th century through the 18th century. Due to the nascent evangelical movement, action towards antislavery are undertaken by certain religious groups and individuals (pg 519), 2) the statement that "those preoccupied with the welfare of captive Africans typically advocated the conversion of slaves to Christianity", 3) the article states the diversity of this pattern can be found from British, French American, Spanish and Portuguese colonies and within the Jesuit, Quaker and Puritan communities. (521).

Supporting the influential role Christianity ideology played towards the impact of antislavery campaigns and social reform for the African slave in found in the article by Nicholas Hudson. Hudson's intent to refute the scholarly teachings that give much attention to the theory that antislavery activism was undertaken by radical, nonconformists within British culture yields a cornucopia of literary works and references of action undertaken by the socially conservatives of the Anglican church. Hudson also lists many members of British society that were royalists, hierarchical, fundamentally Anglican and learned men. He also mentions members of the very highest echelons of Anglican ecclesiatics were outspoken activists of antislavery. (562)

The remaining articles by Boulle, Gerzina and Peabody provide insight regarding how ethnicity and "color" were interpreted in 17th and 18th century Europe, mainly France. Both Boulle and Gerzina refer to legal cases involving French slaves which raised question of ownership and definition of what was "negro". The Gerzina article intended to enlighten the reader of the movement of Africans by means of forced migration as opposed to authors of journals writing of normal travel experiences. I liked the undertaking of this subject in her article, it substantiated Equiano's article of the opportunities opened up to seafaring slaves. Gerzina states that many African born writers tried to reconcile their enslaved status with the freedom conferred by a Christianity they discovered due to their forced movement. This statement compliments the Hudson and Brown articles in supporting the pattern of conversion to Christianity and the significant role this act played in providing assimilation within European society.