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.