History sub-forum - For debate and learning

[Berimbau]

We are on the same page Facundo! As to how our music survived, I think that the African cultural identity and resistance were at the heart of it. Yes it was an extremely inhuman situation, wholly driven by greed. Racism was just the byproduct of that market-driven economic philosophy. But first, you had to bankrupt your soul by buying into the lies. This is exactly what the Bush administration is doing today!!
As to the discourse in academic circles, the orientation of the various parties has changed several times since the days of Melville Herskovits. A European-American scholar, he was the first American anthropologist to argue seriously for the case of "African survivals." The African-American sociologist E. Franklin Frazer argued against Herskovits insisting that African-American culture was created by the slaves in the US from European sources. In Cuba, Ortiz and Fuentes debated much the same regarding African and Native-American influences there. In Jamaica, Brathwaite and Patterson continued a similar debate visa vis African VS European influences on that island.
By the 1970's a vogue for finding EVERYTHING to be of African origin had taken hold. Now that didn't account too much for the creativity of the peoples in the African Diaspora!
For my part, I really prefer the more historically accurate and VERY CAREFUL tone achieved by Sidney Mintz & Richard Price in their groundbreaking "The Birth of African-American Culture." Or of Gerhard Kubik's Angolan Traits in Black Music, Games, and Dances of Brazil." Incidently, these two books were written by "white" people. But that shouldn't really matter if they're good books, should it?
Now I personally feel that the ethnic dimension of the debate has been an embarrassment to everyone in the academy. Quite honestly, 95% of history does come with some kind of an agenda, and Afrocentricism has merely replaced Eurocentrism with an equally unfair and biased approach. In the end, one must sift through a great number of books and agendas to arrive at anything like an historic truth. History just ain't pretty, and it can't be changed by pouring either sugar or vinegar on it.


Saludos,


Berimbau

[Facundo]

Berimbau,

Again, I agree with your conclusions. However, I think afrocentricity warrants a little leadway given the newness of the concept. No enough concerned shcolars have embraced the idea within the various relevent disciplines. I also don't feel the objective of afrocentricity is solely to replace the concepts and objective of eurocentricity. On one hand eurocentric thought functioned to justify european supremacy on the world stage and their "right" or "obligation" to uplift the rest of mankind as well as control the natural resources of the entire world. Many of the major world conflicts can be distilled down to this objective. This holds true for conflicts between european nations as well as the types of interfaces the West has had with nations outside of their's.

On the other hand afrocentricity, for me, seems focused more toward reclamation of black humanity which cannot accept an "up from slavery" approach and must acknowlege black contributions to mankinds story. Addmittidly, this has yet to become the mode within afrocentric circles but lets give them more time. My hope is that humankind will evolve to tell its' story with no-centricity, just truth.

Best regards,
Facundo

[Berimbau]

Facundo,

RIGHT ON, BRO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Saludos,


Berimbau

[zaragemca]

Well but I would like to mention that the sugarcoted of the true didn't started with westerner in the conquering of Africa in more recenctly history,but since the time of Greece Empire which stoled a lot of credit from the Egiptian in relation of knowledge....On the other subject it is clear to me that the cuban music was the fusion of complex percutive African Patterns,with the harmony and instruments of European,Chinese ancestries....and influenced the music of the Caribbean,U.S.A.,Mexico,Argentina,Colombia,Venezuela,etc.Dr. Zaragemca



Edited By zaragemca on 1148054057

[pcastag]

One note on the slave trade. the slave colonies in the US were practically self-perpetuating. The climate and the conditions were much less harsh than those of the tropical and caribbean colonies. Therefore the slave trade was much less of an issue than it was in the colonies where the avaerage life expectancy of a slave once he landed in port was sometimes only seven years! Working in swampy conditions in the sugar cane fields was not the ideal place to be in the 1700's!

In addition, Thomas Tefferson banned the importation of slaves I think in 1808, don't quote me on that year. Obviously slaves were still smuggled in, but the trade to the USA was nowhere near that of Brazil and the caribbean.

I think the last census showed the African American population in the USA to be about 37,000,000, again much less of a percentage than other countries such as Brazil, where the Afro-Brazillian pop. has been estimated to be as high as 60% of a country of about 180,000,000.
PC

[zaragemca]

Since you touch that point I would like to ask an open question...Why the slavery was prohibited?.Dr. Zaragemca

[pcastag]

Slavery itself was not prohibited, the importation of slaves was. The British had outlawed the slave trade a year earlier, the colony of Sierra Leone was established by the British specifically to catch British merchants illegally smuggling slaves from Africa. that is what the movie Amistad was about. In the US Constititution it was writtien that no laws regarding the importation of slaves could be written before 1808. As soon as he got the chance TJ had a law prohibiting the importation. Maybe it had something to do with his Girlfriend at the time!
LOL
PC

[Berimbau]

Actually the African population of the US in antebellum times was miniscule with the one exception of 18th century South Carolina. However, since abolition the African-American population has more than doubled and is continuously growing, although still less than 15% of the overall US total population. By comparison, the African populations of both Cuba and Brasil had vastly different social histories than that of African-Americans.
The legal slave trade, if there ever was such a thing, ended in 1808 in the US. After that date, some slaves were surreptitiously smuggled into the US, but no more than a few thousand or so according to historian Phillip Curtin.
As to the cultural borrowings of the Greeks from Egypt, such arguments have been forwarded by Afro-Centrist for a few decades now, and have long been discredited. These historically inaccurate exaggerations are based on wrong-headed assumptions regarding the ethnic make-up of various ancient Egyptian empires. No reputable Egyptologist subscribes to this shoddy claptrap! Read Mary Lefkowitz' "Not Out of Africa" and Robert Hughes' "The Culture of Complaint" for the skewering such "scholarship" deserves.
The greatness and beauty of African cultures are often profoundly belittled by the dribblings of these half-bright hacks. The REAL African history is far more profound than such pablum.


Saludos,



Berimbau

[pcastag]

I'm unsure of what cultural borrowings we're talking about. I know that certain things attributed to the greeks were actually known first by the Egyptians, for example the Pythagorian theorem was actually long known by the Egyptians, who used it often to reset the boundaries of their fields after the flooding of the nile. In addition, some ancient Egyptian instruments that predate the Greeks were found that have the same tonality as the modes we often associate with the greeks, frigian, lydian etc. The Greek capital was based in Egypt at the height of the empire as well, so I'm sure some of the culture of the Egyptians rubbed off on the greeks.
PC

[zaragemca]

Some Greek Scholars did study in Egypt,before that Empire was invated by Greece,(the Egyptian used to hire Greeks/worriors in their battle with the Nubias),and assigned them to the line of their frontier as guards,(ironically that was the way the the Greece Empire started knowing everything about the Egyptians which later help them with the invasion.During the invasion the first thing which was done was to ransake the Egyptian Libraries and taking everything of values with them,(Greeks).Dr. Zaragemca



Edited By zaragemca on 1149192209

[Berimbau]

All of this has been rehashed by amateur scholars for decades as some sort of gauntlet for the anciently disenfranchised Africans. To the extreme disapointment of many Afro-centrists, the phenotypes of late Kingdom Egyptians was variant and often not much different than those of many contemporary Southern Europeans. Cultures have borrowed, plundered, burned, raped, and pillaged for all of history, something that almost any college freshmen could tell you.
Now no group in recent memory has spent more energy on maintaining antiquated notions of race and culture than Afro-Centrists. In so many ways they are caught in the same racist paradigmatic prison as 19th century European armchair anthropologists. Frankly, I find this type of pseudo scholarship insulting to the REAL African historians, whose perspectives and phenotypes are also variant!
Just what all this has to do with the Sub-Saharan trans-Atlantic slave trade and the development of African Diasporan cultures is beyond me. Those events occured thousands of years later and in an entirely different part of the world. Serious Egyptologists would think little of this debate, and will no doubt concur with me that there is really no evidence linking Afro-Cuban culture with ancient Egyptian sources, including the Kushites.
Now if we want to talk about great African Kingdoms that DO resonate in Cuban culture, how about Kongo?



Saludos,



Berimbau

[Facundo]

Hey Guys,

Sorry for the late entry but I just saw this. Wow, this thread has gone in a lot of different directions. Let me take a stab at answering Doc Z's question which didn't seem to get answered.

"Since you touch that point I would like to ask an open question...Why the slavery was prohibited?."

Slavery was prohibited not for humanitarian reasons but for reasons of economic positioning on the part of the British. It was an attempt to contain the economic grouth and potential power of the plantation class in the largest settlement in the "new world". We must remember that after the importation of slaves was abolished, studd farms were set up in the colonies to insure free labor. To keep things in context places like Cuba and Brazil ended slavery much later than North America. The continued influx of Africans also served to keep the African cultural elements rich in Cuba and Brazil.

I agree that discussing Egypt has little to do with the African Diaspora. I would also agree that some afro centric scholars have advanced arguments on questionable grounds. However, I disagree with any argument says that the Egypt known to the Greeks and Romans was not a Black African empire. Despite the Western academic attempts to obscure this fact, there remains too much evidence that indicate the truth. Not that, that has anything to do with the drums we play.

Facundo

[Berimbau]

Bro Facundo,
The Egypt(s) known to the Greeks and the Romans WERE multi-ethnic, multicultural societies. Not that this has ANYTHING to do with the African diaspora, of course. But hey, how about that Yoruba Kingdom? Or what about that Great Mailian Empire? Can I get a shout out for my peeps in the Kingdom of Kongo? Anyone?


Saludos,



Berimbau

[davidpenalosa]

My understanding is that there were black Nubian pharaohs from the upper Nile, but most of the pharaohs were probably of Semitic descent. To claim that all pharaohs were black is as bad as claiming that none were black.

But hey, I’d rather hear what Berimbau has to say about the Yoruba Kingdom or the Kingdom of Kongo. How did they figure into the slave trade? Please lay it on me!
-David

[zaragemca]

Saludos, well the original root of the Egyptians were the Nubias,(Oromo/Tribe), which were pushed downward during the Assyrian/Semities Invasion to the North/Africa,(looking for the control of the trades through the Delta and the Red Sea)...The Bantu started in north West/Africa and moved to Central,(covering part of the South)...The Yorubas,(according to Oddua), were told by Olofi to settle in that area, 'Ife', and thats where they have been living since,(the only civilization which have not been pushed out of their settlement by nobody).Dr. Zaragemca



Edited By zaragemca on 1150138476