Aaron Davis
HST: 498
Image of the African in Europe
1400-1600
The era of European expansion and exploration gave rise to the widespread interaction between Europeans and Africans. Beginning with the Portuguese exploration of the West African coast in 1445, accounts of European encounters with Africans began to shape the view of the African in the European mind. During the early years of first contact between the Portuguese and the West Africa commercial interests dominated the Portuguese objectives. They established a flourishing trade and the construction of the African image in the European mind began to take shape. The Portuguese brought back stories of savage and exotic people living in a continent with abundant natural resources. The idea of Black people was not completely foreign to the inhabitants of the Iberian and Italian peninsulas however as the Mediterranean slave trade out of Africa took off Africans began to become known for being a commodity population reduced to service. This image was common throughout Europe during the early era of the Mediterranean Slave Trade as Africans began to fill the vacancy left by Eastern Europeans and Western Asians as enslaved populations. This image carried with it the notion that Africans being non-Christian were uncivilized and backwards however in Mediterranean Europe, the Italian and Iberian peninsulas, this allowed for assimilation on the grounds of conversion. In Mediterranean Europe the notion of darker skin being correlated with your inherent ability, character, or equality was less prevalent due to the diverse populations found in the Mediterranean. In Atlantic Europe, Britain and France, the image of the African was constructed less on religious grounds and more correlated with melanin content and its perceived effect on ones character, ability, and equality.
The early representations of Africans in the European mind find their genesis primarily from early accounts of expeditions to Africa to establish trade and commercial enterprises. During this early period the accounts of unclothed, savage, and inherently violent Africans emanated from the continent. These accounts are less indicting of the Africans when considering the fact that most societies of the day and probably in modern times would react violently to a foreign expeditionary force which had been rumored as cannibals who were abducting their countrymen. Furthermore as evidenced by the Africans restraint in using violence as the commercial nature of the Portuguese activities became evident these African societies sought civil diplomatic and commercial relations. As Ivana Elbl points out in her article, “Cross-Cultural Trade and Diplomacy: Portuguese Relations in West Africa, 1441-1521”, the common notion that the Europeans with their superior technology and sense of exceptionalism arrived as conquerors easily exploiting and enslaving the West African population motivated by the self-righteous goal of civilizing a savage people was a reconstruction of events to suit a similar European historical goal of crafting the image of the African as backwards and in need of European civilizing forces. In fact some societies encountered by these early Portuguese expeditions were quite sophisticated and capable of defending themselves as is evidenced by the hostile reaction the opportunistic Europeans received as word of their raiding activity further North preceded their arrival in more powerful and larger African communities. Walter Rodney comments in his chapter “Africa in Europe and the Americas” “It was ignorance rather than knowledge which characterized Africa’s image within Europe, so that novelists, poets, painters, and playwrights catered to the new awareness of Africa mainly at the level of the exotic.” The image was being created in the European mind of Africans as uncivilized and unusual.
On the Iberian and Italian peninsulas Africans were most commonly held in domestic servitude due to the feudal and capitalist pressures that dictated the majority of agricultural work was not done by slave labor. This domestic slavery led to intimate relationships developed between master and slave and frequent manumission resulted. Nobility on the Iberian and Italian peninsulas in addition to the Hohenstaufen in Germany often held African slaves in the their royal entourages to distinguish the noble’s lifestyle as ostentatious, exotic, and exceptional[1]. These roles filled by Africans shows the image of the African in Mediterranean Europe as oddities which bolstered ones status in reaffirming the far reach of European and the noble’s dominion. The historical significance of the African presence in Iberia was the miscegenation that took place. Africans disappeared as a separate and distinct population but their large numbers ensured a lasting impact[2]. This impact coupled with the particular form of domestic slavery in use in Mediterranean Europe led to the African image being one marked by oddity yet with the divine power of conversion and the intelligent use of existing social structures Africans could attain freedom and a semblance of assimilation into mainstream Spanish, Portuguese, or Italian society.
In Atlantic Europe particularly England and France the African image was similar to that in Mediterranean Europe in the sense that Africans were viewed as exotic and unusual however the social structures that existed made it far harder for Africans to assimilate. This distinction likely finds its roots in the differing historical experience in regards to diversity and in particular the presence of Black or at least non-white populations in the given regions. Furthermore as suggested by Walter Rodney the chattel slavery as seen in England and France lacked the intimate nature of the relations between slave and master as seen in Mediterranean Europe. Miscegenation was not as widespread and conversion to Christianity was not the key factor in the British appraisal of African acceptability. Furthermore the presence of Blacks in England was significantly less than in Spain and Portugal resulting in a far more exclusive society. According to Walter Rodney in 1551 Lisbon had a population of 100,000 Africans whom one tenth were slaves. Contrasting that figure with the figure from Michael Guasco’s article stating in the 16th century Blacks arrived to England in groups of one to five presents a fundamental demographic difference resulting in a much more exclusive and color stratified society in Atlantic Europe[3].
