#trans-sahara slave trade

[former-leftist-jew]

I really don't think you should be trusting Hama's history at face value.

a) But I should be trusting Hamas' word about Jews, Israelis, and the current war that they started at face value?

b) Oh, don't worry. I get my history from many different sources, and most of the ones that aren't from pro-Islam propaganda corroborate Hamas and other Islamists' boast that "Islam was spread by the sword."

Historical Analysis shows that the spread of Islam did not equate to the spread of Arabian people.

a) So that makes it better? The Islamic Arabic language, culture, and religion being the dominant ones across the entire Middle East and North Africa following the 150 years of violent colonial conquest of native peoples from medieval Arab caliphs, officers, and nobles...

And it's fine because "most of them aren't ethnic arabs--just the descendants of culturally assimilated native peoples and cultures under the Islamic Arab banner"?

b) You've clearly never heard of the 1400+ year Trans-Sahara or "Arab" Slave Trade, have you?

The 1400+ year racial slave trade that makes the 400-year Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade look tame by comparison predominantly perpetuated by ethnic Arabs and Middle Eastern people against ethnic black Africans in their own home continent and beyond.

You know Islam is the predominant religion in North africa for the same reason Christianity is the predominant religion in South Africa, right? Colonialism.

In fact, the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade was a brief off-shoot of the Arab Slave Trade. Reason being: European Slavers never went too far far into the African mainland until the 1800's (hence why they didn't colonize African land until the 1800's Imperialsim, when European powers suddenly saw how rich the continent was in raw materials and resources, after the centuries-long slave trade ended), yet European Christian slavers' reach extended well into the African mainland.

Why was that? Partly because traveling caravans of Arab slave traders, who were more-than-happy to add to their already booming industry of kidnapping pagan ethnic blacks, carting them all the way across the continent, and selling them to the highest bidders near the coasts of Africa.

In fact, enslavement and marginalization of ethnic blacks in the Arab world was so ubiquitous that, to this day, Arabic word for black people is also the word for "slave," and the two are often used interchangeably.

In North Sudan, the terms "Abeed" and "Abid" are commonly used to refer to South Sudanese people (mostly Dinka and Nuer), who are considered by many North Sudanese as a "slave tribe" due to their enslavement during the trans-Saharan slave trade. Usage of the terms in North Sudan is considered derogatory in nature and has fallen into relative disuse in recent decades

This is the same Sudan where the Darfur Genocide is happening RIGHT NOW; ethnic black Africans being rounded upo and killed by ethnic Arabs and Middle Easterners.

The Rapid Support Forces (RSF), an independent military force, and its allies, primarily Arab militias, are responsible for a campaign of ethnic cleansing, targeting the Massalit people and other non-Arab communities in West Darfur’s capital, El Geneina. The apparent objective was to permanently remove them from the city.

By the way, the territory of "Palestine" is not immune. The word "Abeed" also makes a grand appearance in t Palestininian territories:

The practice of owning slaves by Arabs in [British] Mandatory Palestine and Jordan was observed at least until the 1930s, many of these slaves were from African descent and as a result many of today's Afro-Palestinians are themselves of African descent. The legacy of this practice is still evident in today's Palestinian territories: The term "Abeed" (slave) is used as a slur against dark-skinned Palestinians. Moreover, Afro-Palestinian also face several aspects of de facto segregation: They are limited in who they can marry and have limited employment options. They also live in separate neighborhoods. These neighborhoods are often referred to using the Abeed slur. For example, in the Gaza city district of Al-Jalla, the Afro-Palestinians live in a neighborhood called Al-Abeed [or "children of slaves" or in Jericho, Afro-Palestinian's neighborhood is still called the "slaves of Duyuk."

So, yeah.

Now that we've established that ethnic Arab/Middle Easter

While Arabian's migrated in small numbers to conquered parts of the Caliphates, mostly as offices, officers, nobles and such, the Native peoples remined in their place for the most part.

Kind of like what the British did to the Irish?

My goodness, do you hear yourself??

You're practically making my point for me:

Medieval Arab warlords, caliphs, officers, and nobles violently conquered Native peoples across the Middle East and North Africa, reduced them to second-class citizens in their own homelands, and slowly phased out the native languages, religions, and cultures and assimilated them to Arab supremacy.

In fact, let's take this moment to learn two new terms:

Pan-Arabism: a pan-nationalist ideology that espouses the unification of all Arab people in a single nation-state, consisting of all Arab countries of West Asia and North Africa from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea, which is referred to as the Arab world.

Not to be confused with Arab nationalism:

A political ideology asserting that Arabs constitute a single nation. As a traditional nationalist ideology, it promotes Arab culture and civilization, celebrates Arab history, the Arabic language and Arabic literature. It often also calls for unification of Arab society. It bases itself on the premise that the people of the Arab world—from the Atlantic Ocean to the Arabian Sea—constitute one nation bound together by a common identity: ethnicity, language, culture, history, geography, and politics.

Soooo... where does that leave non-Arab Native populations who might not be interested in living under the Islamic Arab banner?

Like Kurds, Druze, Sikhs, Hindus, and other non-Muslims being driven out of Muslim-majority countries in the Middle East right now? Not to mention the "separate-and-inferior" status of dhimmi (non-Muslims) in Muslim-majority countries?

The Arabs refer to a group of related preexisting cultures who were united during the Islamic Golden age/Middle Ages, identified primarily by the use of Arabic as a first language. Arab =/= Arabian =/= Muslim.

AKA groups of pre-existing cultures they violently conquered, colonized, and assimilated.

b) You know the "Golden Age of Islam" has been largely debunked, right?

Long story short, the term "Islamic Golden Age" was coined by an Irish journalist in the 1880's, and mostly purported by post-20th century Islamist retroactively taking credit for millennia of scientific camplishments made by the peoples the Arabs conquered. (Mostly from the Islamisized Persian Empire and Jews with Arabic-sounding names in Islam-majority countries.)

I could honestly go on and on, but tumblr keeps glitching out, so I'm just going to post this here.

[whencyclopedia]

The Camel Caravans of the Ancient Sahara

The camel caravans which crossed the great dunes of the Sahara desert began in antiquity but reached their golden period from the 9th century CE onwards. In their heyday caravans consisted of thousands of camels travelling from North Africa, across the desert to the savannah region in the south and back again, in a hazardous journey that could take several months. Stopping along the way at vital oases, the caravans were largely controlled by the Berbers who acted as middlemen in the exchange of such desired commodities as salt, gold, copper, hides, horses, slaves, and luxury goods. The trans-Saharan trade brought with it ideas in art, architecture, and religion, transforming many aspects of daily life in the towns and cities of a hitherto isolated part of Africa.

Continue reading...

[afriblaq]

It is now 2024. In 2021, an estimated 1.7 million people in the Arab States were living in modern slavery, which is about 10.1 people per thousand people. This is the highest prevalence of modern slavery in the world when population is considered. The most common form of exploitation was forced labor, which accounted for 52% of people living in modern slavery. Forced marriage accounted for the other 48%. The Arab slave trade was most active in West Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Africa. Estimates suggest that between 6–10 million Africans were enslaved over the 12 centuries before the 20th century. The trans-Saharan trade routes were responsible for a significant number of these slaves, with one estimate suggesting that around 7.2 million crossed the Sahara from the mid-7th century until the 20th century. #BLM #facts

[cameroonunitedfront]

WHY DO PEOPLE SUPPORT ISRAEL BECAUSE OF RELIGION & NOT MORALS AGAINST PALESTINIAN & HAMAS?

If Jews are chosen children of God, who is not a chosen child of God? Those who support Israel based on that myth clearly are not chosen children of God. The ideology that the British used to build their empire. The ideology Europeans used to foster the slave trade for almost a thousand years. The Arabs used the same ideology their foster the trans Sahara slave trade. Therefore, there is a…

[rnnonline]

Top 10 Most Famous Black People In History

The history of  Black people goes as far back as the Egypt ancient civilization, they are several scholars who believe that the society back then was dominated by Black people. However, due to the lack of proper documentation, nothing is known about the Black race until the trans-Sahara slave trade that took place between the 5th and 15th century AD.  The Trans-Atlantic Slave trade followed suit…

[indomitablekushite]

A Chronology of The Peculiar Institution: Slavery Timeline 1300-1600

This is not covering the Arab slavery of our people. The reason for this post is I have seen so many of us who have no clue about how and when it started. I hear people say Black started slaver here or we sold our people into slavery and it makes me sad and mad. Anyway much could be added but I cant make it long because we will not read it. If I missed any points just let me know. Do you know how the names Grain, Gold, Slave Coast came about? Im working on a post about our fight against the Maafa which has never been told in full. 1380 In the aftermath of the Black Plague, Europe’s slave trade revives in response to the labor shortage. The slaves come from all over Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. Later on they will ever use their own children. 1444 We learn from the Portuguese royal chronicler Gomes Eanes de Zurara, who was a young ship captain named Antam Gonçalvez, who sailed to West Africa in 1441 hoping to acquire seal skins and oil.  After obtaining his cargo, Gonçalvez called a meeting of the twenty-one sailors who accompanied him and unveiled his plan to increase their profits. According to Zurara, Gonçalvez told his crew, “we have already got our cargo, but how fair a thing would it be if we, who have come to this land for a cargo of such petty merchandise, were to meet with good fortune and bring the first captives before the presence of our Prince?” That night, Gonçalvez led a raiding party into Cap Blanc, a narrow peninsula between Western Sahara and Mauritania, and kidnapped two Berbers, one man and one woman. Another Portuguese mariner, Nuno Tristão, and members of his crew soon joined Gonçalvez. Although the raid resulted in less than a dozen captives, Zurara imagines in his account that prince Henry of Portugal responded to this enterprise with, “joy, not so much for the number of captives taken, but for prospect of other [countless] captives that could be taken.”While Gonçalvez’s voyage in 1441 is widely considered to mark the beginnings of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, it may also be viewed as an extension of an older tradition of raiding and ransom on both shores of the Mediterranean. Upon returning to Portugal, Gonçalvez treated his captives in accordance with this custom, and allowed them to negotiate the terms of their release. Rather than offering a ransom of money, the captives promised to give Gonçalvez ten slaves in exchange for their own freedom and safe passage home. According to royal chronicler Zurara, the Berbers explained that these new captives would be “black [and] not of the lineage of Moors, but Gentiles.” Thus in 1442, Gonçalvez returned his Berber captives to Western Sahara, receiving as payment ten enslaved sub-Saharan Africans, whom he then transported back to Portugal for re-sale. Please understand this was no trade, it was kidnapping. Its was also a agreement of one white man with another all believers in a book that said God will make Africans people slave the them. No European nation was willing or able to put an army in western Africa until the Portuguese colonization of what is now Angola (this Angola was part of Congo Empire) more than a century later (and even then, Portuguese forces received extensive aid from armies of Imbangala or “Jaga” mercenaries). Early raids as they say are nothing more than kidnapping, but really such as the one made by Gonçalvez and Tristão in 1441 were unusual, and may have only been possible because the Portuguese had never previously raided south of Cape Bojador. Portuguese mariners soon learned that inhabitants along the Upper Guinea coast were more than capable of defending themselves from such incursions. Not long after his 1441 voyage, Tristão and most of his crew were killed off the coast of present-day Senegal.Prior to the colonization of Angola, Portuguese colonies and commercial hubs in Africa were generally established on islands that had previously been uninhabited. I cant recall what pope made it illegal to kidnap thus creating what we now know as the slave trade. but was it really a Trade???? 1502: Juan de Córdoba of Seville becomes the first merchant we can identify to send an African slave to the New World. Córdoba, like other merchants, is permitted by the Spanish authorities to send only one slave. Others send two or three. 1504: a small group of Africans - probably slaves captured from a Portuguese vessel - are brought to the court of King James IV of Scotland. 1505: first record of sugar cane being grown in the New World, in Santo Domingo (modern Dominican Republic). 1509: Columbus's son, Diego Cólon, becomes governor of the new Spanish empire in the Carribean. He soon complains that Native American slaves do not work hard enough. 1510: 22 January 1510: the start of the systematic transportation of African slaves to the New World: King Ferdinand of Spain authorises a shipment of 50 African slaves to be sent to Santo Domingo. 1513: 2 April 1513: Juan Ponce de Leon becomes the first European to reach the coast of what is now the United States of America (modern Florida). 1516: the governor of Cuba, Diego Velázquez, authorises slave-raiding expeditions to Central America. One group of slaves aboard a Spanish caravel rebel and kill the Spanish crew before sailing home - the first successful slave rebellion recorded in the New World. 1516: in his book Utopia, Sir Thomas More argues that his ideal society would have slaves but they would not be 'non-combatant prisoners-of-war, slaves by birth, or purchases from foreign slave markets.' Rather, they would be local convicts or 'condemned criminals from other countries(AKA prison industrial complex) , who are acquired in large numbers, sometimes for a small payment, but usually for nothing.' (Trans. Paul Turner, Penguin, 1965) 18 August 1518: in a significant escalation of the slave trade, Charles V grants his Flemish courtier Lorenzo de Gorrevod permission to import 4000 African slaves into New Spain. From this point onwards thousands of slaves are sent to the New World each year. 1519: 20 September The circumnavigation expedition of Ferdinand Magellan sets out from San Lucar de Barameda. In December 1520, Magellan discovered the ocean which he named the Pacific. Magellan died in the Philipines, 27 April 1521. Only one of the five ships to set out returned to Spain, on 8 September 1522. 13 August 1521: with the capture of King Cuahutemotzin by Hernan Cortés and the fall of the city of Mexico, the Aztec empire is overthrown and Mexico comes under Spanish Rule. 1522: A major slave rebellion breaks out on the island of Hispaniola. This is the first significant uprising of African slaves. After this, slave resistance becomes widespread and uprisings common. 1524: 300 African slaves taken to Cuba to work in the gold mines. 1526: Hieronymous Seiler and Heinrich Ehinger of Konstanz become the first Germans we know to have become involved in the slave trade. 1527: earliest records of sugar production in Jamaica, later a major sugar producing region of the British Empire. Sugar production is rapidly expanding throughout the Caribbean region at this time - with the mills almost exclusivly worked by African slaves. November 1528: a slave called Esteban (or Estevanico) becomes the first African slave (Know 2 the white man, African not slaves had beeen coming here long before) to step foot on what is now the United States of America. He was one of only four survivors of Pánfilo de Narváez's failed expedition to Florida. He and the other three took eight years to walk to the Spanish colony in Mexico. After their return in 1536, the group's leader, Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, published an account of their journey through modern Texas and Mexico 1530: Juan de la Barrera, a Seville merchant, begins transporting slaves directly from Africa to the New World (before this, slaves had normally passed through Europe first). His lead is quickly followed by other slave traders. 1532: William Hawkins of Plymouth becomes the first English mariner to visit the coast of West Africa, although he does not take part in slave trading. 22 January 1532: Martim Afonso de Souza founds the first Portuguese colony in Brazil at São Vicente. Sugar production begins almost immediately. 15 November 1532: Francisco Pizaro massacres the Incas at Caxamalca (modern Caxamarca) and captures King Atahuallpa, an event that marks the Spanish conquest of Peru. 1539 30 May 1539: Hernando de Soto, following reports from Cabeza de Vaca, lands on the coast of Florida. Of about 1200 men in his expedition, around 50 were African slaves. After exploring modern Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, and South Carolina, the expedition ended in disaster. September 1541: on his third voyage to Canada, Jacques Cartier establishes the first French colony in the New World at Charlesbourg-Royal, close to modern Québec. 1555: the Portuguese sailor Fernão de Oliveira, in Arte de Guerra no mar (The Art of War at Sea), denounces the slave trade as an 'evil trade'. The book anticipates many of the arguments made by abolitionists in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. 1555: Queen Mary of England, under pressure from the Spanish, forbids English involvement in Guinea. July 1555: a small group of Africans from Shama (modern Ghana) described as slaves are brought to London by John Lok, a London merchant hoping to break into the African trade. 10 November 1555: a group of Norman and Breton sailors, under the command of Nicolas de Villegagnon, found the first French colony in South America. The settlement, close to modern Rio De Janiero in Brazil, is named La France Antarctique. 1556: The Italian city of Genoa tries to prevent trading in slaves - not for any humanitarian reasons - but only in an attempt to reduce the numbers of Africans in the city. 1556: Domingo de Soto, in De justicia et de jure libri X (Ten Books on Justice and Law), argues that it is wrong to keep in slavery any person who was born free. October 1562: John Hawkins of Plymouth becomes the first English sailor that we know about to have obtained African slaves - approximately 300 of them in Sierra Leone - for sale in the West Indies. Hawkins traded the slaves illegally with Spanish colonies, but the trip was profitable and others followed. These contributed to increasing tensions between England and Spain. (As well as initiating the English slave trade, Hawkins also introduced both the potato and tobacco to England.) 1569: a Sevillian Dominican, Tomás de Mercado, publishes Tratos y contratos de mercaderes (Practices and Contracts of Merchants), which attacks the way the slave trade is conducted. 1571: the Parlement of Bordeaux sets all slaves - "blacks and moors" - in the town free, declaring slavery illegal in France. 1573: a Spanish-Mexican lawyer, Bartolemé Frías de Albornoz, publishes Arte de los contratos (The Art of Contracts), which casts doubt on the legality of the slave trade. 20 February 1575: Paulo Dias de Novães founds the Portuguese colony of São Paulo de Luanda on the African mainland (modern Angola). The colony soon became a major slave-trading port supplying the vast Brazilian market. 13 December 1577: Sir Francis Drake sets out from Plymouth on his circumnavigation of the globe. (Returns 26 September 1580) 29 January 1579: with the Union of Utrecht, the northern provinces of the Low Countries unite to create a Calvinist republic free from Spanish rule. The United Provinces (modern Netherlands) soon becomes an important slave-trading nation and an aspiring colonial power. 1580: Following the death of King Henry of Portugal, and a short campaign by the duke of Alva, Spain and Portugal are united under Philip II of Spain. Spain thus becomes the most important colonial power - and the largest participant in the slave trade. 27 July 1585: the first English colony in the New World is established at Roanoke Island (modern North Carolina), organised by Sir Walter Raleigh and governed by Ralph Lane. It was not successful, and the colonists withdrew in June 1586. 16 November 1585: In the first of a series of attacks on Spanish colonial interests, Sir Francis Drake sacks the slave-trading settlement of Santiago in the Cape Verde Islands. 11 January 1586: Sir Francis Drake sacks the Spanish colony of Santo Domingo (modern Dominican republic). He goes on to sack Cartagena (modern Columbia) and St. Augustine (modern Florida). These acts of piracy are among the factors that precipitate war between England and Spain. 23 July 1587: A second English colony is founded at Roanoke Island, again organised by Sir Walter Raleigh. When it is revisted by English ships in August 1590, it has vanished without trace. July-September 1588: the failure of the Spanish Armada (an intended Spanish invasion of England, largely destroyed by bad weather) provides a boost for English maritime power and for English colonial ambitions, although the boost may have been more psychological than actual. 1592: Bernard Ericks becomes the first Dutch slave trader. 1594: L'Espérance of La Rochelle becomes the first French ship positively identified as participating in the slave trade.

[indigenous-consent]

The Atlantic slave trade: What too few textbooks told you - Anthony Hazard

TW/CW: Antiblackness in the comments section. Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade

Here lies the genesis of antiblackness (In its global form), coupled with the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade this horrifying genocide of millions of different ethnic groups, cultures and peoples has led to the oppression of an entire continent of people that permeates global culture to this day. 

Of the hyper-visibility of African struggles, particularly in the Americas, we fail to acknowledge how little we are educated about the history of this immense continent and fail to grasp how deep racism is against the millions of immensely diverse cultures and peoples that make up the continent. 

The entirety of the contiguous United States can fit within a PORTION of the Sahara Desert. That is only counting North Africa. The entire CONTINENT of Australia can fit neatly within the continental center of the African continent and still have the North, Western Coast, Horn and Southern Africa not accounted for in regards to land area. Africa is ENORMOUS Y’ALL. It is also the origin point of all humanity! Africa has some of the oldest living cultures on this Earth [Only Indigenous Australians can compete with the age of some of Africa’s cultures (Naturally, as it is theorized they were some of the first humans to migrate out of Africa proper)]

With being so enormous and being the continent to house a portion of humanity the longest, Africa is naturally the MOST diverse continent on Earth (Only South America and Asia could even begin to compare.) Not only diverse culturally but also genetically, having the most diverse and unique gene pool of the entire world! 

[Sidenote: This is part of why this blog doesn’t believe or subscribe to the notion of a Neg*oid race, we aren’t using colonizer language here, NOT at all! We can recognize the colonizer racialization of Blackness of African peoples and the subsequent reclamation of that identity but we are not for one second pretending that it has any biological reality or helps to completely understand the functions of antiblackness as not every colonizer used the same tactics or racial structures and African peoples are not the only ones racialized as Black (Indigenous Australians, Papuans and Melanesians also have a history of Blackness.This blog will cover that history and institutional reality more on a later date-If curious, read Kaiya Aboagye’s article “Australian Blackness, the African Diaspora and Afro/Indigenous Connections in the Global South” or read this interview with her here: “Shades of Black: An Interview”.)] 

This blog recognizes all of African peoples as Indigenous. [Sans colonizers of course (i.e Arab, Boers and any Non-Black peoples on the continent that do not have a deep connection (This gets complicated with North Africans as racial identity is contested and not all are united in regards to Blackness, the Amazigh are an example of this complicated reality)] 

HOWEVER, this blog also recognizes that power dynamics and indigeneity on the continent itself is a fairly complicated reality. Not all of Africa became settler colonies like the USA, Australia, Brazil, Canada. Most became primarily resource extraction colonies where living there was and is considered unpalatable to most colonizers. With exceptions being North Africa and South Africa of course (With a kind of settler colonization being conducted by Arab and Boer peoples respectively). This type of colonization naturally has fostered hierarchies within Africa, with some ethnic groups being more dominant over others. (Not to mention the impacts of colonial ventures enacted by various African peoples themselves prior to European and Arabic colonization.) These multi-layered realities are recognized by this blog and thus we recognize why not all African peoples choose to adopt a politic or notion of indigènitude. We invite all who choose to identify with indigeneity to collaborate with us and we support all Black peoples regardless of their personal affiliations with Indigeneity. Black liberation is essential to decolonization. As Black peoples are colonized peoples too!

With all of this being said, we also would like to recognize the importance of including those in Diaspora in conversations regarding indigeneity. 

All African Diasporic Groups are also indigenous peoples but just in diaspora from their homelands due to various reasons. (Mostly due to the genocidal Slave Trades mentioned above.) 

Diasporic African groups include but are not limited to: 

Afro-Diasporic Descendants of Enslaved Peoples:

-Descendants and Cultural Carriers of the Victims of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade: 

African-Americans and African-Canadians (Black Americans/Black Canadians)

Afro-Indigenous Creole Peoples of the Caribbean and in the Americas

Afro-Latine peoples of Latin America

Afro-European Descendants of Enslaved People 

Other Descendants not Included Above

-Descendants and Cultural Carriers of the Victims of the Trans-Saharan Slave Trade: 

Haratin peoples of the Maghreb and Mauritania

Chouachin peoples of Tunisia and Libya

Afro-Arabic peoples of North Africa, the Horn and the Middle East

Afro-Iranians

Siddi peoples of India and Pakistan

Other Descendants not Included Above

Beta Israel and Bal Ej Jewish peoples (Both of the African Diaspora and Jewish Diaspora) 

Contemporary and Modern African Immigrants (Note: This includes the peoples that are NOT primarily descendant of Enslaved peoples, History of Enslavement may play a key role in cultural differences of African peoples in Diaspora.) 

Might migrate out of the continent as a refugee of either climate or war (or both).

Might migrate due to political or economic reasons.

Might migrate due to business or family relations. 

This is an important time to recognize that though illegal, Enslavement of African peoples is happening to this day! Resources for currently enslaved peoples hopefully can be brought to attention. Research and information on this topic and how to help will be available soon. A link to a TIME article describing this reality is available here CONTENT WARNING: antiblack trauma, abuse and enslavement. 

[panicinthestudio]

Slavery routes – a short history of human trafficking (1/4), April 4, 2020

The history of slavery did not begin in the cotton fields. It has been going on since the dawn of humanity. Part 1 of this four-part documentary series investigates how Africa became the epicenter of human trafficking.

The first installment of the series Slavery Routes - A Short History of Human Trafficking opens the story of the slave trade. By the 7th Century AD, Africa had already become a slave trading hub. Barbarian invaders brought on the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in 476 AD. Less than two centuries later, the Arabs founded an immense empire on its ruins, stretching from the banks of the Indus River to the southern Sahara. Now a new era of systematic slave hunting began, from the Middle East to Africa. At the heart of this network, two major merchant cities stood out. In the North, at the crossroads of the Arabian Peninsula and Africa, Cairo - the most important Muslim city and Africa’s main commercial hub. In the South, Timbuktu, the stronghold of the great West African empires, and point of departure of the trans-Saharan caravans. This documentary tells how, over the course of centuries, sub-Saharan peoples became the most significant "resource" for the biggest human trafficking networks in history.

Part 1: https://youtu.be/InQvC9c-3K8

Part 2: https://youtu.be/v3ppAebUW54 

Part 3: https://youtu.be/XMB7CpjIS9s 

Part 4: https://youtu.be/yKwXuRAseIc

Deutsche Welle

[therealafrikantruth]

He'll Afrikan ppl been rap before Trans Sahara slave trade.... That's more than 1000 yrs before Trans Atlantic slave trade. Smhd #NoMoorLies💡📖📚😶 https://www.instagram.com/p/B2Vbn74jGhD/?igshid=1xkkt2p4u70gz

[badside01]

We Keep On Repeating It Until The Entire Planet Knows The Real Name of the Messiah Which is "YASHA" Which Means "Saviour" or "YASHAYA" which means "Our Saviour" in Ancient Phoenician Hebrew, the Language of Christ, Moses and The Prophets from the Bible! CHRIST (THE MESSIAH) IS A BLACK MAN FROM THE TRIBE OF JUDAH, WHO ARE THE NEGRO'S Here is the Legal and Convincing Proof and Evidence that the Judeans (Levi, Judah and Benjamin) from the Southern Kingdom Judea, who fled into Africa in 70AD from Roman persecution, are the Negro's from Sub Sahara Africa and the Trans Atlantic Slave Trade! (Video) >> GOCC THE TRIBE OF JUDAH, THE KINGS OF THE EARTH >> https://www.facebook.com/1267984443262668/videos/1318914928169619/ We Got More (Tons of) Evidence about the Real Judeans (Photo Post) >> A TRIBUTE AND HOMAGE TO THE SLAVES OF THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE... IN MEMORIAM OF THE REAL JEWS (JUDEANS) FROM THE BIBLE... THAT WE MAY NEVER FORGET WHY WE FELL AS A NATION! >> https://www.facebook.com/1267984443262668/photos/a.1268049529922826/1695086867219088/ MOREOVER, BASED ON THE LAWS OF LOGICS, CAUSE AND EFFECT AND RELATIVISM, WE MAY STATE THAT: "IF THE JUDEANS ARE THE NEGRO'S FROM SUB-SAHARA AFRICA AND THE TRANS-ATLANTIC SLAVE TRADE (GENESIS 15:13 AND DEUTERONOMY 28:68) AND WE KNOW THAT CHRIST IS FROM THE TRIBE OF JUDAH (MATTHEW 1:1 ; REVELATION 5:5 AND HEBREWS 7:14) THEN WE MAY CONCLUDE, BASED ON THE LAWS OF LOGICS, CAUSE AND EFFECT AND RELATIVISM THAT CHRIST (THE MESSIAH) IS A BLACK MAN FROM THE TRIBE OF JUDAH WHO ARE THE NEGRO'S! REGARDING THE QUESTION AND PROBLEM ABOUT: "WHO THE REAL JUDEANS ARE AND IF CHRIST IS BLACK MAN?" WE SAY: "ANSWER FOUND, PROBLEM SOLVED, CASE CLOSED!!!" THE REAL NAME OF THE MESSIAH IS DOCUMENTED IN THE DEAD SEA SCROLLS (THE BIBLE SOURCE TEXT) FRAGMENT 9 COLUMN 1 CHRIST (THE MESSIAH) HIS BIOLOGICAL CHARACTERISTICS ARE DOCUMENTED IN THE BOOK OF PROPHET ST. JOHN'S REVELATION 1:13-15 AND THE BOOK OF PROPHET DANIEL 10:5-6 THE BOOK OF MATTHEW ALSO GIVES THE TRUE NAME AND THE FUNCTION OF THE MESSIAH, THE SON OF THE MOST HIGH! Matthew 1:20 Read >> But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord AHAYAH appeared unto him in a dr (at Villages at Cabrillo) https://www.instagram.com/p/B2o9_fEHmfS/?igshid=rdr8fkyfosfp

[taswhapstuff]

Muhammad V.S Genghis Khan (Tony Nguyen G11)

Although it is tough to consider the most influential person between two of the greatest leaders in history which are Muhammad the prophet (PBUH) and Genghis Khan (Temujin Khan), but I would choose prophet Muhammad for the following four impressive influences: personality’s influence, influence on trades plus expansion by creating Islam religion, influence on the Abbasid.

(Picture of Muhammad or PUBH - Peace be upon him)

1.  Personality ‘s influence on many people especially his followers

Muhammad the prophet had created a huge influences to people that made them follow him which are Quraysh generals and most of the majority in Mecca in the beginning of the 7th century due to his characteristic or personality. He had a great character of about seven particular virtues including his kindness to all creature, truthfulness and promise fulfilling, responsibility as a leader, cooperative, charitable, modesty, and merciful. Muhammad was best known for his truthfulness and promise fulfilling which he taught this virtue to all of his follower and in fact, his enemy also recognized him as the truthful and honest person. He was also a good leader which he chose to teach people back from what he had listened from Allah rather than dictate people. For example, before fighting with the non-believers, Ghazwa-e-Khandaq, in March 627, he participated in digging trenches outside Medina which he had lifted the heaviest stone by himself. Muhammad was also a charitable, merciful man that he didn’t refuse to give anything he had to someone if this person asked him and never took revenge for personal matters. Because of these great personality of goodness and morality, he had changed the lives of the illiterate Arabs and had been able to convince great generals from his Quraysh opponent to follow him such as Khalid ibn al-Walid and influenced his popular powerful army, the Mameluke. His character also played a vital role in spreading Islam as he treated alike regardless of their statuses.

(Picture of Khalid ibn al-Walid)

2.       Influence through trades and expansion of territory by creating Islam

The greatest Muhammad’s achievement in influencing people is creating a great and strong foundation for the Islam religion. The most important achievement that he had accomplished was united the whole Arab states and this created a foundation for Islam to develop. The influence of the Islam as known as Muhammad impact influenced trade routes, other societies and other people which accompanied the growth of the Islamic state’s territory in the Sub-Sahara Africa, South Asia, Western Europe.

(Picture of Islamic expansion)

First of all, you need to understand the all of the situation of the Islamic states during the 7th century. The Arab empire in the past was bunch of different separate nomadic tribes which their religion followed polytheism (worshiping many gods). Remember, although tribes or regions may share the same pantheon of gods, they tend to place primary importance on different individual gods.  Consequently, the belief in many gods lends itself very readily to conflicting loyalties and competition in politics. And also, the people under the rule of the nomadic tribes tended to be unsatisfied which there were many slaves. Because of that, if there was one thing that can unite the whole Islamic states during this time, it would be one monotheism religion which is Islam therefore Islam easily influenced so much Muslims and therefore prophet Muhammad had the great impact on the world society since his message constituted a radical protest against the corruption of the Mecca elite by demanding justice.

Secondly, Islam of the prophet Muhammad influenced the Sub-Sahara Africa area by showing its own advantages to people that made them converted to Islam and effected strongly to the Sub-Sahara trade routes especially slaves. The beginning of trans-Saharan trade, made possible by the domestication of the camel, profoundly influenced the world of sub-Saharan Africa. Gold, salt and slaves began to make their way across the desert.  When Islam came into this area, it didn’t separate religious authority from political authority which kings who converted had more power and authority therefore, Islam was really appealing to leader of the Sub-Sahara Africa and it did not greatly affect the lower classes or traditional gender roles. Furthermore, as Islam was introduced to the people of the Sub-Sahara Africa, the number of slave trades increased. Most of the enslavement under the non-Islam believers were really tough for the Muslims’ slaves so this could be considered a step toward their conversion. Also, Islam influenced slaves by using its own advantages that persons born to slave parents were not automatically slaves which encouraged large amount of slave converted to Islam.  Another fact is that the influenced of Islam made the possession of slaves more important in the barometer of personal wealth.  As many as ten million African slaves were shipped north as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade between 750 and 1500 C.E. In summary, the coming of Islam to Sub-Saharan Africa facilitated the rise of political empires, encouraged conversion to this religion, influenced trade plus wealth, and increased the traffic in slavery.

Thirdly, although Muhammad died in 632 but his influence went on as his Islam religion spread across the South Asia specifically India under the reign of Uthman, the third caliph, which created a huge impact to the people there. Most of the influence changed the perspective of many low rank that led to he conversion to Islam. The lower castes were more inclined to convert because Islam’s stress on equality was more attractive to them. Converts also came from the Buddhists, another group with nothing to gain from the Hindu caste system.  Conversion came primarily from people will little to no influence in society.

Muhammad’s Islam was also a source of influence to the Western Europe when the Muslim conquest expanded to Spain that ended in 732 at the Battle of Tours. Despite the impermanence of the Muslims in Western Europe, it would have several significant effects on European civilization. The Muslims came into contact with ancient Greek thought which they did borrow it.  In science, medicine and geography no civilization had attained the level of learning the Muslim scholars had.  The scientific writings of Aristotle were copied, taught, and preserved by Muslim scholars and eventually transmitted to Medieval European universities. The Greek thought of the Arabs thus exercised a strong influence upon the Christians of Europe in the Middle Ages.

3.       Influence the Abbasid by creating its foundation

Muhammad also created a influential foundation for his own descendants such as the Abbasid caliphate which was preceded by Umayyad caliphate. The religion Islam created by the prophet was also created impacts on this descendant period which was the period when the history took another turn towards advancement or we called the Islamic golden age. Education was spread through opening of institutions, world’s first hospital was established in the city of Baghdad and many more. In the time of ‘khilafat-e-Abbasiya’ Baghdad was like Harvard and Oxford at that time, people from different parts of the world use to send their kids to Baghdad. The infrastructure was laid and in Baghdad alone and there were 60 hospitals. Science, technology, and other fields of knowledge developed rapidly during the golden age of Islam from the 8th to 13th century and beyond. Early Abbasid caliphs embarked on major campaigns seeking scientific and philosophical works from eastern and western worlds which they translated most of the works from Greece into their language by Islam scholars and expanded these works into more achievements. Because of that, Muhammad the prophet had shaped most of the Muslims’ thinking in knowledge fields such as math, science, astronomy and literature especially the Abbasid caliphates which they created a large empire that represented the Islamic golden age in the heart of Baghdad.  

(Picture of the Abbasid dynasty)

4.       The fatal weakness of Genghis Khan:

Genghis Khan did influence people but he just controlled them by using force which his influence would become a short term impact on the people that he had invaded. He could impact their lives but their minds were the one that he didn’t care to control and he did create a rule which people have the freedom of religious and culture. This meant that he did not total influence his conquered people and as his empire fell down, his impact was no longer exist. However, Muhammad’s influence was more powerful than Genghis Khan’s influence. Muhammad himself did influence not only physically on one society but he also made impacts on its mental inside. To be more specific, on one side, Muhammad expanded his Islamic states by conquering other empires such as Byzantium empire and Sassanid empire which the rule of Muhammad affected the lives of many people that had been conquered. On the other side, Muhammad also created Islam which then influenced the thoughts inside of these conquered people. Because of this, Muhammad impacted people by not just using forces but their will to join his side therefore Muhammad got his strong supports and his Islamic states expansion was easier.

(Picture of Genghis Khan)

[96thdayofrage]

There is strong preference for uncomfortable truths about the matter to be kept out of sight. But this is a good time to undertake a disinterment.

The great early 20th-Century black writer of the Harlem Renaissance, Zora Neale Hurston, bitterly complained that "the white people held my people in slavery here in America. They had bought us, it is true, and exploited us.

But the inescapable fact that stuck in my craw was: My people had sold me ... . My own people had exterminated whole nations and torn families apart for a profit before the strangers got their chance at a cut. It was a sobering thought. It impressed upon me the universal nature of greed." And we might add, the universal nature of slavery.

African kings were willing to provide a steady flow of captives, who they said were criminals or prisoners of war doomed for execution. Many were not, but this did not prevent traders posing as philanthropists who were rescuing the Africans from death and offering them a better and more productive life.

When France and Britain outlawed slavery in their territories in the early 19th Century, African chiefs who had grown rich and powerful off the slave trade sent protest delegations to Paris and London. Britain abolished the slave trade and slavery itself against fierce opposition from West African and Arab traders.

According to Basil Davidson, celebrated scholar of African history, in his book The African Slave Trade: "The notion that Europe altogether imposed the slave trade on Africa is without any foundation in history ... . Those Africans who were involved in the trade were seldom the helpless victims of a commerce they did not understand: On the contrary, they responded to its challenge. They exploited its opportunities."

Until the 18th Century, very few Europeans had any moral reservations about slavery, which contradicted no important social value for most people around the world. In the Arab world, which was the first to import large numbers of slaves from Africa, the slave traffic was cosmopolitan. Slaves of all types were sold in open bazaars. The Arabs played an important role as middlemen in the trans-atlantic slave trade, and research data suggest that between the 7th and the 19th centuries, they transported more than 14 million black slaves across the Sahara and the Red Sea, as many or more than were shipped to the Americas, depending on the estimates for the transatlantic slave trade.

[25000yearcycle]

The Trans-Sahara Slave trade circa AD 900 - 1500.

[blamingslaveryon]

Slavery: Who is to Blame?

At a recent social event I got the opportunity to chat with a teenager who is taking a US history class. As an ancient historian whose research over the last ten years has mostly focused on slavery, I decided to ask her what she had learned about the topic. Knowing that little effort is made to fit it into the big picture, that is, into the global history of slavery, I shouldn’t have been too surprised to hear her say that the British were unfamiliar with slavery until the time of the American colonies (untrue), that slavery was invented in the 17th century (also untrue), and that there had never been slaves in North America (also untrue; I will get back to all of this later in my blog). I felt it was my duty to enlighten the girl, so I spent some time lecturing her before finally letting her go back to being a teenager and gluing her eyes and fingers to her smartphone. The very next day I got my hands on a high school textbook and read, among other things, that before the trans-Atlantic slave-trade began, Africans practiced slavery but it was a “mild” kind, that it was more like European feudalism, and that all slaves were treated like “family.” I was also able to confirm the source of most of the teenager’s misinformation. All this inspired me to write a blog on the history of the institution of slavery which, although no longer legal in most parts of the modern world, is still practiced. As always, it follows the law of supply and demand. And although exact statistics are hard to come by, estimates made by the Polaris Project indicate there may be 21 million enslaved persons world-wide. But those are just estimates. *************************** Slavery is at least 5,000 years old, or perhaps more than twice that old. According to some scholars, the origins of this institution can be traced back 12,000 years, to the time when (many) humans made the transition from nomadism to sedentism, in other words, when they no longer moved about nearly all the time, hunting and gathering, and settled down, usually to become farmers. That’s when accumulating goods on a larger scale became an option. And it was a small step from being the proud owner of a goat or two, a hut, and a spare pair of sandals, to owning other human beings. Other scholars, such as Gerda Lerner (The Creation of Patriarchy, 1986), tell us that, some 5,000 years ago, women became a sort of slave “prototypes.” It was around this time that many ancient societies created patriarchy, and women became commodities, exchanged or given in marriage to men from other tribes. It was also around this time that it became customary in wars to kill enemy males and enslave their women, that is, to turn them into property (they would include the women’s young children too). Eventually it dawned on those people that males could and should also be enslaved as a source of income and/or free labor. We don’t need to agree one hundred percent with either one of these views. But we have evidence of slavery going back thousands of years and being practiced all over the globe. In trying to organize my thoughts I ran into several difficulties. I could not write about “ancient slavery” and then about “modern slavery” (meaning roughly from the 15th century onward) because the institution has followed an unbroken line. “Ancient slavery” didn’t disappear, only to be replaced by “modern slavery” later on. Also, in an attempt at dealing with, and staying within, geographical regions, I realized that slaves were not always supplied locally. The slave trade network has always had numerous and far-reaching tentacles. But around the 3rd century BC, humans began to be enslaved, owned, and traded in previously unheard-of numbers. With that in mind, I will begin in the “Old World” with the long period that preceded the mid- to late-Roman Republic before writing about the 3rd century changes. Sumer’s Code of Ur-Nammu (22nd century BC) regulates various aspects of slavery. No written code appears out of nowhere and simply “invents” a practice. Rather, a practice (in this case, slavery) can be around for centuries and be regulated by unwritten customs before the need arises to carve them in stone. Exactly how far back it went in the region of Sumer is not clear. And we do not know what percentage of the population was made up of slaves. Babylonia’s Code of Hammurabi (18th century BC) also regulates slavery, as do texts from the nearby Hittites, but again we have no statistics. And the warlike Assyrians left behind reliefs showing them taking slaves, something they did in rather large numbers after their victories. In Ancient Egypt, during the Middle Kingdom (which started in the 21st century BC), Asian slaves were being imported, but slavery was hardly new among the Egyptians of that era. From the New Kingdom on (starting in the 16th century BC) it became widespread, until about 10% of the population consisted of slaves, many of them Africans coming from south of the Sahara through the kingdom of Nubia. And one must not forget the time when the Hebrews (Habiru) were enslaved in Egypt until their departure traditionally thought to have taken place in the 15th century BC. The Hebrews were not only the victims of enslavement at some point, but they also owned both Hebrew and foreign slaves. Some evidence for that is found in the book of Exodus. In the Hellenic world (which we incorrectly refer to as “Greece”) there are records of slavery among the Myceneans of the 12th century BC. And in the city-state of Athens of the 5th century BC, somewhere between 7 and 20% of the population was made up of slaves. Although many of them came from Thrace, Scythia, and Asia Minor, they may have simply been purchased there but had their origins farther away. Ancient African cultures south of the Sahara owned slaves, usually taken as prisoners in war. And while some were kept, others were sold elsewhere, for example, Egypt (see above). Starting in the 5th century BC the Greeks and later the Romans began taking slaves in North Africa. Farther to the east, in ancient China of the Qin and Han dynasties (starting in the 3rd century BC) some men were sentenced to become public slaves, after being castrated, and sometimes their families were also enslaved. In ancient Rome, the second king, Numa Pompilius (8th century BC), regulated what jobs should be performed by slaves. That was three centuries before the Laws of the Twelve Tables (5th century BC) provide us with written evidence about slavery. Although initially the numbers of slaves in Rome were small, they quickly increased with the wars of conquest, beginning in the 3rd century BC. Soon aristocrats were acquiring and using large numbers to work their land. By the 1st century BC, about 30% of the population was made up of slaves, and in the 1st century AD there were perhaps 10 million slaves empire-wide. Although for many reasons the percentages dropped over the next couple of hundred years, in the 5th century AD we still find individuals, such as a noblewoman named Melania, who owned more than 30,000 slaves. *************************** In the 5th century AD, even as the leftovers of the Western Roman Empire fragmented and turned into many Germanic kingdoms, slavery and the far-reaching slave trade continued throughout Europe, Asia, and Africa, and even expanded. New land routes were added to previous ones (like the old trans-Saharan route), and ships carried slaves across the Mediterranean, the Aegean, the Black Sea, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean, usually in both directions. In the 8th century AD the Vikings and the Arabs began playing an ever more active role, both in ownership and the trade, and later other Muslims would join them. Some cities and towns became famous for their slave markets: Zawila south of the Sahara in the 8th century, Dublin in the 9th century, Prague in the 10th century, Verdun in the 11th century, Novgorod in the 12th century, Venice and Genoa in the 12th through the 15th centuries, and Lagos in Portugal in the 15th century. It is probably hard for nearly every person living in the 21st century accurately to say: “I know who all my ancestors were” or “I’m Danish or Irish or Spanish or whatever.” Here are a few examples to illustrate that: English slaves went to Italy and Spain, Irish slaves to Iceland and the Islamic empire, African slaves to Arabia and India, Slavic slaves to Byzantium, Korean slaves to China, Chinese slaves to Portugal and India, Portuguese slaves to Muslim Spain, Franks, Anglo-Saxons, and Russians to markets all over Europe and the Near East to be resold elsewhere. (See Note 1 at the end of this blog.) **************************** So far I have focused on the “Old World,” but slavery also existed in the “New World.” Yet, the dynamics changed after Columbus’ voyages. The Maya peoples of Mesoamerica owned slaves, often those who had been captured in war, although we have no statistics about percentages of the entire population. The same can be said about the Aztecs to the north, the Inca, the Tupanimbá (in Brazil), and the Tehuelche (in Patagonia) to the south, and the Caribs (in the Caribbean), among others. And what about the Americas farther north? Slaves were owned by many cultures in what are currently the United States and Canada. A few examples include the Comanche of Texas, the Creek of Georgia, the Yurok that lived along the coast from California to Alaska, the Pawnee, the Klamath, the Haida and the Tlingit of Alaska, and the Nootka of Vancouver Island. It is estimated that among some tribes in the Pacific Northwest, 25% of the population was made up of slaves. When the European voyages of exploration began in the 15th century, the dynamics of the slave trade and slavery itself changed. Not only did Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch ships, among others, create new routes, but most of the slaves taken to the “New World” came from the African continent south of the Sahara. But it was not the Spanish, Portuguese, English, French, and Dutch themselves who went into the heart of Africa to take slaves. They merely acquired them at markets along the coast and transported them elsewhere. There were plenty of nations with slaves to sell: 30% of the population of Senegambia was made up of slaves, in the Islamic states of Mali and Ghana also 30%, in Bornu (in central Africa) about 40%, perhaps 90% in Arab Zanzibar (which, due to its location, was a convenient place for the creation of its large slave market; it is estimated that 80,000 Africans died each year before reaching that market). Other peoples with large numbers of slaves were the Ashanti, the Yoruba, and the people of the Kingdom of Kongo. But even those nations that had fewer slaves participated actively in the slave trade. Many of them waged war for the sole purpose of acquiring slaves, or else they organized raids: the Oyo Empire, the Kingdom of Benin, the Imamate of Futa Toro, the Kingdhom of Kaabu, the Ashanti Confederacy, the Kingdom of Dahomey, and many others. Then they sold their slaves to the Europeans, and most of them were taken to the Americas (somewhere between 12 and 20 million). Trading in slaves was not seen as something wrong, and statements have survived, made by African rulers, one of whom said the trade had been ordained by God himself (king of Bonny in present-day Nigeria), while another one said the trade was the source and glory of his people’s wealth (king of Dahomey But while this was going on, the Muslims continued buying slaves and sometimes capturing them themselves, then taking them overland (across the Sahara) or on ships crossing the Red Sea and the Indian Ocean. Including the ones they sold to Europeans, they benefited from the sale of 25 to 35 million Africans. They also continued enslaving others, including Christians during the Ottoman wars. And Muslim pirates raided coastal cities in addition to taking ships, for the purpose of taking captives and selling them into slavery. In the 19th century, one country after another abolished the slave-trade, and then slavery itself. However, it took some African countries until the 20th century to follow suit. By then, countless individuals had been enslaved and sold, and used and abused, all over the world. Many still are, although outside of the context of legal slavery. **************************** Now I come back to the question which I posed in the title of my blog: Who is to blame for slavery? My readers will probably agree that there is no simple answer. Blame the Sumerians? The Egyptians? Slavery was hardly new when they began leaving evidence of slave-holding and trading more than 4,000 years ago. The Romans bought, sold, and used them on a much larger scale than other peoples, but they did not come up with the institution of slavery. Whether it was a byproduct of private property or of patriarchy, it had been around for a long time. We cannot blame the Mongols, the Arabs, the English, the French, or the Spanish either, despite the changes they made to trade and/or ownership. The same goes for all the individuals all over the globe who have participated in a system that was perceived to be OK. But we can blame those who, despite the fact that they operate outside the law, enslave and sell human beings in the 21st century. And I want to encourage all those who are aware of trafficking to speak up. **************************** Note 1. Being forcefully transported from one’s place of origin is, of course, not the only reason why our ancestors moved. The search for better land or opportunities, as well as the need to escape persecution, religious or of another nature, are a few other reasons that account for that. Note 2. As the reader may have noticed, no attempt has been made to describe the many ways in which a person could become a slave, or about how slaves were treated in different parts of the world at different times, and even in the same part of the world depending on a number of factors. But there are some excellent books that go into a lot of detail, including the following: Five Thousand Years of Slavery (Marjorie Gann and Janet Willen; 2011), and Slavery and Social Death (Orlando Patterson; 1982).

[caveartfair]

Unpacking Medieval African Art’s Profound Global Legacy

Atlas of Maritime Charts (The Catalan Atlas), detail of Mansa Musa, Abraham Cresque, 1375. Courtesy of the Bibliothéque nationale de France and the Block Museum.

In popular discourse, the arts of Africa are positioned as having been discovered, interpolated, and folded into major Western art movements for the first time in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The rise of modern art was concurrent with the “Scramble for Africa,” which officially began at the Berlin Conference in 1884, when European powerheads divided and claimed ownership over the majority of the nearly 12 million square miles that comprise the continent. As they’ve been codified by historians, these events imply that there was nothing happening in Africa prior to the arrival of Europeans; as German philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel dismissively wrote, Africa is “no historical part of the world,” with “no movement or development to exhibit.”

Although several decades of archaeological and paleontological excavations have proven that life on this planet began in Africa, by and large, the continent has remained shrouded in a myopically dense, Eurocentric fog. Accounts of the existence of major cities and empires in Africa during the Middle Ages and before—including Kush in present-day southern Egypt and central Sudan, Axum in what is now Ethiopia, and Great Zimbabwe in modern-day Zimbabwe—are myriad. The legacy of colonialism, however, often overshadows more than a millennia of African history.

A new exhibition at the Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art at Northwestern University aims to shine a light on Africa’s significant connections to and influence on the economy and material culture of the world—centuries before the calamitous brutality of imperialism and the transatlantic slave trade.

Ahmad Baˉbaˉ al-Tinbuktıˉ, as dictated to Yuˉsuf al-Isıˉ, The Uttermost Hope in the Preference of Sincere Intention over Action, Timbuktu, Mali, 1592. Photo by Clare Britt. Courtesy of the Block Museum.

Cap with striped inscribed silk, Egypt or Syria, Mamluk period, probably sultanate of al-Nasir al-Din Muhammad, 14th century. Courtesy of the Block Museum

Page from the "Blue" Qur'an, 9th–10th century. Photo courtesy of the Brooklyn Museum and the Block Museum.

Tuareg camel saddle (tarik or tamzak), Algerian Sahara. © President and Fellows of Harvard College, Peabody Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology. Courtesy of the Block Museum.

Elephant head, Ife, Lafogido Nigeria, 12th–15th century. Courtesy of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments, Abuja, Nigeria.

Tent poles. © The Field Museum. Photo by John Weinstein. Courtesy of the Block Museum.

Kneeling Figure, Natamatao, Mopti region Mali, 12th–14th century. Photo by Seydou Camara. Courtesy of the Block Museum.

Opening on January 26th, “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa” shifts the line of inquiry to center medieval Africa’s global influence through trans-Saharan trade networks in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia prior to the development of the slave trade. Dr. Kathleen Berzock, the Block’s associate director of curatorial affairs, organized the exhibition through cross-disciplinary partnerships with the Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern, as well as with historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria.

Showcasing over 250 objects (including artworks and archaeological fragments) spanning four continents and nearly a millennia, the show hopes to “shine a light on Africa’s pivotal role in world history through the tangible materials that remain,” Dr. Berzock explained, because “the legacy of medieval trans-Saharan exchange has largely been omitted from Western historical narratives and art histories, and certainly from the way that Africa is presented in art museums.”

Before now, the breadth of medieval Africa’s reach has been all but untapped in art-historical discourse. The majority of exhibitions have not highlighted the ways in which African material cultures had strong connections to economies and cultural production in other parts of the world. Objects like an ivory Madonna figurine from 12th-century France—carved from the tusks of African Savannah elephants—take on new resonance in the context of the trans-Saharan trade route. So does an extremely intricate 15th-century lost-wax cast from Nigeria, made of copper from the Alpine region. Such objects unequivocally establish Africa’s status as a global commercial center, and illustrate partnerships based on mutual benefit, rather than relationships marred by unequal exchange.

Virgin and Child, ca. 1275-1300. Courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Block Museum.

Seated Figure, Possibily Ife, Tada Nigeria, Late 13th–14th century. Courtesy of the National Commission for Museums and Monuments and the Block Museum.

Opening on January 26th, “Caravans of Gold, Fragments in Time: Art, Culture and Exchange Across Medieval Saharan Africa” shifts the line of inquiry to center medieval Africa’s global influence through trans-Saharan trade networks in Europe, the Middle East, and Asia prior to the development of the slave trade. Dr. Kathleen Berzock, the Block’s associate director of curatorial affairs, organized the exhibition through cross-disciplinary partnerships with the Buffett Institute for Global Studies at Northwestern, as well as with historians, archaeologists, and anthropologists in Mali, Morocco, and Nigeria.

Showcasing over 250 objects (including artworks and archaeological fragments) spanning four continents and nearly a millennia, the show hopes to “shine a light on Africa’s pivotal role in world history through the tangible materials that remain,” Dr. Berzock explained, because “the legacy of medieval trans-Saharan exchange has largely been omitted from Western historical narratives and art histories, and certainly from the way that Africa is presented in art museums.”

Before now, the breadth of medieval Africa’s reach has been all but untapped in art-historical discourse. The majority of exhibitions have not highlighted the ways in which African material cultures had strong connections to economies and cultural production in other parts of the world. Objects like an ivory Madonna figurine from 12th-century France—carved from the tusks of African Savannah elephants—take on new resonance in the context of the trans-Saharan trade route. So does an extremely intricate 15th-century lost-wax cast from Nigeria, made of copper from the Alpine region. Such objects unequivocally establish Africa’s status as a global commercial center, and illustrate partnerships based on mutual benefit, rather than relationships marred by unequal exchange.

Fulani, Senegal, Bead, 19th–20th century. Courtesy of the Block Museum.

Because of Mansā Mūsā’s influence, in its golden age, Timbuktu was renowned as one of the world’s major centers of knowledge, trade, and Islamic culture. Most of the surviving texts from which we learn of Mansā Mūsā’s exploits, and the histories of the trans-Saharan trade, are in Arabic, largely written by Islamic merchants and scholars. “We want people to also think about who wrote that story, and what other ways there are to tell the story,” Lisa Corrin, the director of the Block Museum, told Artsy. Berzock agrees: “These ‘fragments in time’ are key to conjuring a new vision of the past,” she said. “We have a unique opportunity to use art history to contextualize these fragments and to use the special context of the museum to make visible the story of the thriving African cities and empires that were foundational to the global medieval world.”

Amid tense calls from contemporary African leaders for Western museums to return looted artifacts, the Block Museum chose to collaborate with African institutions like the Musée National and L’Institut des Sciences Humaines in Mali and the National Commission for Museums and Monuments in Nigeria. Their efforts brought an unprecedented trove of items as-yet unseen outside of Africa to the exhibition. Highlights range from a delicate, indigo-dyed woven fabric thought to be among the oldest existing African textiles, to terracotta and bronze sculptures predating the famed Benin bronzes.

“Caravans of Gold” is the first exhibition in recent memory to apply a wide lens to the pre-colonial period of African civilizations and their impact to effectively challenge what we think we know about the world. It’s a fallacious notion that Africa is without history, one that ultimately fuels the racialized subjugation and exploitation of people of African descent around the globe. The museum’s decision to present fragments is a novel one; it requires the viewer to make inferences and employ reasoning in a way that the standard, tacit relationship between a viewer and an art object typically does not. As we move forward in our efforts to transform narrative cycles that do not reflect who we want to be as a global society, this juxtaposition of fragments can be instructive: Nothing, history included, is ever totally complete. Understanding expands and contracts based on what details are placed in dialogue together, and fragments present an opportunity for robust critical engagement, analysis, and—most importantly—to stoke the imagination.

from Artsy News