The Black Experience in America Part 1

The Black Experience in America.

by Norman Coombs.

Preface

During the last several years, the study of American history has turned a new direction. Previously, it emphasized how the various immigrant groups in America shed their divergent heritages and amalgamated into a new nationality. More recently, scholars and laymen alike have become more sensitive to the ways in which these newcomers have kept aspects from their past alive, and there is a new awareness of the degree to which ethnicity continues as a force within America.

Most of the original settlers were British, Protestant, and white. Many of the later arrivals differed from them, in one or more ways. History books usually depicted these new waves of immigrants as a.s.similating almost fully into American society. However, recent writings have put more stress on the ethnic diversities which remain and on the rich variety of contributions which were made to the American scene by each new nationality.

This volume depicts the immigrants from Africa as one among the many elements which created present-day America. On the one hand, they differ from the other minorities because they came involuntarily, suffered the cruelties of slavery, and were of another color. All of this made their experience unique. On the other hand, they shared much in common with the other minorities, many of whom also felt like aliens in their new land.

Throughout most of American history, political power has been held tightly by the white, Anglo-Saxon, Protestant majority. Historical presentations which stressed the political component, thereby tended to leave the later immigrants in the background. However, because these newcomers did not a.s.similate fully into the mainstream of America, they maintained some of their ethnic ident.i.ty and made fresh and unique contributions to American life. A socio-cultural approach to history, through highlighting society and culture rather than politics, brings these minorities into proper focus.

This study of Afro-Americans seeks to describe the character and culture which they produced for themselves in America. It also points to the many important contributions which they have made to American cultural life.

The spotlight is on what they felt and thought, on the att.i.tudes they developed, and on their increasingly vocal protests against the unfair treatment which they believed was directed at them.

Besides taking a socio-cultural approach to the subject, this book is deliberately interpretive rather than being merely a narrative of events.

It is reasonably brief in the hope that it will appeal to interested laymen. At the same time, it contains a number of footnotes so that either scholars or laymen, wanting to check their thoughts against the interpretation presented here, can readily use this book as a guide to further reading. (Note the footnotes are not in this electronic version.)

If at times the treatment of the white majority seems harsh, it is because, in my opinion, it is still necessary for Americans to take a long, cold look at the chilling facts which have too often been ignored.

Yet, times and people do change. Race relations in America are not today what they were a century ago. The progress of history may not be the wide highway moving steadily and smoothly upward as many have believed, but the racial picture in America has altered and will continue to do so--sometimes for the better, sometimes for the worse. Nevertheless, it is only by knowing ourselves that we can intelligently face our crises. I hope that this volume will a.s.sist the reader as he struggles with this difficult task.

Norman Coombs September, 1971

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my deep appreciation to the National Endowment for the Arts and Humanities and to the Rochester Inst.i.tute of Technology for providing me with much of the time which made this research possible.

I am also indebted to Professors Benjamin Quarles and Merle Curti for kindly reading and commenting on the ma.n.u.script. My thanks are also extended to my father, Earl Coombs, for his invaluable a.s.sistance in helping with the hours of painstaking research demanded by such a project. Miss Dorothy Ruhl provided the detailed, careful labor necessary to help prepare the ma.n.u.script for the printer, and Mrs. Doris Kist performed the demanding task of proofreading it. I also want to thank Cecyle S. Neidle, the editor of the Immigrant Heritage of America series, for her helpful supervision and advice. Finally, I owe a deep debt of grat.i.tude to my wife, Jean, for typing the ma.n.u.script, for a host of other miscellaneous tasks and, above all, for her forbearance and encouragement.

N. C.

PART ONE From Freedom to Slavery

CHAPTER 1

African Origins

The Human Cradle

THREE and a half centuries of immigration have injected ever-fresh doses of energy and tension into the American bloodstream. As diverse peoples learned to live together, they became a dynamo generating both creativity and conflict. One of the most diverse elements in American life was introduced when Africans were forcibly brought to the American colonies.

The American experiment had begun and consisted mainly of white men with a European heritage. The African was of a different color, had a different language, a different religion, and had an entirely different world view. But perhaps the most striking contrast was that, while the European came voluntarily in search of greater individual opportunity, the African came in chains. Because the European was the master and thereby the superior in the relations.h.i.+p, he a.s.sumed that his heritage was also superior. However, he was mistaken, because the African had a rich heritage of importance both to himself and to mankind. When people interact intimately over a long period of time, the influences are reciprocal. This is true even when their relations.h.i.+p is that of master and slave.

To trace the importance of the African heritage one must go back millions of years. Evidence is acc.u.mulating to the effect that Africa is the cradle of mankind. Professor Louis Leakey argues that Africa was important in the development of mankind in three ways. First, some thirty or forty million years ago, the basic stock which eventually gave rise to both man and the ape came into existence in the vicinity of the Nile Valley. Second, some twelve or fourteen million years ago, the main branch which was to lead to the development of man broke away from the branch leading to the ape. Third, about two million years ago, in the vicinity of East Africa, true man broke away from his now extinct manlike cousins. The present species of man-h.o.m.o Sapiens--developed through a complex process of natural selection from a large number of different manlike creatures-hominids.

One of the most numerous of the early hominids was Australopithecus Africa.n.u.s who originated in Africa. Although he also did some hunting, he lived mainly by collecting and eating vegetables. One of the things that identified him as a man was his utilization of primitive tools. He had a pointed stone which may have been used to sharpen sticks, and these sticks were probably used for digging roots to augment his food supply.

Leakey believes that h.o.m.o Habilis, who lived in East Africa about two million years ago, was the immediate ancestor of man and the most advanced of all the hominids. Although the hominids spread far outside of Africa, it is clear that they originate there and that it was in Africa that true man first emerged. As Darwin predicted a century ago, Africa has been found to be the father of mankind.

For many thousands of years, h.o.m.o Sapiens and the other hominids lived side by side in Africa as elsewhere. By ten thousand years ago, however, all the hominids had disappeared. Scholars believe that this was the result of the gradual absorption of all the other hominids by the more biologically advanced h.o.m.o Sapiens. This process may explain the appearance of variations within h.o.m.o Sapiens. At various times and places, as h.o.m.o Sapiens absorbed other hominid strains, differences within h.o.m.o Sapiens developed. In any case it is clear that the various types of man came into existence very early. In Africa, this process led to the development of three main types: the brownish-yellow Bushmen in the south, the darker Negroes throughout most of the continent and the Caucasoid Mediterranean types in the north.

Most of the concepts, held even by scholars about the nature and origin of races, are being proven inaccurate. Anthropological literature used to suggest that skin color in some groups was a possible indication of Mongoloid influences or that the thin, straight lips common in another group could be envisioned as a Caucasoid feature. However, it has become increasingly obvious that an a.n.a.lysis based on specific single traits such as these is always a poor indication of either racial origin or of racial contact. In fact, they could just as likely be the result of spontaneous and local variations within a given population grouping. In contrast, recent anthropological research is putting less emphasis on bone measurement and shape and, instead, is turning increasingly to technical a.n.a.lysis particularly through the examination of blood types.

Making and using tools are what differentiate man from animals. The earliest tools which have survived the wear of time were made of stone.

As man's techniques of handling stone improved, so did his tools. The hand axe, a large oval of chipped flint varying in size and weight, came into common usage about half a million years ago, and it has been found in much of Europe, Asia, and Africa. This too seems to have had an African origin. While scholars are not certain about its use, it was probably used for killing animals and for chopping meat.

The first achievement which radically altered man's condition was the invention of tools. The second achievement was his learning of primitive agriculture which transformed the hunter into the farmer. The domestication of animals and the planting and cultivating of crops had begun in the Near East, but the practice shortly spread to the Nile Valley in Northeast Africa. At the same time, farming communities sprang up throughout the Sahara which, at that time, was going through one of its wet phases. This made it well-suited to early agriculture. Farming permitted men to live together in communities and to pursue a more sedentary way of life. Actually, some Africans had already adopted a sedentary community life before the arrival of farming. Making hooks from bones led to the development of a few fis.h.i.+ng communities near present-day Kenya.

As the communities along the Nile grew in size and number, society began to develop a complex urban civilization. By 3,200 B.C. the communities along the Nile had become politically united under the first of a line of great pharaohs. These early Egyptians undoubtedly were comprised of a racial mixture. The ancient Greeks viewed the Egyptians as being dark in complexion, and it has been estimated that the Egyptian population at the beginning was at least one-third Negro. Herodotus says that it was impossible to tell whether the influence of the Egyptians on the Ethiopians was stronger than that of the Ethiopians on the Egyptians.

What Herodotus and the Greeks referred to as Ethiopia was, in fact, the kingdom of Kush. It was located up the Nile from Egypt. As the Egyptian empire grew in strength and wealth, it strove to expand its power over its neighbors. Egypt sent several military expeditions south along the Nile to try to conquer the black people of Kush. They failed and the Kus.h.i.+tes, in turn, endeavored to extend their power over Egypt. In 751 B.C., Kush invaded Egypt and, shortly thereafter, conquered it. This occupation of Egypt lasted for over a hundred years, until both the Kus.h.i.+tes and the Egyptians were defeated by an invading army from a.s.syria in 666 B.C. At that point, the Kus.h.i.+tes returned to the safety of their homeland.

The Kus.h.i.+tes and the Egyptians had been defeated by a superior technology. While they were fighting with weapons made of copper and bronze, the a.s.syrians fought with iron. Methods of smelting and working iron had been developed centuries before by the Hitt.i.tes who lived in Asia Minor. The use of iron spread across the Near East, becoming the basis for the a.s.syrian power. After their defeat in 666 B.C., the Kus.h.i.+tes and the Egyptians rapidly adopted the new iron technology. The coming of the Iron Age to Africa meant the production of better weapons and tools. Better weapons provided safety from hostile foes and protection from ferocious beasts. Better axes meant that man could live in densely forested regions where he had not been able to live before.

Better farm implements meant that more food could be grown with less work, this again encouraged the development of denser population centers.

By 300 B.C., Kush had become an important iron-producing center. Its capital, Meroe located on the upper Nile, developed into a thriving commercial and industrial city. Archeological diggings have unearthed the remains of streets, houses, sprawling palaces, and huge piles of slag left from its iron industry. When scholars are able to decipher the Kus.h.i.+tic writings much more will be known about the culture and way of life of this early black empire. In the first century A.D. a Kus.h.i.+te official, whom the Bible refers to as the Ethiopian eunuch, was converted to Christianity by the apostle Philip while returning from a visit to Jerusalem. Shortly, Christianity spread throughout the entire kingdom.

When Kush was defeated by the Axumites, founders of modern Ethiopia, several smaller Nubian, Christian kingdoms survived. Not until the sixteenth century, after almost a thousand years of pressure, did Islam gain supremacy in western Sudan. Ethiopia, shortly after defeating Kush, also became Christianized, and survived as a African only Christian island in a Moslem sea. In fact, Ethiopia has remained an independent, self-governing state until the present, with the brief exception of the Italian occupation between 1936 and 1941.

The development of man and civilization in Africa was not limited merely to the area in the Northeast. There is much evidence of cultural contact between people in all parts of the continent. When the Sahara began to dry out about 2000 B.C., the population was pushed out from there in all directions, thereby forcing the spread of both people and cultures. Even then, the Sahara did not become a block to communication as has been thought. There is clear evidence that trade routes continued to be used even after the Sahara became a desert. Scholars also have found that, shortly after the Iron Age reached North Africa, iron tools began to appear throughout the entire continent, and, within few centuries, iron production was being carried on at a number of different locations. At about the same time, sailors from the far East brought the yam and the banana to the sh.o.r.es of Africa. These fruits spread rapidly from the east coast across most of the continent, becoming basic staples in the African diet. New tools and new crops rapidly expanded the food supply and thereby provided a better way of life.

West African Empires

Although West Africa had been inhabited since the earliest times, about two thousand years ago several events occurred which injected new vigor into the area. The first event had been the drying of the Sahara, which had driven new immigrants into West Africa and, from the admixture of these new people with the previous inhabitants, a new vitality developed.

Then, the introduction of the yam and the banana, as previously noted, significantly increased the food supply. Finally, the developments of iron tools and of iron work further increased the food supply and also provided better weapons. This permitted increased military power and political expansion. These were the necessary ingredients that led to the building of three large and powerful empires: Ghana, Mali and Songhay.

Commerce was another factor which contributed to their development.

Governmental control of a thriving trade in both gold and salt provided the wealth and power necessary for establis.h.i.+ng these large empires.

Unfortunately, our knowledge about West Africa's early history is severely limited by the lack of written records from that period. In recent years, archaeologists have been unearthing increasing amounts of material which contribute to our knowledge of early Africa. West Africans tended to build their cities from nondurable materials such as wood, mud, and gra.s.s. The area does have a rich oral tradition, including special groups of trained men dedicated to its development and maintenance. As oral history is always open to modification and embellishment, with no means available for checking the original version, this material must be used cautiously. Nevertheless, when employed in conjunction with other sources, it does provide a rich source of information.

The earliest written records were provided by the Arabs who developed close contact with West Africa by 800 A.D. After that, West Africans began using Arabic themselves to record their own history. In the middle of the fifteenth century, Europeans began regular contact with West Africa, and they left a wide variety of written sources. While most of these early Europeans were not men of learning, many of their records are still valuable to the student of history.

Ghana was already a powerful empire, with a highly complex political and social organization, when the Arabs reached it about 800 A.D. An Arabic map of 830 A.D. has Ghana marked on it, and other contemporary Arabic sources refer to Ghana as the land of gold. From this time on, a thriving trade developed between Ghana and the world of Islam, including the beginnings of a slave trade. However, this early slave trade was a two-way affair. Al-Bakri, a contemporary Arab writer, was impressed with the display of power and affluence of the Ghanaian king. According to him, the king had an army of two hundred thousand warriors which included about forty thousand men with bows and arrows. (Modern scholars know that the real power of the Ghanaian army was due not to its large numbers as much as to its iron-pointed spears.) Al-Bakri also described an official audience at the royal palace in which the king, the Ghana, was surrounded by lavish trappings of gold and silver and was attended by many pages, servants, large numbers of faithful officials, provincial rulers, and mayors of cities. On such occasions, the king heard the grievances of his people and pa.s.sed judgment on them. Al-Bakri also describes lavish royal banquets which included a great deal of ceremonial ritual.

The power of the king, and therefore of the empire, was based on his ability to maintain law and order in his kingdom. This provided the development of a flouris.h.i.+ng commerce, and it was by taxing all imports and exports that the king was able to finance his government. The key item in this financial structure was the regulation of the vast gold resources of West Africa, and it was by controlling its availability that the king was also able to manipulate its value. However, after the eleventh century, the Ghanaian empire was continually exposed to hara.s.sment from a long series of Arabic holy wars. Over a long period of time, the power of the king was reduced until the empire of Ghana finally collapsed. From its ashes emerged the basis for the creation of a new and even larger empire: the empire of Mali.

Mali, like Ghana, was built on gold. While Ghana had been under attack by the Arabs from outside, various peoples from within struck for their own freedom. The Mand.i.n.ka people, who had been the middlemen in the gold trade and who had received protection from the king of Ghana, achieved their independence in 1230 A.D. They went on to use their position in the gold trade to build an empire of their own. The peak of their influence and power was achieved in the early fourteenth century under Mansa Kankan Musa who ruled Mali for a quarter of a century. He extended its boundaries beyond those of Ghana to include such important trading cities as Timbuktu and Gao, encompa.s.sing an area larger than that controlled by the European monarchs of that day. This empire also was based on its ability to provide stable government and a flouris.h.i.+ng economy. An Arab traveler, Ibn Batuta, shortly after Musa's death, found complete safety of travel throughout the entire empire of Mali.

Mansa Musa and, for that matter, the entire ruling cla.s.s of Mali had converted to Islam. This intensified the contacts between West Africa and the Islamic world. Although several of these kings made pilgrimages to Mecca, the most spectacular was the one by Mansa Musa in 1324. On his way there, he made a prolonged visit to Cairo. While there, both his generosity in giving lavish gifts of gold to its citizens and his extravagant spending poured so much gold into the Cairo market that it caused a general inflation. It was estimated by the Arabs that his caravan included some sixty thousand people and some five hundred personal slaves. Mansa Musa took a number of Arabic scholars and skilled artisans back to West Africa with him. These scholars enhanced the university of Timbuktu which was already widely known as a center of Islamic studies. Now, besides exchanging material goods, West Africa and the Arabs became involved in a steady exchange of scholars and learning.

The success of Mali in bringing law and order to a large portion of West Africa was responsible for its decline. Having experienced the advantages of political organization, many localities sought self-government. In fact, Mansa Musa had overextended the empire. A skilled ruler like himself could manipulate it, but those who followed were not adequate to the challenge. Movements for self-government gradually eroded central authority until by 1500 Mali had lost its importance as an empire.

Although the period of its power and prosperity was respectable by most world empire standards, it was short-lived compared to the history of the previous empire of Ghana. Again, a new empire was to emerge from the ruins of the previous one.

The Songhay empire was based on the strength of the important trading city of Gao. This city won its independence from Mali as early as 1375, and, within a century, it had developed into an empire. Songhay carried on a vigorous trade with the outside world and particularly with the Arabic countries. The ruling cla.s.s, in particular, continued to follow the religion of Islam, but it is generally believed that the ma.s.ses of the population remained faithful to the more traditional West African religions based on fetis.h.i.+sm and ancestor wors.h.i.+p. Two of the more powerful rulers were Suni Ali, who began his 28-year reign in 1464, and Askia Mohammed, who began his 36-year reign in 1493. Askia Mohammed was also known as Askia the Great. The security of Songhay was undermined when Arabs from Morocco invaded and captured the key trading city of Timbuktu in 1591. Thus ended the last of the three great empires of West Africa.