Dubois, The Negro

"The modern world , in contrast, knows the Negro chiefly as a bond slave in the West Indies and America. Add to this the fact that the darker races of other parts of the world have, in the last four centuries, lagged behind the flying and even feverish footsteps of Europe, and we face today a widespread assumption throughout the dominant world that color is a mark of inferiority."

p. 12.

"The typical Negro is a rare variety even among Negroes."

"In fact it is generally recognized today that no scientific definition of race is possible."

p. 13.

Africa is a divided continent, it is the most varied of all -- that is more diversity of human groups live in Africa than in any other continent:

Khoi-San (bushman, Kalahari desert, light {yellow} complexion)
Pygmies (forest people, lighter complexion)
Berbers (desert non-black, animists converted to Islam)
Bantu (Niger River Valley, dark complexion, animists)
Ethiopian (plateau people, dark complexion, Christian & Jews)
Swahili (savanna, grazing people, dark complexion, Muslim)
Egyptian (Nilitic ancient civilization, mixed complexion)

"Today we realize that there are no hard and fast racial types among men (people). Race is a dynamic and not a static conception. . .

p. 16.

Note:

Du Bois is in error in suggesting human origins from southern Asia, genetically it is shown today the the rift valley in South and central Africa and the Afar triangle in Ethiopia are resident hominid populations that are ancestral to modern homo sapiens. Among homo sapiens (the human race) a Niger River woman has been found to possess mitochondrial DNA with striking similarities to today's human mitochondrial DNA, suggesting a common ancestry.

Slavery

"The Portuguese began . . .sailing down the Atlantic coast and initiating the modern slave trade . . . but as traders in men rather than explorers."

p. 17.

African culture.

"When therefore, a demand for workmen arose in America, European exportation was limited by religious ties and economic stability. African exportation was encouraged not simply by the Christian attitude toward heathen, but also by the Moslem enmity toward the unconverted Negroes."

p. 144.

"Nevertheless, by 1501, we have the first incidental mention of Negroes going to America in a declaration that Negro slaves "born in the power of Christians were to be allowed to pass to the Indies, and the officers of the royal revenue were to receive the money to be paid for their permits."

pp. 146-147.

"Negro slaves . . sent to Hispaniola. . . fled amongst the Indians and taught them bad customs and never could be captured."

p. 147 .

"fifty to be sent out from Seville for the mines in 1510." to Diego Columbus on Hispaniola.

Las Casas

"for he always held they had been made slaves unjustly and tyrannically."

p. 148.

Slaves imported under the Assiento treaties went to all parts of the Americas

18th century	Island or nation	numbers
1	Santo Domingo	10,000
2	Cuba	84,000
3	Porto Rico	50,000
4	Central America	60,000
5	Louisiana & Florida	60,000
	total	264,000

p. 162

The slave trade greatly increased in the latter pat of the eighteenth century, and after the Revolution in Hayti large numbers of French emigrants from that island settled in Cuba."

p. 162

Before 1530 there were enough Negroes in Mexico to lead to an insurrection, where the Negroes fought desperately, but were overcome and their ringleaders executed."

p. 161

"the Dutch found better scope for slaves in Guiana, which they settled in 1616. Sugar cane became the staple crop, but the Negroes began to revolt and the Dutch brought in East Indians."

p. 167

French sugar islands

"It was in the island of Hayti, that French slavery centered." 1663 France seized the island from Spain.

By 1680 there were so many slaves and mulattoes that uis the XIV issued his famous Code Noir, which was notable in requirong bachelor masters, the fathers of slave children, to marry their concubines.

...but familes could not be separated by sale except in the case of grown children."

"Emancipation with full civil rights was made possible for any slave twenty years of age or more."

p. 168

The consequences of the French Revolution: July, 1789.

In Haiti and the French West Indies "When the French Revolution broke out. . . . this led the French government to grant full civil rights to free Negroes."

"Immediately planters and free Negroes flew to arms against each other and then, suddenly, August 22, 1791, the black slaves, of whom there were four hundred and fifty two thousand, arose in revolt to help the free Negroes."

p. 169.

The Negro population of these lands (coastal South America) is everywhere in process of rapid amalgamation with whites and indians."

p. 182.

Creoles

Slavery

Sources:

William Edward Burghardt Dubois, The Negro. New York: Henry Holt, 1915.

Sydney Mintz, Sweetness and Power

Octavio Paz , The Labyrinth of Solitude. New York: Grove Press, 1961 (1950).

Keen and Haynes, The History of Latin America, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005.

Imperialism's origins and extent

study guide

Time line

map index

concept index

Author summary

William Edward Burghardt Du Bois, 1868 - 1968, Sociologist, co-founder of the Niagara Movement that was the origins of the NAACP or the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

The 1905 meeting at Niagara Falls was originally scheduled to take place on the United States side of the Falls, however when the group was denied accommodations by hotels because of racial prejudice, they moved to the Canada side. Approximately 60 prominent individuals were invited to the meeting but only about half showed up.

The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (usually abbreviated as NAACP) is one of the oldest and most influential civil rights organizations in the United States.[1] The NAACP was founded on February 12, 1909 by a diverse group in Baltimore, Maryland.

Date: 1 April 2008