In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejected as fundamentally unscriptural.
True, but there have been some great efforts at recovering medieval manuscripts from places like Timbuktu, northern Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the East African coast by the Endangered Archives Programme. It's a good start.
A Bronze Age myth kept alive and embellished to justify slavery and other forms of exploitation. Capitalists and imperialists have been using the Bible to justify their own positions and actions for centuries.
Found your Substack by accident and wish I'd had found it earlier
Would be very interested if you expanded this somewhat to include the Luo people of Nyanza Province, Kenya. Was married to a Luo women for 24 years and spent some time in Kisumu and her home village of Komenye in Siaya District.
Read a treatise years ago that the Luo people were a continuance of the southern and then south-eastern migrations of southern Sudanese peoples. And, indeed, the Luo language is of Nilo-Saharan origins.
Also would be interested in your opinion of Basil Davidson's "Africa" series from 1984.
Thank you. The Luo migrations are an underrated topic that I will definitely look into, because they shaped the social history of Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya. I'll see how soon I can queue that up, perhaps by late next month
You quote Edith Sanders, so you believe a "well-mixed population," discovered by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798, "made it impossible to hide... a population of Negroids who were... originators of the oldest civilization?"
You believe they went gung ho with a Hamitic switch-up because they found a "mixed population" as the origin in Egypt?
If the population is "mixed," why bother switching up at all, when you can just fabricate yet another "Caucasoid Kintu," and proclaim Japhet as the progenitor of civilization?
There's a reason mythologies cannot be ignored in professional historiography. Experience shows that within the mysticism of a myth lies the germ of objective truth. Let's not be quick to dismiss the Hamitic theory, at least in so far as it's used by the 2nd century BC Eupolemus. From the Canaanites, were begotten the Phoenicians, the Ethiopians, and yes, the Egyptians. All three of those ancients black in the modern sense.
Africa has its own stories, language and everything. it's a shame that over time we have lost this.
True, but there have been some great efforts at recovering medieval manuscripts from places like Timbuktu, northern Nigeria, Ethiopia, and the East African coast by the Endangered Archives Programme. It's a good start.
A Bronze Age myth kept alive and embellished to justify slavery and other forms of exploitation. Capitalists and imperialists have been using the Bible to justify their own positions and actions for centuries.
As you know, they still are.
unfortunately.
Word
A very insightful and thorough presentation.
Found your Substack by accident and wish I'd had found it earlier
Would be very interested if you expanded this somewhat to include the Luo people of Nyanza Province, Kenya. Was married to a Luo women for 24 years and spent some time in Kisumu and her home village of Komenye in Siaya District.
Read a treatise years ago that the Luo people were a continuance of the southern and then south-eastern migrations of southern Sudanese peoples. And, indeed, the Luo language is of Nilo-Saharan origins.
Also would be interested in your opinion of Basil Davidson's "Africa" series from 1984.
Thank you. The Luo migrations are an underrated topic that I will definitely look into, because they shaped the social history of Sudan, South Sudan, Uganda, and Kenya. I'll see how soon I can queue that up, perhaps by late next month
You quote Edith Sanders, so you believe a "well-mixed population," discovered by Napoleon's expedition to Egypt in 1798, "made it impossible to hide... a population of Negroids who were... originators of the oldest civilization?"
You believe they went gung ho with a Hamitic switch-up because they found a "mixed population" as the origin in Egypt?
If the population is "mixed," why bother switching up at all, when you can just fabricate yet another "Caucasoid Kintu," and proclaim Japhet as the progenitor of civilization?
There's a reason mythologies cannot be ignored in professional historiography. Experience shows that within the mysticism of a myth lies the germ of objective truth. Let's not be quick to dismiss the Hamitic theory, at least in so far as it's used by the 2nd century BC Eupolemus. From the Canaanites, were begotten the Phoenicians, the Ethiopians, and yes, the Egyptians. All three of those ancients black in the modern sense.