First Paper

In Europe between the years of 1400 to 1600, viewpoints about how to see and classify the people of African people started to take shape. These views among the European populace began to develop, and would continue to grow and change throughout the time and beyond it. However, this time period is especially interesting because it really started the seeing of African's as slaves, and identifying them as a workforce. During this time, those ideas were formed, stereotypes were developed, and racist ideas were brought to the forefront of human and cultural history. Looking at this time period we can see that in the span of 200 years, the exploiting of a people group can both rise and take form and also shape how that can control the image of that people group for years to come.

One interesting part of early European viewpoints, especially from the Iberian Peninsula and Portugal in particular, was that royalty in Africa was dealt with as royalty. “Ranking of nobles with nominally identical status was current practice at most European courts and served as a guiding principle of etiquette and protocol.”¹ There was no treating them as a lesser being, and even if the nation was weaker, the rulers were still treated with respect. However, these same rules were not held up for the regular people of Africa themselves, and they could be seen as a lower class themselves. Part of this was because even European citizens of the lowest class had little rights, so of course a less developed countries citizens would be looked down upon from a European standpoint.

Religion also played a role, especially for those of the Italian Peninsula. Muslims were looked at as those who could be enslaved, and so immediately some Africans could be targets for that trade. On the other hand, Christians couldn't be kept as slaves. This helped shaped the viewpoints for those who went along with this view. If one who took this viewpoint to heart followed it along, their lines were easily defined as to who was slave worthy and who was not. Christians to them obviously held a higher place than Muslims, and so these views began to grow.

Perhaps one of the largest, if not most obvious European viewpoint of Africans is that they were also used and seen as a huge source of labor. This is perhaps the main common factor in all of the slave trade. No matter where the slave was, from the Iberian Peninsula to England, Germany, and France, slaves were viewed as a great way to get agricultural or other work done for little cost in a field compared to paid work. One reason (among many) that African slavery was in high demand during this period was because of the demand for sugar. This was especially the case after crusaders during the christian crusades came home telling of how great sugar cane was, creating the want for the crop, thus creating a need for more labor. How to get the workers for the sudden rise of this important new crop? Why slave labor of course. This helps reinforce the idea that Africans were viewed by all as a strong and perhaps exotic labor force.

This leads to another point, and that is Africans were likely to be seen as something special, or as mentioned, exotic. The African continent itself was a mystery to Europeans, and this exotic though process came from “novelists, poets, painters and playwrights [who] catered to the new awareness of Africa mainly at the level of the exotic.” ² There had been African groups in Europe, but they were a much smaller portions of the population. When African Slavery started to pick up, and because black Africans were a rare sight, it became something special to have or own an African slave, as they were unique and special. This could easily have been on of the reasons behind the want for more slaves, simply forming off of human greed, and the want to show off or have something new to own. This idea is quite harsh when looking at the being owned is human, but human rights didn't have much weight at this point in history.

Another view of Africans for Europeans developed out of a need to try and classify African people. Civil rights were basically non-existent in this time period, and so developing a caste with racist ideas behind them would have been something that Europeans wanted or needed to place on the African people. So of course stereotypes began to form in their own way based off of this need. Because many early slaves were Muslim, they were looked at as a lower class. Because these slaves were black, stereotypical slavery ideas would begin to form, as most blacks that one saw would of course be a slave. After a period of time of seeing so many Africans who were slaves, it would make sense for people to see every African as a slave and create and idea in their head as to what every African was. These ideas would set in motion how many would view Africans for years to come, and would help develop how Africans were seen by the European people.

So these were how Africans may have been viewed in the first par of the time spanning from the 1400's to the 1600's, but what about later on? When slavery really starts to take its toll in the New World, a man called Bartolome´ de las Casas gives us his take on a change. ³ While this essay is not to focus on Slavery in particular, or it's harmful affects on people, and de las Casas gives us great insight on that, he also gives insight on how African slaves are seen as a superior slave force compared to other people groups, as he calls for African slaves to be used instead of the Native Indians, because they are better at it. This shows how deep the viewpoint was that Africans were to be seen as, as slaves.

Looking at this time period we can see that in the span of 200 years, the exploiting of a people group can both rise and take form and also shape how that can control the image of that people group for years to come. The beginning was a struggle to find an identity, but in the time of only 200 years, it was set in peoples minds as how to view the African people.

1 Ivana Elbl, “Cross-Cultural Trade and Diplomacy: Portuguese Relations withWest Africa, 1441-1521” Journal of World History, Vol. 3, No. 2 (Fall, 1992), pp. 195

2 Walter Rodney, “Africa in Europe and the Americas” The Cambridge History of

Africa Vol. 4 Cambridge Histories Online, pp. 581

3 Lawrence Clayton, “Bartolome de las Casas and the African Slave Trade,” History

Compass 7/6 (2009): 1526–1541