Having viewed now the land and movements of African people in main
outline, let us scan more narrowly the history of five main centers of
activity and culture, namely: the valleys of the Nile and of the Congo,
the borders of the great Gulf of Guinea, the Sudan, and South Africa.
These divisions do not cover all of Negro Africa, but they take in the
main areas and the main lines in development.
First, we turn to the valley of the Nile, perhaps the most ancient of
known seats of civilization in the world, and certainly the oldest in
Africa, with a culture reaching back six or eight thousand years. Like all
civilizations it drew largely from without and undoubtedly arose in the
valley of the Nile, because that valley was so easily made a center for
the meeting of men of all types and from all parts of the world. At the
same time Egyptian civilization seems to have been African in its
beginnings and in its main line of development, despite strong influences
from all parts of Asia. Of what race, then, were the Egyptians? They
certainly were not white in any sense of the modern use of that
word--neither in color nor physical measurement, in hair nor countenance,
in language nor social customs. They stood in relationship nearest the
Negro race in earliest times, and then gradually through the infiltration
of Mediterranean and Semitic elements became what would be described in
America as a light mulatto stock of Octoroons or Quadroons. This stock was
varied continually; now by new infiltration of Negro blood from the south,
now by Negroid and Semitic blood from the east, now by Berber types from
the north and west.
Egyptian monuments show distinctly Negro and mulatto faces. Herodotus, in
an incontrovertible passage, alludes to the Egyptians as "black and
curly-haired"[4]--a peculiarly significant statement from one used to the
brunette Mediterranean type; in another passage, concerning the fable of
the Dodonian Oracle, he again alludes to the swarthy color of the
Egyptians as exceedingly dark and even black. Æschylus, mentioning a boat
seen from the shore, declares that its crew are Egyptians, because of
their black complexions.
Modern measurements, with all their admitted limitations, show that in the
Thebaid from one-seventh to one-third of the Egyptian population were
Negroes, and that of the predynastic Egyptians less than half could be
classed as non-Negroid. Judging from measurements in the tombs of nobles
as late as the eighteenth dynasty, Negroes form at least one-sixth of the
higher class.[5]
Such measurements are by no means conclusive, but they are apt to be
under rather than over statements of the prevalence of Negro blood. Head
measurements of Negro Americans would probably place most of them in the
category of whites. The evidence of language also connects Egypt with
Africa and the Negro race rather than with Asia, while religious
ceremonies and social customs all go to strengthen this evidence.
The ethnic history of Northeast Africa would seem, therefore, to have been
this: predynastic Egypt was settled by Negroes from Ethiopia. They were of
varied type: the broad-nosed, woolly-haired type to which the word "Negro"
is sometimes confined; the black, curly-haired, sharper featured type,
which must be considered an equally Negroid variation. These Negroes met
and mingled with the invading Mediterranean race from North Africa and
Asia. Thus the blood of the sallower race spread south and that of the
darker race north. Black priests appear in Crete three thousand years
before Christ, and Arabia is to this day thoroughly permeated with Negro
blood. Perhaps, as Chamberlain says, "one of the prime reasons why no
civilization of the type of that of the Nile arose in other parts of the
continent, if such a thing were at all possible, was that Egypt acted as a
sort of channel by which the genius of Negro-land was drafted off into the
service of Mediterranean and Asiatic culture."[6]
To one familiar with the striking and beautiful types arising from the
mingling of Negro with Latin and Germanic types in America, the puzzle of
the Egyptian type is easily solved. It was unlike any of its neighbors and
a unique type until one views the modern mulatto; then the faces of
Rahotep and Nefert, of Khafra and Amenemhat I, of Aahmes and Nefertari,
and even of the great Ramessu II, become curiously familiar.
The history of Egypt is a science in itself. Before the reign of the first
recorded king, five thousand years or more before Christ, there had
already existed in Egypt a culture and art arising by long evolution from
the days of paleolithic man, among a distinctly Negroid people. About 4777
B.C. Aha-Mena began the first of three successive Egyptian empires. This
lasted two thousand years, with many Pharaohs, like Khafra of the Fourth
Dynasty, of a strongly Negroid cast of countenance.
At the end of the period the empire fell apart into Egyptian and Ethiopian
halves, and a silence of three centuries ensued. It is quite possible that
an incursion of conquering black men from the south poured over the land
in these years and dotted Egypt in the next centuries with monuments on
which the full-blooded Negro type is strongly and triumphantly impressed.
The great Sphinx at Gizeh, so familiar to all the world, the Sphinxes of
Tanis, the statue from the Fayum, the statue of the Esquiline at Rome,
and the Colossi of Bubastis all represent black, full-blooded Negroes and
are described by Petrie as "having high cheek bones, flat cheeks, both in
one plane, a massive nose, firm projecting lips, and thick hair, with an
austere and almost savage expression of power."[7]
Blyden, the great modern black leader of West Africa, said of the Sphinx
at Gizeh: "Her features are decidedly of the African or Negro type, with
'expanded nostrils.' If, then, the Sphinx was placed here--looking out in
majestic and mysterious silence over the empty plain where once stood the
great city of Memphis in all its pride and glory, as an 'emblematic
representation of the king'--is not the inference clear as to the peculiar
type or race to which that king belonged?"[8]
The middle empire arose 3064 B.C. and lasted nearly twenty-four centuries.
Under Pharaohs whose Negro descent is plainly evident, like Amenemhat I
and III and Usertesen I, the ancient glories of Egypt were restored and
surpassed. At the same time there is strong continuous pressure from the
wild and unruly Negro tribes of the upper Nile valley, and we get some
idea of the fear which they inspired throughout Egypt when we read of the
great national rejoicing which followed the triumph of Usertesen III (c.
2660-22) over these hordes. He drove them back and attempted to confine
them to the edge of the Nubian Desert above the Second Cataract. Hemmed in
here, they set up a state about this time and founded Nepata.
Notwithstanding this repulse of black men, less than one hundred years
later a full-blooded Negro from the south, Ra Nehesi, was seated on the
throne of the Pharaohs and was called "The king's eldest son." This may
mean that an incursion from the far south had placed a black conqueror on
the throne. At any rate, the whole empire was in some way shaken, and two
hundred years later the invasion of the Hyksos began. The domination of
Hyksos kings who may have been Negroids from Asia[9] lasted for five
hundred years.
The redemption of Egypt from these barbarians came from Upper Egypt, led
by the mulatto Aahmes. He founded in 1703 B.C. the new empire, which
lasted fifteen hundred years. His queen, Nefertari, "the most venerated
figure of Egyptian history,"[10] was a Negress of great beauty, strong
personality, and of unusual administrative force. She was for many years
joint ruler with her son, Amenhotep I, who succeeded his father.[11]
The new empire was a period of foreign conquest and internal splendor and
finally of religious dispute and overthrow. Syria was conquered in these
reigns and Asiatic civilization and influences poured in upon Egypt. The
great Tahutmes III, whose reign was "one of the grandest and most eventful
in Egyptian history,"[12] had a strong Negroid countenance, as had also
Queen Hatshepsut, who sent the celebrated expedition to reopen ancient
trade with the Hottentots of Punt. A new strain of Negro blood came to the
royal line through Queen Mutemua about 1420 B.C., whose son, Amenhotep
III, built a great temple at Luqsor and the Colossi at Memnon.
The whole of the period in a sense culminated in the great Ramessu II, the
oppressor of the Hebrews, who with his Egyptian, Libyan, and Negro armies
fought half the world. His reign, however, was the beginning of decline,
and foes began to press Egypt from the white north and the black south.
The priests transferred their power at Thebes, while the Assyrians under
Nimrod overran Lower Egypt. The center of interest is now transferred to
Ethiopia, and we pass to the more shadowy history of that land.
The most perfect example of Egyptian poetry left to us is a celebration of
the prowess of Usertesen III in confining the turbulent Negro tribes to
the territory below the Second Cataract of the Nile. The Egyptians called
this territory Kush, and in the farthest confines of Kush lay Punt, the
cradle of their race. To the ancient Mediterranean world Ethiopia (i.e.,
the Land of the Black-faced) was a region of gods and fairies. Zeus and
Poseidon feasted each year among the "blameless Ethiopians," and Black
Memnon, King of Ethiopia, was one of the greatest of heroes.
"The Ethiopians conceive themselves," says Diodorus Siculus (Lib. III),
"to be of greater antiquity than any other nation; and it is probable
that, born under the sun's path, its warmth may have ripened them earlier
than other men. They suppose themselves also to be the inventors of divine
worship, of festivals, of solemn assemblies, of sacrifices, and every
religious practice. They affirm that the Egyptians are one of their
colonies."
The Egyptians themselves, in later days, affirmed that they and their
civilization came from the south and from the black tribes of Punt, and
certainly "at the earliest period in which human remains have been
recovered Egypt and Lower Nubia appear to have formed culturally and
racially one land."[13]
The forging ahead of Egypt in culture was mainly from economic causes.
Ethiopia, living in a much poorer land with limited agricultural
facilities, held to the old arts and customs, and at the same time lost
the best elements of its population to Egypt, absorbing meantime the
oncoming and wilder Negro tribes from the south and west. Under the old
empire, therefore, Ethiopia remained in comparative poverty, except as
some of its tribes invaded Egypt with their handicrafts.
As soon as the civilization below the Second Cataract reached a height
noticeably above that of Ethiopia, there was continued effort to protect
that civilization against the incursion of barbarians. Hundreds of
campaigns through thousands of years repeatedly subdued or checked the
blacks and brought them in as captives to mingle their blood with the
Egyptian nation; but the Egyptian frontier was not advanced.
A separate and independent Ethiopian culture finally began to arise during
the middle empire of Egypt and centered at Nepata and Meroe. Widespread
trade in gold, ivory, precious stones, skins, wood, and works of
handicraft arose.[14] The Negro began to figure as the great trader of
Egypt.
This new wealth of Ethiopia excited the cupidity of the Pharaohs and led
to aggression and larger intercourse, until at last, when the dread Hyksos
appeared, Ethiopia became both a physical and cultural refuge for
conquered Egypt. The legitimate Pharaohs moved to Thebes, nearer the
boundaries of Ethiopia, and from here, under Negroid rulers, Lower Egypt
was redeemed.
The ensuing new empire witnessed the gradual incorporation of Ethiopia
into Egypt, although the darker kingdom continued to resist. Both mulatto
Pharaohs, Aahmes and Amenhotep I, sent expeditions into Ethiopia, and in
the latter's day sons of the reigning Pharaoh began to assume the title of
"Royal Son of Kush" in some such way as the son of the King of England
becomes the Prince of Wales.
Trade relations were renewed with Punt under circumstances which lead us
to place that land in the region of the African lakes. The Sudanese tribes
were aroused by these and other incursions, until the revolts became
formidable in the fourteenth century before Christ.
Egyptian culture, however, gradually conquered Ethiopia where her armies
could not, and Egyptian religion and civil rule began to center in the
darker kingdom. When, therefore, Shesheng I, the Libyan, usurped the
throne of the Pharaohs in the tenth century B.C., the Egyptian legitimate
dynasty went to Nepata as king priests and established a theocratic
monarchy. Gathering strength, the Ethiopian kingdom under this dynasty
expanded north about 750 B.C. and for a century ruled all Egypt.
The first king, Pankhy, was Egyptian bred and not noticeably Negroid, but
his successors showed more and more evidence of Negro blood--Kashta the
Kushite, Shabaka, Tarharqa, and Tanutamen. During the century of Ethiopian
rule a royal son was appointed to rule Egypt, just as formerly a royal
Egyptian had ruled Kush. In many ways this Ethiopian kingdom showed its
Negro peculiarities: first, in its worship of distinctly Sudanese gods;
secondly, in the rigid custom of female succession in the kingdom, and
thirdly, by the election of kings from the various royal claimants to the
throne. "It was the heyday of the Negro. For the greater part of the
century ... Egypt itself was subject to the blacks, just as in the new
empire the Sudan had been subject to Egypt."[15]
Egypt now began to fall into the hands of Asia and was conquered first by
the Assyrians and then by the Persians, but the Ethiopian kings kept their
independence. Aspeluta, whose mother and sister are represented as
full-blooded Negroes, ruled from 630 to 600 B.C. Horsiatef (560-525 B.C.)
made nine expeditions against the warlike tribes south of Meroe, and his
successor, Nastosenen (525-500 B.C.) was the one who repelled Cambyses. He
also removed the capital from Nepata to Meroe, although Nepata continued
to be the religious capital and the Ethiopian kings were still crowned on
its golden throne.
From the fifth to the second century B.C. we find the wild Sudanese tribes
pressing in from the west and Greek culture penetrating from the east.
King Arg-Amen (Ergamenes) showed strong Greek influences and at the same
time began to employ the Ethiopian speech in writing and used a new
Ethiopian alphabet.
While the Ethiopian kings were still crowned at Nepata, Meroe gradually
became the real capital and supported at one time four thousand artisans
and two hundred thousand soldiers. It was here that the famous Candaces
reigned as queens. Pliny tells us that one Candace of the time of Nero had
had forty-four predecessors on the throne, while another Candace figures
in the New Testament.[16]
It was probably this latter Candace who warred against Rome at the time of
Augustus and received unusual consideration from her formidable foe. The
prestige of Ethiopia at this time was considerable throughout the world.
Pseudo-Callisthenes tells an evidently fabulous story of the visit of
Alexander the Great to Candace, Queen of Meroe, which nevertheless
illustrates her fame: Candace will not let him enter Ethiopia and says he
is not to scorn her people because they are black, for they are whiter in
soul than his white folk. She sent him gold, maidens, parrots, sphinxes,
and a crown of emeralds and pearls. She ruled eighty tribes, who were
ready to punish those who attacked her.
The Romans continued to have so much trouble with their Ethiopian frontier
that finally, when Semitic mulattoes appeared in the east, the Emperor
Diocletian invited the wild Sudanese tribe of Nubians (Nobadæ) from the
west to repel them. These Nubians eventually embraced Christianity, and
northern Ethiopia came to be known in time as Nubia.
The Semitic mulattoes from the east came from the highlands bordering the
Red Sea and Asia. On both sides of this sea Negro blood is strongly in
evidence, predominant in Africa and influential in Asia. Ludolphus,
writing in the seventeenth century, says that the Abyssinians "are
generally black, which [color] they most admire." Trade and war united the
two shores, and merchants have passed to and fro for thirty centuries.
In this way Arabian, Jewish, Egyptian, Greek, and Roman influences spread
slowly upon the Negro foundation. Early legendary history declares that a
queen, Maqueda, or Nikaula of Sheba, a state of Central Abyssinia, visited
Solomon in 1050 B.C. and had her son Menelik educated in Jerusalem. This
was the supposed beginning of the Axumite kingdom, the capital of which,
Axume, was a flourishing center of trade. Ptolemy Evergetes and his
successors did much to open Abyssinia to the world, but most of the
population of that day was nomadic. In the fourth century Byzantine
influences began to be felt, and in 330 St. Athanasius of Alexandria
consecrated Fromentius as Bishop of Ethiopia. He tutored the heir to the
Abyssinian kingdom and began its gradual christianization. By the early
part of the sixth century Abyssinia was trading with India and Byzantium
and was so far recognized as a Christian country that the Emperor
Justinian appealed to King Kaleb to protect the Christians in southwestern
Arabia. Kaleb conquered Yemen in 525 and held it fifty years.
Eventually a Jewish princess, Judith, usurped the Axumite throne; the
Abyssinians were expelled from Arabia, and a long period begins when as
Gibbon says, "encompassed by the enemies of their religion, the Ethiopians
slept for nearly a thousand years, forgetful of the world by whom they
were forgotten." Throughout the middle ages, however, the legend of a
great Christian kingdom hidden away in Africa persisted, and the search
for Prester John became one of the world quests.
It was the expanding power of Abyssinia that led Rome to call in the
Nubians from the western desert. The Nubians had formed a strong league of
tribes, and as the ancient kingdom of Ethiopia declined they drove back
the Abyssinians, who had already established themselves at Meroe.
In the sixth century the Nubians were converted to Christianity by a
Byzantine priest, and they immediately began to develop. A new capital,
Dongola, replaced Nepata and Meroe, and by the twelfth century churches
and brick dwellings had appeared. As the Mohammedan flood pressed up the
Nile valley it was the Nubians that held it back for two centuries.
Farther south other wild tribes pushed out of the Sudan and began a
similar development. Chief among these were the Fung, who fixed their
capital at Senaar, at the junction of the White and Blue Nile. When the
Mohammedan flood finally passed over Nubia, the Fung diverted it by
declaring themselves Moslems. This left the Fung as the dominant power in
the fifteenth century from the Three Cataracts to Fazogli and from the Red
Sea at Suakin to the White Nile. Islam then swept on south in a great
circle, skirted the Great Lakes, and then curled back to Somaliland,
completely isolating Abyssinia.
Between the thirteenth and sixteenth centuries the Egyptian Sudan became a
congeries of Mohammedan kingdoms with Arab, mulatto, and Negro kings. Far
to the west, near Lake Chad, arose in 1520 the sultanate of Baghirmi,
which reached its highest power in the seventh century. This dynasty was
overthrown by the Negroid Mabas, who established Wadai to the eastward
about 1640. South of Wadai lay the heathen and cannibals of the Congo
valley, against which Islam never prevailed. East of Wadai and nearer the
Nile lay the kindred state of Darfur, a Nubian nation whose sultans
reigned over two hundred years and which reached great prosperity in the
early seventeenth century under Soliman Solon.
Before the Mohammedan power reached Abyssinia the Portuguese pioneers had
entered the country from the east and begun to open the country again to
European knowledge. Without doubt, in the centuries of silence, a
civilization of some height had flourished in Abyssinia, but all authentic
records were destroyed by fire in the tenth century. When the Portuguese
came, the older Axumite kingdom had fallen and had been succeeded by a
number of petty states.
The Sudanese kingdoms of the Sudan resisted the power of the Mameluke beys
in Egypt, and later the power of the Turks until the nineteenth century,
when the Sudan was made nominally a part of Egypt. Continuous upheaval,
war, and conquest had by this time done their work, and little of ancient
Ethiopian culture survived except the slave trade.
The entrance of England into Egypt, after the building of the Suez Canal,
stirred up eventually revolt in the Sudan, for political, economic, and
religious reasons. Led by a Sudanese Negro, Mohammed Ahmad, who claimed to
be the Messiah (Mahdi), the Sudan arose in revolt in 1881, determined to
resist a hated religion, foreign rule, and interference with their chief
commerce, the trade in slaves. The Sudan was soon aflame, and the able
mulatto general, Osman Digna, aided by revolt among the heathen Dinka,
drove Egypt and England out of the Sudan for sixteen years. It was not
until 1898 that England reëntered the Sudan and in petty revenge
desecrated the bones of the brave, even if misguided, prophet.
Meantime this Mahdist revolt had delayed England's designs on Abyssinia,
and the Italians, replacing her, attempted a protectorate. Menelik of
Shoa, one of the smaller kingdoms of Abyssinia, was a shrewd man of
predominantly Negro blood, and had been induced to make a treaty with the
Italians after King John had been killed by the Mahdists. The exact terms
of the treaty were disputed, but undoubtedly the Italians tried by this
means to reduce Menelik to vassalage. Menelik stoutly resisted, and at the
great battle of Adua, one of the decisive battles of the modern world, the
Abyssinians on March 1, 1896, inflicted a crushing defeat on the Italians,
killing four thousand of them and capturing two thousand prisoners. The
empress, Taitou, a full-blooded Negress, led some of the charges. By this
battle Abyssinia became independent.
Such in vague and general outline is the strange story of the valley of
the Nile--of Egypt, the motherland of human culture and
"That starr'd Ethiop Queen that strove To set her beauty's praise above
The sea nymphs."