Medieval Ethiopia and Latin Europe

After reading about the Jesuits in Ethiopia, it made sense to go back a little further in time to understand relations between Solomonic Ethiopia and Latin Europe in the Middle Ages. Medieval Ethiopian Kingship, Craft, and Diplomacy with Latin Europe by Verena Krebs is a good place to start since it focuses on a period from c.1402 to the 1520s, a period before the calamitous invasions of Ahmad Gran. Arguing against the grain of past scholarship which has emphasized Ethiopian interest in military alliances or "superior" European technology, Krebs focuses on the various diplomatic missions from Ethiopia as examples of Solomonic kingship and prestige. No clear interest from the Ethiopian side in a military alliance with Rome or Aragon or Portugal emerges until the 1500s, in an era of millenarian prophecies, Ottoman expansion, and Adal incursions. 

Nor were Ethiopians necessarily interested in European "technology" per se. According to Krebs, Solomonic rulers were instead primarily interested in acquiring relics, ecclesiastical items such as chalices or vestments, and master craftsmen associated with construction. While one could argue that these craftsmen represented an aspect of European "technology" through their assumed superiority as builders, masons, carpenters, or smiths, Solomonic interest in their skills was associated with the ambitious royal churches, chapels, and monasteries constructed throughout the highlands. Solomonic dynasts saw the construction of stone churches decorated with luxurious imports from abroad as a way to strengthen their authority, prestige, and continue the legacy of the Biblical Solomon, their purported ancestor. 

Krebs is quite persuasive and reanalyzes some of the same textual sources used by other historians to demonstrate how Solomonic diplomacy with the Latin "West" was based on their own terms. Instead of seeing Christian Ethiopian as a passive recipient of Western technology or diplomatic initiatives, it was, beginning with Dawit and ending with Lebna Dengel, a largely Ethiopian initiative to acquire relics, religious paraphernalia and skilled artisans to boost their power. One is tempted to see an example of possible Solomonic adoption of architectonics of Western or foreign origin as an additional source of power through ecclesiastical power, something visible in the Jesuit-era churches, yet Krebs points to several examples of local churches that followed earlier Ethiopian precedents or influences. So Solomonic relations with Rome, Venice, Aragon, or Portugal should not be seen as one of European technological superiority motivating Ethiopian diplomacy but properly contextualized in the nature of the highland state. In fact, it was usually European perceptions of Ethiopia or Prester John's might and ability to divert the Nile that interested the papacy or European courts in establishing relations. Unfortunately for them, relations were not consistently maintained and later Solomonic rulers sent fewer envoys to Europe in the later period covered in this study. 

One wonders where and how Christian Nubia fit into this period of Ethiopian and Latin European relations. Mamluk Egypt was unavoidable as an land passed through by Ethiopians and Europeans in the period, but what about Nubia? The kingdom of Dotawo was still relevant and perhaps future scholarship can shed light on an interest in the Crusades from Nubia that was absent in the Solomonic state. Some of the medieval sources demonstrate knowledge of Ethiopian geography, languages, and the regional political climate. Nubia, on the other hand, appears to have been little known or a terra incognita, in spite of European contacts with Nubian kingdoms in the Middle Ages. 

La colonie allemande

A few years ago, someone asked us to write a short article or post on the history of German migration to Haiti. Personally, we are more interested in Haiti's Caribbean connections rather than Germany's connections with the Black Republic. Nonetheless, the history of Germans in Haiti began in the colonial era and culminated with an outsized economic influence of Germans on the trade, finances, and industrial operations on the eve of the US Occupation. In spite of their small numbers, the German colonie was of tremendous importance in pre-1915 Haiti. Although their impact was largely negative, Bernard Joseph's study of the German legacy in Haiti unveils rather interesting social, cultural, and intellectual connections that continue to shape Haiti. This brief post will summarize and highlight what stood out to us in reading Joseph's book.

Joseph's Histoire de la colonie allemande d'Haïti begins in the colonial era. German settlers were present at Bombardopolis and Mole Saint-Nicolas. Even after Haitian independence, Germans were offered Haitian citizenship in the 1805 Constitution of Dessalines. Subsequent waves of German migration to Haiti occurred in the 1830s and 1840s, largely from Hamburg and other Hanseatic towns. According to Joseph, these Germans were initially employed by French commercial houses. They married the daughters of their employers in a process that took after in the 1860s. Even before this wave, German commercial interests were already in the country during the 1820s. Haiti represented an opening to Latin America and the Caribbean for the Prussian Rhenane des Indes Occidentales (RWC). Prussian and other firms imported cloth, cotton, and textiles to Haiti in exchange for coffee, cacao, campeche wood, tobacco, and indigo to Prussia. Many of these German consignee merchants invited their relatives to Haiti and, over time, gradually replaced French employers. Examples cited by Joseph include the Schutt family in Cap-Haitien, Emile Nolting, Herman Munchmeyer, the Voigt, and the Wasembeck. The second half of the 19th century witnessed the establishment of most of the prominent German families in Haiti: Ahrendts, Reinbold, Donner, Hermann.

After the loi Dubois of 1860 facilitated the management of Haitian properties by foreigners married to local women, marriages between Germans and women of local bourgeoisie became more important. This willingness of some Germans to marry into local families and thereby own and manage Haitian property allowed them to circumvent laws prohibiting foreign ownership. Unsurprisingly, German investments in agriculture, industrial enterprises, and German exploitation of Haiti's political instability became a major factor until the US Occupation. Germans were involved in tobacco, railways, usines in centers for production, electricity, shipping, financing loans to Haitian governments, and eventually controlling 80% of Haitian commerce. While Plummer's Haiti and the Great Powers provides a more useful analysis of the negative impact of foreign economic domination of Haiti in the decades preceding 1915, Joseph's study illustrates the enormous impact of the German colonie. As a community, they established a club while educating their children in Germany or at local German schools. This identification with Germany persisted even in cases of mixed Germano-Haitians such as Werner Anton Jaegerhuber. At least one, Edouard Voigt, even served in the armed forces of Nazi Germany. Thus, despite their estimated population of around 200 individuals in 1910, their economic control, the convenience of German or claiming German nationality, and that nation's ability to bully Haiti in humiliating episodes such as the Luders Affair reveals the unfair relationship between the two peoples.

This naturally sparked hostility and nationalist pride among some Haitians. Oswald Durand's famous poem, the heroism of Admiral Killick, or Fernand Frangeul's musical compositions referring to the Tippenhauers and financial controversies testify to an opposition to the unequal state of relations between Haiti and Germany. Fernand Hibbert, a Haitian writer whose mother hailed from the Wiener family, also satirized German-Haitian relations through relationships between German males and Haitian women of the upper class. However, it was US pressure during the Occupation and World War I and World War II which finally weakened or, in some cases, eliminated German economic domination of Haiti. German-owned businesses were liquidated and Haiti's fate became tied to US hegemony of the Caribbean. US fears of German invasions of Haiti and American economic interests in the region necessitated the elimination or severe weakening of German or European influence in Haiti. 

So, what does one make of the German legacy in Haiti? Or Germano-Haitians? Their influence on Haitians like Fernand Hibbert, Carl Brouard, Jacques Roumain as well as other luminaries of Haitian thought or literature cannot be denied. Jaegerhuber, a Haitian of German origins, was also invested in the research of Haiti's folkloric or Vodou music. Perhaps German nationalism, Romanticist writers, and philosophical inquiry shaped Haitian intellectuals of the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Scholars have pointed the affinity of Roumain for Heine. One could also argue Haitians of German origin, like Louis Gentil Tippenhauer, contributed to Haitian geography and science while others made important investments in infrastructure. The Widmaiers were important for radio as well as musical recordings in Haiti, too. Of course, the overall legacy of the German colony is undoubtedly tied to the highly unequal relations between an industrializing Germany and the underdeveloped island republic. Haiti suffered from foreign domination of its economy and resources while German attitudes reflected racial bias and exploitation. Their descendants in Haiti include wealthy, powerful families such as the Brandt, whose legacy reflects their privileged past as a group that built its wealth from Haiti's instability and misery. 

A History of Modern Trinidad

In our current phase of renewed interest in the history and literature of Trinidad & Tobago, we have revisited Bridget Brereton's A History of Modern Trinidad, 1783-1962. A relatively straightforward history of about two pivotal centuries in the history of the island, Brereton covers the major points or historical ventures. The establishment of British colonial rule, slavery and the slave trade, emancipation, indentured Indian labor, labor protests and political agitation in the 1930s, the coming of independence and PNM rule under Eric Williams all receive attention. Trinidad's rapid development from the 1780s onward and its role as a frontier colony with a population drawn from all corners of the world contribute to our understanding of the Caribbean's transformational role in world history. It also helps us in our quest to understand how one tiny Caribbean island was able to produce a plethora of writers or intellectuals with a global impact.

Despite the book's title, early chapters do cover the Spanish colonial period. So, the reader learns that Trinidad was a remote, underpopulated colony from about 1592 until the 1780s, when Spanish authorities opened the colony to settlement from the French colonies and plantation development. The indigenous population was decimated but remained the main labor force of Spanish-owned estates on the island until the 1780s. By 1765, Trinidad's Christian indigenous population only numbered 1277 out of a total population of 2503. Spanish inability to develop the colony led to offers of settlement to French or other European Catholics and liberalized trade. Free land grants to settlers plus incentives for those to bring African slaves transformed the population of the island to the point where French settlers outnumbered Spanish residents by 1784. According to Brereton, sugar became the most important export of the colony in the 1790s. In addition to French planters from Grenada or other Antillean colonies, British traders became a significant factor in Port of Spain's rise as an entrepot in British trade with South America. As Trinidad shifted to a plantation colony, the population of Indian and Spanish-Indian (indigenous) descent lost land, migrated to the mainland, and, though retaining a presence in St. Joseph and the village of Arima, were displaced and replaced by an increasingly large enslaved population.  Refugees from Saint-Domingue, Martinique and Guadeloupe also contributed to the shift in the island's population as French and "patois" became the most widely spoken languages. 

The British takeover of the island beginning 1797 intensified slavery and the plantation economy. British governors denied political rights to free coloureds while the smuggling of slaves into Trinidad from other parts of the Caribbean continued. Demobilized West India Regiments soldiers plus African-American former slaves were settled in the island. Then emancipation and  the early termination of apprenticeship led to labor shortages for the plantation economy. Indian laborers and investments in modernizing sugar production kept the large estates afloat while smallholder farmers focused on cocoa or subsistence farming. Like her study of Trinidadian race relations from 1870-1900, the rest of the 19th century saw additional migration from Portuguese and West Indian sources that similarly changed the demographics of the island. Like the previous linguistic shift from Spanish to French and Creole, West Indian migration from other British territories led to English gradually becoming the language of the majority.

The 20th century introduced even more radical changes and developments. Trinidad in the 20th century experienced World War I through West Indian regiments stationed in locations like Egypt. The end of indenturedship from India, combined with labor protests, racial pride and activism (Marcus Garvey's influence on the TWA, for example) challenged the colonial state and exclusion of the majority of voting rights. Captain Cipriano, the subject of an early work by C.L.R. James, fought for constitutional reform in the 1920s which led to voting rights for more of the population. The impact of Garveyism, socialism, and Pan-Africanism continued to impact the TWA, thereby reaching the working masses, dockworker. The next decade, the 1930s, witnessed labor riots associated with Uriah Butler, oil workers, sugar workers, unionization campaigns. A further surge in racial solidarity and nationalism also arose in response to the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. Then, a wave of US influence during World War II shaped Port of Spain and popular culture, which indelibly left a mark on a young Naipaul. By 1946, universal suffrage was established for elections. With independence in the 1960s, the PNM and DLP political parties were established, each one, to Brereton, revolving around their respective racial groups (Black for the former, Indian for the latter). 

Brereton's short history of modern Trinidad adds remarkable contextual information for understanding Trinidadian writers such as C.L.R. James and V.S. Naipaul. The general overview helps explain how and why the PNM and DLP split along largely racial lines took place as a result of the generally urban, Afro-Trinidadian character of labor protests and parties that developed in the 1920s and 1930s. Whether or not Brereton's characterization of the PNM as a creation of a group of mostly black middle-class professionals who rallied round dominant personality of Eric Williams is a fair assessment is another debate, but that's certainly the impression one gains from the biased perspective of Naipaul. Nevertheless, the momentous two centuries in the history of Trinidad witnessed the island's rapid development from underpopulated Spanish colony with a large "Amerindian" population to a vital British colony in the West Indies with a population drawn from all over the world. 

RIP

All of our heroes and legends are dying. Rest in peace, Pharoah Sanders.

State and Society in Three Central Sudanic Kingdoms

Anders J. Bjørkelo's important comparative study of Kanem-Borno, Wadai, and Bagirmi is a worthwhile read on state development, trade, warfare, and administration of 3 of the major kingdoms of the Central Sudan. Although mostly based on 19th century sources and early colonial reports and collections, especially Barth and Nachtigal (and al-Tunisi for Wadai and a little on Bagirmi), Bjørkelo proposes some interesting insights into the nature of the state in these connected kingdoms. Like other scholars, especially O'Fahey, whose influence can be seen in Bjørkelo's analysis of the rituals of seclusion in the three aforementioned kingdoms, he traces their development as "divine kingships" with core, tributary and raiding/plundering zones that were influenced by the technological and ecological constraints of Central Sudan. Due to the diversity of the populations and the presence of agriculturalists and pastoral groups who were unified through coronation rituals, tribute, redistribution, trade, security provided by the state, and a similar level of development in agricultural and technological capacity (and, perhaps, low population densities in the case of Bagirmi if not all three states), one can develop a model of the "Central Sudanic" state in which Kanem-Borno was perhaps the most complex in its administrative apparatus. One could likely extend some of the conclusions to Darfur, the previous Tunjur state, and perhaps other states along the Sudanic belt.

The question of cultural and political diffusion from Kanem-Borno to Bagirmi and Wadai is not analyzed here (except for one 16th century Bagirmi king), but the antiquity of Kanem and its premier place as the dominant state in the larger region for most of the last 1000 years suggests Kanem or its subsequent Borno phase was a major influence on the development of administrative titles, practices, and Islamic conversion in Bagirmi and Wadai. Kanem was also, if Bjørkelo is correct, able to dominate the region so long by preventing the emergence of strong satellite states that would have encroached upon Sayfawa control of trade routes or access to the tribute (necessary to supplement the revenues from local taxes for the lavish lifestyle of notables and the royal court) and wealth via slave raids and plunder on peripheral peoples with less political centralization. Of course, the development of Wadai in the 17th century and the definite establishment of Bagirmi in the 16th (perhaps due to the Bulala rulers in Kanem losing control of Bagirmi) eventually modified the political landscape. 

In the 19th century, Borno lost Kanem and Baghirmi (which paid a nominal tribute to Borno) to Wadai and it was already losing part of its western and northern spheres of influence due to the loss of Bilma's salt caravan to the Tuareg and the followers of Uthman dan Fodio. Nonetheless, it was in Borno that the state appeared to have relied more heavily on royal slave officials, who were more reliable than officials of the royal family or notable lineages. Thus, according to Bjørkelo, Borno enjoyed more political stability than Wadai and it was in a better place than Bagirmi, which lacked a nokena or council. One might consider Kanem-Borno the inner core of the Central Sudan while Wadai and Bagirmi were also central but further removed from the center until the 19th century. Islam and the creative interplay of local traditions of kingship ("divine") and the new faith must have added to the reputation, perception of piety and power of the Sayfawa mais who, in several cases, performed the pilgrimage to Mecca and added that layer of religious or spiritual power to the already sacral elements of kingship. In short, the mai could be the 'king of kings' and recognized as such by several other dynasties of the Sudan because of Kanem-Borno's core position in the Central Sudan and the propagation of its own style of rulership and cosmopolitan Islamic connections that introduced Mediterranean and Near Eastern goods into the region. 

Unfortunately, one wishes Bjørkelo had found more of a balance between external sources and local, indigenous ones. Ahmad b. Furtu and Palmer's translations of mahrams, plus some of the European sources based on interviews with local populations add some depth. However, this is a study that relies heavily on Barth, Nachtigal, Muhammad al-Tunisi and the colonial-era reports or observations. A more extensive use of local sources and oral history may have strengthened the author's arguments or forced a qualification of some of the tentative conclusions reached in the study. For instance, we would have attempted to more extensively cite correspondence of local rulers to North Africa or Constantinople or endeavored to cite Ali Eisami narrative and extensive glossary of Kanuri terms, many of which have a political or economic nature. Similarly, local Arabic and ajami manuscripts, perhaps less available to the author in the 1970s, could be used more easily today to understand the role of the ulama in each of the respective kingdoms. Bobboyi was able to do this quite well in the case of ulama-state relations in Borno through textual sources and oral history. Dewière used even more sources (beyond Seetzen, Lyon, Barth, Nachtigal, Denham) to find more local Borno voices or perspectives to contextualize Borno in Saharan, Sudanic, and Islamic zones. Of course, if the sources are still limited for Bagirmi and Wadai, one would have to rely on Lauture, al-Tunisi, Barth, Nachtigal, and the colonial studies. 

Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad

We have been thinking about Trinidad & Tobago quite often these days. Endeavoring to understand the historical background of Trinidadian society as described in the various works of novelists such as C.L.R. James, Edgar Mittelholzer, and V.S. Naipaul has sparked our interest again. Brereton's study, Race Relations in Colonial Trinidad, 1870-1900 provides a great introduction through its focus on race relations in the diverse Trinidad of the period. Trinidad, after all, was shaped not only by Indian indentured laborers but also by its resident Anglophone West Indians from other British colonies who, together with the population of free colored origin, French Creoles, liberated Africans, Portuguese, Venezuelan migrants, native Afro-Trinidadians, Chinese, and colonial officials, transformed Trinidadian society during the pivotal final decades of the 19th century. The central message of Brereton's study seems to be that the ethnic divisions, plus distinctions of class, color, and religion, were maintained as Trinidad's economy transitioned in the post-emancipation era. This helps explain the reasons why a Naipaul could see himself as a product of an internally divided colonial society lacking cohesion as its disparate parts enjoyed different relations with colonial authority and the dominant, elite culture. It also facilitates in understanding the class/caste structure of Trinidad explored in Mittelholzer's A Morning at the Office.

Brereton begins with an examination of 19th century Trinidad before 1870, covering the free colored population, emancipation, new village settlements of formerly enslaved people, and Indian indenture immigration from 1845 onwards. In the second half of the 19th century, new infrastructure appeared with railways in the 1870s and 1880s, additional roads and settlements, Port of Spain's urban expansion, and cocoa cultivation originally produced by small farmers before French Creoles dominated the industry. Some manufacturing and an incipient urban working class appeared, mostly in Port of Spain. Unlike sugar, most of the cocoa industry was locally owned but the Trinidadian economy lacked adequate diversification of exports. As a crown colony until 1924, most governors sided with sugar planter interests and did little about the harmful system of indirect taxation via import duties on basic foodstuffs, kerosene, clothes, and agricultural tools, which had a harmful impact on the masses. Reformers wanted government officials on the council to be elected by the population, but French Creoles and the governors resisted and continued to dominate government policy in the interests of the white planters. According to Brereton, French Creoles formed a closed group dominating import-export, cocoa, municipal government posts, the medical professional, and journalism.

For non-white, non-elite groups, things were, of course, quite different. Education was, despite schools established in all wards, rather limited for the lower classes. At best, they only received a limited education that would make them better workers while fees and exclusion of illegitimate children barred many Indians and poor black children from admission. Indeed, it was difficult for even middle-class Afro-Trinidadians to receive a secondary education, although a few, often of Barbadian origins, managed to receive scholarships into elite schools. Our C.L.R. James appears to be an example of this fortunate group. Others can be found in families of mixed-race French Creole origin, such as the Romains and Philips. Culturally similar to white French Creoles and benefitting from their education and connections, some even rose to high posts in government, with Michel Maxwell Philip becoming mayor of Port of Spain in 1867. This group's combativeness against discrimination in government may have brought them together with the small black middle class.

Former slaves and their descendants, to a smaller degree, also entered a middle class or middling status as skilled artisans, teachers, journalists, editors, lawyers, doctors, civil servants, and clerks. Again, helping elucidate the origins of C.L.R. James, primary school teachers were the nucleus of the black middle class and schoolteachers were highly regarded. Take the example of J.J. Thomas, a black teacher in second-half of 19th century. Thomas was the son of ex-slaves, received his early education at a a ward school, taught, entered civil service in 1867, wrote his Creole Grammar in 1869 and went on to master patois, French, Spanish, Latin and Greek. His famous Froudacity was an excellent reply to Froude's racist tract on the West Indies and a defense of the right for black West Indians to self-government. Even the father of George Padmore, H.A. Nurse, or Henry Sylvester Williams, attest to the intellectual and political achievements of Trinidad's black middle class. One could also add their literary achievements in intellectual journals and political activism, although some distanced themselves from the lower-classes and their musical or spiritual practices. 

For our interests in understanding the Indian population of Trinidad during the late 19th century, Brereton's study is of great utility. Indentured Indian labor was indispensable for the revival of Trinidad's sugar sector, but Indians also purchased crown land and gradually established themselves as landowners. Both white and black Trinidadians looked down on Indians from a Western/Christian perspective. Indians, according to Brereton, likewise disliked black Trinidadians, viewing them as "impure" So, geographical and occupational separation plus mutual contempt separated Trinidadians of African and Indian origin. These divisions appear to be the foundation for V.S. Naipaul's "shocking" experience of entering into Creole Trinidadian urban life during his youth in the 1930s. The complexity of Black-Indian relations in colonial Trinidad warrants much further investigation, but one cannot help being astonished by the heterogeneity of the Trinidadian population which had only become predominantly English-speaking among its black population by the late 1800s. Adding another element in South Asian indentured workers and their communities only contributed more to the overflowing pot of ethnic and social diversity that did not end well once conflict over resources between black and Indian groups grew in the 1880s and beyond.

With such an internally variegated subject colonial population, it is no surprise that the struggle for political offices to black Trinidadians or the right to elect representatives faced an uphill battle that, unsurprisingly, led to the type of independent political parties based on ethnicity or sheer opportunism and greed, brilliantly satirized by Naipaul's The Suffrage of Elvira. The Trinidadian society described by James in Minty Alley or the early novels of Naipaul belongs to a period after that encompassed in this study. Nevertheless, the developments in Trinidadian society between 1870 and 1900 appear to have established the framework for social and racial relations for the generations of the pre-WWII and postwar Trinidadian writers we know and love: James, Selvon, Naipaul. 

Envoys of a Human God

Several months ago, we were invited to participate in a reading group formed to devour several books on Ethiopian history, with an emphasis on the Jesuits. It took us quite some time to get to it, but we have been periodically reading whatever we can find on Ethiopian history, particularly the medieval and early modern eras of the Solomonic kingdom. Since there are so many studies and translated sources on the Jesuits in Ethiopia, we decided Envoys of a Human God: The Jesuit Mission to Christian Ethiopia, 1557-1632 to be a good introduction to a complex topic with such an ample documentary trail. Andreu Martínez d'Alòs-Moner's study contextualizes the Mission in the larger East of Jesuit missionary activity during the 16th and 17th centuries, an approach we appreciate due to our readings of Jesuit relations in the Americas and China. 

This is not to ignore the specificity and distinct place of Ethiopia in the Jesuit and Western Christian imagination. After all, Ethiopia's ruler has been associated with the Prester John and even the founder of the Society of Jesus conceived of Ethiopia's "restoration" into the Roman Catholic fold as one of the special projects of the order. And, of course, the Solomonic state's already Christian population was not the same as non-Christian Japanese or Chinese or Muslims and Hindus in India. But Jesuit perceptions of Ethiopian Christianity as wayward or aberrant because of the observance of the Sabbath, the widespread practice of circumcision, belief in the uniquely divine nature of Christ, excessive fasting and the negative influence of the Coptic Church of Alexandria made Ethiopians in need of a restitution of their original Roman tutelage. Several chapters explore these theological, political, and social differences between Ethiopian Christianity and the Catholicism of the Counter-Reformation and Jesuits. Some of these aforementioned differences in practice and interpretation led to problems for the missionaries that they could never resolve, particularly over their more pronounced use of icons and certain rites in public, which were perceived by Ethiopians as profaning the sacred mysteries. 

Unlike the previous historical works we have read which have touched upon the Jesuit interlude in Ethiopian history, Envoys of a Human God challenges previous scholarship's unproven assumptions. For example, the idea that the Jesuit missionaries were attractive to Susenyos because the order supported political absolutism is completely absent from the voluminous sources left behind by the Jesuits. Instead, Susenyos probably saw in the Jesuits and the Portuguese a cosmopolitan group whose support for rationalization of the royal court would have appealed to a ruler in a politically decentralized kingdom or empire with recent upheaval for much of the 16h and early 17th centuries. Of course, the impressive architectural and technological knowledge of Europe and India also appealed to Susenyos and their foreign textiles, exotic wares, and trade connections could not have hurt. Likewise, one cannot blame Mendes or Paez for the successes and failures of the overall Mission since their personalities and perceived policy differences were not significant enough to have caused the failure of the mission. Both Paez and Mendes pursued a policy of "Latinization" of Ethiopian Christianity through a top-down strategy of winning over Susenyos and key nobles. Both believed Ethiopian Christianity needed to be aligned with Catholic dogma and practice and were largely opposed to compromise. 

This lack of compromise and a few other practices of the Jesuits, unsurprisingly, sparked unrest, conflict, debate, and, eventually, outright rebellions that led to the fall of Susenyos and the restoration of the local Church. The Jesuit reliance on royal and local elite donors contributed to the precarious nature of the Mission, too. Perceived as attacking local traditions and beliefs, they further antagonized the population as recipients of land grants and donations which worried traditionalists fearful of losing land and influence. When one thinks about it in the larger picture, it is not surprising that the Jesuits failed so quickly after several decades because, as Envoys of a Human God argues, their moment of greatest success was in a period of socio-political transition with a sympathetic ruler whose patronage was necessary to maintain and expand. Once those conditions changed and the ruler was unable to fund or publicly support the Jesuits, they were exiled, persecuted, forced underground, or killed. Outside of a legacy in architecture, painting, and, perhaps, new theological discourse within Ethiopian Orthodoxy, the Jesuit legacy disappeared with the expulsion of the last Ethio-Portuguese or their complete assimilation by the late 17th century. As for what else happened to the converts to Catholicism is not entirely clear, probably due to a paucity of sources. We know several local Catholics faced persecution and execution but it would be fascinating to find out more about crypto-Catholic communities during the reign of Fasiladas and Yohannes. We have encountered the figure of 100,000 for local converts to Catholicism in other studies, which seems small, but the eventual suppression and disappearance of this population and those of mixed-race Ethio-Portuguese descent as a recognized group might suggest something about the nature of the state and nation-building in Gondarine Ethiopia. 

Last but certainly not least, one cannot understand the Ethiopia Mission without mentioning India, particularly Goa and Diu. Without the strong Portuguese base in Goa and relationships with banyan and Muslim traders passing between Diu and the Red Sea, the Portuguese would have struggled to send missionaries to the Ethiopian highlands. Furthermore, Indian craftsmen, masons, and building techniques (Indo-Portuguese and Mughal) seem to have clearly influenced Jesuit constructions in Ethiopia, an example of what the author calls architectonics that shaped Gondarine architecture long after the suppression of Catholicism in the 1630s and beyond. Undoubtedly, the Church infrastructure organized in Goa, and Indian artisans and masons were central to the project until the decline of Portuguese India and the Mission's greater reliance on Susenyos and local, elite backers. Indian textiles, artisans, architectural styles, and the cosmopolitan world of the Indian Ocean were a necessary background for the Jesuits to pass through Red Sea ports and enter Ethiopia. Despite never establishing a foothold in Massawa or the coast of today's Eritrea, which would have facilitated the Jesuits tremendously, Portuguese India served as an essential base for communication, supplies, educated missionary personnel, and skilled workmen 

Extracts of Royal Chronicles

Although Pankhurst's compilation of royal Ethiopian chronicles consists only of extracts and omits some of the emperors, it is a worthwhile read for an introduction to Ethiopian royal chronicles. Unfortunately, Pankhurst does not tell us too much about the authors and audience of these documents, but by compiling extracts from several of them (plus an inscription of Ezana), one gets a sense of historical writing from several centuries of Ethiopian history. These chronicles occasionally hint or mention interesting things, even if some undeniably altered, obscured, or bent the "truth" to flatter certain emperors or patrons. If one is looking for a great example, compare the Funj Chronicle of Sinnar with the Ethiopian royal chronicle that mention the military conflict between the two kingdoms! Nonetheless, Pankhurst's compilation is a nice primer of chronicles from an African civilization with occasionally interesting noodles of information or surprises. For instance, we here at the blog did not expect to come across so many references to imperial interests in foreign technology, innovation, and, perhaps, agricultural practices. It would be interesting to learn more about early Ethiopian interests in sugarcane, for example, or the history of naval, architectural, and military innovation in Ethiopia (and why they were not usually sustainable). 

Abir and the Zemene Mesafint

Mordechai Abir's history of the "Era of the Princes" in Ethiopia was not what we expected. We thought we were in for a lengthy analysis of the various puppet emperors and the effective rulers embodied in the ras who actually exercised authority in the name of the emperor while the various provincial nobles and warlords resisted the central authority. There is definitely some of that in Abir's short work, particularly the influence of the Oromo dynasty of regents who faced the challenges of the local lords, an expansive Egyptian state, a Tigre eager to use firearms to assert itself, and an autonomous Showa expanding to the south and southwest. Like his other work on Ethiopia and the Red Sea, Abir introduces the larger regional factors at play in the late 18th and 19th centuries, particularly the resurgence of Red Sea traffic, Muhammad Ali of Egypt's interests in Sudan and Ethiopia, the decline of the coastal Muslim states in the area surrounding the Ethiopian highlands, and British and French interests. 

The various states or kingdoms that developed in the south and southwest of Ethiopia, under Oromo rulers (and perhaps mixed Sidama and Oromo origins), were economically important as the source of the musk, ivory, gold, civet, and slaves exported from Ethiopia to the outside world. Control of the trade or routes in the transit of those goods, the principal Ethiopian exports, became increasingly important despite the frequent rebellions, wars, and conflicts of northern Ethiopia's contending nobles and factions. In addition, theological disputes also contributed to the rebellions, wars, and antagonisms involving the Church, the abuna appointed by Alexandria and Muslims or "pagan" Oromo perceived as threats to the Christian foundation of the empire. 

Then the rest of this short book shifts to detailing the rise of Teodros (Tewodros) and the ascent of the Showa kingdom based on its sound administration, integration of some of its Oromo subjects, tolerance for religious diversity, and protection of law and order, thereby establishing the kingdom as a major transit for trade. The Egyptian threat during the period examined, from  the 17770s to Tewodros, appears to have never been a serious threat to Ethiopia, but one can see how important the British were as a block to grander Egyptian ambitions in the Horn of Africa. A few local dynasties, particularly that of Showa, appear to have laid the foundations for modern Ethiopia through what Abir describes as an "archaic welfare state" that invested in infrastructure, provided pensions and staples to the poor, established law and order while favoring trade, and embodied religious toleration and the integration of non-Amhara. Surprisingly, neither the Tigre or Showa seem to have invested in guns manufacturing, coming to rely on limited imports. By now, there must be more detailed histories of this turbulent era in Ethiopian history. Nonetheless, this is a good start. 

The Roots of Haitian Despotism

With all the news of Haiti's economic, social, and political crises these last few years, we have decided to revisit Robert Fatton's The Roots of Haitian Despotism. Borrowing from Bourdieu and the notion of an authoritarian habitus embedded in Haitian governance since the 1801 Constitution of Toussaint Louverture, Fatton seeks to elucidate Haitian political despotism or authoritarianism as part of a repertoire of practices, attitudes, and behavior grounded in the material foundation of society. Fatton traces this to the heritage of white colonial absolutism and the coercive slave labor of the plantation economy of Saint Domingue. He defines habitus as a "structured structure" in which the conditions for despotism and corruption could become so rife. Due to the unique conditions surrounding Haitian independence, despotism was almost inevitable because of external factors that necessitated the militarization of society, further eroding civil institutions and aligning the fate of the young nation with its elites who benefited from caporalisme agraire to revive plantation agriculture, Haiti's export economy, and protect independence. 

In this context, it becomes no surprise that politics in Haiti is that of the belly (politique du ventre). The mangeurs use the state to increase their own wealth and power under a system Fatton terms presidential monarchism. Presidential monarchism entailed widespread corruption and repressive practices to stay in power and retain the loyalty of dependents. Paradoxically, these regimes also encouraged rebellions, uprisings and conflict as other contenders seek the power and wealth linked to political control. Unsurprisingly, paternalism and the discourse of the president as "father" of the people sought to mask the cruel face of the various presidential monarchs and dictatorships of Haiti while exploiting the color question could also be used to appeal to the masses without any reforms or end to corruption and authoritarian rule. Fatton cites examples of this under Soulouque and Papa Doc while these aforementioned rulers and Aristide additionally used parastatal forces to supplement their power and terrorize the population (zinglins, macoutes, and gangs under Aristide). 

Of the various heads of state, Duvalier appears to have been the master of employing messianic overtones, paternalism, use of the macoutes to terrorize the population and opposition. His redistribution of the spoils of power cleverly created more profits for the top of the power pyramid while the macoutes were cheaply paid for their services. Fatton refers to this as the gangsterization of politique du ventre (107). However, he disagrees with Trouillot classifying Papa Doc's regime as totalitarian since he lacked a mobilizing mass, party ideology, and advanced bureaucracy to qualify as totalitarian (194). Of course, how many totalitarian regimes actually do achieve complete totalitarianism or fascist control, especially in a places like Haiti without a history of mass political parties? Perhaps "creole fascism" is a more accurate term for something that acquired aspects of the worst 20th century states but lacked other features. 

The rest of the book focuses on various other factors in the growth and maintenance of Haiti's authoritarian habitus. The US Occupation in the 20th century furthered the trend and revealed the deep divisions within Haitian society. For Fatton, the caco rebellions failed because Peralte and Batraville did not create alliances with the urban poor and progressive intelligentsia and failed to call for other changes for the rural population. This would seem to be a result of the various failed, coopted caco or piquet uprisings of the 19th century which never led to systematic reforms or democratic power sharing between the peasantry, urban poor, and the elites (both civil and military). The increase in political centralization during and after the Occupation strengthened the hold of the authoritarian regimes (either US military or subsequent Haitian administrations) in the countryside with more powerful section chiefs in the countryside and later administrations continued the authoritarian habitus. Under Baby, Doc, some liberalization was introduced but only followed by low-level democracy under neoliberal conditions imposed by the US and dominant world system. Neoliberalism's anti-democratic effects led to "low intensity democracy" under Aristide and Preval (205). Thus, Haiti after Duvalier became a ceremonial democracy within the same habitus, so corruption, despotic governance, lack of accountability, and the reliance on gangs, death squads, and violence continues today. 

How does one make sense of the Haiti of today, over a year after the assassination of Moïse? The habitus described by Fatton seems just as relevant today though the apparent independence of some gang leaders and the breakdown of state authority suggests the state has some of its enforcement capabilities. Today's Haiti retains aspects of the authoritarian habitus in a state with a weaker monopoly on violence. To what extent the notion of habitus is a useful heuristic can be debated since it does resemble culturalist arguments of Haitian underdevelopment, even if the primary origin of the phenomenon is the plantation economy of Saint Domingue. Nevertheless, we feel that this is an important book that endeavors to move away from blaming Haiti's woes on its allegedly "African" influences of "primitive" Vodou and progress-resistant cultural impulses. 

Solomonic and Sayfawa

We highly recommend anyone interested in "Sudanic" Africa or the history of the Sayfawa dynasty to take a look at  LaVerle Bennette Berry's dissertation on the Gondarine period in Ethiopian history. Although The Solomonic Monarchy at Gonder, 1630-1755: An Institutional Analysis of Kingship in the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia is focused on a very specific period in the history of the Solomonic monarchs before the the Zemene Mesafint, Berry argues in favor of placing the Ethiopian kingdom in its African context and sees strong parallels with Borno's ruling dynasty. Of course, Berry's understanding of Borno political and economic history is through the lens of Cohen, particularly on Borno feudalism, but there are some interesting parallels between the two dynasties which might suggest some utility of contextualizing both as "Sudanic" states of a particular type. 

We would also add the Keira sultans of Darfur, the Istambulawa of Agadez, the Askiyas of Songhai, the Funj, probably Wadai, and maybe Bagirmi to our list as examples of other "Sudanic" states which, despite their religious differences (Islamic, Christian, or "pagan"), hint at deeper commonalities, influences, and particular "African" responses to universalistic religions, long-distance trade linked to the Mediterranean and Eurasia, warrior states, and centralizing authority. Naturally, one can find vast differences among the various polities and kingdoms that developed across the region, but some of their commonalities and perhaps similar relationships to the outside world can be illustrative of dynamic African polities. Nonetheless, the Sayfawa and Solomonic dynasties, both lasting several centuries, offer a better possible comparative approach despite the much richer corpus of sources for Ethiopia. 

In addition to their longevity, they were regional powers, used vertical rather than horizontal links, supported a universalist faith, claimed illustrious ancestry through their respective religions as a political "fact," were built on, at least somewhat, on war and raids, and relied on a system of "fiefs" with delegated authority for administering the provinces and countryside. To a certain extent, one can see periods of Bornoan decline when the mai was less active, something akin to the problem of Ethiopian emperors who did not campaign and thereby lost one of the major sources of their authority: providing booty, captives, and honor to soldiers who served them. But the parallels between the two dynasties and their respective declines may be due to divergent causes by the 18th century. 

Certainly the rise of al-Kanemi in the 19th century was due to external pressure on Borno from the west while the reduction of the Ethiopian emperor to figurehead by the time of Iyasu II was, according to Berry, a product of several decades of internecine strife among the nobility, clerics, and factional strife that saw the rise of the ras and assassinations or depositions. Unfortunately, we don't have enough sources on the Sayfawa dynasty to track all the coups, assassinations, and depositions to the same degree, yet Borno's eventual reliance on enslaved officials may have been a mitigating factor. Nor does one find evidence for the type of internecine theological disputes and factions in Borno that characterized Gondarine Ethiopia, unless one wants to try to argue that Sufism under Umar b. Idris represented a threat of sorts or later conflicts between the royal administration and non-aligned ulama was comparable. Thus, one should not overstress the commonalities or deny the obvious differences in environment, ethnicity, religion, and the vast corpus of chronicles that have survived in Ethiopia versus the smaller corpus from Borno. 

The Transformation of Katsina

Although we were hoping for a fuller history of the important Hausa kingdom of Katsina, Yusufu Bala Usman's The Transformation of Katsina, 1400-1883: the Emergence and Overthrow of the Sarauta System and the Establishment of the Emirate is a worthwhile start. Perhaps due to Katsina lacking any surviving chronicle comparable to that of Kano, this study, based on the author's dissertation, is mostly an analysis of Katsina in the 18th and 19th centuries. The book begins with some of the local traditions and early history of Katsina, but most chapters actually seek to explain the establishment of the sarauta system and its replacement by the emirate of Katsina after the jihad. So, if one is searching for a detailed history of political institutions and economic, social, and demographic changes in the late 1700s and the emirate government within the Sokoto Caliphate, this book is for you. 

There is still much to be gained for the general reader with an interest in pre-jihad Katsina. Yusufu Bala Usman's critical stance with regards to the intellectually lazy interpretations of some historians was a fresh reminder for us to stop assuming categories, titles, or ethnic groups were static. Take political titles and offices, for example. The function of a title often varied or could be nominal and not necessarily carried out by the titleholder. Ethnicity was also never static, so one must be careful with terms like Habe, Fulani, Hausa, or attempts to identify the emirate of Katsina as "Fulani" without qualification. Indeed, throughout the 5 centuries of history covered by the text, numerous immigrant waves and communities existed in Katsina, often of Azbin, Mali, Borno, Fulani, or other origins. Thus, assuming static ethnic identities or lacking nuance is part of what Usman sees as a retrograde view of African history. 

For our purposes, however, the main benefit of reading this history of Katsina can be found in the description of Kasar Katsina political administration and structure in sarauta system of pre-jihad years. Hausa "traditional" religion and belief in iskoki, for instance, were explicitly linked to the origins of kingdom. According to Usman, the early kings of Katsina were connected to Inna or the Mother Earth spirit. Korau, the first king, is alleged to have killed Durbawa leader Sanau in the 1400s, while trade was increasing in the region and a new political order was necessary for the diverse residents. This tie to Inna and the iskoki explain the "pagan" influences on the rituals of accession for the sarki or kings of Katsina. But by the end of the 1400s, the ruler of Katsina, Ibrahim, was in correspondence with Egyptian scholar al-Suyuti and the rulers had adopted Islam. Over the course of the 1500s and 1600s, Islamic influences spread throughout the capital and various towns of the state. Unlike Borno, the ulama were not incorporated into this political system and maintained a certain distance from the palace. Thus, it is no surprise that Uthman dan Fodio's movement received some local support from those critical of the Katsina ruling dynasty. The complex juggling of Islam and the local religion which provided legitimacy to the dynasty is interesting and brings to mind our recent reading on the Keira sultans of Darfur and other Sudanic states. 

Suggested Readings on Haiti and the Dominican Republic

Several years ago, someone asked us for a list of readings on the Dominican Republic and Haiti, particularly relations between the two nations. We hastily responded via email with the following list, although there are several unforgivable omissions. In spite of our past follies, we came across the list recently and decided to share it here. Perhaps it will be useful to whoever pays attention to this space. 

1. Nation and Citizen in the Dominican Republic, 1880-1916 by Teresita Martínez-Vergne touches upon discourses of modernity and nationalism in the DR, including race and perceptions of Haitians and other foreigners in the Dominican Republic.

2. The Imagined Island: History, Identity, and Utopia in Hispaniola by Pedro L. San Miguel analyzes Haitian and Dominican mutual perceptions.

3. Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint by Eugenio Matibag touches upon Haitian-Dominican relations.

4. The Mulatto Republic: Class, Race, and Dominican National Identity by April Mayes doesn't touch upon Haitians so much but might be useful for a different take on Dominican racial identity and perceptions of race.

5. Black behind the Ears: Dominican Racial Identity from Museums to Beauty Shops by Ginetta Candelario is worth looking at for Dominican self-conceptions and perceptions of Haitians and "blackness"

6. Azúcar: Árabes, cocolos y haitianos by Orlando Inoa is worth looking at for how the rise of a modern sugar industry in the DR brought in immigrants, including Haitians and West Indians

7. Jean Price-Mars's book on Haitian-Dominican relations is worthwhile (http://ufdc.ufl.edu/UF00095931/00001)

8. An article on eyewitness accounts of 1937 by Derby and Turits: http://www.sscnet.ucla.edu/history/derby/Eyewitness.pdf

9. Edward Paulino's Dividing Hispaniola on 1937.

10. Peripheral Migrants by Samuel Martinez on Haitians in the DR

11. Despradel, Lil. 1974. "Las etapas del antihaitianismo en la República Dominicana: el papel de los historiadores." in Política y Sociología en Haití y la República Dominicana, ed.

Gérard Pierre-Charles. Mexico: UNAM

12. Andre Corten has written several things about Haitians in the DR (http://classiques.uqac.ca/contemporains/corten_andre/Etat_faible/Etat_faible.html) 

13. Catherine Legrand's essay on informal resistance on a sugar plantation in the DR (in the 1950s) which focuses on Dominican and Haitian workers.

14. Bernardo Vega's Trujillo y Haiti

15. Balaguer's La isla al revés: Haití y el destino dominicano

16. Quisqueya Lora has an article on Haiti in the 19th century Dominican imagination, which may be useful (http://www.academia.edu/11785270/La_construcci%C3%B3n_de_Hait%C3%AD_en_el_imaginario_dominicano_del_siglo_XIX)

17. Derby article on Haitians, magic, and money in the DR https://doi.org/10.1017/S0010417500019216

18. Race and Politics in the Dominican Republic by Ernesto Sagas

19. Franco's Blacks and Mulattos in the Dominican Nation is an early and important work. 

20. Carlos Esteban Deive has a bibliography on Afro-Dominicans and Haiti. think you can read it online for free here: http://en.calameo.com/books/000345214fbd83b5d3e2f 

21. La dominación haitiana, 1822-1844 by  Frank Moya Pons

The Darfur Sultanate

Although Darfur is not Kanem-Borno, it is a part of a broader array of societies and polities that developed in the Sudanic Belt. Moreover, the Keira sultans of Darfur seem to owe something to the ancient civilization of Kanem-Borno. Indeed, if O'Fahey's excellent The Darfur Sultanate: A History, is any reliable indicator, Darfur seems to have been an easternmost extension of the "Central Sudan" region. The ancient use of Maghrebi-styled Arabic script in some of the early extant documents plus the presence of Kanuri words (goni, mayram) and people (oral traditions of a branch of the Sayfawa dynasty in the region, plus Borno faqihs and traders active in Darfur) do suggest some degree of influence from Borno. 

While O'Fahey seems to reject the theory of a Sayfawa colony in Darfur in the 1400s or 1500s as an unproven theory of Arkell, Darfur appears to have been, like Bagirmi and Wadai, at least partly influenced by Kanem-Borno and likely received some of its earliest Islamic influences from the west. Early medieval references to what is likely today's Darfur, particularly the Tajuwiyyin (probably the Daju, who may have established the first known kingdom or polity) and the subsequent Tunjur state, Uri, and the Darfur Sultanate as it existed under the Keira from the 17th century to 1916 definitely enjoyed cultural and economic ties to Kanem-Borno. Later, particularly after the conquest of Kordofan (making the kingdom as large as Nigeria for decades), Darfur's relations with the Nilotic Sudan and Egypt were unsurprisingly strengthened, and placing Darfur as a bridge of sorts between the Eastern and Central Sudan. In fact, one of the sultans, Muhammad al-Husayn, was of Ethiopian origin through his mother and merchants from Egypt and the Nilotic Sudan appear to have played a major role in the development of Kobbei as a city and economic link between the Nile Valley and Darfur. Fulani Islamic scholars, Borno faqihs, Bagirmi slaves and mercenaries, and even a Mauritian Shinqiti could become influential in the court or towns and settlements like Manawashi. 

As for the history of the Keira and their kingdom, O'Fahey mainly draws on al-Tunisi, Nachtigal, a number of charters and court records, letters, oral traditions, and external European and Middle Eastern documents that shed light on the history of the region or its relations with the outside world. Some pleasant surprises include Arabic local sources from the Tunjur state that preceded the sultanate, which was already partly Islamic, as well as a rich body of land charters that O'Fahey exploits to reconstruct land tenure (mostly usufructuary and entirely dependent on the will of the sultan), rural social structure, and the role of centralizing mechanisms in state administration. The richest source, besides oral traditions, appear to be the writings of al-Tunisi and Nachtigal for their detailed portraits of the sultanate in the 19th century. By this time, the sultanate was no longer making new conquests, but did appear to have gradually pushed south through slave raiding (although always requiring passage through lands controlled by Baqqara nomads) and incorporated a plethora of ethnic groups: Fur, Masalit, Meidob, Birged, Zaghawa, Fartit, and others. 

According to O'Fahey, Islam became one of the tools of the centralizing process as the Darfur sultanate transformed from warbands of the 17th century to one in need of more effective centralization in the 18th century after new conquests essentially ceased. The recipients of land grants and new administrative posts, often including Islamic holymen from the east or west, brought skilled and loyal bureaucrats, generals, and merchants into serving the state apparatus while simultaneously weakening the traditional titleholders. Naturally, this process was uneven and pre-Islamic religious and political influences continued to shape the kingdom. Islam did gradually become more influential on the Keira royal court, and several kings sponsored the construction of mosques, established land grants to religious scholars (like the mahrams and mallamtis of Borno), and engaged in the larger Muslim world to establish Darfur as a legitimate member of the Dar al-Islam. 

Yet, like the sultans of Agadez, the Darfur sultans faced severe limits to how much authority they could effectively yield. The low population density of Darfur probably placed limits on how much taxation and exploitation fief holders could get away with on the peasantry. Nomadic populations to the north and south controlled the access points of Darfur's major trans-Saharan trade commodities (slaves, ivory, gum arabic). In order to reach the slave raiding areas to the south and southwest, the kingdom's bands had to pass through lands controlled by nomads only loosely under the control of the sultans. Then, trans-Saharan caravans going to Egypt from Kobbei had to pass through desert or Sahelian landscapes under the control of the Zaghawa or other nomadic populations. It seems, perhaps like the Sayfawa dynasty, the Keira sultans engaged in some marital alliances with subject populations to facilitate trade and political incorporation of non-Fur peoples, but the demographic and ecological barriers imposed limits on how much authority the Keira could yield. If one adds the factor of conflicts over succession to the throne and the failure to adapt in time to new military technology, it is no surprise that the Keira were defeated by al-Zubayr so easily. Needless to say, Rabih, who served under al-Zubayr, would later go on to conquer Borno with the military tactics and armaments al-Zubayr used so effectively against the cavalry of Darfur.

Perhaps for our purposes, the best way to think about Darfur is in terms of its "Sudanic" dimensions as a crossroads of the Sudanic belt. In many respects, it brings to mind Borno and the Funj with regards to the land grants, mounted warrior elite soldiers, reliance on the slave trade (though O'Fahey thinks most slaves taken in raids by the Darfur state were used locally), tension between Islam and pre-Islamic practice, and centralizing administrative tendencies restricted by various factors. Unlike the sultans in Agadez, the Keira sultans were not elected by nomads determined to prevent the sultan from becoming too powerful, but obstacles to their centralization could be found in other ways. Like the Sayfawa dynasty in Borno, the Keira had to find a way to balance the sometimes conflictual subsistence economies of their subject populations while also supporting markets, long-distance trade, security, and, to the extent possible, cementing their relations with the larger (Islamic) world, even France. Darfur appears to have done this through supporting African pilgrims en route to the Holy Land, as well as engaging in diplomatic relations with the Ottomans, Egypt, and other states. One sultan, Muhammad Tayrab, even went so far as to order an expensive Arabic dictionary produced by an Indian scholar. Other sultans received honorific titles from Constantinople. These Sudanic states resemble, to a certain extent, "feudal" societies of Europe and Asia with a "Sudanic" state structure of private and communal land tenure, partly literate bureaucracies, monarchs with elective councils, and a constant struggle for harmonizing countervailing forces. 

Mexico, Black Emigration, and the African American Imagination

Although Mexico did not occupy as conspicuous a role in African American emigrationism as that of Liberia or Haiti, Mexico as a site for African American conceptions of an alternative home was a consistent theme. In spite of receiving a small number of black immigrants over the course of the 19^th century, Mexico loomed large in African American ideas of the future destiny, place, and hopes of African Americans at various moments in the antebellum and Jim Crow periods in the United States. This paper seeks to examine African American perceptions of Mexico, as well as some of the prominent persons and migration streams of Blacks to Mexico in order to contextualize Mexican migration within the larger discourse of black emigrationism. Prominent black abolitionists and leaders who called for emigration to Mexico, particularly Martin Robinson Delany, as well as individuals who migrated to Mexico, like Joseph Tinchant, William Ellis, and the father of Langston Hughes, will be used as specific examples of the appeal of Mexico to African Americans from the antebellum period to the early 20^th century. Through a combination of secondary sources and select primary source documents, this paper will demonstrate the importance of Mexico within the Black imagination and emigrationist movements, concluding with the diverse and flexible ways black emigrationist efforts contributed to US African American internationalism.

            Emigrationism in the context of this paper refers to various movements of African Americans to leave the US in the pursuit of racial equality, a black nationalist project, or dissatisfaction with the status quo in the US. Liberia and Haiti are usually the only examples discussed in great detail, and both states received thousands of immigrants from the US over the course of the 19^th century. Haiti, in the 1820s, received more than 4000 African Americans, the majority of whom presumably returned to the US.[1] Motivated by nascent black nationalist ideology, free blacks from northern cities came to Haiti with passage covered by the Haitian state and offers of land for farmers, sharecroppers, laborers, and artisans.[2] Subsequent waves of African Americans came in the 1850s and the eve of the Civil War, with those of Louisiana extraction often finding more success.[3] Haiti, as the first independent black state in the hemisphere, and the first to abolish slavery, predictably occupied the minds and hearts of African Americans, slave and free, throughout the 19th century. And, to some black nationalists who supported emigrationism, such as James Theodore Holly, Haiti was to become central to building a black nationality through Protestantism and Anglo-Saxon civilization, thereby regenerating Haiti.[4]  Liberia, on the other hand, was initially organized by the American Colonization Society, a group of whites who saw no future for free blacks in the US. Black proponents of emigration to Liberia also saw little future for free blacks in the US because of racial discrimination and slavery, and tied the Liberian colonization project as a civilizing mission to redeem Africa by establishing a black republic and converting the autochthonous population to Christianity.[5] Haiti and Liberia, the first two independent “black” states, in this context of black emigration, became the central poles. However, due to religion, economics, and the eventual emancipation of slaves, emigrationist projects took on different forms in the postbellum period. Jim Crow segregation and post-Reconstruction forms of racial discrimination transformed black emigrationism, including the forms it took in Mexico through colonization projects such as the 1896 attempt of Ellis in northern Mexico.

African Americans in Mexico Before 1865

The standard narratives of African American migration to Mexico begin with the abolition of slavery in 1829. Consequently, Mexico became free soil, offering freedom to fugitives from Texas, Louisiana, Mississippi, Arkansas, Alabama and beyond who crossed the border. Free soil was not new to fugitive slaves, who often sought freedom by crossing the border to Canada or parts of the Caribbean where slavery was already abolished.[6] According to Sarah E. Cornell, fugitive slaves in Mexico did not have legal rights of citizenship, but were able to carve out a contingent freedom dependent on justifications that they could provide for their presence and the goodwill of local authorities.[7] Naturally, the US consulate in Mexico refused to extend recognition of national citizenship to runaway slaves, who were left in a legal limbo and precluded from citizenship.[8] Therefore, fugitives petitioned for cartas, ensuring legality, some even converting to Catholicism and using godparentage links to increase their chances.[9] Nonetheless, by effectively turning Mexico into free soil for slaves in Texas or other parts of the South, Mexico helped hasten the US Civil War and emancipation by refusing to agree to any extradition treaty for the thousands of runaways in their territory.[10] Mexican authorities benefitted from this arrangement by using freed blacks to populate the frontier, block US expansion, and protect the borderlands from nomadic indigenous peoples.[11] Indeed, Rosalie Schwartz highlighted the example of land grant issued to Seminoles to populate the borderland near Coahuila. These Seminoles also included Black Seminoles.[12] Moreover, runaway slaves provided another source of labor, frequently as sharecroppers or workers on ranches in the north of Mexico.[13] This estimated population of 4000 fugitive slaves in the north of Mexico by the middle of the 1850s undoubtedly contributed to the labor demands of local agriculture.[14]

Although there are not many first-hand accounts of the experiences of fugitive slaves in Mexico, it appears that many escapees in Mexican territory also found some degree of social inclusion or opportunity. US abolitionist Benjamin Lundy, who had traveled to Haiti as well as Texas and Mexico in promotion of abolitionist agendas, used the example of a former slave working as a blacksmith to promote the idea of Mexico as a land with little to no racial prejudice. According to Lundy’s informant, Mexicans treated all people the same, regardless of color, leading Lundy to characterize Mexican government policy as one based on bringing together people of all colors.[15] Jane Cazneau, cited by Rosalie Schwartz, also mentioned the multiple opportunities for “’young men of mixed blood, who have been well-trained, perhaps, in the household of their masters, settle themselves advantageously, marry in the best families and carry their honors with high dignity.’"[16]

African Americans, particularly those of mixed racial origins, could marry into high-ranking families, perform a number of occupations, and achieve positions in society unavailable in the US South. Lundy similarly reported on the favorable treatment accorded to “mulattoes” from Louisiana. Nicholas Drouet, a “dark mulatto” officer in the Mexican army, for instance, received a grant of land for the purpose of colonization by “colored” settlers from Louisiana in Tamaulipas.[17] According to Lundy, Drouet received support from a Mexican general and support from other blacks.[18] It would seem that many free blacks and those living under slavery envisioned Mexico as not only a bastion of liberty from enslavement, but a site perceived as relatively lacking in the entrenched racial prejudices of the United States. Mexican state discourse of the nation as one built on racial inclusion likewise shaped state attempts to curry favor with US African Americans. General Santa Anna during the Mexican-American War, a period when many slaves fled across the border, circulated a notice to US troops, telling them that there is no distinction of races in Mexico and there is liberty, not slavery.[19] One can surmise from such instances that Mexican official responses to the question of slavery and racism positively contrasted Mexico to that of the US, connecting official discourse of race to the interests and imagination of African Americans, both enslaved and free.

In fact, African American support or relative acceptance of the official discourse of racial equality and a perceived lack of racial discrimination may have correlated with the writings of US black abolitionists and black nationalists who did not travel to Mexico. Frederick Douglass, who opposed the Mexican-American War, clearly linked US aggression to slavery and racial prejudice, thereby tying Mexico to African American anti-imperialist politics and abolitionist goals.[20] To Douglass, who did not favor black emigration, the war was nothing but “…a war against the free states—as a war against freedom, against the Negro, and against the interests of workingmen of this country—and as a means of extending that great evil and damning curse, negro slavery.”[21]

In addition, abolitionist, Civil War veteran, novelist, and medical doctor Martin R. Delany included Mexico within his vision of the future for African Americans. To Delany, the fate of blacks was in the south, in Mexico, Central America, the West Indies, and South America.[22] Delany believed Central and South America to be the “ultimate destination and future home of the colored race on this continent.”[23] Predating Ivan Van Sertima by over a century, Delany also claimed Africans had been present in Central America before 1492, thus tying the aboriginal population of the Americas to Africans by “consanguinity.”[24] Furthermore, because the indigenous population of the Americas was allegedly related to Africans, Delany argued blacks have even greater claims to the continent than Europeans and should make common cause with the Indian.[25] Moreover, the majority of the population of Mexico, Central America, and South America were “colored” and therefore “brethren” of US African Americans.[26] This common racial bond and shared history of oppression by Europeans was to unite African Americans with Latin Americans, who by this time (1852), had mostly abolished slavery and people of color purportedly enjoyed equality in social, civil, political and religious privileges with whites.[27] Delany’s tailoring of the fate of African American uplift in his black nationalist project was irrevocably linked to Latin America, and though Mexico was only a part, his 1852 essay utilized an expansive definition of “colored” people and a refashioning of the history of Central America that included Mesoamerica as central to a black emigrationist project.

While Delany later championed African American emigration to Liberia and West Africa, Mexico’s geography, resources, location, alleged consanguinity with Africans, and perceived racial equality made it an attractive site for black emigration and colonization projects. To Delany and other African American black nationalists, a broad definition of “colored peoples” could encompass Latin Americans and indigenous groups who were not necessarily “black,” strengthening the case for including Mexico as a significant site for African American emigrationism and the black imagination, not solely Liberia or Haiti. Besides, Delany’s emigrationist project was directed against the US, unlike US government black colonization schemes during the Civil War, which sought to use black colonization as a tool of national policy in the Yucatan and Central America, exploiting black colonization as a method for checking French, British, and Spanish intervention in the region.[28] Thus, black nationalist discourse’s expansive definition of “colored race” and reworking of history helped provide an ideological foundation which probably shaped some African American migrants in Mexico during the 19^th century. Foreshadowing future generations of African American critics of US Empire, examples such as Delany exemplified a black internationalist politics in which Mexico and Latin America were central.

The example of a free people of color family, the Tinchants, in Mexico before and after the US Civil War, serves as another example of the ways in which African American emigrationist and nationalist ideas intersected in Mexico. Cases like the Tinchants, who exhibited a mixture of the motives and interests of black immigrants in Mexico before and after emancipation in the US, point to the ways in way Mexico appealed to African Americans as an alternative to the US or Haiti. Rebecca Scott’s Freedom Papers alluded to the Tinchant brothers who lived in Veracruz and grew tobacco further inland during and after the US Civil War and Emperor Maximilian’s reign in Mexico. Maximilian, who endeavored to attract laborers and Confederates, also had support among some Francophone men of color from Louisiana.[29] Jules Tinchant, whose first home in Mexico was in Jicaltepec, with French settlers, attempted to lure fellow Creoles from Louisiana, especially his brother Joseph, to Veracruz, where he established his own retail tobacco, cigar, and dry goods business.[30] When his brother Joseph did move to Mexico, he and his wife Stephanie joined an agricultural colony recently founded by Louisiana migrants, where Creoles pursued tobacco cultivation after acquiring land near Papantla and other rural areas.[31] Intriguingly, Joseph Tinchant sympathized with Mexican opposition to French forces, and may have known Benito Juarez.[32] However, Joseph Tinchant left Mexico in 1875 after years of economic trouble, despite gaining Mexican citizenship. Yet he retained connections to his wife’s family, Creoles who remained in Mexico, cultivating tobacco.[33] Mexico was able to provide land, economic and social conditions, and policies aligned with the interest of Louisiana Creoles of color during the US Civil War, continuing a longer tradition in which African Americans could enjoy certain privileges unavailable in the US. Additionally, the Tinchant case appears to, like the future case of William Ellis, exploit the stereotype of “Latin” or Latin American peoples for self-identity and branding, as a sort of cultural Mexican-ness assisted Joseph Tinchant’s tobacco business after he established himself in Europe.[34]

African Americans in Mexico After 1865

After the US Civil, African American interesting in emigrationist schemes did not completely disappear, but no longer had the pressing impetus of racial slavery as a motive to leave. Official discourse in Mexico during the second half of the 19^th century also embraced notions of race that shaped immigration policy. Whites, particularly Italians and other “Latin” Europeans, were believed to be the best immigrants to improve the population pool, as exemplified by the failed Italian colony organized to cultivate terrenos baldíos.[35] Black immigrants, no matter where they came from, were perceived as contributing negatively to the racial makeup of the nation. Francisco Pimentel, for example, argued against black immigration because it would, he claimed, lead to an increase in vices, crime, and a zambo population that would be degenerate.[36] Elsewhere, blacks were described as a conductor of cancer in the US and Cuba, clearly establishing a bias against black immigration in Mexico.[37] In 1895, the Hotel Iturbide in Mexico City, possibly influenced by racial segregation in US cities, even prohibited the use of the kitchen to three African Americans, indicating the degree to which some institutions and enterprises adopted racially discriminatory attitudes and practices.[38] The solution, to those like Pimentel, who did not believe the indigenous population should be destroyed, favored European immigration to achieve progress, not black immigration.[39] During the Porfiriato, the state sought to entice European immigration through terrenos baldíos, which would promote export crops and increase revenues for the state. Unfortunately, European immigration never reached the rates of the immigration in the US or Argentina.[40] Thus, in the search for additional labor in agriculture, as well as foreign-owned enterprises and businesses, such as railway construction, thousands of blacks came to Mexico.[41]

Thousands of blacks from the US and the Caribbean came to Mexico, in spite of allegedly being corrupted, feminized, ugly and viceful.[42] Black laborers from Jamaica, for example, worked on the train line of San Luis de Potosi to Tampico in 1882.[43] According to historian Laura Muñoz Mata, black workers were often sought by English or American companies involved in railway construction, agriculture, and dockyards because they spoke English.[44] Mostly coming from Jamaica, these black immigrants came on contracts for a defined term and were expected to return to the Caribbean.[45] However, some black immigrants, including those from Jamaica or Belize, seem to have stayed in Mexico, as the case of Quintana Roo illustrates. By 1904, the majority of its 8000 inhabitants were from Belize and Jamaica.[46] These black workers were often paid more than their salaried Mexican counterparts, which may have fueled hostility from local populations against black migrants, who complained to British consuls of their poor treatment.[47] Black American laborers were similarly proposed for agricultural colonies for growing cotton, sugar, rice, and tobacco.[48] Economic considerations and labor interests led to an increase of black, Asian and other groups perceived as unfavorable in an age when Social Darwinism and racial ideology exerted a strong influence on the intellectuals of the Porfiriato. Thus, Mexican newspapers criticized black and Asian immigration.[49]

Unfortunately, little has been uncovered on the experiences of Jamaican and Afro-Caribbeans working in Mexico in the 1880s or 1890s, but a number of African American colonization projects or attempted plans shed light on black immigration in the period. One example, a colony in Tlahualilo, Durango, formed with African Americans, was founded in 1895 and led to an increase in the production of cotton and corn.[50] In 1888, the Mexican Land and Development Company, which claimed ownership of seven million acres of land in Tamaulipas, offered to sell shares to interested African Americans.[51] Arnold Shankman similarly describes interest among African Americans in colonization of Mexico in San Diego, California. James Fowler’s Colored Colonization Company of San Diego, established in 1893, claimed to have made arrangements to purchase land in Mexico for African American farmers, though by 1895, it appeared to have fallen apart.[52] Mexico was, at least for period in the 1890s, perceived as a land of opportunities for African-Americans in the black press, too.[53] On the other hand, African Americans and some of the black press also displayed critical or condescending attitudes, looking down on Catholicism or the “primitive” and backwards nature of Mexican agricultural methods and sanitation.[54] Consequently, in their view, African Americans could become agents of progress in Mexico, especially in agriculture and cotton production.[55] Therefore, African American emigration to Mexico would not only provide an escape from US racism, but also provide access to opportunities and aid in the progress of their new land, following older patterns of black emigrationist ideology as uplifting, redeeming, or civilizing in recipient nations.

Perhaps William Ellis best illustrates Mexico in the black imagination in the late 19^th century. Born a slave in Texas, Ellis learned Spanish and because of his ambiguous looks, was often able to pass as a Mexican, Cuban, or Latin American in the US, taking the name Guillermo Enrique Eliseo.[56] Ellis later met Porfirio Diaz in 1888, requesting a permit for 20,000 African Americans to come to Mexico.[57] By 1895, Ellis organized a colony of 816 persons, mostly from Alabama, in Tlahualilo, which, though short-lived because of an epidemic and poor housing, continued the earlier 19^th century tradition of viewing the country as an ideal setting for African Americans, lacking the race prejudice which characterized the US.[58] The African American colonists received higher pay than local farmers for growing cotton, but were not vaccinated and Ellis did not provide the promised comfortable lodgings.[59] Furthermore, Ellis’s exploitation of his vague racial features and knowledge of Spanish to craft an identity based on perceived “Latinness” facilitated his passing in the US, where he was accepted as a Mexican in New York. Like the Tinchants, who utilized their time in Mexico and connections to Latin America to further their own interests, Ellis took advantage of perceived “Latinness” to climb social ladders, although he retained ties with his relatives and other African Americans, showing a keen interest in promoting black emigration to Mexico. Lastly, in spite of the failure of the 1890s colonization experiment spearheaded by Ellis, Mexico persisted as a location among African American emigrationist imagination, even as the cientificos of the Porfiriato, newspapers, and local communities often responded to black immigration with hostility, thereby weakening Ellis’s essential argument that Mexico lacked race prejudice. Considering the amount of time Ellis spent in Mexico City, it would not be unreasonable to suspect he knew better, but as an alternative to legalized racial segregation of the US, and the earlier precedent of the southern neighbor as a refuge for slaves and free people of color, Ellis, at least in his writings to African Americans, promoted the idea of Mexico as a land of racial equality.

Moving into the 20^th century, Mexico sustained interest among African Americans. For example, the Little Liberia colonization project to exploit the land and mineral wealth of Baja California brought African Americans from California in 1919.[60] Mexican President Obregon also told these colonists his nation will not create a color line, later turning against black immigration through a law that required them to apply for special passports to get into Mexico.[61] Again, Mexican state responses contradicted the promise and reputation of racial equality, yet African American emigration and colonization carried over the 19^th century perspective of regarding Mexico as a land of racial equality. That the Baja California colonization took place in 1919 may also correlate with post-World War I black militancy and resistance to racism after serving in war, connecting African American emigration to other black responses to racism at a critical juncture. This, in turn, also shaped black internationalist politics in the post-World War I years and the Harlem Renaissance, which also looked to Mexico through travelers and writers like Langston Hughes. Notions of community uplift, cultivating race pride, and supporting black businesses in an environment believed to be less hostile likely kept Mexico relevant for the pursuit of these goals.

Langston Hughes’s father, James Nathaniel Hughes, permanently relocated to Mexico for reasons following a similar trajectory as past black migration, and died in Mexico City. In Hughes’s I Wonder As I Wander, Hughes describes visiting Mexico after the death of his father to settle his estate. His father owned a large ranch, as well as tenements in Mexico City, showing some degree of social and economic success for African Americans in Mexico.[62] Besides his father’s economic success, his relationship with the Patiño sisters, three women of standing, shows a degree of social integration.[63] Indeed, Hughes had left the US in order to escape the color line and to practice law, which he could not do in Oklahoma.[64]  Based on his travels in Mexico, Langston Hughes would conclude that in Mexico, blacks were so well merged they were hard to find, but noted the presence of Cuban blacks and a friend of his father, Butch Lewis, who owned the largest and most popular American-style restaurant in the capital.[65] Clearly, Mexico appealed to African Americans of Hughes’s father’s generation, but also his own interests in folk culture, African strains in Mexican culture, and literature. I Wonder As I Wander also covers Hughes’s time in Cuba and Haiti, two locales more often associated with the Harlem Renaissance and African Americans, but Mexico, with its folk dances, indigenous heritage, African past, and symbolic meaning to African Americans, such as the father of Hughes, signified an additional important space in the African American imagination. Hughes’s friendships with Diego Rivera and Miguel Covarrubias, in particular, the latter also a participant in the Harlem Renaissance, attests to the gravity of the Mexico connection to African Americans into the 20^th century.[66]

Conclusion

In summation, Mexico’s historic presence in the black imagination, in particular, black emigrationist movements since the 19^th century, necessitates contextualizing it within the broader history of African American emigration. Before emancipation, African Americans looked to Mexico, which, through its free soil policies and refusal to sign any extradition treaty for runaway slaves, became an important refuge. Both slaves and free people of color found a common interest in the republic to the south. In addition, influential black abolitionists and proponents of black emigration, such as Martin Delany, identified the future nationality of African Americans in Central America and Mexico, complicating the usual narrative on black emigration that focus solely on Liberia or Haiti. These tendencies persisted throughout the postbellum years, as African American emigrationist movements, which, like Afro-Caribbean migration, benefitted sectors of the Mexican economy despite their unwanted presence. They were organized by various African Americans. Mexican elites or government responses, unsurprisingly, used this connection to promote their own interests and to downplay the existence of racial prejudice on its soil, despite simultaneously promoting racially discriminatory immigration laws. Well-known examples of black colonization projects possessed positives that met the interests of African Americans and Mexico’s economic and labor needs, and indicate the ongoing appeal of Mexico for black emigrationist projects. Someone like Langston Hughes, for instance, who lived in Mexico for a year and whose father chose it over the US, proves its enduring symbolic significance to African American internationalist politics, history, and migration.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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[1] Sara Fanning, Caribbean Crossing: African Americans and the Haitian Emigration Movement, 100.

[2] Ibid, 82.

[3] Leon Pamphile, Haitians and African Americans: A Heritage of Tragedy and Hope, 50.

[4] Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787-1863, 247.

[5] Ibid, 56.

[6] Ada Ferrer, “Haiti, Free Soil, and Antislavery in the Revolutionary Atlantic” discusses the free soil concept in a Haitian context, while relating it to the broader Atlantic World.

[7] Sarah E. Cornell, “Citizens of Nowhere: Fugitive Slaves and Free African Americans in Mexico, 1833-1857,” 354.

[8] Ibid, 362.

[9] Ibid, 368.

[10] Ronnie C. Tyler, “Fugitive Slaves in Mexico,” 12.

[11] Ibid, 2.

[12] Rosalie Schwartz, Across the Rio to Freedom: US Negroes in Mexico, 39.

[13] James David Nichols, “The Line of Liberty: Runaway Slaves and Fugitive Peons in the Texas-Mexico Borderlands,” 428.

[14] Todd W. Wahlstrom, The Southern Exodus to Mexico: Migration across the Borderlands after the American Civil War, 41.

[15] Benjamin Lundy, The Life, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy, 48.

[16] Rosalie Schwartz, Across the Rio to Freedom: US Negroes in Mexico, 43.

[17] Benjamin Lundy, The Life, Travels, and Opinions of Benjamin Lundy, 113.

[18] Ibid, 143, 144.

[19] Rosalie Schwartz, Across the Rio to Freedom: US Negroes in Mexico, 31.

[20] Frederick Douglass, Liberator, June 8, 1849 http://www.blackpast.org/1849-frederick-douglass-mexico

[21] Ibid.

[22] Floyd J. Miller, The Search for a Black Nationality: Black Emigration and Colonization, 1787-1863, 127.

[23] Martin R. Delany, The Condition, Elevation, Emigration, and Destiny of the Colored People of the United States and Official Report of the Niger Valley Exploring Party, 193.

[24] Ibid, 187, 188.

[25] Ibid, 188.

[26] Ibid, 195.

[27] Ibid, 214.

[28] Schoonover, Thomas. "Misconstrued Mission: Expansionism and Black Colonization in Mexico and Central America during the Civil War." Pacific Historical Review 49, no. 4, 610.

[29] Rebecca Scott, Freedom Papers, 117.

[30] Ibid, 140, 141.

[31] Ibid, 142, 144.

[32] Ibid, 146, 147.

[33] Ibid, 151.

[34] Ibid, 166.

[35] Moises Gonzalez Navarro, La Colonizacion en Mexico 1877-1910, 9.

[36] Gonzalez Navarro, Los Extranjeros en Mexico y los mexicanos en el extranjero, 188

[37] Ibid.

[38] Ibid, 189.

[39] Gonzalez Navarro, Los Extranjeros en Mexico y los mexicanos en el extranjero, 500.

[40] Moises Gonzalez Navarro, La Colonizacion en Mexico 1877-1910, 9.

[41] Karl Jacoby, The Strange Career of William Ellis, 54.

[42] Ibid, 186.

[43] Moises Gonzalez Navarro, La Colonizacion en Mexico 1877-1910, 80.

[44] Laura Munoz, “Migracion afroantillana a Mexico en el siglo XIX”, 76.

[45] Ibid, 77.

[46] Laura Munoz, “Presencia afrocaribena en Veracruz: la inmigracion jamaicana en las postrimerias del siglo XIX”, 78.

[47] Laura Munoz, “Migracion afroantillana a Mexico en el siglo XIX”, 81-82.

[48] Laura Munoz, “Presencia afrocaribena en Veracruz: la inmigracion jamaicana en las postrimerias del siglo XIX”, 77.

[49] Moises Gonzalez Navarro, Sociedad y cultura en el porfiriato, 162.

[50] Moises Gonzalez Navarro, La Colonizacion en Mexico 1877-1910, 60-61.

[51] Arnold Shankman, Ambivalent Friends: Afro-Americans View the Immigrant, 61.

[52] Ibid, 61-62.

[53] Ibid, 65.

[54] Ibid, 68, 69.

[55] Karl Jacoby, The Strange Career of William Ellis, 76.

[56] Ibid, 13.

[57] Karl Jacoby, “Between North and South: The Alternative Borderlands of William H. Ellis and the African American Colony of 1895”, 213.

[58] J. Fred Rippy, “A Negro Colonization Project in Mexico,” 1895, 69.

[59] Message of the President of the United States, Relating to the Failure of the Scheme for the Colonization of Negroes in Mexico and the Necessity of Returning Them to Their Homes in Alabama, 59.

[60] Seeking Eldorado, 158.

[61] Ibid, 168, 169.

[62] Langston Hughes, I Wonder As I Wander, 289.

[63] Ibid.

[64] Ibid, 294.

[65] Ibid.

[66] Ibid