FASSO TOWN A place where immigrants can reinvent themselves By: Bintou Coulibaly
Fasso Town A place where immigrants can reinvent themselves
A thesis submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Cincinnati in March 2020 in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of:
Master of Architecture in the School of Architecture & Interior Design in the College of Design Architecture Art & Planning By
Bintou Coulibaly B.S. in Architecture Kent State University, May 2017
Committee Chair: Elizabeth Riorden, M. Arch Committee Member: Michael McInturf, M. Arch
ABSTRACT
Racial injustice in America throughout history has created culturally rich thriving neighborhoods like Chinatowns, where people can feel safe and protected during their transitional immigration process. Chinatown, Little Italy, and Little Poland, what do these culturally rich communities all have in common? A new place where locals and tourists are transported through historic cultural sites, architecture, open-air markets, and some of the most sensational food. Fasso means the father of my sisters and brothers or father’s land in Bambara. Bambara is an ancient language spoken in Mali, West Africa. Merging the African American and African Immigrant cultures will create a Fasso Town, a re-envisioned modern-day Little Africa that will bring the thriving African communities out of the “Ghetto.” Many African Americans cannot connect back to their African roots due to America’s history of slavery. For many decades the world has tried to desegregate schools, cities, and neighborhoods. However, what does owning something that you can never afford mean? A lack of educational and economic growth. All these factors have only created a larger cycle of self-segregation. In some areas, so much so that it has led to gentrification. Instead of fixing a system that has been broken since African American history was born, this project will create a place that embraces this cultural history that has been hidden from society long ago. Imagine a place where people of African descent would be welcomed and encouraged to grow as a community together. This place will require the manipulation of an abandoned lot in the Washington, D.C. area, in a pre-existing historic African American town. I will revitalize these spaces by creating a new typology for the mixed culture of Blacks, African Americans, and African immigrants to share and build businesses representative of this new culture. Thus, redesigning a new dialogue of what it means to have a thriving African American and African immigrant community that will enrich these cultures that already exist. Fasso Town will be a neighborhood that locals, visitors, and its new citizens can embrace as one, a place where race is not one’s identity.
ABSTRACT
Copyright © 2020 Bintou Coulibaly ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
This thesis is dedicated to my family and friends; Liz, my advisor; Colin, my boyfriend; my culture; and . .. ... everyone who paved the way for me. Without all of you, this thesis would not be possible.
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is. “What are you doing for others?” -Martin Luther King
Table of Contents
01
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
THE WEST AFRICAN EXPERIENCE 1.1 | The Kingdom of Mali
1.1.1 | Epic of Sundiata Keita
1.1.2 | The Great Mansa Musa
1.1.3 | The Travels of Ibn Battuta
1.1.4 | The Collapse of the Malian Empire
1.1.5 | Modern-day Mali
1.2 | Migration Through Enslavement
02
THE BLACK & AFRICAN AMERICAN EXPERIENCE 2.1 | Slavery
2.1.1 | The 17th Century
2.1.2 | The 18th Century
2.1.3 | The 19th Century
2.2 | Escaped & Freed Slaves 2.3 | Freedom of Landownership
2.3.1 | Freedmen’s Bureau
2.3.2 | Freedmen’s Towns
2.4 | Fort Mose 2.5 | Greenwood District in Tulsa Oklahoma 2.6 | Weeksville
03
BECOMING AN AFRICAN AMERICAN 3.1 | Question of Identity: What is Race?
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04
IMPORTANCE OF SYMBOLS 4.1 | Chiwara 4.2 | Adinkra Symbols 4.3 | Freedman Quilts
05
BRIEF FOR FASSO TOWN 5.1 | Howard University 5.2 | McMillan Sand Filtration Site
06
FASSO TOWN 6.1 | Current Site Conditions 6.2 | Design Proposal
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Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Collage
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Bintou Coulibaly. 2020. Digital Map Diagram
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Figure on page 36.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2020. Digital Map
Figure on page 26.
“Map : Catalan Atlas, 1375 (Iberian Peninsula and NW Africa). Shortly after the Death of Ibn Battuta. Mansa Musa Is Shown Sitting on a Throne with Gold Accessories.” Infographic. tv - Number one infographics & data Data visualization source, May 7, 2019. https://bit. ly/2IL3GTj.
Figure on page 27.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Diagram
Figure on page 28.
Finch, Barbara. “Visit to Griot Museum Prompts Reflection.” Occasional Planet, February 1, 2013. https://bit.ly/3aE7wcA.
Figure on page 30.
Malik, Asad. “Askia The Great: The Man Who Transformed Songhai Into An African Superpower.” The Pan-African Alliance. The Pan African Alliance, November 11, 2019. https://bit.ly/3aI02pa.
Figure on page 31.
Elliott, Annabel Fenwick. “What It Was like to Be a Tourist in the Middle Ages – Insights from a 14th-Century Globetrotter.” The Telegraph, August 26, 2019. https://bit. ly/3aExrkq.
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“Arabs Praying In The Desert With A Caravan Of Camels Beyond Painting by...: 1st Art Gallery.” Oil painting reproductions from 1st Art Gallery. Accessed January 9, 2020. https:// bit.ly/2TBSEG5.
Figure on page 41.
“Minorities, You Have A Proud History.” minorityuplift. minorityuplift, June 21, 2017. https://bit.ly/2Q3cDuW.
Figure on page 42-43.
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Lapite, written by Shade. “Mansa Musa: Page | 12
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Figure on page 49.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2020. Photographs taken in Bamako, Mali.
Figure on page 51.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2020. Photographs taken in Bamako, Mali.
Figure on page 52.
Zeleznik, Maryanne. “‘The Color Of Money’ Examines Slavery’s Importance To Southern Economy.” WVXU. Accessed January 10, 2020. https://bit.ly/39FLTsu
Figure on page 54.
Figure on page 68.
“African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present.” PBS. Public Broadcasting Service. Accessed March 1, 2020. https://to.pbs. org/39EYmMK.
Figure on page 71.
Puckett, Jordan. “Broken Hearts and Bondage.” The Odyssey Online. The Odyssey Online, October 17, 2019. https://bit.ly/3aLesot.
Figure on page 73.
McNamara, Robert. “Nat Turner’s 1831 Slave Uprising Resonated Deeply For Decades.” ThoughtCo. ThoughtCo, January 22, 2018. https://bit.ly/3cKjG5D.
Figure on page 74.
“Media.” Bitly. Accessed March 01, 2020. https://bit.ly/2TU5u14
“The Amistad Moors off Sheffield Island August 14.” Connecticut Travel, August 13, 2018. https://bit.ly/39EYQm2.
Figure on page 56.
Figure on page 76.
“Sex Slavery: Slavery.” Encyclopedia Britannica. Accessed March 5, 2020. https://bit. ly/2wNleuX.
Figure on page 57.
wlungov, Autor. “Escravidão No Brasil.” wagner lungov. Accessed March 3, 2020. https://bit. ly/332NZjs.
Figure on page 59.
“Google Celebrates Olaudah Equiano’s Birthday.” EgyptToday. Accessed March 9, 2020. https://bit.ly/3cMT1oA.
Figure on page 61.
Anele, Uzonna. “Zong Massacre: The Tragic Story of How 133 African Slaves Were Thrown into the Atlantic for Insurance Money.” Listwand, January 27, 2020. https://bit. ly/39DEj1q.
Figure on page 67.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Collage
Melton Prior Institut - {Headline}. Accessed March 3, 2020. https://bit.ly/3cJttbX.
Figure on page 78.
“Blog Archives.” Discovering History. Accessed March 2, 2020. https://bit.ly/2TCENiB.
Figure on page 79.
“Fichier:Slaves Cutting the Sugar Cane - Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823), Plate IV - BL.jpg.” Fichier:Slaves cutting the sugar cane - Ten Views in the Island of Antigua (1823), plate IV - BL.jpg - Wikipédia. Accessed March 9, 2020. https://bit.ly/2TQ5tvo.
Figure on page 81.
Bird, J.B. Blow for Blow - Enlarged view Rebellion. Accessed March 5, 2020. https://bit. ly/2v8h40t.
Figure on page 82.
Congress, and National Museum of African American History. “Sojourner Truth.” Biography, February 28, 2018. https://bit. ly/3aCyOjq.
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IMAGES Figure on page 85.
Stokes, Jon. “Rational Resources for Thinking about an American Civil War 2.0.” The Prepared, October 30, 2019. https://bit. ly/2TApCGI.
Figure on page 86.
Figure 163.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Postcard Narrative
Figure 165.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Postcard Narrative
Figures on pages 175-180.
Unknown. “Loewen: Chapter 5.” Loewen: Chapter 5, January 1, 1970. https://bit. ly/38yLgzz.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Pre-design Render
Figures on pages 182-195.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Design Process illustrations and design vignettes.
Figure on page 119.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Collage
Figure on page 123.
“In Color || Slavery In Brazil, 1869.” Marina Amaral, November 19, 2019. https:// marinamaral.com/in-color-slavery-inbrazil-1869/.
Figure on page 124.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Diagram
Figure on page 128.
“Chiwara.” Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation,
January 4, 2020. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ Chiwara.
Figure on page 131.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2020. Photographs taken in Bamako, Mali.
Figures on page 137.
Person. “Adinkra Cloth.” LoveToKnow. LoveToKnow Corp. Accessed March 7, 2020. https://bit.ly/2xh54u7.
Figure on page 139. Figure on page 141.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Freedom Quilts
Figures on page 154-155.
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Digital Site Map.
Figure 161
Bintou Coulibaly. 2019. Postcard Narrative
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INTRODUCTION
Nearly five million Black non-citizens are living in the U.S. as of 2017. Which makes up 10 percent of the nation’s Black population. 8.7 percent of the U.S. foreign-born population is Black. Geographically these foreign-born African immigrants make up 4.5 percent (203,259) of New York’s foreign-born immigrants and 17.5 percent (161,993) of Maryland’s foreign-born immigrants. Out of all the foreign-born Black population, 11 percent of those individuals identify themselves as having Latino heritage. Hispanic, which is independent of race, is the only ethnic category, as opposed to a racial group, which is officially collated by the U.S. Census Bureau. In 2017 The District of Columbia became home to 15,380 African-born immigrants, which made up 15.1 percent of all foreign-born immigrants living in Washington, D.C. African Americans make up 49 percent of D.C.’s population. However, this number shows a drastic decline in Washington, D.C.’s Black population from once being up to 71 percent in the 1970s. Washington, DC; Maryland; Virginia; and West Virginia house 171,000 of the African-born population, which makes up 2.9 percent of the metropolitan population, making it one of the metros with the largest community of African-born residents. At one point in history, D.C. was even known as “Chocolate City” because of its dense African American population. The decline currently being experienced is partly due to the rise in property values in conjunction with the economic downturn, thus pushing a vast majority of Blacks out of the cities and into the suburbs. Washington, D.C. is home to over 3,048 vacant buildings and 167 blighted buildings. Many of these buildings are clustered on three main streets; Georgia Ave. NW, 13th Street NW, and 14th Street NW. These streets run through the neighborhoods of Parkview, Columbia Heights, and Pleasant Plains located just west of Howard University. To the east of Howard University is the McMillan Sand Filtration Site, one of D. C’s hidden gems. McMillan Sand Filtration Site, is a historical landmark park that has been closed to the public since World War II. Throughout this thesis, I will be investigating how African culture manifestations can begin to infill a historic abandoned site to restore this culturally rich African American neighborhood while showcasing their history and advancing their future without gentrifying the pre-existing context. Whether or not one might identify as Black, African American, Black American, African, or Black Hispanic, Fasso Town is a place of refuge for residents and visitors. Page | 16
INTRODUCTION
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 18
Abbé David Boilat (1814-1901) - New York Public Library from Esquisses Sénégalaises; physionomie du pays, peuplades, commerce, religions, passé et avenir, récits et legendes, planche
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Mandinka People /man’diNGk / e
(n.) 1 | a member of a people living mainly in Senegal, Gambia, and Sierra Leone. 2 | the Mande language of the Mandinka. (adj.) 1 | relating to the Mandinka or their language.
1 | The Mandinka, or Malinke, are a West African ethnic group primarily found in southern Mali, eastern Guinea and northern Ivory Coast. Numbering about 11 million, they are the largest subgroup of the Mandé peoples and one of the largest ethnic groups in Africa. Over 99% of Mandinka adhere to Islam.1 They are predominantly subsistence farmers and live in rural villages. Their largest urban center is Bamako, the capital of Mali, which is also inhabited by the closely related Bambara people.
The Mandinka are the descendants of the Mali Empire, which rose to power in the 13th century under the rule of king Sundiata Keita, who founded an empire that would go on to span a large part of West Africa.2
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C hapter 01
The West African Experience
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FIGURE 21
A collage comprised of typical scenes from West African Culture. Image created by author.
1.1 | The Kingdom of Mali | Manden Kurufaba
3
In this chapter the history of Mali will be shared through the stories of three influential men: Sundiata Keita; Mansa Musa, the king of Mali; and Ibn Battuta, a famous traveler. Moroccan tradesmen once spoke of a great kingdom to the south, but to journey there, it would take a man 70 days to cross the Sahara Desert with little to no water encountered between what they called oasis towns. Upon arrival to this kingdom, for those who could survive the journey, one would see a city dry like a seashore and filled with half converted Islamic people, the Mandinka people. Their land had vast amounts of gold, making this treacherous journey well worth it. So, off the Moroccan tradesmen go bearing silk, ivory, spice, and slaves. Before we begin to talk about the Malian Empire, we must speak of the ruins in which it was built upon, the Ghana Empire. The Ghana Empire, founded in the year 700, inevitably falls to the same fate that the Malian Empire will experience amongst its demise. At first, the Ghana Empire grew wealthy due to the trade of gold. Gold was praised by the Trans-Saharan caravanners in the north and exchanged for salt, which was necessary for its villager’s diet in the rainforest in southern Africa. The Ghana Empire also grew wealthy from taxing merchants who crossed their borders. However, the empire’s neighbors grew envious of their wealth and power, which set the Ghana Empire up to be an irresistible target. So sadly, by the 11th century, a Moroccan attack damaged the empire, making it difficult for the Mandinka people to guard their farming villages. When the Mandinka people began to defend their land, they started to fight for their independence. However, a drought forced other villagers to migrate, thus bringing the destruction of the Ghana Empire. The remnants of this collapse created 12 chiefdoms from the ruins of the Ghana Empire. Prince Sundiata Keita was born into one of these chiefdoms.4 Page | 21
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 22
Illustraton of Sundiata Keita/ Sundiata Konté
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Keita or Konaté 1 | means inheritor (heir-apparent) in the Mandinka language, and that Sundiata’s real surname is Konaté (French spelling in Mali) 5
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 24
Mansa Sundiata Keita
1.1.1 | Epic of Sundiata Keita
The West African Experience
In 1235, various monumental battles were being fought all over the realms from the Holy Roman Empire to the new Crusade in the holy land. However, on the West African Savannah, the exiled king Sundiata raises his troops to fight against his enemy, the sorcererking Soumaoro Kante, for control of the fallen empire of Ghana. Sundiata’s victory at the Battle of Kirina became the beginning of the Mali Empire. It is here at the Battle of Kirina that the Mandinka people reinvented the ancient capital of Ghana and become lords of the Trans-Saharan trade.6
However, Sundiata’s path to victory for the Mandinka people was a long journey. Sundiata was born without the ability to walk. He was often mocked and mistreated by the royal family; this mockery only made him grow stronger as a person. At the age of seven, Sundiata took his first steps. His ability to walk gifted him the approval of his father, making his half-brothers begin to worry about the line of succession. Once the king, Sundiata’s father, died, his mother fled into exile with him and all his siblings. They gained asylum from a neighboring kingdom, causing Sundiata to watch his half-brothers rule their kingdom from afar. However, Sundiata grew as a favorite of the new king too, and Sundiata did ultimately gain his trust. Eventually, he even began to rule the kingdom in his absence. During Sundiata’s rise to power in his new kingdom, Soumaoro Kante began to conquer the capital and expand into the other chiefdoms during the decline of the empire. According to oral history, Soumaoro kept the heads of kings from the nine kingdoms he conquered and even wore sandals made from human skin. These tales of his character can attest to the ruthless leader Soumaoro was. Eventually, the Mandinka people grew desperate under Soumaoro’s rule and sought out help from Sundiata. Despite the mistreatment from his family Sundiata endured as a Page | 24
child and he later decided to help them. Though Sundiata had half of his new kingdom’s army, it was not enough to defeat Soumaoro. Sundiata began to unite a coalition of smaller and desperate kingdoms to fight against Soumaoro. With this unity bonded from the hatred of Soumaoro, the glorious victory was won by Sundiata and his coalition, thus crowning Sundiata Mansa (meaning sultan, king, or emperor) of the 12 chiefdoms at the young age of eighteen. Later each of the 12 chiefdoms appointed a representative to send in their villages honor to court. The Ghana Empire was situated in between salt mines to the north and a gold mine to the south. Under Sundiata’s rule, the Malian Empire expand far beyond the borders of the Ghana Empire. This expansion led to the empire acquiring two new gold mines within their borders. Sundiata saw the potential to reinvigorate the trade of salt, gold, and slaves, with the ability to tax every merchant that passed through the borders. This decentralized stable government, along with new trade routes, allowed Sundiata to organize a full-time military to guard the caravan routes. With Sundiata repositioning the capital of the Malian Empire to his hometown of Niani, it decreased the empire’s vulnerability to Moroccan attackers because it was further south than the old capital. This location was also better situated for the empire’s agricultural needs. Mansa Sundiata Keita ends up reigning for 20 years and ultimately dies in c.1255 of an unknown tragic accident.7 Many rulers will come after Sundiata and bring forth more land and thriving agriculture. However, some would bring terror and destruction.8 Eventually, the 12 nations decide to take back power and govern with rulers that had close ties to Sundiata. Once the power roles became stable, the empire began to expand trade routes north. So, with trade booming, the empire funded an exploratory expedition into the Atlantic, which brought reports of a great river flowing through the ocean.9 Seeking more wealth, the king at the time Mansa Abubakari Kieta II took 2,000 exploratory ships across the ocean with plans to settle this New World in the year 1312. Sadly, neither the Emperor nor his ships wherever seen again. In 1313, a year after Mansa Abubakari Kieta II exploratory ships set sail to never return, Mansa Musa takes over as regent.
Ghana Empire
FIGURE 25
Map of the Ghana Empire from 830-1235. Created by Author Page | 25
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 26
The Catalan Atlas: Mansa Musa, King of Mali, detail of the map of North Africa.
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Manden Kurufaba 1 | Sometimes shortened to Manden was an empire in West Africa from c. 1235 to 1670. The empire was founded by Sundiata Keita (c. 1214 – c. 1255) and became renowned for the wealth of its rulers, especially Musa Keita or better know as Mansa Musa.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 28
A griot speaking to his tribe.
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Griot
(/’gri:oΩ/; French: [g i.o]) jali, or jeli (djeli or djéli in French spelling) Я
1 | is a West African historian, storyteller, praise singer, poet, or musician. The griot is a repository of oral tradition and is often seen as a leader due to his or her position as an advisor to royal personages. As a result of the former of these two functions, they are sometimes called a bard.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 30
Mansa Musa with his servants and slaves during their pilgrimage to Mecca.
Mansa Musa
1 | Mansa Musa is remembered for being the wealthiest person in history. Mansa Musa was so rich that it is incomparable to any modern standards.
The West African Experience
1.1.2 | The Great Mansa Musa
It is important to note that at this point in history, Europe’s wealth was on a decline. Europe’s economic crisis was due to plummeting gold and silver prices. Meanwhile, the Malian Empire was drowning in gold and wealth. Though the Malian Empire is most often recognized for its vast wealth brought by the tales of Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage to Mecca. Mansa Musa wanted to put Mali on the map and not only have it become known for its economic superpower but become a great state, recognized worldwide. Like other mansas before him, he spent the beginning of his reign consolidating the administration, further developing, and securing trade routes while sending a military campaign east to gain more land. This combination of power moves was done with the intent to capture other trade cities like Gao and Timbuktu. Later, Musa turned his attention to international matters, which heavily relied upon religion. To briefly address, but without going too far into the history of the Islamic culture and Muslim religion, over the course of history, the Islamic religion has also played an essential role in bonding nations across Africa. So much so, that majority of the modern world now associates the Middle East with the Islamic culture. This religion was so dominant it was also used as a political tool. Mansa Musa was a devout Muslim, more devoted than most mansas that came before him. However, he was not above using his religion as a political tool.
For the Malian Empire to grow in power and wealth, it was essential to direct their Page | 30
FIGURE 31
Mansa Musa: The Malian Empire.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 32
A view of Timbuktu in a 19th-century watercolor.
The West African Experience
trade routes to the royalty of other nations in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Islamic culture made the state more efficient, with the contributions of Arabic writing, religious law, and Middle Eastern Islamic practices. The Trans-Saharan trade was only possible because the Malian Empire was an Islamic nation along with its trade partners. Though the Malian Empire controlled the trade routes with its massive amount of gold. Mali was still considered a middle-tier nation and considered lesser than its trade partners in North Africa. During Ramadan, it is an Islamic duty to help the poor and make the pilgrimage at least once in your lifetime to Mecca. So, seventeen years later, into his reign, Mansa Musa decided to make the pilgrimage to Mecca in 1324. His intention was to put Mali on the map. Many mansa before him had also taken the pilgrimage to Mecca. However, during their reign, they spent their efforts and resources on famine and war. Mansa Musa’s pilgrimage was used as a lavish demonstration of The Malian Empires’ power, wealth, and devotion to the Islamic culture all orchestrated to get Mali on the map. Oral history will recall Musa having camels for days, 60,000 people, 50 heralds carrying gold staffs, 12,000 servants dressed in silk carrying gold bars, a baggage train of 600 camels each one carrying 300 pounds of gold dust. He also brought along his wife and her 500 servants, but that was all for the show.10 They also brought along enough pack animals to carry provisions for the entire crew. Along the route, they left a very favorable impression with any and everyone they encountered. Some tales claim he gave handfuls of gold dust to anyone who passed by and built a mosque every Friday. During this trip, Mansa Musa gave away and spent so much gold that he flooded the market, which subsequently crashed it. Later he tried to repair his damage by buying back the gold at an inflated price, but this lavish pilgrimage ultimately ended up destroying the value of gold in the Middle East for decades. Centuries later, residents of Cairo were still infatuated by stories of Mansa Musa’s epic pilgrimage journey. These stories traveled to Europe through the tales of Venice traders, which in Page | 32
return lead to European cartographers producing world maps featuring Mali. It was represented by Mansa Musa, inspecting a gold nugget. Even though Mansa Musa’s main goal was to gain the respect and attention of Mali’s Islamic neighbors, he also intended to attract new talent. On his journey back, Mansa Musa brought back with him Arabic scholars, bureaucrats, and architects. With this, he hoped to build Mali into an Islamic cultural center. On his journey back from Mecca, he took a new route through Gao and Timbuktu, which his army successfully conquered during his year-long absence. This was another display of the power and respect Mansa Musa had over his empire. In his absence, his son had ruled the nation as regent and conquered these two influential cities without the deposition of the absent ruler. Timbuktu became Mansa Musa’s great project throughout the years. It was here where he left the scholars, bureaucrats, and architects to reside and work with him to build his empire. They would later go on to create universities, palaces, mosques, libraries, and the magnificent Djinguereber Mosque. This resulted in a boom of Islamic education in the Malian Empire. At this time in history, nations from Spain all the way to Central India practiced the Muslim religion, and the growth of Timbuktu made the Malian Empire the center of the Islamic world in Sub-Saharan Africa. Now at the center of the Islamic culture, Timbuktu brought an increase in trade and commerce from artisans, mines, and scholars. It was known that Mali had salt in the north and gold in the south, but now it was known for knowledge in Timbuktu. Due to its location on the Niger River, Timbuktu became known as a melting pot for knowledge. Books were not only written here but also imported into Timbuktu. At this period in history, books were costly and difficult to produce, making them a luxury item. During his reign, Mansa Musa had put the Malian Empire on the map by building up the wealth and knowledge in his empire. However, like every story, this one is two-sided. The griots, the keepers of Mali’s oral history, told a different tale than the Islamic one. A tale of Mansa Musa as a wasteful king, a king that abandoned the traditions of their faith for a different one. This tale would explain why, shortly after his death in 1337, the Malian Empire began to collapse slowly under a new mansa’s rule. Mansa Musa’s son would take over as king in the death of his father, but it would be shortlived. Musa’s son will only reign for four years before dying of sleeping sickness. During those four years, he would spend the kingdom into financial ruin. Later his uncle Souleyman Keita took significant measures to put Mali back on the map, thus leaving the Malian Empire to appear as though everything was stable from a visitor’s viewpoint.
Empire of Mali
FIGURE 33
Map of the Malian Empire from 1230-1600. Image created by author. Page | 33
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 34
A print from 1845 shows cowrie shells being used as money by an Arab trader.
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Cowrie Shell /’kourē/
(n.) 1 | a marine mollusk that has a smooth, glossy, domed shell with a long narrow opening, typically brightly patterned and popular with collectors. 2 | the flattened yellowish shell of the money cowrie, formerly used as money in parts of Africa and the Indo-Pacific area.
1 | is the common name for a group of small to large sea snails, marine gastropod mollusks in the family Cypraeidae, the cowries.
The term porcelain derives from the old Italian term for the cowrie shell (porcellana) due to their similar appearance. Shells of certain species have historically been used as currency in several parts of the world, as well as being used, in the past and present, very extensively in jewelry, and for other decorative and ceremonial purposes.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 36
Mid-19th century print by Paul Dumouza depicting Ibn Battuta in Egypt.
The West African Experience
1.1.3 | Ibn Battuta
In 1326 Ibn Battuta visited Cairo and heard about the last visit of Mansa Musa. Islamic tales told stories of Musa passing through the city two years earlier, making his pilgrimage to Mecca with thousands of slaves, soldiers, wives, and officials. He arrived with one hundred camels, each carrying one hundred pounds of gold. Mansa Musa’s excursion through Cairo flooded the villages with kindness. The amount of gold spent during this expedition brought upon a disruption to the gold market that continued well into the next century. Mali’s gold was influential all over the world. In the late Medieval period, West Africa was producing almost twothirds of the world’s supply of gold. At that time, Mali was the leading exporter of trade items like ivory, ostrich feathers, kola nuts, hides, and slaves, which explains why there was talk about the Malian Empire and its many riches across the nations.11 In 1352 Ibn Battuta ventured off across the Sahara Desert to the most prosperous empire, the Kingdom of Mali. Battuta’s 1,500-mile journey was made more accessible because of the Muslims already established trade routes. No one knows why Ibn Battuta made this long trip to Mali, but he had vowed he would never travel the same passage twice. Battuta traveled for eight to nine days before he arrived in Sijilmasa, on the Oasis of Tafilat. This oasis town was the last outpost before crossing the Sahara Desert. Like most oasis towns, Sijilmasa was crammed with merchants and cargo shipments. Its square had vast amounts of North African and Mediterranean goods headed south to where they were traded for gold. These were goods like books, textiles, jewelry, perfume, and cowrie shells that Malians used as currency. Today these Page | 36
shells are sold and worn as beautiful necklaces and bracelets.
Amazighs (Berbers)
1 | merchants and nomads of the Sahara had initiated a trans-Saharan trade in gold and slaves that incorporated the lands of Sudan into the Islamic world.12
Battuta waited four months in Sijilmasa for the winter season to come, for him to cross the desert with his caravans. While he was here, he bought camels of his own while he was staying with a Muslim family who offered him their hospitality. Once winter came, he set out to cross the Sahara Desert in a camel caravan with some Berber traders in February of 1352. To avoid the midday heat, they would travel in the early morning and late afternoon. Twentyfive days later, his caravan settled at Taghaza, where workers loaded great slabs of salt on to his expedition. At that time, salt was still in high demand in Mali. While Battuta was in Taghaza, he complained that it was the most fly-ridden of places and that the water was salty, and food had to be brought from the outside. For these ten days, he stayed in a house built entirely out of salt with a camel skin stretched roof.
Gold
1 | Gold nuggets were the exclusive property of the Mansa and were
illegal to trade within his borders. All gold was immediately given to the imperial treasury in return for an equal value of gold dust. Gold dust had been weighed and bagged for use, at least since the time of the Ghana Empire. Mali borrowed the practice to stem inflation of the substance since it was extremely prominent in the region. The most common measure for gold within the realm was the ambiguous mithqal (4.5 grams of gold).13 This term was used interchangeably with dinar, though it is unclear if the coined currency was used in the empire. Gold dust was used all over the empire but was not valued equally in all regions.
Salt
1 | Even though Mali is known for the gold of Mansa Musa, salt was
just as valuable in sub-Saharan Africa. In the north, it was as good as gold, but in the south, people needed salt for their diet, to retain water. The northern region was swimming in salt, while in the south, it was scarce. Merchants would enter Mali with camels loaded with salt blocks. One of Mali’s salt mines was in Taghaza. Within these salt mining towns, there only lived Musafa servants who would dig up salt. Their diet consisted of dates from the Sijilmasa and the Dar’a valley, camel meat and millet imported from Sudan. The cost of Page | 37
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
The West African Experience
transportation calculated the value of salt.
After those ten days in Taghaza had past Ibn Battuta and his caravan began the last part of their journey, which was the most dangerous part. Here is where he crossed 500 miles of sand with only one place to collect water. Thankfully, it had rained that year, creating small pools of water and vegetation for the camels. Battuta’s biggest fears were running out of water or encountering demons, which were alleged to be haunting the desert. At the end of April, they had arrived in Walata, and to be expected, Ibn Battuta was disappointed by his welcome. What they thought was a welcome feast, a bowl of millet with a little honey and yogurt. Battuta took as an insult and knew nothing good was going to come from his visit. Battuta ended up staying several weeks here even though he was taken aback by their local customs. Remember that at this time in history, Mali was still a religiously split empire, with diplomats adopting the Muslim faith and merchants still practicing their traditional faith. Battuta expected the sexes to be separate and found the presence of young women in the home of the judge highly inappropriate. Battuta had another encounter with a woman speaking to a man in a courtyard. When he went to express his disapproval, the man replied: “The association of women with men is agreeable to us and a part of good manners, to which no suspicion attaches. They are not like the women of your country.” Ibn Battuta felt as though their local customs were inferior to his own. History will recall that once Ibn Battuta arrived in Mali, he was continuously disappointed by the reality of Mali’s gender roles and the number and value of gifts he would receive during his travels. The Malian Empire had to walk a thin line between its traditional religious practices and the adaption of the Islamic culture due to its political needs. This was very disappointing for him because he was impressed by their ability to observe pray times, keep clean for mosque, and that parents insisted that children memorize the Quran during a time when books were costly. Battuta was even pleasantly surprised by the empire’s security as he traveled to the capital. Battuta even recorded that once he was in the confines of the empire, he could travel freely without worry of bandits. The trade routes were intentionally designed in this manner because the Malian Empire wanted to ensure security over its trade routes and continue the enforcement of taxes. Ibn Battuta “The Negroes possess some admirable qualities. They are seldom unjust and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveler nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence.”14
On his departure, Ibn Battuta left with mixed feelings; on the one hand, he respected the strict measures parents took to teach their children the Quran. On the other hand, Battuta Page | 38
FIGURE 39
Arabic people praying in the Sahara desert on their way to the Malian Empire.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
stated; “Female slaves and servants who went stark naked into the court for all to see; subjects who groveled before the sultan, beating the ground with their elbows and throwing dust and ashes over their heads; royal poets who romped about in feathers and bird masks.” These acts that Ibn Battuta recalls witnessing, greatly disturbed him. He also complained about the small gift of bread, meat, and yogurt given to him by the king. Battuta responded by saying: “When I saw it, I laughed, and was long astonished at their feeble intellect and their respect for mean things.” Later he complained directly to the king: “I have journeyed to the countries of the world and met their kings. I have been four months in your country without your giving me a reception gift or anything else. What shall I say of you in the presence of other sultans?” That evidently made a difference, though it is hard to know what the locals thought of their demanding guest. Battuta then recalls: “Then the sultan ordered a house for me in which I stayed, and he fixed an allowance for me... He was gracious to me at my departure, to the extent of giving me one hundred mithqals of gold.”15 However, misguided Battuta’s travels may have been; his travel expeditions taught us how trade built the realm.
The West African Experience
Battuta’s travel to Mali also revealed that due to its geographical location The Malian Empire had assimilated to the Islamic culture rather than being encompassed by it, which made Mali a religiously tolerant nation with its own West African identity. On his departure, he would head north towards Timbuktu, a town just beginning to flourish into what would become a great town in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries.
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FIGURE 41
When the Ghanian Kingdom fell the Mali Empire came to take its place and took control of West Africa. The nation reached its apex in the 1350s. Page | 41
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 44
The West African Experience
1.1.4 | The Collapse of the Malian Empire By this time in history, Mali spanned the modern-day countries of Senegal, southern Mauritania, Mali, northern Burkina Faso, western Niger, the Gambia, Guinea-Bissau, Guinea, the Ivory Coast, and northern Ghana. By 1350, the empire covered 478,819 square miles. By 1465 the Malian Empire was overrun with several internal struggles. After sensing the weakness of the empire, a new mansa, the sorcerer-king Sunni Ali Ber, becomes intent on taking over the disorganized northern fringe of the Malian Empire under his own empire, the Songhai Empire. Sunni Ali Ber came from the old city-state of Gao. His family came from a region that still worshiped the ancestral religion of the West African Culture. Sunni Ali Ber was known to claim that he was Muslim for political reasons, but most people knew he practiced traditional worship. Like other mansa’s before him, he had to balance these two religions, even though relations between the two religions were becoming strained due to years of coexisting. This strain stemmed from the fact that Islamic law kept Muslims from being enslaved, meaning the Islamic religion created a permanent hierarchy in the Malian Empire between the urban Muslims and the slaves. Sunni Ali saw Muslim states as supporters of his rival, the Malian Empire, and began to prosecute these Muslim states. He began to expand his new state along the Niger River and up to the Trans-Saharan trading towns knowingly taking advantage of the crumbling Malian Empire. Sunni Ali Ber later transformed the tribes along the Niger River to create a riverine navy to secure the rivers delta region. Sunni Ali Ber won every battle he fought until he drowned in a shipwreck. In his absence, Askia Muhamad continued with Sunni Ali’s plans for conquest, while reinvigorating Timbuktu with learning and knowledge. He later reorganized the government to be a meritocracy, which would allow men to rise to a higher position regardless of their clan’s Page | 44
affiliation. In the 15th century, the Songhai Empire had grown and conquered more territory than the Malian Empire. By 1545 the Songhai decided to invade Niani, the capital of the Malian Empire, forcing the mansa to flee. Later the mansa at the time gathered its troops in the mountain before attacking back. Even though they were able to take back their capital, it was now clear that the Malian Empire was no longer the great powerhouse it once was. This invasion allowed the Songhai Empire to position itself between Mali’s gold mines and the north market of Africa. After this invasion, Mali had no choice but to adapt, so they set their sights on the Atlantic coast. The tales of Mali’s wealth had spread, drawing the attention of the Portuguese traveler, Prince Henry the Navigator. At this point in history, the Portuguese ships were beginning to arrive on Mali’s shores; they brought with them manufactured goods, textiles, and rum in hopes to exchange for gold, thus, nicknaming Mali, the “Gold Coast.” Sadly, Portugal had another objective, other than the trade of manufactured goods; they intended to invade the coast for slave raids. After the Spanish and Portuguese encountered slaves along with the Trans-Saharan trade, they wanted to embrace this concept. Eventually, in 1456 one Portuguese explorer had successfully journeyed up the Gambian River to make trade negotiations with a Malian governor. This moment would change history forever. This direct trade allowed for both sides to profit outside of the Songhai’s rule over the Trans-Saharan trade, leading the coastal region of the Malian Empire to boom, while the Songhai Empire noticed a significant decline from the newly acquired trade route. However, the gold coast trade was short-lived due to this economic boom flooding the European gold market, with looted gold from South and Central American Empires, subsequently lowering the value of Mali’s gold. Though that did not stop the Portuguese, Spanish, French, British, Danish, Swedish, and Dutch tradesmen from continuing to show up on Mali’s borders, only now they were no longer interested in the gold, but in the slaves. The European slave trade was booming so much so that by the end of the century, ten percent of the English population was African American. Once early colonists realized that Brazil and Jamaica were ideal for sugar cultivation, plantation owners grew a need for the labor of enslaved people. They were creating the beginning of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. An unexpected consequence of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade left the Malian Empire powerless against its attackers because the majority of Mali’s strong young men and slaves were sold off. So in 1591, Morocco invaded from the north with the intention of seizing the gold routes to pay off their war debt. The Songhai capital of Gao crumbled against Moroccan gun power, and Timbuktu was looted; after 900 years, their rule was over. The Moroccan soldiers tried to conquer Mali, but Mansa Mamadou Keita II fought against them in a glorious battle. Malian warriors stood firm against the gunfire, shocking the Moroccans with this suicidal stunt. The Moroccans decided to retreat. Despite this brave display of strength, the Malian Empire still suffered the same fate of all great empires. In 1610, Mansa Mamadou Keita IV died, leaving his three sons to fight over what remained and destroying the empire along the way. Their regional fights would go on until a neighboring power burned the capital of Niani in 1670.16 Page | 45
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
Introduction
There were 21 known Mansas of the Mali Empire. These 21 Mansas will be remembered for the role they played in the transformation of the Manden Kurufaba into a Manden Empire. These mansas conquered and annexed several empires like Fula, Wolof, Bamana, Tuareg, and countless more, but most significant, the Songhai Empire. Sadly, after four centuries, the Malian Empire was gone. During these four centuries, it had rebuilt the once shattered Ghana Empire, and become an economic powerhouse, astonished the world with its wealth, and outlived the great Songhai Empire. However, the Malian Empire should not just be known for its gold and great king Mansa Musa, but for its ability to foster a multicultural nation rich in languages, cultures, and religious beliefs. Ghana, Songhai, and Mali were patrons of religion old and new, military innovators, and great builders of houses for worship and learning. That is why in 1959, when the region threw off the yoke of French colonialism, it was no surprise that one of the newest nations remembered their history and decided to name themselves after what is known as Mali today.
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FIGURE 47
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THE WEST AFRICAN
1.1.5 | Modern Day Mali In the late 19th century, the French seized control of Mali, making it part of French Sudan or also known as the Sudanese Republic. In 1959 French Sudan and Senegal joined forces gaining their independence in June of 1960, as the Mali Federation. By August of 1960, Senegal had withdrawn from the federation, letting the Sundanese Republic declare itself as the independent Republic of Mali. At this point, Mali’s population was at 4.1 million. When driving through Bamako, one can still witness the remnants of French colonialism in Africa. The trees trunks are still marked with white paint and bust of French generals and leaders are still displayed at tourist locations. Modern-day Mali is landlocked between Algeria to the north, Niger to the east, and Burkina Faso to the southeast. Most of the country lies in the southern Sahara Desert, making it an extremely hot and a dust-laden Sudanian savanna zone. It is the eighth-largest country in Africa, but the world’s 24th largest country, with an area of approximately 480,000 square miles. Mali is mostly flat with sand-covered northern plains. Geographically Mali is located in the torrid zone, leaving it extremely susceptible to droughts. Mali has three different climate classifications. The vast majority of the northern part of Mali has a hot desert climate. The central area has a hot semi-arid climate with high-temperatures year-round, creating intense dry seasons and inconsistent rainy seasons. The southern region of Mali has a tropical monsoon climate. Mali currently faces numerous environmental challenges, including desertification, deforestation, soil erosion, and inadequate supplies of potable water. This lack of potable water leads to the excessive use of plastic water bottles by residents and visitors and increases their levels of plastic waste. This can easily be seen throughout the whole city of Mali’s capital Bamako. Plastic waste clogs Bamako’s riverways and inevitably increases their flood levels during the rainy seasons. This is also partnered with a lack of education. Many residents will clean the sidewalks in front of their residents, Page | 48
EXPERIENCE
FIGURE 49a.
FIGURE 49b.
FIGURE 49c.
FIGURE 49d. 49d.
FIGURE 49e.
FIGURE 49f.
FIGURE 49g.
FIGURE 49h.
FIGURE 49i.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
businesses, and religious temples by clogging the rainwater drainage systems with garbage and debris, believing that it will just wash away and disappear. Mali’s prominent natural resources are still gold and salt, along with uranium, phosphates, kaolinite, and limestone being most widely exploited. Mali is the third-largest producer of gold in Africa, after South Africa and Ghana. However, Mali’s key industry is agriculture, and cotton is their main export, which is exported west throughout Senegal and the Ivory Coast. In addition to cotton, Mali also produces rice, millet, corn, vegetables, tobacco, and tree crops. Gold, agriculture, and livestock make up 80 percent of Mali’s exports. For Mali to grow as a wealthier nation like it once was before, it will need to produce and export manufactured goods. At night if you are to drive down the highway in Bamako, one will begin to notice the curbside of the highway lined with trucks waiting to bring imported goods into the city’s capital.
The West African Experience
As of 2018, Mali’s population had grown to 19.1 million people. 68 percent of the population is predominately rural, and 5-10 percent of Malians are nomadic, with 90 percent of the population living in the southern part of the country, mainly in the city’s capital of Bamako. An estimated 90 percent of Malians are Muslim, and approximately 5 percent are Christian. About two-thirds are Roman Catholic, and one-third are Protestant, with the remaining 5 percent adhering to indigenous or traditional animist beliefs. Atheism and agnosticism are believed to be rare among Malians, most of whom practice their religion on a daily basis.17 Although Mali has enjoyed a reasonably good inter-ethnic relationship based on the long history of coexistence, some hereditary servitude and bondage relationships exist, as well as ethnic tension between settled Songhai and nomadic Tuaregs of the north. Most families in Bamako that are economically stable will have servants and maids to take care of their household and watch over their children in their absence. These servants and maids come from Mali’s nomadic villages to the city of Bamako to work for a family until they are married off and return back to their villages to start a family of their own. During this time, these children and young adults will learn how to take care of a household and learn to adapt to the modern-day world of Bamako. For many, they have never seen cars, tv’s, processed food, and more. So, this is a great learning experience for them. The majority of Mali’s demographic is very young; the average life expectancy is 53 years. Sadly, Mali has one of the world’s highest rates of infant mortality. The lack of education in Mali has also led to gender inequality. Many women are working in the household rather than in the Public Administration sector. Similarly, with technical and vocational education, this is a result of the education centers being located in the urban city centers.
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FIGURE 51
Tourist attraction at the top off Bamako’s hill. Photo taken by author.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 52
Artist depiction of “Slaves Picking Cotton” from money used in the 19th century.
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Slavery
/’slāv( )rē/ e
(n.) 1 | the state of being a slave. 2 | the practice or system of owning slaves. 3 | a condition compared to that of a slave in respect of exhausting labor or restricted freedom. 4 | excessive dependence on or devotion to something.
1 | The treatment of human beings as property deprived of human rights.18
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 54
Slaves Waiting for Sale, Richmond, Virginia Nine enslaved African Americans, including three children, sit on benches in a slave salesroom in Richmond and await the moment they will be put on an auction block and sold. Original Author: Eyre Crowe Created: 1861 Medium: Oil on canvas Courtesy of Heinz Family Collection Page | 54
Chattel Slave /’CHadl/
(n.) (in general use) 1 | a personal possession. (Law.) an item of property other than real estate.
A chattel slave is an enslaved person who is owned for ever and whose children and children’s children are automatically enslaved. Chattel slaves are individuals treated as complete property, to be bought and sold.19
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 56
Slave Trade, print on paper by John Raphael Smith after George Morland, 1762–1812; in the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. Courtesy of the Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam (RP-P-1969-83)
The West African Experience
1.2 | Migration Through Enslavement
Many can recall how this story ends in 1860s, but how exactly did it all begin? In the late 1400s, early 1500s, a scattering of millions to the “New World” was the largest forced migration in the history of humankind. This relocation includes approximately 50 ethnic and linguistic groups, which were about 10 - 12 million Africans forcibly taken by European settlers. However, less than half a million of the enslaved, approximately 5 percent were brought to North America. The majority of the oppressed went to the Caribbean, which was roughly 48 percent, and the rest went to Brazil in South America, which was approximately 41 percent, though this number did change over time.20 By the mid-1600s, Africans had already started to outnumber Europeans in new cities such as Mexico City, Havana, and Lima, which was not altogether a good thing.21 This increase in life expectancy meant that if you kept your slaves healthy enough, they could live longer and reproduce more children. However, for the slave owners, this growth in reproduction meant that they now had a new workforce that they could begin to sell off for profit. Previously there had been centuries of contact between Europe and Africa via the Mediterranean Sea. However, when the settlers came to the Americas, they tried to enslave the American natives, but too many Americans died from new diseases or resisted the labor-intensive farming of sugarcane, tobacco, and cotton in the new colonies. Thus, the Europeans looked towards Africa for a more stable workforce leading to the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. African slaves had existed for centuries in various forms, some as indentured servants with a limited term and others similar to European serfs. In some societies, slaves were part of the master family, own land, and rise to a position of power. However, African kings and merchants viewed their slaves as criminals, debtors, or prisoners of war from rival tribes. By selling these slaves, these kingdoms were enriching their own realms and strengthened themselves against Page | 56
neighboring enemies. In the beginning, African kingdoms were prospering for the sale of slaves. However, it began to become problematic for them when trying to meet the Europeans demand causing intense competition. As a result, slavery began to replace other criminal sentences making the capturing of slaves a strong motivation for war. With the Europeans trading guns and other manufactured goods for slaves, the kingdoms began to purchase guns to defend themselves against slave raids. At this point in history, the slave trade had become an arms race. This exchange of force altered society and economies of the continent for years to come. Slaves would then get marched to forts on the coast. Once there, their heads would then be shaved to prevent lice exposure, and their bodies would be branded. Sometimes to show proof of purchase, the shipmen would cut off their ears. About 20 percent of these slaves would never step foot on land again. The Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade is called a Triangular Trade for its three-legged route that began and ended in Europe. Firstly, the European vessels travel to Africa with goods like weapons, rum, and other manufactured goods to exchange for slaves. Secondly, those ships once filled with goods now sailed to the Americas to trade the slave’s “cattle” for agricultural products that had been extracted using slave labor. Thirdly, the agricultural products were sold in Europe after the ship’s return journey back. The Middle Passage was the journey that started it all. It was the journey to the Americas. The journey could take as little as four to six weeks, but on average, the trip was between two to three months. During this journey, the African slaves had roughly four-square feet to themselves while they had to sit chained and naked in their filth. These unnatural conditions of captivity resulted in an estimated death of 1.5 to 2 million men, women, and children en route to the “New World.”22
FIGURE 57
Painting of slaves below the deck of slave transporting ship Page | 57
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
Olaudah Equiano 1794 “At last, when the ship we were in, had got in all her cargo, they made ready with many fearful noises, and we were all put under the deck so that we could not see how they managed the vessel. ...The stench of the, hold while we were on the coast, was so intolerably loathsome… The closeness of the place, and the heat of the climate, added to the number in the ship, which was so crowded that each had scarcely room to turn himself, almost suffocated us. This produced copious perspirations, so that the air soon became unfit for respiration, from a variety of loathsome smells, and brought on a sickness among the slaves, of which many died -- thus falling victims to the improvident avarice, as I may call it, of their purchasers.”23
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FIGURE 59
Portrait of Olaudah Equiano from The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
During this journey, many of the enslaved Africans were confused. Why were people being taken away, and would never return? The slaves would often assume that their white captures were cannibals, taking them away to eat them. Afraid of being eaten, or wanting to avoid suffering, many slaves would commit suicide or starve themselves to death, believing that in death, their souls would return home. When in reality, many of the slaves were being thrown overboard after becoming ill or for not being disciplined enough. On the vessel, the men unwillingly performed dances to entertain the shipmen while also keeping their muscles active. However, Robert Norris recalls the time the slaves spent on these ships to be a joyous occasion.
The West African Experience
Nearly a quarter of the Africans brought to North America originated from Angola, while another quarter that would arrive later originated from Senegambia. Forty percent of these enslaved Africans entered the U.S. through the Charleston, South Carolina port, which became the center of the U.S. slave trade.24
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FIGURE 61
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CHAPTER 01 1 | Dunbar, Roberta Ann. The American Historical Review 78, no. 5 (1973): 1506-507. Accessed February 5, 2020. doi:10.2307/1854194.
2 | Godfrey Mwakikagile, The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2010. pp. 43–44. ISBN 978-998716-023-5. 3 | Piga, Adriana: Islam et villes en Afriqa au sud du Sahara: Entre soufisme et fondamentalisme, p. 265. KARTHALA Editions, 2003.
4 | The Empire of Mali - The Twang of a Bow - Extra History - #1. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=UkayShPilkw&t=354s. 5 | Conrad, David C., and Condé Djanka Tassey. Sunjata: a West African Epic of the Mande Peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2004. p. xxxv ISBN 0-87220-697-1. 6 | Jansen, Jan. “Hot Issues: The 1997 Kamabolon Ceremony in Kangaba (Mali).” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 31, no. 2 (1998): 253-78. Accessed February 24, 2020. doi:10.2307/221083. 7 | Collins, Robert O., and James M. Burns. A History of Sub-
Saharan Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014. P. 84 ISBN 0-521-86746-0.
8 | Conrad, David C. “Oral Sources on Links between Great
States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga.” History in Africa 11 (1984): 35-55. Accessed February 24, 2020. doi:10.2307/3171626.
9 | The Empire of Mali - An Empire of Trade and Faith Extra History - #2. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=YPytwp5ll9g. 10 | The Empire of Mali - Mansa Musa - Extra History - #3. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4-Un2xx6Pzo&t=9s. Page | 62
END NOTES 11 | “Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351.” ORIAS. UC Berkeley, 2020. https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/travels-ibnbattuta/journey/journey-mali-1350-1351. 12 | Brett, Michael. “Berber.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., March 20, 2019. https://www. britannica.com/topic/Berber.
13 | Niane, D.T.: “Recherches sur l’Empire du Mali au Moyen âge”. Presence Africaine. Paris, 1975 14 | Battuta, Ibn. Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa. Teheran: B.T.N.K., 1958. p. 329, ISBN 0-7100-9568-6.
15 | “Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351.” ORIAS. UC Berkeley, 2020. https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/travels-ibnbattuta/journey/journey-mali-1350-1351. 16 | The Empire of Mali - The Final Bloody Act - Extra History
- #5. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Mi79VdOCXGc
17 | International Religious Freedom Report 2008: Mali. State. gov (19 September 2008). Retrieved 4 May 2012.
18 | Hazard, Anthony. “The Atlantic Slave Trade: What Too Few Textbooks Told You.” YouTube. TED-Ed, December 22, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXC4Q_4JVg.
19 | The Abolition Project. (2009). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_42.html
20 | Green, John. “The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course World History #24.” YouTube. Crash Course, July 5, 2012. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY. 21 | Gates, H. L. (2013). African-American Migrations, 1600s to
Present. Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.pbs. org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/ on-african-american-migrations/
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CHAPTER 01 22 | Gates, “African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present”, 2013, Ibid.
23 | “ The interesting narrative of the life of olaudah equiano
1794.” Slavery and the making of america . The slave experience: living | pbs. Courtesy of library of congress, rare book and special collections division, 2004. Https://www. thirteen.org/wnet/slavery/experience/living/docs5.html.
24 | Gates, “African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present”, 2013, Ibid.
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END NOTES
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C hapter 02
The Black & African American Experience
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FIGURE 67
A collage of scenes depicting slavery in America. Image created by author.
2.1 | Slavery | The First Generation Of African Americans Throughout history, slavery has existed in many forms across many continents, from Mesopotamians to the Romans. However, the Trans-Atlantic slave trade was different. It only existed from making African slaves believe that they were property and that they had no other choice but to obey their masters. After approximately 250 years, this forced migration of slaves would ultimately lead to the Civil War and the end of slavery in 1865 even though many residual effects of slavery and racism can be seen today. “Our democracy’s founding ideals were false when they were written. African Americans have fought to make them true.”
2.1.1 | The 17th Century
The earliest slaves in North America worked along the Southern coast, cultivating cash crops like rice and tobacco on plantations.1 These slaves were brought to the Americas in 1619. Even though slaves were found primarily in southern states, it is critical to address that the north did, in fact, still profit from slavery. Over time, the north would begin to industrialize from one of their main exports, cotton textiles. Northern bankers would finance land for plantations; northern insurance companies would ensure slaves since they were considered property. In addition, they would even sell cotton textiles back to the south, where it was used to clothe the residents and the slaves that cultivated it. The nation’s focus on slavery and cotton production would ultimately stunt the south from making technological advances like railroads. Page | 67
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
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In 1641, The Massachusetts Body of Liberties was the first legal code established by European colonists in New England to legalize slavery, thus making Massachusetts the first state to officially legalize slavery. Many people imagine slave plantations being run with hundreds of slaves cultivating crops from sunup to sundown, but the reality was that the majority of slave owners owned five or fewer slaves, and most white southerners did not own any slaves at all. Many white southerners would often rent slaves if they could afford it. These people were most likely the Yeoman farmers; they lived a pretty self-sufficient life. They worked the most impoverished land, which led to them being poor themselves. Even though they were not wealthy, they still supported slavery. This most likely was due to inherent racism that gave even the most destitute whites legal and social status. In 1654, a Virginia court granted African Americans the right to own slaves. But by 1662, Virginia law decreed that children “shall be bond or free according to the condition of the mother,” meaning that a child of an enslaved mother was to become a slave for life. In Virginia, African slaves and black and white indentured servants band together to participate in Bacon’s Rebellion of 1676. It was no surprise that this unity alarmed the wealthy white establishment and inspired early 18th century laws that discriminated by race and social status. In the year 1688, with the Germantown Quaker Petition Against Slavery, Pennsylvania Quakers pass the first formal antislavery resolution. In 1691, Virginia passed the first anti-miscegenation law, which prohibited marriages between whites and non-whites. The U.S. Supreme Court overturned this law and other antimiscegenation laws in 1967. Much of the U.S. had repealed these laws before 1967, but 17 southern states of the U.S. like Texas, Florida, Kentucky, and West Virginia had laws which the Page | 68
Loving v. Virginia verdict overturned. Meanwhile, Virginia passed a law making it financially risky for owners to free slaves; this was known as manumission. The law required newly freed slaves to leave the colony within six months and the former master to pay for their trip. In 1694, rice cultivation was introduced in South Carolina; this radically increased the demand for slaves in the south, giving it the name “Rice Kingdom.” These slaves had terrible working conditions, but they labored under the task law, meaning that once they had completed their daily work, then the slaves would have time to do other things, but remember they were still property so, these were not hours full of leisure.
2.1.2 | The 18th Century In 1708, enslaved African Americans almost entirely outnumbered European Americans in South Carolina. Today, African Americans remain the majority population in this state. By 1712, South Carolina slaves were prohibited from hiring themselves out to work outside of their owner’s household. In urban areas, many slaves wanted the ability to seek other types of employment and acquire new skills; it gave them a sense of independence. However, not much changed, and the slave owners continued to hire out their slaves for an additional profit. In 1738, southern slaves learned of Spanish Florida’s promise of granting freedom to runaway slaves. One year later, in 1739, slaves of Stono, South Carolina rebelled, sacking and burning the armory, and killing whites. The Stono Rebellion later becomes the largest slave uprising in the colonies, with more than 80 people killed, black and white. Sadly, before the slaves could reach freedom in Spanish Florida, the colonial militia quashed the rebellion. In the year 1758, the Society of Friends (Quakers), at the Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, had forbidden its members from owning slaves or participating in the slave trade. Quakers will continue to play an active role in the abolition movement in years to come. In 1770, Crispus Attucks became the first colonists to die in the American war for independence. Attucks was a dockworker and merchant seaman; he was also an African American who may have even been an escaped slave or freeman. Ukawsaw Gronniosaw, also known as James Albert, writes the first autobiographical slave narrative, in 1772. Slave narratives were often promoted during the abolitionist movement; they provided crucial accounts of a slave’s reality. Hundreds of slave narratives were published before emancipation, and today thousands of more stories have been recorded. One year later, 1773, Phyllis Wheatley, who was a Boston slave, became the first African American poet to be published when a London company released a collection of her work. Other artists like Wheatley drew worldwide attention to the conditions of African Americans through their work and often gained great success abroad. That same year, Silver Bluff Baptist Church in Aiken County, South Carolina becomes the first black church in the United States. This same year Massachusetts slaves petition the government for their freedom. They were represented by a single signatory Page | 69
Cotton plantations continue to spread into the deep south. In 1790 approximately 650,000 slaves worked with rice, tobacco, and indigo. Eli Whitney’s invention of the cotton gin ushered in the new cotton economy in 1793. This machine vastly multiplied the profit for America’s farmers, making it possible to separate seeds from cotton without destroying the fiber. The rapid growth for the agricultural economy in the Lower South, not only created an enormous new region for slavery, it turned the Upper South into a slave exporting states. As a result, families and individuals were always at risk of being sold and separated from their family or household.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
named Felix, in the petition later names Felix’s petition, they stated, “We have no property. We have no wives. No children. We have no city. No Country. But we have a father in heaven.” This petition led to similar petitions flooding the colonies during and preceding the Revolutionary War.
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FIGURE 71
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George Tucker
“The love of freedom, sir, is an inborn sentiment, which the God of nature has planted deep in the heart: long may it be kept under by the arbitrary institutions of society; but, at the first favorable moment, it springs forth, and flourishes with a vigor that defies all check. This celestial spark, which fires the breast of the savage, which glows in that of the philosopher, is not extinguished in the bosom of the slave. It may be buried in the embers, but it still lives, and the breadth of knowledge kindles it to flame. Thus, we find sir, there have never been slaves in any country who have not seized the first favorable opportunity to revolt.”2 On Gabriel’s Rebellion
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FIGURE 73
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
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The Black & African American Experience
2.1.3 | The 19th Century
Successful escapes were rare. For example, at the beginning of the 19th century, an enslaved blacksmith named Gabriel organized a significant revolt in Virginia. Fearing future uprisings, Gabriel and 25 others were hanged before they could enact their plan. State legislatures passed restrictions limiting the movement of free Africans, as well as prohibiting the education, assembly, and hiring out of slaves. As the country expanded westward, in 1803, with the Louisiana Purchase and the arrival of inventions that made cultivating certain crops more profitable, the demand for slave labor increased. In 1807, the Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves mandated that no new slaves are to be imported into the United States. The act was not well enforced, and slaves continued to be imported on a more limited basis. Technically, this law only outlawed the slave trade, not slavery itself. In 1839, Africans aboard the Spanish slave ship La Amistad committed mutiny. The mutineers detoured the ship from its destination in the Caribbean, causing it to land off the coast of Long Island, New York. The captives end up pleading for their freedom in the U.S. Ultimately, two years later, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that the mutineers had been illegally transported and held as slaves and had rebelled in self-defense. During those two years, they had no choice but to hideout in “stations” of the Underground Railroad before later returning to Africa. There is even proof of slaves being shipped from the port of Galveston, Texas, to the port of New Orleans, Louisiana, in 1860. Consequently, this outlaw of the slave trade in the Americas and Europe had a greater effect on the economies of the African nations where slaves had become their primary export, thus collapsing their economies and leaving them vulnerable for conquest. Page | 74
T H E 1 9 TH C E N T U R Y
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
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2.2.1 | Escaped and Freed Slaves In 1819, the attorney general of Upper Canada declared that African residents would be set free if they resided in Canada. By the end of the U.S. Civil War, between 30,000 and 100,000 slaves escaped to Canada through the passage of the Underground Railroad. Joseph Taper was a slave in Frederick County, Virginia, who escaped to Pennsylvania with his wife and children in 1837. However, in 1839 Taper fled to Canada once learning that “a slave catcher” was in his neighborhood. In 1840, Joseph wrote a biblical passage to a white acquaintance in Virginia, recounting some of his experiences, it read: Joseph Taper
“Since I have been in the Queen’s dominions, I have been well
contented, Yes well contented for sure; man is as God intended, he should be. That is, all are born free & equal. This is a wholesome law, not like the Southern laws, which puts man-made in the image of God, on level with brutes. O, what will become of the people, & where will they stand in the day of Judgment. Would that the 5th verse of the 3d chapter of Malachi were written as with the bar of iron, & the point of a diamond upon every oppressor’s heart that they might repent of this evil & let the oppressed go free.”
In 1820, the Missouri compromise forbid slavery in the Louisiana territory north of the northern Missouri border. Under its terms, Maine was admitted to the Union as a free state and Missouri as a slave state. This law continued to maintain a balance of power between the north and the south. During this time, southern intellectuals worked very hard to perpetuate ideas Page | 76
of white solidarity. Jefferson even stated to John Holmes, “As it is, we have the wolf by the ear, and we can neither hold him nor safely let him go. Justice is in one scale, and self-preservation in the other.” It is scary to think about living in a world where justice and self-preservation are thought of as separate, this was an opposition to the American ideals of equality and justice for all, making the Civil War almost inevitable. In 1822, Vesey, a freeman, is accused of organizing “the rising,” a potential massive slave revolt in Denmark, South Carolina. Although the plot was uncovered before any slaves escaped to freedom in Haiti, alleged conspirators were hanged. Fearful that the African American churches supported the revolt, authorities destroyed independent black churches in Charleston. African Americans did not establish independent congregations again until after the Civil War. However, in August of 1831, Nat Turner led what might have been one of the most successful rebellions. Well, in the sense that they almost achieve their goal, he at least killed 57 whites. Turner was an enslaved Baptist preacher who led a violent rebellion in Virginia. With a group of about 80 slaves, Turner went house to house, killing the inhabitants. Most were women and children because the men were attending a religious meeting in North Carolina. The conflict inspired by Nat Turner’s Rebellion led to the execution of more than 50 alleged conspirators, and local militias murdered twice that number of suspects. The incident also led to the discussion of abolition in the legislature, although Virginia ultimately remained a slave state. This rebellion was one of the three main rebellions that happen within 35 years. If it was not clear before, at this point in history, it now was abundantly clear to all slaves that resistance to obedience brought harm not only to you and your family but to all slaves. In 1831, the Underground Railroad was given its name, inspired by the booming rail industry in the U.S. The system used terms like stations, depots, stationmasters, stockholders, and conductors. The Underground Railroad becomes a powerful method for moving escaped slaves from one “station” to the next. Not run by any one person or organization, the Underground Railroad was an extensive network of safe houses and routes that escaped slaves used to travel to the North, often covering 10 to 20 miles each day.3 Two monumental conductors of the Underground Railroad where Levi and Catharine Coffin. In 1826, they took their first group of runaway slaves into their Indiana home in Fountain City. The Coffins helped approximately 2,000 slaves escape to freedom in the northern U.S. and Canada, later giving it the name of “Grand Central Station.” By 1834, multiple riots against African Americans and antislavery advocates were being experienced in New York and Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Subsequently, anti-abolition riots broke out in major cities across the Northeast. During this period, anti-abolitionists sentiments were fueled by resentment of African freemen among the recently arrived Irish immigrants. However, many northerners thought that immediate abolition could threaten the economy and culture of the U.S., ultimately destabilizing it further. As a result, the U.S. House of Representatives adopts a “gag rule,” stating that abolitionist issues are to be automatically tabled. Page | 77
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
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The Black & African American Experience
Slavery portrayed as a good time.
Even though supporters of the gag rule would argue that the drafters of the Constitution never intended for any issues addressing slavery to be discussed or debated in Congress, John Quincy Adams would fight tirelessly to get this rule overturned. In 1837, John C. Calhoun advocated for the good of slavery stating, “I hold that in the present state of civilization, where two races of different origin, and distinguished by color, and other physical differences, as well as intellectual, are brought together, the relation now existing in the slave holding States between the two, is, instead of an evil, a good–a positive good.”4 Some would say that his views were not taken very seriously at this time; however, this man was the Secretary of War (1817-1825), Vice President (1825-1832), and then ultimately the Secretary of State (1844-1845), making him a very influential person in American history. This combination of events leads one to wonder why many people still thought this way in the 19th century. Well, slavery was built upon brutality and dehumanization. Many white southerners felt that allowing a slave to read, pray, and have a family of their own allowed them to feel human, which was a threat to the society in which they had wanted to maintain. The Louisiana law of 1847 claimed that a slave, “…owes his master… respect without bonds, and absolute obedience, and he is consequently to execute all the orders…”5 Slave owners would do whatever it took to maintain the obedience of their slaves no matter how arbitrary the concept of enslaving people to pick cotton, sugar, and tobacco, neither of which impacted the ability to sustain life as a human being. Robert Burns’ slave narrative starts to put into perspective some of the violence that slaves experienced from their owners. Page | 78
FIGURE 79
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Slave Narrative
“Old Master had an overseer that went round and whipped the niggers every morning, and they hadn’t done a thing. He went to my father one morning and said, “Bob, I’m going to whip you this morning.” Daddy said, “I ain’t done nothing.” And he said, “I know it. I’m going to whip you to keep you from doing anything. ” …And Daddy was choppin cotton and just took up his hoe and chopped right down on that man’s head and knocked his brains out…It killed him…. When the nigger trader came along, they sold my Daddy to him.”6 Robert Burns
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FIGURE 81
“Blow for Blow,” card showing the slave punishing a former master. Colored lithograph created by Henry Louis Stephens in 1863. Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, LC-USZC4-2523.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
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FIGURE 82
In 1840, the American Anti-Slavery Society became divided over the issue of women’s rights. This division exposed the gap between moderate abolitionists, who supported the peaceful change and the radical abolitions who supported the immediate recognition of human rights for all people.7 Eight years later, in 1848, Antislavery groups organized the Free Soil Party. The Free Soil Party was a political party opposed to the westward expansion of slavery. The party distanced itself from abolitionists, instead of focusing on the economic threats that slavery posed at the time to labor in western territories. They eventually merged with another political party, the republicans, which was relatively new at this time. Meanwhile, women such as Lucretia Mott, Amy Post, Angelina Grimke, and Susan B. Anthony participated in the first Women’s Rights Convention in Seneca Falls, New York. These women are some of the most outspoken opponents of slavery. After the emancipation of slaves, Lucretia Mott continued to advocate for universal suffrage, so that all people, men, and women, black and white, had the opportunity to vote. At a women’s convention three years later, Sojourner delivers a speech that soon becomes recognized as one of the most powerful in American history: “Ain’t I a Woman?” “. . . Look at me! Look at my arm! I have ploughed and planted, and gathered into barns, and no man could head me! And ain’t I a woman? I could work as much and eat as much as a man—when I could get it— and bear the lash as well! And ain’t I a woman? I have borne thirteen children, and seen most all sold off to slavery, and when I cried out with my mother’s grief, none but Jesus heard me! And ain’t I a woman? . . .”
Since the earliest days of slavery, African Americans risked everything to find Page | 82
freedom. Slaves could now escape north to Canada or south to Mexico and areas of the U.S. where they could live free. One year later, in 1849, Henry Brown, also known as Henry “Box” Brown, escaped to freedom by arranging to have himself mailed in a wooden crate to abolitionists from Richmond to Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Samuel Smith shipped a box containing Brown by Adams Express Company on March 23, 1849. The box, labeled “dry goods,” was lined with cloth and had a single hole cut in the top for air. 27 hours later, the box arrived at the headquarters of the Philadelphia Anti-Slavery Society. Emerging from the box, Brown recited a psalm. Meanwhile, Harriet Tubman escapes slavery and heads towards Maryland. Though, she returned almost immediately to help guide her family members to freedom via the Underground Railroad. Tubman would return to the south a dozen more times; she would state, “I was conductor of the Underground Railroad for eight years, and I can say what most conductors can’t say—I never ran my train off the track, and I never lost a passenger.” Later Tubman would also serve as a Union spy during the Civil War and end up freeing more than 700 slaves during her raid at the Combahee Ferry. Like Tubman, William Still, who was a Philadelphia clerk, also aided in helping many slaves escape to freedom. Still kept a record of everyone he encountered, including a brief biography and the destination for each, along with any alias adopted. These records, published after the Civil War, provide the most critical documentation of the Underground Railroad. Still once said, “It was my good fortune to lend a helping hand to the weary travelers flying from the land of bondage.”10 In 1857, one event shown a light on the unjust patent system in America, when a slave named Ned invented the cotton scraper. However, his owner Oscar Stuart decided to patent it, so he contacted the Secretary of Interior. They wrote back saying that Ned would need to swear an oath he was a citizen before they could grant Oscar the patent. Of course, with Ned being a slave, he could not do so. When this became a larger issue, it was now up to the attorney general at the time to make a final ruling. The attorney general ruled, “henceforth, patents would not be given for slave inventions… neither to master nor to slave.”11 Though that ended up not working out in Oscar’s favor, he decided to start selling it himself, becoming more profitable off Ned’s invention. Oscar did openly state in his advertisement that the cotton scraper was his slave, Ned’s invention.12 Now a new question about what does intellectual property mean if you nor your owner can lay claim to your own ideas? Sadly, this made an opposing case towards the statement from the early abolitionists that slavery dwarfs the mind of the Negro, making it seem as though slavery was a “good thing.” Even after the Civil War ended, the issue of intellectual property becomes a significant matter that will affect many African slaves and freedmen for years to come. By 1850 the country had 3.2 million slaves, 1.8 million of whom worked in cotton, and by 1860 there were approximately 4 million slaves in the U.S. At this point in history, the southern states were also providing two-thirds of the world’s cotton supply. In 1857, Dred Scot v. Sanford denies citizenship to all slaves, ex-slaves, and descendants of slaves, and denies Congress the right to prohibit slavery in the territories. This is later dubbed by historians as the worst decision ever. Finally, in 1859 the last slave ship, The Clotilde, brings slaves into the U.S. to Mobile Bay, Alabama. Page | 83
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
When slavery was abolished at the end of the Civil War in 1865, the greatest increases in the black population of northern cities were in Cleveland, Boston, New York, and Philadelphia. However, the emancipation Proclamation of January 01, 1863, did not free all slaves. Even though President Lincoln declared all slaves held in the Confederate territory free, according to the National Archives, “It applied only to states that had seceded from the Union, leaving slavery untouched in border states. It also exempted parts of the Confederacy that had already come under Northern control. Most important, the freedom it promised depended upon Union military victory.” So, on December 18, 1865, the U.S. Constitution Amendment XIII abolished slavery by stating, “Section 01: Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. Section 02: Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.”13 As one can see, slavery consisted of many factors and laws, but through it, all slaves defined their oppressors and kept their humanity. They were mothers, fathers, inventors, scholars, and allies. They learned to carve out an identity for themselves in a new world that was continually dehumanizing them, trying to convince them that they were no more than property. They fought back, with their strength to be obedient and ultimately won, thus starting a new era of segregation.
The Black & African American Experience
“I was not born with a hunger to be free; I was born free.” -Nelson Mandela
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FIGURE 85
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
The Black & African American Experience
FIGURE 86
2.3.1 | Freedmen’s Bureau On March 3, 1865, the Freedmen’s Bureau Bill established the Freedmen’s Bureau. The Freedmen’s Bureau is a Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands, and was a U.S. government agency from 1865 to 1872 after the Civil War. President Abraham Lincoln, who initiated the bill, only intended for it to last one year after the war. At first, Ulysses S. Grant proposed General John Eaton as an army officer to run the Bureau. However, the position of Bureau commissioner went to another Christian general and Civil War veteran, General Oliver Otis Howard. General Howard had close connections to Freedmen’s aid societies, which later gave him the title of “Christian General.” The Bureau aided the disadvantaged African Americans and Caucasians in many ways. They would distribute food to the poor and help fund schools for ex-slaves. When the Freedmen’s Bureau started in 1865, its representatives found it very difficult to achieve its tasks, due to Southern legislature laws for Black Codes. Black Codes compelled many African Americans to work for lower wages. Black Codes also restricted the movements of African Americans, their conditions of labor, and other civil rights, nearly duplicating slavery conditions.
2.3.2 | Freedmen’s Towns
Freedmen’s Towns refers to communities built by freedmen who were former slaves up until they were emancipated during and after the American Civil War. These towns began to emerge in approximately 24 states like Oklahoma, Maryland, and New York. However, these towns are most notable in the state of Texas.
After the Emancipation Proclamation and the Thirteenth Amendment freed the Page | 86
4 million slaves that reside in America during the 1860s, many slaves were faced with tough questions. Where do I go? What will I eat? How will I survive? The land redistribution discussions of Charles Sumner, Thaddeus Stevens, and other Radical Republicans and Special Field Order No. 15 issued by Union General William T. Sherman on January 16, 1865 that suggested the federal government consider providing all ex-slaves with “40 acres and a mule” proved baseless. This was due to the fact that most freed slaves decided to remain on plantations and work as sharecroppers, share tenants, or day laborers. While others had a strong desire for the independence of owning land, autonomy, and isolation from whites, these freedmen migrated from white areas to build their own towns, away from white supervision, ultimately self-segregating themselves due to Jim Crow laws. These towns became a place where they began to create their own churches, schools, and civic organizations, with a collective belief of community. However, Jim Crow laws ensured that these Freedmen’s settlements would stay as black enclaves until the laws were overturned in 1965. As described in this excerpt from Freedom Colonies: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow, “Such places were defensive communities, where black property owners had circled the wagons against outsiders—a “fortress without walls.” Freedmen’s settlements were black enclaves that kept to themselves and until the end of Jim Crow few whites wished—or dared—to live there”.14 Many of these towns were established on pockets of wilderness, cheap land, or neglected land that was previously little utilized for agricultural farming.15 These families later would cling to their land, even after they became fragmented into smaller and smaller parcels over future generations. By the 1920s, many freedmen would find it beneficial for them to rent more agricultural land or begin to work in town. Later, the impacts of the Great Depression and World War II led to the depopulation of several Freedmen’s settlements. California, Colorado, and Massachusetts are just some states where Freedmen’s Towns no longer exist, however many others have remained into the 21st century.
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Painting of slaves below the deck of slave transporting ship Page | 87
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
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The Black & African American Experience
2.4 | Fort Mose
The part of Florida held by the Spanish, south of St. Mary’s River, became a destination for escaped slaves. To antagonize the British both militarily and economically, Spain welcomed slaves from the British territory, declared them free, and set up the first free, all-black settlement Fort Mose16 (pronounced “Moh- say”).17 In the 18th century, two Fort Mose sites existed, one that the Spanish occupied between 1737 and 1740, and another occupied after the Battle of Bloody Mose between 1752 and 1763. Fort Mose is the only known free black town in the present-day southern United States that a European colonial government sponsored. The Fort Mose Site, today a National Historic Landmark, is located at the second Fort Mose Site that was occupied from 1752 through 1763. Spanish slave laws had been established since the 13th century, predating the colonization of the Americas. According to Spanish law, slavery was not a natural state for any race. To them, it was a consequence of war, which the victors would enslave their enemy rather than kill them. Even though slavery existed in Spain, their laws were comparable to slaves in other nations, unlike the European chattel slavery, which existed in the Americas. Spanish slaves had legal rights within their system. They could own their property, sue in courts, keep their families together, and ultimately purchase their freedom. It was of no surprise that Spain’s flexible attitude towards slaves and African freedmen encouraged slaves in the British colonies located in the Carolina’s to escape to Florida. When escaped African slaves arrived in the Spanish colonies in the 16th century, they replaced the forced labor of Spain’s indigenous population. The very first African slaves stepped foot in St. Augustine in 1565, as members of Pedro Menéndez de Avilés’s colonizing expedition.18
In 1693, King Charles II of Spain ordered Florida, colonists, to grant the escaped Page | 88
slaves of the British colonies’ freedom and protection. However, this freedom came with two conditions: one, the freed slaves must convert to Catholicism, and two, that male slaves would only be granted freedom provided they joined the militia. This edict, created by King Charles II of Spain, became one of the New World’s earliest emancipation proclamations. Even though the newly freed slaves were required to fight for Spain to gain their freedom, that opportunity for them to gain more control over their own lives was worth it, even though they were technically still slaves. In 1726, Antonio de Benavides created an African slave militia, which would defend St. Augustine from future British attacks. Francisco Menéndez was later appointed to lead this militia. Menéndez was an African slave and a veteran of the Yamasee War of 1715. In 1724, he escaped to St. Augustine with nine other slaves. However, at this point in history, Governor Benavides ignored King Charles II’s edict to free escaped slaves. Benavides believed that it was only applicable during wartime. So, in 1729 he sold several slaves back to their British masters and did not free the militiamen, including Menéndez, despite their loyalty. In 1733, the Spanish government decided to outlaw the sale of slaves back to private citizens and now offered their soldiers freedom after four additional years of service. That year Menéndez and several other slaves petitioned the Spanish government for freedom, so in 1737 they finally received unconditional freedom from Governor Manuel de Montiano. The Spanish governor at the time Montiano established the fortified town, Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose, about two miles north of St. Augustine, Florida. “Gracia Real,” meaning royal grace, was an indicator that the king established the town. Saint Teresa de Avilés was the town’s patron saint, and Mose was the name of the site before its settlement. The unofficial name of Gracia Real de Santa Teresa de Mose became Fort Mose. Established in 1738, Fort Mose was located just north of St. Augustine, Florida, strategically placed to defend against British attacks. Menéndez, along with his wife and 40 free men and women, resided in Fort Mose. All pledged to serve Spain and convert to Catholicism. The Spanish officers grew to respect Menéndez for his military leadership and considered him the head leader of Fort Mose. In 1740, colonial governor James Oglethorpe of Georgia invaded Florida and burned Spanish outposts along the St. Johns River, as he led his force of British colonists and American Indian allies south to St. Augustine. The English sent thousands of soldiers and dozens of ships to destroy St. Augustine, with hopes to bring back runaway slaves. For 27 consecutive days, they set up a blockade and began to bombard Ft. Mose. When they realized they were outnumbered, the diverse population of African Americans, Caucasians, and Native Americans joined forces to fight off their oppressors. Led by Captain Francisco Menéndez, the soldiers of Ft. Mose briefly lost their fort retreating to St. Augustine, but eventually, the soldiers repelled the English from Ft. Mose and recaptured their fort winning the Battle of Bloody Mose. After the battle, the Spanish abandoned the first Ft. Mose location and integrated themselves back into Spanish colonial life.
In 1752, Governor Fulgencio García de Solís ordered the African St. Augustine Page | 89
Fort Mose played an essential role in the development of colonial North America.19 Fort Mose provides evidence that African American colonial history was more than slavery and oppression. The men and women of Ft. Mose won their liberty and were an essential contribution to Florida’s multi-ethnic heritage. In 1738, there were approximately 100 African refugees, mostly runaways from the Carolinas, living in what became Fort Mose. Many were skilled workers, blacksmiths, carpenters, cattlemen, boatmen, and farmers. With accompanying women and children, they created a colony of freed people that ultimately attracted other fugitive slaves.20 For the next 80 years, Florida remained in the hands of the Spanish and became a haven for fugitive slaves from the British colonial possessions of North Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
citizens to rebuild Fort Mose at a new location up north. Captain Francisco Menéndez again led the second Fort Mose settlement until 1763, when the British gained control of Florida after the French and Indian War. In 1759, Fort Mose had 67 residents, the majority of whom had a two-parent household with children. At this point in history, the Spanish residents fled the state and migrated to Matanzas and Cuba, on the Spanish frontier, though for the African Fort Mose residents, the resettlement in Matanzas was difficult for them, so the refugees later moved to Havana or elsewhere in Cuba.
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FIGURE 91
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C U LT U R A L LY
2.5 |
Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma The territory of Northern Oklahoma had been established for the resettlement of Native Americans from the Southeast. The Greenwood District in Tulsa Oklahoma was the only available plot of land for African Americans to purchase at the time because they could not lay claim to their Native American descendants for land ownership. O.W. Gruley was a wealthy African American landowner from Arkansas who came to Tulsa, Oklahoma, or what was known then as the Indian Territory to participate in the Oklahoma Land Run of 1889. Gruley then purchased 40 acres of land, which he strictly sold only to other African Americans.
Trail of Tears 1| The route along which the United States government forced several tribes of Native Americans, including the Cherokees, Seminoles, Chickasaws, Choctaws, and Creeks, to migrate to reservations west of the Mississippi River in the 1820s, 1830s, and 1840s. Those on the march suffered greatly from disease and mistreatment. 1| Native American nations owned slaves, and as selfPage | 92
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FIGURE 93a. 93a.
FIGURE 93b.
FIGURE 93c.
FIGURE 93d.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 94
Black Wall Street
governing nations, they were not subject to the laws of the United States. After the Civil War, these nations refused to release their slaves. In 1866, the U.S. government made a treaty with the Chickasaw Indians to liberate their slaves and make them citizens. Even though they freed their slaves, they did not, however, allow them to be part of the Chickasaw Nation. These free slaves were neither Americans nor Native Americans; they became people without a country and no legal status for the next 30 years. In the late 1890s, the U.S. government began to draw up roles for the Native Americans and their slaves. Some families were lucky enough to travel to the capital of the Chickasaw Nation and claim their 40 acres given by their previous owners. For those who couldn’t make the travel in the late 1890s, this is still a significant issue that the ancestors of these slaves are still fighting towards today in the 21st century, to embrace their heritage, become members of the Chickasaw nation, along with all the benefits that being a member would offer them. Only 1 in 20 African Americans have Native American Indian blood. So, what does this mean? This means that African Americans that have ancestors that were owned by the Native Americans aren’t Native American by DNA. There were a Page | 94
lot less Native Americans at this time than Europeans, which would make it less likely for an African American to have Native American DNA and more likely for African Americans to have European ancestry today. For those who couldn’t make the travel in the late 1890s, this is still a significant issue that the ancestors of these slaves are still fighting towards today in the 20th century, to embrace their heritage, become members of the Chickasaw nation, along with all the benefits that being a member would offer them. Tulsa, Oklahoma, was once a thriving African American community from 1830 to 1921. Tulsa became so prosperous that it came to be known as “The Negro Wall Street” now formally referred to as “Black Wall Street.” Black Wall Street consisted of modern office buildings, electric trolleys, and rows of freshly painted houses growing out towards the surrounding countryside.21 Tulsa, Oklahoma, was indeed a town for African Americans to create, live, and thrive in a new life. It was a place where opportunities were forged and could be passed down from generation to generation. It was a place worth sacrificing for. The main economic draw to Tulsa was oil. Glenn pool was discovered in 1905, and it was the be the most abundant oil field in the world.22 By 1910, Tulsa had more than ten thousand residents. Eventually, the word began to spread about Tulsa, Oklahoma is a place where fortunes could be made, lives could be rebuilt, and a fresh start could be had.23 This opportunity to create a fresh start and live in a town full of people that looked like you and gave opportunities to people just like you helped Tulsa’s population flourish to have one-hundred thousand residents by 1920. This growth helped Tulsa gain another nickname, “The Magic City.” By 1921, Tulsa was home to more than four-hundred oil and gas companies, oil field supply companies, tank manufacturers, pipeline companies, and refineries.24 In addition to Tulsa being the leading seller of oil in the world at this time, its location, in conjunction with the cities increasing transportation infrastructure, helped bring more businesses than ever before to Tulsa with the invention of the automobile. From 1912 through 1920, Tulsa’s hub had grown with the addition of four different intersection railroads, an airport, city hall, schools, parks, banks, and auditoriums. By 1921 more than two-hundred attorneys were practicing in Tulsa along with approximately one- hundred and fifty doctors and sixty dentists. With the growth of jobs came the growth of opportunities for the residents, which subsequently led to the increase of personal household wealth in Tulsa. Tulsans grew to become proud of their downtown as a place to be entertained, worship, and work. Tulsa’s African American community had more churches than its surrounding Caucasian communities. Probably most impressive from an architectural standpoint, perhaps, was the beautiful, brand new home of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, which was dedicated on April 10, 1921, less than eight weeks before the riot. Page | 95
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
Black Wall Street
However perfect Tulsa seemed, it appeared to many as one wholesome town, but in reality, it was two. The Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma, was disparagingly referred to by some Caucasians as “Little Africa.” Little Africa was home to roughly ten thousand African American men, women, and children.25 Many of Tulsa’s residents were descendants of African American slaves who had accompanied the Creeks, Cherokees, and Choctaws on the Trail of Tears,26 while others were children or grandchildren of runaway slaves, and a few of the residents were born into slavery. Like every city, Tulsa had its rich and its poor. As the city grew, there were the oil tycoons, lawyers, and doctors that had their mansions, but there was also a corresponding increase for domestic help. Approximately 200 Tulsans were residing in all Caucasian neighborhoods working as maids, cooks, and butlers while living in servant quarters. Weekend trips to Greenwood soon became the highlight of their week.
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FIGURE 97
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
B.C. Franklin “B.C. Franklin was one. Born in a small country crossroads about twenty miles southwest of Pauls Valley, Franklin’s family had roots in Oklahoma that stretched back to the days of the old Chickasaw Nation during the Civil War. An intelligent and determined young man, Franklin had attended college in Tennessee and Georgia, but returned to Indian Territory to open up a law practice. He eventually settled in Rentiesville, an all-black town located between Muskogee and Checotah, where he became not only the sole lawyer in town, but also its postmaster, its justice of the peace, and one of its leading businessmen. However, as his son John Hope Franklin later wrote, “there was not a decent living in all those activities”. Thus, in February 1921, B.C. Franklin moved to Tulsa in the hopes of setting up a more lucrative practice.”27
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FIGURE 99
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 100
Black Wall Street
In 1919 more than two dozen race riots broke out in other cities across America. In Washington, D.C. rumors spread about a rapist on the loose for several weeks. Later a Caucasian woman claimed that two young African American men sexually assaulted her. Even though she later admitted that her story was false, the newspapers had already run the story building up the racial tensions in the city. The Washington Post ran the headline “Negroes Attack Girl, White Men Vainly Purse.” Soon after, as you could probably predict, the nation capital burst into racially geared violence. Many sailors, marines, and soldiers began to molest African American people they saw. During the riot, at least six people were killed with hundreds of injured. Before the African American neighborhoods were set to flames, the Secretary of War called on two thousand federal troops to patrol the streets.28 This was not the only aligned assault that started a race riot. The same series of events played out in Tennessee and Nebraska. Throughout history, it has been clear that a rape or attempted rape of a Caucasian woman by an African American man was one of the most extreme crimes that could ever be committed. History repeated itself once again in 1921. The Tulsa Race Riot or Greenwood Massacre brought this once-thriving African American neighborhood all to an end. When a 19-year-old African American boy,who went by the name of Dick Rowland, went to use the restroom in the nearby Drexel Building, which at the time was the only restroom he could use in this area of town due to segregation. When leaving the building, Dick Rowland got in the elevator, which was being run by a Caucasian woman that went by the name of Sara Page. Many are not sure about what happened on the elevator that day between Rowland and Page, but a scream was heard, and Rowland was witnessed fleeing the scene. Later he was arrested, and word spread about a lynching. African American and Caucasian mobs arrived at the courthouse Page | 100
later that night, and a fight broke out after an accidental gunshot was fired. The African American mob headed back to Greenwood, seeing as though they were outnumbered, but the fight didn’t stop there. The Caucasian mob followed not too far behind burn homes and businesses along the way.29 The attack was carried out on the ground and by air destroying more than 35 square blocks of the district at that time, the wealthiest black community in the United States. More than three hundred people died, eight hundred people were admitted to hospitals, and more than six thousand black residents were arrested and detained, with multitudes for several days. Amazingly this massacre was not the only contributor to the decline of Black Wall Street, but it was what came after this. After the massacre, many residents went on to file claims. About ten thousand black people were left homeless, and property damage amounted to more than $1.5 million in real estate and $750,000 in personal property (which was about $32 million in 2019). What kept the people of Greenwood from rebuilding swiftly were legislative changes prohibiting the construction of timber buildings and enforcing the construction of brick buildings. Ten years after the massacre occurred, the surviving residents rebuilt most of Greenwood until a new University was placed in the center of the four intersecting railroads. This town that once had booming businesses and a superior school system that educated the African American youth was now gone. The average income of the Greenwood residents exceeded what minimum wage is today. The dollar circulated 36 to 100 times and remained in Greenwood almost a year before leaving.30 Freedmen towns like the Greenwood District in Tulsa, Oklahoma was indeed a town for African Americans to create, live, and thrive in a new life. It was a place where opportunities were forged and could be passed down from generation to generation. It was a place worth sacrificing for.
FIGURE 101
Painting of slaves below the deck of slave transporting ship Page | 101
Weeksville, Brooklyn
“Imagine being told your entire life that you were not really a citizen of your town or country. Imagine being treated as an inferior, offered only the most menial of jobs, and told to be happy with your lot in life. Imagine being banned from churches, stores and theaters, even cemeteries, because they did not serve “your kind.”31 Weeksville, Brooklyn
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FIGURE 103
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Weeksville, Brooklyn
“Now imagine finding a town where you were accepted, a town where you were able to build your own home, worship in your own church, buy from stores owned by people like you, and raise and educate your children in a place where they would be welcome. A town where you could reach old age and pass on in dignity and equality.”32 Weeksville, Brooklyn
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FIGURE 105
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C U LT U R A L LY
2.6 | Weeksville in Brooklyn, New York Weeksville was purposefully a place intended for the residents to grow old with dignity from many generations to come. Around the 1830s, John Lefferts began selling off parcels of his estate from 8th Ward to as far eastward as one could go and still be in Brooklyn. Henry C. Thompson, a leader in the African American abolitionist movement, purchased 32 lots from Lefferts.33 However, Weeksville was named after James Weeks, an African American dockworker from Virginia. He also purchased a plot of land from Henry C. Thompson. Weeksville is a historic neighborhood founded by free African Americans in what is now Brooklyn, New York, United States. Today it is part of the present-day neighborhood of Crown Heights. Weeksville’s land investors were community builders. Their purpose was not to sell land and make money but to sell land at a reasonable cost. They intentionally promoted cheap and free properties free of any bonds or mortgages for the immediate development of homes. Their marketing strategy was explicitly directed towards African American readers in African American newspapers.
“Land For Sale The Public are most respectfully informed that 190 lots, varying from 25 by 100 to 140 feet deep, will be sold cheap, and free of any bond or mortgage. Said lots are situated in Bedford in the vicinity of Brooklyn. For particulars, apply to Paul Pontou, 294 Second St. Osborn & Dixon, 217 Center St. New York, May 22, 1841”34 Page | 106
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FIGURE 107a.
FIGURE 107b.
FIGURE 107c.
FIGURE 107d. 107d.
FIGURE 107e.
FIGURE 107f.
FIGURE 107g.
FIGURE 107h.
FIGURE 107i.
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During the violent New York Draft Riots of 1863, the community served as a refuge for many African Americans fleeing from Manhattan. However, by the 1880s, development began to catch up to Weeksville. The expansion of the street grid began to uproot homes and farmlands. The development of the Eastern Parkway ultimately destroyed Weeksville’s cemeteries, and only a memory of the once-thriving village was left.
The Black & African American Experience
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
Like Black Wall Street, Weeksville had its own churches, schools, businesses, along with its own cemetery, and newspaper. By the 1850s, Weeksville was home to 500 residents from all over the east coast. People came to Weeksville from all areas of Brooklyn and New York, as well as New England, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the coastal areas of Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas, and Africa and the Caribbean. Weeksville’s new settlers were all people of color who drastically stood out from the locals at the time.35
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FIGURE 109
Weeksville Community Center Page | 109
CHAPTER 02 1 | Gates, “African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present”, 2013, Ibid.
2 | Nash, Gary B. Race and Revolution. Madison, WI: Madison House, 2001. P. 161
3 | Gates, “African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present”, 2013, Ibid.
4 | Brady, Mathew, ed. “Slavery a Positive Good.” Teaching
American History. Accessed March 1, 2020. https:// teachingamericanhistory.org/library/document/slavery-apositive-good/.
5 | “Page:An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans
Called Africans.djvu/64.” Page:An Appeal in Favor of that Class of Americans Called Africans.djvu/64 - Wikisource, the free online library. Accessed March 1, 2020. https:// en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:An_Appeal_in_Favor_of_that_ Class_of_Americans_Called_Africans.djvu/64.
6 | 9, November. “There Were No ‘Good’ Slaveowners
Reclaiming Kin” Reclaiming Kin, September 15, 2019. https:// www.reclaimingkin.com/there-were-no-good-slaveowners/.
7 | National Geographic Society. “A History of Slavery in
the United States.” National Geographic Society, January 16, 2020. https://www.nationalgeographic.org/interactive/ slavery-united-states/.
8 | “Henry ‘Box’ Brown.” Biography.com. A&E Networks
Television, August 22, 2019. https://www.biography.com/ activist/henry-box-brown.
9 | National Geographic Society. “A History of Slavery in the United States.” Ibid.
10 | National Geographic Society. “A History of Slavery in the United States.” Ibid.
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END NOTES 11 | Murray, Colin L., and Portia P. James. Resource Guide: the
Real McCoy: African-American Invention and Innovation. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service, 1989.
12 | Lienhard, John h. “SLAVE INVENTORS.” No. 1076: Slave Inventors, 1997. https://www.uh.edu/engines/epi1076.htm.
13 | National Geographic Society. “A History of Slavery in the United States.” Ibid.
14 | Sitton, Thad, and James H. Conrad. Freedom Colonies: Independent Black Texans in the Time of Jim Crow. Austin: University of Texas Press, 2005.
15 | Sitton, Thad. “FREEDMEN’S SETTLEMENTS.” The Handbook
of Texas Online| Texas State Historical Association (TSHA), June 12, 2010. https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/ articles/uef20.
16 | Gates, “African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present”, 2013, Ibid.
17 | “Fort Mose.” Florida Museum, December 7, 2018. https://
www.floridamuseum.ufl.edu/histarch/research/staugustine/fort-mose/.
18 | “Fort Mose---American Latino Heritage: A Discover Our
Shared Heritage Travel Itinerary.” National Parks Service. U.S. Department of the Interior. Accessed February 28, 2020. https://www.nps.gov/nr/travel/american_latino_heritage/ Fort_Mose.html.
19 | Gates, “African-American Migrations, 1600s to Present”, 2013, Ibid.
20 | Bullock, James. “Fort Mose, Florida (1738-1820).” Blackpast, August 5, 2019. https://www.blackpast.org/african-americanhistory/fort-mose-florida/.
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CHAPTER 02 21 | Ellsworth, Scott. “Black Wall Street Tulsa’s Successful History.” Black Wall Street, October 26, 2008.
22 | Scott, “Black Wall Street Tulsa’s Successful History.” Ibid. 23 | Scott, “Black Wall Street Tulsa’s Successful History.” Ibid. 24 | Scott, “Black Wall Street Tulsa’s Successful History.” Ibid.
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END NOTES
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 114
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Race
/rās/
(n.) 1 |each of the major divisions of humankind, having distinct physical characteristics. 2 | used to categorize people who share biological traits that a society thinks are important.
1 | All of these people could be considered African American, Black, or African, but they might not have the same ethnicity as each other.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 116
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Ethnicity
eth·nic·i·ty /eTH’nis dē/ e
(n.) 1 | the fact or state of belonging to a social group that has a common national or cultural tradition.
Ethnic
eth·nic /’eTHnik/
(adj.) 1 | relating to a population subgroup (within a larger or dominant national or cultural group) with a common national or cultural tradition.
1 | This group of people has different races but could share the same ethnic background. For example, they could all have Hispanic or Latino ethnicity. The United States Census Bureau uses the ethnonyms “Hispanic or Latino” to refer to “a person of Cuban, Mexican, Puerto Rican, South or Central American, or other Spanish culture or origin regardless of race” and states that Hispanics or Latinos can be of any race, any ancestry, any ethnicity.
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C hapter 03
Becoming an African American
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FIGURE 119
A collage comprised of typical scenes from African American culture. Image created by author.
3.1 | Question of Identity: What is Race? It is essential to note the difference between race and ethnicity. While race is based on physical characteristics. Ethnicity does not determine one’s race. Instead, it is based on the cultural group one might associate with. For example, most people confuse being Hispanic and Jewish for a race when one can be a white Hispanic or a black Hispanic; the same goes for being Jewish. Because even though Europeans might view it as a race, it is a religion. Also, if we look back in history, there are records of African Jewish people in Nigeria, Madagascar, Kenya, and more. The Igbo Jews of Nigeria are among the Igbo ethnic group. Race was a social construct that determined what people that classified as non-whites could and could not do. It would go on to determine who could own land, where you could live, how you were taxed, and, most importantly, if you were a slave. “They had names, of course, but their enslavers did not bother to record them. They had been made black by those people who believed that they were white…”1 In 1790 the first U.S. Census was invented by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson believed that race was biological; it determines intelligence, beauty, and how humans experienced emotions. Jefferson went as far as making an equation to determine whether one was black. The passage below is Thomas Jefferson’s letter to Francis Gray: Page | 119
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
Pure Negro Equation “To be called African-Americans has cultural integrity,” Jackson said. “It puts us in our proper historical context. Every ethnic group in this country has a reference to some land base, some historical, cultural base. AfricanAmericans have hit that level of cultural maturity. There are ArmenianAmericans and JewishAmericans and Arab-Americans and ItalianAmericans; and with a degree of accepted and reasonable pride, they connect their heritage to their mother country and where they are now.”’2 Let us express the pure blood of the white in the capital letters of the printed3 alphabet, the pure blood of the Negro in the small letters of the printed alphabet, and any given mixture of either, by way of abridgment in MS. letters. Let the 1st crossing be of a pure Negro, with A. pure white. the Unit of blood of the issue being composed of the half of that of each parent will be a/2 + A/2 call it, for abbreviation, h (half-blood) Let the 2d crossing be of h. and B. the blood of the issue will be h/2 + B/2, or substituting for h/2 it’s equivalent, it will be a/4 + A/4 + B/2. call it q (quarteroon) being ¼ Negro blood. Let the 3d crossing be of q. and C. their offspring will be q/2 + C/2 = a/8 + A/8 + B/4 + C/2. call this e. (eighth) who having less than ¼ of a. or of pure Negro blood, to wit 1/8 only, is no longer a mulatto. so that a 3d cross clears the blood. from these elements let us examine other compounds. For example, let h. and q. cohabit. their issue will be h/2 + q/2 = a/4 + A/4 + a/8 + A/8 + B/4 = 3/8 + 3/8 + B/4 wherein we find 3/8 of a. or of Negro blood. Let h. and e. cohabit. their issue will be h/2 + e/2 = a/4 + A/4 + a/16 + A/16 + B/8 + C/4 = 5a/16 + 5A/16 + B/8 + C/4 wherein 5/16a. makes still a mulatto. Let q. and e. cohabit. the half of the blood of each will be q/2 + e/2 = a/8 + A/8 + B/4 + a/16 + A/16 + B/8 + C/4 = 3a/16 + 3A/16 + 3/8 + C/4 wherein 3/16 of a is no longer mulatto. And thus may every compound be noted & summed, the sum of the fractions composing the blood of the issue being always equal to Unit.”3 Page | 120
FIGURE 121
Portrait of Thomas Jefferson
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WHAT IS
In a simpler context this means, that if a person had one Black or African great grandparent, they would then be considered white, which is equal to 1/8 or less black blood. However, they would still be a slave because that was hereditary. Though if that slave was to be emancipated, they would enter the New World as an American citizen. Now think about this in today’s modern context. If one is to be born an interracial child with one white parent and one black parent, they would most likely be thought of as a black or African American before being called white. Furthermore, this would only happen if one did not confuse them for another race because they looked unique to them, the common racial groups they are used to associating people with. Thus, due to our deep-rooted history of migration, blackness is complex. Griffe 1 | a person of three-quarter black and one-quarter white ancestry
2 | a person of mixed black and American Indian blood4
Black or African American 1 | A person having origins in any of the Black racial groups of Africa. In the 20th century, the one-drop rule was invented. It is an example of hypodescent, the automatic assignment of children of a mixed union between different socioeconomic or ethnic groups to the group with the lower status, regardless of the proportion of ancestry in different groups. Further, explain why today, most people of all races would associate anyone with 100 percent black ancestry to anyone with 20 percent black ancestry as being classified as the minority. Again, this was just another social classification that only applied to African Americans. At the end of the day, we need to all learn our common ancestry before we can accept that as a group of people, we have more in common with our similarities than we do not with our physical differences. Nevertheless, not just diversity as a nation should be accepted, but a diversity of thought should be accepted too, for us all to come together as one nation despite our personal beliefs. Since that is what race is, our social beliefs defining our current day physical characteristics. Page | 122
RACE?
FIGURE 123
Page | 123
1790 1800 1810 1820 1830 1840
All Other Free People
Free White Males & Females
Slaves
All Other Free People
Free White Males & Females
Slaves
All Other Free People
Free White Males & Females
Slaves
All Other Free People
Free White Males & Females
Slaves
Free Color People
All Other Free People
Free White Males & Females
Slaves
Free Color People
All Other Free People
Free White Males & Females
Slaves
Free Color People
White
Black
Mulatto
White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian
White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian
White
Black
Mulatto
Chinese
Indian
White
Black
Mulatto
White
Black (Negro or Negro Decent)
Other
White
Black (Negro)
Other
White
Black (Negro)
Other
White
Other
Other
1850 1860 1870 1880 1890 1900 1910
IDENTITY
Chinese
Japanese
Indian
Chinese
Japanese
Indian
Mulatto
Chinese
Japanese
Indian
Mulatto
Chinese
Japanese
Hindu, Filipino & Korean
Indian
Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Hindu, Filipino & Korean
Indian
White
Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Hindu, Filipino & Korean
Indian
White
Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino
American Indian
Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino
American Indian, Eskimo, Aleut
Quadroon & Octoroon
1920 1930 1940 1950
Mexican
1960 White
Hawaiian or Part Hawaiian
Other
White
Hawaiian
Origin or Decent: Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central or South American, Other Spanish
Negro or Black
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino & Korean
Indian (American)
Other
White
Hawaiian, Guamanian, Samoan
Spanish/Hispanic Origin or Decent: Mexican, Mexican-Amer. Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Other
Black or Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino & Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese
Aleut, Eskimo, Indian (American)
Other
White
Hawaiian, Guamanian, Samoan, Other API
Spanish/Hispanic Origin or Decent: Mexican, Mexican-Amer. Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Other
Black or Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino & Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese
Asians or Pacific Islanders
Aleut, Eskimo, Indian (American)
Some Other
White
Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islanders
Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan
Spanish/Hispanic/Latino: Mexican, Mexican-Amer. Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Other
Black, African American, Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino & Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese
Other Asians
American Indian & Alaska Native
Some Other
White
Native Hawaiian, Other Pacific Islanders
Guamanian or Chamorro, Samoan
Spanish/Hispanic/Latino: Mexican, Mexican-Amer. Chicano, Puerto Rican, Cuban, and Other
Black, African American, Negro
Chinese
Japanese
Filipino & Korean, Asian Indian, Vietnamese
Other Asians
American Indian & Alaska Native
1970 1980 1990 2000 2010
Page | 124
IDENTITY
Page | 125
CHAPTER 03 1 | Dunbar, Roberta Ann. The American Historical Review 78, no. 5 (1973): 1506-507. Accessed February 5, 2020. doi:10.2307/1854194.
2 | Godfrey Mwakikagile, The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2010. pp. 43–44. ISBN 978-998716-023-5. 3 | Piga, Adriana: Islam et villes en Afriqa au sud du Sahara: Entre soufisme et fondamentalisme, p. 265. KARTHALA Editions, 2003.
4 | The Empire of Mali - The Twang of a Bow - Extra History - #1. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=UkayShPilkw&t=354s. 5 | Conrad, David C., and Condé Djanka Tassey. Sunjata: a West African Epic of the Mande Peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2004. p. xxxv ISBN 0-87220-697-1. 6 | Jansen, Jan. “Hot Issues: The 1997 Kamabolon Ceremony in Kangaba (Mali).” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 31, no. 2 (1998): 253-78. Accessed February 24, 2020. doi:10.2307/221083. 7 | Collins, Robert O., and James M. Burns. A History of Sub-
Saharan Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014. P. 84 ISBN 0-521-86746-0.
8 | Conrad, David C. “Oral Sources on Links between Great
States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga.” History in Africa 11 (1984): 35-55. Accessed February 24, 2020. doi:10.2307/3171626.
9 | The Empire of Mali - An Empire of Trade and Faith Extra History - #2. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=YPytwp5ll9g. 10 | The Empire of Mali - Mansa Musa - Extra History - #3. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4-Un2xx6Pzo&t=9s. Page | 126
END NOTES 11 | “Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351.” ORIAS. UC Berkeley, 2020. https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/travels-ibnbattuta/journey/journey-mali-1350-1351. 12 | Brett, Michael. “Berber.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., March 20, 2019. https://www. britannica.com/topic/Berber.
13 | Niane, D.T.: “Recherches sur l’Empire du Mali au Moyen âge”. Presence Africaine. Paris, 1975 14 | Battuta, Ibn. Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa. Teheran: B.T.N.K., 1958. p. 329, ISBN 0-7100-9568-6.
15 | “Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351.” ORIAS. UC Berkeley, 2020. https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/travels-ibnbattuta/journey/journey-mali-1350-1351. 16 | The Empire of Mali - The Final Bloody Act - Extra History
- #5. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Mi79VdOCXGc
17 | International Religious Freedom Report 2008: Mali. State. gov (19 September 2008). Retrieved 4 May 2012.
18 | Hazard, Anthony. “The Atlantic Slave Trade: What Too Few Textbooks Told You.” YouTube. TED-Ed, December 22, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXC4Q_4JVg.
19 | The Abolition Project. (2009). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_42.html
20 | Green, John. “The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course World History #24.” YouTube. Crash Course, July 5, 2012. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY. 21 | Gates, H. L. (2013). African-American Migrations, 1600s to
Present. Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.pbs. org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/ on-african-american-migrations/
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FIGURE 128
Ciwara typology
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Ciwara Bambara: ciwara; French: tchiwara1 Chi wara or Tyiwara
1 | Antelope figure of the Bambara (Bamana) people of Mali that represents the spirit that taught humans the fundamentals of agriculture.
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C hapter 04 Important Symbols
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FIGURE 131
Photo of the ciwara status in Bamako, Mali. Photo taken by author.
4.1 | Ciwara Symbol According to the oral Bambara legends, the ciwara was a half antelope, half-human figure born from the union of the sky goddess Mousso Koroni and an earth spirit in the shape of a cobra. The ciwara would use his antler and pointed stick to dig into the earth, making it possible for natives to cultivate the land. The natives watched and learned from the ciwara and later tilled their soil. Then the ciwara would use its hoofs to cover the planted seeds. As the Bambara farmers observed the ciwara closely, they began to mimic the ciwara’s behavior and eventually became experts. After cultivating the earth, the farmers became so bountiful that they had too much corn for their use. Over time, they wasted their bounty, and the ciwara grew disappointed with them and buried himself in the earth. Once the Bambara elders were notified of their loss, it later led to a mask being made in memory of the ciwara in honor of him teaching them how to farm. Over the years, people began to create elaborate headdresses in honor of the ciwara too. These masks are reserved for the person who is the best and fastest farmer; the mask can be passed on to another person depending on their skills and expertise. It is considered a high honor to wear the mask and dance the ceremonial ciwara dance. The ciwara dance can be represented by both male and female dancers wearing the traditional carved headdresses representing the antelope. The dancers will leap and turn throughout the dance moving their heads and feet like the antelope; these movements are grounded in hundreds of years of tradition. The ciwara dance also represents fertility, reproduction, propitiation of the spirits and ancestors, and gratitude to the ciwara, carrying with its moral lessons and symbolism. There are many types of ciwara. The principle three sculptures represent regions inhabited by the Bambara people. Ciwara masks are commonly categorized in three ways, horizontal, vertical, or abstract, Page | 131
CIWARA and then by gender. Female ciwara masks are denoted with straight horns and the presence of a baby antelope. On the other hand, male ciwaras are denoted by curved horns and a phallus. In the southern region of Mali, between Koutiala and Segou, the ciwara is depicted with vertical antelope shape, elongated neck, and horns. However, the male antelope has a mane, and the female antelope is depicted with a young baby on her back. In the southern region of Mali near Bougouni, the ciwara is depicted uniquely using angles and forms. The third type of ciwara is depicted as more naturalistic, with the head of it attached with metal clips. The ciwara design also differs based on the period in which it was created.
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CHIWARA
FIGURE 133
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FIGURE 134
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Adinkra Cloth adin·kra | \ ä-’diŋ-krä
(n.) 1 | a writing system incorporating symbols representing various concepts that are used by the Akan peoples of Ghana to mark fabrics, walls, pottery, and other surfaces.
1 | means “saying goodbye” (farewell) to the dead. 2 2 | Adinkra is an Akan word. Akan is the language of the Akan people, who comprise about half of the Ghana population. Adinkra implies a philosophical message that one conveys when mourning during a funeral or the post-burial memorial.
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IMPORTANCE
4.2 | Adinkra Symbols & Cloth Adinkra symbols are believed to have originated in Gyaman, a former kingdom in modernday Côte d’Ivoire. The Asante legend states that King Nana Kofia Adinkra of the Gyaman Kingdom was captured in battle and believed to be wearing a patterned cloth when he was taken to Kumasi, the capital of Ashanti. Many believed he wore it to express his sorrows for the loss of his freedom and the death of his soldiers after he was defeated. While others claim King Adinkra insulted the king of the Asante, also known as Ashanti, by copying the design of his sacred golden stool. Whatever the story might be, King Bonsu later killed King Adinkra, and his territory was annexed to the kingdom of Asante. Later, the Asante people claimed these patterns as their own and painted these traditional symbols of the Gyamans onto a cloth, and this tradition is still used today. If asked, the Asante people will say that the patterns were created by the first men to make the cloth and that the “Asante do not use dates or numbers. It was a long, long time ago.”3 Adinkra symbols can be found on many items, including fabrics, pottery, logos, advertisements, buildings, gold weights, sculptures, and stools used for traditional rituals. However, the adinkra symbols are not only decorative; they are representative of actual messages of traditional wisdom relevant to life and the environment. Many symbols have meanings that are linked to proverbs, like the sankofa symbol. In English, Sankofa translates to “reach back and get it” or “It is not wrong to go back for that which you have forgotten.” While other symbols depict historical events, human and animal behavior, human attitudes, plant life, and an object’s form. Over time hundreds of adinkra motifs have been recorded throughout history, but presently, approximately two hundred symbols are commonly used today. The present center of traditional production of adinkra cloth is Ntonso, Ghana, which is 12 miles northwest of Kumasi. Dark Adinkra aduru pigment for the stamping is made there, by soaking, pulverizing, and boiling the inner bark and roots of the badie tree (Bridelia ferruginea) in water over a Page | 136
OF SYMBOLS
FIGURE 137a.
FIGURE 137b.
FIGURE 137c.
FIGURE 137d. 137d.
FIGURE 137e.
FIGURE 137f.
FIGURE 137g.
FIGURE 137h.
FIGURE 137i.
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Adinkra cloths were traditionally only worn by royalty and spiritual leaders for funerals and special occasions. The adinkra cloth worn during funerary occasions is made with dark brown, brick red, and black pigment.5 Today, the adinkra cloth can be worn by anyone. They are frequently mass-produced with bright colored fabrics. The adinkra cloths that use these bright and light backgrounds are classified as Kwasiada Adinkra or Sunday Adinkra, meaning fancy clothes. These adinkra cloths are not to be worn at funerary occasions but are appropriate for festive occasions and daily wear. For daily wear, the printers use the Nwomu technique, where the Adinkra pattern is broken up into sections with bright strips of kente or rayon.
Importance of Symbol
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
wood fire. Once the dark color is released, the mixture is strained, and then boiled for several more hours until it thickens. This thick, syrupy dye is called ‘medicine’ or ‘adinkra aduru.’ The stamps are carved out of the bottom of a calabash piece; the stamps measure between five to eight-centimeter size squares. They have a handle on the back, and the stamp itself is slightly curved so that the dye can be put on with a rocking motion.4
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FIGURE 139
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IMPORTANCE
4.3 | Freedom Quilts When Jacqueline Tobin and Raymond Dobard explored in their book Hidden in Plain View: A Secret Story of Quilts and the Underground Railroad, a family legend that said messages encoded in quilts helped slaves escape to freedom on the Underground Railroad. They had no idea that their hypothesis would inspire rancor from scholars who declared it false. They also could not have predicted how their story, published less than ten years ago, would capture the popular imagination, and be treated as fact on The Oprah Winfrey Show, in museum exhibits, in children’s textbooks, and on the Web, and spawning an industry of quilt codebooks and patterns. Since she lacked historical data to back up Williams’ claim, Tobin enlisted her friend Raymond Dobard, a quilter and art history professor affiliated with Howard University, to help research and write the book. Tobin later states, “Whether or not it is completely valid, I have no idea, but it makes sense with the amount of research we did.” However, since they were only relying on oral history of one family, many historians were upset. Since the 1980s, claims have arisen that quilt designs were used to signal and direct slaves to escape routes and the assistance of their allies. In this quilt theory, it has been said that twelve quilt patterns were used to direct slaves. These quilts would be placed one at a time along a fence; they suggested nonverbal communication that alerted escaping slaves. The codes of the quilt patterns had dual meanings; the first pattern signal told the slaves to prepare for escape. The second signal was to give fugitive slaves a clue that indicated directions on the journey. The quilt design theory is heavily disputed. Remember, slaves were not allowed to learn how to read, and many of them most likely would not speak the same languages, having come from different African nations. This made it difficult for them to communicate with each other and write to each other. However, many slaves had the same background of oral history, textile production, and art. Meaning that they most likely realized they were able to communicate messages through design, color, stitches, and patterns, like Adinkra cloths. Some Page | 140
OF SYMBOLS
FIGURE 141a.
FIGURE 141b.
FIGURE 141c.
FIGURE 141d. 141d.
FIGURE 141e.
FIGURE 141f.
FIGURE 141g.
FIGURE 141h.
FIGURE 141i.
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FIGURE 142
researchers believe that slaves used sampler quilts to memorize quilt meanings. Once stitched, the codes would be displayed by “airing” them out of the window of the slave cabins or by laying them out on the fence for all to see.6 Similarly, some sources have claimed that spirituals and other songs like “Steal Away” or “Follow the Drinking Gourd” also contained coded information. Scholars tend to believe that while the slave songs may indeed have expressed hope for deliverance from the sorrows of this world, these songs did not present real help for runaway slaves. The Underground Railroad also inspired songs like the “Song of the Free.”
Song of the Free
“I’m on my way to Canada, That cold and dreary land,
Importance of Symbol
The dire effects of slavery I can no longer stand, My soul is vexed within me more To think that I’m a slave, I’m now resolved to strike the blow For freedom, or the grave. Oh, righteous father, wilt thou not pity me, And aid me on to Canada, where colored men are free.”
Historians like Laurel Horton are more interested in why the story continues to persist. Laurel states, “This whole issue made me realize it is not a matter of one group having the truth Page | 142
and another not. It is a matter of two different sets of beliefs. It is made me realize that belief does not have a lot to do with factual representation. People feel in their gut that it is true, so no one can convince them in their head that it is otherwise.”7 Oral history is a tradition that was told for centuries in African nations. So, it appears we have been forgotten because we have been hidden.
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CHAPTER 04 1 | Asante, Molefi Kete. “Chiwara.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., August 15, 2014. https://www. britannica.com/topic/Chiwara.
2 | Willis, W. Bruce. The Adinkra Dictionary: a Visual Primer on the Language of Adinkra. Washington: The Pyramid Complex, 2005.
3 | Boateng, Kwabena. “History and Origin of Adinkra
Symbols.” GhanaCulturePolitics, June 25, 2017. http:// ghanaculturepolitics.com/history-and-origin-of-adinkrasymbols/.
4 | Boateng, Kwabena. “History and Origin of Adinkra Symbols.” Ibid.
5 | “Adinkra Symbols and the Rich Akan Culture.”
African Heritage, August 21, 2019. https://afrolegends. com/2014/08/27/adinkra-symbols-and-the-rich-akanculture/.
6 | Angeles, Stacie Stukin/Los. “Unravelling the Myth
of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.” Time. Time Inc., April 3, 2007. http://content.time.com/time/arts/ article/0,8599,1606271,00.html.
7 | Angeles, Stacie Stukin/Los. “Unravelling the Myth of Quilts and the Underground Railroad.” Ibid.
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END NOTES
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C hapter 05 Brief for Fasso Town
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FIGURE 147
5.1 | Howard University Howard University is a historically black university founded in 1867 in Washington, D.C. Howard University is now a 256-acre campus that is located at the western end of my chosen site McMillan Sand Filtration. Members of the First Congregational Society of Washington D.C. considered establishing a theological seminary for the education of African Americans after the American Civil War. Remember this was a moment in history when the civil war had ended, and the country was left with no blueprint for how a new society would take form, but some brave visionaries, who fought in the war, decided to champion for a new cause. So, within a few weeks, the project expanded to include the establishment of a University. The new institution was named after its founder General Oliver Otis Howard, who was a Civil War hero and a Commissioner of the Freedmen’s Bureau. Howard served as president of the university from 1869 to 1874. Even though Howard is a private university, the university is financially supported in a larger part by the U.S. government. “The people who founded Howard believed that this free society had to be one characterized by equality… That those former slaves were going to get the same education that those white men who founded Howard had.” “It would be a mockery of all the devastation and death to go back to the society that existed before the civil war,” Winston stated.1
The original seal of Howard University is an illustrative example of how Howard viewed that education in the United States should be represented, all races of both genders sitting at the table Page | 147
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
of knowledge together. Although this seal represented the ideals in which Howard University wanted to be upheld; Howard was founded with the obligation to provide higher education for blacks primarily. However, on September 30, 1910, the new seal of Howard University, which reads “Veritas et Utilitas,” Truth and Service, appeared in public print for the first time in the student-published Howard University Journal. It was so controversial that it sparked Michael R. Winton to write a book called “The story behind Howard’s Seal.” Howard’s library is the leading research library on African American History. Their academic division includes the colleges and schools of arts and sciences, business, communications, dentistry, computer sciences, law, medicine, pharmacy, nursing, allied health sciences, and social work, along with graduate schools of education. Even though the student body was virtually all black students at one time, students of other races began to attend this prestigious university after World War II, especially students seeking a graduate level of education. Howard University was also the first in the nation to offer schooling on campus for grades K through 12.2 These students were not just learning in classrooms filled with all races from African-American, Caucasian, Native Americans, to Chinese, but they were also living together in university housing, offering them an authentic opportunity of equality, which was still very rare at this time.
Brief for Fasso Town
Over the years, Howard University would start to be known as pioneers of education, being the first of all University to graduate females and males regardless of their race in their respective majors of medicine, law, and more. In 1872, a black woman, Charlotte E. Ray, was Howard University’s first female graduate of their law school. However, she was also the first woman, white or black, to graduate from a regular, non-profit law school in the U.S. That same year, Mary D. Spackman, who was a white woman, became Howard’s first female graduate of the medical school. Among Howard’s most prominent graduates have been the U.S. Senator Edward William Brooke of Massachusetts; sociologist E. Franklin Frazier; playwright Amiri Baraka (LeRoi Jones); statesman Ralph Bunche, a long-time member of the United Nations and recipient of the 1950 Nobel Prize for Peace, who established the school’s political science department; soprano Jessye Norman; and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison.3
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FIGURE 149
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Stokley Carmicheal Stokley Carmicheal or better known as Kwane Toure was a student in the Department of Philosophy and the School of Divinity at Howard University. Toure coined the term “Black Power” and later went on to work as an activist for voting rights in Lowndes County, Alabama. He was born in Trinidad and grew up in the United States from the age of 11 and became an activist while attending Howard University. He eventually developed the Black Power movement, first while leading the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC), later serving as the “Honorary Prime Minister” of the Black Panther Party (BPP), and lastly, as a leader of the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (A-APRP).
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FIGURE 151
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
During the 20th and 21st centuries, an annual congressional appropriation that was administered by the U.S. Department of Education began to fund the University and The Howard University Hospital. In 1975, the historic Freedman’s Hospital closed after 112 years of use as Howard University College of Medicine’s primary teaching hospital. Howard University Hospital opened that same year and continues to be used as Howard University College of Medicine’s primary teaching hospital with service to the surrounding community. General Howard purposely set aside one part of the land for the university and the other for building lots to create an integrated community. These grandiose plans did later get postponed, but Howard University has still found their way to make an impact on American society.
Brief for Fasso Town
After five years, Howard University became a place of education for over 150,000 freed slaves. Howard University has played an essential role in American history and the Civil Rights Movement. Students even pioneered the technique of “stool-sitting.” This technique required them to occupy stools at a local cafeteria, which denied service to African Americans, which would then block other patrons from service. This tactic went on to later play a prominent role in later Civil Rights Movements. Howard’s students regularly held sit-ins and pickets around the campus at other commercial stores and restaurants that refused to serve them due to their race. These protests continued up until 1944.4 When Howard’s administration heard about these sit-ins, they directed students to halt their protests. A grant from the federal government supplied 60 percent of the university’s income, and President Mordecai Johnson feared that the students’ actions would compromise this relationship with Congress. While the desegregation of Thompson’s cafeteria was short-lived, the effectiveness of the ‘sit-in’ technique was apparent, and twenty years later, groups of students attending historically black colleges and universities would take it up as their own.5
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FIGURE 153
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C U LT U R A L LY
5.2 | McMillan Sand Filtration Site To the east of Howard University sits McMillan Reservoir, which was initially named Howard University Reservoir. This reservoir supplies most of the city’s municipal water. It was completed in 1902 by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. As the population grew, Congress determined in 1850 that the Potomac river should be the city’s primary source of water, but it is a tidal river that is too salty to be used for potable water. In 1851, a fire at the Library of Congress prompted Congress to ask the Army Corps of Engineers to find a solution to D.C.’s limited water supply, after two-thirds of the collection was destroyed. Congress required an “unfailing and abundant supply of good wholesome water” to meet the city’s needs. In the 1860s, the Georgetown Reservoir system opened, but there were numerous complaints about the water supply concerning its color and taste. They planned for water to flow from the Washington Aqueduct into the Dalecarlia Reservoir, where it would sit long enough for the sediment to settle out of it before the water would flow downhill to the Georgetown Reservoir. However, this concept failed; the water had a faster flow through the system than they anticipated, which did not give the sediment time to settle. So, in 1882 congress agreed to address this situation by funding a fourmile tunnel deep-bored through bedrock from Georgetown Reservoir to a location near the Howard University campus. They planned to construct a more extensive reservoir on higher ground, and Garrett Lydecker, a major in the Army Corps of Engineers, was put in charge of building this new tunnel. Though in 1898, construction was abandoned due to the discovery of Lydecker’s embezzlement and fraud, leaving Senator James McMillan, who is better known for the McMillan Plan, to push through funds for its completion. The McMillan Sand Filtration Site was a part of the City Beautiful Movement and the McMillan Plan.
When the City Tunnel finally opened in 1901, water from Georgetown Reservoir flowed to Page | 156
RICH TOWNS
FIGURE 157a.
FIGURE 157b.
FIGURE 157c.
FIGURE 157d. 157d.
FIGURE 157e.
FIGURE 157f.
FIGURE 157g.
FIGURE 157h.
FIGURE 157i.
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FIGURE 158
Aerial view of McMillan Sand Filtration Site
Brief for Fasso Town
the new McMillan Reservoir on the heights near Howard University. Right after the completion of the reservoir in 1902, the McMillan Sand Filtration Site was added in 1905. This twenty-fiveacre water treatment plant implemented an innovative water purification system relying on sand instead of chemicals to filter 75 million gallons per day. It helped quell typhoid epidemics and other communicable diseases throughout the city. However, it was not long before they realized the reservoir’s capacity was still not sufficient enough to remove all of the sediment from the district’s water supply. So, to supplement the regular use of chlorine as a disinfectant began in 1923, and then a new fast sand filtration treatment plant was opened in 1927 adjacent to the Dalecarlia’s Reservoir. As the population continued to grow, so did the expansion of the Dalecarlia treatment plant in the 1950s.6 In 1906, Secretary of War, William Howard Taft, designated the complex as a memorial to Senator James McMillan. He hoped that it would help others remember McMillan’s work as chairman of the Senate Commission on the improvement of the Park System. So, between 1907 through 1911, Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. beautified the pre-existing site; he added plants and pedestrian paths. Later, it became a space for activity and recreation. So, in 1911, Taft was president and designated the site as a park for the surrounding community. From 1911 through the 1940s, McMillan Park became one of the first integrated parks in D.C. During this time, many ethnically diverse residents were able to enjoy the park; they even hosted summer concerts. Boys would play ball games, and Girl Scouts would grow vegetables on the site; it was a place for a community of all ages and ethnic backgrounds to come together and make shared memories. Later, a fountain was dedicated in 1913 as another memorial to James McMillan.7 McMillan Park has played an essential role in the life of Bloomingdale, Stronghold, and other adjacent neighborhoods since its inception. Some long-time residents recount their experiences: Ben Franklin played there as a child, Ella Walker picnicked with her family by the water, and Frank Braxton received military training “on top of all those sewer tops” as a highschool student before World War II . Page | 158
B R I E F F O R FA S S O TO W N
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Ben Franklin I am 79 years old. My grandmother bought this house in 1925, and we have been here since. Right now, we are at first and Bryant street northwest. Every fourth of July…9
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FIGURE 161
Photo of Ben Franklin Image created by author.
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Ella Walker I was born in the house. My name was Winfield at the time, Elanor Winfield. This is a nice neighborhood. So, there was one place I wanted to stay, the place that I wanted to go to when I got older and whatnot… 10
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FIGURE 163
Photo of Ella Walker Image created by author.
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Frank Braxton I have had some military training in high school… There was always competition between the two. We had a drill competition every summer… It was a big thing in the city... 11
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FIGURE 165
Photo of Frank Braxton Image created by author.
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B R I E F F O R FA SS O TOW N Sadly, public access to the site has been restricted since World War II when the Army erected a fence to guard against any sabotage of the city’s water supply. In 1986, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers declared the property a surplus. So, one year later, the federal government sold the property to the District of Columbia for $9.3 million, and in 1991, McMillan Sand Filtration Site became a historic landmark. However, by having McMillan declared as surplus property in 2014, it allowed a portion of the site to be sold off for development. So, in 2016, a design was complete, and the groundbreaking was ready to begin, but during this time, Friends of McMillan Park, along with other historic preservation organizations, felt that the design was not consistent with the D.C. Historic Landmark and Historic District Protection Act. As a result, Vision McMillan Partners and Perkins Eastman were forced to deliver a new design. Today McMillan Sand Filtration Site is encompassed by Howard University to the west, a residential district to the north and east, and three leading hospitals in the northeast corner of the site. It is bound on the north end by Michigan Avenue, on the east by North Capitol Street, on the south by Channing Street and the west by McMillan Drive, which runs along the edge of the reservoir, to which it was formerly attached. Two paved courts lined by regulator houses, tower-like sand bins, sand washers, and the gated entrances to the underground filter cells provided a promenade for citizens taking the air in the park.
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BRIEF
FIGURE 167
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 168
Offici coreped moloribus ducium eum,
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e Page | 169
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 170
Offici coreped moloribus ducium eum,
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e Page | 171
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 172
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Schmutzdecke
(German – meaning “dirt cover” or dirty skin)
1 | is a hypogeal biological layer formed on the surface of a slow sand filter. The schmutzdecke is the layer that provides the effective purification in potable water treatment, the underlying sand providing the support medium for this biological treatment layer.
The composition of any schmutzdecke varies but will typically consist of a gelatinous biofilm matrix of bacteria, fungi, protozoa, rotifera and a range of aquatic insect larvae. As a schmutzdecke ages, more algae tend to develop, and larger aquatic organisms may be present, including some bryozoa, snails, and annelid worms.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
Brief for Fasso Town
FIGURE 174
Slow Sand Filtration Process Through the gates and below the park’s surface, the site ramps down to twenty catacomb cells each an acre long, where the sand once filtered the Potomac River using the Washington Aqueduct. During the time of use, this treatment system was operated by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. The type of purification system that was used at the McMillan Sand Filtration Site was a slow sand filter design before it became obsolete in the late 20th century. The sand filtration process is a water purification treatment for raw water in order to produce potable water. Where the slow sand filtration process differs from others is its use of sophisticated biological film that grows naturally on the surface of the sand. The actual sand itself does not perform any of the filtration functions but acts as a substrate. A schmutzdecke will form in the first 10-20 days of operation. This surface biofilm is the layer that provides the effective purification in the potable water treatment process; the underlying sand provides the support medium for this biological treatment layer. As water passes through the hypogeal layer, particles of foreign matter are trapped in the mucilaginous matrix, and soluble organic material is adsorbed, and the bacteria metabolize the contaminants. The water produced from an exemplary slow sand filter is of excellent quality with 90–99 percent bacterial cell count reduction.12 Over time the slow sand filters slowly lose their performance ability due to the thickening of the biofilm layer, which begins to reduce the rate of water flow through the filter. Eventually, it is necessary to refurbish the filter. The first method used to do this is scraping off the top few millimeters of sand, exposing a new clean layer of sand.13 After that is done, water is then decanted back into the filter and re-circulated for a few hours, allowing a new biofilm to develop on the surface of the clean sand. The second method is occasionally called wet harrowing. This involves lowering the water level to just above the hypogeal layer and stirring the sand, thus precipitating any solids held in that layer and allowing the remaining water to wash Page | 174
through the sand. The filter column is then filled to full capacity and brought back into service. Wet harrowing can allow the filter to be brought back into service faster than the first technique.14 Slow sand filters are now being tested for pathogen control of nutrient solutions in hydroponic systems, whereas other treatment processes like UV and pressurized treatments are often preferred technologies in developed countries like the United Kingdom due to their low energy intake. The main three advantages of using a slow sand filtration process are its low mechanical power requirement, its flexibility for DIY construction. It was recognized by the World Health Organization, Oxfam, and United States Environmental Protection Agency as being a superior technology for the treatment of surface water sources.15 This made the slow sand filtration process cheap, simple, and efficient, which makes it easily adaptable for poor and isolated nations. One significant disadvantage was that slow sand filtration requires extensive land usage for a municipal system due to the low filtration rate,16 thus leading to the replacement of slow sand filtration once the demand for drinking water increased, due to the increase in population in many countries.
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CHAPTER 05 1 | Dunbar, Roberta Ann. The American Historical Review 78, no. 5 (1973): 1506-507. Accessed February 5, 2020. doi:10.2307/1854194.
2 | Godfrey Mwakikagile, The Gambia and Its People: Ethnic Identities and Cultural Integration in Africa (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania: New Africa Press, 2010. pp. 43–44. ISBN 978-998716-023-5. 3 | Piga, Adriana: Islam et villes en Afriqa au sud du Sahara: Entre soufisme et fondamentalisme, p. 265. KARTHALA Editions, 2003.
4 | The Empire of Mali - The Twang of a Bow - Extra History - #1. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube. com/watch?v=UkayShPilkw&t=354s. 5 | Conrad, David C., and Condé Djanka Tassey. Sunjata: a West African Epic of the Mande Peoples. Indianapolis: Hackett Pub. Co., 2004. p. xxxv ISBN 0-87220-697-1. 6 | Jansen, Jan. “Hot Issues: The 1997 Kamabolon Ceremony in Kangaba (Mali).” The International Journal of African Historical Studies 31, no. 2 (1998): 253-78. Accessed February 24, 2020. doi:10.2307/221083. 7 | Collins, Robert O., and James M. Burns. A History of Sub-
Saharan Africa. New York, NY: Cambridge Univ. Press, 2014. P. 84 ISBN 0-521-86746-0.
8 | Conrad, David C. “Oral Sources on Links between Great
States: Sumanguru, Servile Lineage, the Jariso, and Kaniaga.” History in Africa 11 (1984): 35-55. Accessed February 24, 2020. doi:10.2307/3171626.
9 | The Empire of Mali - An Empire of Trade and Faith Extra History - #2. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=YPytwp5ll9g. 10 | The Empire of Mali - Mansa Musa - Extra History - #3. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=4-Un2xx6Pzo&t=9s. Page | 176
END NOTES 11 | “Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351.” ORIAS. UC Berkeley, 2020. https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/travels-ibnbattuta/journey/journey-mali-1350-1351. 12 | Brett, Michael. “Berber.” Encyclopædia Britannica.
Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., March 20, 2019. https://www. britannica.com/topic/Berber.
13 | Niane, D.T.: “Recherches sur l’Empire du Mali au Moyen âge”. Presence Africaine. Paris, 1975 14 | Battuta, Ibn. Ibn Battuta Travels in Asia and Africa. Teheran: B.T.N.K., 1958. p. 329, ISBN 0-7100-9568-6.
15 | “Journey to Mali: 1350 - 1351.” ORIAS. UC Berkeley, 2020. https://orias.berkeley.edu/resources-teachers/travels-ibnbattuta/journey/journey-mali-1350-1351. 16 | The Empire of Mali - The Final Bloody Act - Extra History
- #5. YOUTUBE. Extra Credits, 2018. https://www.youtube.com/ watch?v=Mi79VdOCXGc
17 | International Religious Freedom Report 2008: Mali. State. gov (19 September 2008). Retrieved 4 May 2012.
18 | Hazard, Anthony. “The Atlantic Slave Trade: What Too Few Textbooks Told You.” YouTube. TED-Ed, December 22, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3NXC4Q_4JVg.
19 | The Abolition Project. (2009). Retrieved February 1, 2020, from http://abolition.e2bn.org/slavery_42.html
20 | Green, John. “The Atlantic Slave Trade: Crash Course World History #24.” YouTube. Crash Course, July 5, 2012. https://www. youtube.com/watch?v=dnV_MTFEGIY. 21 | Gates, H. L. (2013). African-American Migrations, 1600s to
Present. Retrieved February 1, 2020, from https://www.pbs. org/wnet/african-americans-many-rivers-to-cross/history/ on-african-american-migrations/
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C hapter 06
Proposal for Fasso Town
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FIGURE 179
Fasso Town: Tree of Life Image created by author.
16.1 |Fasso Town McMillan Sand Filtration Site/Park has played an essential role in shaping its surrounding community and will continue to be a monumental landmark in these surrounding neighborhoods of Bloomingdale, Parkview, Pleasant Plains, and Columbia Heights. For this thesis investigation McMillan Sand Filtration is an excellent site due to its proximity to Howard University and its own history of being one of D.C.’s first racially inclusive parks in the area. Currently McMillan Sand Filtration Site consists of 20 one-acre filter beds. Several of these filter beds have collapsed overtime due to chronic structural issues, varying from server to moderate decay levels, which leaves approximately four stable filter beds on site. Fasso Town will begin to integrate itself into this context, while adapting with the original site topography that existed in the 1850’s before the sand filtration site was constructed, with three main site gestures becoming the iconic architecture moments for Fasso Town. I will begin to weave in symbols and materials that speak to the rich African hi story spoke about earlier in this document, thus making Fasso Town a place for everyone to come and be entertained, enjoy nature, eat, shop, and worship. Page | 179
Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 180
Pre-design collage. Fasso Town’s sprawling market structure. Image created by author.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 182
Pre-design collage. Fasso Town’s “Tree of Life” Image created by author.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 184
Pre-design collage. This illustration depicts Fasso Town’s shared religion. Image created by author.
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Figure 186. An illustration of the existing site highlighting a typical filter bed that is one acre in size and located below grade.
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Figure 187. Each typical filter bed is 21 vaults deep and 11vaults wide. With a total of 23114’ by 14’ groin vaults.
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Figure 188. Illustration of the areas pre-existing tree line from 1850 -1921.
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Figure 189. The pre-existing tree line is then replaced with umbrella canopies for water collection and sun protection. While creating a loss structure for the African flea market.
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Figure 190. The scattered umbrella canopies protect the visitors from direct sunlight, while still allowing light to penetrate through to the maintenance holes, thus providing sufficient beams of sunlight into the underground groin vaults
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Figure 191. Through these reverse umbrella canopies water is collected and filtered on site. Once purified this water is cycled back through the site plumbing system.
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Figure 192. An illustration of a topography map from 1850-1921 illustrating old topography lines and a waterway.
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Figure 193. A vignette illustrating a craved out water path through the site that allows for Timber creek to follow past the site. This space is terraced back with a series of sit steps that gradually brings moves one from grade level to the top of the site.
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Figure 194. An illustration of the current topography surrounding the site along with three hidden creeks that overlap the existing filter beds, thus highlighting a centralized point of connection for water collection during intense periods of flooding.
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Figure 195. A vignette illustrating the community center of the site. Here an amphitheater will be used for performances, demonstrations, and community events, while also becoming a main point for water collection on the site during periods of heavy flooding in the Bloomingdale area.
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Figure 196. A vignette illustrating the adaption of the pre-existing regulator houses into an African Tailor Shop.
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Figure 197. A vignette illustrating the adaption of the pre-existing regulator houses into an African Fabric Shop.
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Figure 198. A vignette illustrating the adaption of the pre-existing sand silos into an African Spice Shop.
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Figure 199. An illustration depicting the height of the minaret on site in relationship to the Washington monument. The minaret is 180 feet tall to symbolize the total height of the site from true grade level in this area.
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 200
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 202
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 204
Regulation House Adaptation into an African Tailor Shop
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 206
Regulation House Adaptation into an African Fabricr Shop
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Fasso Town A place where Africans can reinvent themselves
FIGURE 208
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