history

"Dr. H. Scott wrote the following letter on January 12, 1792, again on the subject of Indian surgery: In medicine I shall not be able to praise their science very much. It is one of those arts which is too delicate in its nature to bear war and oppression and the revolutions of governments. The effects of surgical operation are more obvious, more easily acquired and lost by no means so readily. Here I should have much to praise. They practise with great success the operation of depressing the chrystalline lens when become opake and from time immemorial they have cut for the stone at the same place which they now do in Europe. These are curious facts and I believe unknown before to us."

"Colonel Kyd, an Englishman, had the following to say regarding general surgical skill in the subcontinent: (In) chirurgery (in which they are considered by us the least advanced) they often succeed, in removing ulcers and cutaneous irruptions of the worst kind, which have baffled the skill of our surgeons, by the process of inducing inflammation and by means directly opposite to ours, and which they have probably long been in possession."

"Robert G. Morkot has come to the alarming conclusion that because Egyptologists regard Egypt in isolation, ‘the minutiae of chronology does not matter because at least for the New Kingdom, the relative sequence of kings is certain so the absolute dates are less important.’"

"The book encapsulating it was Centuries of Darkness in 1991. The authors were not fringe mavericks. Colin Renfrew, Professor of Archaeology at Cambridge University wrote in the book’s Forword, ‘They [the authors]indicate that the chronology for the time period in question, the so called “Third Intermediate Period”, is altogether shaky. They show that there are problems with the historical chronology of the Near East. And the sad fact is that the historical chronology for the rest of the Mediterranean until well after 700 BC rests on these. It is already widely known that the chronology for early Italy, during the Iron Age period, down to and including the foundation of Rome, is a complete shambles.’ He concluded, ‘I feel their critical analysis is right and that a chronological revolution is on the way.’"

"Manfred Bietak pointed out other dangers in dendrochronological dating. It is ‘methodologically wrong to compare different varieties of wood originating from different regions…The ecosystem could be…different. Also different kinds of trees react to climate in different ways. The juniper is from central Anatolia…Far away from one housing cedar…likely to be from a region near the seashore…[thus] we are forced to use the artefacts from the ship as a way of dating.’"

"Centuries of Darkness was particularly critical of modern Egyptologists. ‘Early Egyptologists were usually more tentative about their chronology, continually revising their opinions in the light of fresh evidence. Sadly the study of Egyptian chronology seems to have become so ossified that it cannot question its fundamental assumptions, accepted more for familiarity than for any basis in fact.’"

"Manfred Bietack also reminded us, ‘It is a great illusion to believe that sciences are more reliable, at least just now, in obtaining absolute dates especially when the data available is so limited…even more by the subjective selection process of the author’s…Radiocarbon years do not correspond to calendar years due to unsteady cosmic radiation and uneven absorption of carbon 14,’ which is ‘explored by calibration…by taking a series of well dated trees…subjecting to measurements…[which] involves a lot of interpretation’ and ‘which can also vary between different laboratory conditions…fragments of wood are likely to be old and re-used when deposited…contamination and pre-treatment in laboratories can be looked on as yet another complication which has not been sufficiently resolved.’"

"Of the 3rd millennium BC , Marc van de Mieroop confessed ‘the chronology is confused owing to the Sumerian king list’s practice of listing contemporaneous dynasties as successive.’"

"Sir Alan Gardiner’s 1961 Egypt of the Pharaohs devoted a whole chapter to the dating problem. ‘In spite of all defects,’ he wrote, ‘this division into dynasties has taken so firm a root in the literature of Egyptology that there is little chance of its ever being abandoned. In the forms in which the book has reached us, there are inaccuracies of the most glaring kind…Africanus and Eusabius often do not agree; for example Africanus assigns nine kings to Dyn. XXII, while Eusabius only has three. Sometimes all that is vouchsafed to us is the number of kings in a dynasty and their city of origin…the lengths of reigns frequently differ in the two versions…the reconstructed Manetho remains full of imperfections…. Nonetheless, [it]still dominates our studies.’ Despite decades of archaeological discoveries and scholarly research since then, his conclusion is still relevant. ‘We are dealing with a civilisation thousands of years old and of which only tiny fragments have survived.’"

"Barry Strauss’ excellent The Trojan War using conventional chronology, warns the reader that ‘most dating is relative and approximate rather than absolute.’"

"Peter James wrote as recently as 2012, ‘scientists and archaeologists are still learning how to apply the radiocarbon method properly.’"

"A. R. Burn in the 1930s had doubted the conventional chronology of ancient Greece, also using the Spartan king list, estimating the end of Mycenaean Greece about 1000 BC but felt compelled to withdraw, given archaeologists’ certainty, but his 1966 swansong The Pelican History of Greece reiterated his doubts. ‘If the dates computed by Greek scholars for the fall of Troy (ranging from 1334 to 1127 with 1183 [BC] the most popular) were approximately correct’, he wrote, ‘it was largely by luck for the genealogies, by which those scholars bridged the Dark Age were “heraldically” linked up with the names of epic heroes and the sons of Helen…Those of the kings of Sparta seem to have enough authentic generations to take us back to about the 9th century [BC] and thence…joined up to their heroic ancestor Herakles and to do it their earlier generations are given the improbably long average lengths of 39 years; Spartan reigns in historic times average about 25…Greek tradition may be perfectly right in saying that in the second generation after the siege of Troy, the heroic dynasties fell.’"

"The fact that Swarthye was allowed to testify in court demonstrates that he was... a free man... Swarthye’s testimony was taken by the Court... without demur."

"In 1596, a black man... Edward Swarthye whipped John Guye... future first governor of Newfoundland. They were both servants... of Sir ..."

"Reasonable Blackman was a silk weaver... probably... from Antwerp... which had a sizeable African population and was a... centre for cloth manufacture."

"... in the Westminster Roll of 1511, sound[s] his trumpet at the festivities marking the birth of a... son to Henry VIII and... Catherine of Aragon."

"Blanke... performed at Henry VII’s funeral and... coronation (...1509) ..."

"Around 50,000 refugees fled to England from the southern Netherlands between 1550 and 1585, as war raged between Dutch rebels and Spanish forces occupying their country."

"Blackman had a family of at least three children... Edward, Edmund and Jane... we can assume he was married... As with ’s wife... she was probably an Englishwoman."

"[L]ater... in the northern, central, and eastern European societies... with smaller populations... it became fashionable... to employ blacks as house servants and in ceremonial roles such as military musicians."

"[T]here is a record of an African who apparently crossed the Atlantic as a freeman, participated in the siege of Tenochtitlon and, in subsequent conquests and explorations, ...[was] an entrepreneur (with... Negro and Indian slaves...) in the ...search for gold, and... [was] a citizen in the Spanish quarter of Mexico city. His name... Juan Garrido..."

"Black saints were proclaimed in parts of medieval Europe when the Holy Roman Emperors, beginning with Charles IV... 1346, adopted blacks into the ... The statue of in the chapel of St. Kilian at Magdeburg and the 17th-century bust of St. Gregory the Moor at the church of St. Gereon in Cologne testify..."

"Other black conquerors The list of black conquerors in America is... [e]ndless... except that we lack sufficient data about their lives. ...Juan Bardales, an African slave ...participated in the expeditions to Panama and Honduras (where he said he received a hundred arrow wounds), obtaining his manumission and a pension of fifty pesos granted by the King. ...Sebastián Toral ... for his work in the exploration of Yucatán achieved freedom, tax exemption and... [a] royal pension, working as a porter. ...Antonio Pérez ...was free and participated with in the conquest of , where he rose to captain. ...Miguel Ruiz ...was with Pizarro in and obtained his share of the loot. ...Gómez de León ...received an in Chile."

"Juan García Another mulatto... born free in around 1495. He was part of Pizarro's expedition to Peru, travelling with his wife and daughters. He was a town crier and bagpiper, his main mission being to weigh the precious metals collected in for the ransom of . He was also present at the successive distributions of gold and silver among the troops. ...[W]ith his earnings he bought an indigenous slave from another soldier and with her he had an illegitimate daughter. He lived in Cuzco, where he [participated] in its urban reform... then moved to with the idea of ​​returning to Spain. He did so in 1536, triumphantly, settling in the area where he was born and adopting the name of Juan García Pizarro."

"[T]housands of people of colour... were omitted by the chroniclers (although Cieza de León usually mentions them generically), such as the two hundred who helped put out the fire in Cuzco during the siege of Manco Inca in 1536 or the similar number sent from as armed reinforcements; or those who collaborated in the conquest of New Granada, of whom only the identity of a mulatto called Pedro de Lerma has been revealed."

"Scores of black men and women set up home in England as early as the 16th century—many arriving from Iberia, as the Spanish and Portuguese laid claim to swathes of Africa."

"Blanke—like all Africans in England—was a free man."

"He received... twice... [what] most servants would... earn... before successfully petitioning... for a pay rise, doubling his wages..."

"It was... that such a high-status, educated servant as John Guye had been publicly humiliated that upset... onlookers, not the colour of Swarthye’s skin."

"Swarthye... [was] one of many Africans who fled their Spanish enslavers to join the English."

"Hume's and Kant's denial of any significant achievements by blacks ignored prominent nearby examples in Europe, such as Frances Williams, a Jamaican classicist who had excelled as a student at Cambridge and whose career was familiar to Hume. Among those less known were three closer to Kant's home... , who through his accomplishments in Holland had in 1742 become the first black minister of any Protestant church. ...[T]he West India Company and the Church would not condone his marrying an African woman, choosing... to provide him a Dutch bride... from Rotterdam. ... ...born on the Gold Coast, around 1700 ...The West India Company brought him to Amsterdam ...and presented him to the Duke of Wolfenbüttel. He was baptized... in 1707 ...[H]e was able to enter the Universities of Halle in 1727 and Wittenberg in 1730, where he became skilled in Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, German, and Dutch and concentrated on philosophy. ...In 1734 he was awarded a doctorate... In his philosophical work he... devoted... attention to mathematical and medical knowledge in the context of Enlightenment thought. He became a lecturer at the University of Halle and later at the . ...[I]n Russia ...Peter the Great ...became the godfather of one of his black servant boys and provided him with the best possible education. ...Abraham Hannibal ...was ...sent to France for ...higher education in mathematics and military engineering. This adventure would... provide the... plot for a short story by his great-grandson, Alexander Pushkin. Hannibal... attained the rank of major general and... served as commandant of the city of Reval... [and] later direct major canal construction projects..."

"The Diccionario Porrúa, perhaps relying on... Bernal Díaz, says that he arrived with Juan Núñez Sedeño, who accompanied Cortés' 1519 expedition in his... ship... that included "un negro"; has him crossing... with the army of . Magnus Mörner... claiming ... "many" hispanicized and Spanish-speaking blacks took part in the conquest... without details..."

"Africa and Africans have had an influence on European thought and culture far disproportionate to the size of the small black population (which... approached 150,000 in the [16th century] ... and by the 18th Century... several thousand in France, a few thousand in the Netherlands, and several hundred... through Germany, Scandinavia, and Russia."

"There were... protagonists of black 'race' in the conquest of America and some... stood out enough to improve their social standing and even to have left their names for posterity."

"Lia Golden-Hanga... notes that the tsarist officials frequently listed the Negroes as Arabs and Jews."

"Patrick English... marshals... data to support... the hypothesis that the Abkhazian Negroes' lineage may extend... to ancient times... He notes Herodotus'... attention... in distinguishing between Egyptians, Ethiopians, and Colchians... observing that the Colchians wove linen like the Egyptians and... no one else. ...English questions the likelihood that slaves would be imported to an area... famous for the export of slaves from its local population. ...English relies upon... the Iliad, the Bible, and... writings of the Church Fathers. He... posits a possible link between the Abkhazian Negroes and the creation of the Khazar empire."

"Slava Tynes... discusses the work of ... who believed the Colchians had "Abyssino-Egyptian" origins. ...Gulia showed the similarities between many Abkhazian and Egyptian geographical names, those of deities and families... manners and customs."

"The question of the earliest presence on Negroes in the geographical region which became the Russian empire centers on the origins of the small scattered settlements of Negroes... until recently... along the western slope of the Caucasus mountains near the Black Sea. ...[A] persistent line of thought ...places the advent of the Negroes in the area ...perhaps even in antiquity. This... was first raised by E. Lavrov in a letter to Kavkaz in 1913. ...[H]e pointed out that this was the area the ancient Greeks called , mentioned in their poetry ...eighth century B.C. ...Herodotus (484?-425? B.C) ...described the Colchians as black-skinned with wooly hair. This led him to believe that they were of Egyptian origin, perhaps of the army of the legendary Egyptian Emperor"

"San Hipólito... one of the most interesting churches in the city. ...1520 ...the greatest slaughter of the Spaniards during the retreat of the memorable Noche Triste ...After the final conquest of the city, one of the survivors of that dismal night, , having freshly in mind its bloody horrors, built of adobe at this place a little commemorative chapel."

"(ca. 1505-1553) was probably born in and sold by slavers to Portuguese traders, who... sold him to... . ...[H]e was baptized ...and around 1530 ...arrived ...in Puebla, ...[as] a domestic servant. By 1533 he ...convinced ...Valiente to allow him to become a ...[H]e would ...record ...his earnings ...to return them to his owner. He went to Guatemala and joined 's expedition to Peru... [which was bought out by] ... By 1535 he was in Chile fighting the Araucanians with Almagro, became a captain by 1540, and was rewarded with an near Santiago in 1546 and an in 1550. ...[H]e was killed by Araucanian Indians at the battle of Tucapel in 1553."

", black in color... of his own free will, became a Christian in Lisbon, was in Castile for seven years, and crossed to Santo Domingo [for seven years]... From there he visited other islands then went to San Juan de Puerto Rico... [for] much time, [then]...came to . He was present at the taking of this city of Mexico and... other conquests, and later to the island with the marquis. He was the first to plant and harvest wheat in this land... and brought many vegetable seeds to New Spain."

"Wolfram von Eschenbach's "," which was drawn from the legend of King Arthur... in the thirteenth century and evolved for centuries om England, France, Germany and the Netherlands... repeated the theme of black skin color as fearsome, but implied that Blacks could become enobled by racial mixing with whites and through Christianization."

"Although most blacks who came to America in early years were slaves, records of the Casa de Contractión showed that a good many freed black freedmen from and elsewhere found passage on westward-bound ships. Some... settled in the ... others... to Mexico and Peru, identifying... as Catholic subjects of a Spanish king, with much the same privileges and ambitions as white Spaniards. "Benito el Negro" and "Juan el Negro" (...[i.e.,] Juan de Villanueva) were encomenderos in the province of Pánuco and thus... should not have been slaves..."

"They lived in a world where skin colour was less important than religion, class or talent: before the English became heavily involved in the slave trade, and before they founded their first surviving colony in the Americas. ...Their stories challenge the traditional narrative that racial slavery was inevitable and that it was imported to colonial Virginia from Tudor England. They force us to re-examine the 17th century to find out what had caused perceptions to change so radically."

"[P]ersons of African ancestry... achieved distinction in Moorish Iberia and later in Spain and Portugal, the European societies that first saw a large influx of blacks. Most... were mulattos... Cristóbol de Meneses, a Dominican priest; the painters and Sebastian Gomez; and Leonardo Ortiz, a lawyer. ...In 1306 an Ethiopian delegation came to Europe to seek an alliance with the "King of the Spains" against the Moslems. King Anfós IV of Aragon considered arranging a double marriage with the of Ethiopia in 1428. And the Portuguese sent Pedro de Corvilhao to Ethiopia in 1487 on a similar mission."

"[L]iving experience of blacks in Europe appeared to be marked by smooth integration into European society... The 140,000 slaves imported into Europe from Africa between 1450 and 1505 were a welcome new labor force in the wake of the Bubonic Plague. On the whole, blacks in Christian Iberia were not limited to servile roles; but... were... not influential as a group. ...Free blacks living in and Lagos in the southern edge of Portugal owned houses and worked as day laborers, midwives, bakers, and servants. Most were domestic servants, laborers (including those on ships and river craft), and petty tradesmen. Some free blacks, especially women, became innkeepers. Blacks in Spain served as stevedores, factory workers, farm laborers, footmen, coachmen, and butlers. ...A few Africans active in the Americas during the early Iberian expansion were among returnees to Portugal and Spain from America and Africa from the 16th to the 18th centuries. These included free mulatto students, clerics, free and slave household servants, sailors, and some who attained gentlemen’s status. ...[M]any black women slaves as domestics and concubines led to mulatto offspring who received favored treatment, and ...some ...attained middle-class and even aristocratic status."

"[A] parallel life, enslaved by the Portuguese but converted to Christianity in Lisbon... allowed him to acquire freedom and travel to , where he embarked in 1503 for Santo Domingo as a servant under... Pedro Garrido. ...[H]e fought [for eleven years] in the conquest of Cuba and Puerto Rico, as well as participating in the discovery of Florida. In 1519 he joined Cortés' expedition to Mexico... [I]n a letter to the King he boasted of having been the one who introduced the cultivation of wheat in those parts. He later returned to military life, during Antonio de Carvajal's [[w:Nuño de Guzmán#As conqueror of western Mexico|incursion [under Guzmán's command] into]] Michoacán and Zacatula. In 1525 he was granted a property in the new Mexico City, where he worked as a doorman, town crier and guard of the Chapultepec aqueduct... three years later... leading an expedition to exploit the gold mines of Zacatula. After another break, he enlisted under Cortés when he explored Baja California; he was responsible for—and co-owner of—a battalion of black and indigenous slaves. He died in 1547, leaving behind a wife and three children."

"Possibly the most famous black conquistador... he was... a slave when in 1533 he asked his master, , a landowner from Puebla (Mexico), for permission to go on a four-year journey in search of fortune with the promise of returning and paying for his freedom with the profits... The Spaniard agreed and Juan enlisted... with two hundred other Africans (most of them slaves) in the expedition [to Peru] that Hernán Cortés' former lieutenant, , was preparing... Once at his destination... there was no opportunity because Pizarro had gone ahead. paid Alvarado... in exchange for his leaving... hiring the men who wanted to stay. Juan Valiente was one of them and in 1535 he was in Chile with... [the] new leader, fighting against the Araucanians. Five years later he had managed to rise to captain and amass some capital, including an and a property on the outskirts of , as well as a wife, Juana de Valdivia, an alleged former slave of... the famous . ...[H]e died in combat, along with Valdivia himself, in the (1553)."

"Juan Beltrán This mulatto became famous in the Chilean wars, where for his brave actions and his collaboration in the founding of the city of Villarrica he was entrusted with the construction and position of captain of a fort on the outskirts, in addition to... a commission of half a thousand Indians. Beltrán led several victorious malocas (...raids in the language of overseas soldiers), but... died fighting against the indomitable Araucanians."

"The term "Negro"... here denotes only people of primarily African descent. ...[T]hat would include Alexander Pushkin and... Alexandre Dumas père (who traveled extensively through Russia in 1858 and 1859 and left a detailed account). ...Pushkin's maternal great-grandfather and Dumas's paternal grandmother were Negroes; the two writers were not. Nevertheless, attitudes that Pushkin and other Russians have expressed concerning his African heritage do figure prominently in the present work."