So I just got this book in the mail yesterday:
It's a very good book. It was published in 1952 and goes through the history of Negro presence through out Egypt, Greece, Rome, England, France, Spain, ect. Very well done and well researched. Some pages contain more footnotes than actual book. Anyway found some interesting things:
England
"As there was said there is evidence that Negroes, or Negroids, that lived in the British Isles in prehistoric times and in the middle ages. From the 15th century onwards there is abundance evidence of them"
"In October 1764, the Gentlemen's Magazine reported there were nearly 20,000 Negro servants in London alone and that the number is said to be 'a grievance that requires a remedy'...these combined with the Free Negroes and mullatoes of English birth must have constituted a fairly large portion of the city"
France
The Moors, as was seen invaded France in the eight century and remained there until the twelfth, when they were absorbed into the population. Five centuries later (in 1609) this stock was reinforced by the entry of about a million more who came in on the invitation of Henry IV on their final expulsion from Spain."
They settled in Auvergne where their strain is still evident in the general population. 'There is a strong Negroid strain in many Auvergnese,' says John Gunther. Among those of Moorish stock were such noted figures as Bertrand du Guesclin; Charles Bernadotte, Napoleonic marshall and king of Sweden; Joachim Murat, Napoleon's brother-in-law and king of Naples"
"Dating from Henry IV (1553-1610) the arrival of Negroes multipied in France. They came in droves to fill in the gaps leftin the population by the wars of Louis XIV"
Italy
"White princes had Negro women as mistresses and their children were accepted into the nobility....Cardinal dei Medici(later Pope Clement VII) had a son by Anna, slave or servantof his aunt. This son, Alessandro dei Medici, became the first ruler of Florence and married the daughter of Emperor Charles V. His children married persons of high rank. Casanova, most famous lover of history, probably came of this Negro stock. He had 'an African complexion'. In his coat-of-arms are two Negroes."
"As a result of the importation of Negroes many southern Italians and Greeks in the eighteenth century were so dark that when Napoleon ran short of Negroes for his black brigades he used them. Sicilians were then much darker than now."
Now, let's revisit Benjimen Franklin's quote from his 1751 paper "Observations Concerning the increase of Mankind, Peopling of Countries, ect":
Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.
24. Which leads me to add one Remark: That the Number of purely white People in the World is proportionably very small. All Africa is black or tawny. Asia chiefly tawny. America (exclusive of the new Comers) wholly so. And in Europe, the Spaniards, Italians, French, Russians and Swedes, are generally of what we call a swarthy Complexion; as are the Germans also, the Saxons only excepted, who with the English, make the principal Body of White People on the Face of the Earth."
@tibba , are you guys ready to admit that when Ben Franklin, and others from that time, say "swarthy" they are referring to Negroes and/or white people with actual Negro ancestry? Are you ready to admit that Europe might have actually been pre-dominantly dark/Negro/Moorish just like Ben Franklin said?
@TheGreatA , doesn't it makes sense now why someone like Max Schmeling would have nicknames like "Black Uhlan" when he was pretty much just a white guy who could tan well? Or why a "white" man like Arnold Schwarzenegger might carry such a last name. Those types of surnames and nicknames probably carried over from the middle ages when Italians, Germans, and others were heavily mixed with actual Negros.
