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A country facing many social and environmental injustices - both past and present

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Australia's first people-known as Aboriginal Australians-have lived on the continent for over 50,000 years. Today, there are 250 distinct language groups spread throughout Australia. Aboriginal Australians are split into two groups: Aboriginal peoples, who are related to those who already inhabited Australia when Britain began colonizing the island in 1788, and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who descend from residents of the Torres Strait Islands, a group of islands that is part of modern-day Queensland, Australia.

All Aboriginal Australians are related to groups indigenous to Australia. However, the use of the term indigenous is controversial, since it can be claimed by people who descend from people who weren't the original inhabitants of the island. Legally, "Aboriginal Australian" is recognized as "a person of Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander descent who identifies as an Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander and is accepted as such by the community in which he [or she] lives."

Aboriginal origins

In 2017, a genetic study of the genomes of 111 Aboriginal Australians found that today's Aboriginal Australians are all related to a common ancestor who was a member of a distinct population that emerged on the mainland about 50,000 years ago. Humans are thought to have migrated to Northern Australia from Asia using primitive boats. A current theory holds that those early migrants themselves came out of Africa about 70,000 years ago, which would make Aboriginal Australians the oldest population of humans living outside Africa.

British settlement

When British settlers began colonizing Australia in 1788, between 750,000 and 1.25 Aboriginal Australians are estimated to have lived there. Soon, epidemics ravaged the island's indigenous people, and British settlers seized Aboriginal lands.

Though some Aboriginal Australians did resist-up to 20,000 indigenous people died in violent conflict on the colony's frontiers -most were subjugated by massacres and the impoverishment of their communities as British settlers seized their lands.

The Stolen Generations

Between 1910 and 1970, government policies of assimilation led to between 10 and 33 percent of Aboriginal Australian children being forcibly removed from their homes. These "Stolen Generations" were put in adoptive families and institutions and forbidden from speaking their native languages. Their names were often changed.

In 2008, Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a national apology for the country's actions toward Aboriginal Australians of the Stolen Generations; since then, Australia has worked to reduce social disparities between Aboriginal Australians and non-indigenous Australians.

Only in 1967 did Australians vote that federal laws also would apply to Aboriginal Australians. Most Aboriginal Australians did not have full citizenship or voting rights until 1965.

The struggle continues

Today, about three percent of Australia's population has Aboriginal heritage. Aboriginal Australians still struggle to retain their ancient culture and fight for recognition-and restitution-from the Australian government. The state of Victoria is currently working toward a first-of-its-kind treaty with its Aboriginal population that would recognize Aboriginal Australians' sovereignty and include compensation. However, Australia itself has never made such a treaty, making it the only country in the British Commonwealth not to have ratified a treaty with its First Nations peoples.

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Aboriginal Australians, facts and information

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Australia's first people-known as Aboriginal Australians-have lived on the continent for over 50,000 years. Today, there are 250 distinct language groups spread throughout Australia. Aboriginal Australians are split into two groups: Aboriginal peoples, who are related to those who already inhabited Australia when Britain began colonizing the island in 1788, and Torres Strait Islander peoples, who descend from residents of the Torres Strait Islands, a group of islands that is part of modern-day Queensland, Australia.

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French colonialism in Vietnam lasted more than six decades. By the late 1880s, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were all controlled by France and collectively referred to as Indochine Français (French Indochina). Indochina became one of France's most important colonial possessions. French colonialism was focussed largely on production, profit and labour. It had a profound impact on the lives of people in Vietnam.

Justification

To justify their imperialism, the French developed their own principle called the mission civilisatrice (or 'civilising mission').

This was, in effect, a French form of the English 'white man's burden'. Both were theories utilised by powerful European nations to justify their conquest and colonisation of people and places in Africa, Asia and South America.

French imperialists claimed it was their responsibility to colonise undeveloped regions in Africa and Asia, to introduce modern political ideas, social reforms, industrial methods and new technologies. Without European intervention, these places would remain backward, uncivilised and impoverished.

Profit and resources

By and large, the mission civilisatrice was a thin facade. The real motive for French colonialism was profit and economic exploitation.

French imperialism was driven by a demand for resources, raw materials and cheap labour. The development of colonised nations was scarcely considered, except where it happened to benefit French interests.

In general, French colonialism was more haphazard, expedient and brutal than British colonialism. Paris never designed or promoted a coherent colonial policy in Indochina. So long as it remained in French hands and open to French economic interests, the French government was satisfied.

Colonial government

The political management of Indochina was left to a series of governors. Paris sent more than 20 governors to Indochina between 1900 and 1945. Each had different attitudes and approaches.

French colonial governors, officials and bureaucrats had significant autonomy and authority, so often wielded more power than they should have or was necessary. This encouraged self-interest, corruption, venality and heavy-handedness.

The Nguyen emperors remained as figurehead monarchs in Vietnam but from the late 1800s, they exercised little political power.

'Divide and rule'

To minimise local resistance, the French employed a 'divide and rule' strategy, undermining Vietnamese unity by playing local mandarins, communities and religious groups against each other.

The nation was carved into three separate pays (provinces): Tonkin in the north, Annam along the central coast and Cochinchina in the south. Each of these pays was administered separately.

Under French colonial rule, there was no national identity or authority in Vietnam or its neighbours. According to one French colonial edict, it was even illegal to use the name 'Vietnam'.

Economic transformation

Profit, not politics, was the driving force behind French colonisation. Over time, colonial officials and French companies transformed Vietnam's thriving subsistence economy into a proto-capitalist system, based on land ownership, increased production, exports and low wages.

Millions of Vietnamese no longer worked to provide for themselves; they now worked for the benefit of French colons (settlers). The French seized vast swathes of land and reorganised them into large plantations. Small landholders were given the option of remaining as labourers on these plantations or relocating elsewhere.

Where there were labour shortfalls, Viet farmers were recruited en masse from outlying villages. Sometimes they came voluntarily, lured by false promises of high wages; sometimes they were conscripted at the point of a gun.

Rice and rubber

Rice and rubber were the main cash crops of these plantations. The amount of land used for growing rice almost quadrupled in the 20 years after 1880 while Cochinchina (southern Vietnam) had 25 gigantic rubber plantations.

By the 1930s, Indochina was supplying 60,000 tons of rubber each year, five per cent of all global production. The French also constructed factories and built mines to tap into Vietnam's deposits of coal, tin and zinc.

Most of this material was sold abroad as exports. Most of the profits lined the pockets of French capitalists, investors and officials.

Life under colonialism

The workers on plantations in French Indochina were known as 'coolies', a derogatory term for Asian labourers. They worked long hours in debilitating conditions for wages that were pitifully small. Some were paid in rice rather than money.

The working day could be as long as 15 hours, without breaks or adequate food and freshwater. French colonial laws prohibited corporal punishment but many officials and overseers used it anyway, beating slow or reluctant workers.

Malnutrition, dysentery and malaria were rife on plantations, especially those producing rubber. It was not uncommon for plantations to have several workers die in a single day.

Conditions were particularly poor on the plantations owned by French tyre manufacturer Michelin. In the 20 years between the two world wars, one Michelin-owned plantation recorded 17,000 deaths. Vietnamese peasant farmers who remained outside the plantations were subject to the corvee, or unpaid labour. Introduced in 1901, the corvee required male peasants of adult age to complete 30 days of unpaid work on government buildings, roads, dams and other infrastructure.

Colonial taxes and opium

The French also burdened the Vietnamese with an extensive taxation system. This included income tax on wages, a poll tax on all adult males, stamp duties on a wide range of publications and documents, and imposts on the weighing and measuring of agricultural goods.

Even more lucrative were the state monopolies on rice wine and salt - commodities used extensively by locals. Most Vietnamese had previously made their own rice wine and gathered their own salt - but by the start of the 1900s, both could only be purchased through French outlets at heavily inflated prices.

French officials and colonists also benefited from growing, selling and exporting opium, a narcotic drug extracted from poppies. Land was set aside to grow opium poppies and by the 1930s, Vietnam was producing more than 80 tonnes of opium each year. Not only were local sales of opium very profitable, its addictiveness and stupefying effects were a useful form of social control.

By 1935, France's collective sales of rice wine, salt and opium were earning more than 600 million francs per annum, the equivalent of $US5 billion today.

Local collaborators

Harnessing and transforming Vietnam's economy required considerable local support. France never had a large military presence in Indochina (there were only 11,000 French troops there in 1900) nor were there enough Frenchmen to personally manage this transformation. Instead, the French relied on a small number of local officials and bureaucrats.

Called nguoi phan quoc ('traitor') by other locals, these Vietnamese supported colonial rule by collaborating with the French. They often held positions of authority in local government, businesses or economic institutions, like the Banque de l'Indochine (the French Bank of Indochina). They did this for reasons of self-interest or because they held Francophile (pro-French) views.

French propagandists held these collaborators up as an example of the mission civilisatrice benefiting the Vietnamese people. Some collaborators were given scholarships to study in France; a few even received French citizenship. Perhaps the most famous collaborator was Bao Dai, the last of the Nguyen emperors (reigned 1926-45). Bao Dai was educated at Paris' Lycee Condorcet and became a lifelong Francophile.

French colonialism did provide some benefits for Vietnamese society, most noticeable of which were improvements in education.

French missionaries, officials and their families opened primary schools and provided lessons in both French and Viet languages. The University of Hanoi was opened by colonists in 1902 and became an important national centre of learning. A quota of Viet students was given scholarships to study in France.

These changes, however, were really only significant in the cities: there was little or no attempt to educate the children of peasant farmers. The syllabuses at these schools reinforced colonial control by stressing the supremacy of French values and culture.

Cultural impact

Colonialism also produced a physical transformation in Vietnamese cities. Traditional local temples, pagodas, monuments and buildings, some of which had stood for a millennium, were declared derelict and destroyed. Buildings of French architecture and style were erected in their place.

The Vietnamese names of cities, towns and streets were changed to French names. Significant business, such as banking and mercantile trade, was conducted in French rather than local languages.

If not for the climate and people, some parts of Hanoi and Saigon could have been mistaken for parts of Paris, rather than a south-east Asian capital.

A historian's view:
"The French 'civilising mission' was the transformation of subject peoples into loyal French men and women. Through education and examinations, it was theoretically possible for a Vietnamese to obtain French citizenship, with all its privileges. Yet in reality, the criteria for citizenship were manipulated to ensure that subject citizens never threatened French political power."
Melvin E. Page

1. The French colonisation of Vietnam began in earnest in the 1880s and lasted six decades. The French justified their imperialism with a 'civilising mission', a pledge to develop backward nations.

2. In reality, French colonialism was chiefly driven by economic interests. French colonists were interested in acquiring land, exploiting labour, exporting resources and making profit.

3. Vietnamese land was seized by the French and collectivised into large rice and rubber plantations. Local farmers were forced to labour on these plantations in difficult and dangerous conditions.

4. The French also imposed a range of taxes on the local population and implemented monopolies on critical goods, such as opium, salt and alcohol.

5. French colonisers were relatively few in number so were assisted by Francophile collaborators among the Vietnamese people. These collaborators assisted in the administration and exploitation of French Indochina.

Citation information
Title: "French colonisation in Vietnam"
Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/french-colonisation-in-vietnam/
Date published: January 7, 2019
Date accessed: February 24, 2022
Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use.

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French colonialism in Vietnam lasted more than six decades. By the late 1880s, Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia were all controlled by France and collectively referred to as Indochine Français (French Indochina). Indochina became one of France's most important colonial possessions. French colonialism was focussed largely on production, profit and labour.

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History Crunch - History Articles, Summaries, Biographies, Resources and More

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British Imperialism in India is an important topic in world history. It is related to the Age of Imperialism and the expansion of the British Empire. As well, it involved some of the most significant people in all of world history, such as Mahatma Gandhi. Historians have long debated the impact of British imperialism in India, and have developed a series of arguments related to the positive and negative aspects of British imperialism in India.
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​Imperialism is a term that relates to when one country extends its political, economic or cultural authority over another country or region. This process involves the dominant country taking over the other through direct invasion and political control or by gaining authority over the economy of the other country. Imperialism, in history, was a foreign policy practiced by many different nations but is most often associated with European countries, the United States, and some Asian countries.

Britain played one of the most significant roles during the Age of Imperialism. In fact, the British Empire expanded the most at the time and came to be the largest empire in the world. For instance, throughout the Age of Imperialism, Britain gained influence in the following regions: India, South Africa, Egypt, Australia, Canada, United States and more. In India, British imperial rule had several key impacts on the Indian subcontinent and its people. For instance, the main impacts to India included economic impacts, social impacts and political impacts. Click here to read more about the historical events of British imperial rule in India.

India was an important part of the British Empire in the late 1800s and early 1900s. In fact, India was often considered to be Britain's most important colony from an economic standpoint and as a result was referred to as the 'Jewel in the Crown'. The economic importance of India to Britain is heavily related to the emergence of the Industrial Revolution in England. The Industrial Revolution is one of the most significant events in all of world history and had a profound impact on the modern world. It began first in Britain in the 1700s and transformed society throughout the 1800s with the growth of the factory system. In fact, the factories in England that emerged during the Industrial Revolution came to play an important role in British imperialism in India. This is because India served two important functions for Industrial England. First, Britain viewed India as a source of raw materials that could be used to fuel the factories in England. At the time, India economy was largely centered around agriculture, which would then be exported to England. The most common of these agricultural resources included: jute, cotton, sugar, tea, coffee and wheat. Second, India proved to be an important market for the goods that were developed in British factories. As a result, the British benefitted from selling goods to the people of India.

Britain's economic interference in India during the time of the British Raj (the period of direct British rule over India) is a heavily debated topic. Some argue that the British helped to develop the country of India, which benefitted it by the end of the British Raj. For example, some historians have argued that Britain helped India transform to a more modern economy, following the stagnant policies of the Mughal Empire. Specifically, Britain developed many canals, roads and railways across India. In fact, during the time of the British Raj, India developed the fourth largest rail network on the planet with the help of British engineering. This infrastructure benefitted India in that it allowed the country better transportation networks that ultimately helped it transport goods and people across the country.

​Whereas, others argue that British economic policies in India were repressive and benefitted the British Empire over the people of India. For instance, Britain promoted the export of many of India's natural resources, especially to industrial England. The British benefitted from this system because the Indian resources fuelled the factory system present in England during the time of the Industrial Revolution. In fact, the British passed laws in India at the time that forced Indian citizens to produce crops for use in English factories instead of producing food crops. This is controversial, because India was stricken by several severe famines at the time, that some suggest could have been lessened with different economic policies. In fact, it is estimated that as many as 55 million Indians died from famine during the years of British rule in India. For example, the Great Famine, which is said to have occurred from 1876 to 1878, led to the death of 6 to 10 million people. As such, these criticisms of British imperialism in India led to a growth in Indian nationalism and a call for independence from British control.

India experienced a series of societal and cultural impacts due to the period of British imperial rule. For instance, prior to the arrival of Europeans (including the British), India was ruled over the by the Mughal Empire. The Mughal Empire existed approximately from 1526 until 1857 and at its height included most of the territory in modern India, parts of Pakistan and parts of Bangladesh. This makes it one of the largest empires in the history of Southeast Asia. Culturally, the Mughal was a high point in Southeast Asia. For instance, Mughal emperors oversaw the construction of many temples, bath houses, and government buildings. For example, the famous Taj Mahal was built between 1632 and 1653. Its construction was the suggestion of Mughal emperor Shah Jahan. He ruled over the Mughal Empire from 1628 until 1658 and wanted the Taj Mahal built as a place to house the tomb of his wife, Mumtaz Mahal. The Taj Mahal was made from white marble and is located on the Yamuna River in Agra, India. Today it is a UNESCO World Heritage site and one of the most important historic sites in all of India. As such, India had a strongly developed social structure in the years before the arrival of the British.​

Similar to the economic impacts, the social impacts of British imperialism in India were controversial. First, some historians have argued that British rule helped and benefitted India and its people. For instance, during the time of British imperial rule in India, the population of the country grew rapidly. In fact, it is estimated that the population of India in 1600, which was the earliest point of British involvement in India, was approximately 130 million. Whereas, by the mid-1900s, which is when British Imperial rule in India ended, the population of the country was over 380 million. As such, some historians have argued that this massive growth in the Indian population highlighted the improved health standards and quality of life introduced by the British. Further to this point, the average life expectancy of Indians improved throughout the timeframe off the British Raj, which is when the British government ruled over India directly. For example, in 1880, the average life expectancy in India was around 25 years of age. However, by 1950 it had increased to 35 years of age. Again, some historians point to this as proof that British rule led to improved health and quality of life standards for the people of the Indian subcontinent. These improved health statistics were likely achieved from new hospitals and schools that were developed by the British during the time of imperial rule. These new schools trained Indian doctors and nurses, which helped improve health standards across the country.​

Alternatively, many historians also point to the negative societal impacts of British rule over India. For instance, during the time of British rule in India, almost all of the upper positions in the government and military were held exclusively by British officials. This meant that Indians were denied the ability to obtain higher levels of power in their own country, and thus did not have the ability to obtain self-rule. For instance, in order to aid in its expansion throughout India, the British East India Company began to establish its own private armies made up of Indian soldiers referred to as 'sepoys'. The sepoys were trained in the latest European military standard. However, the power of the British East India Company in India ended in 1857 with the outbreak of the Sepoy Rebellion. It saw Indian sepoy soldiers for the British East India Company from north and central India, rebel against the company. This rebellion first began on May 10th, 1857 and lasted until November 1st, 1858. The Sepoy Rebellion was sparked by several factors that angered the Indian soldiers. First, while sepoys could gain rank in the armies of the British East India Company, they were also outranked by British officers. Second, as the British East India Company expanded its rule over India, it forced taxes on the Indian people including the sepoys. Third, the British officers of the British East India Company pushed European customs, values and religious practises on the sepoy soldiers. These factors combined and led to a growing sense of mistrust towards the British on behalf of the sepoys, which resulted in the 1857 rebellion. As such, the treatment of sepoys in the British army shows the issue of the British supressing and controlling the Indians.​

The political structure of India was profoundly impacted during the years of British imperial rule. Before the British (and other European nations) arrived to the Indian subcontinent, India was ruled over by the Mughal Empire. As stated above, the Mughal Empire existed from 1526 until 1857. However, it saw its power over India lessen throughout the 17th and 18th centuries as the British Empire began to gain influence in the region. For example, The British East India Company exerted its influence over India from the early 1600s until 1858. Then, the British government ruled over India directly from 1858 until 1947, in a time period known as the British Raj. This is important because as the British began to gain a foothold of influence in India, the people of India in turn lost their own ability to rule over themselves. In fact, this situation caused the British to install local Indian leaders that were loyal to the British. As such, the British successfully destroyed Indian self-rule. Therefore, many historians view this to be a negative political impact of British rule in India.​

With that said, another impact of British imperialism in India was the rise of the Indian Independence Movement and the Indian National Congress. British control over India faced several struggles in the late part of the 19th century and early part of the 20th century. This was due to several factors including the emergence of the Indian Independence Movement. Historians consider the Indian Independence Movement to have occurred over a period of about 90 years from 1857 until 1947. This time period mirrors the period of the British Raj, which is when the British government ruled over India as a colony of the British Empire. In fact, the Sepoy Rebellion of 1858 is considered to be one of the earliest examples of Indian revolt against British rule in India. With that said, the Indian Independence Movement gained steam throughout the 1880s and beyond due to the establishment of the Indian National Congress. . In general, the Indian National Congress emerged out of a growing sense of Indian nationalism in the late 1800s. At the time, the British (first the British East India Company and later the British Government) had controlled India for almost two centuries. However, during the second half of the 1800s, a large groups of educated Indians began to express nationalistic feelings centered around Indian independence. As such, this Indian Independence Movement led to the eventual creation of the Indian National Congress in 1885. The initial goal of the Indian National Congress was to promote Indian nationalism and give a voice to the independence movement that was aimed at British imperialism in India. In fact, the early actions of the Indian National Congress focused on promoting self-government for Indian people. This eventually led to the rise of Mahatma Gandhi. Gandhi, along with other members of the Indian National Congress, were able to successfully gain India's independence in 1947. Therefore, many historians view this as a positive impact of British imperialism rule. However, it should be noted that the positive outcome of Indian independence was only achieved due to decades of harsh and repressive British rule.​

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​impacts of british imperialism in india

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​impacts of british imperialism in india

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​impacts of british imperialism in india

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​impacts of british imperialism in india

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​impacts of british imperialism in india

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​impacts of british imperialism in india

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​Impacts of British Imperialism in India

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​Impacts of British Imperialism in India - British Imperialism in India is an important topic in world history. It is related to the Age of Imperialism and the expansion of the British Empire. As well, it involved some of the most significant people in

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Prior to British settlement, more than 500 First Nations groups inhabited the continent we now call Australia, approximately 750,000 people in total. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures developed over 60,000 years, making First Nations Peoples the custodians of the world's oldest living culture. Each group lived in close relationship with the land and had custodianship of their Country.

Are you a teacher looking for curriculum resources?

Easy-to-use, ready-made resources that will help your students understand First Nations stories, experiences and perspectives. They include teacher guides, student handouts, activities and more.

Captain Cook claims possession for England

In 1770, during his first Pacific voyage, Lieutenant James Cook claimed possession of the east coast of Australia for the British Crown. Upon his return to Britain, Cook's reports inspired the authorities to establish a penal colony in the newly claimed territory. The new colony was intended to alleviate overcrowding in British prisons, expand the British Empire, assert Britain's claim to the territory against other colonial powers, and establish a British base in the global South.

Disease, dispossession and direct conflict

In 1788, Captain Arthur Phillip and 1,500 convicts, crew, marines and civilians arrived at what is now called Sydney Cove. In the 10 years that followed, it's estimated that the First Nations population was reduced by 90%. Three main reasons for this dramatic population decline were the:

introduction of new diseases

acquisition of First Nations lands by colonisers

direct and violent conflict with colonisers.

The most immediate consequence of colonisation was a wave of epidemic diseases including smallpox, measles and influenza, which spread ahead of the frontier and annihilated many First Nations communities. Governor Phillip reported that smallpox had killed half of the First Nations people in the Sydney region within 14 months of the arrival of the First Fleet. The sexual abuse and exploitation of First Nations girls and women also introduced venereal disease to First Nations people in epidemic proportions.

"The Government is fast disposing of the land occupied by the natives from time immemorial. In addition to which settlers under the sanction of government may establish themselves in any part of this extensive territory and since the introduction of the numerous flocks and herds ... a serious loss has been sustained by the natives without an equivalent being rendered. Their territory is not only invaded, but their game is driven back, their marnong and other valuable roots are eaten by the white man's sheep and their deprivation, abuse and miseries are daily increasing."
Francis Tuckfield, Wesleyan Missionary, 1837

The expansion of British colonies, including the establishments in Van Diemen's Land (Tasmania), Adelaide, Moreton Bay (Brisbane) and Port Phillip (Melbourne), resulted in competition over land and resources, and quickly resulted in violence. Levels of frontier violence are hotly debated (see Reynolds and Windshuttle), but historical records document numerous occasions on which First Nations people were hunted and brutally murdered.

Massacres of First Nations people often took the form of mass shootings or driving groups of people off cliffs. There are also numerous accounts of colonists offering First Nations people food laced with arsenic and other poisons.

"In less than twenty years we have nearly swept them off the face of the earth. We have shot them down like dogs. In the guise of friendship we have issued corrosive sublimate in their damper and consigned whole tribes to the agonies of an excruciating death. We have made them drunkards, and infected them with diseases which have rotted the bones of their adults, and made such few children as are born amongst them a sorrow and a torture from the very instant of their birth. We have made them outcasts on their own land, and are rapidly consigning them to entire annihilation."
Edward Wilson (Editor), The Argus, 17 March 1856

It's important to recognise that from the beginning of colonisation, First Nations people continually resisted the violation of their right to land, and its impact on First Nations cultures and communities. It's estimated that at least 20,000 Aboriginal people were killed as a direct result of colonial violence during this era of Australian history. Between 2,000 and 2,500 European deaths resulted from frontier conflict during the same period.

F-Y10 Curriculum resources to help unpack the complexities surrounding Australia Day

With teacher guides, student handouts, activities and more, they're designed to help you put together a thought-provoking and engaging lesson.

Stop and think: how important is your way of life?

Imagine how you'd feel if you welcomed strangers into your home and they never left. In fact, what would it be like if they took control of your house and made you relocate far away? What if they abused you physically, sexually and financially, and spread disease throughout your community? Can you imagine how this would affect your children and grandchildren's views of these strangers for generations to come?

Consider what it would be like to see a previously unknown disease, with a 50% fatality rate, sweep through your community, affecting your family and friends. How would it make you feel to know that so much of your culture had been permanently devastated, with no way to fully rediscover it in all its richness?

The reality of the collision of cultures between First Nations Peoples and the British colonials has gone unacknowledged for most of our shared history. Many First Nations people have wrestled with defining their identity when so much of their pre-contact culture has been lost, and at the same time their relationship with mainstream Australian culture is complicated by its role in the deterioration of First Nations cultures.

References

1. Behrendt L (2012) Indigenous Australia for Dummies®, Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd, Milton, Queensland, p. 94, accessed 8 November 2021.

2. Harris J (2003) 'Hiding the bodies: the myth of the humane colonisation of Aboriginal Australia', Aboriginal History Journal, vol. 27, pp. 79-104, accessed 8 November 2021.

3. Bladen FM, Britton A and Cook J (1892) Historical records of New South Wales, vol. 1, Part 2 (1783-1792), Government Printer, Sydney, accessed 8 November 2021.

4. Harris J (2013) One blood: 200 years of Aboriginal encounter with Christianity, (Kindle edn) p. 27, accessed 8 November 2021.

5. Tuckfield F (1837) The Journal of Francis Tuckfield, missionary to Port Phillip, Southern Australia, 1837-ca. 1842, (manuscript), State Library of Victoria, accessed 8 November 2021.

6. Behrendt L (2012) Indigenous Australia for Dummies®, Wiley Publishing Australia Pty Ltd, Milton, Queensland, p. 274, accessed 8 November 2021.

7. Harris J (2013) One blood: 200 years of Aboriginal encounter with Christianity, (Kindle edn) p. 209, accessed 8 November 2021.

8. Reynolds H (2006) The other side of the Frontier: Aboriginal resistance to the European invasion of Australia, p. 126, University of New South Wales Press.

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Colonisation | History Of When Australia Was Colonised

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Prior to British settlement, more than 500 First Nations groups inhabited the continent we now call Australia, approximately 750,000 people in total. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander cultures developed over 60,000 years, making First Nations Peoples the custodians of the world's oldest living culture.

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Primary Source: An Investigation Into Congo Colonialism, 1890

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Primary Source: An Investigation Into Congo Colonialism, 1890

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Kenyans who were arrested, beaten and tortured by the British during the fight for independence share their stories.

Paulo Muoka Nzili walks through the maize fields outside his home in the countryside near Machakos, Kenya [Phil Moore/Al Jazeera]

It's December 1952. Naomi Nziula Kimweli, her husband Kimweli Mbithuka Kilatya, and their three children are on a bus, returning to their home town to celebrate Christmas in what today is central Kenya. Life is good: Kimweli works at the Department of Public Works and Naomi is five months pregnant with their fourth child.

But then soldiers stop the coach and force everybody off. Kenya was then a colony of the United Kingdom, and the soldiers were commanded by a British officer. Naomi and Kimweli refer to him as Luvai, which in their Kamba language means "ruthless person".

The soldiers separate the men from the women and children, and haul the passengers to a detention camp.

"When we arrived, we found other people being tortured and we were being asked how many oaths we had taken; I said 'no' to anything about taking an oath," Naomi says softly. "I was blindfolded and I could hear my children crying, calling me 'Mummy, Mummy.' I never saw them again."

Now 87, Naomi wears a flowery dress and colourful headscarf, but her eyes are sad and her face angry as she recounts her ordeal. "Because when this bottle was pushed into my vagina, I fell unconscious," she adds.

Naomi woke up some time later in Nairobi's King George Hospital, today the Kenyatta National Hospital, to learn that the assault had caused her to miscarry.

In the meantime, her husband, Kimweli, now 91, suffered his own torment. "When we were taken to that camp, we were asked: 'You must tell us how many oaths you have taken because you are also a Mau Mau'," he explains.

Then he says he was pushed to the ground, ordered to straighten his legs and trampled on, slowly. Pulling up the hems of his trousers, he reveals scars he says are from wounds inflicted upon him that day.

A tall, gaunt man in a worn-out, too-small suit, Kimweli frowns as he continues: "Then I was forced to lie on my back, my groins were taken. Then they used pliers and I felt a very painful yank of my testicles." He had just been castrated.

The uprising

A few years earlier, a local movement had started revolting against the British colonial administration, which had ruled the area since 1895.

The movement mainly comprised Kikuyus, Kenya's largest native tribe, many of whom had been pushed off their fertile lands in central Kenya by the European settlers. Along with other tribes, the Kikuyus had been forced to live in ethnic reserves that were too small for them, and required to possess a special permit to move around the country. Many ended up as cheap labour on white-owned farms in what had become known as the White Highlands.

Many of their European masters were young, upper-class British officers who had resettled there after World War I; others had arrived from South Africa and British-administered Rhodesia. Most enjoyed a life of luxury on their large, servant-staffed estates.

But, by 1948, growing unrest on the farms had alerted the colonial government to the existence of the so-called Mau Mau movement, which it subsequently banned in 1950. But just two years later, violence erupted as rebels began attacking farms and killing Africans they considered to be supporting the regime.

The rebels called themselves the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA). Their aim was to end colonial rule. It was the British who called them "the Mau Mau", a term whose origins and meaning is still being discussed today.

The Mau Mau were said to be united by a secret Kikuyu oath that involved drinking blood and even eating human flesh.

When the rebels started killing Europeans too, the newly appointed governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, declared a state of emergency in the colony. It was October 1952, and the war against the Mau Mau had officially begun.

The colonial response

The colonial authorities struck swiftly and, intending to thwart the rebellion at its very beginning, arrested around 180 people, among them Jomo Kenyatta, the leader of the Kenyan African Union (KAU), a predominantly Kikuyu political organisation. But the actual leaders of the guerrillas, who, like Dedan Kimathi, came from the most radical wing of the KAU, had already escaped into the forests, from where they would continue their fight.

The rebels possessed few firearms so used spears and machetes. When they killed, they left the bodies torn to pieces. Living in the bush, they grew dishevelled, with long hair or dreadlocks, and some wore animal skins.

The fact that they mostly killed other Africans enabled the administration to frame the conflict as inter-Kenyan, one that the authorities were obliged to pacify.

"But that is not true. The truth is the Mau Mau was a mass movement that was organised to liberate Kenya from colonial domination," says Gitu wa Kahengeri, the secretary-general of the Mau Mau War Veterans' Association. "We went on and on and on; we did not want to leave [the struggle] until [the British] came to understand that this country belongs to the Kenyan Africans."

Compared with almost all the other veterans, things are good for the secretary of their association, who ended up becoming a member of parliament and now has a state pension. In a navy blue suit, Gitu looks healthy and younger than his 86 years. He is sitting in the manicured gardens of the Fairview Hotel, near the centre of Nairobi. The hotel was already here in the 1930s, when its guests were Europeans arriving in the administrative capital of British Kenya.

Gitu says he joined the Mau Mau movement in 1946 and spent seven years in detention after being arrested in 1953.

Back then, while the regime soldiers fought the guerrillas, the colonial government also conducted a campaign of mass arrests. Almost anybody even slightly suspected of belonging to the Mau Mau was arrested and taken to a detention camp or prison where they were then interrogated and often tortured and abused.

Many women, like Naomi, were raped with glass bottles. Many men, like Kimweli, were castrated with pliers.

Few prisoners were brought before a court of law. They were classified according to how dangerous they were perceived to be, and they were continually moved from one camp or prison to another until they were considered safe to be sent to a reserve.

As the war dragged on, the administration started relocating a large part of the native population into what it dubbed "protected villages". These were surrounded by barbed wire, guarded by soldiers and resembled the detention camps in everything but name. The "villages" also served the purpose of cutting off the locals' support to the guerrillas.

Conditions in both the camps and villages were harsh; violence, sickness and hunger were rife.

There is contention about how many people were detained, but Harvard historian Caroline Elkins estimates that between 160,000 and 320,000 Kenyans were taken to detention camps. In total, she says, up to 1.5 million, including almost all the Kikuyu population, were forcibly kept either in the camps or the "protected villages".

The rebellion proved to be much more difficult to deal with than the British had anticipated: the colonial government brought in 20,000 extra soldiers and used the British Royal Air Force to try to strike the rebels in the forests.

In October 1956, the Mau Mau leader Dedan Kimathi was shot and captured, effectively signalling the end of the fighting in the bush. Kimathi was tried and sentenced to death. He was hanged in February the following year.

Finally, in 1960, the state of emergency was lifted, and the colonial regime filed the uprising away as just a savage conflict conducted mostly between Africans.

The rebellion, however, had helped to accelerate the transition of power, as had been happening in other European colonies. Three years later, in 1963, Kenya was declared independent.

Its first government was led by Jomo Kenyatta, by then on friendly terms with the UK. The land which did not remain in British hands passed to Kenyans linked with Kenyatta's government.

The new masters had little interest in bringing to light the wrongs committed by either side during the uprising, or in recognising the role played by the Mau Mau fighters. The Kenyan government did not remove the law banning the Mau Mau movement, and so the veterans remained barred from meeting and organising themselves into any kind of association.

The death toll of the conflict remains a source of dispute today. The Mau Mau killed around 1,800 Africans because of their supposed loyalty to the colonial regime, and a further 32 European and 26 Asian civilians, according to figures compiled by David Anderson, a professor of African history at the University of Warwick in the UK.

According to the official figures, the rebels also killed some 200 colonial security forces during combat. But as most of them were Africans, not more than 100 Europeans died as a result of the uprising. In contrast, at least 11,000 rebels were killed by the regime, and historians such as Anderson calculate the number of Kenyan casualties to be at least 20,000 - possibly more.

Harvard historian Elkins, whose estimates have been disputed by some of her colleagues, says between 100,000 and 300,000 Africans are unaccounted for.

All these disagreements were made possible by the fact that, as researchers such as Elkins discovered, many official documents from the time of the uprising were nowhere to be found. It seemed the British government had actually tried to delete that part of its imperial past.
Rewriting history
Things suddenly changed in 2003. That year the government of the newly elected Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki lifted the law that banned the Mau Mau. The veterans immediately began gathering to share their stories, and soon the Mau Mau War Veterans' Association was formed.

Together with the Kenya Human Rights Commission (KHRC), the veterans started working towards the possibility of bringing a lawsuit against the United Kingdom. The KHRC said it had documented 40 cases of sexual abuse, castration and illegal detention. From those cases, the commission was finally able to present five Mau Mau veterans as claimants in mid-2009.

As part of the research for the legal case, Professor Anderson made a startling discovery in 2010. He found out that the British government had indeed smuggled out of Kenya a huge number of official documents, which were still being kept secret on special premises. The judge for the case ordered the government to release these. Some 1,500 files recording Britain's past in Kenya surfaced, many of them documenting systematic abuses committed by the colonial regime during the uprising. More than 7,000 secret files were found in 36 other former British colonies.

The British government argued that any legal responsibility for the Mau Mau case had passed on to the Kenyan government along with independence, and that a fair trial was not possible after such a long time.

The court denied both arguments; the first in April 2011 and the second in June 2012. Finally, the judge ruled that three of the Mau Mau claimants - Wambugu wa Nyingi, Jane Muthoni Mara and Paulo Muoka Nzili - had been tortured and abused by the colonial authorities. They could proceed with their case and sue the British government.

The trial never happened, however. In June 2013, the British Foreign Secretary, William Hague, announced that Britain would pay roughly $31m in costs and compensation to a total of 5,228 veterans represented by the British law firm Leigh Day.

"We understand the pain and the grief felt by those who were involved in the events of emergency in Kenya. The British government recognises that Kenyans were subjected to torture and other forms of ill-treatment at the hands of the colonial administration," Hague said. He also insisted that his government still denied liability for the actions of the colonial administration in Kenya, and added that it would defend any claims brought by other former British colonies.

"You know, [the British] wrote our history the way they wanted it to be seen or to be heard," says Gitu, the Veterans' Association secretary general. "Now the [Kenyan] government has to support us, and I think it's going to support us, because now the constitution recognises those who went to war to liberate Kenya, and there is also a day specifically to commemorate those who did fight the British government."

"Therefore something is happening within our government, and possibly in the future they will embrace the rewriting of our history, perhaps before we die."

Meet the Mau Mau
Jane Muthoni Mara: "We took the oath to be united to ask for freedom and for our land"

Born in around 1937-1939 in Kianjiru village, Nyeri district

A member of the Mau Mau, she was arrested in 1954, when she was about 15

She was sent to a detention camp, where she was beaten and violated with a glass bottle

She was one of the three claimants who won the right to sue the British government

"The main thing I used to do was take food to the Mau Mau," says Jane Muthoni Mara.

She recalls how she ran into the bush to escape harsh treatment by the colonisers "because they came in force, beating us ... We were not fighting them; we ran to the forest for safety," she adds.

She describes how, in detention, "we were thoroughly beaten and we had bottles inserted into our private parts. There were different glass bottles for elderly women and for the young ones. For the young ones, they used bottles of soda and for the others, Tusker beer bottles."

"The area - the private parts - was injured. When the bottles were inserted, blood came out, I started bleeding."

A healer gave Jane stitches.

When she returned home, she says she married and had children.

"My children are now suffering from the lack of land, a lack of education," she says. "I tend to forget things and I think it could be because of the beatings."

The British, she says, "curtailed my life, they never did anything to benefit me".
Kimweli Mbithuka Kilatya: "I was forced to lie on my back and my groins were taken. They used pliers and I had a very painful yank of my testicles"

Born in 1923 in Kasau

During the uprising he was a civilian, working at the Department of Public Works in the colonial administration

He was arrested, interrogated, beaten up and castrated

"I was arrested in 1952 in December. We were going for Christmas, and we were intercepted on the way. We were all in the vehicles we were travelling in, which was stopped by a European.

"I think they punished us or they tortured us because we'd joined together to ask for our land and whoever asked for that land was ... [considered to be a] Mau Mau, so we were tortured seriously.

"I never did anything else when I went back home, I never worked. I used to get support from relatives who were sympathising with me, until I was able to have produce from my shamba [small field]. After becoming a little bit stronger, I used to make quivers and sell them, and this is how I got support. "

Naomi Nziula Kimweli: "When they inserted this bottle into my vagina, I fell unconscious"

Born in 1927, she now lives in Katangi

She was five months pregnant when she was arrested, interrogated, beaten and assaulted, resulting in a miscarriage

The last time she saw her three children, one girl and two boys, was when she was being tortured. She does not know what happened to them

"When t his bottle was pushed into my vagina, I fell unconscious, I aborted.

"After t hat time I never saw my children again.

"Those who used to beat and kill and do all evil were British. It was the Britons who were fighting against the Africans, because they did not want to give us freedom or our land.
Ndiku Mutwiwa Mutua: "The Kenyan government has done nothing for us - it has done nothing for the freedom fighters"

Born in 1927 or 1928 in Kimutwa village, near Machakos

He took the Mau Mau oath and used to give the rebels food from the farm where he worked

He was arrested and castrated, and then rescued by the Mau Mau and taken to the forest

He was one of the original claimants but his file was removed because of a legal technicality

"We had to support [the Mau Mau], and we had decided whoever would not support the freedom fighters outside in the fields, he should also be killed because he was useless. So one could be cut into pieces and left or dealt with mercilessly by fellow Africans.

"If there's anyone who has done a lot of injustice, it was the British - they were very bad people.

"The castration was done by soldiers under the instructions of the Europeans, especially that man called Luvai. They used a pair of pliers, we were tied, blindfolded, and our hands astray, pinned on the ground, legs astray, pinned on the ground. And everything, anything bad was done to your testicles.

"The government has done nothing for us. There's no support, nothing as a token, nothing. It took nearly half a century for the law banning the Mau Mau to be lifted. We went to court this late, after this length, because the time had not yet come for us to be free, to say anything, because we were banned by the former constitution ... We are now free, so this is the time to speak for ourselves and we decided to sue the British government for all the atrocities they perpetrated against us."
Paulo Muoka Nzili: "The oath had some effect, because after taking it we were very united and did not fear anything"

Born in 1927 in Kiimakiu village

A former Mau Mau fighter, he was one of three claimants who won the right to sue the British government

He was arrested in 1955, taken to a detention camp and castrated

"I was arrested near the Kamethe prison and when I was discovered I was taken to Kwaluvai, the Mbkasi detention camp. At Mbakasi we were beaten up and I was castrated there, by this man Luvai. He gave the instructions to an askari [African soldier].

"I was forced to lay on my back, my arms were tied and my legs were tied by chains, and then this man, Luvai , ordered a soldier to make sure that I was castrated hard because I was coming from the bush and I was a very bad person - as far as the fight against the Europeans was concerned. So they castrated me using a pliers-like instrument.

"After castration, I got swollen all over and they took me to King George's Hospital. I was there under the supervision of the askaris . After treatment, I was taken back to Mbakasi under the instructions of Luvai and then I was, after some time - about two weeks - taken to Manyani detention camp."
Wambugu Wa Nyingi: "When I was released, I found that my father's land had been given to Kenyan collaborators"

Born in 1928 in Aguthi village, Nyeri district

He was not a Mau Mau but a member of the Kenyan African Union (KAU), from the most militant wing of which the Mau Mau was formed

He was arrested on December 24, 1952, taken to a detention camp and beaten up

He was one of the three claimants who won the right to sue the British government

After Kiariua, Wambugu was moved to the Athi River detention camp, where the conditions were much better. "This camp was very peaceful. We were not beaten, we were given food freely - the camp was just nice to us. Life was good," he says.

But then he was moved to another camp where he says the detainees "were thoroughly punished and even had to walk on our knees on gravel, [we] were tied with chains".

When he was eventually returned to Athi River, the situation there had changed. "We were totally punished," he recounts. "The greatest punishment was [that] we were tied on the legs and then we were hanged, the head down and the legs up, and then water was poured on us."

The torture was used to extract a confession about having taken the Mau Mau "blood oath". "We stayed hanging for about 15 minutes and there were some bitter questions, whether we had taken the oath or not, whether we were going to deny the Mau Mau.

"We were beaten on the shoulders every morning with special sticks," he adds.

Wambugu remembers one man at the Rudwar detention camp they dubbed 'White House'. "That white man used to call himself 'God of Rudwar'. He was terrible, very brutal to us.
This article first appeared in the August 2014 issue of the Al Jazeera Magazine.

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'We are the Mau Mau': Kenyans share stories of torture

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Kenyans who were arrested, beaten and tortured by the British during the fight for independence share their stories. It's December 1952. Naomi Nziula Kimweli, her husband Kimweli Mbithuka Kilatya, and their three children are on a bus, returning to their home town to celebrate Christmas in what today is central Kenya.

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Luxury in the British Raj: Calcutta's memorial to Queen Victoria, 1921. PA Archive

When India gained independence from Britain on August 15 1947, the majority of Anglo-Indians had either left or would leave soon after. Many within the Indian Civil Service would write of the trauma that they experienced from witnessing the violence of the years leading up to the end of British rule and the bloodbath that would follow as the lines of partition were revealed.

Colonialism was certainly a far more traumatising experience for colonial subjects than their colonisers. They suffered poverty, malnutrition, disease, cultural upheaval, economic exploitation, political disadvantage, and systematic programmes aimed at creating a sense of social and racial inferiority. While some may argue that any suffering on the part of the British colonialists ought to be met with little sympathy, this is not a reason to obscure it from history.

It was the very notion that Indian civil service servicemen were usurpers, full of privilege, in a foreign land that led to the sapped sense of humanity that many wrestled with - both during and after their India careers.

As my own forthcoming book details, some shut themselves off from the day-to-day lives of Indians, unless forced to engage for work purposes. Others escaped through drowning themselves in alcohol, opium or other drugs. Some convinced themselves of the intellectual superiority of the white man and his right to rule over "lesser races", while a number found solace in Christianity. Several came to see their role as being a peacekeeper between various ethnic and religious groups, despite the irony of the British having encouraged and exploited the categorisation of colonial subjects on these grounds in the first place.

Underneath all of this sits a trauma that the coloniser had to either deal with - or resign their post and go home.

Serving the Raj

One serviceman of the late Raj who I have focused on in my research is an example of the coping mechanisms that British officials deployed. Andrew Clow entered the Indian Civil Service in 1912 at the age of 22 and would remain a civil servant until 1947 when he reached the mandatory retirement ceiling of 35 years. His most notable portfolios were as secretary of the Indian Labour Bureau in the late 1930s, followed by minister for communications and then governor of Assam from 1942 to 1947.

Clow, and his one thousand or so colleagues at any one time, effectively ruled India during the late Raj. This was a time of declining British prestige, and declining public and political opinion of colonialism as an acceptable social, economic and political practice. The rise of the Indian independence movement with Mohandas Gandhi as its nominal leader, coincided with the anti-British international propaganda concerning its empire that came from the Soviet Union and its sympathisers.

Doubt and self-loathing

In the early 1920s, the Indian independence movement grew in prominence and received a significant level of sympathy at home and abroad. In 1919, the Amritsar Massacre of unarmed protesters by British and Gurka troops received much public criticism. A year later, two of Clow's civil service intake year group were assassinated in a market in Midnapore, West Bengal. From letters Clow wrote to a friend, we know he considered resigning on several occasions during the early 1920s. This period of reflection led him to fundamentally question his role within the colonial system, but he ultimately decided to continue his career.

Clow was a devout Christian and his life in India would develop into a religious cocoon of sorts where he used his relationship with God to suppress his trauma at being a colonial usurper.

As he became more senior within the administration he increasingly distanced himself from Indians, Indian culture and expressed little sympathy for the plight of people who suffered from British exploitation. He spent the vast majority of his time with other Europeans and his holidays at his house at the British hill station of Simla. His diaries throughout the 1930s and 1940s became almost entirely written prayers requesting salvation punctuated by private comments of self-loathing, written in confidence between himself and God.

Defender of British colonialism

Upon his retirement from the Indian Civil Service in 1947, Clow returned to Scotland and became chairman of the newly-created Scottish Gas Board. His private time was spent largely in the pursuit of the preservation of the legacy of British India. He voraciously read memoirs and other reflections by his former colleagues, and would lambast any critique of the British, even if those criticisms were rather sparse.

PA archive

Clow's failure to concede publicly that colonialism was an exploitative practice is indicative of a complex reaction to his trauma at being a key part of a system of suppression. His heightened religiosity was a key part of his way of dealing with this. In many ways he "used" God to negate his discomfort at being one of the main figures of the British colonial enterprise.

Clow was typical of many within the Indian Civil Service who became troubled by their roles facilitating the exploitation of the Indian subcontinent for the British Empire. Yet, rather than resign his post and become a critic of colonial practices, Clow built a number of internal mechanisms so that he could carry on. Reactions like Clow's go some way to explain the romance that many within British society have had for the age of empire. But today, 70 years on from the end of the Raj, public bodies and the British media are willing to engage in a much more robust critique.

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Colonialism in India was traumatic - including for some of the British officials who ruled the Raj

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When India gained independence from Britain on August 15 1947, the majority of Anglo-Indians had either left or would leave soon after. Many within the Indian Civil Service would write of the trauma that they experienced from witnessing the violence of the years leading up to the end of British rule and the bloodbath that would follow as the lines of partition were revealed.

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Haiti: Colonialism

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Geography and bad luck are only partly to blame for Haiti's tragedy. There are, plainly, more propitious places for a country and its capital city to find themselves than straddling the major fault line between the North American and Caribbean tectonic plates. It's more than unfortunate to be positioned plumb on the region's principal hurricane track, meaning you would be hit, in the 2008 season alone, by a quartet of storms as deadly and destructive as Fay, Gustav, Hannah and Ike (between them, they killed 800 people, and devastated more than 70% of Haiti's agricultural land). Wretched, also, to have fallen victim to calamitous flooding in 2002, 2003 (twice), 2006 and 2007.

But what has really left Haiti in such a state today, what makes the country a constant and heart-rending site of recurring catastrophe, is its history. In Haiti, the last five centuries have combined to produce a people so poor, an infrastructure so nonexistent and a state so hopelessly ineffectual that whatever natural disaster chooses to strike next, its impact on the population will be magnified many, many times over. Every single factor that international experts look for when trying to measure a nation's vulnerability to natural disasters is, in Haiti, at the very top of the scale. Countries, when it comes to dealing with disaster, do not get worse.

"Haiti has had slavery, revolution, debt, deforestation, corruption, exploitation and violence," says Alex von Tunzelmann, a historian and writer currently working on a book about the country and its near neighbours, the Dominican Republic and Cuba. "Now it has poverty, illiteracy, overcrowding, no infrastructure, environmental disaster and large areas without the rule of law. And that was before the earthquake. It sounds a terrible cliche, but it really is a perfect storm. This is a catastrophe beyond our worst imagination."

It needn't, though, have been like this. In the 18th century, under French rule, Haiti - then called Saint-Domingue - was the Pearl of the Antilles, one of the richest islands in France's empire (though 800,000-odd African slaves who produced that wealth saw precious little of it). In the 1780s, Haiti exported 60% of all the coffee and 40% of all the sugar consumed in Europe: more than all of Britain's West Indian colonies combined. It subsequently became the first independent nation in Latin America, and remains the world's oldest black republic and the second-oldest republic in the western hemisphere after the United States. So what went wrong?

Haiti, or rather the large island in the western Atlantic of which the present-day Republic of Haiti occupies the western part, was discovered by Christopher Columbus in December 1492. The native Taino people knew it as Ayiti, but Columbus claimed it for the Spanish crown and named it La Isla Española. As Spanish interest in the island faltered with the discovery of gold and silver elsewhere in Latin America, the early occupiers moved east, leaving the western part of Hispaniola free for English, Dutch and particularly French buccaneers. The French West India Company gradually assumed control of the colony, and by 1665 France had formally claimed it as Saint-Domingue. A treaty with Spain 30 years later saw Madrid cede the western third of the island to Paris.

Economically, French occupation was a runaway success. But Haiti's riches could only be exploited by importing up to 40,000 slaves a year. For nearly a decade in the late 18th century, Haiti accounted for more than one-third of the entire Atlantic slave trade. Conditions for these men and women were atrocious; the average life expectancy for a slave on Haiti was 21 years. Abuse was dreadful, and routine: "Have they not hung up men with heads downward, drowned them in sacks, crucified them on planks, buried them alive, crushed them in mortars?" wrote one former slave some time later. "Have they not forced them to eat excrement? Have they not thrown them into boiling cauldrons of cane syrup? Have they not put men and women inside barrels studded with spikes and rolled them down mountainsides into the abyss?"

Not surprisingly, the French Revolution in 1789 raised the tricky question of how exactly the Declaration of the Rights of Man might be said to apply both to Haiti's then sizeable population of free gens de couleur (generally the offspring of a white plantation owner and a black concubine) - and ultimately to the slaves themselves. The rebellion of Saint-Domingue's slaves began on the northern plains in August 1791, but the uprising, ensuing bloody civil war and finally bitter and spectacularly brutal battle against Napoleon Bonaparte's forces was not over for another 12 years. As France became increasingly distracted by war with Britain, the French commander, the Vicomte de Rochambeau, was finally defeated in November 1803 (though not before he had hanged, drowned or burned and buried alive thousands of rebels). Haiti declared independence on 1 January 1804.

As Stephen Keppel of the Economist Intelligence Unit puts it, Haiti's revolution may have brought it independence but it also "ended up destroying the country's infrastructure and most of its plantations. It wasn't the best of starts for a fledgling republic." Moreover, in exchange for diplomatic recognition from France, the new republic was forced to pay enormous reparations: some 150m francs, in gold. It was an immense sum, and even reduced by more than half in 1830, far more than Haiti could afford.

"The long and the short of it is that Haiti was paying reparations to France from 1825 until 1947," says Von Tunzelmann. "To come up with the money, it took out huge loans from American, German and French banks, at exorbitant rates of interest. By 1900, Haiti was spending about 80% of its national budget on loan repayments. It completely wrecked their economy. By the time the original reparations and interest were paid off, the place was basically destitute and trapped in a spiral of debt. Plus, a succession of leaders had more or less given up on trying to resolve Haiti's problems, and started looting it instead."

The closing decades, though, of the 19th century did at least mark a period of relative stability. Haitian culture flourished, an intelligentsia emerged, and the sugar and rum industries started to grow once more. But then in 1911 came another revolution, followed almost immediately by nearly 20 years of occupation by a US terrified that Haiti was about to default on its massive debts. The Great Depression devastated the country's exports. There were revolts and coups and dictatorships, and then, in 1957, came François "Papa Doc" Duvalier. Papa Doc's regime is widely seen as one of the most corrupt and repressive in modern history. He exploited Haiti's traditional belief in voodoo to establish a personal militia, the feared and hated Tonton Macoutes, said to be zombies that he had raised from the dead.

During the 28 years in power of Papa Doc and his playboy son and heir, Jean-Claude Duvalier, or Baby Doc, the Tonton Macoutes and their henchmen killed between 30,00 and 60,000 Haitians, and raped, beat and tortured countless more. Until Baby Doc's eventual flight into exile in 1986, Duvalier père and fils also made themselves very rich indeed. Aid agencies and international creditors donated and lent millions for projects that were often abandoned before completion, or never even started. Generous multinational corporations earned lucrative contracts. According to Von Tunzelmann, the Duvaliers were at times embezzling up to 80% of Haiti's international aid, while the debts they signed up to accounted for 45% of what the country owed last year. And when Baby Doc finally fled, estimates of what he took with him run as high as $900m.

It is hardly surprising then that Haiti isn't Switzerland. The Duvaliers' departure, as Keppel puts it, "left a void, and a broken and corrupt government. Democracy got off to a really bad start there. The Duvaliers may have bankrupted the government, they may been brutal, but they could keep control of the place. Since they went, Haiti has seen more coups, ousters and social unrest." The country is short on investment, and desperately short on most of the infrastructure and apparatus of a functioning modern state. For Keppel, while Haiti's problems undoubtedly began "a long way back, there have been periods when it could have set itself on a different track". It's the recent transition from dictatorship to democracy that is at the root of today's problems, he believes. "It's led to a situation where the population is continuing to grow, where poverty drives many of them to Port-au-Prince, and where Port-au-Prince, even at the best of times, doesn't have the infrastructure to cope with them. And then comes an earthquake of an unprecedented magnitude . . ."

Von Tunzelmann isn't so sure. Haiti's descent began earlier than that, she believes. One reason why Haiti suffers more than its neighbours from natural disasters like hurricanes and flooding is its massive deforestation, under way in the country since the time of the French occupation, she says. "The French didn't manage the land at all well," she says. "The process of soil erosion really began then. And then in the chaos after the revolution, the land was simply parcelled out into little plots, occupied mainly by individual families. And since the 1950s, people have been cutting it down and cooking on charcoal. As the population has soared, the forests have come down. Haiti is now about 98% deforested. It's extraordinary. You can see it from space. The problem is, it was those forests, those tree roots, that held the soil together. So with every new storm, more topsoil and clay disappears." Arable land is reduced, simply, to rubble. Even before the devastating storms of 2008, Haiti's population was starving. There were shocking reports of desperate people mixing vegetable oil with mud to make something that at least looked approximately like a biscuit.

"I wouldn't lay it all at the door of history," says Keppel. "But it's true to say that while this earthquake was unprecedented and unpredictable and would have caused huge problems anywhere, Haiti is impacted by natural disasters much more than some of its neighbours. The infrastructure is so poor; the government can't control all its territory. There's been a whole combination of factors, many of which have repeated themselves over and over, that have left Haiti in the state it's in today."

Among aid workers whom Von Tunzelmann has spoken to, Haiti today is "down there with Somalia, as just about the worst [most damaged] society on earth. Even in Afghanistan, there's a middle class. People aren't living in the sewers." As far back as the 1950s, she says, Haiti was considered unsustainably overcrowded with a population of 3 million; that figure now stands at 9 million. Some 80% of that population live below the poverty line. The country is in an advanced state of industrial collapse, with a GDP per capita in 2009 of just $2 a day. Some 66% of Haitians work in agriculture, but this is mainly small-scale subsistence farming and accounts for less than a third of GDP. The unemployment rate is 75%. Foreign aid accounts for 30%-40% of the government's budget. There are 80 deaths for every 1,000 live births, and the survival rate of newborns is the lowest in the western hemisphere. For many adults, the most promising sources of income are likely to be drug dealing, weapons trading, gang membership, kidnapping and extortion.

Compare Haiti with its neighbours, equally prone to natural disasters but far better equipped to cope because they are far better functioning societies, and the only conclusion possible, says Von Tunzelmann, is that it is Haiti's turbulent history that has brought it to this point. For the better part of 200 years, she argues, rich countries and their banks have been sucking the wealth out of the country, and its own despotic and corrupt leaders have been doing their best to facilitate the process, lining their own pockets handsomely on the way.

Approach Haiti's border with the Dominican Republic and the lush green of the forest begins again: this is a wealthier place. An earthquake here has less impact because constructions are stronger, building regulations are enforced, the government is more stable. In nearby Cuba, hardly a country rolling in money, emergency management is infinitely more effective simply because of a carefully coordinated, block-by-block organisation. Haiti has two fire stations in the entire country - and people on $2 a day cannot afford quake-proof housing.

This article was amended on 18 January 2010, to clarify that a reference to Duvalier-era debts constituting 45% of what Haiti owes referred to the situation in 2009, and to clarify that a quote from interviewee Alex von Tunzelmann about the level of social damage in Haiti was her paraphrasing of what aid workers had told her.

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Haiti, born of slavery and revolution, has struggled with centuries of crippling debt, exploitation, corruption and violence

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View of the 40 days of fire of the plain houses at Cap-Français. August 23rd, 1791.

A portrait of Toussaint Louverture on horseback.

Haiti is an independent nation in the Caribbean that occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, with the Dominican Republic to the east. The island was initially claimed by Spain, which later ceded the western third of the island to France. Prior to gaining its independence in 1804, Haiti was the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Under French rule, Saint-Domingue grew to be the wealthiest colony in the French empire and, perhaps, the richest colony in the world. Shortly before the Haitian Revolution, Saint-Domingue produced roughly 40 percent of the sugar and 60 percent of the coffee imported to Europe.

The colonial economy of Saint-Domingue was based almost entirely on the production of plantation crops for export. Enslaved African workers grew sugar in the northern plains around Cap Français, for example, and coffee in the mountainous interior. The slave system in Saint-Domingue was regarded as one of the harshest in the Americas, with high levels of both mortality and violence. To supply the plantation system, French owners imported almost 800,000 Africans to the colony (which, by comparison, is almost double the number of Africans carried to North America).

One of the most notable aspects of Haitian history is that the nation is the only one to have emerged as the result of a successful slave rebellion. From 1791 through 1804, enslaved people and their allies in Saint-Domingue fought a protracted revolution to win their independence from France. This was not the first episode of rebellion or fear of rebellion, as the case of François Makandal shows, but it was the most successful. After a ceremony at Bois Caïman, the rebellion began in August 1791. Within a few weeks the insurrection grew to include more than one hundred thousand participants who destroyed hundreds of plantations. In 1792, the French Assembly sent troops to put down the rebellion.

The conflict soon took on an international imperial dimension as Great Britain and Spain attempted to win control of the island. Under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, a former slave, the rebels fought off British and Spanish attacks and even liberated enslaved people on the Spanish side of the island. In 1801, Louverture announced himself as leader of Saint-Domingue, but was eventually captured by French imperial forces.

Napoleon's forces regained control of the colony in 1802 and attempted to restore slavery, which led to a new wave of rebellion. Under the new leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the rebellion finally defeated French forces in late 1803. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines announced the new nation of Haiti to a world that was largely unprepared to accept its independence.

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Through sites and objects from across the globe, Slavery and Remembrance aims to broaden our understandings of a shared and painful past, the ways in which we collectively remember and forget, and the power of legacies to shape our present and future.

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Jamaica Background info

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Jamaica - British Rule, Economy, Culture

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Jamaica - British Rule, Economy, Culture: In 1655 a British expedition under Admiral Sir William Penn and General Robert Venables captured Jamaica and began expelling the Spanish, a task that was accomplished within five years. However, many of the Spaniards’ escaped slaves had formed communities in…

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Jamaican Colonialism History

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About 600 CE the culture known as the "Redware people" arrived; little is known of them, however, beyond the red pottery they left. Alligator Pond in Manchester Parish and Little River in St. Ann Parish are among the earliest known sites of this Ostionoid person, who lived near the coast and extensively hunted turtles and fish.

Around 800 CE, Arawak arrived, eventually settling throughout the island. Living in villages ruled by tribal chiefs called the caciques, they sustained themselves on fishing and the cultivation of maize and cassava. At the height of their civilization, their population is estimated to have numbered as much as 60,000.

The Arawak brought from South America a system of raising yuca known as "conuco." To add nutrients to the soil, the Arawak burned local bushes and trees and heaped the ash into large mounds, into which they then planted yuca cuttings. Most Arawak lived in large circular buildings (bohios), constructed with wooden poles, woven straw, and palm leaves. The Arawak spoke an Arawakan language and did not have writing. Some of the words used by them, such as barbacoa ("barbecue"), hamaca ("hammock"), kanoa ("canoe"), tabaco ("tobacco"), yuca, batata ("sweet potato"), and juracán ("hurricane"), have been incorporated into Spanish and English.
Spanish Jamaica
Christopher Columbus is believed to be the first European to reach Jamaica. He landed on the island on 5 May 1494, during his second voyage to the Americas. Columbus returned to Jamaica during his fourth voyage to the Americas. He had been sailing around the Caribbean nearly a year when a storm beached his ships in St. Ann's Bay, Jamaica, on 25 June 1503. For a year Columbus and his men remained stranded on the island, finally departing in June 1504.

The Spanish crown granted the island to the Columbus family, but for decades it was something of a backwater, valued chiefly as a supply base for food and animal hides. In 1509 Juan de Esquivel founded the first permanent European settlement, the town of Sevilla la Nueva (New Seville), on the north coast. A decade later, Friar Bartolomé de las Casas wrote Spanish authorities about Esquivel's conduct during the Higüey massacre of 1503.

In 1534 the capital was moved to Villa de la Vega (later Santiago de la Vega), now called Spanish Town. This settlement served as the capital of both Spanish and English Jamaica, from its founding in 1534 until 1872, after which the capital was moved to Kingston.

The Spanish enslaved many of the Arawak; some escaped, but most died from European diseases and overwork. The Spaniards also introduced the first African slaves. By the early 17th century, when virtually no Taino remained in the region, the population of the island was about 3,000, including a small number of African slaves. Disappointed in the lack of gold on the isle, the Spanish mainly used Jamaica as a military base to supply colonising efforts in the mainland Americas.

The Spanish colonists did not bring women in the first expeditions and took Taíno women for their common-law wives, resulting in mestizo children Sexual violence against the Taíno women by the Spanish was also common.

British Invasion

In late 1654, English leader Oliver Cromwell launched the Western Design armada against Spain's colonies in the Caribbean. In April 1655, General Robert Venables led the armada in an attack on Spain's fort at Santo Domingo, Hispaniola. After the Spanish repulsed this poorly-executed attack, the English force then sailed for Jamaica, the only Spanish West Indies island that did not have new defensive works. In May 1655, around 7,000 English soldiers landed near Jamaica's Spanish Town capital and soon overwhelmed the small number of Spanish troops (at the time, Jamaica's entire population only numbered around 2,500). Spain never recaptured Jamaica, losing the Battle of Ocho Rios in 1657 and the Battle of Rio Nuevo in 1658. In 1660, the turning point was when some Spanish runaway slaves, who became Jamaican Maroons, switched sides from the Spanish to the English For England, Jamaica was to be the 'dagger pointed at the heart of the Spanish Empire,' although in fact it was a possession of little economic value then. England gained formal possession of Jamaica from Spain in 1670 through the Treaty of Madrid. Removing the pressing need for constant defense against Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to planting.

British Colonisation

Cromwell increased the island's European population by sending indentured servants and prisoners to Jamaica. Due to the wars in Ireland at this time two-thirds of this 17th-century European population was Irish. But tropical diseases kept the number of Europeans under 10,000 until about 1740. Although the African slave population in the 1670s and 1680s never exceeded 10,000, by the end of the 17th century imports of slaves increased the black population to at least five times the number of whites. Thereafter, Jamaica's African population did not increase significantly in number until well into the 18th century, in part because ships coming from the west coast of Africa preferred to unload at the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. At the beginning of the 18th century, the number of slaves in Jamaica did not exceed 45,000, but by 1800 it had increased to over 300,000.

House of Assembly of Jamaica

Beginning with the Stuart monarchy's appointment of a civil governor to Jamaica in 1661, political patterns were established that lasted well into the 20th century. The second governor, Lord Windsor, brought with him in 1662 a proclamation from the king giving Jamaica's non-slave populace the rights of English citizens, including the right to make their own laws. Although he spent only ten weeks in Jamaica, Lord Windsor laid the foundations of a governing system that was to last for two centuries: a crown-appointed governor acting with the advice of a nominated council in the legislature. The legislature consisted of the governor and an elected but highly unrepresentative House of Assembly. For years, the planter-dominated Assembly was in continual conflict with the various governors and the Stuart kings; there were also contentious factions within the assembly itself. For much of the 1670s and 1680s, Charles II and James II and the assembly feuded over such matters as the purchase of slaves from ships not run by the royal English trading company. The last Stuart governor, Christopher Monck, 2nd Duke of Albemarle, who was more interested in treasure hunting than in planting, turned the planter oligarchy out of office. After the duke's death in 1688, the planters, who had fled Jamaica to London, succeeded in lobbying James II to order a return to the pre-Albemarle political arrangement (the local control of Jamaican planters belonging to the assembly).

Jamaica's pirates

Following the 1655 conquest, Spain repeatedly attempted to recapture Jamaica. In response, in 1657, Governor Edward D'Oyley invited the Brethren of the Coast to come to Port Royal and make it their home port. The Brethren was made up of a group of pirates who were descendants of cattle-hunting boucaniers (later Anglicised to buccaneers), who had turned to piracy after being robbed by the Spanish (and subsequently thrown out of Hispaniola). These pirates concentrated their attacks on Spanish shipping, whose interests were considered the major threat to the town. These pirates later became legal English privateers who were given letters of marque by Jamaica's governor. Around the same time that pirates were invited to Port Royal, England launched a series of attacks against Spanish shipping vessels and coastal towns. By sending the newly appointed privateers after Spanish ships and settlements, England had successfully set up a system of defense for Port Royal. Jamaica became a haven of privateers, buccaneers, and occasionally outright pirates: Christopher Myngs, Edward Mansvelt, and most famously, Henry Morgan.

England gained formal possession of Jamaica from Spain in 1670 through the Treaty of Madrid. Removing the pressing need for constant defense against Spanish attack, this change served as an incentive to planting. This settlement also improved the supply of slaves and resulted in more protection, including military support, for the planters against foreign competition. As a result, the sugar monoculture and slave-worked plantation society spread across Jamaica throughout the 18th century, decreasing Jamaica's dependence on privateers for protection and funds.

However, the English colonial authorities continued to have difficulties suppressing the Spanish Maroons, who made their homes in the mountainous interior, and mounted periodic raids on estates and towns, such as Spanish Town. The Karmahaly Maroons continued to stay in the forested mountains, and periodically fought the English.

Another blow to Jamaica's partnership with privateers was the violent earthquake which destroyed much of Port Royal on 7 June 1692. Two-thirds of the town sank into the sea immediately after the main shock. After the earthquake, the town was partially rebuilt but the colonial government was relocated to Spanish Town, which had been the capital under Spanish rule. Port Royal was further devastated by a fire in 1703 and a hurricane in 1722. Most of the sea trade moved to Kingston. By the late 18th century, Port Royal was largely abandoned.

18th century and Jamaica's sugar boom

In the mid-17th century, sugarcane had been brought into the British West Indies by the Dutch, from Brazil. Upon landing in Jamaica and other islands, they quickly urged local growers to change their main crops from cotton and tobacco to sugarcane. With depressed prices of cotton and tobacco, due mainly to stiff competition from the North American colonies, the farmers switched, leading to a boom in the Caribbean economies. Sugarcane was quickly snapped up by the British, who used it in cakes and to sweeten tea. In the 18th century, sugar replaced piracy as Jamaica's main source of income. The sugar industry was labour-intensive and the British brought hundreds of thousands of enslaved Africans to Jamaica. By 1832, the median-size plantation in Jamaica had about 150 slaves, and nearly one of every four bondsmen lived on units that had at least 250 slaves. In The Book of Night Women, author Marlon James indicates that the ratio of slave owner to enslaved Africans is 1:33 James also depicts atrocities that slave owners subjected slaves to, and violent resistance from the slaves; numerous slaves died in pursuit of freedom. After slavery was abolished in 1834, sugarcane plantations used a variety of forms of labour including workers imported from India under contracts of indenture.

First Maroon War

When the British captured Jamaica in 1655, the Spanish colonists fled, leaving a large number of African slaves. These former Spanish slaves created three Palenques, or settlements. Former slaves organised under the leadership of Juan de Serras allied with the Spanish guerrillas on the western end of the Cockpit Country, while those under Juan de Bolas established themselves in modern-day Clarendon Parish and served as a "black militia" for the English. The third chose to join those who had previously escaped from the Spanish to live and intermarry with the Arawak people. Each group of Maroons established distinct independent communities in the mountainous interior of Jamaica. They survived by subsistence farming and periodic raids of plantations. Over time, the Maroons came to control large areas of the Jamaican interior Early in the 18th century, the Maroons took a heavy toll on the British troops and local militia sent against them in the interior, in what came to be known as the First Maroon War.

The First Maroon War came to an end with a 1739-40 agreement between the Maroons and the British government. The Maroons were to remain in their five main towns (Accompong; Cudjoe's Town (Trelawny Town); Nanny Town, later known as Moore Town; Scott's Hall (Jamaica); and Charles Town, Jamaica), living under their own rulers and a British supervisor. In exchange, they were asked to agree not to harbour new runaway slaves, but rather to help catch them. This last clause in the treaty naturally caused a split between the Maroons and the rest of the black population, although from time to time runaways from the plantations still found their way into Maroon settlements. Another provision of the agreement was that the Maroons would serve to protect the island from invaders. The latter was because the Maroons were revered by the British as skilled warriors. The person responsible for the compromise with the British was the Leeward Maroon leader, Cudjoe, a short, almost dwarf-like man who for years fought skillfully and bravely to maintain his people's independence. As he grew older, however, Cudjoe became increasingly disillusioned. He ran into quarrels with his lieutenants and with other Maroon groups. He felt that the only hope for the future was honorable peace with the enemy, which was just what the British were thinking. The 1739 treaty should be seen in this light. A year later, the even more rebellious Windward Maroons of Trelawny Town also agreed to sign a treaty under pressure from both white Jamaicans and the Leeward Maroons.

Tacky's revolt

In May 1760, Tacky, a slave overseer on the Frontier plantation in Saint Mary Parish, led a group of enslaved Africans in taking over the Frontier and Trinity plantations while killing their enslavers. They then marched to the storeroom at Fort Haldane, where the munitions to defend the town of Port Maria were kept. After killing the storekeeper, Tacky and his men stole nearly 4 barrels of gunpowder and 40 firearms with shot, before marching on to overrun the plantations at Heywood Hall and Esher. By dawn, hundreds of other slaves had joined Tacky and his followers. At Ballard's Valley, the rebels stopped to rejoice in their success. One slave from Esher decided to slip away and sound the alarm Obeahmen (Caribbean witch doctors) quickly circulated around the camp dispensing a powder that they claimed would protect the men from injury in battle and loudly proclaimed that an Obeahman could not be killed. Confidence was high. Soon there were 70 to 80 mounted militia on their way along with some Maroons from Scott's Hall, who were bound by treaty to suppress such rebellions. When the militia learned of the Obeahman's boast of not being able to be killed, an Obeahman was captured, killed and hung with his mask, ornaments of teeth and bone and feather trimmings at a prominent place visible from the encampment of rebels. Many of the rebels, confidence shaken, returned to their plantations. Tacky and 25 or so men decided to fight on. Tacky and his men went running through the woods being chased by the Maroons and their legendary marksman, Davy the Maroon. While running at full speed, Davy shot Tacky and cut off his head as evidence of his feat, for which he would be richly rewarded. Tacky's head was later displayed on a pole in Spanish Town until a follower took it down in the middle of the night. The rest of Tacky's men were found in a cave near Tacky Falls, having committed suicide rather than going back to slavery.

Second Maroon War

In 1795, the Second Maroon War was instigated when two Maroons were flogged by a black slave for allegedly stealing two pigs. When six Maroon leaders came to the British to present their grievances, the British took them as prisoners. This sparked an eight-month conflict, spurred by the fact that Maroons felt that they were being mistreated under the terms of Cudjoe's Treaty of 1739, which ended the First Maroon War. The war lasted for five months as a bloody stalemate. The British 5,000 troops and militia outnumbered the Maroons ten to one, but the mountainous and forested topography of Jamaica proved ideal for guerrilla warfare. The Maroons surrendered in December 1795. A treaty signed in December between Major General George Walpole and the Maroon leaders established that the Maroons would beg on their knees for the King's forgiveness, return all runaway slaves, and be relocated elsewhere in Jamaica. The governor of Jamaica ratified the treaty, but gave the Maroons only three days to present themselves to beg forgiveness on 1 January 1796. Suspicious of British intentions, most of the Maroons did not surrender until mid-March. The British used the contrived breach of treaty as a pretext to deport the entire Trelawny Town Maroons to Nova Scotia. After a few years the Maroons were again deported to the new British settlement of Sierra Leone in West Africa.

Baptist War

In 1831, enslaved Baptist preacher Samuel Sharpe led a strike among demanding more freedom and a working wage of "half the going wage rate." Upon refusal of their demands, the strike escalated into a full rebellion, in part because Sharpe had also made military preparations with a rebel military group known as the Black Regiment led by a slave known as Colonel Johnson of Retrieve Estate, about 150 strong with 50 guns among them. Colonel Johnson's Black Regiment clashed with a local militia led by Colonel Grignon at old Montpelier on December 28. The militia retreated to Montego Bay while the Black Regiment advanced an invasion of estates in the hills, inviting more slaves to join while burning houses, fields and other properties, setting off a trail of fires through the Great River Valley in Westmoreland and St. Elizabeth to St James.

The Baptist War, as it was known, became the largest slave uprising in the British West Indies, lasting 10 days and mobilised as many as 60,000 of Jamaica's 300,000 slaves. The rebellion was suppressed by British forces under the control of Sir Willoughby Cotton. The reaction of the Jamaican Government and plantocracy was far more brutal. Approximately five hundred slaves were killed in total: 207 during the revolt and somewhere in the range between 310 and 340 slaves were killed through "various forms of judicial executions" after the rebellion was concluded, at times, for quite minor offences (one recorded execution indicates the crime being the theft of a pig; another, a cow). An 1853 account by Henry Bleby described how three or four simultaneous executions were commonly observed; bodies would be allowed to pile up until workhouse slaves carted the bodies away at night and buried them in mass graves outside town. The brutality of the plantocracy during the revolt is thought to have accelerated the process of emancipation, with initial measures beginning in 1833.

Emancipation
Because of the loss of property and life in the 1831 Baptist War rebellion, the British Parliament held two inquiries. Their reports on conditions contributed greatly to the abolition movement and passage of the 1833 law to abolish slavery as of August 1, 1834, throughout the British Empire. The Jamaican slaves were bound (indentured) to their former owners' service, albeit with a guarantee of rights, until 1838 under what was called the "Apprenticeship System".
With the abolition of the slave trade in 1808 and slavery itself in 1834, however, the island's sugar- and slave-based economy faltered. The period after emancipation in 1834 initially was marked by a conflict between the plantocracy and elements in the Colonial Office over the extent to which individual freedom should be coupled with political participation for blacks. In 1840 the assembly changed the voting qualifications in a way that enabled a majority of blacks and people of mixed race (browns or mulattos) to vote. But neither change in the political system, nor abolition of slavery changed the planter's chief interest, which lay in the continued profitability of their estates, and they continued to dominate the elitist assembly. Nevertheless, at the end of the 19th century and in the early years of the 20th century, the crown began to allow some Jamaicans - mostly local merchants, urban professionals, and artisans-into the appointed councils.

The Morant Bay Rebellion

Tensions resulted in the October 1865 Morant Bay rebellion led by Paul Bogle. The rebellion was sparked on 7 October, when a black man was put on trial and imprisoned for allegedly trespassing on a long-abandoned plantation. During the proceedings, James Geoghegon, a black spectator, disrupted the trial, and in the police's attempts to seize him and remove him from the courthouse, a fight broke out between the police and other spectators. While pursuing Geoghegon, the two policeman were beaten with sticks and stones. The following Monday arrest warrants were issued for several men for rioting, resisting arrest, and assaulting the police. Among them was Baptist preacher Paul Bogle. A few days later on 11 October, Mr. Paul Bogle marched with a group of protesters to Morant Bay. When the group arrived at the court house they were met by a small and inexperienced volunteer militia. The crowd began pelting the militia with rocks and sticks, and the militia opened fire on the group, killing seven black protesters before retreating.

Governor John Eyre sent government troops, under Brigadier-General Alexander Nelson, to hunt down the poorly armed rebels and bring Paul Bogle back to Morant Bay for trial. The troops met with no organised resistance, but regardless they killed blacks indiscriminately, most of whom had not been involved in the riot or rebellion: according to one soldier, "we slaughtered all before us... man or woman or child". In the end, 439 black Jamaicans were killed directly by soldiers, and 354 more (including Paul Bogle) were arrested and later executed, some without proper trials. Paul Bogle was executed "either the same evening he was tried or the next morning." Other punishments included flogging for over 600 men and women (including some pregnant women), and long prison sentences, with thousands of homes belonging to black Jamaicans were burned down without any justifiable reason.

George William Gordon, a Jamaican businessman and politician, who had been critical of Governor John Eyre and his policies, was later arrested by Governor John Eyre who believed he had been behind the rebellion. Despite having very little to do with it, Gordon was eventually executed. Though he was arrested in Kingston, he was transferred by Eyre to Morant Bay, where he could be tried under martial law. The execution and trial of Gordon via martial law raised some constitutional issues back in Britain, where concerns emerged about whether British dependencies should be ruled under the government of law, or through military license. The speedy trial saw Gordon hanged on 23 October, just two days after his trial had begun. He and William Bogle, Paul's brother, "were both tried together, and executed at the same time.

Decline of the sugar industry

During most of the 18th century, a monocrop economy based on sugarcane production for export flourished. In the last quarter of the century, however, the Jamaican sugar economy declined as famines, hurricanes, colonial wars, and wars of independence disrupted trade. By the 1820s, Jamaican sugar had become less competitive with that from high-volume producers such as Cuba and production subsequently declined. By 1882 sugar output was less than half the level achieved in 1828. A major reason for the decline was the British Parliament's 1807 abolition of the slave trade, under which the transportation of slaves to Jamaica after 1 March 1808 was forbidden; the abolition of the slave trade was followed by the abolition of slavery in 1834 and full emancipation within four years. Unable to convert the ex-slaves into a sharecropping tenant class similar to the one established in the post-Civil War South of the United States, planters became increasingly dependent on wage labour and began recruiting workers abroad, primarily from India, China, and Sierra Leone. Many of the former slaves settled in peasant or small farm communities in the interior of the island, the "yam belt," where they engaged in subsistence and some cash crop farming.
The second half of the 19th century was a period of severe economic decline for Jamaica. Low crop prices, droughts, and disease led to serious social unrest, culminating in the Morant Bay rebellions of 1865. However, renewed British administration after the 1865 rebellion, in the form of crown colony status, resulted in some social and economic progress as well as investment in the physical infrastructure. Agricultural development was the centrepiece of restored British rule in Jamaica. In 1868 the first large-scale irrigation project was launched. In 1895 the Jamaica Agricultural Society was founded to promote more scientific and profitable methods of farming. Also in the 1890s, the Crown Lands Settlement Scheme was introduced, a land reform program of sorts, which allowed small farmers to purchase two hectares or more of land on favourable terms.
Between 1865 and 1930, the character of landholding in Jamaica changed substantially, as sugar declined in importance. As many former plantations went bankrupt, some land was sold to Jamaican peasants under the Crown Lands Settlement whereas other cane fields were consolidated by dominant British producers, most notably by the British firm Tate and Lyle. Although the concentration of land and wealth in Jamaica was not as drastic as in the Spanish-speaking Caribbean, by the 1920s the typical sugar plantation on the island had increased to an average of 266 hectares. But, as noted, smallscale agriculture in Jamaica survived the consolidation of land by sugar powers. The number of small holdings in fact tripled between 1865 and 1930, thus retaining a large portion of the population as peasantry. Most of the expansion in small holdings took place before 1910, with farms averaging between two and twenty hectares.

The rise of the banana trade during the second half of the 19th century also changed production and trade patterns on the island. Bananas were first exported in 1867, and banana farming grew rapidly thereafter. By 1890, bananas had replaced sugar as Jamaica's principal export. Production rose from 5 million stems (32 percent of exports) in 1897 to an average of 20 million stems a year in the 1920s and 1930s, or over half of domestic exports. As with sugar, the presence of American companies, like the well-known United Fruit Company in Jamaica, was a driving force behind renewed agricultural exports. The British also became more interested in Jamaican bananas than in the country's sugar. Expansion of banana production, however, was hampered by serious labour shortages. The rise of the banana economy took place amidst a general exodus of up to 11,000 Jamaicans a year.

Jamaica as a Crown Colony

In 1846 Jamaican planters, adversely affected by the loss of slave labour, suffered a crushing blow when Britain passed the Sugar Duties Act, eliminating Jamaica's traditionally favoured status as its primary supplier of sugar. The Jamaica House of Assembly stumbled from one crisis to another until the collapse of the sugar trade, when racial and religious tensions came to a head during the Morant Bay rebellion of 1865. Although suppressed ruthlessly, the severe rioting so alarmed the planters that the two-centuries-old assembly voted to abolish itself and asked for the establishment of direct British rule. In 1866 the new governor John Peter Grant arrived to implement a series of reforms which accompanied the transition to a crown colony. The government consisted of the Legislative Council and the executive Privy Council containing members of both chambers of the House of Assembly, but the Colonial Office exercised effective power through a presiding British governor. The council included a few handpicked prominent Jamaicans for the sake of appearance only. In the late 19th century, crown colony rule was modified; representation and limited self-rule were reintroduced gradually into Jamaica after 1884. The colony's legal structure was reformed along the lines of English common law and county courts, and a constabulary force was established. The smooth working of the crown colony system was dependent on a good understanding and an identity of interests between the governing officials, who were British, and most of the nonofficial, nominated members of the Legislative Council, who were Jamaicans. The elected members of this body were in a permanent minority and without any influence or administrative power. The unstated alliance - based on shared color, attitudes, and interest - between the British officials and the Jamaican upper class was reinforced in London, where the West India Committee lobbied for Jamaican interests. Jamaica's white or near-white propertied class continued to hold the dominant position in every respect; the vast majority of the black population remained poor and unenfranchised.

Marcus Garvey

Marcus Mosiah Garvey, a black activist and Trade Unionist, founded the Universal Negro Improvement Association and African Communities League in 1914, one of Jamaica's first political parties in 1929, and a workers association in the early 1930s. Garvey also promoted the Back-to-Africa movement, which called for those of African descent to return to the homelands of their ancestors. Garvey, to no avail, pleaded with the colonial government to improve living conditions for indigenous peoples in the West Indies. Garvey, a controversial figure, had been the target of a four-year investigation by the United States government. He was convicted of mail fraud in 1923 and had served most of a five-year term in an Atlanta penitentiary when he was deported to Jamaica in 1927. Garvey left the colony in 1935 to live in the United Kingdom, where he died heavily in debt five years later. He was proclaimed Jamaica's first national hero in the 1960s after Edward P.G. Seaga, then a government minister, arranged the return of his remains to Jamaica. In 1987 Jamaica petitioned the United States Congress to pardon Garvey on the basis that the federal charges brought against him were unsubstantiated and unjust.

Rastafari movement

The Rastafari movement, a new religion, emerged among impoverished and socially disenfranchised Afro-Jamaican communities in 1930s Jamaica. Its Afrocentric ideology was largely a reaction against Jamaica's then-dominant British colonial culture. It was influenced by both Ethiopianism and the Back-to-Africa movement promoted by black nationalist figures like Marcus Garvey. The movement developed after several Christian clergymen, most notably Leonard Howell, proclaimed that the crowning of Haile Selassie as Emperor of Ethiopia in 1930 fulfilled a Biblical prophecy. By the 1950s, Rastafari's counter-cultural stance had brought the movement into conflict with wider Jamaican society, including violent clashes with law enforcement. In the 1960s and 1970s it gained increased respectability within Jamaica and greater visibility abroad through the popularity of Rasta-inspired reggae musicians like Bob Marley. Enthusiasm for Rastafari declined in the 1980s, following the deaths of Haile Selassie and Marley.

The Great Depression and worker protests

The Great Depression caused sugar prices to slump in 1929 and led to the return of many Jamaicans. Economic stagnation, discontent with unemployment, low wages, high prices, and poor living conditions caused social unrest in the 1930s. Uprisings in Jamaica began on the Frome Sugar Estate in the western parish of Westmoreland and quickly spread east to Kingston. Jamaica, in particular, set the pace for the region in its demands for economic development from British colonial rule.

Because of disturbances in Jamaica and the rest of the region, the British in 1938 appointed the Moyne Commission. An immediate result of the Commission was the Colonial Development Welfare Act, which provided for the expenditure of approximately Ł1 million a year for twenty years on coordinated development in the British West Indies. Concrete actions, however, were not implemented to deal with Jamaica's massive structural problems.

New unions and parties

The rise of nationalism, as distinct from island identification or desire for self-determination, is generally dated to the 1938 labour riots that affected both Jamaica and the islands of the Eastern Caribbean. William Alexander Bustamante, a moneylender in the capital city of Kingston who had formed the Jamaica Trade Workers and Tradesmen Union (JTWTU) three years earlier, captured the imagination of the black masses with his messianic personality, even though he himself was light-skinned, affluent, and aristocratic. Bustamante emerged from the 1938 strikes and other disturbances as a populist leader and the principal spokesperson for the militant urban working class, and in that year, using the JTWTU as a stepping stone, he founded the Bustamante Industrial Trade Union (BITU), which inaugurated Jamaica's workers movement.

A distant cousin of Bustamante's, Norman W. Manley, concluded as a result of the 1938 riots that the real basis for national unity in Jamaica lay in the masses. Unlike the union-oriented Bustamante, however, Manley was more interested in access to control over state power and political rights for the masses. On 18 September 1938, he inaugurated the People's National Party (PNP), which had begun as a nationalist movement supported by the mixed-race middle class and the liberal sector of the business community with leaders who were highly educated members of the upper middle class. The 1938 riots spurred the PNP to unionise labour, although it would be several years before the PNP formed major labour unions. The party concentrated its earliest efforts on establishing a network both in urban areas and in banana-growing rural parishes, later working on building support among small farmers and in areas of bauxite mining.

The PNP adopted a socialist ideology in 1940 and later joined the Socialist International, allying itself formally with the social democratic parties of Western Europe. Guided by socialist principles, Manley was not a doctrinaire socialist. PNP socialism during the 1940s was similar to British Labour Party ideas on state control of the factors of production, equality of opportunity, and a welfare state, although a left-wing element in the PNP held more orthodox Marxist views and worked for the internationalisation of the trade union movement through the Caribbean Labour Congress. In those formative years of Jamaican political and union activity, relations between Manley and Bustamante were cordial. Manley defended Bustamante in court against charges brought by the British for his labour activism in the 1938 riots and looked after the BITU during Bustamante's imprisonment.

Bustamante had political ambitions of his own, however. In 1942, while still incarcerated, he founded a political party to rival the PNP, called the Jamaica Labour Party (JLP). The new party, whose leaders were of a lower class than those of the PNP, was supported by conservative businessmen and 60,000 dues-paying BITU members, who encompassed dock and sugar plantation workers and other unskilled urban labourers. On his release in 1943, Bustamante began building up the JLP. Meanwhile, several PNP leaders organised the leftist-oriented Trade Union Congress (TUC). Thus, from an early stage in modern Jamaica, unionised labour was an integral part of organised political life.

For the next quarter century, Bustamante and Manley competed for centre stage in Jamaican political affairs, the former espousing the cause of the "barefoot man"; the latter, "democratic socialism," a loosely defined political and economic theory aimed at achieving a classless system of government. Jamaica's two founding fathers projected quite different popular images. Bustamante, lacking even a high school diploma, was an autocratic, charismatic, and highly adept politician; Manley was an athletic, Oxford-trained lawyer, Rhodes scholar, humanist, and liberal intellectual. Although considerably more reserved than Bustamante, Manley was well liked and widely respected. He was also a visionary nationalist who became the driving force behind the crown colony's quest for independence.

Following the 1938 disturbances in the West Indies, London sent the Moyne Commission to study conditions in the British Caribbean territories. Its findings led in the early 1940s to better wages and a new constitution. Issued on 20 November 1944, the Constitution modified the crown colony system and inaugurated limited self-government based on the Westminster model of government and universal adult suffrage. It also embodied the island's principles of ministerial responsibility and the rule of law. Thirty-one percent of the population participated in the 1944 elections. The JPL - helped by its promises to create jobs, its practice of dispensing public funds in pro-JLP parishes, and the PNP's relatively radical platform - won an 18 percent majority of the votes over the PNP, as well as 22 seats in the 32-member House of Representatives, with 5 going to the PNP and 5 to other short-lived parties. In 1945 Bustamante took office as Jamaica's first premier (the pre-independence title for head of government).

Under the new charter, the British governor, assisted by the six-member Privy Council and ten-member Executive Council, remained responsible solely to the crown. The Jamaican Legislative Council became the upper house, or Senate, of the bicameral Parliament. House members were elected by adult suffrage from single-member electoral districts called constituencies. Despite these changes, ultimate power remained concentrated in the hands of the governor and other high officials

The road to independence

After World War II, Jamaica began a relatively long transition to full political independence. Jamaicans preferred British culture over American, but they had a love-hate relationship with the British and resented British domination, racism, and the dictatorial Colonial Office. Britain gradually granted the colony more self-government under periodic constitutional changes. Jamaica's political patterns and governmental structure were shaped during two decades of what was called "constitutional decolonisation," the period between 1944 and independence in 1962.

Having seen how little popular appeal the PNP's 1944 campaign position had, the party shifted toward the centre in 1949 and remained there until 1974. The PNP actually won a 0.8-percent majority of the votes over the JLP in the 1949 election, although the JLP won a majority of the House seats. In the 1950s, the PNP and JLP became increasingly similar in their sociological composition and ideological outlook. During the cold war years, socialism became an explosive domestic issue. The JLP exploited it among property owners and churchgoers, attracting more middle-class support. As a result, PNP leaders diluted their socialist rhetoric, and in 1952 the PNP moderated its image by expelling four prominent leftists who had controlled the TUC. The PNP then formed the more conservative National Workers Union (NWU). Henceforth, PNP socialism meant little more than national planning within a framework of private property and foreign capital. The PNP retained, however, a basic commitment to socialist precepts, such as public control of resources and a more equitable income distribution. Manley's PNP came to office for the first time after winning the 1955 elections with an 11-percent majority over the JLP and 50.5 percent of the popular vote.

Amendments to the constitution that took effect in May 1953 reconstituted the Executive Council and provided for eight ministers to be selected from among House members. The first ministries were subsequently established. These amendments also enlarged the limited powers of the House of Representatives and made elected members of the governor's executive council responsible to the legislature. Manley, elected chief minister beginning in January 1955, accelerated the process of decolonisation during his able stewardship. Further progress toward self-government was achieved under constitutional amendments in 1955 and 1956, and cabinet government was established on 11 November 1957.

Assured by British declarations that independence would be granted to a collective West Indian state rather than to individual colonies, Manley supported Jamaica's joining nine other British territories in the West Indies Federation, established on 3 January 1958. Manley became the island's premier after the PNP again won a decisive victory in the general election in July 1959, securing thirty of forty-five House seats.

Membership in the federation remained an issue in Jamaican politics. Bustamante, reversing his previously supportive position on the issue, warned of the financial implications of membership - Jamaica was responsible for 43 percent of its own financing - and an inequity in Jamaica's proportional representation in the federation's House of Assembly. Manley's PNP favoured staying in the federation, but he agreed to hold a referendum in September 1961 to decide on the issue. When 54 percent of the electorate voted to withdraw, Jamaica left the federation, which dissolved in 1962 after Trinidad and Tobago also pulled out. Manley believed that the rejection of his pro-federation policy in the 1961 referendum called for a renewed mandate from the electorate, but the JLP won the election of early 1962 by a fraction. Bustamante assumed the premiership that April, and Manley spent his remaining few years in politics as leader of the opposition.

Jamaica received its independence on 6 August 1962. The new nation retained, however, its membership in the Commonwealth of Nations and adopted a Westminster-style parliamentary system. Bustamante, at the age of 78, became the new nation's first prime minister.

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History of Jamaica - Black History Month 2020

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About 600 CE the culture known as the "Redware people" arrived; little is known of them, however, beyond the red pottery they left. Alligator Pond in Manchester Parish and Little River in St. Ann Parish are among the earliest known sites of this Ostionoid person, who lived near the coast and extensively hunted turtles and fish.

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Home ›› About Barbados ››

Barbados' History

Barbados is the eastern-most Caribbean island. It is located at 13.1N, 59.4W. The island, which is less that one million years old, was created by the collision of the Atlantic crustal and Caribbean plates, along with a volcanic eruption. Later coral formed, accumulating to approximately 300 feet. It is geologically unique, being actually two land masses that merged together over the years.
the Barbados Saga Begins - An Island Stands alone (i)

Very Early

The history of the early settlement of Barbados is being rewritten as a result of recent archaeological discoveries unearthed at the site of Port St. Charles. Artifacts and evidence point to settlement some time around 1623 B.C.

The first indigenous people were Amerindians who arrived here from Venezuela. Paddling long dugout canoes they crossed oceans and currents that challenge modern sailing vessels. On the north end of Venezuela a narrow sea channel called the Dragon's mouth acts as a funnel to the Caribbean sea and the nearest Island of Trinidad. It is a formidable passage of swift flowing water and cross currents. It is dangerous water for an open dugout canoe. But they came, families and villages, adventurers, descendants of the the first people who travelled across the Alaska land bridge, down through Canada and the Americas to the South.

They made their new home in Barbados along the coast, leaving behindhardly a trace, only a hint of evidence for the archeologist to date and dream about. Fragments of tools made of shell, utensils, refuse and burial places convey but a mystery of their time.

Amerindian Civilisation.

The Arawaks were short, olive-skinned people who bound their foreheads during infancy to slope it into a point. They considered this along with black and white body painting to be attractive. The CaÏques (chiefs) and influential members of the tribe wore nose plugs and/or rings made of copper and gold alloys (History of Barbados). They were an agricultural people and grew cotton, cassava, corn, peanuts, guavas, and papaws (papaya). The cotton was woven and used for armbands and hammocks. Cassava was ground and grated to be made into casareep, a seasoning used in cooking. The Arawaks also used harpoons, nets, and hooks, to fish for food (History of Barbados).

See http://axses.com/encyc/bta/archives/detail-memo.cfm?ID=383 Barbados Saga - Matamu and the Turtle

(i) Barbados Saga is a project of WorldSagas.com - History told through the eyes of a story teller.

1200 Carib Indians

In 1200, the Arawaks were conquered by the Caribs. The Caribs were a taller and stronger Amerindian tribe than the Arawaks. They were incredibly accurate bowmen and used a powerful poison to paralyze their prey. (History of Barbados). The culture has almost vanished from Barbados. Pockets of the culture and people, now know as the Kaligano, exist in St Vincent, the Grenadies and in Dominica. The largest population is the Kalinago territories in Dominica. For More see Dominica Kalinago: A Cuture on the Edge

Portugese

The Portugese came to Barbados en route to Brazil. It was at this time that the island was named Los Barbados ( bearded-ones) by the Portugese explorer Pedro a Campos. It was so named, presumably, after the island's fig trees, which have a beard-like appearance.

1625 - 1644 . English Colonisation

The first English ship touched the island on May 14th 1625 under the command of Captain John Powell. The island was therefore claimed on behalf of King James I.

On February 17th 1627, Captain Henry Powell landed with a party of 80 settlers and 10 slaves to occupy and settle the island. This expedition landed in Holetown formerly known as Jamestown. The colonists established a House of Assembly in 1639. It was the 3rd ever Parliamentary Democracy in the world (Barbados History).

People with good financial backgrounds and social connections with England were allocated land. Within a few years much of the land had been deforested to make way for tobacco and cotton plantations.

During the 1630s, sugar cane was introduced to the agriculture. The production of sugar, tobacco and cotton was heavily reliant on the indenture of servants. White civilians who wanted to emigrate overseas could do so by signing an agreement to serve a planter in Barbados for a period of 5 or 7 years. To meet the labour demands, servants were also derived from kidnapping, and convicted criminals were shipped to Barbados. Descendants of the white slaves and indentured labour (referred to as Red Legs) still live in Barbados, they live amongst the black population in St. Martin's River and other east coast regions. At one time they lived in caves in this region.

1644 . 1700 . Sugar and Slavery

A potential market formed for slaves and sugar-making machinery by the Dutch Merchants who were to supply Barbados with their requirements of forced labour from West Africa. The slaves came from Sierra Leone, Guinea, Ghana,the Ivory Coast, Nigeria and Cameroon. Many slaves did not survive the journey from Africa, but many thousands still reached their destination.

See http://axses.com/encyc/bta/archives/detail-memo.cfm?ID=384 Barbados Saga -Slave Ships and Human bondage.

The Barbadians dominated the Caribbean Sugar Industry in these early years. The sugar plantation owners were powerful and successful businessmen who had arrived in Barbados in the early years.

Many natural disasters occurred in the late 1600s, such as the locust plague of 1663, the Bridgetown fire and a major hurricane in 1667. Drought in 1668 ruined some planters and excessive rain in 1669 added to their financial problems. However, investment continued in sugar and slaves and was perceived to have good prospects.

By 1720 Barbadians were no longer a dominant force within the sugar industry. They had been surpassed by the Leeward Islands and the Jamaica.

1807 - 1838 . Abolition, rebellion and emancipation

See http://axses.com/encyc/bta/archives/detail-memo.cfm?ID=385 - Barbados Saga - The Bussa Rebellion (1)

After slavery was abolished in 1834, many of the new citizens of Barbados took advantage of the superb education available on the island. After these citizens had been educated, they wanted something more than working in the cane fields. Some of them gained prominent offices in Barbados. Others worked in common jobs, and still others stayed in the cane fields (Barbados History).

Many people were drawn to Barbados because of the climate and slow pace of life. The island was thought of as a cure for "the vapours" (Barbados History). Even Major George Washington visited the island with his tuberculosis-stricken half brother in hope of ameliorating his illness (Barbados History)

Slavery, abolished in 1834, was followed by a 4-year apprenticeship period during which free men continued to work a 45-hour week without pay in exchange for living in the tiny huts provided by the plantation owners. Freedom from slavery was celebrated in 1838 at the end of the apprenticeship period with over 70,000 Barbadians of African descent taking to the streets with the Barbados folk song:

"Lick an Lock-up Done Wid, Hurray fuh Jin-Jin (Queen Victoria).
De Queen come from England to set we free
Now Lick an Lock-up Done Wid, Hurray fuh Jin-Jin "

See the Emancipation statue, the work of Barbados' best known sculptor Karl Broodhagen.

See http://axses.com/encyc/bta/archives/detail-memo.cfm?ID=386 Barbados Saga - After Emancipation - Diary of black student (i)

1961-1966 Independence

Barbados was first occupied by the British in 1627 and remained a British colony until internal autonomy was granted in 1961. The Island gained full independence in 1966, and maintains ties to the Britain monarch represented in Barbados by the Governor General. It is a member of the Commonwealth. The first leader of Barbados as a free nation was the Right Honourable Errol Walton Barrow, of the Democratic Labour Party. The other major political party is the Barbados Labour Party, led by the current Prime Minister - The Right Honourable Owen Arthur. In 1989, the National Democratic Party was formed. Its leader was Dr.Richie Haynes.

See Barbados Saga
Life in a fishing village | WorldSaga.com Archives

See the cultural traditions of Barbados that resulted from these historical influences.

Best Barbados Hotel Deals

Doesn't Barbados sound like an interesting place to visit? We'll help you find your perfect accommodation on the island...

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Home ›› About Barbados ›› Barbados is the eastern-most Caribbean island. It is located at 13.1N, 59.4W. The island, which is less that one million years old, was created by the collision of the Atlantic crustal and Caribbean plates, along with a volcanic eruption. Later coral formed, accumulating to approximately 300 feet.

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Abolition

As a result, Barbados was the only one of the British islands which supported the passage of the act abolishing the slave trade. Put bluntly, Barbadian planters recognised that the island had a growing slave population which would guarantee on going sugar production, whereas the other territories would be hampered in their economic development, if denied access to slave labour. This was especially true of the newly conquered territories such as Trinidad, Essequibo, Demerara and Berbice. Barbadian abolitionism therefore was economically driven, although in all fairness, one should point out that there were influential white Barbadian abolitionists such as John Alleyne and R.B. Niccols, Dean of Middleham, who were genuine in their concerns and efforts.

Nevertheless, the slave trade was of importance for Barbados. Because of the geographical location of the island and the favourable trade winds, Barbados (Bridgetown in particular), became an entrepot for the re-exportation of slaves to North America, other Caribbean islands and to the Captaincy-General of Venezuela. After the War of Spanish Succession, the treaty which brought an end to the war gave England the asiento or license to export slaves from their possessions in the Caribbean. The Royal African Company then established offices in Jamaica and Barbados, from where slaves were re-exported, to Mexico in the case of the Jamaican office and to Venezuela from Barbados.

Oloudah Equiano gives a moving description of the Middle Passage and his arrival as a captured African in Barbados.

The picture therefore which Barbados presents in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries is one of initial and rapid change after settlement, first of all in the natural arena with rapid and almost total deforestation, followed by demographic change as large numbers of Africans were brought into the island to provide labour for the sugar industry. The sugar economy quickly made the island very wealthy, and the port of Bridgetown became, along with Boston and London, a key link in the English Atlantic world. By the mid eighteenth century, newer colonies in the Caribbean, such as Jamaica, had surpassed Barbados in terms in economic importance, although the island still retained its position as one of England's leading overseas colonies. At this point in time, Barbados was a stable, mature slave society, tightly controlled by its resident native white elite class, with functioning institutions of its own, and a specific character and identity which stamped it as undeniably and uniquely Barbadian.

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As a result, Barbados was the only one of the British islands which supported the passage of the act abolishing the slave trade. Put bluntly, Barbadian planters recognised that the island had a growing slave population which would guarantee on going sugar production, whereas the other territories would be hampered in their economic development, if denied access to slave labour.

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One of the things that bothers people so much about Russia's slow play to gobble up chunks of Ukraine is that countries, by and large, have stopped annexing each others' territory since World War II. This modern success is all the more remarkable by the fact that, for most of history, countries loved to conquer land and subjugate the people living there.

European colonialism has been far and away the worst offender in this regard in the last 500 years. Take a look at this GIF charting the rise and fall of (mostly) European empires from 1492, when the European discovery of the Americas kicked off their movement west and south, to 2008.

A lot of interesting things pop out in that GIF. Thailand never gets colonized by any power, European or Asian. Denmark had the earliest westward European colonies, in Greenland. The Japanese empire was pretty huge in 1938.
Thailand never got colonized by any power, European or Asian
But the biggest, most remarkable thing in the map is the ebb and flow in the territory controlled by the big European powers. That reflects a few things. Wars between great powers themselves (say, World War I), colonial conquest (Britain in Australia), conflict between colonial powers (Britain and France in North America), and colonized people throwing out colonizers (the dramatic decline in African colonialism after World War II).

The rise and fall of colonial empires warrants particular attention. Each of these sometimes-century long occupations that transformed daily life for colonized people. These regimes varied in all sorts of ways: the degree to which they literally enslaved colonized subjects, to take a particularly grim example, or the amount to which they allowed local political autonomy.

Scholars are still arguing over the implications of these massive colonial shifts for modern politics, which are undoubtedly dramatic. Take the big-picture global economy: why some countries are rich, and others are poor. Daron Acemoglu, Simon Johnson, and James A. Robinson have proposed that colonialism created a " reversal of fortunes" in economic terms. Previously rich peoples became poor when colonized, while previously poor peoples ended up comparatively wealthier. And both, by and large, remain so today.
Colonialism's influence was so immense that we're only just beginning to figure out how to properly measure it
Why? Well, the central purpose of European colonialism was to benefit and enrich Europeans. Acemoglu, Johnson, and Robinson propose that created different incentives for European powers in richer and poorer colonized lands. In richer places, they built governments whose task was to steal wealth and resources and send them to Europe, shattering the foundations of local prosperity. In poorer places, they actually built European settler communities, protecting economically useful institutions like private property rights in order to make these communities do well. In both previously poor and previously rich places, these colonial institutions altered the trajectory of their development down to the present day.

The Acemoglu/Johnson/Robinson theory is quite controversial. Other scholars contest the very idea that a reversal of fortunes even happened. That makes sense: given colonialism's immense influence on both colonized and colonizing societies, isolating variables for controlled studies is really hard. There's also a time-span problem: tracking the consistent influence of one variable across hundreds of years can be tricky.

That's, in a way, the point. Colonialism's influence was so immense that we're only just beginning to figure out how to properly measure it.

But there are some things we know, foremost among them that colonialism was brutally nasty business. One estimate suggests that, from 1885 to 1908, Belgian King Leopold II's occupation of the Congo killed 8 million people. R.J. Rummel, a University of Hawaii scholar who spent his life estimate state-perpetrated atrocities, put the 20th century death toll attributable to colonialism at 50 million (behind only the Soviet Union and communist China in total killed). And European colonialism was around for hundreds of years.

So when you see huge chunks of the globe colonized in 1914:

And colonial powers shrunk to basically their homelands in 2008:

You're seeing one of the greatest humanitarian accomplishments of the past 100 years in action.
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500 years of European colonialism, in one GIF

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A GIF that tracks the rise and fall of empires from 1492 to 2008.

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Recently an academic article, asserting the historical benefits of colonialism, created an outcry and a petition with over 10,000 signatures calling for its removal.

The Case for Colonialism, published in Third World Quarterly by Bruce Gilley, argues Western colonialism was both "objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate" in most places where it existed.

Gilley, an associate professor of political science at Portland State University, claims the solution to poverty and economic underdevelopment in parts of the Global South is to reclaim "colonial modes of governance; by recolonizing some areas; and by creating new Western colonies from scratch."

Understandably, the article faces widespread criticism for whitewashing a horrific history of human rights abuses. Current Affairs compared Gilley's distortion of history to Holocaust denial.

Last week, after many on the journal's editorial board resigned, the author issued a public apology for the "pain and anger" his article may have caused.

Whether the article is ultimately retracted or not, its wide circulation necessitates that its claims be held up to careful historical scrutiny. As well, in light of current public debates on censorship and free speech versus hate speech, this is a discussion well worth having. Although this debate may seem as though it is merely academic, nothing could be further from the truth.

Although it may seem colonialist views are far behind us, a 2014 YouGov poll revealed 59% of British people view the British Empire as "something to be proud of." Those proud of their colonial history outnumber critics of the Empire three to one. Similarly, 49% believe the Empire benefited its former colonies.

Such views, often tied to nostalgia for old imperial glory, can help shape the foreign and domestic policies of Western countries.

Gilley has helped to justify these views by getting his opinions published in a peer review journal. In his article, Gilley attempts to provide evidence which proves colonialism was objectively beneficial to the colonized. He says historians are simply too politically correct to admit colonialism's benefits.

In fact, the opposite is true. In the overwhelming majority of cases, empirical research clearly provides the facts to prove colonialism inflicted grave political, psychological and economic harm on the colonized.

It takes a highly selective misreading of the evidence to claim that colonialism was anything other than a humanitarian disaster for most of the colonized. The publication of Gilley's article-despite the evidence of facts-calls into question the peer review process and academic standards of The Third World Quarterly.

Colonialism in India

As the largest colony of the world's largest imperial power, India is often cited by apologists for the British Empire as an example of "successful" colonialism. Actually, India provides a much more convincing case study for rebutting Gilley's argument.

With a population of over 1.3 billion and an economy predicted to become the world's third-largest by 2030, India is a modern day powerhouse. While many attribute this to British colonial rule, a look at the facts says otherwise.

From 1757 to 1947, the entire period of British rule, there was no increase in per capita income within the Indian subcontinent. This is a striking fact, given that, historically speaking, the Indian subcontinent was traditionally one of the wealthiest parts of the world.

As proven by the macroeconomic studies of experts such as KN Chaudhuri, India and China were central to an expansive world economy long before the first European traders managed to circumnavigate the African cape.

During the heyday of British rule, or the British Raj, from 1872 to 1921, Indian life expectancy dropped by a stunning 20%. By contrast, during the 70 years since independence, Indian life expectancy has increased by approximately 66%, or 27 years. A comparable increase of 65% can also be observed in Pakistan, which was once part of British India.

Although many cite India's extensive rail network as a positive legacy of British colonialism, it is important to note the railroad was built with the express purpose of transporting colonial troops inland to quell revolt. And to transport food out of productive regions for export, even in times of famine.

This explains the fact that during the devastating famines of 1876-1879 and 1896-1902, in which 12 to 30 million Indians starved to death, mortality rates were highest in areas serviced by British rail lines.

Colonialism did not benefit the colonized

India's experience is highly relevant for assessing the impact of colonialism, but it does not stand alone as the only example to refute Gilley's assertions. Gilley argues current poverty and instability within the Democratic Republic of the Congo proves the Congolese were better off under Belgian rule. The evidence says otherwise.

Since independence in 1960, life expectancy in the Congo has climbed steadily, from around 41 years on the eve of independence to 59 in 2015. This figure remains low compared to most other countries in the world. Nonetheless, it is high compared to what it was under Belgian rule.

Under colonial rule, the Congolese population declined by estimates ranging from three million to 13 million between 1885 and 1908 due to widespread disease, a coercive labour regime, and endemic brutality.

Gilley argues the benefits of colonialism can be observed by comparing former colonies to countries with no significant colonial history. Yet his examples of the latter erroneously include Haiti (a French colony from 1697 to 1804), Libya (a direct colony of the Ottoman Empire from 1835 and of Italy from 1911), and Guatemala (occupied by Spain from 1524 to 1821).

By contrast, he neglects to mention Japan, a country that legitimately was never colonized and now boasts the third largest GDP on the planet, as well as Turkey, which up until recently was widely viewed as the most successful secular country in the Muslim world.

These counter-examples disprove Gilley's central thesis that non-Western countries are by definition incapable of reaching modernity without Western "guidance."

In short, the facts are in, but they do not paint the picture that Gilley and other imperial apologists would like to claim. Colonialism left deep scars on the Global South and for those genuinely interested in the welfare of non-Western countries, the first step is acknowledging this.
Joseph McQuade, SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow, Centre for South Asian Studies, Munk School of Global Affairs, University of Toronto. This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

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Stop glorifying colonialism. Have we already forgotten the starvation, plundering, and brutality?

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Recently an academic article, asserting the historical benefits of colonialism, created an outcry and a petition with over 10,000 signatures calling for its removal. The Case for Colonialism, published in Third World Quarterly by Bruce Gilley, argues Western colonialism was both "objectively beneficial and subjectively legitimate" in most places where it existed.

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Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire | Marc Parry

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The Long Read: The Harvard historian Caroline Elkins stirred controversy with her work on the crushing of the Mau Mau uprising. But it laid the ground for a legal case that has transformed our view of Britain’s past

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Look at the bibliography for more sources- Bella

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European Settlers and Kenya Colony Thoughts on a Conflicted Affair | African Studies Review | Cambridge Core

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European Settlers and Kenya Colony Thoughts on a Conflicted Affair - Volume 17 Issue 2

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How did European Colonialism Affect Kenya?

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How did European Colonialism Affect Kenya?

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Bella

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"The sun never sets on the British Empire," Great Britain often bragged. By 1914, about 85% of the earth's surface was colonized by Europe. Between 1884 and 1885, The Berlin Conference took place to carve up the African continent (Background Essay). Europeans saw high potential in Africa and thought the continent was empty, even though it was not. It was roughly "untouched" and they thought they could do anything they wanted (Doc.1). Great Britain's colonization in Kenya affected the country's religion and culture, education, and government.

European colonization in Kenya had a large impact on Africa's religion and culture. Africa had over 100 ethnic groups in which were effected from the colonization. (Doc.2). The Europeans believed that Africans did not have a developed religion and believed in bizarre thing such as witchcraft (Doc.6). But, in the Abaluyia Story of Creation, it told how the world and man was created, which was really like the European religion of Christianity in which Adam and Eve was made in a similar way. This proved that they indeed did have an organized religion (Doc.7). In 1962, 80% of Kenyans believed in the indigenous beliefs, but after in 2002, only 26% of the population believed in the indigenous beliefs. Because Europeans believed in Christianity, Protestant beliefs went from 7% in 1962 to 38% in 2002, and Catholic beliefs went from 3.5% to 28% (Doc. 8). Europeans felt they gave Africans the Christian religion, a "superior" form of government, and a more developed civilization (Background Essay). The colonization in Kenya changed their culture also. Kenyans changed their clothing. Leaders of Kenya including the first president Jomo Kenyatta wore clothing very similar to the clothing of the Europeans (Doc.5). This made people feel that their clothing was not in fashion and they had to follow the way of the Europeans. This decreased the amount of people wearing their regular clothing and the amount of people following their own culture. Kenya's religion and culture truly converted, because of European colonization.

European colonization had an impact on the government of Africa. One day, a white man came to the African council and told them that they now had a king. The King of Europe was now their king and Africa was his land. A new council was made in the town of Nairobi, in which acted for their King and was Africa's government. The council made laws for the Africans to follow (Doc.

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How did European Colonialism affect Kenya?

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"The sun never sets on the British Empire," Great Britain often bragged. By 1914, about 85% of the earth's surface was colonized by Europe. Between 1884 and 1885, The Berlin Conference took place to carve up the African continent (Background Essay). Europeans saw high potential in Africa and thought the continent was empty, even though it was not.

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Bella

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Ministry of East Africa Community and Regional Development

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History of Kenya

PRE-COLONIAL

Pre-colonial African society in Kenya consisted of a large number of relatively small competing ethnic groups feuding over natural resources such as land, water and pasture all of which were coupled with territorial disputes. The basic units of governance were the extended family and the clan. In a predominantly polygamous society these basic, patriarchal units could be quite large. Superimposed on the family were clans, which were defined by relationship to a common ancestor and usually were loosely governed by a council of elders. Economic activities ranged from hunter-gatherer, fishing, and arable and livestock production. Most African communities in Kenya lacked the population concentration to create the more complex hierarchical rule found in the Great Lakes Region (Rwanda-Burundi, Uganda) and Ethiopia. Instead we had large number of relatively small competing ethnic groups.

COLONIAL

In 1895, Britain declared (what would later become Kenya) an East African Protectorate with its headquarters in Mombasa. However, exerting control over such a vast area without a modern and efficient transport system was a mission impossible. Between 1896 and 1901, the Kenya-Uganda Railway was built covering 900 km from Mombasa to Lake Victoria. The railway which cost £5.5 million at the time revolutionized transport between the coast and the hinterland. It also led to an influx of white settlers who alienated for themselves the most fertile African lands with the approval of the protectorate administration. Questions then emerged within the administration of the sustainability of the railway by the majority African population who were mainly involved in subsistence farming. It was resolved that only white settlers would make the railway self-sustaining as had happened in Canada and New Zealand.

In 1920, the East African Protectorate was renamed the Kenya Colony and Protectorate. Taxes were imposed on the African population particularly the hut tax and poll tax. The colonial administration introduced an administrative structure which borrowed heavily from the larger British colonial system of "indirect rule." Chiefs and headmen were created for this purpose. The chiefs who were granted wide latitude of powers by the colonial administration were responsible for the maintenance of law and order. They arbitrated local disputes and commanded the tribal (later the administration) police. They were also responsible for the collection of taxes. The other administrative structures created by the British were those of Local Government (Local Native Councils), African Tribunal Courts and the Kenya Police.

The pre-occupation of the colonial administration then was largely to ensure the maintenance of law and order over the length and breadth of the Colony. It was also geared to serve a racial segregationist system with whites at the apex, then the Asians and Africans at the lowest level of the food chain

African Resistance to Colonial Rule

The completion of the railway saw an influx of European settlers invited by the colonial government with offers of huge leases for the most fertile land in the country. Thus, the lands with high agricultural potential especially in the Central highlands and the vast Rift Valley provinces came to be occupied by white settlers. These fertile lands became known as the White Highlands. The settler occupation had the immediate effect of displacing huge rural populations to create land for white farmers. This caused disaffection with the natives. By the 1930s, approximately 30,000 white settlers lived in these prime lands in the process gaining a political voice because of their contribution to the colony's market economy.

The Central highlands were the ancestral lands to more than one million members of the Kikuyu community, majority of who had no land claims in European terms and lived as squatters. To protect their interests, the settlers banned the growing of coffee, introduced a hut tax. Landless natives were granted less and less land in exchange for their labour. A massive exodus of natives to urban areas ensued as their ability to eke a living from the land dwindled. There were approximately 80,000 white settlers living in Kenya in the 1950s.

The Kikuyu community made peaceful efforts to resolve its dispossession of the best lands by the settlers to no avail. In 1931, the Kikuyu Central Association sent Jomo Kenyatta (later to become Kenya's first president) to petition the British government on the issue but this had little or no impact. The patience of the Kikuyu population wore thin with time leading to the outbreak of the Mau Mau rebellion in 1952.

The Mau Mau Rebellion

From October 1952 to December 1959, Kenya was under a state of emergency arising from the Mau Mau rebellion against British rule. The governor, Sir Evelyn Baring, requested and obtained British and African troops, including the King's African Rifles to counter the insurgency.

Operation Anvil opened on 24 April 1954, after weeks of planning by the army with the approval of the War Council. The operation effectively placed Nairobi under military siege with African residents being screened and perceived Mau Mau supporters moved to detention camps. The Home Guard formed the core of the government's strategy as it was composed of loyalist Africans. The capture of Dedan Kimathi - in effect the Commander-in-Chief of the Mau Mau - in October 1956 in Nyeri signified the crushing of the Mau Mau and the end of the rebellion. The colonial government used this period to make substantial changes to land tenure policy. The most important of these was the Swynnerton Plan, which was used to both reward loyalists and punish Mau Mau.

Towards Independence

The 1950s witnessed a radical shift in British colonial policy with then Prime Minister Harold Macmillan saying that if the costs of holding onto a particular territory far outweighed the benefits then it should be dispensed with. The Colonial Secretary, Sir Iain Macleod, subsequently accelerated decolonization and by 1961 had made the decision to grant independence to Nigeria, Tanganyika, Kenya, Nyasaland (Malawi) and Northern Rhodesia (Zambia). The British government organised three conferences at Lancaster House in London with Kenyan leaders to discuss a new constitution for the country.

INDEPENDENCE

Kenya attained independence in 1963 with Jomo Kenyatta as its Prime Minister under a Westminiter Constitution which divided the country into eight regions each with its government. The Queen of England was nominally the Head of State while Kenyatta was the Head of Government. This changed a year later when the country adopted a republican constitution making Kenyatta the president as well as head of state and government.
Kenyatta in his inaugural speech declared poverty, disease and ignorance as the three adversaries his government would strive to address. These were later enshrined in the seminal Sessional Paper No. 10 on African Socialism, the development blueprint that would guide the country's socio-economic development path for the next four decades.
The country lacked skilled and adequate manpower in almost all fields. This resulted in the massive airlifts under the initiative of Tom Mboya for young Kenyans to study in American colleges and universities. Kenyatta's first Vice President Oginga Odinga also organized parallel airlifts to the Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and India. These educated young men and women would play a crucial role in running the nascent African public service from the departing European civil servants.
Africanisation of the Public Service
The Kenyatta administration embarked on an Africanisation programme which was largely undertaken to indigenize the Kenyan civil service which was dominated by Europeans in all sectors. Africans took over the upper levels of the civil service at a rapid pace with the process being concluded by 1965, except for a few professional and technical positions. The University College, Nairobi (now UoN) was one such public institution where whites and other expatriates continued to dominate especially the academic positions through to the 1970s.
The Kenyatta era produced a largely "Administrative State" where bureaucrats rather than politicians wielded most state powers. This was because the President had greater confidence in civil servants as opposed to politicians.
The government was the engine of economic development and the biggest employer. It also held significant sway over economic policy as evidenced by: providing assistance to Africans to take over settler farms; modernising agriculture in rural areas, and; facilitating African entrepreneurs to establish businesses. The government also set up several state corporations to undertake development and/or provide specialized services in areas considered strategic to economic growth or where private entities lacked the huge initial capital outlays for investment.
However, the 1970s and early 1980s revealed inherent weaknesses in a highly centralized system of government. There were already glaring inequalities in development across the nation with most investments going to the former White Highlands in Central and Rift Valley provinces, and urban areas at the expense of the rest of the country. This inequitable allocation of resources spawned unemployment, financial crisis and rapid rural-urban migration.
Moi Era 1978-2002
Vice President Daniel arap Moi ascended to the presidency following the demise of President Kenyatta in August 1978. Moi retained the Presidency unopposed in elections held in 1979, 1983 and 1988, all elections held under the single party constitution. The 1983 polls were held a year early, and were a direct result of an abortive military coup attempt on 2 August 1982.
The abortive coup was masterminded by a low ranked Air Force serviceman, Senior Private Hezekiah Ochuka, and was staged mainly by enlisted men in the Air Force. The putsch was quickly suppressed by forces commanded by Chief of General Staff Mahamoud Mohamed. They included the General Service Unit - a paramilitary wing of the police - and later the regular police.
Return to Multi-partyism
The 1998 election was held under the controversial mlolongo (queue voting) system, where voters were supposed to line up behind their preferred candidates rather than the secret ballot. Massive rigging took place and led to widespread agitation for constitutional reform. The turning point was in late 1991 when Moi prevailed upon Parliament to repeal Section 2(a) of the Constitution to allow for the formation of other political parties other than the ruling Kanu party. The tenure for which an individual could serve as president was also limited to two five-year terms. In multiparty elections held in 1992 and 1997, Daniel arap Moi won re-election against a divided opposition.
The Moi era was characterized by hard economic times which were the result of collapse of commodity prices on the world market, mismanagement of public resources, corruption and a bloated public service. The Government could not sustain service delivery standards to the satisfaction of the citizens. Public service reform became inevitable. This brought about the Public Sector Reform Programmes PSRPs). The gist of PSRPs was to bring about improvement in the delivery of public services. Moi's major achievements were twofold: he maintained national and political stability, and; he presided over the expansion of the education sector at all levels.
Kibaki Era 2003-2013
President Moi retired in 2002 after completing his second and final term. He was succeeded by Mwai Kibaki, until then, the Official Leader of the Opposition and at one time Moi's former Vice President. The new government inherited a stagnant economy saddled with high poverty, unemployment, inflation and interest rates. The task before the new administration was threefold: to restore economic growth; to generate employment opportunities that would absorb the high number of unemployed, especially the youth, and; to reduce the high levels of poverty.
The Kibaki administration came up with the Economic Recovery Strategy for Wealth and Employment Creation 2003-2007 as the primary vehicle through which it would improve provision of education, health and infrastructural services to Kenyans and create new jobs. The overall outcome of implementation of the ERS was improved growth in the Gross Domestic Product, increased collection of revenue and significant growth in foreign exchange reserves. There was also improved performance in the building and construction, tourism, manufacturing and ICT sectors.
The Kenya Vision 2030 is the country's long-term development blueprint. The Vision which is being implemented through a series of five-year Medium Term Plans succeeded the ERS.
One of the pre-election promises of the Kibaki regime during the 2002 was the delivery of a new constitution which Kenyans had yearned for over the years. The constitution review process started in earnest in 2003 but later collapsed due to contentious issues which included: whether to adopt a presidential or parliamentary system of government; devolution; number of levels of government, and; whether Islamic Kadhi's courts should be entrenched in the constitution or not. The government took over the process and came up with a draft constitution which was taken to a referendum in November 2005. The draft was overwhelmingly rejected at the referendum after an acrimonious campaign. Kibaki dissolved the entire Cabinet except the Vice President Moody Awori. He used the opportunity to reorganize his government in the process dismissing ministers from the rival Liberal Democratic Party wing of the National Rainbow Coalition which had propelled him to power in 2003. The referendum and its aftermath planted the seeds of discord which would explode into the 2007/2008 post-election violence.
2007 General Election and Post-Election Violence
Kenyans went to the general election on December 2007. The election comprised Presidential, parliamentary and civic elections. The parliamentary and civic elections were considered to be generally free and fair. The presidential election was however perceived to be flawed with the results being bitterly contested by the mainstream opposition coalition. In the Presidential election, incumbent President Kibaki under the Party of National Unity ran for re-election against veteran opposition leader Raila Odinga of the Orange Democratic Movement (ODM). The tallying process was seen to as flawed with international observers saying that they were below international standards. This led to protests and open discrediting of the Electoral Commission of Kenya for complicity with Odinga rejecting the results and calling his supporters to mass action all over the country.
The protests escalated into ethnic violence and destruction of property, over 1,000 people were killed with a further 600,000 being displaced. The dispute stoked underlying tensions over land to re-erupt especially in the expansive Rift Valley Province, as in the 1992 and 1997 general elections. An African Union Panel of Eminent African Persons led by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan brokered a peace agreement to end the political stalemate. The Annan panel brokered the National Accord and Reconciliation Agreement which among other things provided for the formation of a broad-based Grand Coalition Government and review of the constitution.

GRAND COALITION

On 13 April 2008, President Kibaki named a Grand Coalition Cabinet of 41 Ministers- including Odinga as the prime minister with two deputy prime ministers. The cabinet, which included 50 Assistant Ministers, was sworn in at the State House in Nairobi on four days later in the presence of Dr. Kofi Annan and other invited guests.
The constitution review process which had stalled three years earlier was revived and completed. A referendum to vote on the draft constitution was held on August 4, 2010 with the majority of Kenyans voting for the adoption of the new constitution. The new constitution inter alia delineates 47 county governments and gives Kenyans a comprehensive bill of rights. It was promulgated on August 27, 2010 at a euphoric ceremony in Nairobi's historic Uhuru Park. The coming into effect of the new constitution heralded the beginning of the Second Republic.

2013 GENERAL ELECTION AND NEW GOVERNMENT

President Kibaki was prohibited by the constitution from running for a third term. In the first general election held under the new constitution, the Jubilee Coalition's Uhuru Kenyatta won with 50.51% of the vote in March 2013 against the Coalition for Reforms and Democracy's Raila Odinga. Mr Kenyatta formed a government consisting of 18 Cabinet Secretaries (Ministers under the new constitution). There are also 47 county governments headed by governors directly elected by the people.

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PRE-COLONIAL Pre-colonial African society in Kenya consisted of a large number of relatively small competing ethnic groups feuding over natural resources such as land, water and pasture all of which were coupled with territorial disputes. The basic units of governance were the extended family and the clan.

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Expansion Was Everything" Europe's Colonization of Africa

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Expansion Was Everything" Europe's Colonization of Africa

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History of slavery and early colonisation in South Africa

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History of slavery and early colonisation in South Africa

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Matthew

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With colonialism, which began in South Africa in 1652, came the Slavery and Forced Labour Model. This was the original model of colonialism brought by the Dutch in 1652, and subsequently exported from the Western Cape to the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek. Many South Africans are the descendents of slaves brought to the Cape Colony from 1653 until 1822.

The changes wrought on African societies by the imposition of European colonial rule occurred in quick succession. In fact, it was the speed with which change occurred that set the colonial era apart from earlier periods in South Africa. Of course, not all societies were equally transformed. Some resisted the forces of colonial intrusion, slavery and forced labour for extended periods. Others, however, such as the Khoikhoi communities of the south-western Cape, disintegrated within a matter of decades.

Initially, a colonial contact was a two-way process. However, Africans were far from helpless victims in the initial encounter. Colonial contact was not simply a matter of Europeans imposing themselves upon African societies. For their part, African rulers saw many benefits to be had from maintaining relations with Europeans, and for a considerable period of time they engaged with Europeans voluntarily and on their own terms.

Most importantly, trade with Europeans gave African rulers access to a crucial aspect of European technology, namely firearms. More than anything else, those who had ownership and control over firearms were able to gather around themselves larger and larger groups of people. In short, the ownership of firearms turned into a status symbol and a means to gain political power.

Sadly, the article of trade in which Europeans showed the greatest interest, and which Africans were prepared to sacrifice, were slaves. The Atlantic slave trade stands at the centre of a long history of European contact with Africa. This was the era of the African Diaspora, an all embracing term historians have used to describe the consequences of the slave trade. Estimates of the number of slaves transported from their African homes to European colonial possession in the Americas range from 9 to 15 million people. Although a great deal of violence accompanied the trade in slaves, the sheer scale of operations involved a high degree of organisation, on the part of both Europeans and Africans. In other words, the Atlantic slave trade could not have taken place without the cooperation, or complicity, of many Africans.

As the number of transported slaves increased, African societies could not avoid transformation, and 400 years of slave trading took their toll. Of course, not all African societies were equally affected, but countries such as Angola and Senegal suffered heavily.

The most important consequences of the Atlantic slave trade were demographic, economic, and political. There can be no doubt that the Atlantic slave trade greatly retarded African demographic development, a fact that was to have lasting consequences for the history of the continent. At best, African populations remained stagnant. The export of the most economically active men and women led to the disintegration of entire societies. The trade in slaves also led to new political formations. In some cases, as people sought protection from the violence and warfare that went with the slave trade, large centralised states came into being.
Slavery at the Cape
Jan van Riebeeck, who founded the first colony at Cape Town in 1652, was an official of the Dutch East India Company. The Dutch marked their permanence by building a five-pointed stone castle on the shores of the bay, a structure that continues to dominate the city centre of Cape Town. From within the walls of the Castle, the VOC administered and governed the expanding colony.

At first, the Dutch were primarily concerned with supplying their ships with fresh produce as they rounded the Cape en route to the spice-producing islands of the Indonesian archipelago. This is because the Dutch had their most important colonial interests in Indonesia, which included the growing of crops and spices that could not be produced in Europe. In Indonesia, the Dutch enslaved entire populations, ruling them by force and coercing them to produce crops. In the Cape, Van Riebeeck first attempted to get cattle and labour through negotiation, but as soon as these negotiations broke down slavery was implemented.

Even with slavery, the Dutch did not have sufficient labour power to provide for their ships. In 1657, some Company officials were released from their contracts and were allocated land along the Liesbeeck River. These officials became known as the Free Burghers (Farmers), and formed the nucleus of the white South African population that came to be known as Boers or Afrikaners.

It soon became apparent that if the free burghers were to be successful as agricultural producers, they would need access to substantial labour. The indigenous peoples with whom the Dutch first came into contact, the Khoikhoi, had been settled in the region for at least a thousand years before the Dutch arrived, and were an unwilling labour force. This is because the Khoikhoi were a pastoral people, and as long as they had their lands, flocks of sheep and herds of cattle, they could not be pressed into service for the Dutch settlers. The settlers also practiced a form of settled agriculture that came into direct conflict with the pastoral economy of the Khoikhoi, and involved regular and structured seasonal migration.

Therefore, as the Dutch settlement expanded, independent Khoikhoi communities were placed under unbearable pressure. Within 50 years of the establishment of the Dutch settlement, the indigenous communities near Table Bay, despite heroic struggles on their part, had been dispossessed of their lands and their independent means of existence had come to an end.

Individual Khoikhoi men and women became incorporated into colonial society as low-status servants. Beyond the mountains of Table Valley, communities of Khoisan (as the Khoikhoi and the indigenous hunter-gatherer San are collectively called) survived until the end of the eighteenth century, but there can be little doubt that for the indigenous populations of the Cape the arrival of the Dutch settlers proved to be a major turning point.

The Dutch settlers were therefore forced to look elsewhere for their labour needs. In 1658, a year after the first free burghers had been granted their plots of land, the first slaves were imported into South Africa, specifically for agricultural work. These slaves arrived at the Cape on 28 March 1658 on board the Amersfoort and had been captured by the Dutch from a Portuguese slaver en route to Brazil. Of the 250 slaves captured, only 170 survived the journey to the Cape. Most of these slaves were originally captured by the Portuguese in present-day Angola. On 6 May 1658, 228 slaves from another group of slaves arrived at the Cape on board the Hassalt, from Ghana. From 1710 onwards, the adult slave population outnumbered the adult colonial population by as much as three to one.

Another source of slaves was the VOC's return fleets from Batavia and other places in the east which sailed around the Cape on their way to Europe. VOC officials could not take their slaves with them when they returned home, as slavery was illegal in the Netherlands. Therefore, many of these officials sold their slaves at the Cape because they could get a better price for their slaves there than in the East Indies. Foreign ships on their way to the Americas from Madagascar also sold slaves at the Cape.

The Indian subcontinent was the main source of slaves during the early part of the 18th century, and approximately 80% of slaves came from India during this period. A slaving station was established in Delagoa Bay (present-day Maputo) in 1721, but was abandoned in 1731. Between 1731 and 1765 more and more slaves were bought from Madagascar.

In 1795, the Cape Colony became a British colony, before it was returned to the Dutch in 1802. During this first period of British rule, South-East Africa became the main source of slaves. This trend continued with the return of the Dutch who continued to buy slaves from slave traders operating in present-day Mozambique.

When in control of the Cape, the VOC sent slavers to Mozambique and Madagascar. The main purpose of these expeditions was to trade slaves. In those days, travelling by ship was very uncomfortable and unhygienic for ordinary people, but especially for slaves who had to be kept confined.

Between 1720 and 1790, slave numbers increased from 2 500 to 14 500. At the time of the final ending of slavery in 1838, the slave population stood at around 38 000. However, unlike the European population, which doubled in number with each generation through natural increase, the harsh living conditions of the Cape's slave population meant that their numbers could only be sustained through continued importation. Between 1652 and the ending of the slave trade in 1807, about 60 000 slaves were imported into the Colony.

Thus the Cape became not just a society in which some people were slaves, but a fully-fledged slave society. In slave societies, the institution of slavery touched all aspects of life, as slavery was central to the social, economic and legal institutions. As the boundaries of the Cape Colony expanded beyond the immediate vicinity of Table Bay, slaves were put to work on the wine and wheat farms of the south-western Cape. Quite simply, the colonial economy could not function without the use of slave labour, and therefore slave-ownership was widespread. Although most of the European settlers of the south-western Cape owned fewer than ten slaves, almost all of them owned at least some slaves.

The most important social feature of slave societies is that they were polarised between people who were slaves and those who were not. Slaves were also defined by their race, and although the VOC did not institute a codified form of racial classification, the fact is that slaves were black and slave owners were white. There were a few slaves who had been freed, who were called "free blacks". These "free blacks" had managed to acquire slaves of their own, but these slave owners were a tiny minority of the slave-owning population. Thus, colonial South Africa was from the very start a society structured along racial lines, in which black people occupied a subordinate position.

Slavery was fully supported by the Roman-Dutch legal system that the VOC brought to the Cape. In terms of Roman-Dutch law, slaves were defined, first and foremost, as property. This form of slavery, known as chattel slavery, meant that one human being was the legal belonging of another human being. Slaves could be bought and sold, bequeathed or used as security for loans. Since slaves were kept in a state of slavery against their will, the slave owners and the VOC needed a system of laws to ensure that slaves were kept in their subordinate position.

Therefore, slaves in the Cape were strictly controlled, and according to law, slaves could be severely punished for acts such as running away or failing to obey their owners' orders. Slave owners were allowed to use harsh punishment like whipping, withholding food, and making slaves work more hours. Slaves who tried to run away were put in chains to prevent them from running away again, because many slaves from West and East Africa believed that if they ran away they could find their way back home. Slaves could even be put to death for attacking their owners.

The food given to the slaves was terrible. It was only after the slave trade in Cape Town was banned that slave owners began to treat their slaves better. Better treatment of slaves was due to the fact that slaves were no longer easily available and therefore more expensive. Slaves were also treated better because slave owners did not want them to run away or die while they were still young. This was in contrast to the treatment of slaves before banning, as then it was cheaper for slave owners to buy new slaves instead of providing good care for them.
How could slaves limit the power of slavery?
The single largest limitation that the slave owners faced was that they were compelled to acknowledge that their slaves were not merely property, but also human beings with human values, desires and emotions. On farms and households in the Cape, slaves and slave owners lived very near each other and came into daily contact.

The culture that grew out of these regular interactions was one of domination, but it was also one that was based on acknowledging the humanity of the other party. From the very first day when a slave was acquired by a settler and given a new name, slaves and owners became involved in a constant struggle to see how much each could impose their will on the other.

We see this clearly in the records of the trial of the slave, Reijnier, a runaway who was caught and tried 22 years later. The story of Reijnier is based on the records of a criminal trial. We can tell much about the slave society of the Cape by examining the legal records that have been left behind by the VOC and are now held by the Cape Archives in Cape Town.

In the first few decades of the eighteenth century, Reijnier lived in the district of Drakenstein in the south-western Cape. Reijnier, who had come from Madagascar, was the property of the free burgher, Matthijs Krugel. On Krugel's farm, Simonsvalleij, Reijnier had built a long-standing relationship with Manika, a female slave who had been imported from India. They had a number of children together, including a daughter named Sabina.

It is clear that Manika and Reijnier's situation was unusual in the context of the Cape, as few slaves were able to build and sustain such longstanding relationships. Since the colonists preferred to import male rather than female slaves, the slave population suffered from great sexual imbalance. Until the end of the eighteenth century male slaves outnumbered female slaves by as much as four to one, although this ratio could vary significantly from district to district.

The children born to Manika were born into slavery, for slave women passed this status onto their children. Manika's children would have been among only a small proportion of slaves who were born at the Cape in the course of the eighteenth century, as mentioned earlier, the slave population grew as a result of continued importation.

We can only speculate as to the nature of the relationship that existed between Reijnier and Manika and the kind of life they would have been able to lead. Since they came from such different places of origin, they would probably have communicated with each other in a type of pidgin. Their owners would have spoken to them in Dutch, and out of this mixture of languages grew Afrikaans, as the slaves contributed their share to the development of this dialect.

It is clear that Reijnier and Manika's owners, Krugel and his wife, whom they would have called Mijnheer and Mevrou, dominated their lives. Their roles as parents were also greatly inhibited by their status as slaves. For some reason, Krugel's wife had taken to regularly beating Reijnier and Manika's daughter, Sabina. Possibly this was a result of sexual jealousy, or perhaps Sabina did not perform her duties to the satisfaction of Mevrou Krugel. As parents, Reijnier and Manika had little control over the maltreatment that Sabina suffered and which they were forced to witness. It is a sad testimony to his lack of power that Reijnier, in an attempt to put an end to the abuse of his daughter, was prepared to ask Krugel to sell Sabina and possibly be separated from her for life.

However, to say that Reijnier lacked power is not to say that he was absolutely powerless. There were clear limits to the level of domination that slave owners could exercise over their slaves. On one occasion, on a Saturday in a year around 1737, Mevrou Krugel had gone too far in her maltreatment of Sabina. She had clearly overstepped the boundaries that maintained the delicate balance of power between masters and slaves. On this occasion Krugel's wife stripped Sabina naked, tied her to a post and beat her mercilessly with a sjambok. Afterwards, to accentuate the pain, she rubbed salt into the wounds, a tactic commonly employed by Cape slave owners.

The event obviously scarred Manika deeply, as she was able to tell the story clearly when she appeared before the law courts 22 years later. When Reijnier returned to the homestead after having worked in the fields he did not hesitate to vent his anger at the maltreatment of his daughter. His wife, Manika, was the unfortunate victim of his wrath. These were human actions and emotions, not the actions of people who could be defined simply as property.

By now, Krugel and his wife had lost control over the slaves on Simonsvalleij. In an attempt to restore his authority, Krugel beat all the slaves on the farm. This was to no avail, for, as Manika testified, Reijnier turned on his master and assaulted him, although she did not witness the assault herself. As a consequence, Reijnier had to flee the farm.

The mountains and valleys of the south-western Cape provided many hiding places for slaves who had deserted their owners. For more than two decades Reijnier lived in the mountains around the Berg River as a droster, as runaway slaves were called. For all this time Krugel had lost the labour of his slave, and therefore Reijnier had turned out to be a poor investment. It seemed that Krugel and his wife could not control their slaves, and resorted to physical violence as a means to maintain authority over their labour force, as many slave owners did. However, if such violence was allowed to spiral out of control, it could be counterproductive. Through his actions, Reijnier had shown the limitations of the use of slave labour in a colonial society.

To read more about 'the world that slaves lived in, slave names and lifestyles, visit the Iziko online slavery heritage project
The Story of Dina
Another anecdote of slave life concerns a slave woman by the name of Dina, who was owned by Roelof Petrus Johannes Campher, a cattle farmer in the district of George, Cape Colony. In October 1837, Dina was working in her master's cattle kraal, loading cattle dung onto the wagon. The cattle dung would be taken to the farm garden to be used as a fertiliser. When the wagon was full, she stopped loading the wagon and instead piled up the dung for the next load.

Her master asked her why she was doing this but he was not pleased with her explanation. Roelof then beat her twice with an ox strap. Dina tried to run to Mrs Campher to ask her to stop Roelof from beating her. However, Roelof removed her clothes from the back, tied her to a ladder and continued to beat her with an ox strap. He gave her twenty-one lashes, and before beating her, Roelof said to Dina that he did not care about the law. After the beating Dina was forced to go back to work.

The story of Dina shows that severe beatings like these were very common even though the laws were written to avoid them. The story of Dina can be told because she reported it to the council of justice. Cases like these occurred regularly, but were not reported, as many slaves were still used to being whipped by their masters. Dina did not complain that she was being beaten. Instead, she complained that she was beaten without doing anything wrong. This shows that the reforms were not fully implemented in the Cape Colony.
What was the impact of runaway slaves on the Cape slave society?
Almost from the start, slaves began to runaway, because of ill treatment, overwork and the natural desire to live as a free person.

Reijnier was one of many slave runaways. He never ventured too far from the settler farms, and it is probably this that led to his eventual capture. Manika may not have been entirely truthful when she testified that she had not seen him in all the years after he had fled. Runaway slaves were frequently supplied with foodstuffs from surrounding farms, since they often lacked the knowledge that would allow them to feed themselves from the natural environment.

Individual runaways were thus very vulnerable. It made sense for them to join bands and find strength in numbers. Thus there existed throughout the eighteenth century, and until the ending of slavery, a community of runaway slaves in the caves of the Hottentots Holland Mountains overlooking False Bay. This was the maroon community of Hangklip.

This community survived as long as it did because of the protected physical environment. The series of caves in which the runaways lived had only two entrances. On the one side, they were protected by the ocean, which made entry difficult and very dangerous. The other entrance, from the mountain, could be easily defended.

The maroon community at Hangklip was never able to cut itself off from the rest of colonial society and for this reason they were vulnerable. If they attacked wagons crossing the Hottentots Holland Mountains, they exposed themselves to the possibility of recapture. Although they could to some extent live off fish caught from the ocean, mostly they were dependent for their survival on goods obtained from slaves who lived on surrounding farms, and from other runaways who lived as far away as Table Mountain across the Cape Flats.

The Hangklip maroons were not as successful as the maroon communities of slaves that existed in Brazil, for example, where colonial authorities were compelled to recognise their independence. However, the fact remains that the Dutch authorities were never able to wipe out the community, and the Hangklip maroons continued to live on the margins of colonial society.

It became clear to the colonial authorities at the Cape, especially after the British took over political power from the Dutch, that the use of slave labour had severe limitations. Two minor rebellions of slaves in 1808 and 1825, in which a number of white settlers were killed, made the continued use of slave labour even less appealing. Moreover, by the second decade of the nineteenth century the use of slave labour was no longer as profitable as it had been in earlier decades. Thus, when the British government finally ended slavery in 1838, the Cape ceased to be a slave society. It remained a colonial society, but the ending of slavery was another significant turning point in the history of South Africa.
Slavery moves towards South Africa's interior
It soon became apparent to the Boers that beyond the Western Cape and Boland regions, the terrain of South Africa was unsuitable for intensive agriculture but very suitable for cattle farming. The majority of them lacked the financial means to buy slaves imported all the way from Indonesia, but since they were already in the process of dispossessing the indigenous population of their land, it seemed logical to take both the land and the people by force.

In the wars which they fought against the Khoi and the San, the Boers frequently followed a policy of exterminating the mature adults, but capturing the children and raising them on the farms. These children were taught to speak Dutch and to practice the Christian religion. This system was hypocritically known as "apprenticeship", but in fact it was nothing better than slavery because normal human and family rights were not respected, and children were bought and sold separately from their parents.

During the period of the Napoleonic Wars in Europe, the British captured the Cape from the Dutch who were allied to Napoleon. From 1828 onwards the British introduced a number of administrative changes, known collectively as "the Revolution in Government". These changes imposed British laws and the English language on the reluctant Boers, and limited the amount of land and labour that could be claimed by an individual.

In response, the Boers set out on an epic quest (see Great Trek) to establish themselves as a free people in their own country, where they could govern themselves according to their own tastes and habits. After an unsuccessful attempt to establish themselves in what is today KwaZulu-Natal, they settled on the highveld. There they founded two republics, the Orange Free State (1854) and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (ZAR), better known as the Transvaal (1858).
The Abolition of Slavery at the Cape
The British occupied the Cape again in 1806, and in 1814 the Cape officially became a British colony. The growing influence of the concept of human rights at the beginning of the 19th century, and the effects of a changing economic system in Western Europe during the same period both contributed to the questioning of the practice of slavery.

Therefore from 1806, the British introduced laws (Amelioration laws) aimed at improving the welfare of slaves in the Cape. The slave guardian appointed by the British government was responsible for enforcing these laws. As a result, the lives of some slaves improved after 1807. Even though there were reforms and laws to protect slaves, some masters continued to ill-treat their slaves by administering cruel punishment and ignoring these reform laws. Slaves were expected to report any ill treatment to the slave protector appointed by the colonial government.
Amelioration laws
Slaves were allowed to make legal marriages after 1824.

Families were allowed to live together: wives and husbands could not be separated and their children could not be sold before a certain age.

Slaves were now taught Christianity, and the baptism of slaves was encouraged. Sunday became a day of rest.

Slaves had to receive a reasonable amount of food, shelter and clothing.

The number of hours the slaves could be made to work was limited.

The punishment of slaves was more strictly controlled.

Slaves were granted property rights. Slaves who worked in their free time could save what they earned, and buy freedom for themselves and their families - even against the wishes of the owner.

Some slaves in Cape Town were given a basic education.

The government appointed slave guardians to ensure that these laws were obeyed. There is evidence that the slaves knew about their rights and made use of them. Some brought complaints against their owners in the courts or to the Guardian of Slaves. Both slave uprisings happened during this period, and in both cases the slaves demanded immediate freedom.

The end of slavery at the Cape was not due to internal pressure, but from a decision from outside. In 1807 the British government banned the slave trade to all her colonies, including the Cape. This meant that no more slaves (from any destination) could be sent to work in the Cape. However, those who were already in the Cape continued to work as slaves until 1834 when all slaves in the British Empire were to be set free (emancipated). Many of the slaves chose to remain on with their owners while some started a new life in and around Cape Town working as tradesmen. Gradually these people became absorbed into the Cape community.

To read more about the process of 'Emancipation' and the Cape after emancipation visit the Iziko online slavery heritage project
Does slavery still exist today?
Today, the term slavery is used to indicate a wide range of human rights abuses and exploitative labour practices. The United Nations defines contemporary slavery as consisting of:

...a variety of human rights violations. In addition to traditional slavery and the slave trade, these abuses include the sale of children, child prostitution, child pornography, the exploitation of child labour, the sexual mutilation of female children, the use of children in armed conflicts, debt bondage, the traffic in persons and in the sale of human organs, the exploitation of prostitution, and certain practices under apartheid and colonial regimes.

The term "slavery" therefore has a much broader use than chattel slavery. As recently as May 2002, the Anti-Slavery Society reported that "Millions of children are in slavery. Girls as young as six work as maids in the Philippines, children break rocks in Ghana's quarries, young boys are abducted from their homes in South Asia and forced to be camel jockeys in the United Arab Emirates and girls are forced into prostitution in the United Kingdom".

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History of slavery and early colonisation in South Africa

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With colonialism, which began in South Africa in 1652, came the Slavery and Forced Labour Model. This was the original model of colonialism brought by the Dutch in 1652, and subsequently exported from the Western Cape to the Afrikaner Republics of the Orange Free State and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek.

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Matthew

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The Impact of Colonialism | South African History Online

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From voyages of trade and discovery to colonisation:

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Chris

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Hobbled by foreign interventions, political instability, and natural disasters, the former French colony has long suffered from underdevelopment.

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Forgotten History of Dutch Slavery in Guyana

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Forgotten History of Dutch Slavery in Guyana

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Joanna

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Beeld: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center (CC BY 2.0)

When we think of the history of Dutch slavery, the areas that spring to mind are primarily the Antilles and Suriname. However, until the end of the eighteenth century there were also Dutch plantation colonies in neighbouring Guyana. Bram Hoonhout's book 'Borderless Empire' describes this forgotten history.

Bram Hoonhout

Forgotten Dutch history

Illegal trade to oil the wheels

Cover of Borderless Empire

The role of the indigenous people

Abundance and crumbs

Bram Hoonhout studied colonial and economic history in Leiden, before moving to the European University Institute in Florence for his PhD. After his PhD, Bram worked as assistant professor of economic history at Leiden University and in Nijmegen as education programme director of the N.W. Posthumus Institute. In 2019 he started as coordinator of the Honours College.

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The forgotten history of Dutch slavery in Guyana

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When we think of the history of Dutch slavery, the areas that spring to mind are primarily the Antilles and Suriname. However, until the end of the eighteenth century there were also Dutch plantation colonies in neighbouring Guyana. Bram Hoonhout's book 'Borderless Empire' describes this forgotten h...

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Joanna

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Britain's Embrace With Guyana – A Colonial Legacy

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The Legacy of British Colonialism is Still Dividing Kenyaa

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The Legacy of British Colonialism is Still Dividing Kenyaa

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Joyous

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The Legacy of British Colonialism Is Still Dividing Kenya

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Mashujaa struggle for Independent Kenya from British Colonialism

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Mashujaa struggle for Independent Kenya from British Colonialism

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Joyous

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MASHUJAA struggle for Independent KENYA from British COLONIALISM!!!

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The Colonial and Pre-Colonial Eras in Nigeria

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The Colonial and Pre-Colonial Eras in Nigeria

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Lukas

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The Colonial and Pre-Colonial Eras in Nigeria | AHA

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This project is based on the goal of explaining an event in the relatively recent past by working progressively further into the past to uncover more and more information that seems to bear on the issues. Even though the effort to create Biafra came out of the context of the challenges of independen…

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Britain's Shameful Colonisation of India

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Britain's Shameful Colonisation of India

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Parth

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As Britain struggles with Brexit, and evokes "imperial nostalgia", Shashi Tharoor's book, "An Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India", demolishes at least three common myths. First, the myth of the beneficence of British colonialism. Then there is the notion that 18th century England was a promising model of democratic governance.

And lastly is the myth of the English gentleman. For example, Robert Clive, the once (in)famous "Clive of India", was a juvenile delinquent who arrived in Madras in 1744 as an 18-year clerk, but found his vocation as a thuggish fighter in the small security force of the East India Company.

The story of British colonisation of India is in fact at least two stories. First, through the 18th century, much of India was progressively conquered by the East India Company, a violent and rapacious enterprise, supported by the British crown. But then, the East India Company's own army (mainly comprising Indians) led an uprising against it in 1857 -- known as the Indian Mutiny or the First War of Indian independence. This uprising was ultimately unsuccessful, and following this, the British Crown took over governing India from the East India Company until India's independence.

Britain's devastation of India

Tharoor provides us with a devastating portrait of how the British decimated the Indian economy through these centuries. In 1700, India was the world's richest country, accounting for some 27% of global GDP. But in 1947, when India achieved its independence, India had been reduced to one of the world's poorest countries, with just over 3% of global GDP.

The British took thriving industries -- like textiles, shipbuilding, and steel -- and destroyed them through violence, taxes, import tariffs, and imposing their exports and products on the back of the Indian consumer. They taxed the Indian peasantry at a level unknown under any other rulers, and through torture and cruelty they extracted vast sums of money which they shipped off to England.

Tharoor quotes the young American historian and philosopher, Will Durant, who visited India in 1930: "The British conquest of India was the invasion and destruction of a high civilisation by a trading company utterly without scruple or principle, careless of art and greedy of gain, over-running with fire and sword a country temporarily disordered and helpless, bribing and murdering, annexing and stealing, and beginning that career of illegal and 'legal' plunder which has now gone on ruthlessly for one hundred and seventy-three years."

According to Tharoor, much of Britain's prosperity was built on the drainage of resources from India. He is convinced that India would have been a much richer, prosperous, educated country without the British. Most importantly though, Tharoor is not seeking to blame colonial history for India's current situation. Independent India is guilty of many policy shortcomings.

In addition to decimating the economy, the British inflicted massive suffering on the Indian people. Tharoor estimates that some 35 million Indians died because of British policy in a succession of famines. The Bengal famine of 1943/44 was one of the most egregious where some 4 million died, as Churchill shipped grain from Bengal to Britain to buttress reserve stocks for British soldiers in Europe while Bengalis were starving to death. When apprised of the consequences of his actions, Churchill retorted: "Why hasn't Gandhi died yet?" Tharoor puts Churchill in the same class as Hitler, Mao and Stalin, despite the idolising of him in Britain.

Tharoor also highlights the Jallianwala Bagh massacre (also known as the Amritsar massacre) as one of the great atrocities of British rule. It took place on 13 April 1919 when Acting Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer ordered troops of the British Indian Army to fire their rifles into a crowd of unarmed Indian civilians in Jallianwala Bagh, Amritsar, Punjab, killing at least 400, including 41 children, one only six weeks old. Over 1,000 were injured.

Myths of British beneficence

There are many apologists for the Empire who argue that the British gave many things to India, like the very idea of India, democracy, the English language, the railways, tea and even cricket. But Tharoor has answers for all these claims.

Were the British responsible for the idea of India? No! In history, there had been various rulers who had consolidated much of India, including the Moghuls who were ruling at the time of the arrival of the British. Moreover, Tharoor argues that there was always a shared sense of a civilisational heritage on the sub-continent, a sacred geography of India, knit together by tracks of pilgrimage.

He speculates as the Moghul empire was disintegrating, there is no reason why a new knitting together of the country could not have occurred. In mid-18th century, the Maharashtras were in the ascendancy, and they could have done it. He imagines a consolidation of the country under Maharashtra rule with the Moghul emperor as a constitutional figurehead, and with strong regional autonomy.

He argues that democracy would have been inevitable in this country of the "argumentative Indian" and in this world where most countries enjoy at least some degree of democracy. He also argues that it is a bit rich of the British to claim that they bequeathed democracy to India, after 200 years of exploiting and abusing the country.

Rather than uniting India, the great British achievement was to divide it. Tharoor argues that India's Hindu/Muslim divide only began under the British colonial rule, and that partition between India and Pakistan would never have happened without the British. In 1857, the British were horrified to see Hindus and Muslims fighting together against the British during the Indian Mutiny. So British launched a divide and rule policy along religious lines. They sought to forment a separate Muslim consciousness.

The British were also disturbed to see that when the Indian National Congress was first formed, and its first presidents included Hindus, Christians, Muslims, and Parsis. The British then lobbied for and financed the creation of the Muslim League as a rival body, deliberately to split the nationalists along religious lines, that being the easiest way to divide and rule. In 1905, the British partitioned Bengal, explicitly telling Muslims that they were giving them a Muslim majority province.

Tharoor also argues that while India long had the caste system, it was a rather fuzzy thing. But the British took the caste system, and codified and entrenched it, to use as a means of social control.

The English language was not given to India for the country's benefit. The British taught English to only a narrow stratum of Indian society which they could use to enhance their control of India. (Even today, only about 10% of Indian speak English.) The British had no incentive to educate Indians as that they might learn of the injustices of the British. The fact that the Indian elite has seized upon English, educated themselves in it, and turned it into an instrument of their own liberation is to the credit of the Indians, not the British.

Overall, Tharoor reluctantly concedes that there have been some benefits for India from British colonialism, but that this is not because the British of magnanimity. They were basically indirect consequences of British self-serving actions. But he also argues that India suffered from the colonisation of the mind, something which it is much more difficult to overcome.

How then did this poor little country of Britain manage to conquer India? At the time of the East India Company's arrival in India, the Moghul regime was disintegrating, and several Indian local powers were rising. But they never managed to unite themselves. Indeed, the British were able to collaborate with some of these local Indian groups, and bribe them for support. Thus, Indians were very much complicit in their own oppression. The British could not have ruled India without Indian complicity. The British also succeeded thanks to its superior military technology.

What to do

Tharoor's book grew out of a speech he made at an Oxford Union debate on the proposition that "Britain Owes Reparations to Her Former Colonies". He does not believe that reparations would make any sense. But he does believe that a formal apology is due. Britain has a moral debt.

Tharoor believes that Britain is suffering from historical amnesia about the time of the Empire, abetted by rose-tinted television shows like "Indian Summers", "Far Pavillions" and "The Jewel in the Crown". He argues that the colonists at the time had no illusions about what they were doing. They were most clearly in it for the money.

He is thus perplexed that British schools do not teach colonial history. According to opinion polls, many young English people are strangely proud of the empire and would like to have it back. Further, London, a world capital of museums, does not even have a museum of British colonialism.

There are still very many apologists for the British Empire who criticise Tharoor's writings and seek to justify all the British actions. But virtually all of his information comes from highly respected sources and passes the test of academic credibility. It is also true that Tharoon offers several speculative opinions and scenarios. But even if only half of his material were reliable, it would still represent a very shameful period of British history.

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Britain's shameful colonisation of India

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As Britain struggles with Brexit, and evokes "imperial nostalgia", Shashi Tharoor's book, "An Era of Darkness: the British Empire in India", demolishes at least three common myths. First, the myth of the beneficence of British colonialism. Then there is the notion that 18th century England was a promising model of democratic governance.

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Aananya

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Parth

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Economic Impacts of Colonial Rule in India

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Indira

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Erna Oliver; Willem H. Oliver

Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology, University of South Africa, South Africa

From the 15th century onwards, most of the countries in Africa have been colonised by the European world powers, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium. South Africa was officially colonised in 1652. Apart from the European colonisation being executed from the south of the continent, South Africa also experienced a migration and invasion of people groups from the north. The indigenous people groups, inhabiting the country long before these two groups arrived there, will be discussed as background to the rest of the article. A few factors that made the colonisation of South Africa unique within the African context will be discussed.

( Unity in diversity - Khoi phrase on South Africa's coat of arms)

This article is written without the intention of entering into an argument as to whom South Africa de facto belongs or the necessity of land restitution that is rife at this moment. The intention is to state the 'facts' of the colonisation of South Africa from a somehow different angle in order to understand the composition of this country better and to take cognition of the fact that we need to celebrate the notion of a rainbow nation more, instead of fighting for personal or political gain.

During 1884-1885, the Berlin Conference (also called the Congo Conference or West Africa Conference - cf. Heath n.d.) was held at the request of Portugal and organised by German chancellor, Otto von Bismarck. He summoned representatives of all the major Western powers of the world to join in and decide on the control of Africa. The representatives came from Austria-Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Sweden-Norway, the Ottoman Empire and even the United States. This conference formed the pinnacle of the competition between all the powers for territory in Africa and is commonly known as the Scramble for Africa (cf. Pakenham 1991). Within half a century, Europe conquered almost the whole continent (Pakenham 1991:xxi). Having read the comprehensive book of Pakenham on how each of the countries in Africa was grabbed by Imperial European powers, especially Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Italy, Spain and Belgium, it becomes evident that every country in Africa has a unique story about its colonisation, even Ethiopia who was only colonised for a very short period of time by Italy (1936-1941) and Liberia who was colonised during the first half of the 19th century. South Africa most certainly has its own unique story.

The year 1994 was a ground-breaking year for South Africa when this country became a Democracy with the ANC's Dr Nelson Mandela as the first democratically elected president. The Democracy was, however, preceded by migrations and invasions of black people for longer than a millennium, as well as a little more than three centuries of European occupation. The migrations and invasions of people groups took place from the north of the continent, moving to the south, while the Europeans occupied the country from the south. The two European countries who occupied the land were the Netherlands (1652-1795 and 1803-1806) and Great Britain (1795-1803 and 1806-1961). Although South Africa became a Union with its own white people government in 1910, the country was still regarded as a colony of Britain till 1961. After the Second World War, in 1948, the National Party won the elections in South Africa, marking the beginning of white Afrikaner rule in the country under the supervision of Britain. The year 1961, when South Africa became a republic, witnessed the introduction of more than three decades of white Afrikaner supremacy over the black people in the country, independent of Britain (cf. Heldring & Robinson 2012).

This article focuses on the uniqueness of the colonisation of South Africa. The earliest inhabitants of the country will be discussed, serving as background to the rest of the article, before we take a look at the 'unofficial colonisers' from the north and the 'official colonisers' from the south. It needs to be stated here that:

far more research has been and is still being done on the subject of colonialism and far more has been published and is still being published on it than on any other theme in African history. (Boahen 2000:16)

It is therefore rather difficult to say something new on the topic.

The earliest inhabitants of the southern parts of Africa

According to the Big Bang theory, the cosmos had its origin about 13 700 million years ago, while earth was created almost 4600 million years ago (Meyer 2012:17). Round about 180 000 years ago, Africa was the origin (birthplace) of the modern human species to walk this planet (cf. Oliver 2014:104; Oppenheimer 2003:51). For the past 100 000 years, these modern people also resided in the southern parts of Africa before any other humans (South Africa 2015) - long before the people groups from the north and the Europeans from the south came to occupy this part of the continent. Those moderns in the southern parts of Africa 'south of the Zambezi Valley' were called the original San hunter-gatherer groups (Adhikari 2010:21). Meyer (2012:30) restricted their stay in the southern parts of Africa to 20 000 years referring to them as the ancestors of the Khoisan, while Giliomee and Mbenga (2007:6) argued that they entered this part of Africa only 14 000 years ago. These were the indigenous people of this part of the continent.

The Khoisan consisted of two main groups, called the San (they were called Bushmen by the Dutch - cf. Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:19) and the Khoi-Khoi, also called the Khoekhoe or Khoekhoen, whom the Dutch referred to as Hottentots (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:19). Physical anthropologists are using the term Khoisan to 'distinguish the aboriginal people of southern Africa from their black African farming neighbours' (South Africa 2015). The San people groups travelled all over the southern parts of Africa hunting game, while the pastoral Khoekhoe(n) tribes were found in areas with water and enough grazing. They acquired their livestock from the people groups living in Botswana (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:19) and became prosperous cattle farmers. Already as early as the 1590s they traded with the English and Dutch mariners who sailed from Europe to the East and back. They traded their cattle and sheep for copper, iron and tobacco (cf. Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:21).

The San was the first people group to come in contact with the Dutch in the south of the continent. When the latter started to invade the southern parts of Africa (which they called the Cape), the Khoi-Khoi settlements were already limited to the southern parts of the country (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:19):

The Namaqua group lived in the present north-eastern Cape.

The Korana group lived along the Orange River.

The Gonaqua 'interspersed' among the Xhosa groups in the present Eastern Cape.

The largest part of the Khoi-Khoi lived in the 'well-watered pasturelands of the south-western Cape'.

Unique features of the colonisation

Three unique features of the colonisation will be discussed, namely the way in which South Africa was colonised, the new people group and language that developed because of the colonisation, and lastly the new nation of South Africa.

The colonisation of South Africa

The colonisation of South Africa is mostly attributed to the Europeans. A closer investigation, however, shows that there is more to it than meets the eye. This is the reason why the colonisation process can actually be divided into three categories, namely an 'unofficial colonisation', two 'official colonisations' and lastly an 'internal colonisation'.

Unofficial colonisation

About 2000 years ago, some farmer and metalworker groups left North Africa to move southwards through Cameroon and eastern Africa (Meyer 2012:32). In these parts of the continent, and especially in Cameroon, '[ f]arming was originally developed' (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:22). Some of these groups that moved south, eventually settled in the northern to north-eastern parts of today's South Africa, about 1700 years ago (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:22), or between 400 and 800 CE (Meyer 2012:33). In Mapungubwe, adjacent to the Limpopo River (the northern boundary of South Africa) evidence can be found of a kingdom that existed there at approximately 1000-1300 CE. That people group, probably with Venda origins (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:31), produced golden artefacts. The groups that settled more southwards, between 1500 and 1800 CE, were the ancestors of the Bantu-speaking people groups in South Africa, called the south-eastern Bantu (Meyer 2012:33). They settled in the northern, eastern and central parts of South Africa, forming clans with their own identities and hierarchical socio-political rank structures. These groups or clans consisted of the Nguni and the Sotho or Tswana clans living also in Botswana, the Tsonga clans in Mozambique and north-eastern South Africa, the Shona clans in Zimbabwe and their close relatives, the Venda, who arrived in the northern parts of South Africa during the 18th century, as well as the Lemba, living in small groups with other clans like the Venda and the Sotho in the northern parts of South Africa. The Sotho or Tswana clans originating from Tanzania first occupied and dominated the northern parts of South Africa and by 1500 they expanded more southwards and eastwards in the country (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:30).

The Nguni clans originating from the Great Lakes region in eastern Africa and migrating southwards between 900 and 1290 (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:29), belonged to one language group, but divided into smaller groups, each with its own cultural character and dialects (Meyer 2012:34). During the 14th century, they moved inland from the present KwaZulu-Natal (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:29). During the 19th century, they could already be found in the vicinity of Swaziland, north-east and east of Pretoria, in KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape (Meyer 2012:34). During the 17th century, the Northern Nguni groups could be divided into three groups called the Lala, the Mbo and the Ntungwa (Meyer 2012:34). By 1800, they split up into smaller clans that settled east of Swaziland. The Southern Nguni groups already occupied the territory between the Eastern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal in the vicinity of the Umzinvubu River. The most prominent groups were the Mpondo, Mponomise, Thembu and the Xhosa groups (Meyer 2012:34).

Between the 17th and 19th centuries, the Ndebele clans occupied the northern parts of South Africa, now called Gauteng, Mpumalanga and Limpopo. During the 19th century, the Matabele (followers of Mzilikazi and sometimes mixed up with the Ndebele) left KwaZulu-Natal for the northern parts of South Africa and later on for the western parts of Zimbabwe (Meyer 2012:35). The Sotho clans occupied the interior of South Africa and Botswana. Evidence of them occupying these parts of the country is signalling a time frame between 700 and 1300 CE. The Venda clans already occupied the northern parts of Limpopo during the first half of the 18th century.

According to Giliomee and Mbenga (2007:33), the migrations inside South Africa can be defined by two terms: Segmentation and differentiation. Segmentation refers to groups who divided into two or more groups, while differentiation refers to a 'process whereby certain individuals came to secure political, social and economic power over others' (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:33).

The Khoisan people, together with some black people groups (sometimes called 'negroids' - cf. Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:36), were the earliest inhabitants of the Highveld to the middle and north of South Africa. Black people groups then invaded that part of the country from the north. The Fokeng people, originally with a Nguni culture, was the product of the interaction between the invaders and the local people. The Sotho or Tswana 'chiefdoms' (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:36) eventually resulted from these interactions. From there, certain parts of this group moved southwards and ended up in the Northern Cape. After 1750, kinship wars started to break out between the chiefdoms, while other black people groups intervened in these wars and established a stronghold (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:36).

The earliest Nguni groups lived along the eastern coast of South Africa in KwaZulu-Natal. They eventually became separate kingdoms of the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Swazi, Mpondo and Thembu of today (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:37). From 1818 to 1828, King Shaka ruled and established his (Zulu) kingdom in the northern part of KwaZulu-Natal (between the Tugela and Pongola Rivers), incorporating all the other chiefdoms in that area.

Visagie (2012:97) quite rightly argued that these invasions and migrations can also be called colonisation. We refer to it as 'unofficial colonisation'.

Clarification of some 'misconceptions'

Much of what has been said under the previous sub-heading, is derived from 'evidence' like artefacts, tools and weapons that have been discovered in the country and linked to specific eras in history. It is not derived from noted evidence, as the mentioned people groups were part of an oral culture where (almost) nothing was noted on paper, but was orally related from generation to generation. That is the reason why the migrations are referred to as an 'unofficial colonisation' - we can also call it the first colonisation of this country.

In contrast to that, the Europeans who landed in the Cape and who invaded it from the south formed part of a generation in which documentation played an important role. This could be one of the reasons why the invasion of Africa from the south was referred to as a colonisation, while the migrations from the north almost went by unnoticed, implying that the invaders or migrators (not immigrants) were part of the country's original populace - the indigenous people.

A few remarks need consideration:

The original inhabitants (indigenous people) of the southern parts of Africa did not claim this part of the continent to be their official or legal property, as a great contingent of them was nomads. They were in fact just roaming the territory. There were, however, certain groups occupying specific areas, specifically close to water, like the pastoral Khoekhoe(n) tribes, but without a formal political structure or demarcation of land.

Certain black people groups migrating to this part of Africa did, however, claim certain parts of the land to be theirs and therefore established kingdoms for themselves, as has already been referred to. These kingdoms had the implication of claiming a certain area as the sole property of the chief and his adherents or clan. Should another group cross the borders of that demarcated land, then confrontation would take place, mostly in the form of a battle.

As the numbers of black people in the southern part of Africa increased rapidly, these groups expanded more to the south of the country. As they expanded, they regarded more parts of the land as belonging to themselves.

The Europeans in the south expanded to (invaded) their immediate north and especially to the east of the country. This brought them to the western side of the Fish River, where they met or clashed with a black people group, called the Xhosa, who arrived on the other side of the river. This happened in 1770 (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:75).

From 1834, the Afrikaner group (also called Voortrekkers at that time) invaded the country firstly to the eastern parts (presently KwaZulu-Natal) and then to the northern parts as far as the Limpopo River, being almost in constant battle with the black migrants, conquering the migrants' claimed territory.

The southernmost part of Africa, therefore, was initially officially invaded by colonisers, while the rest of the present South Africa was initially and 'unofficially' invaded by black people groups, before the white people later took it from them in battle. After 1852, most of South Africa up to the Limpopo River was conquered by white people.

1880 saw four white polities in South Africa, namely the Cape Colony and Natal (under British reign) and the Oranje-Vrijstaat (Orange Free State) and the Zuid-Afrikaansche Republiek (South African Republic) - under Afrikaner reign (Chanaiwa 2000:194). The black people groups living in all four of these areas were dominated by the white people, as a 'policy of severely unequal segregation' was imposed on them (Betts 2000:314).

The majority of the original (indigenous) people of the land - the Khoikhoi - was forced out of most of the country to the southern and south-western parts to make a living there. Some of them were incorporated by especially Xhosa Chiefdoms, and their children became Xhosa (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:74).

South Africa thus experienced an 'official' invasion by the Europeans and an 'unofficial' invasion by the migrants - both of them devastating to the indigenous people of the country, as well as to each other. Adhikari portrayed two phases of destruction, one by the earliest farmers and the second by the Europeans:

Phase 1: Historically, the destruction of Cape San societies can be viewed as part of a series of overlapping, essentially concentric, global movements of violent subjugation that were often genocidal in nature. The broadest of these is the 12 000 year history of the absorption, displacement and destruction of hunter-gatherer communities by farmers. (Adhikari 2010:20)

Phase 2: San (Bushman) society in the Cape Colony was almost completely annihilated during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries as a result of land confiscation, massacre, forced labour and cultural suppression that accompanied colonial rule. (Adhikari 2010:19)

As the two previous sub-headings referred to people groups who roamed the continent and reached the southern part of it by land, the colonisation referred to under this sub-heading originated from Europe and reached the southern parts of the continent by sea. The invention of the compass by the end of the 13th century made it easier for people to explore. Approximately two centuries later, the first voyagers to test the new invention on sea were the Portuguese. In 1486, Bartholomew Diaz sailed around the southern point of Africa, followed by Vasco Da Gama in 1497. The latter set foot ashore at both present-day St Helena Bay and Mossel Bay and traded with the Khoikhoi people. Close to the end of the 16th century, the Dutch became a 'major sea power' (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:40). In 1584, they sent Jan Huygen van Linschoten by sea to India, followed by Cornelis and Frederik de Houtman in 1595.

In the middle of the 17th century, the Dutch, with their home base in Amsterdam, had the 'largest trading enterprise' in the world (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:40), called the Vereenigde Oostindische Compagnie (VOC), established in 1602 (cf. Mitchell 2007:49). Their most important trading partners were (the present-day) India, Malaysia and Indonesia, and the best way to reach them was by sea. In 1619, the VOC established a regular government in Jakarta (on the Java Island of Indonesia, seized by the VOC), which became the capital of the Eastern Empire of the VOC, and renamed it to Batavia. The VOC did not pay their employees well, which opened the way for theft and corruption of which Jan van Riebeeck was a good example. Being an employee of the VOC, he held a post in Japan, but was recalled and fined because of 'private trading' (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:41).

Because of the long journey on sea with no fresh meat, fruit and vegetables, many of the sailors developed scurvy, prompting the need for a halfway station, which could easily be the southern part of the African continent. In 1650, the directors of the VOC, called the Heeren XVII, then decided to establish a refreshment station for the passing ships at Table Bay (named by Joris van Spilbergen in 1601) - then called the Cape, and in the next century known as Cape Town (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:42).

Whereas it was seemingly the intention of the VOC to only establish a halfway station at the Cape, Van Riebeeck soon realised that the land had immense possibilities and only a year after they had landed in the Cape, he released nine Company servants to start full-time farming to the eastern side of Table Mountain. The halfway station became a colony (cf. Pearson 2012:99-138). The colonisers brought with them the Western culture and Western 'intellectual baggage' (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:42) like the Roman-Dutch Law, the Reformed religion (the Reformed Church was based on Calvinist dogma) and capitalism - ideas foreign to this part of the world. From Batavia, the Dutch borrowed slavery and the display of wealth (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:45). This resulted in almost every wealthy person having slaves or 'servants' (cf. Viljoen 2001:28-51).

In 1795, the once-mighty VOC was on the verge of bankruptcy. Britain had founded the British East India Company and decided to take control of the Cape as a halfway station to the East. In June 1795, the fleet of Vice-Admiral Elphenstone arrived at Simon's Bay and, with the help of the main British fleet that arrived there on 03 September, they conquered the Cape at the Battle of Muizenberg. Having seized the Cape from the VOC in 1795, the British returned the colony to the Dutch government in 1803 when peace had been concluded with the French after the Treaty of Amiens. In 1806, however, with the beginning of the Napoleonic Wars, the British again took the Cape in order to protect the sea route to their Asian empire. This time the battle took place at Blaauberg.

From 1806 onwards the Cape would be a colony of Britain. Almost a century and a half of Dutch domination in the Cape came to an end - interestingly South Africa was the only country in Africa being colonised by the Dutch. This was the introduction to almost a century and a half of English domination up to 1961 when South Africa became an independent Republic, after being a Union under British supervision for half a century - from 1910.

Internal colonisation

After being colonised 'unofficially' by the migrants from the north, as well as having two 'official' colonisations by the Europeans from the south, this country had to face a fourth 'internal' colonisation before it would gain its freedom. The Republic of South Africa from 1961 onwards was just a continuation of the rule of the National Party, which had already started in 1948. This white Afrikaner rule without any black or mixed race representation - this time independent of the supervision of Britain - was nothing else but a next phase of colonisation of this country, and this was maybe the harshest of them all. This colonisation would end only in 1994.

A new people group and a new language

The Cape Coloureds, or mixed race people as they are known today, was not a people group in the Cape when the groups from the north and the south arrived in this part of Africa. The origins of the mixed race people can officially be traced back to the arrival of the Dutch in South Africa. Firstly, there was mixed offspring of Dutch and Malay slaves who arrived at the Cape in 1657. The Settlers and the soldiers who came to the Cape had mixed offspring with the Khoikhoi, the San and later also with the Xhosa people. The Indians who came to the Cape also contributed to the gene pool (Khan 2009). According to Jenkins (1996), the people groups in the present-day South Africa that can be classified as coloureds or mixed race people are:

the Cape Malay, living in the Western Cape and Namibia

the Griqua mixed race who live in the vicinity of Kimberley in Griqualand, which forms part of the present-day Western Cape

the Rehoboth community in Namibia.

The mixed race people in South Africa have many ambiguities and variances, while their skin colour varies from black or brown to white. Some of them have Afrikaans names and surnames, while others have English, Indian or other surnames. The mother tongue of most of them is Afrikaans, as is the mother tongue of most of the remaining Khoisan people living in the Cape.

Among the Dutch and the new people group, a new language emerged, which could be called pidgin Dutch. As the Dutch language, spoken in the Cape, gradually changed from the language being spoken in the Netherlands, the people started to call it the African language or Afrikaans. This common language showed differences from the Dutch being spoken in the churches, in law courts and in the schools in the Cape. The new language also borrowed words from the local people. As early as 1685 (less than 30 years after the arrival of the Dutch in the Cape), a senior official already warned the people against a corruption of the Dutch language (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:71). Today, Afrikaans is the third most common language, after Zulu and Xhosa, spoken in South Africa by 13.5% of the people (South Africa.Info 2015; cf. Giliomee 1996:59-85).

It is already noted that Africa was the origin of modern mankind, but not of modern language. However, in a very interesting study conducted by Quentin Atkinson on phonemic diversity within 500 different languages, he concluded that central and southern Africa 'could represent either a single origin for modern languages or the main origin under a polygenesis scenario' (Atkinson 2011:347). It is therefore not a strange phenomenon that Afrikaans was also created in this part of the continent.

This designation was given to the nation in 1994 by the then Archbishop Desmond Tutu (cf. Brits 2012:550) and was quoted by Dr Nelson Mandela in his inauguration as president of South Africa, when he said:

We have triumphed in the effort to implant hope in the breasts of the millions of our people. We enter into a covenant that we shall build the society in which all South Africans, both black and white, will be able to walk tall, without any fear in their hearts, assured of their inalienable right to human dignity - a rainbow nation at peace with itself and the world. (African National Congress 1994)

Baines (1998) 'explained' that Tutu was most probably referring to the Old Testament story of the flood in which the rainbow symbolised the promise of God never to judge humankind this way again. It could also resonate with the symbolism of the rainbow which indigenous cultures in South Africa have. The Xhosa, for instance, regard the rainbow as signifying hope as well as the assurance of a bright future. From this, Baines derived that the metaphor of the rainbow nation 'both informs and reinforces the vision of nation building' (Baines 1998; cf. also Alexander 2000:23). He also saw a secondary metaphor of the rainbow, in that its spectrum of colours is portraying the multicultural society in South Africa. Nevitt (2015) concurred by stating that the colours of the rainbow are capturing the diversity that South Africa has in race, tribe, creed, language and landscapes. Walker stated that the goal of a rainbow nation was to 'produce a new kind of South African' (Walker 2006:141). Giliomee and Mbenga (2007) reflected on the immediate effects of this concept:

After the first free election in April 1994 South Africans shared a single nationality. A common citizenship and a commitment to tackle the future together. The pre-amble to a widely acclaimed constitution called on citizens to remember both the suffering and the achievements of the past. The national flag and the anthem successfully blended historic symbols and songs. (p. 433)

While this concept seemed to be filled with so many positive characteristics (cf. Sparks 2003:329), Meiring, just 2 years after Giliomee and Mbenga (2009), warned against the simplistic way of just referring to the South African nation as a rainbow nation:

The multilinguistic and multicultural nature of South Africa makes being South African, and trying to explain to an outsider what the term actually means, complicated. Because South Africa is a heterogeneous society consisting of many communities, each with their typical cultures and language varieties, sometimes the only common ground for identity is that a South African lives in South Africa. (pp. 280-281)

Apartheid effectively created two separate political communities - one predominantly white people and the other one predominantly black people - living together in one country (cf. Posel 2001:52ff). In this country where almost every race waged war against each other - not only black people against white people but also white people against white people and black people against black people - it would almost be impossible to bring all the hatred to an end and make a fresh new start (cf. Marx 2002:53-55). This would be impossible had the country not a leader in the likeness of Dr Nelson Mandela (cf. De Klerk 2003:322-334). After being imprisoned by the white regime for 27 years of his life, he walked out a free man in 1990 and became the first president of the Democracy in 1994. From the outset, his approach was reconciliatory (cf. Guelke 1999:192) and his words and actions were proof of that (De Klerk 2003:323).

With one of the most liberal constitutions in hand (cf. Brits 2012:549), which 'guarantees the rights of individuals rather than collectives such as cultural and ethnic groups' (Baines 1998), the new Democracy initially took small steps in the right direction (Sparks 2003:330). Although maybe unintentionally, the constitution incorporated three fundamental Christian values, namely dignity, equality and freedom (Vorster 2005:477). Initially, the different races struggled to get along with each other as distrust and enmity were the order of the day (Vorster 2005:481). Despite this, the idea of a rainbow nation was well accepted during the time of Mandela as he was the big freedom icon (cf. Brits 2012:579). The shift he propagated was 'from a racially constituted system of inequality and cultural identity to a national identity constituted as culturally diverse but with equality based on citizenship' (Baines 1998; cf. Simpson 1994:463-474). He, therefore, took the first steps to building a new nation (cf. Alexander 2000:23).

During the time of Thabo Mbeki, Mandela's successor, the emphasis seemed to have moved away from the unity of the people of the land, to a preference for transformation (Vorster 2005:483) and economics (Dickow & Møller 2002:176; cf. Iheduru 2004:1-30). During his time it also became clear that the ANC had not yet transformed its members to be part of a united country, as many of them believed and acted as if they were still in the struggle. There were also white people groups who did not want to adapt and who tried to destabilise the country (like the events that happened at the 53rd ANC National Conference in Mangaung 2012). This caused more polarisation as the acts of a small group of one race can cause distrust against the race as a whole. Affirmative action contributed to the polarisation of the different groups (Dickow & Møller 2002:176). Many white people abandoned the country because of that (Dolby 2001:6).

There was, however, one element that would help the society to join forces: Poor government performance (Giliomee & Mbenga 2007:437). Slowly but surely, the different components of society started to join forces in forging a rainbow nation from the bottom to the top, as government was unable to do it from the top down. Throughout the country, the media was utilised to convey the message of a single rainbow nation - a unified nation. SABC TV used the slogan Simunye, meaning We are one. The South African Breweries propagated a certain alcoholic drink with the words, One Beer, One Nation - a drink that is to the present day connected to South African rugby.

The notion of rainbowism, however, had Africanisation in mind (cf. Marx 2002:55; Prah 1997:11-16), reflecting the demographic character of the nation, which consists of more than 80% black people (Statistics South Africa 2014). Although the language that was bred in South Africa, was Afrikaans, the black people in the country saw (and still see) it as the language of the oppressor (or even as a European language). As there is no unified language in the country, the language of communication is English. Despite this, government had decided on 11 official languages to assure that even a small people group like the Venda was covered. According to Rex (1995:31) the 'recognition of cultural diversity actually enriches and strengthens democracy'.

Lastly, it can be stated that South Africa is still the country in Africa with the most white inhabitants - approximately 4.5 million (according to the 2011 Census in South Africa. info 2015) - even after colonisation and forming part of this rainbow dream of proponents like Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu.

By reading the history of South Africa, it becomes clear that this country has its own unique story about colonisation. Having in mind what the term 'colonisation' entails, we can conclude that South Africa, in fact had four colonisers:

About 2000 years ago: An unofficial colonisation by the black people groups from the north. This colonisation was ended in 1880 when the country was divided into four polities, two being ruled by the British and two by the Afrikaners.

1652: An official colonisation from the south by the Dutch VOC. This colonisation came to an end when Britain finally took the country from the Netherlands in 1806 (actually for the second time).

1806: An official colonisation of the country by Great Britain. This era came to an end when the country became a Republic in 1961.

1961: An internal colonisation of the country by the white Afrikaners, which ended in 1994 when the country became a Democracy.

All the different people groups that arrived in the Cape and started to 'mingle' with each other and with the indigenous people, saw the birth of a new people group in the country, called the mixed race people. Added to that, a new language also emerged, which can at first be characterised as 'Pidgin Dutch'. This language would become one of the dominant languages in the country, but is regarded by most black people as the language of the oppressor.

Fortunately, after the fourth and last colonisation of the country and after much pain and oppression and apartheid, the country became a Democracy, establishing a rainbow nation where everybody has equal rights.

Amidst much critique on the colonisation of South Africa and for that matter, on Africa as a whole, the aim of this article was to look at some unique features of the colonisation. As it is obvious that the European and Afrikaner colonisations can and will never be justified, this article also wanted to add some perspective on the migrations or invasions from the north of the continent, which can also be classified as some sort of colonisation and which are mostly overlooked or ignored.

The unique features of colonisation in South Africa, discussed in this article, had no intention of putting colonisation in a good light, but merely indicated the outcomes thereof for this country.

The authors declare that they have no financial or personal relationships which may have inappropriately influenced them in writing this article.

Authors' contributions

E.O. and W.H.O. equally contributed to the research and writing of this article.

Oxford Dictionaries, 2015, viewed 04 September 2015, from http://www.oxforddictionaries.com [ Links ]

Tshawane, N.J., 2009, 'The Rainbow Nation: A critical analysis of the notions of community in the thinking of Desmond Tutu', Doctoral Thesis submitted at the Department of Systematic Theology at the University of South Africa, Pretoria. [ Links ]

Correspondenc e:
Erna Oliver
olivee@unisa.ac.za

Received: 28 Dec. 2016
Accepted: 24 June 2017
Published: 31 Aug. 2017

1. This article was presented as a paper at the AHA Conference in Sydney 2015. It was done with full cognition of how History is presented in the classroom today. According to the National Curriculum Statement (Department of Education 2000), the aim of the post-apartheid curriculum is to permit the unofficial and the hidden to become visible 'through a commitment to the idea that historical "truth" can be subjected to rigorous analysis by providing opportunities for "border crossing"' (Wilmot & Naidoo 2011:28; cf. Vestergaard 2001:24-26; Weldon 2009:177-189).
2. The terms 'colonised' and 'colonisation' in this article are understood as an action or venture to establish political control over a place or land, to settle among and establish control over the indigenous people of an area and to appropriate a place or domain for one's own use (Oxford Dictionaries 2015).
3. The distinct clicks of their language, once found nowhere else in Africa, have been incorporated into Zulu and Xhosa speech. They have also contributed to the richness of Afrikaans and South African English with words such as eina [ouch] and aikhona [absolutely not] and place names like 'Karoo' and 'Keiskamma'.
4. The term 'migration' used under this sub-heading implies a rapid movement taking place over a period of hundreds of years, which does not necessarily (but most probably) include the ejection or demolition of other people groups.
5. According to Giliomee and Mbenga (2007:33), there is no real difference between the Xhosa and Zulu people groups as we know them today. The difference between them originated from the settlers who distinguished between the two groups living in the Cape and Natal.
6. Note is taken of countries like Angola and Cameroon that were also both being colonised by more than one coloniser, though one of the colonisers only ruled for a short time span.
7. According to Giliomee and Mbenga (2007:42), the Cape was effectively governed from Batavia until 1731.
8. The Oxford Dictionaries (2015) supply a broad definition of the word pidgin: 'A grammatically simplified form of a language, typically English, Dutch, or Portuguese, some elements of which are taken from local languages, used for communication between people not sharing a common language.'
9. See Tshawane (2009), who wrote his thesis on the subject of a rainbow nation.
10. Nation-building is understood as the: social process of transforming an underdeveloped, poor and divided society into a community with peace, equal opportunities and economic viability within which individuals enjoy dignity, basic human rights and the prospect to observe their own religion, tradition, culture and language in harmony with other people who may function within other traditions (Vorster 2005:474).
11. There are four broad groupings of black people in the country, of which the first two make up 90% of the population: The Nguni, consisting of the Zulu, the Xhosa, the Ndebele and the Swazi people; The Sotho-Tswana, that includes the Southern, Northern and Western Sotho/Tswana people groups; The Tsonga; The Venda.

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The Colonisation of South Africa: A unique case

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Erna Oliver; Willem H. Oliver Department of Christian Spirituality, Church History and Missiology, University of South Africa, South Africa From the 15th century onwards, most of the countries in Africa have been colonised by the European world powers, Great Britain, France, Portugal, Germany, Spain, Italy and Belgium.

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Tanzania: Colonization

Colonization: Mini Paper

Hjelmgren-Period 1

Tanzania : Colonization

Tanzania was colonized in a process parallel to many other African settlements. The Europeans took over the native's land which caused trouble and resistance. Ultimately, it was a long and strenuous process for the proud people of Tanzania to gain their independence.

Tanzania was under German rule from 1880 to 1919 and was occupied by the British from 1919 to 1961. Germany came to power through their trade and establishment of the land and crops. As the Germans colonized, they produced crops such as sisal, cotton, and plantation-grown rubber. They also profited and sold items like coffee, copra, sesame, and peanuts. Germany 's aggressive actions caused resistance by the Arabs along the coast. The people of Tanzania were treated poorly; moreover, 75,000 Africans were killed due to German military action or lack of food (Tanzania History). A Hehe ruler named Mkwawa was strongly opposed to European rule and caused the Maji Maji revolt in 1905 to 1907(Background Notes: Tanzania). Mkwawa lead his people to war, and he was so devoted to serve his people that he sacrificed his own life to the Germans while fighting for his people's rights. During World War I British and Belgian forces occupied Tanzania. The British developed the territories economy, giving Africans the opportunity work for wages on plantations. Tanganyika gained its independence from Britain in 1961 and Zanzibar gained its freedom in 1963. In 1964 The Republic of Tanzania was formed by the union of Tanganyika and Zanzibar .

In conclusion, the Tanzanians overcame the obstacles the Germans put forth. The Republic of Tanzania proudly gained its independence at the same time as many of its neighboring countries. These breakthroughs in Africa history were signs for civil right movements to come.

Bibliography

Background Notes:Tanzania . U.S. Department of State. 2 May 2009 <http://www.state.gov/r/pa/ei/bgn/2843.htm>.

This site really helped when I first started my research. It has great background information that was a huge help.

Tanzania History . Infoplease. 2 May 2009 <infoplease.com/ce6/world/A0861437.html>.

This site was very helpful. It was the base of my knowledge, and talked of many topics and issues that relate to my project.

History of Tanzania . Symetra. 1 May 2009 <http://travel.mapsofworld.com/tanzania/history.html>.

This site did not contain loads of imformation, but it was easy to understand and user friendly.

Last updated: Heck 5-22-09

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Hjelmgren-Period 1 Tanzania : Colonization Tanzania was colonized in a process parallel to many other African settlements. The Europeans took over the native's land which caused trouble and resistance. Ultimately, it was a long and strenuous process for the proud people of Tanzania to gain their independence.

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Liam

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Ming Gor uses his boat for cultural tours to promote Tanka heritage the Tanka identity [Divya Gopalan/Al Jazeera]

Hong Kong - When the British first arrived in Hong Kong in the 19th century, they came across a group of indigenous people on fishing boats and asked them what the place was called.

"Hong Kong," those people replied.

The name stuck, but the culture and the language weren't as resilient.

Hong Kong is the Tanka words for "fragrant harbour".

The language is spoken by people who call themselves "Soi Seung Yan", meaning "those born of the water". They were the earliest inhabitants of the region in coastal southern China.

Fifty-year-old Ming Gor is one of the last fluent speakers of the Tanka language. Until 2004, he lived on a boat and was a fisherman just like his father and grandfather.

But stringent environmental laws and government policy made it difficult to earn a living on the South China Sea, forcing him to move to land with his family. He says it's a familiar story in his community, which has been rapidly disappearing over the past few decades.

Lisa Lim is a linguistics professor at Hong Kong University and founder of the website linguisticsminorities.hk.

Her research found that discriminatory practices in the 18th century preserved the Tanka culture. The people were not allowed to marry in the community or live onshore, so they lived on small boats grouped together to form colonies.

However, she added that modern era posed the greatest challenges to them in preserving their heritage.

Younger generations have moved onshore, to urban areas, for better job opportunities and easier lifestyle.

Historically considered the lowest class of Chinese and outcasts, the Tanka were quick to shed their identity once they started assimilating with the wider Cantonese community.

But not Ming Gor. He now uses his boat for cultural tours to promote Tanka heritage and to promote the Tanka identity.

"Tanka fisherman had such low social status in Hong Kong that their long history and contribution to society has been overlooked. I want this to change and tell the world that we once were here."

Bring back the Hakka

It's a similar story for the Hakka community, according to Lau Chun-Fat, a Hakka academic campaigning to preserve dialects and languages from extinction.

After studying to work as a biologist in Germany, he returned to his village in Yuen Long in 1993.

His dismay at finding out nobody spoke Hakka led him back to university to pursue a career as a Hakka scholar.

"My village is a very small one, it has 100 inhabitants," he said.

"In the whole village, I'm the only one who speaks to my children in Hakka. The older generation know Hakka, but they speak to their children in Cantonese."

The Hakka came to Hong Kong about 300 years ago and settled in what was then rural New Territories.

Until 1945, they were one of four main native groups in the territory. That changed when the civil war in China sent more than a million Cantonese refugees across the border into the British colony between 1945 and 1951.

It was also during this period that the colonial government closed all village schools that were teaching in the various indigenous languages. They opened new institutions that only taught in Cantonese.

His first day of school was the first time he heard the southern Chinese dialect.

This, according to Lau, signalled a shift in their culture. Many parents felt their children would have better opportunities if they assimilated with the Cantonese.

Naomi Wong, 40, works for a trading company in the city but lives in the Hakka village house she grew up in with her parents.

Her 80-year-old father gets emotional when asked about the language. He told us that Hakka is a language full of wisdom and should not be forgotten. But his daughter says her generation find it easier to communicate in Cantonese.

Naomi and her group of Hakka friends can understand the language and use it when they talk to their parents and the older generation. In conversation with each other, they use Cantonese.

There is no official government campaign to promote or preserve indigenous languages.

The Hong Kong government does not differentiate among the various Chinese ethnicities, so there are no official records to document the different communities.

Lau is despondent when we asked about his efforts to revive Hakka language and culture.

"I just want people to know that Hakka existed in Hong Kong and still exists in some parts. I know it is practically impossible to make Hakka last forever here, but I want to make it known to people that Hakka was once an integral part of Hong Kong and its culture."

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Hong Kong's disappearing indigenous culture

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Hong Kong - When the British first arrived in Hong Kong in the 19th century, they came across a group of indigenous people on fishing boats and asked them what the place was called. "Hong Kong," those people replied. The name stuck, but the culture and the language weren't as resilient.

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The Long Moral Shadows Cast by South Africa Colonial History

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The Long Moral Shadows Cast by South Africa Colonial History

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Andrew

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A Zulu household, from an 1895 book called The Colony of Natal: An Official Illustrated Handbook and Railway Guide. J Causton and Sons /University of California Libraries/ Flickr

The post-apartheid state in South Africa inherited many colonial legacies. It has transformed considerably over the past 25 years. But it retains mechanisms of a state that secured power for a select few at the expense of most of its citizens.

In my book, Queering Colonial Natal, I looked at the ways in which the settler state "queered" African and Indian social practices in the 19th century. By "queered" I mean that settler regimes defined these practices as threats to the social order they wanted to impose in colonial Natal -established by the British in 1843, today South Africa's KwaZulu-Natal province. They did this by decrying the practices as inherently wrong and themselves as superior and civilised.

At the same time, colonial archives reveal that both African and Indian people (migrants who arrived in Natal from South Asia throughout the 19th century) challenged these claims. For example, parliamentary reports show that while settler marriage laws imposed monogamous, heterosexual unions as the only legitimate form of matrimony, local populations asserted the legitimacy of their own polygynous institutions in colonial courts.

I traced the complicated histories of race, sexuality and power in contemporary South Africa, focusing on colonial Natal. The colony offers a particularly valuable space to study as it hosted competing African, Indian and European settlers in relatively close proximity.

Understanding the social and legal issues in colonial Natal gives insight into the ways power operated in southern Africa - and the British Empire more broadly.

The entanglements of race, gender, class and sexuality in contemporary South Africa flow in part from the contradictions of the settler colonial state. In tracing the history, I believe it's possible to see the long shadows that colonial history casts over the country's complicated present. This provides the opportunity to see that situations aren't inevitable. It is possible to look for new ways to understand and navigate the contradictions in our contemporary world.

Dissecting the colonial state

One of the major themes I looked at was state control. This extended to marriage and social reproduction, the legal managing of alcohol and the ways mission institutions claimed civilising power over all peoples. I also examined the politics of access to education in the colony. This was to show how different people used ideas of race and gender to claim legitimacy and belonging.

I argue that the colonial state attempted to mark African social practices as aberrant. Or, as I write in the book, as "queer". This included practices such as isithembu (polygamy), ilobolo (the ceremonial offering of cattle from the groom's family to the bride's family), clothing and beer-drinking.

Settlers marked these practices as inherently wrong. They oriented themselves in opposition to them as a way of asserting their normalcy or civilised status.

Africans and Indians in Natal didn't accept this labelling. As my research shows, they challenged it. Using occupation, belonging and settlement, people sought to challenge easy claims to power and authority. At the very least, they tried to "unsettle" them. They also used colonial courts to challenge legal pronouncements.

One case I examined was the continuous (and constantly challenged) effort of the settler state to ban alcohol consumption by Africans and Indians. The ban on Africans drinking liquor began in the 1850s. The Natal legislature debated - but frequently failed to pass - legislation banning the brewing or consumption of umqombothi, so-called "Native beer", throughout this period.

Similarly, the access of Indian men and women to alcohol was restricted in 1890. They were allowed to consume beverages on site only and couldn't take any liquor in bottles.

These restrictions mapped onto ideas in which settlers imagined Africans and Indians having diminished capacity for handling alcohol. But this led to a particular problem for white settlers when Europeans became intoxicated. The colonial record is filled with debates and anxious conversations about the problem of the supposedly rational and capable settler failing to handle his or her liquor, and the fear that this indicated a lack of social power and control.

The second chapter of my book discusses the ways in which African and Indian bodies were marked as inherently aberrant in order to create the figure of the fit, capable European drinker. Both of these fictions existed to uphold racial orders of power in the colony.

I also sought to unpack the ways in which historical framings of "queerness" led to reactionary homophobia as a means of defence.

Thinking through the messy, entangled histories of the past allows us to unsettle the difficulties of the present. Examining the power dynamics of the colonial state allows us to see how it still has an impact on contemporary society.
"Queering Colonial Natal: Indigeneity and the Violence of Belonging in Southern Africa" is available from University of Minnesota Press for $25.

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The long moral shadows cast by South Africa's colonial history

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The post-apartheid state in South Africa inherited many colonial legacies. It has transformed considerably over the past 25 years. But it retains mechanisms of a state that secured power for a select few at the expense of most of its citizens.

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If you have ever paddled a canoe, napped in a hammock, savored a barbecue, smoked tobacco or tracked a hurricane across Cuba, you have paid tribute to the Taíno, the Indians who invented those words long before they welcomed Christopher Columbus to the New World in 1492.

Their world, which had its origins among the Arawak tribes of the Orinoco Delta, gradually spread from Venezuela across the Antilles in waves of voyaging and settlement begun around 400 B.C. Mingling with people already established in the Caribbean, they developed self-sufficient communities on the island of Hispaniola, in what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic; in Jamaica and eastern Cuba; in Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the Bahamas. They cultivated yuca, sweet potatoes, maize, beans and other crops as their culture flourished, reaching its peak by the time of European contact.

Some scholars estimate the Taíno population may have reached more than three million on Hispaniola alone as the 15th century drew to a close, with smaller settlements elsewhere in the Caribbean. Whatever the number, the Taíno towns described by Spanish chroniclers were densely settled, well organized and widely dispersed. The Indians were inventive people who learned to strain cyanide from life-giving yuca, developed pepper gas for warfare, devised an extensive pharmacopeia from nature, built oceangoing canoes large enough for more than 100 paddlers and played games with a ball made of rubber, which fascinated Europeans seeing the material for the first time. Although the Taíno never developed a written language, they made exquisite pottery, wove intricate belts from dyed cotton and carved enigmatic images from wood, stone, shell and bone.

The Taíno impressed Columbus with their generosity, which may have contributed to their undoing. "They will give all that they do possess for anything that is given to them, exchanging things even for bits of broken crockery," he noted upon meeting them in the Bahamas in 1492. "They were very well built, with very handsome bodies and very good faces....They do not carry arms or know them....They should be good servants."

In short order, Columbus established the first American colony at La Isabela, on the north coast of Hispaniola, in 1494. After a brief period of coexistence, relations between the newcomers and natives deteriorated. Spaniards removed men from villages to work in gold mines and colonial plantations. This kept the Taíno from planting the crops that had fed them for centuries. They began to starve; many thousands fell prey to smallpox, measles and other European diseases for which they had no immunity; some committed suicide to avoid subjugation; hundreds fell in fighting with the Spaniards, while untold numbers fled to remote regions beyond colonial control. In time, many Taíno women married conquistadors, combining the genes of the New World and Old World to create a new mestizo population, which took on Creole characteristics with the arrival of African slaves in the 16th century. By 1514, barely two decades after first contact, an official survey showed that 40 percent of Spanish men had taken Indian wives. The unofficial number is undoubtedly higher.

"Very few Indians were left after 50 years," said Ricardo Alegría, a Puerto Rican historian and anthropologist I interviewed before his death this past July. He had combed through Spanish archives to track the eclipse of the Taíno. "Their culture was interrupted by disease, marriage with Spanish and Africans, and so forth, but the main reason the Indians were exterminated as a group was sickness," he told me. He ran through the figures from his native island: "By 1519, a third of the aboriginal population had died because of smallpox. You find documents very soon after that, in the 1530s, in which the question came from Spain to the governor. 'How many Indians are there? Who are the chiefs?' The answer was none. They are gone." Alegría paused before adding: "Some remained probably...but it was not that many."

Possibly as many as three million souls-some 85 percent of the Taíno population-had vanished by the early 1500s, according to a controversial extrapolation from Spanish records. As the Indian population faded, so did Taíno as a living language. The Indians' reliance on beneficent icons known as cemís gave way to Christianity, as did their hallucinogen-induced cohoba ceremonies, which were thought to put shamans in touch with the spirit world. Their regional chieftaincies, each headed by a leader known as a cacique, crumbled away. Their well-maintained ball courts reverted to bush.

Given the dramatic collapse of the indigenous society, and the emergence of a population blending Spanish, Indian and African attributes, one might be tempted to declare the Taíno extinct. Yet five centuries after the Indians' fateful meeting with Columbus, elements of their culture endure-in the genetic heritage of modern Antilleans, in the persistence of Taíno words and in isolated communities where people carry on traditional methods of architecture, farming, fishing and healing.

For more than a year, I searched for these glimpses of Taíno survival, among living descendants in New York City and dusty Caribbean villages, in museums displaying fantastic religious objects created by long-dead artists, in interviews with researchers who still debate the fate of the Taíno.

My search began in the nooks and crannies of limestone caves underlying the Dominican Republic, where the Taíno believed their world began. "Hispaniola is the heart of Taíno culture and the caves are the heart of the Taíno," said Domingo Abréu Collado, chief of the speleology division in the Dominican Ministry on Environmental and Natural Resources. He clapped on a hard hat at the entrance to the Pomier Caves, a complex of 55 caverns less than an hour's drive from the gridlock of Santo Domingo. He led me from the eye-numbing brilliance of tropical noon into a shadowy tunnel, where our headlamps picked out the image of a face carved into stone, its eyes wide in surprise.

"That's Mácocael," said Abréu. "This guy was supposed to guard the entrance of the cave at night, but he got curious and left his post for a look around outside. The sun caught him there and turned him to stone." The sentinel, whose Taíno name means "No Eyelids," now stands guard for eternity.

More than 1,000 years before the Spaniards arrived, local shamans and other pilgrims visited such caves to glimpse the future, to pray for rain and to draw surreal images on the walls with charcoal: mating dogs, giant birds swooping down on human prey, a bird-headed man copulating with a human, and a pantheon of naturalistically rendered owls, turtles, frogs, fish and other creatures important to the Taíno, who associated particular animals with specific powers of fecundity, healing, magic and death.

Abréu, a lean man with sharp features, paused before a sweaty wall crowded with images. "So many paintings! I think they are concentrated where the points of energy converge," he said. Abréu's headlamp fell upon images of stick figures who seemed to be smoking pipes; others bent over bowls to inhale snuff through long tubes. These were the tribal leaders who fasted until their ribs showed, cleansed themselves with vomiting sticks and snorted cohoba powder, a hallucinogen ground from the seeds of the Anadenanthera peregrina, a tree native to the Caribbean.

The cohoba ritual was first described by Friar Ramón Pané, a Hieronymite brother who, on the orders of Columbus himself, lived among the Taíno and chronicled their rich belief system. Pané's writings-the most direct source we have on ancient Taíno culture-was the basis for Peter Martyr's 1516 account of cohoba rites: "The intoxicating herb," Martyr wrote, "is so strong that those who take it lose consciousness; when the stupefying action begins to wane, the arms and legs become loose and the head droops." Under its influence, users "suddenly begin to rave, and at once they say . . . that the house is moving, turning things upside down, and that men are walking backwards." Such visions guided leaders in planning war, judging tribal disputes, predicting the agricultural yield and other matters of importance. And the drug seems to have influenced the otherworldly art in Pomier and other caves.

"Country people are still afraid of caves-the ghosts, you see," said Abréu. His voice was accompanied by the sound of dripping water and the fluttering of bats, which swirled around the ceiling and clicked in the dark.

The bats scattered before us; we trudged up into the daylight and by early the next morning we were rattling through the rain-washed streets of Santo Domingo bound for the northeast in search of living Taíno, in Abréu's opinion a dubious objective. Formerly an archaeologist for the Museum of the Dominican Man, he was skeptical of finding real Indians but was happy enough to help scout for remnants of their influence. The first signs began to appear around the town of Bayaguana, where the road narrowed and we jounced past plots of yuca, plantains and maize, some of which were planted in the heaped-earth pattern favored by Taíno farmers of old. New fields, cleared by the slash-and-burn methods Indians brought here from South America, smoldered along the way. On the fringes of Los Haitises National Park, we met a woman who had set up shop beside the road to sell casabe, the coarse, flat Taíno bread made from yuca. "None left," she said. "I sold the last of it yesterday." We began to see simple, sensibly designed houses with thin walls of palm planks and airy roofs of thatch, like those depicted in Spanish woodcuts from Columbus' day.

The road ended at Sabana de los Javieles, a village known as a pocket of Taíno settlement since the 1530s, when Enrique, one of the last Taíno caciques of the colonial period, made peace with Spain and led some 600 followers to northeastern Hispaniola. They stayed, married Spaniards and Africans, and left descendants who still retain indigenous traits. In the 1950s, researchers found high percentages of the blood types that are predominant in Indians in blood samples they took here. In the 1970s, dental surveys established that 33 out of 74 villagers retained shovel-shaped incisors, the teeth characteristic of American Indians and Asians. And a recent nationwide genetic study established that 15 percent to 18 percent of Dominicans had Amerindian markers in their mitochondrial DNA, testifying to the continued presence of Taíno genes.

None of this would surprise Ramona Primitiva, a villager whose family has long embraced its indigenous antecedents. "My father used to tell us we came from the Indio," she said, using another name for the Taíno. "My family has always been here. We didn't come from somewhere else." We sat in white plastic chairs at the local store, grateful for the shade of an overhanging roof and happy to have neighbors join the conversation.

"My father used to tell us we were descendants of the Indians," said Meregilda Tholia Johelin.

"My ancestors were Indio," said Rosa Arredondo Vasquez.

"My grandmother said we came from the Indians," said Gabriela Javier Alvarez, who appeared with an aluminum guayo, Taíno for the grating boards once fashioned from rough stone and used for shredding yuca roots.

Jurda Arcacio Peguero wandered by, eavesdropped for a moment, then dashed next door to fetch a batea, Taíno for a long wooden tray for fruits or vegetables. "It's an old one," she said, handing over an object fragrant of garlic and worn buttery smooth from use.

The villagers did not call themselves Indian or Taíno, but they knew how Indian traditions had shaped life in the community. Most had kept a long silence about their indigenous heritage for fear of being ridiculed: Indians were country people-uneducated campesinos stereotyped as gullible or backward. The bigotry has softened somewhat, but nobody wants to be considered a rube.

It was late in the day when we said our farewells and turned for the capital, back down a rutted road through lumpy green hills. "I'm sorry we couldn't find an Indian for you," Abréu said, sensing my disappointment. Brooding in the passenger seat, I wondered if the prevailing academic wisdom might be true-that the Taíno had been extinct as a distinct people for half a millennium, existing at best as hybrids in fragments of their old homeland. Did any pure Taíno survive?

That question was the wrong one to ask. It took a nudge from Jorge Estevez, a self-described Taíno from New York City, to remind me that notions of racial purity went out the window with Adolf Hitler and the eugenics movement. "These concepts are really outdated," said Estevez, who coordinates educational workshops at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian in New York. "There's no such thing as a pure Taíno," he continued, "just like there are no pure Spaniards. It's not even clear about the ethnicity of Christopher Columbus! The guys who came with him were mixed with Moors, with Sephardic Jews, with Basques-a great mixture that was going on. That story continues."

Even the Taíno evolved as a distinct people only after centuries of traveling and merging with other populations in the Antilles. "So when people ask if I am pure Taíno, I say 'yes,'" said Estevez, who traces his roots to the Dominican Republic and has the shovel incisors to prove it. "My ancestors were from a plethora of different tribes. They mixed with a lot of others to become Taíno. What you have to look at is how the culture persists and how it is being transmitted."

Estevez, a former pugilist who retains a boxer's brawn and grace, unzipped a black suitcase and began unpacking objects to bolster his argument for the survival of a Taíno culture: a feather-light makuto, a basket woven from palm fronds; ladles, cups, plates and a musical instrument known as a guiro, all made from gourds; a wooden batea for carrying produce, like the one I had seen in the Dominican Republic a few days before. These were not dusty artifacts from a museum but utensils made recently by Antillean villagers who still use them and call them by their Taíno names. "My mother knew how to weave these things," he said, holding up the makuto. "We also made casabe." As he got older, Estevez steadily collected Indian lore and objects from a network of uncles and aunts in the islands, adding new evidence to his suitcase every year. "All my life I've been on this journey looking for all these Taíno things to see how much survival is there," he said.

Relegated to a footnote of history for 500 years, the Taíno came roaring back as front-page news in 2003, when Juan C. Martínez Cruzado, a biologist at the University of Puerto Rico, announced the results of an island-wide genetic study. Taking samples from 800 randomly selected subjects, Martínez reported that 61.1 percent of those surveyed had mitochondrial DNA of indigenous origin, indicating a persistence in the maternal line that surprised him and his fellow scientists. The same study revealed African markers in 26.4 percent of the population and 12.5 percent for those of European descent. The results encouraged a Taíno resurgence, with native groups urging Puerto Rican schools to take note of the indigenous contribution to Caribbean history, opposing construction on tribal sites and seeking federal recognition for the Taíno, with attendant benefits.

Though the question of Indian identity is often fraught with political implications, it is especially pronounced in Puerto Rico, which still struggles with its status as a territory of the United States. The island enjoys neither the benefits of statehood nor the independence of a nation, with deep divisions between proponents for each. Ardent nationalists view the recent surge in Taíno activism as a threat to political unity. Activists say their adversaries are promoting Eurocentric history and a colonial class system. Even Taíno leaders occasionally view one another with hostility.

"Here in Puerto Rico, power plays are rampant," said Carlalynne Melendez Martínez, an anthropologist who has launched the nonprofit group Guakia Taina-Ke, Our Taíno Land, to promote native studies. Her goal is to boost Taíno culture by reviving the Arawak language, preserving cultural sites and establishing preserves for indigenous people. "We're teaching the language to children and teaching people how to farm. We don't do songs and dances for the tourists," she said, referring to a competing group.

In Puerto Rico's central mountains, I came upon a woman who called herself Kukuya, Taíno for firefly, who was getting ready for a gathering of Indians in Jayuya, a town associated with both revolution and indigenous festivals. She had grown up in New York City but had lived in Puerto Rico for 35 years, having been guided to this remote community, she said, by a vision. Green-eyed and rosy-cheeked, she said her forebears were Spanish, African, Mexican and Maya as well as Taíno.

"My great-grandmother was pure-blooded Taíno, my mother of mixed blood," she said. "When I told people I was Taíno, they said, 'What, are you crazy? There aren't any left!' But I don't believe you have to look a certain way. I have all of my ancestors within me."

Like Kukuya, thousands of Puerto Ricans have been discovering their inner Taíno in recent years. In the 2010 census, for example, 19,839 Puerto Ricans checked the identity box marked "American Indian or Alaskan Native," an increase of almost 49 percent over the 2000 count, when 13,336 checked it. Neither canvass provided a Taíno option.The native population represents less than 1 percent of Puerto Rico's 3.7 million people, but indigenous leaders consider the latest head count a milestone-further proof that some Indians live on long after they were thought to be annihilated.

"What I'm really excited about is that there's a lot of youth coming into this and challenging the status quo," said Roberto Mukaro Borrero, president of the United Confederation of Taíno People. Borrero, a New Yorker of Puerto Rican parentage, has tried to soothe fears about a Taíno land grab based on Indian identity.

"I want to make it clear that we're not here to take back Puerto Rico or the Dominican Republic," he said. "Or to establish a casino. If you just look at the statements we've made over the last ten years, there's not one mention of casinos, kicking anybody out of the country or being divisive in any way. We just want a seat at the table."

Still, some scholars remain skeptical. "You have to be aware of people running around saying they're Taíno, because they are after a federal subsidy," said Bernardo Vega, a former director of the Museum of the Dominican Man and the Dominican Republic's former ambassador to the United States. Yvonne M. Narganes Storde, an archaeologist at the University of Puerto Rico agreed. She gives the activists credit for preserving important sites on the island, but she sounded wary of their emphasis on establishing a separate Taíno identity. "All the cultures are blended here," she said. "I probably have Taíno genes. We all do. We have incorporated all these cultures-African, Spanish and Indian. We have to live with it."

A few pockets of Taíno culture remain in eastern Cuba, an area shaped by rugged mountains and years of isolation. "Anybody who talks about the extinction of the Taíno has not really looked at the record," said Alejandro Hartmann Matos, the city historian of Baracoa, Cuba's oldest city, and an authority on the island's earliest inhabitants. Hartmann, a Cuban of German ancestry, had invited me to meet Indian descendants from the island's Oriente region, as well as to mark the 500th anniversary of Baracoa, founded in 1511. Joining us was José Barreiro, assistant director of research at the Smithsonian's National Museum of the American Indian. With Hartmann, Barreiro has been tracking descendants of the Indians since 1989. Based on their research, the pair estimate that at least 5,000 Indians survive in Cuba, while hundreds of thousands likely have indigenous roots.

Late one night, after a day of quincentennial celebrations with live music, dancing, poetry recitations and occasional tots of rum, Barreiro and I sat bleary-eyed around a kitchen table as the indefatigable Hartmann raced through a list of historical references to Indians of the Oriente, beginning in 1492, when Columbus sailed into Baracoa harbor, planted a wooden cross on the shore and praised the place for its "good water, good land, good surroundings, and much wood."

"Indians have appeared in the record ever since," said Hartmann. Indigenous people established the city of Jiguaní in 1701 and formed the all-native Hatuey Regiment in the Cuban war against Spain in 1895. José Martí, founding father of Cuba's independence movement, frequently mentioned Indians in his war diary. Mark Harrington, an American archaeologist conducting fieldwork in 1915 and 1919, found natives still hanging on in eastern Cuba. He was followed-in the 1950s, '60s and '70s-by anthropologists who scoured the region recording the skeletal structure, blood type and other physical attributes of Cuban villagers with indigenous ancestry. "So if you look to the past," said Hartmann, "you see this long record of Indians living here. Anyone who says otherwise is speaking from ignorance."

And today?

"Just look around!" said Hartmann, spreading his arms wide. In a week of exploring Baracoa and its environs, we had encountered many Cubans with the high cheekbones, coppery skin and other features that suggest Amerindian ancestry. And while it was clear that indigenous families have intermarried with Africans and Europeans, we met villagers in Baracoa and the nearby settlements of Playa Duaba and Guirito who proudly identified themselves as Indian. They kept the old traditions, planting their dense gardens, praying to the moon and sun for strength, gathering wild plants for healing and marking the passage of time without clocks or watches.

"When I see the vivijagua ant come out of his nest and crawl across the rafters in the morning, I know it's time to go to the fields," 75-year old Francisco "Panchito" Ramírez Rojas told us. "When the chipojo lizard comes down from the palm tree to get a drink of water, I know it's noon. I also know it's noon when my shadow disappears and I'm standing on my own head," he said, getting up from our lunch table to illustrate his point.

A lean man bronzed by years in the sun, Panchito radiated a natural authority, which had earned him the title of cacique in the community of La Ranchería, not far from the U.S. naval station and prison at Guantánamo Bay.

Ramirez took the opportunity to search for useful plants in the woods along the Toa River. Striding up to a cedar, he patted the rough trunk as if it were an old amigo. "This tree is a relative," he said. "It has feelings like we do, so it should be treated with respect. If you make tea from the bark of this tree, it has a lot of power. It's good for colds and respiratory problems. But if you don't ask permission before you cut the bark, it may not work. So I always say a little prayer so the tree knows I'm serious and I want to share its power. 'Give me your strength for healing.' That's what I ask."

Hearing Ramirez, I felt the hairs on the back of my neck bristling: His method of conversing with plants was almost identical to one described by 15th-century Spanish chroniclers. Although those accounts have been widely published, it is doubtful that Ramirez ever read them: He is illiterate. He learned his craft from a great-uncle and other elders who were natural healers in his mountain community.

"If we expect to get food from the earth," he says, "we have to give something back. So at planting time we always say a prayer and bury a little stone or a coin in the field, just a little message to the earth, so that she will help with production."

Like those who taught him, Ramirez is passing his knowledge on, to a son, Vladimir Lenin Ramírez Ramírez, and to other family members, so they will keep the traditions going. "The young ones will carry on for us," Panchito Ramirez said. But he admitted concern over the dwindling of Indian communities, which have been reduced by marriage to outsiders. "I'd like for my children to marry Indians, but there just aren't enough of us. So our people are leaving the mountain to find new families. They're scattered all over."

Robert M. Poole is a contributing editor for Smithsonian. Photographer Maggie Steber is based in Miami.

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If you have ever paddled a canoe, napped in a hammock, savored a barbecue, smoked tobacco or tracked a hurricane across Cuba, you have paid tribute to the Taíno, the Indians who invented those words long before they welcomed Christopher Columbus to the New World in 1492.

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Tanzania to Press Germany for Damages for Colonial Era

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Tanzania to Press Germany for Damages for Colonial Era

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Musa

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The Tanzanian government says it will seek compensation for tens of thousands of people who allegedly were starved, tortured and killed by German soldiers as they sought to put down rebellious tribes between 1905 and 1907.

The German forces are accused of crimes including forced starvation following the tribal revolt known as Maji Maji. Germany ruled Tanzania, then known as Tanganyika, from the late 1880s to 1919.

In an interview with DW, Hussein Mwinyi, the Minister of Defense and National Service of Tanzania, said that the government is prepared to ask the German government to compensate those who were affected by the Maji Maji war.
DW: Why are you taking this action at this time?
Hussein Mwinyi : In this case it was the result of a question that was asked in parliament by one of the members of the leadership who wanted to know whether the government is prepared to ask the German government to compensate those affected by the Maji Maji war.
So is this a consideration or have you already reached a conclusion that you are going to take action? What exactly do you expect from the German side?
What I responded to that question is to say that, as Minister of Defense and National Service, we will write to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs so that they can take the matter to the German government.
Should your compensation come through as you hope, how would this be utilized? To benefit the victims or is this something that's going to go to the national treasury for the benefit of the whole country?
Well, compensation is what we are looking for and there are a few other examples in the African region of countries who have asked for this compensation. Kenya, for example, had asked for compensation from the UK government and Namibia, I have been told, is discussing the same with the German government. So we are hoping to take this forward to the German government ourselves.
How soon do you think the process could start?
No, the idea here is to compensate those who lost their lives and of course there are some surviving victims of the war. But those who lost their lives, they have people who could benefit from it.
Interview: Jane Ayeko-Kümmeth
I have already promised the House that I am going to write to the leaders of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and I am hoping they will pick up this issue as soon as possible.

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Tanzania to press Germany for damages for colonial era 'atrocities' | DW | 09.02.2017

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The Tanzanian government says it will seek compensation for tens of thousands of people who allegedly were starved, tortured and killed by German soldiers as they sought to put down rebellious tribes between 1905 and 1907. The German forces are accused of crimes including forced starvation following the tribal revolt known as Maji Maji.

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https://www.theafricareport.com/47442/drc-a-history-of-pillage-destination-unknown/

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As Mahmoud's phone camera surveys streets lined with Italian rationalist interwar buildings, it appears as if he is driving through Rome. But when a mosque appears around the corner, it's clear this isn't Rome. It is Tripoli.

The video footage is part of artist Martina Melilli's documentary My Home, Libya (2018). Mahmoud, a young Libyan engineering student, is one of its main characters. We never see his face because in the documentary Melilli communicates with him via WhatsApp.

The other main characters are Melilli's grandparents. Born in the 1930s when Libya was an Italian colony, they lived in Tripoli before they were forced to leave the country in 1969, after Muammar Gaddafi's coup d'etat. Melilli's father was born in Tripoli.

Filming her grandparent's home near Padova in Italy, Melilli identifies a map of places belonging to their past in the Italian neighbourhood of Tripoli, built during Italy's fascist era (1922-1945). She then asks Mahmoud to film these places as they look today, bringing us into a country riven by conflict and violence since 2011, and not easily accessible for Europeans.

'I saw how the colonial past of my family was also crossing a dark period in Italian history, a time which is never discussed in the public sphere'
- Martina Melilli, filmmaker

Their relationship grows through the internet, as the two start sharing their preoccupations and their inner worlds. We quickly see how the film shortens the distance between two radically different lives.

"I love Italian people. I watch Rai 1 everyday," Mahmoud says at the beginning of the movie, referring to the leading channel of Italy's state TV broadcaster, adding "many old people speak Italian".

Later he laments the end of an era when different religions and nationalities lived side by side. "I love Tripoli. I need to see the same Tripoli it was in past, that beautiful town with mixed people, Italian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim."

'One of them'

The prime motivation for Melilli to start My Home, Libya was to understand her own identity and define an extended sense of belonging. For her, it is a much deeper concern than about being an Italian or European.

In 2010 she was in Brussels as an Erasmus student, living in the Turkish-Moroccan neighbourhood: "Every morning I used to go to get my mint tea from this man who always talked to me in Arabic," she says, perhaps thinking she was Arabic. "One day I finally told him I couldn't understand what he was saying. He answered that from 'my eyes' he could bet I was 'one of them'."

Confused by his comment, Melilli was spurred to explore her own family history to find some answers. Soon this led her to think about the bigger questions of Italy's role in Africa as a colonial power. "I saw how the colonial past of my family was also crossing a dark period in Italian history, a time which is never discussed in the public sphere."

For Melilli, it all started with Tripolitalians (2010), a multimedia projects she composed from an archive of tales and documents from the former Italian community in Libya, living in Tripoli from the 1930s to the 60s. The project was followed by two short films, and finally the documentary My Home, In Libya.

Beautiful Libya

According to Melilli grandparents' recollections, Tripoli was a beautiful and international city, where Arabs and Italians lived side by side in harmony.

The Italian colonisation of Libya began in 1911-1913, a process which continued in a brutal campaign against local resistance forces through the 20s and early 30s. In these wars we see the first concentration camps, aerial bombardments and chemical weapons used against civilian populations in North Africa.

By the time her grandparents were born, this war was over. "My grandfather was born there in '36 when it was all institutionalised, so my grandparents didn't see all of this," explains Melilli. "When they were born, this wasn't discussed, and from an Italian perspective there was a pacific coexistence.

'I need to see the same Tripoli it was in past, that beautiful town with mixed people, Italian, Jewish, Christian, Muslim'
- Mahmoud, Libya My Home

"Not only the Italians, but all colonial powers were there to take advantage of the oil resources of Libya. Of course the power dynamics were clear, also in terms of the jobs and roles Italians and Libyans had in that kind of society."

Central to the film is the story of the Italian colonial experience in Libya, as it is told by Melilli's grandparents. They left soon after Gaddafi seized power in 1969, when thousands of Italians were expelled by the Libyan colonel's revolutionary regime.

"We left our heart, our friendships and everything [in Tripoli]," says Martina's grandmother in the film. "We were the only Italians in our street. In our building there was an Egyptian, above us an Arab, next to us Libyans. They were all lovely people. And when the revolution happened, they brought us food."

Although there are historians from both countries who have explored this period, such as Angelo Del Boca and Anwar Fekini (nephew of the resistance fighter Mohamed Fekini), it is an era which hasyet to be fully discussed and digested by Italians and Libyans alike.

'Proud knights'

Such gaps in historical understanding have been the subject of research for Libyan journalist and filmmaker Khalifa Abo Khraisse. His grandfather was one of the fighters who resisted the Italian occupation, andwas rewarded with a freedom fighter medal of honour during Gaddafi's time.

At the Libyan National Center for Archives and Historical Studies, formed in 1977 under the name the Libyan Jihad Research and Studies Center, Abo Khraisse found resources to explore this era.

One reason for this lack of a solid local historiography, Abo Khraisse said, is due to the fact that most of Libyan history was told orally.

"My father used to say almost no story was without poems, and stories without poems are often less trusted," he says. "Libyans were proud knights, and to a knight, the most important things and the source of their pride are the horses and the poetry."

Missing history

Another reason lies in the education system. Abo Khraisse says only a partial history was taught to recent generations in Libya, because of what he calls the "historical compression" by the Gaddafi government, which focused on the struggle against western colonialism.

"The discussion of contrary facts wasn't available and even forbidden. This has created a gap in knowledge between the generations, and whenever you create a gap, you also create the need to fill it."

In his analysis, this is one of the reasons that helped to shape the rise of populist movements and extremism, and groups promoting themselves as the defenders of historical honour. "Today, the discussion is dominated by those who are not interested in understanding the complexity of this history."

He is worried by the fact that those who witnessed the history of Libya before 1945 are passing away, and, without them, what happened during that time will be forgotten: "Without voices, who can speak about that era from personal experience. The only source we have is the story as the old regime told it."

Abo Khraisse is convinced that against a picture of Libya as a place of only violence and war, we should seek a different narrative, "a first-hand experience, to create an awareness that the other lives in societies like ours, to recognize them as the humans they are".

Among his works, Abo Khraisse participated in the writing of a play Libya. Back Home, a project born from the personal research of Italian actress Miriam Selima Fieno into her Libyan origins and turned into a performance by the Italian theatre company La Ballata dei Lenna. She started collaborating with Abo Khraisse after having read his articles.

Recently presented at the Romeuropa Festival in Rome, this multimedia piece tries to connect present and past Libya, balancing intimate memories, as well as encounters with three characters based in Tripoli. These are Salem - Miriam's Libyan cousin - Haidar, an Iraqi professor of English, and Abo Khraisse himself.

Selima Fieno's research was similar to Melilli's. In fact, she recreated a map, to relocate all the places described by her grandfather, who was sent to Libya during the Mussolini era and married a Libyan woman.

Abo Khraisse liked the idea and started helping the theatre company to find out more. He transferred the old names of the streets to their modern names, and created a map with it. They shared their reflections, exchanged information, videos, photos and documents.

This rich line of communication that they managed to establish allowed them to compare the current situation of Libya against its past and to highlight the relationship between Libya and Italy.

Whose history?

While Abo Khraisse's research as a filmmaker and writer blends Libyan local history and modern chronicles with personal memories, Melilli's documentary was almost exclusively personal. Because of this, her film has been criticised by some for not tackling the hard questions of history.

Melilli says she started out with a view that condemns colonialism and its crimes, yet found in talking to her Libyan opposite that his perception of this history was different.

"Both in talking with my grandparents and Mahmoud, I put on the table my values. I talked with people who lived a specific experience in time, which is definitely not all-encompassing, nor is it the only one. But it's the one they have."

In the beginning of the movie she tells Mahmoud about the harm that the Italians have done in Libya: "But in the moment Mahmoud's version is a different one from mine, what rights do I have to push in a direction that I have myself decided? It won't be ethical on a professional level. I can't impose my original idea only because it is more ethically correct in regards to the facts I intended to tell."

Colonial crimes

Another Italian artist to tackle the subject of his country's colonialism in Libya is 43-year-old Florence-based Leone Contini, in his 2017 multimedia art-meets-anthropology exhibition, "Bel Suol d'Amore - The Scattered Colonial Body"

While he also begins with personal histories, Contini's approach was different from Melilli's, as he insists on the agency of the artist in taking colonial responsibilities on his shoulders. He believes that the cultural practitioner should "deconstruct from the inside" the dynamic that brought racism and colonialism to Libya.

Contini's "Bel Suol d'Amore" mostly focused on Rome's museum collections and archives, as well as the memories of the artist's own grandmother, born in Tripoli.

"My great-grandparents arrived in Libya in 1931, at the very violent time of the insurgency in Cyrenaica," says Contini. "The 30s were the peak of fascist violence, followed by the war and the pogrom - which my grandfather also saw."

In 1930, the Italians forced 100,000 men, women and children from Cyrenaica into concentration camps. Over the next three years, 60-70,000 of the prisoners are believed to have died, more than half the population.

After the war, a pogrom targeted the Jewish community of Tripoli, killing more than 140 Jews.

Inevitably, the stories of his grandmother, born in 1914, are very different from those of Melilli's grandmother, born two decades later. "[Her] stories were full of violence, perpetrated by the fascists, as well as regarding the general environment of Libya."

Contini's grandmother was a witness to the events that followed the so-called "pacification" of Tripolitania in 1931-1932 by Mussolini's top military officer in Libya, Rodolfo Graziani, known as the "Butcher of Fezzan" for his actions in Cyrenaica.

Contini's grandmother hated Graziani, he says. "She was a woman, and she came from a socialist family. She had a different sensitivity from many other Italians I have talked with in my research," says Contini. "Perhaps they didn't see or register many things - details like beheaded Arabs brought as a trophy on a jeep by Graziani's 'butcher' Piscopello."

The main aim of Contini's research was to shed light on this dark period of Italian history. "Many believe that colonialism is only a consequence of fascism," notes Contini. "This is not true because we know that Italian colonialism started before fascism and somehow outlived it."

Contini thinks that the most disturbing part of his grandmother's history is precisely this colonialist legacy, deeply rooted in the European mindset.

"In the post-war period the Italians were not the owners of Libya anymore, but they still kept a sort of apartheid in place," he says. "We have a gap in historiography from '42 and '67, as most Italian historians stop researching Libya when Italy stopped having its colonies."

According to Contini's grandmother, at the end of this interregnum, when Gaddafi seized power, Italians couldn't foresee they were about to be kicked out of the country: "It wasn't so hard to see, but when it finally happened, everybody was so shocked. You heard them saying: 'How that could happen? We were so kind with the Arabs'."

Dark materials

Looking into the museum archives, Contini found himself handling very disturbing material - such as face masks of Libyans, created by a fascist anthropologist. He had to figure out if it was sensitive way to exhibit it.

Without a roadmap traced by other cultural figures about this time in history, he worried he would be perpetuating a colonial, orientalist and ultimately racist approach. This was something he wholeheartedly wanted to avoid.

"I always emphasise that my work goes under 'Italian studies'," says Contini. "I don't feel entitled to talk about colonialism; I didn't want to be a white person talking about 'the other'. The only thing I could do was to reveal the harm we did, and how this is still part of us. I feel I'm not entitled to touch some materials that are inside the museum - only a Libyan artist can."

In his putting side to side a picture of his grandmother and a bust of Graziani ("She would have killed me for that!"), Contini created a semantic and emotional short-circuit. Putting the intimate dimension next to public atrocities, he allowed viewers to access two parallel narratives and judge for themselves.

"With my research I was looking for a catharsis, but I stumbled into even more unresolved questions," says Contini. "I feel for Italian culture in general, there is still a lot to excavate before we get to a point when we can let this go."
This article is available in French on Middle East Eye French edition.

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Libya through Italian eyes: Colonialism, fascism and hidden history

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As Mahmoud's phone camera surveys streets lined with Italian rationalist interwar buildings, it appears as if he is driving through Rome. But when a mosque appears around the corner, it's clear this isn't Rome. It is Tripoli. The video footage is part of artist Martina Melilli's documentary My Home, Libya (2018).

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My Ancestors are in my memory institution,

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My Ancestors are in my memory institution,

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Galleries, libraries, archives and museums are considered sites of memory, spaces to engage with history and identity, but for me these places are sites of forgetting, erasure and distortion. They are built on stolen land. Their names validate the place names that colonisers used to confirm their occupation of stolen land and to nullify the history that took place before colonial invasion.

My ancestors are in these memory institutions, but their voices are missing from the words written, the art created and the cultural objects taken. All of their cultural knowledge and their history is recorded and interpreted through the colonisers' lens. We are part of the memory conveyed by galleries, libraries, archives and museums, but we have had no say or agency in construction of it.

Pressure builds for a national keeping place for Indigenous remains | Paul Daley
These sites may be considered sites of violence, designed to colonise knowledge. This is demonstrated in the way they depict and mythologise colonisers and invaders, and the way they depict us. In many colonial records we are described as uncivilised and savage, thus providing justification for land theft and assimilation actions. Memory institutions like galleries, libraries, archives and museums helped feed this justification to the public, strengthening the colonial mythology and spreading its dehumanisation of us.

The body of Nuenonne woman Truganini, for example, was on display at the Hobart Museum until 1947. In 1947, my father was 11 years old. How do you think he was treated as a Wiradjuri man, when at the same time Aboriginal bodies were on display for the public to gawk at?

Consequently, the depiction of us as savage or uncivilised by these sites helped create an epistemological hierarchy based on criteria created by colonisers. This hierarchy did not just place Eurocentric knowledge as superior to Aboriginal knowledge, it placed Eurocentric ways of thinking and learning as the right way, and all others as wrong. This cultural genocide meant that so many of us did not know our languages or our cultural practices. In the eyes and minds of the colonisers this was morally just.

The efforts by many of us to reverse the effects of the cultural genocide by reviving our language and culture is still perceived as going backwards. Whenever I criticise the colonial project on social media, I get the predictable responses that I should be grateful because without colonisation I would not have the benefits of contemporary society. This way of thinking is a direct result of depictions of us in the cultural memory that is constructed, preserved and conveyed by memory institutions.

The idiom that history is written by the victor is highly quoted; however, people do not often challenge the constructed memory of the colonial project even though they know the idiom to be true. I believe this is due to the legitimacy given to memory institutions by the settler state. Knowledge that is created outside of Eurocentric institutions like universities is seldom considered legitimate or credible. This is why our oral accounts are too often considered hearsay, while the colonial record is considered hard fact.

Yet, Aboriginal people regularly encounter inaccurate government records that concern them and their family. I have often seen the mischaracterisation and misinterpretation of cultural objects, for example. I have also seen where colonial artists have taken great licence in their paintings of cultural proceedings. Nevertheless, this material is the access point for many people in understanding Aboriginal history and culture, regardless of how fragmented and distorted the information it provides.

Indigenous and non-Indigenous activists and academics around the world have contested this Eurocentrism and bias in memory institutions for the past 50 years. They have also fought for more First Nations control of memory conveyed by these spaces. As such, these spaces have begun to change practices and include more Aboriginal voices. This empowers Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities to take control over their own narrative and culture within these spaces.
The government must bring the stolen Indigenous dead home | Paul Daley
A good example of mob being able to take control of our representation in galleries, libraries, archives and museums (Glam) spaces is the current Weave Festival at the Australian Museum. Throughout March the festival will feature numerous culturally grounded programs that tackle misconceptions of First Nations people.

Today the Glam sector has more First Nations people working within it than ever before. With the right support, First Nations staff in Glam can deliver exhibitions and public programs that will demonstrate the complexity and diversity of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander culture. This will help us take control of the narrative that surrounds them.

* Guardian Australia is proud to partner with IndigenousX to showcase the diversity of Indigenous peoples and opinions from around the country.

* Comments on this article have been pre-moderated to ensure the discussion is on the topics that have been written about in the article.
Topics

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My ancestors are in our memory institutions, but their voices are missing | Nathan Sentance

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Galleries, libraries, archives and museums are considered sites of memory, spaces to engage with history and identity, but for me these places are sites of forgetting, erasure and distortion. They are built on stolen land. Their names validate the place names that colonisers used to confirm their occupation of stolen land and to nullify the history that took place before colonial invasion.

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How do we teach...when so many voices are missing?

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How do we teach...when so many voices are missing?

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In a quiet room at the historic Library Company of Philadelphia here, a group of middle and high school teachers were studying a massacre.

The teachers, participants in a summer course offered through the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, were examining primary sources from one consequential event in Pennsylvania's past: an 18th century attack on the Susquehannock Indian tribe by white colonists.

Gathering in small groups around folding tables laden with 250-year-old maps, pamphlets, and images, the teachers thought aloud about what the documents could tell their students-and what questions the pages couldn't answer.

"Even before getting into information-who wrote this?" said Mark Stetina, a local middle school history teacher, pouring over a political cartoon and imagining how he would introduce it to his students. "Then, almost more important is-who's missing?" he said. This question of missing voices was central to the day's workshop, part of a project at the Library Company called Redrawing History. The library has digitized hundreds of documents about this massacre, but almost none are from Native American sources. Now, the organization is working with native artists to create an original graphic novel that attempts to recover some of those voices.

For teachers, the workshop offered a look into the archives and lessons on how to use the forthcoming novel. And it raised a question about teaching history: How do you paint a full picture of the past for your students when some voices have long been silenced?

Since the introduction of the Common Core State Standards a decade ago, teachers have been encouraged to give primary sources a more prominent place in the classroom. The standards emphasize close analysis of texts across subject areas, which in history and social studies can mean reading these kinds of archival documents. In the years since, both the U.S. Library of Congress and the National Archives have expanded their digital collections in an effort to make resources available for teachers.

Still, finding primary sources isn't always easy, especially when it comes to historically marginalized voices, said Jenn Androsky, a 10th grade Advanced Placement U.S. History teacher, who traveled from St. Paul, Minn., where she teaches at a Catholic school, for the training.

It's especially difficult to find written records of Native American voices from before the 1800s, she said. Those that are available have often been translated through white colonists. Even so, she said, these sources are essential to teaching history well-and engaging students.

"The nice little progressive American story is boring," Androsky said. "Once [students] realize it's complicated, it's interesting."

Beyond the Textbook

The events the teachers were studying in Philadelphia took place in 1763. That year, the Paxton Boys-a group of white colonists from the Pennsylvania backcountry-murdered the entire tribe of Susquehannock Indians, also known as the Conestoga. In targeting this tribe, which had been allied with the Pennsylvania government since the beginning of that century, the Paxton Boys were attempting to send a message to local authorities and the British crown, said Will Fenton, the director of scholarly innovation at the Library Company of Philadelphia, and the creative director of the Redrawing History project.

The massacre was a repudiation of the idea that European colonists should have to respect any Native American claims to land, or even coexist with native people, he said.

After the murders, different groups of colonists debated policy and ideology in the press, through pamphlets-"the social media of the 1700s," Fenton told the teachers. But native voices are almost entirely absent from the pages of printed records available.

When these stories and perspectives aren't included in mainstream resources, teachers can start to believe they don't matter, said LéAnn Murphy Cassidy, an 8th grade U.S. history teacher at Memorial Middle School in Middlebury, Conn., and the school's social studies instructional leader.

"I'm fighting colleagues who believe that anyone of color who's important is in the textbook, and if not, they're not important," she said.

'Sharing Power'

Bringing these stories to light is an ongoing project in classrooms across the country.

The California Indian History Curriculum Coalition, based out of Sacramento State University, is among the groups trying to rewrite old narratives.

A coalition of educators, tribal scholars, and native activists, the group has created resources, vetted by California Indians, that center the perspective of native peoples in history.

"We actually have a lot of documentation," said Rose Borunda, a member of the coalition and the director of the doctorate in educational leadership program at Sacramento State.

European contact occurred later in California than in other parts of the country, so more primary sources exist from there, she said. And more than 100 federally recognized tribes live within the state. Often, their histories are also embedded in stories passed down through an oral tradition, said Borunda.

Partnering with Native Americans in the state is essential to the curriculum project, she said. "We don't want to continue oppressive practices in which we're speaking for people who we don't have a right to speak on behalf of," said Borunda, who is indigenous. "They know their stories better than we do."

The National Council for the Social Studies also endorses this practice. "Central to this process is the concept of sharing power-this means moving beyond inviting Indigenous Peoples as guest speakers, to including Indigenous Peoples as decision-makers," reads a 2018 position paper from the organization.

'A Conceptual Sea Change'

Back in Pennsylvania, though, the people at the center of the Paxton Boys story are gone. "An American genocide was completed on the Susquehannock people," said Lee Francis, a Native American comic book publisher and the author of the upcoming graphic novel Ghost River: the Fall and Rise of the Conestoga. Francis spoke with the teachers at the University of Pennslyvania, the day after they visited the archives. Francis, who had seen the same primary source documents months earlier as he started work on Ghost River, said he had been excited to examine them, too. "But it definitely clued us in on who is telling the story," he said.

He and illustrator Weshoyot Alvitre set to work, Francis said, trying to "un-erase" the gaps in the story. As part of the process, they consulted with the local Circle Legacy Center, an advocacy group that has memorialized the massacre. "I'm not from this place either," said Francis, who is from the Laguna Pueblo in New Mexico. "So for me, it was also about getting permission to write this story."

Ghost River takes on a nonlinear narrative structure, switching back and forth from the events of the past to the present day, when Francis, Alvitre, and Fenton are crafting the story.

These creators are written into the novel. The dual perspective shows that while the Susquehannock are gone, native people still exist and are still telling their stories, said Francis. "Not only is this book a historical representation, but it's an honoring," he said.

Some of the teachers listening struggled to imagine how they could use a book without a linear timeline, and one that didn't attempt to take an objective point of view, in a history classroom. "What's going on in my head this week is a conceptual sea change," one teacher told Francis. But teaching history that has long been marginalized, or has been left out of the written record, is complicated, said Maria Adamson, an 11th grade U.S. history teacher at William Penn Charter School in Philadelphia. "There are people today who are carriers of history, like Toni Morrison," she said. "Did Beloved actually happen? No, but it can speak to the lived history that wasn't written down."

Ultimately, Adamson said, teachers have to investigate the gaps in primary sources, and sometimes rely on thoughtfully reconstructed narratives.

"If you're interested in the history of women, or the lower class, or anyone who's not white, you have to ask these questions," she said. "You can't just not teach it."

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How Do We Teach With Primary Sources When So Many Voices Are Missing?

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In a quiet room at the historic Library Company of Philadelphia here, a group of middle and high school teachers were studying a massacre. The teachers, participants in a summer course offered through the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History, were examining primary sources from one consequential event in Pennsylvania's past: an 18th century attack on the Susquehannock Indian tribe by white colonists.

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Colonialism's Effect of the Kuba Kingdom of the Congo

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Colonialism's Effect of the Kuba Kingdom of the Congo

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Apartheid: The rise and fall of South Africa's 'apartness' laws

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Written on . Posted in Democratic Republic of Congo

The concept of "indigenous peoples" is accepted and endorsed by the government and civil society organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). The term "indigenous peoples" in the DRC refers to the four main groups:

* The Batwa ( Twa) of the west

* The Batwa ( Twa) of the east

These peoples consider their generic appellation of "pygmies" as derogative and discriminatory.

The exact number of indigenous peoples in DRC remains unknown. However, the government estimates that there are around 600,000 indigenous persons in the DRC (1% of the Congolese population), while civil society organisations argue that there are up to 2,000,000 (3% of the population)
The Indigenous Peoples and the Surrounding Environment
The indigenous peoples live in nomadic or semi-nomadic groups in ten of the country's eleven provinces.

The life of indigenous peoples in the DRC is closely linked to the forest and its resources: they live from hunting, gathering, collecting and fishing and they treat their illnesses with the help of their pharmacopeia and medicinal plants. The forest forms the heart of their culture and their living environment.
Expropriation of Indigenous Peoples' Lands
65% of the DRC is covered in forest. However, as a direct result of historical and ongoing expropriation of indigenous lands for conservation and logging, many have been forced to abandon their traditional way of life and culture based on hunting and gathering and become landless squatters living on the fringes of settled society in extreme poverty.

Furthermore, some have been forced into relationships of bonded labour with Bantu "masters".

Problems of land access are acute in the east of the DRC, particularly in North and South Kivu where there is a high population density.

In Orientale, Equateur and Bandundu provinces, the indigenous peoples are victims of the industrial operations that are invading their living spaces.

Furthermore, the creation of protected areas also represents a real problem for the indigenous peoples, particularly given the strict policing of conservation areas that have been established in all national parks.
The Current Overall Situation
The Indigenous peoples' overall situation is considerably worse than the national population: they experience inferior living conditions and poor access to services such as health and education.
Discrimination
Their participation in the DRC's social and political affairs is low, and they encounter discrimination in various forms, including racial stereotyping, social exclusion and systematic violations of their rights.

Unless their rights, as guaranteed under international standards, are duly protected, indigenous peoples living spaces will shrink yet further, depriving them of the resources on which they depend for their survival and resulting in the disappearance of their culture and traditional knowlegde.
Legislation Concerning Indigenous Peoples in the Democratic Republic of Congo
In the DRC there is no law or policy for the promotion of and protection of indigenous peoples rights.

However, over the last few years, new legal texts have had an influence on advocacy work for the promotion of indigenous rights.

These relate, for example, to the 2002 Forest Code, the new 2006 Constitution and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), to which the DRC is a signatory.
Yearly Update
Download the 2016 yearbook article on indigenous peoples in the Democratic Republic of Congo to learn about major developments and events during 2015

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Indigenous peoples in the Democratic Republic of Congo

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Written on . Posted in Democratic Republic of Congo The concept of "indigenous peoples" is accepted and endorsed by the government and civil society organisations in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).

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Holidays

A General Overview
What draws India closer to an obscure and indifferent picture are the indigenous tribes. Far from the contemporary trend and economical development, they own their personal identity as Adivasi having their own language, religion, festivals, cuisine, dance and music. With such an enigmatic culture and hospitality they also significantly hold a contrasting patriarchal and matriarchal society.

I can't say that for sure the total number of tribal groups in India, but after a wide research I can say that it exceeds more than 500 and comprises approximately 9% of the total population of the country. The lively tableau of the tribal community in India stretches from the remote villages tucked in the Indian Himalayan region to southern - most tip of India AND from the farthest corner of North East India to the dunes of Rajasthan. The tribal population in India covers approximately 15% of the country and the majority is found in central India.

An overview in terms of how the tribal community affects the travel and tourism industry in India
Whether you are going for a trekking tour in the Indian Himalayan region or beach holiday in Andaman, Goa or Kerala you will surely get a glimpse of some of the tribes dwelling in the region. In contrast to leisurescapers, the explorers who travel to seek the indigenous colours of India go deep into the Indian tribal chapters to capture their lifestyle and art.

The tribal art forms a unique alley in the Indian handicraft industry. Further, their culinary book holds a savoury page in the Indian tribal tour brochure. But the most interesting part comes when you experience festivals like the Hornbill Festival in Nagaland, Keshai Khaity Festival in Assam, Disum Sendra in West Bengal, Bhagoria Haat Festival in Madhya Pradesh, Baneshwar Fair in Rajasthan, Sammakka Saralamma Jatara in Andhra Pradesh, Kokan Festival in Maharashtra, and Thulappathu Festival in Kerala. All together the tribal tour in India truly offers a contrasting itinerary and takes you to an intense world as you pass through the popular tourist destinations in India.

If you are going for a trek in Himachal Pradesh you will surely get acquainted with the Gurjar, Gaddi, Pangwala and Bodh tribes, going deep into the mystic mountains of Meghalaya you will meet the Khasi, Garo and Jaintia tribes. Travelling to the archipelago of Andaman you will come across the Jarawa tribes and wheeling from the backwaters of Kerala to the verdure of Karnataka, experience the harmony of the Paniyar, Kurichyar, Kattunaikkar, Mullukkurumar, Adiyar, Kanduvadiyar, Thachanadar, Kanaladi, Soliga, Siddis and more. Hence, even if you are not on a tribal tour in India you will still get a vivid picture of different tribes.

Now the real picture: The major tribes in India

In its mysterious past it encompasses all the dim origins of life. Their lifestyle is completely different from the rest of the world. With an obscure history they are still competing to get along with the modern trend. Their livelihood is mainly dependent on agriculture and handicrafts but the tribes of India still display a wide spectrum of "another India" you hardly know about. One cannot, however, get the complete picture about the whole tribe just by studying or getting close to one particular tribe as each one of them has its own respective culture - food, festival, dance, music, religion and language. Still to get a brief idea about Indian tribes, here is a comprehensive list of 20 tribes, picked from different corners of India.

1. Gonds Tribes

Known for their valor, the Gond tribes are mostly found in Central India in the Chhindwara district of Madhya Pradesh. They are also spotted in the Bastar district of Chhattisgarh, parts of Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh, and Orissa. So when you are on a tour in Madhya Pradesh, muttering and mulling over the titillating sculptures of Khajuraho and Sanchi Stupa respectively and wheeling from majestic palaces to whispering woods of Kanha and Bandhavgarh, steer towards the Gondi forest and experience the unique lifestyle of the Gonds. The Gond tribes have a good command over Telgu, Hindi, Marathi, Parsi and many other Dravadian languages.

What to experience? The rural colour with mud walls and thatched roof houses, earthen pots, traditional wears - men in dhoti and women in sari and ornaments, the festivals of Keslapur Jathra and Madai and ritual performances are the ones to experience. Try out Kodo or Kutki, which is the staple food of the Gonds; moreover, they are mostly meat consumers.

2. Bhils Tribes

If you are on your royal wheels for a trip to Rajasthan, moving from massive forts and palaces to Jain temples, then discovering the lifestyle of the Bhil tribes is an absolute contrast. This tribal community in India is mostly spotted in the Aravali Ranges of Sirohi in Udaipur and some places of Dungarpur and Banswara districts of Rajasthan. Further, the settlements of the Bhil tribes are also found in parts of Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Maharashtra and Tripura. What to experience? The cultural harmony - Ghoomar dance, Than Gair (a religious dance and drama) are Baneshwar Fair that is held in the month of January or February are the major attractions. Whereas the Bhili language, which is an Indo - Aryan language, is one of the most interesting features to experience.

3. Santhal Tribes

The Santhal tribes are the major tribes of West Bengal and are mostly seen in the districts of Bankura and Purulia. They are also widely seen in parts of Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha and Assam. The journey to the abode of Santhals heads from the cultural capital of India, Kolkata, en route the terracotta temples of Bishnupur and Bolpur. The Santhals are largely dependent on agriculture and livestock; further, they are well versed in the art of hunting. What to experience? The Santhali dance and music is one of the major attractions that you can't miss when you are wheeling to Bankura and Purulia. Moreover, festivals like Karam, Maghe, Baba Bonga, Sahrai, Ero, Asaria, Disum Sendra and Namah often fascinate travellers.

4. Great Andamanese Tribes

Back in 2010 when Boa (one of the speakers of two Great Andamanese languages, Khora and Bo) died, the world lost two languages. So before the extermination of these unique tribes, speaking Jeru and Sare, plan an ocean cruise to Andaman and explore the indigenous survival land. The Great Andamanese Tribe, which includes the Onge, Jarawa, Jangil and Sentinelese, are said to be the first inhabitants of the islands. But today a significant number is on its way to extinction. Nonetheless, the left over population of the Great Andamanese are largely dependent on the vigorous campaign by Survival and Indian organizations. What to experience? Well, it is hard to distinguish them by their appearance - complexion and dress, still you are another traveller who will end up capturing their lifestyle. The Great Andamanese are mostly spotted in Strait Island and parts of Rutland Island.

6. Garo Tribes

One of the few remaining matrilineal societies in the world that are mostly spotted in the hills of Meghalaya, the Garo Tribes are ideally known for their vivid lifestyle. They are also spotted in the neighbouring areas of Bangladesh and parts of West Bengal, Assam and Nagaland. It is easy to distinguish the Garo tribes from other tribes of Meghalaya. Women are often found in varieties of traditional ornaments, whereas men are seen wearing turbans with feathers stuck behind them. What else to experience? The unique form of Garo architecture like Nokmong, Nokpante, Jamsireng and Jamadaal are some abstract capture in your lense. Further, the Wangala festival of Asanang is something that you can't miss.

7. Angami Tribes

It's the famous Hornbill Festival of the Angami Naga tribes that pulls in travellers to the farthest corner of North East India, Nagaland. The Angami Nagas are one of the major tribes of Nagaland, widely present in the district of Kohima. Apart from the Hornbill Festival, the major attraction remains their intricate and beautiful woodcraft and artwork. The Angami Nagas are known for the producer of bamboo work, cane furniture, beds, shawls and powerful machetes. What else to experience? The form of language, the Angami Language that is identified with different names such as Gnamei, Ngami, Tsoghami, and Monr, is another major feature to get hold off. Further, their dressing style - men in white Mhoushu and black Lohe and women in Mechala along with ornaments like Beads, miniature mask pendants, bangles and bracelets - is surely going to arrest your eyes. Well, the hardcore carnivore travellers may try out some unique pork dishes from the Angami.

9. Bhutia Tribes

Dominating the landlocked territory of Sikkim that is bordered by the Indian Himalaya, the Bhutias are widely known for their traditional grandeur, art and cuisine. One cannot forget the unique preparation of momo, steamed meat dumplings and thukpa, slurpy, burpy and yummy! Travel into the land of the Bhutias during the Losar and Loosong festival and experience the vivid culture - dance, music and religion. The hardcore carnivores can try out some spicy beef.

13. Irulas Tribes

Expert snake and rat catchers, that's what make the Irula tribes of South India special. With a population of approximately 3,00,000 the Irulas inhabits parts of Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Kerala. Moreover, the Irulas are the second largest tribe in Kerala and is mostly seen in the district of Palakkad. So, when you are on a holiday in Kerala to enjoy the sprawling hues of the Nilgiri Mountains and cruise down the sparkling backwaters of Alleppey, just for a day steer to Palakkad. What to experience? The Irulas are largely dependent on agricultural products like paddy, raggi, dhal, plantains, chilies, and turmeric. Further, the major attraction remains their varied ritual performances. All though most of them are Hindus but they still believe in worshiping their own diety, Irulas are also known to be conversant in white and black magic.

16. Warli Tribes

The Warli or Varli tribes of Maharashtra and Gujarat display a unique form of art and painting that reflects the mural paintings of 500 - 10,000 BC carved in the Rock Shelters of Bhimbetka in Madhya Pradesh. Their form of art follows the rudimentary technique with mixture of earth and cow dung, branches, red ochre, rice paste, bamboo stick and more. If you want to seek such grandeur then visit during the Warli Folk Art Dancing People Festival, which is held during the month of March every year. Well, don't miss the Tarpa Dance, which is a folk dance performed during the harvest season.

18. Kurumban Tribes

Another major tribe dominating parts of Kerala and Tamil Nadu, the Kurumban tribe exhibits a simple lifestyle, depending largely on agricultural products. Moreover, they are widely known for witch-craft and magical performances as well as traditional herbal medicines.

20. Siddis Tribes

The Siddi tribes of Karnataka are believed to have descended from the Bantu people of Southeast Africa who were treated as slaves by Portuguese merchants. Today, the Siddi people are predominantly found around Yellapur, Haliyal, Ankola, Joida, Mundgod, Sirsi, Belgaum and Dharwad in Karnataka apart from some pockets of Pakistan. The Siddi people are mostly Roman Catholic but some follow Hinduism and Islam. What to experience? Other than mulling over their historical facts, the major attraction remains the ritual practices, dance and music.

Brought up from the cultural capital of India, Kolkata, Swairik Das is a passionate traveller who seeks to travel and explore the length and breadth of the country. He is also a dedicated travel writer, blogger and photographer who by heart is also an adventure freak. His focus is mostly into exploring and writing on trekking, jungle safaris and several adventure activities; religion, festival, heritage, people and cuisine.

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The Indigenous Colour of India - The Indian Tribes

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The tribes of India reflect a very unique and colourful picture of Indian culture that is a contrast to the modern trend. The article simply display a glimpse of 20 major tribes in India and hence you can drive to seek such indigenous experience.

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An introduction to colonial Brazil (article) | Khan Academy

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Learn for free about math, art, computer programming, economics, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, finance, history, and more. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission of providing a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

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There are about 250,000 Indians in Brazil. This number is less than 0.2 percent of the national population (140 million people). It is fundamental to consider the low demographic proportion of Indians when discussing the situation of indigenous peoples in Brazil. There are two other factors which influence this situation: the extreme poverty of most of the country's population and economic instability, both of which are the major priorities of the Brazilian government today.

To overcome what has become Brazil's most serious crisis, the government has chosen an economic strategy of promoting development projects which many times denies the rights of Indian peoples. For example, Indian lands are usually seen as reservations of natural resources which makes them a target of economic interests all over the country.

The Indian population is divided into some 200 different peoples, most of which are very small and spread throughout the country. They traditionally occupy around 520 areas (about 10 percent of the Brazilian territory) and are largely concentrated in the Amazon region.

BRAZIL'S CONTROL OVER INDIAN AFFAIRS

The process of colonization in Brazil has historically pushed Indians from the east coast to the west, towards the isolated regions closer to the Brazilian borders. Those peoples who remained in the most populated areas of the country have lost large portions of their original territory and Indian peoples still face several problems to guarantee their land rights.

Since the beginning of Brazil's colonization process, the government, civilian or military, always undertook the role of setting the terms and establishing the rules for interaction with Native peoples. For almost 470 years, the only other major actor in this scenario was the Catholic Church, which played an "assistance role", providing missionaries and educational and health care services to some of the Indian communities.

It was during the 1970's that the Indian issue emerged as a concern for Brazilian society. In 1970, an assembly of Indian peoples took place in Brazil. As the first Indian initiative over which the State did not have control, it had major repercussions. After that, other Indian-initiated assemblies followed, starting a process that helped Indians learn about their rights and organize themselves towards political struggle. A pro-Indian movement comprised of non-governmental organizations and supportive individuals arose from that as well.

In 1979, the Union of Indigenous Nations (UNI) was established. UNI was the first national organization directed exclusively by Indians, having no links with the government or the Catholic Church. It was conceived as a national Indian organization, a symbolic point of reference for all Indian peoples in Brazil.

Yet, until 1988, the official indigenist policy was guided by the axiom that Indians were fated to lose their own identities, becoming ordinary members of the larger Brazilian society. Governmental policies were all aimed at the integration of Indians into the national economy and at their assimilation by the non-Indian world.

After the promulgation of the 1988 Constitution, the rights of Indians to maintain their social organization, customs, languages, beliefs and traditions were recognized. This was a result of a coalition of Indians. NGOs, lawyers, anthropologists and other supporters, who got together to fight for the inclusion of Indian rights into the text of the new Constitution. UNI and other Indian organizations played a very important role in that process.

The "Indian Chapter" of the new Constitution clearly eliminated the policy distinguishing Indians according to the degree of their cultural adaptation and disavowed the idea of forcible integration. A new concept of indigenous lands, based upon Indian usage, customs and traditions was defined, and Indians' originary rights to those lands were affirmed.

Since the 1988 Constitution, the number of indigenous organizations has increased a great amount. Today there may be as many as 100 indigenous organizations in the country. A new national organization, CAPOIB (Conselho de Articulacao dos Povos e Organizacoes Indígenas do Brasil), has been established and the Indian issue has definitely become important in the non-Indian arena.

As Indian peoples are organizing in Brazil to confront the gross violations which they have always faced, it is also true that reactions against the recognition of their rights have increased enormously. The 1988 Constitution did not resolve all the problems facing Brazil's Indians, who now must fight to have their constitutional rights enforced. Disputes between Indian peoples and certain sectors of the national society seem to multiply. The case of the Guarani of Mato Grosso do Sul illustrates Indians' daily struggle to guarantee those rights.

THE GUARANI OF MATO GROSSO DO SUL

Considered the largest Indian society in Brazil, the Guarani are sub-divided into three groups: the Kaiowá, the Nandeva and the M'bya. They live in small areas in the southern region of Brazil, which are all that remains from the huge territory they had in the past: they once occupied the lands from the state of Espirito Santo to Rio Grande do Sul.

The Guarani people has close relatives throughout the southern cone of South America, mainly in Paraguay and Argentina. Each one of the three sub-groups has its own characteristics and their fundamental bond is their religious system. Over the years, religion has been Guarani's shield of resistance against the surrounding society.

The Guarani have their own land occupation concepts. They believe their lands are a gift from God to a particular community. This is why they are deeply tied to a specific land. Building a network of relationships based on their points of exclusive occupation, the Guarani Indians have been able to foster communication among their villages until this day.

The entire extreme southern region of the state of Mato Grosso do Sul (Brazil's southwest) was traditionally occupied by the Guarani/Kaiowá and Nandeva. These groups began to be contacted in the two last decades of the nineteenth century, when large extractivist projects for the exploitation of Paraguay tea were implemented in their lands.

For many years the Brazilian government did not protect the lands of these Indians, contributing to the occupation of the region by non-Indian squatters. This fact led to an accumulation of problems and land conflicts that have not been solved yet.

As their territory was occupied by non-Indians, the Guarani/Kaiowá and the Nandeva were gradually prevented from occupying it according to their traditional customs. Their land was an intense target of the settlement policy of the old Indian Protection Service (the governmental agency for Indian affairs that preceded the current National Indian Foundation, FUNAI). The settlement policy consisted of concentrating all the Guarani communities which lived in neighboring areas into a single reservation, so that non-Indians could use the remaining lands for agriculture and livestock.

It was only in the 1980s that FUNAI initiated the process of identifying and delimiting the traditional lands of the Guarani/Kaiowá and Nandeva in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. However, by then, those lands were already totally divided by squatters, who did not hesitate to invade them, even after they were formally recognized by the government. Invaders also began to file lawsuits before local courts, whose rulings were invariably against the Indians.

FUNAI's land identification process did not produce any practical results for a long time. It was only during the administration of former President Collor (after 1990) that administrative measures were effectively implemented.

The Guarani/Kaiowá and Nandeva in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul are spread throughout several tiny areas, most likely the smallest Indian areas in the country. Their permanent possession and traditional occupation over these areas are duly demonstrated by anthropological studies carried out by FUNAI.

Despite the considerable advances in the official recognition process, the actual situation of these Indians is alarming. They are facing difficulties of all kinds to recover lands completely invaded and often devastated by ranchers. The invaders deny the Indians' own existence and rely on powerful local interests to prevent the Guarani from occupying their territory and enjoying their recognized rights.

Recently, the situation is even worse, because the lands that the Guarani were able to keep are now in the area affected by the waterway Parana-Paraguay project (Hidrovia). The project, which involves Brazil, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay and Argentina, has fueled real estate speculation process in the region. Of course, that only aggravates the disputes over the Indians' lands.

The invasion of their lands and the action of missionaries have caused the high numbers of suicides among the Guarani people, denounced by the national and international press during the past few years. In 1993 alone, 34 cases of suicides, mainly by hanging and poisoning means, were reported among the Guarani.

The Indians are confined in small areas where they cannot live according to their usage, customs and traditions. In addition, they have long been under the influence of certain missionaries who question their mythical and cultural universe, leading them to believe that they are inferior human beings.

These facts have brought young Indians and elders, who feel humiliated and discouraged, to commit extreme acts such as suicide. This situation discloses the absurd tragedy which continues to affect the largest Indian people in Brazil.

There are at least three Guarani areas yet to be demarcated in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul. The communities who traditionally occupied those lands are camped in other Guarani areas, which are already demarcated in the region. As a result, they are in no condition to promote the activities that guarantee their livelihood. The communities must rely on the governmental agency while waiting to return to their own traditional territory after the formal recognition of their rights.

The other existing 22 Guarani areas in the state of Mato Grosso do Sul are already recognized by the serious problems. Those that are not invaded by non-Indians face problems of overpopulation (they have become the refuge of the displaced communities). These areas also register a high level of alcoholism.

However, the worst problem certainly occurs in 10 areas, which are completely or partially invaded by ranchers. In these cases, almost all the Indians have been forced out of their territories. There is one case where the community is divided in two: one part is occupying a small portion of the land while the others are camped at another community's territory, prohibited to return to their own.

In these cases, the Indians have invariably been expelled from their lands and are being prevented from reentering them either by the ranchers themselves or by arbitrary judicial orders. The situation of the Jaguapiré Community is a tragic example of the Guarani's suffering.

THE STRUGGLE OF THE GUARANI/KAIOWA COMMUNITY OF JAGUAPIRÉ

The Indian Area of Jaguapiré has 2,089 hectares and is located at the municipality of Tacuru, in the surroundings of the Mato Grosso wetlands (Pantanal), on the border of Brazil and Paraguay. This area was declared a permanent possession of the Guarani-Kaiowá Indians by an act of the Minister of Justice in 1992. It was demarcated and ratified by Presidential Decree afterwards.

In spite of that, the Indian Community of Jaguapiré, some 250 Guarani-Kaiowá Indians, occupies only a very small portion of this areas, near its northeast limit. The rest of the land has been invaded by two ranchers, who, over the years, have deforested the region, changing it into pasture suitable for cattle raising activities.

The ranchers have intimidated and used violent means to remove the Indians from their lands more than once. They have managed to obtain favorable rulings by local judicial order prohibiting the Jaguapiré Indian Community from occupying the portion of the recognized Indian area which they claims as private property. This case is now pending in the Court of Appeals.

For the Indians, the only alternative was to stay in a small part of what would be the second property, claimed by rancher José Fuentes Romero. In 1990, however, he had obtained a judicial order in favor of his remaining in the area, from the Federal Justice in the regional capital. The Indian community, FUNAI and the Federal Prosecutors Office appealed the decision, and the appeal is pending in Sao Paulo since March of 1991.

In 1992, when the Jaguapiré Indian Area was recognized by the administrative act of the Minister of Justice, the same rancher filed a new lawsuit before the Federal Court in Campo Grande, aiming at expelling the Indian community from the small piece of land where they lived. The judge in charge of the case accepted the rancher's request last November, determining that FUNAI was to immediately remove the Indians from that place.

Having learned of this situation, the Guarani Indians of Jaguapiré sent a letter to FUNAI's regional administrator, affirming that this time they would not leave the land this time. In that document, the Indians explained that they were tired of forced removals, threats and continuous suffering, and that the community would rather die than give up on their land rights.

Fortunately, an injunction, granted by the Federal Court of Appeals in Sao Paulo, temporarily suspended the eviction order. However, there is no positive sign that the Court will confirm the injunction when deciding on the appeals. The Jaguapiré Indians continue to fear for their destiny.

FUTURE PERSPECTIVES FOR INDIAN PEOPLES IN BRAZIL

The situation of the Guarani is only one example. Many Indians still wait for a governmental recognition of their lands. The 1988 Constitution had established a time limit for the demarcation of every Indian land in Brazil, which expired last October. In spite of that, the so-called process off indigenous land demarcation has not advanced much.

There are more or less 100 areas to be identified in the country. Another 160 identified areas are in the process of being identified. Such a process is long and follows different steps, including political recognition by the Minister of Justice and the expensive task of physical demarcation of the lands.

In addition, the recognition process is always subject to all sorts of pressure. The truth is that even the Indians whose territories are already recognized face serious problems in having their rights respected. There are some 250 areas ratified by the President and registered as indigenous lands. Unfortunately, most of them are invaded by ranchers, miners or loggers. The government does not seem to have the means to control their illegal activities.

Brazil is currently going through a process of revising its constitution. Of the more than 17,000 amendment proposals presented to Congress, about 300 refer to Indian rights - and almost all are against these rights.

The amendment proposals regarding Indians mainly intend to: 1) prevent indigenous land demarcation on international borders; 2) review every indigenous land demarcation implemented up to this day; 3) transfer the responsibility over the procedures for indigenous lands recognition to the National Congress; 4) transfer from the federal government to the government of the states the authority and responsibilities regarding indigenous lands and other Indian rights; and 5) remove from the constitutional text the request that the exploitation of mineral resources on Indian territories follow the conditions established by a specific law.

The amendment proposals are a major threat. For example, approximately 40% of the Indian population in the country is entirely, or at least partially, located in Brazil's border strip (150 kilometers wide, according to legal definition). Prohibiting land demarcation in this region means that some 100,000 Indians would lose the right to occupy their traditional territories.

In this case time has become a strong ally to the Indians. The Constitution revision has barely begun. In spite of that, the process is to end on May 31st. There is a significant chance that many amendment proposals will not be even considered.

Hopefully the Indian Chapter of the Constitution will rest untouched and the law of Brazil will uphold Indian rights and provide effective remedies to its violations. Through strong legal control, it should be possible to guarantee the survival of Indian peoples in the country. It is true, however, that until more reasonable patterns of development are broadly supported and adopted by our government, the threat to those rights will continue to exist.

Article copyright Cultural Survival, Inc.

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Indigenous Peoples in Brazil: The Guarani; a case for the UN

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There are about 250,000 Indians in Brazil. This number is less than 0.2 percent of the national population (140 million people). It is fundamental to consider the low demographic proportion of Indians when discussing the situation of indigenous peoples in Brazil.

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Photos: various authors, see here

Brazil turned 500 in 2000 and still ignores the immense diversity of the Indigenous peoples living in its territory. It is estimated that, at the time the Europeans first arrived, there were more than 1,000 denominations, with a total of between 2 and 4 million people. Today they are 256 peoples , speaking more than 150 different languages and adding up to 896.917 individuals (IBGE, 2010).

The majority of this population is distributed among thousands of villages located within Indigenous Lands (TIs) - spread throughout the national territory.

In order to contribute for the knowledge about and respect for these populations, this site of the Instituto Socioambiental (ISA) presents updated and qualified information on the different Indigenous peoples that live in contemporary Brazil through introductory texts, photographs, news, analyses, maps, illustrations, lists, tables and indications of additional information sources.

This material is the result of more than 25 years of research, started by the Centro Ecumênico de Documentação e Informação (CEDI), continued by our staff's daily work and supported by a vast network of ISA's collaborators.

Today, talking about Indigenous peoples in Brazil means to recognize basically that:

In the lands colonized by the Portuguese, where later a country called Brazil would exist, there were already human populations;

It is not known exactly where they came from; we say that they are 'original' or 'native' because they were here before the European occupation;

Certain groups of people who live in present-day Brazil are historically connected to these early peoples;

The Indians who live in Brazil today have a long history, which started to differentiate itself from the so-called Western Civilization still during Pre-History (with the migratory waves from the 'Old World' to the Americas that took place thousands of years ago); 'their' history has come closer to 'ours' only in the past 500 years (with the arrival of the Portuguese);

Like any other human group, Indigenous peoples have cultures that result from the history of the relationships among themselves and between them and the environment; a history that, in their case, has been (and continues to be) dramatically altered by the reality of colonization;

The territorial division of South America into countries (Brazil, Venezuela, Bolivia, Argentina...) does not necessarily coincide with the occupation of the geographic space by the Indigenous population; often there are cases of peoples who live on two sides of international borders, which were created long after they were established in the region; that is why it makes more sense to speak of Indigenous peoples 'in Brazil' than 'of Brazil'.

Indians, Amerindians

Generically, the Indigenous peoples that live not only in Brazil but also in the entire American continent are called Indians. This name is the result of a historical mistake made by the first Europeans who arrived in America, who thought they had reached India. The continuous use of the word, even by the Indians themselves, has made it a synonym of an Indigenous person in Brazil.

Because of the similitude among Indians from North, Central and South America, there are those who prefer to call all of them Amerindians. Indians or Amerindians are thus the indigenous peoples of the Americas. But what is it that makes of an Indian an Indian?

Criteria of identification

Photo: Beto Ricardo, 1991.

In the perspective of those who already lived in a given area, the historical process of colonization and constitution of new nations was extremely violent: extinction of entire peoples, demographic decimation, land seizures, destruction of traditional means of physical and cultural survival, disappearance of particular ethnic identities within the new national societies in formation...

After such a long time, so much oppression and, in many cases, miscegenation, there is a problem regarding Indigenous peoples: how is it possible to identify clearly persons and groups of persons who are native to these places and those who are not?

The answer to this fundamental question is not simple. It has to do with recognition of special rights, the struggle for compensations for historical injustices, and conflicts of interests regarding the possession of certain areas or to the exploration of natural resources. It belongs, in short, to the realm of politics: of each individual country and also of international organisms such as the United Nations, the International Labor Organization or the Organization of American States.

Documents from different times, countries and institutions show different criteria for identifying who is Indigenous, based in concepts such as race, cultural traits or economic development. In Brazil, the most accepted criterion nowadays is that of ethnic self-identification. In other words: it is considered Indigenous the members of a group of people who identify themselves as a collectivity distinct from the national society as a whole due to their historical links to pre-Columbian populations (i.e., populations that existed before Columbus first arrived in America, in 1492). Every individual who recognize herself/himself as part of a group with those characteristics and is recognized by the group as such may be considered an Indigenous person.

Who is Indian?

by Eduardo Viveiros de Castro, researcher, professor of anthropology of the Museu Nacional (UFRJ) and founding partner of ISA.

An Indian is any member of an indigenous community, recognized by the latter as such.

An indigenous community is any community founded on kinship or coresidence relations between its members, who maintain historical-cultural ties with pre-Colombian indigenous social organizations.

The kinship or coresidence relations constituting the community include relations of affinity, adoptive affiliation, and ritual or religious kinship and are more generally defined in terms of the conception of fundamental interpersonal bonds held by the community in question.

The historical-cultural ties with pre-Colombian indigenous social organizations include historical, cultural and sociopolitical dimensions, namely:

The continuity of the community's present territorial localization in relation to the situation during the pre-Colombian period. This continuity includes, in particular, the derivation of the present situation from the decisions or contingencies imposed by colonial or national powers in the past, such as forced migrations, slave raids, reductions, mission villages and other measures taken to assimilate and occlude ethnic groups;

The positive and active orientation of the group in relation to community discourses and practices derived from the Amerindian cultural background and conceived to be an important heritage of the group. Given the processes of cultural destruction, reduction and occlusion associated with the situation evoked in the previous item, these discourses and practices are not necessarily those specific to the cultural area (in the historico-ethnological sense) where the community is located today;

The community's decision, whether manifested or simply presumed, to constitute itself as a socially differentiated entity within the national union, with autonomy to determine and deliberate on its composition (modes of recruitment and criteria of inclusion of its members) and internal affairs (community governance, forms of territorial occupation, system of trade and exchange with the surrounding society), as well as defining its own modalities of symbolic and material reproduction.

[May, 2005]

About the names of the peoples

Because they did not write at the time of their 'attraction and pacification', the Indians who lived in Brazil were (and continue to be) 'baptized' in writing by 'whites', in a process that has given (and still gives) margin to a lot of confusion in terms of:

There is great variety in the manner in which the names of Indigenous peoples are spelled in Brazil. Different patterns co-exist side by side, sometimes created by the staff of the Federal Government's organ for Indian affairs, Fundação Nacional do Índio - National Foundation for the Indian - (Funai), sometimes by anthropologists and, more recently, even by Writing Manuals of the main titles of the Brazilian press. The name of a group that today lives in the State of Acre, Kaxinawá. for example, may be written in at least four different ways: caxinauá, cashinaua, kaxinawá and kaxináua.

The main reason for anthropologists to choose a spelling for name in a given way has to do with the adoption of an alphabet in which the words of the language of that people will be written. Because Indigenous languages frequently have sounds that have no direct representation in the letters of the Brazilian Portuguese alphabet, anthropologists are forced to resort to other letters and combinations of letters. They try, in such case, to use letters whose sound interpretation are close to the international phonetic alphabet, used by linguists all over the world, instead of the Portuguese alphabet.

Besides, why should Indigenous names be reduced to the Brazilian form when there are several peoples that do not live exclusively in Brazil? Let's not forget that the borders between the national States in South America were superimposed on Indigenous societies in such a way that some of them live under the political and administrative jurisdiction of two, three and even four different countries.

The disagreements on the orthography of the names of Indigenous peoples often place anthropologists against the Writing Manuals of large newspapers. But in this topic there is no consensus even among anthropologists themselves. Most controversies are related to the use of capital letters and plurals. But in that regard there is no consensus even among anthropologists themselves. Most controversies are related to the use (or not) of capital letters and the plural form for the names of the ethnic groups (both of which are possible in Portuguese).

For some people, when the name of a people is used as an adjective, there is no reason for using capital letters (Guarani language, for example, can be written as guarani language, which, unlike English, can be used in Portuguese). When it is used as a noun, it would be more adequate to use capital letters, since it designates a single collectivity, a society, a people, instead of just a group of individuals. Thus Kaingang is correctly written in Portuguese when it is a noun.

Those who defend that the plural form is unnecessary (which is generally required in Portuguese) justify their opinion by saying that adding an 's' to a word of an Indigenous language results in a hybrid.. In addition, there is the possibility that the words may already be plural or, perhaps, that the plural form does not exist in the Indigenous language.

Writing Manuals, in turn, impose the use of the Portuguese orthography for the names of the tribes, not allowing the use of the 'w', 'y' and 'k' (!) and of groups of letters that do not exist in Portuguese, such as 'sh'. This criterion is inconsistent, just as writing names always in small letters or use singular and plural but not masculine/feminine is. Thus if krahô has to be written craô, then Kubitscheck should be written Cubicheque, and Geisel, Gáisel.

The confusion becomes worse when self-denominations - i.e., the verbal forms with which a people names itself - enter the scene. In many cases, research made by anthropologists and linguists find out that self-denominations have nothing to do with the names given to Indigenous groups by 'whites'. A good part of the current names used today - and in the past too - to designate Indigenous peoples in Brazil are not self-denominations. Many of them were given by other peoples, frequently enemies, and for that reason have inadequate connotations.

Such is the case, for example, of the Araweté, named as such for the first time by a sertanista (expert on Indians) of Funai who, just after the 'first contacts', established in the mid-1970's, believed he could understand their language. Thus the name, written for the first time by a federal employee in a report, ended up becoming the official public identity of this people. But an anthropologist who studied the Araweté a few years later and learned their language found out that the members of this people originally do not call themselves by a noun; instead, when referring to the collective to which they belong they use the word bïdé, a pronoun that means 'we, the human beings'.

The word bïdé does not refer to a substance (like 'Brazilian', for example, refers to 'Brazil'), but to a perspective (human, as opposed to animal, divine, enemy...). Depending on the context in which it is said, it might refer to human collectivities more or less extensive: to the Araweté themselves (as opposed to other groups, enemies); to all the Indians (as opposed to non-Indians); to all human beings (as opposed to animals and gods)...

Citizens of national States like us think that every society must have a name. As the case of the Araweté clearly shows, that is not necessarily so: even though the Araweté use the word bïdé to refer to themselves, it is not a noun; and the 'we' which it refers to is not always the same.

In other cases, the connotations of the names of Indigenous ethnic groups can be pejorative. Kayapó, for example, is a generic designation given to these Indians by peoples of the Tupi language, with whom they made war until recently, and means 'monkeylike'. Other names were given by sertanistas of the old SPI (Serviço de Proteção aos Índios - Service of Protection of the Indian, the first government agency for Indian affairs) or of Funai, often right after the first contacts had been made by the so-called expedições de atração (attraction expeditions). In such conditions, without knowledge of the language, misunderstandings were frequent, and certain peoples ended up being known by names that were given to them arbitrarily.

In those times of initial contacts and of precarious communications with 'unknown tribes', some peoples became known by the name of one of their members or fractions. There are also cases of names in Portuguese that were imposed on others, such as the Beiço-de-Pau - Wooden Lip - (referring to the Tapayúna, of the State of Mato Grosso) or the Cinta-Larga - Wide Belt - from the State of Rondônia, called so by Funai sertanistas because they wore wide belts made of bark when they were contacted in the end of the 1960's.

'Attracting and pacifying' the Indians, and arbitrarily imposing names on them, has to do with colonial practices of social control: spatial concentration of the population (with the consequent contamination of natives by diseases and post-contact depopulation), implementation of precarious, paternalistic systems of social assistance, territorial confinement, and exploitation of natural resources. All this in the name of the 'integration of the Indians to national society'. On the contrary, recognizing and respecting their specific identities, learning their languages and understanding their traditional forms of social organization, of occupation of the land and of use of their natural resources has to do with diplomatic gestures of cultural exchange and respect to special collective rights.

In order to know more about the orthography of the names of Indigenous peoples in Brazil (all the bibliography below is in Portuguese), see:

ABA (Associação Brasileira de Antropologia)Convenção para a grafia dos nomes tribais. Revista de antropologia, São Paulo: USP, ano 2, número 2, 1954.

Julio Cezar Melatti Como escrever palavras indígenas Revista de atualidade indígena, Brasília: Funai, ano 3, número 16, 1979. Julio Cezar Melatti '' Nomes de tribos Ciência hoje, Rio de Janeiro: SBPC (Sociedade Brasileira para o Progresso da Ciência), volume 10, número 56, 1989.

Folha de S. Paulo Novo manual de redação, São Paulo, verbete "indígena/ índio", página 81. Eduardo Lopes Martins Filho Anual de redação e estilo de O Estado de S. Paulo. São Paulo

O Estado de S. Paulo 1997, 3ª. edição, revista e ampliada, verbete "Índios", página 145.

Contact with non-Indians

Many Indigenous peoples in Brazil continue to use, in their daily activities, ways of life inherited from their ancestors as well as objects, institutions and social relations acquired after the intensification of their contact with 'whites'. In this respect, they are no different from 'us', non-Indian Brazilians. Who would say that today we live like our great-grandparents? This very site, or, say, the fast-food chains that can be found all over our country: aren't they proofs that our language and our culture are influenced by others?

Changes in the way of living

Contact with our society certainly brings about changes on the way of living of Indigenous peoples. In this regard, one must have in mind two things.

First of all, Indigenous cultures are not static. Like all cultures, they change with time, whether affected by outside influence or not. Because of that, those who intend to be a 'friend' of the Indians do not have necessarily to defend that 'they are kept like they are now'. On the other hand, it is undeniable that some of the changes brought about by contact with our society may cause concern. Such is the case, for example, of those peoples who have lost their maternal language and today speak only Portuguese. Our role, as allies of the Indians, must be to make sure that they have social, economic and political conditions to absorb the novelties that come along with contact in the way they deem most convenient.

In the second place, it must be said that, behind the changes, with different rhythm and nature depending on the case, there is something crucial: even while relating to non-Indians, Indigenous peoples maintain their identities and assert themselves as differentiated ethnic groups and holders of their own traditions. And that is valid even for situations of intense changes.

Ethnic identity, that is, the consciousness of belonging to a given people, is the result of a complex interplay between 'traditional' and 'new', the 'own' and the 'outsider's', that takes place each time different populations have contact. That must be taken into account before making a statement such as 'he is no longer an Indian' because he wears clothes, goes to mass, watches TV, works with computers, plays football, drives a car.

Different experiences of contact

The diversity that exists among Indians does not come just from their different languages, cultures and ways of living and thinking. It also comes from factors connected to the quality of the relationship they have with non-Indians: if reasonably peaceful or violent, if old or recent, if direct with the population of the region (farmers, posseiros - illegal settlers -, lumbers, fishermen, etc.) or mediated by an institution, be it governmental, non-governmental, lay or religious.

Several peoples were victims of violence when they had their first contacts with the non-Indigenous population. Such is the case, for example, of the Rikbatsa, who live in the State of Mato Grosso. From the 1950's until the early 1960's, this group was faced with the armed opposition of the region's rubber planters, lumbers, miners and farmers, and 75% of its population were decimated. Fortunately, other peoples have a friendlier remembrance of the first contacts. The Kadiwéu, for example, recall with pride their participation on the Brazilian side in the Paraguayan War, a landmark in the history of their contact with national society.

It is often the case that a hostile initial relationship between Indians and non-Indians develop into fairly friendly and even desirable relations. Currently several Indigenous peoples have established partnerships with support organizations of the Brazilian civil society. The various peoples of the Xingu Indigenous Park, for example, are benefited by health programs carried out by Unifesp (formerly Escola Paulista de Medicina), and of education, economic alternatives, monitoring and surveillance promoted by the ISA.

Cohabitation with Catholic or Protestant missions are common, such as with the Makuxi and the Taurepang of the mining region of the State of Roraima. Relations between Indians and missionaries vary, especially in regards to the forms of transmission of Christian values.

The manner in which each people is incorporated within Brazilian society also differs considerably. The members of some peoples work in the regional market and are wage earners, like the Guarani-Kaiowá, who are involved in harvesting sugarcane for the alcohol distilleries of the State of Mato Grosso do Sul.

There are others who live in urban centers, such as Sateré-Mawé families, who are established in the outskirts of Manaus (State of Amazonas), and the Pankararu, migrants from the State of Pernambuco who live today in the Real Parque slum, in the city of São Paulo. A remarkable fact is the growing number of Indians in the Brazilian political scene: in 2000, 80 Indians were elected city councilmen and vice-mayors - and one mayor.

On the opposite extreme of those who participate intensely in the various spheres of Brazilian society are those Indigenous groups or individuals that refuse contact with the non-Indian society. Among them are some of the inhabitants of the TI Javari River Valley.

Isolated Indians

In recent years there have been more than 70 evidences of the existence in Brazil of 'isolated Indians'. That is the denomination given to those Indians which the organ of the Federal Government in charge of Indian affairs, the Fundação Nacional do Índio (Funai) - National Foundation for the Indian - has not established contact. No one knows for sure who they are, where they are, how many they are and what languages they speak.

The little that is known about them is that the majority of those evidences have occurred within Indigenous Lands that have already been demarcated or have some degree of recognition by Federal organs.

Scarce information

The few reports written about these peoples show sometimes pictures of objects found in the area where they were sighted. Oral reports generally are made by other Indians or 'whites' from the region, who recount fortuitous encounters or simply reproduce information given by others about the existence of such groups.

It was through oral reports, for instance, that most of the information known about the Hi-Merimã, who live the region of the mid-Piranha River, between the Juruá and the Purus rivers, in the State of Amazonas, was obtained. In 1943, this Indian group, which became known for their conflicts with neighboring populations, was estimated as having more than 1,000 individuals. No one knows how many they are today: the Hi-Merimã rejected any contact with the encroaching society, and even with other Indians, with whom they maintain, even today, hostile relations.

Isolated or contacted?

The idea that there are Indians who were capable of keeping themselves in isolation since the arrival of the Portuguese, and thus that there are societies that were unaffected by all the changes that took place in Brazil since then, is misleading. Even the groups that are considered 'isolated' have often had longtime relationships with segments of national society, as the case of the Hi-Merimã, who have had some kind of contact with non-Indians for at least sixty years, illustrates.

Isolation represents, in many cases, an option made by the group. It may be based upon its relationship with other groups, on the history of the attraction fronts in the region where they live and also on the existence of geographic conditions that make isolation possible. The big news for the 'isolated' Indians, therefore, refers to regular contact with others, especially with Funai.

Contacted and protected groups

Newly contacted indigenous groups fell under the protection of FUNAI, but the latter lacked a specific policy for these peoples, who ended up exposed to epidemics and land invasions, as well as the numerous problems brought by contact and sedentarization. Following an evaluation of the vulnerable situation experienced by these recently contacted groups, CGII began to provide special assistance to the Kanoê (four people) and Akuntsu (6 people) of Rondônia, contacted more than 10 years ago, as well as the Zo'é in Pará and a small Korubo group located in the Javari Valley (Amazonas).

The Zo'é, a Tupi-Guarani group located in the Cuminapanema river basin (PA), were contacted by FUNAI in 1989. However they had already maintained relations with Protestant missionaries since 1982.

The Korubo became famous in the media when a section of their population was contacted in 1996 by a FUNAI-organized expedition coordinated by the sertanista (explorer) Sydney Possuelo and accompanied by reporters from National Geographic magazine, who transmitted the event live and online to the entire world. Known as 'warclub Indians' because of their non-use of bows, the Korubo decades ago had engaged in a low-level war with the regional population, despite the numerous attempts to make peaceful contact with them. Part of the group was contacted and today numbers 25 people, having separated from the original group which remains in constant flight.

Recently Contacted Indigenous Groups Coordination Team: not implemented

The Recently Contacted Indigenous Groups Coordination Team, subordinated to FUNAI's Directorate of Assistance and coordinated by anthropologist Artur Nobre Mendes, previously director of the Directorate of Land Matters/FUNAI, was created in July 2006 with the objective of "protecting indigenous groups and peoples contacted in the recent past and who live in a relative state of political-cultural autonomy and, at the same time, without full awareness of the dominant social forces that surround them."

The text outlining the need for this specific coordination team classifies 'recently contacted' those indigenous groups that established permanent contacts with Brazilian national society after the creation of FUNAI in 1967. It also explains that the numerous contacts undertaken in the 1970s and early to mid 1980s occurred in situations of extreme vulnerability for these groups due to the pressure from the country's expanding economic frontiers. Without specific policies for these populations, the vulnerability continued as these groups failed to gain much headway within FUNAI compared to other, better organized Indians.

Various factors contributed to this. In almost all the government programs directed towards indigenous peoples, the mechanisms for consulting the latter generally involve the formation of councils and the organization of seminars and hearings without the reality of these Indians being taken into account. The fact that most of the groups are monolingual and unaware of the codes and mechanisms for taking part makes the presence of these Indians in the consultations merely decorative, or involves the participation of their younger generation, the only people who speak Portuguese, but have less influence in the group's internal political composition. In other cases they are 'represented' by Indians who they do not know or to whom they never conferred any power of representation. Another negative factor were the public policies of social inclusion that failed to take into account the impacts of these policies on culturally semi-isolated communities.

The Coordination Team intended to develop and implement a Protection Policy for Recently Contacted Indigenous Peoples, proposing methodologies for consulting them in an appropriate way, as well as internal training mechanisms for FUNAI staff working with them. It also intended to stimulate scientific research among these peoples and coordinate assessments with other government agencies prior to the implementation of any universal public policies relating to these groups, as well as create mechanisms for periodical assessment of the living conditions of these peoples.== International alliance to protect isolated indigenous peoples ==

In November 2005 the First International Gathering on Isolated Indigenous Peoples living in Amazonia and the Gran Chaco was held in Belém (Pará), organized by the Isolated Peoples General Coordination Team/FUNAI (CGII) and by the Indigenist Work Centre (CTI). More than seventy people took part. As well as representatives from Brazil, the event was attended by delegations from Peru, Colombia, Ecuador, Bolivia and Paraguay - whose cases were presented and discussed with participants representing 36 institutions - and countries such as Norway, the United States, Great Britain, Spain, France and New Zealand.

As an outcome of the presentations, cases analyses and suggestions, a final document was produced demanding that the governments of countries possessing isolated indigenous groups take measures to protect their habitats and rights and to respect their decision to avoid contact with official agencies if they so wish.

The indigenist Sydney Possuelo - coordinator of CGII at the time - reaffirmed his policy of only contacting isolated groups in cases of grave risk, emphasizing the need to respect the autonomy and isolation of these peoples. To justify this policy, Possuelo provided a general assessment of the situation of various peoples who were contacted and today find themselves in extremely difficult situations with their future seriously under threat.

Isolated groups: background

Where are the isolated groups?

Emerging identities

In the past few years, the number of populations that demand publicly and officially their condition of Indigenous has been on the rise in Brazil. The demands usually come from families which, miscegenated and territorially plundered, dislocated and concentrated along the years, have re-encountered today political and historical contexts favorable to the rescue of Indigenous collective identities (a people, a name).

This process, of course, is not exclusive of Brazil; similar cases take place in other contemporary national States, such as Bolivia and India. In our country, this has been happening in recent decades, when regional histories began to be re-studied, Indigenous rights started to become more widely recognized and respected, and the organizations of support of the Indians were consolidated.

Researchers use various expressions to refer to this phenomenon: 'emerging identities', 'emerging Indians', 'ethnogenesis', 'return trip', 'revived Indian communities'. Three elements can be pointed out as characteristic of it:

(1) it almost always appears in connection with territorial disputes;

(2) it usually results from complex regional historical processes of relationship between Indians and non-Indians; and

(3) the peoples who adopt these identities show very little differentiation vis-à-vis the non-Indigenous populations of the regions where they live (both in cultural and 'physical appearance' terms).

For these reasons, this is a complex and controversial subject. Often it leads to a posture that is the result of ignorance, prejudice and/or dispute for the possession of land: 'these guys say they are Indians but they are not'.

Understanding the phenomenon

When talking of 'emerging identities', the idea that confers sense and legitimacy to the Indigenous condition in Brazil (pre-Columbian origin) is a bit more complicated than what we usually think. The identities of these peoples are based on proven memories and stories that do not go so far as the early colonial times, but rather to more recent contexts.

In the majority of cases, even the names these peoples use today as an indication of their difference vis-à-vis the non-Indigenous regional population are not found in the written documents left by the first colonial travelers and chroniclers. Such names, as well as the genealogical chains (identified ancestors who link the present with the past) and the myths of creation, frequently go back only to historical situations that took place after the so-called 'first contacts'.

Such is the case of the missionary settlements of the States of Northeastern Brazil, where, between the end of the 17th Century and the beginning of the 18th, families of natives of different languages and cultures were put together and, through indoctrination and work discipline, were subjected to homogenization.

When demanding the condition of Indigenous based upon such contexts, present-day collectivities are recalling certain striking - and, up to a certain point, contradictory - characteristics of the history of colonization: practices that, on one hand, were aimed at preserving the Indians by concentrating them territorially, and, on the other, at assimilating them into a national society that was being formed.

Even when the historical result of those practices was a great 'mix' (genealogical and cultural, among Indians of various traditions and between Indians and non-Indians), complete assimilation has not been reached.

The development of colonial practices towards the Indians is something contradictory and still unfinished: if it caused demographic reduction and the extinction of entire Indigenous peoples, it also resulted in the formation of new ones. When and how the memory of those other collective identities will appear publicly is something that depends on the particular characteristics of historical and political contexts, both regional and national, very much linked to land questions in the country.

The best known cases of such demands are taking place in the States of Northeastern Brazil. But there are others in other parts of the country as well. In 2000 alone, Cimi (Conselho Indigenista Missionário - Missionary Indian Council), an organization for the support of Indians that belongs to the Catholic Church, registered the following new cases:

In the Serra do Divisor National Park, State of Acre, the Náua people; In the region of the Upper Tapajós River (State of Pará), the Tupinambá, Maitapu, Apium and a Munduruku group unknown until then;

In Minas Gerais, the Kaxixó, in the region of Martinho Campos and Pompeu, and the Aranã, in the Jequitinhonha River Valley;

In Bahia, another Tupinambá community, in the municipality of Olivença, and the Tumbalalá, in Abaré and Curaçá;

In Alagoas, the Kalankó, in the municipality of Pariconha, and the Karuazu, in Água Branca; In Pernambuco, municipality of Ibimirim, the Pipipã.

Indigenous ethnogeneses, by José Maurício Arruti

External links

Around the world

In order to know more about Indigenous-related subjects on the international level, ISA recommends access to the following sites:

IWGIA (International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs) - In English and Spanish, it disseminates information and its own publications on the defense of the interests of Indigenous peoples around the world.

Cultural Survival - Information on its activities and publications on the defense of Indigenous peoples from various regions.

Abya Yala Net - Information in English about the Indigenous peoples who live in Latin America. Links with sites from different parts of the planet.

Página do Melatti - Melatti's Page (In Portuguese) - Part of the studies, and a complete course about South American peoples, made by the Brazilian anthropologist Julio Cezar Melatti, from the University of Brasília.

Native Americans - Native Americans Starting point for the search of information about North American Indigenous peoples. Many links.

AIATSIS (Australian Institute of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Studies) - In English. Information and links about Indigenous peoples in Australia.

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Photos: various authors, see here Brazil turned 500 in 2000 and still ignores the immense diversity of the Indigenous peoples living in its territory. It is estimated that, at the time the Europeans first arrived, there were more than 1,000 denominations, with a total of between 2 and 4 million people.

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READ: Colonial Violence (article) | Khan Academy

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The name Mughal or Moghul is a corruption of the Persian word for Mongol, the Central Asian tribe after whom Mongolia is named.

The Mughals originated in Central Asia, and were descended from the Mongol ruler Jenghiz Khan and Timur (Tamburlaine), the great conqueror of Asia. They were immensely proud of their pedigree, and it was the memory of Timur's raids on India in the fourteenth century that spurred Babur on to invade.

The great cities built by the Mughal emperors at Delhi, Agra and Lahore still retain something of the magnificence that was associated with the Mughal dynasty during the seventeenth century.

'The Great Mughals'

The major Mughal emperors were:

Babur (r. 1526-30)

Humayun (r. 1530-56)

Akbar (r. 1556-1605)

Jahangir (r. 1605-27)

Shah Jahan (r. 1627-58)

Aurangzeb (r. 1658-1707)

Babur, the first Mughal emperor, was born in present-day Uzbekistan, and became ruler of Kabul in Afghanistan. From there, he invaded the kingdom of the Lodi Afghans in northern India in 1526 and established a dynasty that was to rule for three centuries. Babur was a modest and down-to-earth man whose memoirs, the Baburnama, make fascinating reading.

Babur is not known to have patronised the arts, except for architecture. His son Humayun, however, is credited with bringing artists from Iran to set up the first Mughal painting studio.

Humayun's successor, Akbar , was actively interested in painting, and enthusiastically set up studios whichemployed mostly local Hindu artists. Mughal painting soon began to evolve in a distinctive way that combined the sophisticated techniques of the Persian artists with the boldness and colour characteristic of the local Indian artists.

Akbar was perhaps the greatest of the 'Great Mughals'. He vastly increased Mughal territory in all directions, capturing the Muslim kingdom of Bengal in the East, and Gujarat and the Rajput kingdoms in the West, as well as much of present-day Afghanistan and important territories to the South.

The defeat of the fiercely independent Hindu rajas, the kings of Rajasthan, was one of Akbar's main preoccupations. Paintings from the illustrated history of his reign - the Akbarnama - show battles, sieges and surrenders. Akbar's son Jahangir was less interested in further extending Mughal territory, and instead gloried in the luxury and riches that the great empire provided.

A true connoisseur of paintings and gems, and a great lover of nature, Jahangir commissioned many of the most beautiful miniatures and precious objects to have been produced in the royal workshops. Paintings no longer showed the glories of war and conquest that Akbar had revelled in, but instead focused on animals, birds and scenes of the leisurely life at court.

Magnificent paintings and works of art were also made for the next emperor, Shah Jahan, who is perhaps best known for building the exquisite Taj Mahal at Agra - a jewelled white marble tomb for his wife, who had died giving birth to their fourteenth child. His love of jewels and jade is well known, and several pieces from his collection are on show, including his magnificent white jade wine cup carved with a goat's head.

Shah Jahan was deposed and imprisoned by his ruthless son Aurangzeb. Aurangzeb was not interested in the arts but in further conquest, and he spent huge sums on military campaigns in the South. Painting and the decorative arts declined under his puritanical and impoverished regime, and many artists left the court and found work with provincial rulers instead.

Emperors after Aurangzeb became more and more ineffectual, and the empire was weakened first by rebel Hindu princes and then by the British, who were becoming increasingly powerful. The Mughal empire survived in name only until 1858, when the British formally abolished the title of Emperor.

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The Mughals originated in Central Asia, and were descended from the Mongol ruler Jenghiz Khan and Timur (Tamburlaine), the great conqueror of Asia. They were immensely proud of their pedigree, and it was the memory of Timur's raids on India in the fourteenth century that spurred Babur on to invade.

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Baka pygmies: the fight for survival of a threatened people

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By Eleanor Huang | chinadaily.com.cn | Updated: 2020-07-22 16:32

Looking back at a year of social unrest, the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow think tank said Hong Kong suffers from the dark legacy of a past under British rule: an identity crisis that causes many to think of oppression as freedom.

Chandran Nair, born in Malaysia but who later lived in South Africa for a while and now is a permanent resident of Hong Kong, said that colonized people inevitably learn to feel inferior to their colonial masters. This is because of Western ideas and Western modernization, he said. "It's television. It's books. It's Google. It is Hollywood. It's Prada. It's the newspapers. You read all of these things," he said.

It takes decades for colonized people to rediscover their identity. Many people in Hong Kong "thought they were British." Decolonization is not just a political process, but an intellectual process as well, he added.

He described finding it "so odd" to go on the streets last year and see young people waving flags of the United Kingdom and the United States. He would approach them and explain that those flags they were carrying were symbols of oppression.

"And the irony of ironies is that young Hong Kong people were going to two of the most discriminative international leaders in the Western world, (US President) Donald Trump and (UK Prime Minister) Boris Johnson, to ask for the freedom of Hong Kong. You can't make this up. One of the most racist, white supremacist presidents as an ally of the so-called freedom fighters of Hong Kong.

"So as a freedom fighter myself who was involved in some stuff in Africa, I find this incredible. I don't know how to support it."

He explained that when people spend decades, even centuries, under colonial rule, they become distrustful of their own government. Success, glamor, beauty, education, all those images - all of "white men", he said.

Hong Kong people were misled into thinking that their "father" is a British man, Nair said. He added that the problem was that when the British government left in 1997, the UK told Hong Kong people that they were going to be adopted by an untrustworthy Chinese parent, which has essentially undermined local residents' confidence in the central government.

This is the essence of ex-colonial people, he added. "Including the former governor of Hong Kong, they think we cannot govern ourselves," Nair said, apparently referring to Chris Patten. "The Chinese can't. Only they can."

"Colonization basically colonizes minds. It is the idea that the Western modernization is better than you," Nair said. "That's really when Hong Kong was caught up. Hong Kong people have to begin to have their identity."

In addition to encouraging Hong Kong young people to begin their quests for self-identity, Nair also urged them to understand the true history and context of democracy, instead of using it as a cliche to bash government officials.

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The city must understand the ugly truth behind British colonialism

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Looking back at a year of social unrest, the founder and CEO of the Global Institute for Tomorrow think tank said Hong Kong suffers from the dark legacy of a past under British rule: an identity crisis that causes many to think of oppression as freedom.

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Written on . Posted in South Africa

South Africa's total population is estimated at around 50 million people, and Indigenous groups make up approximately 1% of this figure. Collectively, the various African Indigenous communities in South Africa are known as the Khoe-San/Khoisan, comprised of the San and the Khoekhoe/Khoi-Khoi. The main San groups include the Khomani San who mainly reside in the Kalahari region, and the Khwe and Xun mainly in Platfontein, Kimberley.

The main Khoi-Khoi groups consist of the following: the Nama who live primarily in the Northern Cape Province; the Koranna who live mainly in the Kimberley Free State province and some parts of Western Cape; the Griqua in the Western Cape, Eastern Cape, Northern Cape, Free State and KwaZulu-Natal provinces; and the Cape Khoekhoe in the Western Cape and Eastern Cape, with growing pockets in the Gauteng and Free State provinces. In contemporary South Africa, Khoikhoi and San communities are engaged in a range of unique socio-economic and cultural lifestyles and practices.

The socio-political changes brought about by the current South African regime have begun deconstructing the racial categories of the Apartheid system. Previously, many members of the Khoikhoi and San communities were classified as "Coloured", a misnomer that grouped together multiracial ethnic groups. Many "Coloured" people are now exercising their right to self-identification by identifying themselves as San and Khoi-Khoi or Khoe-San. Self-identification amongst Indigenous groups is a right entrenched in Article 33 of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (UNDRIP), which South Africa is in favour of adopting. However, the country has yet to ratify the Indigenous and Tribal Peoples Convention, 1989 (ILO Convention No. 169), which is the major binding international convention concerning Indigenous and tribal peoples and was a precursor to the UNDRIP.

Climate change

Indigenous and vulnerable communities are and will continue to be most affected by the climatic and ecological crises that await South Africa and the world. South Africa's Second National Climate Change Report of 2016 reported that the country is especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change. Water is the primary medium through which the impacts of climate change are felt in South Africa according to the National Water Resource Strategy (Department of Water Affairs, 2013). Increases in climate variability and climatic extremes are impacting both water quality and water availability through changes in rainfall patterns, with more intense storms, floods and droughts; changes in soil moisture and runoff; and the effects of increasing evaporation and changing temperatures on aquatic systems. South Africa has been experiencing a serious drought since 2015, with associated crop losses, water restrictions and impacts on food and water security. Curbing climate change while simultaneously responding to the unavoidable impacts of greenhouse gas emissions, requires substantial and sustained reductions in emissions which, together with climate adaptation, is the only way to limit climate change risks. ¹

The Kalahari Desert: Crying for water
One South African Indigenous community feeling the effects of climate change, is the San from the Southern Kalahari in the Northern Cape. It is currently the home of members of the Khomani Communal Property Association, a group of Saa (or San) people that received back a small portion of land during 1999. It was land that their ancestors were dispossessed of during colonial times. Only three years after the land was awarded back to the people, however, it was placed under government administration. This process involved them registering their communal land under the Communal Land Association with very complicated and technical governance systems. These administrative systems were out of sync with how these communities' priorities were. This process result Not only do they face issues like police brutality, but they are also subject to huge environmental changes. Their livestock is their only form of income and their main source of food, and this is being depleted by droughts and desertification. While there is an outcry to support commercial farmers in South Africa, who are struggling because of the droughts, the small-scale subsistence farmers are forgotten. Water is a constitutional right for all in South Africa but is a resource that is withheld from the community. A water pipe providing fresh water all the way from the Orange River runs right through the land of the Khomani Communal Property Association but does not provide water to the people who are in desperate need of the resource. - Reflection from San Youth from Kalahari, Ivan Vaalbooi.² ed in their communal land being under court administrative status and in the San community not being able to exercise true self-governance of their ancestral land. Rather, the court appointed an administrator to make those self-governance decisions, and these foreign governance processes imposed on the people did not work. Today they live on a small portion of land due to land demarcation disputes not being resolved and they continue to face daily exploitation and harassment by police forces.
Khoikhoi and San conclude historic benefit-sharing agreement with the South African rooibos industry

On 1 November 2019, following nine years of negotiations and advocacy, the world's first industry-wide benefit-sharing agreement was launched in South Africa between the Khoikhoi and San, and the South African Rooibos industry.

This agreement legally originates from the Nagoya Protocol, an international supplementary agreement to the UN Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). Article 1 sets out that one of the fundamental objectives of ABS is the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the use of Indigenous biological resources as well as the use of communities' traditional knowledge. A central feature of this agreement incorporates free, prior, and informed consent for access to their traditional knowledge.

Throughout 2014, in the course of negotiations, the South African government commissioned an independent study that concluded there was no evidence to dispute the claim by these communities since the Khoikhoi and the San are the traditional knowledge holders to the uses of Rooibos. As a result, the Khoikhoi and San people were able to get recognition as traditional knowledge holders to the uses of Rooibos. The report based its conclusion on the fact that the areas where Rooibos is found are the areas in which the Khoikhoi and San historically lived. ³ The National Khoi & San Council represented the interests of some

30 Indigenous communities, inclusive of the Rooibos Indigenous farming communities. The South African San Council represented the four San communities from South Africa.

The agreement recognises the Khoikhoi and San peoples as the traditional knowledge holders to the uses of Rooibos, an Indigenous plant species found only in the Cederberg region of South Africa. The agreement is the basis from which the Khoikhoi and San communities of South Africa will have access to benefits as a percentage contribution from the commercialisation of Rooibos by the South African Rooibos industry.
Our dignity is being restored in the land of our forefathers by recognising our Khoikhoi ancient traditional knowledge on rooibos. Our people are happy and our land healed. - Stanley Peterson, National Khoi & San Counci, negotiator in the Rooibos case.⁵
After an extensive process of negotiations, the agreement was finally concluded on 25 May 2019 and launched in November 2019. ⁴

Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act 3 of 2019

On 28 November 2019, President Cyril Ramaphosa signed into law the Traditional and Khoi-San Leadership Act 3 of 2019 (TKLA). This legislation recognises both traditional and Khoi-San communities; their leadership positions and any withdrawal of such recognition; regulatory powers of the Minister and Premiers; provisions for transitional arrangements; powers to amend certain acts; provisions for the repeal of legislation; and any other matters connected therewith. ⁶

The TKLA is a key beginning for most of the Khoikhoi and San communities, offering a first form of legislative recognition and inclusion by the state. This law is a long-awaited piece of legislation for the majority of Khoikhoi and San communities as it is a first form of recognition bringing them on par with other cultural communities in South Africa. The Khoikhoi and San communities view it is an opportunity for their communities to also be formally recorded and recognised as existing in South Africa. Practically, it means they now also enjoy some form of access to justice by being able to participate formally in different spheres of government. They also see it as a key entry point for starting the discussion around their land and language struggles. It has been a long-awaited piece of legislation for the Khoikhoi and San who have been in negotiations with the South African government for the last 20plus years for constitutional recognition as Indigenous communities living in South Africa with historical connections to language, culture and environment. ⁷

Whilst the Khoikhoi and San Indigenous communities hold these ideals through the proclamation of the TKLA, there is a movement of activists within the non-governmental community opposing the commencement of this law because of its potential impact on previously recognised communal land communities.

Conclusion

The Khoikhoi and San communities have important challenges to contend with as they are not formally included as an Indigenous cultural community in South Africa, and their Indigenous languages are not recognised as official languages in South Africa. A moratorium was placed on all land claims post-1998 until the first land claims (pre-1998) are resolved, a process that will take over three generations to finalise before the Khoikhoi and San can claim land back. There is now an organised civil society movement planning to challenge the TKLA before the court, even though this law was potentially the Khoikhoi's and San's key opportunity for some form of inclusion as part of the state apparatus and them having access to justice. It was accepted by the National Khoisan Council that the law was not perfect, but it was a start for the only communities left outside of South Africa's constitutional system. What complicates matters even more is that the world is facing its biggest climate and ecological crises unfolding soon. How are they and other marginalised communities in South Africa going to adapt and enforce their rights under these circumstances?

Notes and references

1. Department of Environmental Affairs: Climate Change and Air Quality Branch: South Africa's 2nd Annual Climate Change Report (2016)

2. Interview with Ivan Vaalbooi from the Kalahari

3. Ibid

4. Department of Environmental Affairs: Rooibos benefit sharing agreement rights a wrong for the Khoi and San communities of South Africa, says Creecy. https://www.environment.gov.za/mediarelease/creecy_ rooibosindustrywidebenefitsharing2019 (2019)

Natural Justice: The Rooibos Access and Benefit Sharing Agreement. https://naturaljustice.org/the-rooibos-access-and-benefit-sharing-agreement/ (November 2019)

Traditional and Khoisan Leadership Act 2019 (http://pmg-assets.s3-website-eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/act-no-2-of-2019-traditional-lead-ership-and- governance-framework-amendment-act-2019_20191128-GGN-42867-01552. pdf) 28 November 2019
Lesle Jansen (LLM, LLM) This article is part of the 34th edition of the The Indigenous World, a yearly overview produced by IWGIA that serves to document and report on the developments Indigenous Peoples have experienced. Find The Indigenous World 2020 in full here is an African Indigenous lawyer from South Africa. She is an Indigenous expert member of the Working Group on Indigenous Populations/Communities in Africa of the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights and is currently working with a team of environmental lawyers called Natural Justice. Lesle is based in Cape Town. Email: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
Cape Argus: 'Shock at the Khoi-San bill' https://www.pressreader.com/south africa/cape-argus/20191203/281603832330262

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South Africa's total population is estimated at around 50 million people, and Indigenous groups make up approximately 1% of this figure. Collectively, the various African Indigenous communities in South Africa are known as the Khoe-San/Khoisan, comprised of the San and the Khoekhoe/Khoi-Khoi.

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November 2003

"All the new nations faced severe problems, for political independence did not automatically bring them prosperity and happiness...they were seldom free of external influences. They were still bound to...structures developed earlier by the colonial powers." -- Thomas H. Greer. From A Brief History of the Western World, 5th edition. San Diego, CA: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich Publishers, 1987, p. 536-37.

Around the world today, intractable conflict is found in many areas that were once colonized or controlled by Western European or Soviet powers (i.e., Africa, the Balkans, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, South America). The source of many of these protracted conflicts, in large part, lies in past colonial or Soviet policies, and especially those regarding territorial boundaries, the treatment of indigenous populations, the privileging of some groups over others, the uneven distribution of wealth, local governmental infrastructures, and the formation of non-democratic or non-participatory governmental systems. It is therefore essential, if one wants to understand intractable conflict and its causes, to examine not only the issues and problems of the moment, but also influential historical factors -- most notably, past colonial and Soviet policies -- and their lingering effects.

Colonial and Soviet Expansionism

Western colonial expansion began during the 15th century when Spanish and Portuguese explorers conquered "new" lands in the West Indies and the Americas. It continued for over 400 years, and ended with the start of the first World War. By that time western powers such as Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium, Portugal and Spain, spurred on by their competitive desire to acquire new lands and resources, had colonized the whole of Africa and the areas that we know today as the Americas, Oceania, Australia, New Zealand, the Caribbean, the Middle East, and many parts of Asia.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) likewise embarked on an expansionist period that took place during the first half of the 20th century. By mid-century, due to lands gained through an aggressive expansionist policy and through post-World War II treaties, the Soviet Empire gained control of all of Russia and most of Central Asia and Eastern Europe.

Onaje Mu'id, MSW and CASAC (Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor) with the Practioners Research and Scholarship Institute (PRASI), describes the need for some sort of reconciliation amongst the nations or races of the world, but the question relates to ripeness.

During these periods of expansion, Western European and Soviet powers formed new colonial multiethnic provinces (e.g., Rhodesia, French Indonesia, German East Africa) and satellite states (e.g., Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia). They did so with little regard for the people living in the newly controlled areas, or for existing geographic or cultural boundaries. Populations that had previously identified themselves as distinct, based on their cultural, ethnic, and/or religious heritage, were forced to unify under a single national identity. The new multiethnic colonial territories and Soviet states were maintained, upheld, and controlled through the use of violence, and through the implementation of imperialist policies. Certain populations were denied their political, economic, social, and human rights. Imperialist policies promoted ethnic rivalry by favoring one group above the others, distributed resources in an unequal manner, disallowed democratic governments, and prohibited local participation in governmental decisions and actions.

Issues Affecting Postcolonial and Post-Soviet States

By the 1960s, after years of fighting for independence, most Western colonial territories (e.g., India, Indonesia, Algeria) had gained self-rule. Sovereignty, however, did not bring with it freedom from imperialist influences. Colonial legacies were visible in the desire of the new governments to keep the boundaries that were created during colonial times, in the promotion of ethnic rivalry, in the continuation of inhumane and unjust actions against minority populations, and in the practice of distributing the country's resources in an uneven manner. Also, after being under foreign rule for decades, newly independent governments often lacked governmental institutions, good governance skills, and the governing experience needed to effectively rule their newly sovereign nations. In most cases, the transition from colonial province to independent state was a violent and arduous journey.

Many post-Soviet states (e.g., Azerbaijan, Chechnya, Georgia) experienced similar problems. After the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, conflicts involving borders, ethnic rivalry, human-rights violations, and the uneven distribution of resources raged through former Soviet regions (e.g., the Balkans, the Caucasus, and Eastern Europe). In addition, many post-Soviet governments were plagued by a lack of governmental institutions, good governance skills, and governmental experience.

Issues of particular importance included:

Boundaries

"Over a hundred new nations were born during the process of de-colonization. Most of these new nations, however, ... had not existed at all as nations before colonization, or they had not existed within the post-colonial borders."[1]

Most colonial and Soviet satellite borders were created either through conquest, negotiation between empires, or simply by administrative action,[2] with little or no regard for the social realities of those living in the areas.[3] Nevertheless, many of the leaders and governments of postcolonial and post-Soviet states have fought to keep the territorial boundaries created by past imperialist governments. As a result, a number of boundary conflicts have arisen within post-colonial and post-Soviet territories. Parties to these conflicts justify and legitimate their side's position, using different historical boundaries as evidence for their claims. For example, the Libya-Chad conflict involves a dispute over 114,000 square kilometers of territory, known as the Aouzou Strip.[4] Libya justifies its claims to this territory based on ancient historical boundaries, while Chad justifies its stance based on boundaries established during the colonial period.

Onaje Mu'id, MSW and CASAC (Credentialed Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Counselor) with the Practioners Research and Scholarship Institute (PRASI), calls for a plebiscite to determine the relationship people of African descent should have with the USA.

Ethnic Rivalry/Group Status

Colonial and Soviet powers often created situations that encouraged ethnic rivalry. For example, when the Soviets took control of the Ferghana Valley in Central Asia, they created boundaries that separated members of the same ethnic group (i.e. the Tajiks) into different multiethnic regions. "This enabled the Soviet authorities to continuously be called upon by the people of the region to help them manage conflicts that were bound to emerge as a result of these artificial divisions."[5] European and Soviet imperialists also sometimes favored one ethnic or religious group over other groups in the region. This practice of favoring one group, or of giving one group a higher status in colonial society, created and promoted inter-group rivalries.

The conflict between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots has its roots in ethnic rivalry encouraged during British colonial rule. During this time, Turkish and Greek populations were often played against one another as a means of maintaining control on the island. For example, as Greek Cypriots pushed for self-rule, the British encouraged Turkish Cypriots to actively oppose them. By the time the British pulled out of Cyprus in 1960, they had helped cleave deep divisions between the Greek and Turkish populations. The new independent nation, equally ruled by Greeks and Turks, soon was embroiled in ethnic conflict. Greek Cypriots wanted the entire island to become part of Greece, while Turkish Cypriots wanted the northern part of the island to become an independent Turkish state. Consequently, hostilities between the two groups escalated to the point of violence. Decades later, ethnic rivalries that were encouraged during British rule, continue to impact the people of Cyprus as violence between Greeks and Turks continues to periodical erupt on the island state.

Unequal Distribution of Resources

The practice of favoring one ethnic, religious, racial, or other cultural group over others in colonial society, or of giving them a higher status, helped to promote inter-group rivalries, and often contributed to the unequal distribution of resources. Favored or privileged groups had access to, or control of, important resources that allowed them to enrich their members, at the expense of nonmembers. For example, under Soviet rule the elite of the northern province of Leninabad (now the province of Sugd in Tajikistan) were given almost exclusive access to governmental positions. As a result of their control of governmental policies, they sent a disproportionate share of the country's development and industry to this northern sector. The consequence of this action was that by 1992, over half of the country's wealth had been distributed to this one province.[6]

Today, many post-colonial and post-Soviet states continue the practice of favoring one group over others, whether it be a minority European settler population (as in South Africa), a minority European alliance group (e.g., Lebanon, Syria, Rwanda, Burundi) or an internal ethnic group (e.g., India).[7] As a result, we see numerous conflicts being caused in part, by dominant groups enacting and enforcing governmental, economic, political, and other social policies that distribute resources unequally among their nation's members.

Sri Lanka is an example of how the unequal distribution of wealth during colonial times, continues to affect ethnic relations today. Under colonial rule, Tamils, because of their higher rate of English-language skills, had easier access to higher education than did the Sinhalese. The better educated Tamil, thus dominated governmental and academic jobs, especially in the fields of medicine, science, and engineering. After independence, the Sinhalese majority implemented changes in the state's university admission policy that gave them an advantage in gaining access to higher education, specifically to science admissions. This policy resulted in a marked increase of Sinhalese working in the fields of medicine, science, and engineering, and a clear decline of Tamils. Today, as the admission policy to higher education is more equitable than in the past, the animosity created by first, colonial, and then post-colonial policies that promoted unequal access to education and thus, jobs, continues to breed distrust and conflict in the region.

Mohammed Abu-Nimer discusses the suspicion Muslims have about Northern and Western peacebuilders, which derives from colonization and occupation.

Human Rights

The status, privilege, and wealth of colonial and Soviet ruling populations were often maintained and upheld through the use of policies that violated the human rights of those living in the colonized areas. Unjust policies subjected colonized populations to the loss of their lands, resources, cultural or religious identities, and sometimes even their lives. Examples of these brutal policies include slavery (e.g., British-controlled West Indies), apartheid (e.g., South Africa), and mass murder (e.g., the Incas of Peru, Aborigines of Australia, Hungarians after the 1956 uprising).

Today, many post-colonial and post-Soviet governments have adopted unjust colonial practices and policies as a means to preserve their dominant status. Rights with regards to traditional lands, resources, and cultural language are denied to many populations, as groups that were marginalized under colonial occupation continue to be marginalized under postcolonial governments, most notably indigenous populations such as in the state of Chiapas, Mexico, the Ashaninka of Peru, and the indigenous peoples of West Papua. Human-rights violations, including horrific events of mass murder and genocide, can be found in postcolonial and post-Soviet states such as Cambodia, Rwanda, Kosovo, El Salvador, and South Africa.

Lack of Governmental Institutions, Skills, and Experience

For the most part, colonial and Soviet satellite societies were repressive and undemocratic in nature. Domestic governmental systems and structures were controlled and operated either from abroad or by a select domestic, privileged group. Consequently, when liberation came, these states lacked the internal structures, institutions, and 1egalitarian way of thinking needed to create good governance systems. The result is that many postcolonial and post-Soviet states, although independent, are still ruled by repressive and restrictive regimes. For example, Melber (2002) states, "(t)he social transformation processes in Zimbabwe, Namibia, and South Africa can at best be characterized as a transition from controlled change to changed control."[8]

Conclusion

Intractable conflicts are found in many areas that were once colonized or controlled by Western European or Soviet powers such as Africa, the Balkans, and Southeast Asia. Most of these conflicts such as the one in Kashmir, Chechnya, and Cyprus are large and complex, and involve multiple issues ranging from human rights to good governance. Imperialist practices and policies, especially those concerning boundaries, ethnic rivalry, the uneven distribution of resources, human-rights violations, and lack of good governance can be found at the heart of protracted problems. For this reason, it is vital that those wishing to transform or resolve protracted conflict, acknowledge the past, and take into account the effects past imperialist policies continue to have on today's post-colonial and post-Soviet societies.

[1] Mark N. Katz. "Collapsed Empires." In Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Olser Hampson and Pamela Aall, 25-37. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1996, p. 29.

[2] Mark N. Katz. "Collapsed Empires." In Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Olser Hampson and Pamela Aall, 25-37. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1996.

[3] Mark N. Katz. "Collapsed Empires." In Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Olser Hampson and Pamela Aall, 25-37. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1996.

[4] Posthumus, Bram. Chad and Libya : Good Neighbors, Enemies, Brothers - But Never Trusting Friends. Click here for document.

[5] Randa M.Slim "The Ferghana Valley: In the Midst of a Host of Crises." In Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities, eds. Monique Mekenkamp, Paul van Tongeren, and Hans van de Veen, p. 141-142

[6] John Schoeberlein, "Bones of Contention: Conflicts over Resources." In Searching for Peace in Central and South Asia: An Overview of Conflict Prevention and Peacebuilding Activities, eds. Monique Mekenkamp, Paul van Tongeren, and Hans van de Veen, p. 88.

[7] Mark N. Katz, "Collapsed Empires." In Managing Global Chaos: Sources of and Responses to International Conflict, ed. Chester A. Crocker, Fen Olser Hampson and Pamela Aall, 25-37. Washington, D.C.: United States Institute of Peace, 1996.

[8] Henning Melber, "Liberation without Democracy? Flaws of Post-Colonial Systems in Southern Africa" http://www.dse.de/zeitschr/de102-7.htm 2002.

Use the following to cite this article:
Marker, Sandra. "Effects of Colonization." Beyond Intractability. Eds. Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess. Conflict Information Consortium, University of Colorado, Boulder. Posted: November 2003 < http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/post-colonial>.

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By Sandra Marker November 2003 "All the new nations faced severe problems, for political independence did not automatically bring them prosperity and happiness...they were seldom free of external influences. They were still bound to...structures developed earlier by the colonial powers." --Thomas H. Greer. From A Brief History of the Western World, 5th edition.

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, Post Primary Teacher (English and Geography)

Published on

Leaving Certificate Geography: Higher and Ordinary Level
Economic Elective
Colonialism in Brazil - Impacts

1. 1. Case Study - Brazil: The impact of colonialism on a developing economy

2. 2. Case Study: We will study how Brazil, a country in the developing world, has: (a)been impacted by colonialism. (b)adjusted to the global economy since independence.

3. 3. Colonialism in Brazil * In 1500, Portuguese explorer Pedro Alvaras Cabral was the first person to discover Brazil. Brazil then became colonised by Portuguese settlers. * Slavery fueled the Brazilian economy and was essential in their sugar cane production and mining. * Brazil remained a colony of Portugal until 1822 when Brazil declared it's independence from Portugal.

4. 4. Colonialism delayed economic development During colonialism all profits from the export of Brazil's natural resources went to Portugal. Brazil was unable to develop its own industries while it was colonised so the economic development of Brazil was hindered.

5. 5. Colonialism affected exports * During colonialism Brazil's main exports were timber, sugar cane and coffee beans. * After independence, Brazil remained dependent on the export of unprocessed raw materials for its wealth which meant that its manufacturing and service industries were underdeveloped.

6. 6. Colonialism affected trading partners * Colonialism badly affected the pattern of trade in Brazil. While it was a Portuguese colony most of its exports went to just three main markets: Portugal, other European countries and the U.S. This prevented economic growth in Brazil.

7. 7. After Colonialism * For over 100 years after independence, Brazil remained economically tied to Portugal, its former colonial power. This is called neo-colonialism. * By the 1950s Brazil began to trade with the rest of the world. This was possible because of decisions made by the Brazilian government.

8. 8. Brazilian Government decide to change exportsand increase manufacturing * In the 1950s the Brazilian Government began its Import Substitution Industrialisation (ISI) policy. * Under this policy, Brazilian industries were set up to manufacture the goods Brazil used to import. * MNCs such as Shell and Ford Motors were offered tax incentives and grants to locate their production plants in Brazil. * Under its policy of protectionism, tariffs and bans were placed on imported goods so that Brazilian industries could grow rapidly.

9. 9. Brazilian Government decide to change trading partners Since the 1970s three events greatly increased the number of countries with which Brazil trades: * The oil crisis * The debt crisis * The formation of Mercosur

10. 10. The Oil Crisis of the 1970s

11. 11. The Oil Crisis of the 1970s * Between October 1973 and January 1974 world oil prices quadrupled. When oil prices rose Brazil could not afford to pay for the oil it needed so a new drive to increase trade with Argentina and other South American countries began in order to increase exports. * The Brazilian government also developed a biofuels programme which used sugar cane to make ethanol which could be used as a fuel instead of petrol.

12. 12. The Debt Crisis in the 1980s * In the mid-1980s the new Brazilian president managed to bring the economy and debt under control using a series of Structural Adjustment Programmes (SAPs). * SAPs are policies that a country must follow in order to qualify for World Bank and IMF (International Monetary Fund) loans. * The SAPs encouraged greater exports of cash crops, such as soya.

13. 13. The Formation of Mercosur * In 1991 the Mercosur (the Southern Common Market) was created. This allowed the free trade of goods and services between Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay. Later, Chile and Bolivia became associate members of Mercosur.

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Case Study: Impact of Colonialism on Brazil (A Developing Economy)

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Post Primary Teacher (English and Geography) Published on Leaving Certificate Geography: Higher and Ordinary Level Economic Elective Colonialism in Brazil - Impacts 1. Case Study - Brazil: The impact of colonialism on a developing economy 2. Case Study: We will study how Brazil, a country in the developing world, has: (a)been impacted by colonialism.

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When Christopher Columbus arrived on the Bahamian Island of Guanahani (San Salvador) in 1492, he encountered the Taíno people, whom he described in letters as "naked as the day they were born." The Taíno had complex hierarchical religious, political, and social systems. Skilled farmers and navigators, they wrote music and poetry and created powerfully expressive objects. At the time of Columbus's exploration, the Taíno were the most numerous indigenous people of the Caribbean and inhabited what are now Cuba, Jamaica, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. By 1550, the Taíno were close to extinction, many having succumbed to diseases brought by the Spaniards. Taíno influences survived, however, and today appear in the beliefs, religions, language, and music of Caribbean cultures.

Columbus's Account of 1492 Voyage

After his first transatlantic voyage, Christopher Columbus sent an account of his encounters in the Americas to King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella of Spain. Several copies of his manuscript were made for court officials, and a transcription was published in April 1493. This Latin translation was published the same year. In reporting on his trip to his sovereigns, Columbus wrote:
There I found very many islands, filled with innumerable people, and I have taken possession of them all for their Highnesses, done by proclamation and with the royal standard unfurled, and no opposition was offered to me.
Ceremonial Wooden Stool

Preserved Pre-Columbian duhos (ceremonial wooden stools) from the Caribbean region are exceedingly rare because they are usually found only in dry highland caves. There are two basic types: low horizontal forms with concave seats, such as this one, and stools with long curved backrests. Scholars differ as to the function of the stools. Some believe they represented seats of authority. Others think they served as altars for votive offerings. Still others argue that the Taíno peoples used them as ceremonial trays for making cohoba, a hallucinogenic snuff prepared for shamanistic rituals.

Taíno Amulet

The Taíno, a subgroup of the Arawakan Indians from northeastern South America, inhabited the Greater Antilles (Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, and Puerto Rico). The Taíno created a complicated religious system that included a hierarchy of deities, which included Yucahu, the supreme Creator and the lord of cassava and the sea and Atabey, the goddess of fresh water and human fertility, as well as Yucahu's mother. The Taíno believed that zemis, gods of both sexes, represented by both human and animal forms, provided protection.

Spatula Used for Purging

This long, gracefully curved spatula was used for purging before taking the sacred trance-inducing cohoba, a powerful snuff of nicotine-rich tobacco. The earlobes and eye sockets once held inlays, perhaps of gold leaf or shell.

Heart-Shaped Vessel

This intact pottery container is a heart-shaped bottle covered with complex iconography, including female and male attributes. The two lobes represent female breasts and the neck, a phallus. Scholars believe these vessels were water containers used in rituals and ceremonies.

Chronicling the New World

Gonzolo Oviedo sailed in 1514 on the first of his many journeys to America, where he compiled detailed descriptions and woodcut illustrations of products and goods found in the New World. The Spaniard introduced Europe to an enormous variety of previously unheard of "exotica," including the pineapple, the canoe, smoking tobacco, the manatee, and hammocks. Along with Perro Mártir de Angleria and Bartolomé de las Casas, Oviedo was one of the first European chroniclers of New World goods.

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Exploring the Early Americas Columbus and the Taíno

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When Christopher Columbus arrived on the Bahamian Island of Guanahani (San Salvador) in 1492, he encountered the Taíno people, whom he described in letters as "naked as the day they were born." The Taíno had complex hierarchical religious, political, and social systems. Skilled farmers and navigators, they wrote music and poetry and created powerfully expressive objects.

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An introduction to colonial Brazil (article) | Khan Academy

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Bandeirantes, Natives, and Indigenous Slavery

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Bandeirantes, Natives, and Indigenous Slavery

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The first European settlers who landed on the coast of Brazil in April of 1500 saw not only high round mountains but, almost immediately, people "dark and entirely naked, with nothing to cover their private parts, [carrying] bows and arrows in their hands." These were tribesmen of the Tupi-Guarani language group, who occupied most of the Southern Cone of South America.

The Tupi lived in small, mobile communities, forced by weak soil that could not last long under their form of slash-and-burn agriculture to move frequently. European observers were immediately impressed by their hunting skills. "They practice with these weapons [bows and arrows] from a very young age and are great archers, so accurate that no bird escapes them, no matter how small," one chronicler wrote.

Cannibal Conquerors

Just as the first Europeans arrived, the Tupi were in the process of conquering the Brazilian coastline. Different tribes frequently fought with one another for territory or revenge, and the representatives of different European nations found themselves allying with one tribe or another against other tribes and other Europeans. Hans Staden, author of one of the most famous accounts of life among the Tupi, observed their warfare and the complicated alliances between natives and Europeans during the time he was held captive among the Tupinamba.

Now there was a young lad from their people who had been a slave among the Portuguese. The savages among whom the Portuguese live [the Tupiniquins] had traveled to the land of the Tuppin Imba to wage war on them and had captured a whole village and eaten the old people. They had bartered off several of the young people in exchange for goods. Thus, this young lad had also been bartered off to the Portuguese, and stayed in the vicinity of Brikioka with his master, a Galician named Antonio Agudin.

Those who had captured me had captured this slave some three months before me. Now since he belonged to their lineage, they had not killed him. This slave knew me well, and they asked him what kind of man I was. He said that it was true that a ship had run ashore, and that they had called those who had got away [from the shipwreck alive], Castilians. They were friends of the Portuguese. I had been among them, but he knew nothing more about me (Staden 59).

Staden's True History was widely read throughout Europe, in part due to its arresting accounts of cannibalism among the natives. According to Staden, cannibalism was a form of revenge perpetrated by one tribe upon the captives of another. This excerpt, which follows descriptions of many of the rituals performed before killing a captive, contains the traditional exchange between killer and victim that completed the bloody rite.

This is a great honor among them. Then the one, who is going to kill him, takes back the club and then says [to the captive]: Well, here I am. I will kill you, since your friends have also killed and eaten many of my friends. He answers: When I am dead, I will still have many friends, who are certainly going to avenge me. The executioner then strikes him on the back of his head and beats out his brains. The women immediately seize him and put him over the fire, where they scrape off all his skin, making him all white ... (Staden 132-7).

The first contact between settlers and Brazilian natives involved exchange of resources and military alliances, often facilitated by mamelucos, people of mixed native and European origin who often spoke multiple languages and served as translators.

These interactions soon developed into a more organized system of exporting resources, and then a localized industry based on the involuntary labor of natives. The mission villages, or aldeias, established by the Jesuits relied on slave labor from the very people the priests were trying to convert.

While African slavery grew steadily from the middle of the 16 th century in Brazil, indigenous slavery remained a source of manpower through the 17 th century and even later in more remote regions such as the Amazon basin. Despite the vulnerability of Indian populations to European diseases, these slaves were cheaper than Africans.

Native Men and Women

The first image is a portrait by French artist Jean-Baptiste Debret of a Native American chief, the second a woman of the same tribe.

What distinctions are made between them, in their dress, position, and expression?

Bandeiras and Bandeirantes

One of the many myths deeply embedded in Brazilian culture is that of the bandeirante - a swashbuckling native of São Paulo who charged into the untamed wilderness in search of precious minerals and Indian slaves. In modern popular imagery, these heroes are often depicted as white Europeans, but in reality they were often of mixed racial background. In this Jean Baptiste Debret lithograph, indigenous peoples who have been "civilized" by European forces aid in the capture and transport of fellow natives through the wilderness toward populated areas where they will surely become slaves. Many bandeiras (the name given to the westward expeditions of the bandeirantes) included Brazilian natives who saw the slave-hunting missions as less demeaning than agricultural work. Indeed, a 1629 bandeira included 69 whites, 900 mamelucos, and 2,000 Native Brazilians.

A caption accompanying one print of this image says the dead-eyed soldiers followed the rivers to find their next victims. After finding an inhabited village, they would reportedly kill all the native men and take the remaining women and children prisoner. By the time of the lithograph's publication, in 1834, Indian slavery is thought to have ended, but it did persist in some regions, overlapping with the era of African slavery.

The men of diverse backgrounds who participated in the bandeiras were entitled to reap some of the spoils - that is, they received free Indian slaves as payment for their efforts. By the late 1700s, however, bandeiras came to focus on land acquisition rather than capturing slaves. The Indians of Debret's time, who still had their original lands, were thought to be too resistant for productive slave labor.

The mixing of races as it related to slavery can also be seen in "Capture of a Runaway Slave," an 1826 engraving by Alcide Dessalines d'Orbigny. In this picture a "bush captain" (likely a bandeirante) of dark complexion escorts a recaptured slave back to his master. The prisoner and the bandeirante look quite similar, as was the case in the Debret painting, but it is clear their roles in Brazilian life could not be more different. Without the stark visual cues of their attire and means of transportation, it would be easy to confuse the identities of the two men.

Further Reading

Hans Staden's True History gives a full account of the German sailor's colonial voyage and his time among the Tupi, as well as descriptions of the daily lives of the Indians. His observations are clearly filtered through the lens of his European sensibilities.

Sources

Staden, Hans. Hans Staden's True History: An Account of Cannibal Captivity in Brazil. Trans. by Neil Whitehead and Michael Harbsmeier. Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2008.

University of Virginia Digital Media Lab. Exploring Cultural Landscapes. http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/.

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Bandeirantes, Natives, and Indigenous Slavery

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The first European settlers who landed on the coast of Brazil in April of 1500 saw not only high round mountains but, almost immediately, people "dark and entirely naked, with nothing to cover their private parts, [carrying] bows and arrows in their hands."

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View of the 40 days of fire of the plain houses at Cap-Français. August 23rd, 1791.

A portrait of Toussaint Louverture on horseback.

Haiti is an independent nation in the Caribbean that occupies the western part of the island of Hispaniola, with the Dominican Republic to the east. The island was initially claimed by Spain, which later ceded the western third of the island to France. Prior to gaining its independence in 1804, Haiti was the French colony of Saint-Domingue. Under French rule, Saint-Domingue grew to be the wealthiest colony in the French empire and, perhaps, the richest colony in the world. Shortly before the Haitian Revolution, Saint-Domingue produced roughly 40 percent of the sugar and 60 percent of the coffee imported to Europe.

The colonial economy of Saint-Domingue was based almost entirely on the production of plantation crops for export. Enslaved African workers grew sugar in the northern plains around Cap Français, for example, and coffee in the mountainous interior. The slave system in Saint-Domingue was regarded as one of the harshest in the Americas, with high levels of both mortality and violence. To supply the plantation system, French owners imported almost 800,000 Africans to the colony (which, by comparison, is almost double the number of Africans carried to North America).

One of the most notable aspects of Haitian history is that the nation is the only one to have emerged as the result of a successful slave rebellion. From 1791 through 1804, enslaved people and their allies in Saint-Domingue fought a protracted revolution to win their independence from France. This was not the first episode of rebellion or fear of rebellion, as the case of François Makandal shows, but it was the most successful. After a ceremony at Bois Caïman, the rebellion began in August 1791. Within a few weeks the insurrection grew to include more than one hundred thousand participants who destroyed hundreds of plantations. In 1792, the French Assembly sent troops to put down the rebellion.

The conflict soon took on an international imperial dimension as Great Britain and Spain attempted to win control of the island. Under the leadership of Toussaint Louverture, a former slave, the rebels fought off British and Spanish attacks and even liberated enslaved people on the Spanish side of the island. In 1801, Louverture announced himself as leader of Saint-Domingue, but was eventually captured by French imperial forces.

Napoleon's forces regained control of the colony in 1802 and attempted to restore slavery, which led to a new wave of rebellion. Under the new leadership of Jean-Jacques Dessalines, the rebellion finally defeated French forces in late 1803. On January 1, 1804, Dessalines announced the new nation of Haiti to a world that was largely unprepared to accept its independence.

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Through sites and objects from across the globe, Slavery and Remembrance aims to broaden our understandings of a shared and painful past, the ways in which we collectively remember and forget, and the power of legacies to shape our present and future.

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During the fourteenth century, Tanzania's location on the East African coast made it easily accessible to Arab traders and slave traders, who operated in the region. While French interest in Tanzania peaked towards the mid-eighteenth century due to the economic possibilities of the region, German missionaries from the German Church Missionary Society preceded French interaction. East Africa was seen as an opportunity for German colonial expansion and by the late nineteenth century, an area including Tanzania had become known as German East Africa. German methods of colonial administration were met with fierce local resistance, but control was briefly re-established until the outbreak of World War One. Following Germany's defeat, Britain administered the region which it renamed as the 'Tanganyika' region. Following the Second World War, the Tanganyika region was placed under United Nations (UN) trusteeship, which mandated Britain with the development of the region. Various independent movements emerged around this time, including the Tanganyika Africa National Union (TANU), headed by Julius Nyerere, now the former president of Tanzania. Support for TANU grew, and by 1960, the first elections were planned for Tanganyika. On 9 December 1961, Tanganyika became an independent republic and became known from then on as Tanzania. In 1962, it became a one party state under Julius Nyerere, following Nyerere's ideologically-driven policy of socialism. The effects of this can still be seen in present-day Tanzania, however, efforts have recently been made to stimulate the economy. 9 December has become known as Tanzania Day and is celebrated annually.

Tanzania. U.S. Department of State, ' Tanzania gains independence' [online] Available at: state.gov [Accessed 1 December 2009]|

Britannica,' Tanzania' [online] Available at: britannica.com [Accessed 1 December 2009]|

Wallis, F. (2000). Nuusdagboek: feite en fratse oor 1000 jaar, Kaapstad: Human & Rousseau.

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During the fourteenth century, Tanzania's location on the East African coast made it easily accessible to Arab traders and slave traders, who operated in the region. While French interest in Tanzania peaked towards the mid-eighteenth century due to the economic possibilities of the region, German missionaries from the German Church Missionary Society preceded French interaction.

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A chronology of key events in Tanzania's history

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HISTORY OF KENYA including Masai and Kikuyu, German-British carve up, British East Africa Company, East African Protectorate, Kenya Colony, Mau Mau, Independence

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Historical overview: from the 1600s to the present (article) | Khan Academy

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By Dr. Christa Clarke, for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

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One of the more striking images from Pantaleão Fernandes's new photo book Goa: Rare Portraits is that of an old woman sitting on the floor. She is weaving a shendri, or a mat, out of palm leaves, a skill possessed by many among Goa's indigenous communities. Another is a close-up of a woman from the Dhangar, or shepherd community of the state. Her beaded necklaces, nose ring and earrings, typically worn by the women, stand out vividly.

Goa: Rare Portraits, a collection of 80-odd photographs that Fernandes took over the years, provides a rare glimpse into the rural and tribal culture of Goa through its native communities residing in its forests. "Right from my childhood, I have seen these people working in paddy fields and farms," said Fernandes. "As I was growing up, these people started diminishing from my surroundings. But then I encountered them again when I was working on my first book on parish churches of Goa. For me that was the connect - the memories from my childhood."

In his quest to show unseen Goa, Fernandes has beautifully captured the Gauddi, Kunnbi, Kulmi and Dhangar communities, who are found mainly in talukas of Quepem and Canacona (in the foothills of the Western Ghats), through their clothes, accessories, daily chores and their skills. The book also features images of toddy tappers, coconut pluckers, fishermen, farmers. They all are living a rural life, one that is fast disappearing.

Fashion designer and writer Wendell Rodricks says in the blurb, "With each page, one sees through Pantaleão's lens, simple Goan souls who are living the 'real' life. Each person radiates inner peace and contentment. This is rare in the world of social media where people project an alternate dual personality far from reality of their true selves."

Rural portraits

Fernandes has aesthetically captured these people's skills, as they are seen weaving palm leaves into shendris or turning its fronds into the canopy-like molly that is often used as a fan for winnowing paddy. These images also document the use of farming tools such as a soop (a winnowing pan woven out of bamboo), a morkund, which is a long bamboo attached to a hook, and a niollo, a wooden implement that resembles a spade.

One of Fernandes' favourite photographs is that of a woman with a kerosene lamp. "That lamp symbolises the non-materialistic world for me, which we are detached from," he said. "The other is the image of tribal women dancing in their traditional red sari. That image directly transports me to my childhood."

This is not the first time that Fernandes' lens has captured Goa: this is his sixth book on the state. The others include a photo book that highlights the state's natural beauty, another that looks at its festivals, a children's story book based on the author's childhood memories, and 100 Goan Experiences, on Goa's scenic beauty and its popular tourist spots. His last book, which received much acclaim, was Traditional Occupations of Goa.

Hobby to profession

Fernandes is not a trained photographer but a civil engineer. Photography was a hobby for him before it turned into his full-time profession 14 years ago.

Fernandes says he never approaches the villagers as a photographer but as a fellow Goan eager to know more about them. "I [don't] remove my camera from my bag during my first visit as [the] camera can be quite intimidating." He photographs them with his DSLR Nikon 750 only after earning their confidence and makes sure to give them prints of their photos.

"Few years ago two friends and I were approaching a village temple by car," he recollected. "As we were nearing the temple, a villager started looking suspiciously at me and I knew that he would enquire about our presence. He approached me and started asking about our visit. I told him about the temple and deities. He was quite impressed and invited me to his house to give me more information and also for a homemade meal."

Fernandes has had to deal with accusations that he is using people's poverty to sell his images. "[With] these books, my effort is to bring them out of poverty, if possible," he clarified.

Some of the villagers, who have been featured in his books, have been recognised for their talent and craftsmanship. "Bhiva Gaonkar from Baddem village in Cotigao, Canacona, has [been] commissioned by Rodricks to make rain covers [from bamboo and seasonal leaves] for his upcoming museum, Moda Goa," said Fernandes. "Pottery artist Jose Caitan Sequeira from Porvorim received a state award for his handmade pottery. If we use these skills and train youngsters to develop these items, it can be excellent employment for many." This, he believes, will also be a way of ensuring the traditional practices are carried down to the next generation.

Publishing experiment

Fernandes self-publishes his books. Instead of selling them at a bookstore, he approaches his prospective buyers with a copy. "This helps me in many ways as...they give me their suggestions and I try to incorporate them. Photographer Pablo Bartholomew [who has written the afterword of the book] suggested a few." Fernandes has already sold 750 copies.

The book also features the poems Gavddo hanv (Gavddo - that's me) and Khoro Goenkar (True Goan) by Manohar Rai Sardesai from his book Zaiat Zage, an abridged version of Damodar Mauzo's short story Coinsanv's Cattle, a chapter on costumes by Rodricks and Isabel de Santa Rita Vas's story Drawing with Light. "It was suggested [to add the poems and stories] to break away the monotony of photographs," said Fernandes.

Through photographs and text, Goa: Rare Portraits is an attempt to capture the native Goan and their hardworking lifestyle, people who are increasingly forgotten among the state's more ubiquitous images of sun-kissed beaches, tourists, vibrant nightlife, pork vindaloo and feni.

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These photos of Goa's indigenous communities show that there's more to the state than just beaches

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One of the more striking images from Pantaleão Fernandes's new photo book Goa: Rare Portraits is that of an old woman sitting on the floor. She is weaving a shendri, or a mat, out of palm leaves, a skill possessed by many among Goa's indigenous communities.

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In the uncharted centuries of prehistory, Tanzania is criss-crossed by tribal trade routes linking the Great Lakes (Victoria and Tanganyika) with the coast. These are the same routes along which Arab traders subsequently move inland, searching for slaves and ivory.

In a second wave of penetration by outsiders, Europeans use Bagamoyo (opposite Zanzibar) as their starting point for exploration inland. Burton and Speke do so in 1856, as does Stanley in 1871 and again in 1874. But the most significant visitor to the region turns out to be Karl Peters, a young man with a feverish enthusiasm for the notion of a German empire.

Peters, with two companions, spends a few weeks at the end of 1884 moving at frantic speed within the sultan of Zanzibar's mainland territories. The trio arrive in each new region with blank treaty forms and German flags. They fill in the local chief's name and persuade him to make his mark on the document and to run up a flag. Then they move on. Grievously under-equipped and soon short of food, they only just manage to make their way back to the coast.

But Peters, returning to Berlin, has an exciting proposition to put to Bismarck - who is himself in high imperial mood, with his Berlin colonial conference still in progress. A German east African colony, Peters tells him, is there for the taking.

In February 1885 Bismarck grants Peters a charter for an East African protectorate, but the fact is kept secret until the colonial conference has ended. Meanwhile Peters recruits more agents in Africa to continue the work of distributing treaty forms. Their instructions are to be schnell, kühn, rücksichtslos (swift, daring, ruthless).

When the sultan of Zanzibar hears of the proposed protectorate on his territory, he sends a protest to the German emperor. It reaches Berlin in May. Bismarck asks Peters what the response should be. Peters replies that there is a lagoon facing the sultan's palace in Zanzibar, deep enough for warships to anchor in.

Maji is the Swahili for 'water'. The rising gets its name because the belief spreads among the African workers that a magic potion of water, castor oil and millet seeds can turn German bullets to water. In August 1905 the drums begin to broadcast the news that cotton plants are being pulled up rather than tended, in a symbolic gesture of resistance.

The excitement spreads throughout much of the colony, as people drink the potion and set off on a rampage wearing headbands woven from the stalks of millet, the indigenous crop. Soon, inevitably, there are murderous attacks on Germans and the burning of their houses.

Reinforcements arrive from Germany in October 1905, by which time many of the Maji-Maji have already begun to discover that German bullets do not turn to water. The German commander, General von Götzen, uses a strategy hardly more humane than that of his colleague von Trotha in Namibia, whose brutality has caused an international outcry only a year previously.

Von Götzen decides that in the long term only famine will bring these rebellious workers to heel. He instructs his troops to move through the country destroying crops, removing or burning any grain already harvested, and putting entire villages to the torch.

It is estimated that about 250,000 Africans die in the resulting famine. German East Africa, like German South West Africa, acquires in its early years a besmirched colonial record. Meanwhile Karl Peters, the originator of this colony, has in 1897 been tried and convicted in a Potsdam court for brutal offences committed in Africa. They include his response to the suspicion that one of his servants may have slept with his African mistress. The young girl is flogged and then both are hanged.

These scandals shock Berlin sufficiently for reforms in colonial policy to be hastily put in place. But any likely benefit is cut short by the onset of World War I. Early in 1916 British forces move south from Kenya to occupy German East Africa.

In 1964 Nyerere reaches an agreement with Abeid Karume, president of the offshore island of Zanzibar which has been so closely linked in its history to the mainland territory of Tanganyika. The two presidents sign an act of union, bringing their nations together as the United Republic of Tanzania. Nyerere becomes president of the new state, with Karume as his vice-president.

Nyerere, by instinct an idealistic socialist, guides his country along lines which often have a utopian touch. Local self-sufficiency is emphasized. Traditional and simple solutions are sought for local problems rather than relying on technological foreign imports. Great importance is placed on education and literacy, in which excellent results are achieved.

As elsewhere where such cooperatives have been tried (in particular Mao Tse-tung's China, a source of inspiration to Nyerere), they prove both unpopular and inefficient. When Nyerere relinquishes executive power voluntarily in 1985 (a rare act in modern African history, and certainly one with no appeal to Mao), he admits that his economic policies have failed.

But in his twenty-three years in office he has established an impressive reputation as an independent and free-thinking African statesman - willing to sever relations with the UK (1965-8) because of British acceptance of racist Rhodesia and South Africa, but also taking on the OAU (as when he recognizes Biafra's secession in 1968).

During the 1990s very great strain is placed on an already impoverished Tanzania by the ethnic conflicts over the border in Rwanda and Burundi. During a single 24-hour period in 1994 as many as 250,000 Rwandan refugees stream into Tanzania. Eventually the total is 550,000 from Rwanda and 100,000 from Burundi. Many of them are still in Tanzania at the end of the decade.

In Dar es Salaam a hopeful sign is the progress of an anti-corruption campaign launched by President Mkapa. In 1997 more than 1500 civil servants are dismissed on these grounds.

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In the uncharted centuries of prehistory, Tanzania is criss-crossed by tribal trade routes linking the Great Lakes (Victoria and Tanganyika) with the coast. These are the same routes along which Arab traders subsequently move inland, searching for slaves and ivory. In a second wave of penetration by outsiders, Europeans use Bagamoyo (opposite Zanzibar) as their starting point for exploration inland.

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The land of sun, sand, beaches and holidays, Goa is so popular that most know of its Portuguese past. But how much do we know of its tribal heart?

As you wind your way through Goa, you will catch a glimpse of Goa's 'tribal' past in the form of the unique red checkered sari, that some of the local women wear. The simple garment, that has changed with the times is one of the few actual reminders of the tribes that lived in the hills around Goa. Almost lost till some time ago, today there is a small movement to revive the craft of making these saris and get them recognised as a heritage textile of Goa.

The Indo-Portuguese history of the coastal state of Goa is well-known, but not much is known about its textile heritage. The red checkered sari which is adorned by the original settlers of Goa is the oldest weave of Goa.

Any folk dance of Goa, be it Dhalo or the Fugdi is incomplete without the red checkered cotton sari which is commonly known as a Kunbi sari or the Adivasi sari. This six-yard sari, locally referred to as the Kapad which was predominantly worn by women belonging to the tribal communities of Goa, has no pallu or drape. It is simply pleated at the waist and what would normally be the pallu is drawn across the chest and back over the right shoulder to form a knot locally called a dethali. Traditionally, no blouse was worn with this sari.

Tribes and their textiles

It is hard to imagine Goa as a tribal stretch, but it is actually not surprising given the thickly forested Western Ghats that surround it even today. There are three main tribes which are considered to be the indigenous communities of Goa- the Gaudes, the Kunbi and the Gaulys or Dhangars.

The Kunbi, one of the oldest communities of Goa, are further divided into Velips and Zalmis. As this red checked sari was predominantly worn by these tribes, the fabric came to be named after them. The Kunbis themselves get their name from their past. Both Rohit Phalgaonkar, a Goa based historian and Vinayak Khedekar, a folklorist and former member-secretary of Goa's art institute- Kala Academy, who are helping to revive this weave agree that the word 'Kunbi' is the corrupted form of the word 'Kulmi'. The Kulmi were the original inhabitants of Goa who settled in the hilly areas near the Western Ghats.

The tribals of Goa have been closely linked with the land and they formed the bulk of the labourers who worked in the fields and plantations till the mid of the 20th century CE. In fact, visit Margao city and you will still find women porters known as ' Bhadels' wearing these colourful saris.

Convenient to wear and work in, the Kunbi s ari or the Adivasi sari is still popular among the farming and working class women in Goa.

Interestingly till 1940, these saris were worn without blouses, but the colonial Portuguese government passed a law making it compulsory to wear a blouse.

The Colors of the Earth

The basic colour palette of the Kunbi sari is symbolic and the material for it was locally sourced.

The red colour stands for the soil, fertility and vibrancy and the dye for it was derived from the wild fruit locally known as 'jafflinchi fala' (fruit), found in the forests of Goa. Along with red, the fabric was also dyed in yellow and lilac (which was mainly worn by widows). The yellow dye was derived from haldi or turmeric and the blue most likely came from some stones.

What stands out in the Kunbi sari is also the simplicity of the design. These saris do not have any motifs. They only have a pattern of checks or squares. Interestingly this pattern varies across communities. For instance, the saris worn by the Christian Gauda ladies have big squares whereas for the other tribes the squares are small. Also, the men from Christian community earlier used a loin cloth known as kasthi and a head scarf made from the same textile.

In his book Moda Goa fashion designer and writer, Wendell Rodricks gives an interesting perspective on the Kunbi sari. He draws parallels with fabrics woven by other communities. For example Rodricks gives the reference of the ' Telia Rumaals' of Andhra Pradesh, which sport the same three colours symbolizing the trinity, and also represents the three aspects of human nature according to ancient Indian medicine: cream stands for ' satvic'- (withdrawn and an introvert); red stands for ' rajas'- vibrant and powerful; blue-black stands for ' tamsic '- brooding and possibly violent. Ancient Indians believed that a balanced combination of the three created a complete being, human or godly. Rodricks states,

"In a richer interpretation, a gold thread woven into a sari can fill squares of the mandala or 'navagraha'. Many saris communicate a spiritual message with a border resembling the archway of temple entrances. Often this is in a staggered Cubist pyramid form or a triangular Far-Eastern pagoda spire form."

Rodricks also quotes the famous textile historian Jasleen Dhamija from her book Woven Magic. In this, she has written extensively on the symbolism of the checkered pattern and claimed that it has far deeper meanings,

"The single line crossing another line creates a 'chowk' (a meeting point or a place). A square or plaid pattern is created when two equidistant parallel lines, horizontal to the ground, cross, two parallel lines moving vertically skyward to create an enclosed sacred space called the 'mandala' and a checked pattern. The geometry of two pairs of horizontal and vertical lines creates the nine houses of the planets, collectively called the 'navagraha', each with its own jeweled representations, called the 'navaratna'."

The ingredients to make the dyes for the Kunbi sari are easy to access in Goa. They are a simple mix of toddy, iron filings and vinegar. It is important to note that there are variations within the Kunbi saris. The ' Sado', for instance, was exclusively worn at weddings. What made this sari special was the fact that it was made from jute fibre which was used for weaving. But this weave was stopped in 1933 and was replaced by artificial silk or rayon.

This distinct red checkered fabric of Goa is also offered to deities and is part of religious rituals. As mentioned in Rodrick's work Moda Goa,

"Checked cloth is considered pure, sacred and powerful throughout the world. In many cultures, the offering of a checked cloth is considered auspicious."

The annual Veerbhadra ritual held in the month of March-April during the Shigmo festival in the temple town of Ponda, in the South Goa District is incomplete without the use of this fabric. During this ritual, groups of men dress up as Veerbhadra, a fierce avatar of Shiva and perform a ceremonial dance with swords. This fabric forms a part of the ceremonial attire of the dancers. Also the local tribal deity ' Betal ' at Poinguinim, on the Goa-Karnataka border is decorated with this fabric.

Ironically even though the Kunbi sari has so much religious and social significance, there are no handlooms left in Goa where this sari can be woven. The traditional knowledge of creating this weave is almost lost. To make matters worse, there is also hardly any documentation available on the origin of this red-coloured, checkered sari.

However, today revivalist like Phalgaonkar and Khedekar are working hard to document this textile and make people aware about it before it is lost in the pages of history.

It is noted that from 1930s and 1950s, three families from Goa-Shettigars of Candolim, Rasquinhas of Bastora and the Kamats were involved in the business of handlooms. The dyes and yarn were imported from various countries during the Portuguese rule. But after Liberation in 1961, getting these imports was a tough task and it took a toll on the weaving business.

While there are no looms in Goa where this sari is woven, it is produced in the neighboring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu albeit using chemical dyes. Now, efforts are on by the like-minded people from Goa to declare this ' kapad ' a heritage textile of Goa.

Arti Das is a Goa based journalist who has written for several publications on art, travel and heritage.

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The land of sun, sand, beaches and holidays, Goa is so popular that most know of its Portuguese past. But how much do we know of its tribal heart? As you wind your way through Goa, you will catch a glimpse of Goa's 'tribal' past in the form of the unique red checkered sari, that some of the local women wear.

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Written on . Posted in Tanzania

Tanzania is estimated to have a total of 125-130 ethnic groups, falling mainly into the four categories of Bantu, Cushite, Nilo-Hamite and San. While there may be more ethnic groups that identify themselves as Indigenous Peoples, four groups have been organising themselves and their struggles around the concept and movement of Indigenous Peoples.

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Written on . Posted in Tanzania

According to the newly published "The Indigenous World 2018" by IWGIA, land grabbing is one of the biggest threats against indigenous peoples. Land-grabbing is rooted in different structural causes and is driven by a range of players. The case of Tanzania illustrates its pervasive consequences on indigenous land.

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Written on . Posted in Tanzania

According to reliable information received by IWGIA, forced and illegal evictions of Maasai pastoralists and serious human rights violations are happening in Tanzania. These violations take place on registered village land in Loliondo Division of Ngorongoro District, Arusha Region.

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Written on . Posted in Tanzania

Tanzania is estimated to have a total between 125 - 130 ethnic groups, falling mainly into the four categories of Bantu, Cushite, Nilo-Hamite and San. While there may be more ethnic groups that identify themselves as indigenous peoples, the hunter-gatherer Akie and Hadzabe, and the pastoralist Barabaig and the Maasai have organised themselves and their struggles around the concept and movement of indigenous peoples.

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A promising development in Tanzania, as the new government takes action to end the yearlong land dispute in Loliondo. It could be a historic turning point, says Julie Koch, IWGIA's Executive Director.
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Written on . Posted in Tanzania

With almost 40 percent of the land designated as protected areas, Tanzania is one of the countries with major tourism revenues in Africa. In the northeast, the Ngorongoro district is the home of the well-known tourist attraction the Ngorongoro Crater and the bordering Serengeti National Park.

The Ngorongoro Conservation Area receives alone around 30 million US dollars a year from tourism. Still, one-third of the population, including indigenous communities, live in poverty.

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Tanzania - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs

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Written on . Posted in Tanzania Tanzania is estimated to have a total of 125-130 ethnic groups, falling mainly into the four categories of Bantu, Cushite, Nilo-Hamite and San. While there may be more ethnic groups that identify themselves as Indigenous Peoples, four groups have been organising themselves and their struggles around the concept and movement of Indigenous Peoples.

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Written on . Posted in Libya

The Amazigh form the Indigenous population of Libya. They are estimated to number some one million people, or more than 16% of the country's total population.

They live in various areas of Libya in the north, east and south of the country albeit without any geographical continuity. To the west of Tripoli, on the Mediterranean coast, they live in the town of At-Wilul (Zwara) and in the Adrar Infussen (Nefoussa) mountains, on the border with Tunisia; in the southeast, on the border with Egypt, they live in the oases of Awjla, Jalu and Jakhra; in the south, the Fezzan region is traditionally Kel-Tamasheq (Tuareg) territory, including the areas of Murzuq, Sebha, Ubari, Ghat and Ghadamès. Libya's Kel-Tamasheq are naturally linked to other Kel-Tamasheq communities living across the borders with Niger and Algeria. Tripoli is also home to a significant Amazigh community.

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Written on . Posted in Libya

Arabs of different origins (Egyptian, Sudanese, Tunisian, Palestinian, Bedouin, Maltese, etc.) make up the majority of the Libyan population, accounting for approximately 90%. They are followed by the Imazighen (4.7%), Westerners (1%), Indo-Pakistanis and other Asians (around 1%), Nilo-Saharans (less than 1%) and Filipinos (less than 1%). Most Arabs of Libyan origin are of mixed descent, i.e. Arab/Imazighen.

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Libya - IWGIA - International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs

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The Imazighen live in small villages in the west of Libya; they tend to identify along tribal or village lines rather than as Libyan nationals. The Tuareg and the Toubou live in the south of the country; they are generally nomadic, moving from one place to another with their livestock and living in tents.

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Vietnamese resistance to french colonization

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Vietnamese resistance to french colonization

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Sophie

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The French were not the first conquerors of Vietnam, so the Vietnamese people were no strangers to resisting foreign domination. Vietnamese resistance to French colonialism was energetic and determined, if not always successful.

The Trung sisters

China ruled medieval Vietnam for nine centuries. Its exploitation of the Vietnamese people had often triggered peasant uprisings. Arguably the most famous uprising against the Chinese was that led by the Trung sisters.

Born into a military family, the two Trung sisters received training in martial arts and battle tactics. They strongly opposed the imposition of Chinese culture and values on the Vietnamese people. They organised a militia to expel Chinese officials from their village. Over time, their forces expanded enough to drive the Chinese out of most of northern Vietnam.

The Trung sisters ruled briefly as queens until they were defeated in 43AD by a much larger Chinese force. The story of the Trung sisters is one of Vietnam's most famous legends. It has served as both a model and an inspiration for countless resistance fighters.

Ham Nghi

More than 18 centuries later, a new generation of Vietnamese found themselves battling a foreign oppressor. There were many attempts to resist French colonialism. One of the first occurred during the brief reign of emperor Ham Nghi (1884-85).

Ham Nghi came to the throne at just 12 years of age. His entourage of advisors was mostly anti-French, particularly his regent, Ton That Thuyet. For a year, Ham Nghi's officials criticised and condemned French rule in Vietnam. In 1885, the French raided the royal palace, forcing Ton That Thuyet and a few others to whisk the young emperor to safety.

Hidden in the forests of Annam, the fugitives heard news that China had signed the Treaty of Tientsin with the French, relinquishing all Chinese claims on Vietnam. With no prospect of help from the north, the emperor-in-hiding confronted the spectre of a French takeover alone.

In July 1885, Ton That Thuyet and his supporters formed Can Vuong ('Loyalty to the King'). They hoped to create a nationalist resistance movement with the young Ham Nghi as its figurehead and rallying point.

From his jungle hiding place at Van Xa, the deposed young emperor issued a decree of resistance:

"We have been forced to flee the French and now live in great shame. With one united mind, body and spirit, we shall resist. All Vietnamese shall fight back. Do you fear death more than you love your country? Will you live under the shadows of the French, or will you join us? Come and live in the jungle. Obey our righteous appeal for freedom ... Perhaps with Heaven's assistance, we shall be able to turn chaos into order, danger into peace, and finally retrieve our entire country."

War against Christianity

Can Vuong survived for around a decade. It never managed to spark a significant anti-French uprising or gain widespread support but its evasive guerrilla tactics made it difficult to deal with.

Can Vuong's mission - to drive French soldiers from Vietnam - proved difficult. While there were barely a thousand French troops in Annam, almost all were stationed in the coastal citadels, which could be easily defended from attacks.

Rather than attack French soldiers, Can Vuong turned its offensives against Christian converts. The second half of 1885 saw at least four significant massacres of Vietnamese Christians. Some parts of Annam collapsed into a virtual civil war between the royalist Can Vuong and local Christians.

It took weeks for the French to respond to the unfolding crisis in Annam, which they did by reinforcing the coastal cities and marching another 4,000 soldiers down from Tonkin. Meanwhile, the French installed a new emperor - Ham Nghi's more subservient brother, Dong Khanh - hoping this would undermine support for Can Vuong.

Ham Nghi was captured in 1888 and handed to the French, who exiled him to northern Africa.

Phan Dinh Phung

Without its figurehead, the Can Vuong eventually faded away - but many of its local commanders continued the struggle against French colonialism. One of the most successful was Phan Dinh Phung, a former royal mandarin who had fled with the emperor in mid-1885.

Unlike other guerrilla leaders, Phan Dinh Phung insisted on thorough organisation and military discipline, down to the wearing of uniforms and recognition of ranks. He was also determined and ruthless, unfazed about killing French civilian officials, Vietnamese Christians or other 'traitors'.

French soldiers, seeking to intimidate Phan Dinh Phung and force his surrender, raided his home village, destroyed houses and graves and held his brother to ransom. Phan Dinh Phung responded defiantly: "If they chop up my brother, remember to send me some of the soup".

Phan continued to elude the French until 1895. Weakened by dysentery, he was surrounded by a regiment of 3,000 French soldiers. Phan Dinh Phung died in January 1896 and his supporters were rounded up and executed. His decade-long struggle against the French became a model for future revolutionaries, who often referred to Phan Dinh Phung in their speeches and political rhetoric.

Phan Boi Chau

Another important resistance leader was Phan Boi Chau (1867-1940). Like many other nationalist revolutionaries, Phan Boi Chau was a scholar, though his education was influenced by Chinese rather than French teachers.

As a teenager, Phan Boi Chau joined Can Vuong and attempted to put together a 'students' battalion'. In 1903, he joined forces with Prince Cuong De, an heir to the imperial throne who had been dispossessed by the French. Together they formed the Viet Nam Duy Tan Hoi ('Vietnamese Modernisation League') and unsuccessfully sought financial assistance from China and Japan.

In 1905, while living in Japan, Phan Boi Chau published Viet Nam Vong Quoc Su ('The History of the Loss of Vietnam'), which was both a history of Vietnamese resistance movements and a condemnation of French colonialism. Written in a direct style influenced by Western texts, it became popular with ordinary Vietnamese and was one of the most important anti-colonial texts of its time.

Phan Boi Chau was exiled from Japan and for a time attempted to smuggle arms to Vietnamese rebels. This failed, however, and by 1910 he was living as a beggar on the streets of Hong Kong.

His fortunes were revived by the successful nationalist revolution that gripped China in 1911. He relocated there and joined up with other exiled Vietnamese. In 1912, they formed the Viet Nam Quang Phuc Hoi ('Vietnam Restoration League'). Observing the changes unfolding in China, the League determined that republicanism rather than a revival of the imperial monarchy was the best model for an independent Vietnam. The League had little support within Vietnam itself and could not obtain assistance from the Chinese - but many of its political ideas would be adopted by later nationalist groups, like the Viet Minh.

A historian's view:
"From 1885, perhaps earlier in the South, the Vietnamese identity came under critical and sustained challenge, first felt by the scholar-gentry and eventually by the miniscule bourgeoisie, the artisans and the bulk of the peasantry. The scholar-gentry generation that came to political maturity around 1900 was haunted by the image of mat nuoc, or 'losing one's country' - not merely in the political sense, but more critically in terms of their future survival as Vietnamese. They struggled to bring new meaning and ethnic salvation (cuu quoc) out of a developing sense of loss and despair. From this struggle came major changes in the view and tactics of the Vietnamese anti-colonialists."
David Marr, historian

1. Vietnamese resistance movements were active and energetic, though only partly successful. Most drew their inspiration from the medieval legend of the Trung sisters (40-43AD).

2. The first notable anti-French resistance group was the royalist Can Vuong, which formed in Annam in the mid-1880s and had the young emperor Ham Nghi as its figurehead.

3. Can Vuong found fighting the French military difficult so instead targeted Vietnamese converts to Christianity. It was eventually defeated but several members formed private armies and resistance groups.

4. One of the more successful resistance leaders, Phan Dinh Phung, eluded the French for a decade, using guerrilla warfare underpinned by military organisation and discipline.

5. Some resistance movements were more intellectually based, such as that of the scholar Phan Boi Chau, who wrote nationalist material and criticisms of French colonialism.

Citation information
Title: "Resistance to French colonialism"
Authors: Jennifer Llewellyn, Jim Southey, Steve Thompson
Publisher: Alpha History
URL: https://alphahistory.com/vietnamwar/resistance-to-french-colonialism/
Date published: January 9, 2018
Date accessed: March 02, 2021
Copyright: The content on this page may not be republished without our express permission. For more information on usage, please refer to our Terms of Use.

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Vietnamese resistance to French colonialism

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The French were not the first conquerors of Vietnam, so the Vietnamese people were no strangers to resisting foreign domination. Vietnamese resistance to French colonialism was energetic and determined, if not always successful. China ruled medieval Vietnam for nine centuries. Its exploitation of the Vietnamese people had often triggered peasant uprisings.

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Infoplease has everything you need to know about Guyana. Check out our countryprofile, full of essential information about Guyana'sgeography, history,government, economy, population, culture, religion and languages. If that's not enough, click over to our collection of world maps and flags.

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Photo by John Da Silva (CC BY 3.0)

Georgetown, with a 2014 population of 239,227, is the capital, major port, and largest city of the nation of Guyana. Since the entire nation has 769,000 people, about one third of the country's population resides in the capital city. Georgetown sits on a flat coastal plain prone to flooding. It is surrounded by acres of sugar cane fields, swamps, and savannahs although a tropical rain forest covers more than 80% of the nation.

Guyana's natural wealth attracted the Spanish, Dutch, French, and English with each struggling to possess it. The Spanish were the first Europeans to visit the area but it was first explored for England in 1595 by Sir Walter Raleigh.

The Dutch were the first Europeans to settle in the region in the early 17th century, when they founded the colonies of Essequibo and Berbice. The British seized the area from the Dutch in 1781 and founded the settlement that would eventually become Georgetown. The French captured the region one year later, and developed the town which they renamed La Nouvelle Ville, making it the capital of their fledgling colony. In 1784 the Dutch reclaimed the area and named the town Stabroek. In 1796, Britain established permanent control of the colony. In 1812 they renamed Stabroek Georgetown in honor of King George III. In 1831 they declared Georgetown the capital of their colony of British Guiana.

Beginning with the Dutch, enslaved Africans were brought in to work the region's sugar plantations. The abolition of slavery in 1833, however, led to a dramatic rise in the population of Georgetown. When indentured servants from India arrived in the 1850s partly to replace rural black labor, many of the second and third generations eventually moved to Georgetown as well. Today the city's population is approximately 44% of East Indian descent, 30% of African descent, with about 17% mixed race. Persons of European or Amerindian ancestry comprise the remaining 9% of the population.

When Guyana became independent in 1966, Georgetown was declared its capital. Today Georgetown is Guyana's chief government, financial, commercial, and manufacturing center. A number of large sugar refineries are located there and exports from its port include sugar, timber, bauxite, gold, and diamonds. The nationalization of internationally owned companies operating in Guyana in the late 1970s caused an exodus of skilled people and capital from which the nation has yet to recover.

Although located on the South American mainland, Guyana's major economic and cultural ties are with Caribbean nations. It is the seat of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and the administrative arm of the Caribbean Regional Integration Organisation (CRIO) is located in Georgetown.

Georgetown's tree-lined streets and avenues display examples of quaint Dutch colonial and Victorian architecture, reminders of its days as a Dutch and English colony.

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Georgetown, with a 2014 population of 239,227, is the capital, major port, and largest city of the nation of Guyana. Since the entire nation has 769,000 people, about one third of the country's population resides in the capital city. Georgetown sits on a flat coastal ...

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The Forgotten History of Dutch Slavery...

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The Forgotten History of Dutch Slavery...

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Beeld: Norman B. Leventhal Map Center (CC BY 2.0)

When we think of the history of Dutch slavery, the areas that spring to mind are primarily the Antilles and Suriname. However, until the end of the eighteenth century there were also Dutch plantation colonies in neighbouring Guyana. Bram Hoonhout's book 'Borderless Empire' describes this forgotten history.

Bram Hoonhout

Forgotten Dutch history

Illegal trade to oil the wheels

Cover of Borderless Empire

The role of the indigenous people

Abundance and crumbs

Bram Hoonhout studied colonial and economic history in Leiden, before moving to the European University Institute in Florence for his PhD. After his PhD, Bram worked as assistant professor of economic history at Leiden University and in Nijmegen as education programme director of the N.W. Posthumus Institute. In 2019 he started as coordinator of the Honours College.

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The forgotten history of Dutch slavery in Guyana

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When we think of the history of Dutch slavery, the areas that spring to mind are primarily the Antilles and Suriname. However, until the end of the eighteenth century there were also Dutch plantation colonies in neighbouring Guyana. Bram Hoonhout's book 'Borderless Empire' describes this forgotten h...

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A History of Brazil from the Precolonial Era

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A History of Brazil from the Precolonial Era

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Brazil's history can be divided into five economic periods, each characterized by a dominant export product. By Rex A. Hudson
The Indigenous Population

In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet, which was en route to India, landed at Porto Seguro in what is now the state of Bahia. The territory that comprises modern Brazil had a native population in the millions, divided among hundreds of tribes and language groups. Their ancestors had lived in this land for as long as 30,000 years. There is no way to be certain of the exact size of the population or its distribution. Many areas that were inhabited in 1500 were later stripped bare by epidemics or slave hunters. But scholars have attempted to make estimates based on contemporary reports and the supposed carrying capacity of the land. For Brazil's Amazon Basin alone, demographer William M. Denevan has suggested 3,625,000 people, with another 4,800,000 in other regions. Other estimates place 5 million inhabitants in Amazônia alone. More conservatively, British historian John Hemming estimated 2,431,000 people for Brazil as a whole. These figures are based on known tribes, although many unknown ones probably died out in the devastating epidemics of the colonial era.

Certainly, the indigenous population exceeded that of Portugal itself. The early European chroniclers wrote of multitudes along the coast and of dense populations in the Amazon Basin. Far from being awed by the newcomers, the indigenous inhabitants displayed curiosity and hospitality, a willingness to exchange goods, and a distinct ability at aggressive defense. However, they could not prevent the devastation caused by the diseases carried by the Europeans and Africans. Tens of thousands succumbed to smallpox, measles, tuberculosis, typhoid, dysentery, and influenza. Whole peoples were likely annihilated without having had direct contact with Europeans as disease was carried along the indigenous trade routes.

The Indians spoke languages that scholars have classified into four families: the Gê speakers, originally spread along the coast and into the central plateau and scrub lands; the Tupí speakers, who displaced the Gê on the coast and hence were the first met by the Portuguese; the Carib speakers in the north and in Amazônia, who were related distantly to the people who gave their name to the Caribbean; the Arawak (or Aruak) speakers in Amazônia, whose linguistic relatives ranged up through Central America to Florida; and, according to sociologist Donald Sawyer, the Nambicuara in northwestern Mato Grosso (see Language, ch. 2). These were not tribes but language families that comprised many language groups. Numerous tribes also spoke languages unrelated to any of the above. Warfare and migrations carried peoples from these linguistic families to various parts of Brazil. The Europeans took advantage of the cultural differences among the Indian peoples to pit one against the other and to form alliances that provided auxiliary troops in their colonial wars.

Portugal viewed the Indians as slave labor from the outset. When Portugal began its imperial ventures, it had a population of about 1 million. Indeed, in the mid-sixteenth century Portugal's population was so sparse that much of its territory was uncultivated and abandoned. African and native Brazilian slaves were common on the streets of Lisbon. Portugal's colonial economy in Brazil was based on slavery. Initially, the Portuguese bartered with the natives to bring brazilwood and other forest items to the coast. However, when the natives had accumulated all the tools and pots that they needed, they showed a lack of interest in continuing the arrangement. Consequently, the Portuguese turned to violent persuasion. The enslavement of the natives shaped much of the history that followed.

Just as Indian unrest had aided the Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru, so too did the Portuguese profit from arriving at a time of turmoil. The Tupí speakers had been shifting steadily from the south in a massive migration to coastal areas, displacing the resident Gê speakers, many of whom moved into the interior. This population shift had triggered continuous warfare against non-Tupí peoples and against Tupí subsets. It involved set battles that arrayed hundreds and, in some reports, thousands of warriors in fierce hand-to-hand combat. Some of the fighting went beyond struggles over control of land or resources to vendettas in which captives were sought and in some cases reportedly cannibalized. The Portuguese used these vendettas to keep the Indians from uniting against them and subsequently to obtain slaves. The conquest of Brazil was not a simple toppling of an organized empire as in Peru, but a drawn out, complicated process that spread over huge distances, different peoples, and centuries. Thus, it is not surprising that the Brazilian elites developed myths about racial harmony, peaceful change, and compromise that often have colored the interpretations of historians, thereby distorting understanding of Brazil's past.

Just as Portugal was different from the rest of Europe, so too would Brazil be different from the rest of the Americas. Portugal was both an agrarian and a maritime monarchy that used its control over land grants to discipline the nobility and its issuance of trading licenses to attract local and foreign investment in its overseas ventures. As merchant-king, the monarch supervised an economic system that imported timber, sugar, and wine from Madeira and the Azores, gold from the Guinea coast, spices from India, and dyewood and forest products, then sugar, gold, gems, and hides from Brazil. These products were then reexported to Europe.

The Portuguese established themselves on the Brazilian coast in their drive to control Europe's trade with India and East Asia. They secured "title" to what became eastern Brazil in their attempted division of the world with Spain in the Treaty of Tordesillas (see Glossary) of 1494. During the next centuries, the Portuguese, Spanish, French, English, and Dutch changed the South American continent's trade patterns, which previously had been focused internally. Seeking profits, the Portuguese marshaled Indian labor to provide exportable products. The commercial objective that initially had prompted overseas operations became the first principle of Portuguese colonization. Brazil was not to be a place where Europe's religious dissidents sought freedom of conscience. Rather, to paraphrase historian Caio Prado Júnior, the colonization of tropical Brazil would be "one vast commercial enterprise." Colonial Brazil's reason for being was to supply dyewood, sugar, tobacco, eventually gold and diamonds, cotton, coffee, and later rubber for the European and then world markets. The externally oriented colonial economy consisted of enclaves that faced seaward and that considered only their own commercial interests.

In his 1843 essay, "How the History of Brazil Should Be Written," Karl Friederich Philipp von Martius urged the study of the three basic racial groups-indigenous peoples, Europeans, and Africans-to obtain a clear understanding of the country's history. Yet when he discussed the interactions between the Indians and the Portuguese, he wrote that the former were only a few primitive tribes and that the "colonies developed and expanded almost without caring about these Indians." Although he could not have been more wrong, historians have echoed his attitude repeatedly. The natives, rather than being few, were in the millions, and the Portuguese determination to exploit their labor shaped frontier expansion and set Brazil's modern boundaries.

The Colonial Era, 1500-1815

Under the Treaty of Tordesillas, everything to the east of the line that ran from pole to pole 370 leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands was to be Portugal's to exploit. The exact reason for Portugal's interest in having the line so far to the west is debatable, but the Portuguese may have been trying to keep the Castilians away from the sure route to the East. Very practically, the line's placement gave Portuguese vessels en route to India ample room to pick up winds and currents that took them around the southern end of Africa, a feat carried out by Vasco da Gama on his voyage of 1497-99. The Portuguese also may have known that western lands or islands lay on their side of the line. On the modern map of Brazil, in the north the line cuts across the eastern end of the Ilha de Marajó, and in the south it passes through Laguna on the coast of Santa Catarina. Because most of present-day Brazil lies to the west of the line, clearly the Portuguese expanded successfully on this initial division.

The territorial aggrandizement, which is one of the main themes of Brazilian history, was both accidental and a matter of state policy. Uncertainty as to the detailed geography of South America persisted into the twentieth century, so it is understandable that Portuguese officials professed to believe into the eighteenth century that the estuaries of both the Amazon and the Río de la Plata were on their side of the Tordesillas Line. The two river systems were, in the words of the Jesuit Father Simão de Vasconcellos, "two keys that lock the land of Brazil . . . two giants that defend it and demarcate between us [Portuguese] and Castille." Several centuries of penetration along these river systems gave Brazil its distinctive shape. It could be said that today's Brazil owes its vast territory to the native Indians who served as skilled trackers, warriors, porters, food suppliers, and paddlers for the Portuguese expeditions, and to the Indians whose potential as slaves lured the Portuguese inland.

The Portuguese empire at the outset was a commercial rather than a colonial one. Portugal lacked sufficient population to establish colonies of settlers throughout its maritime empire. The Portuguese practice was to conquer enough space for a trading fort and a surrounding enclave from which to draw on the wealth and resources of the adjacent country. A map of this maritime commercial domain would show a series of dots connected by sealanes rather than continuous stretches of territory. French competition forced the Portuguese shift to colonialism in Brazil. This shift involved the gradual move from trading for brazilwood to cultivating sugarcane, which required control of great expanses of land and increasing numbers of slaves. The first to burst past the Tordesillas Line were the slave hunters. The shift to colonialism was also facilitated by the union of the Spanish and Portuguese crowns between 1580 and 1640. Although the two governments on the Iberian Peninsula and in the Americas were kept separate, trade and travel controls became lax. An active contraband trade developed between Brazilian settlements and Buenos Aires, and Portuguese moving overland appeared in Asunción, Potosí, Lima, and even Quito.

Expansion along the Atlantic coast had been gradual. Using the model of the Atlantic islands, the crown in 1536 divided the Brazilian coast into fifteen donatory captaincies ( donatários ). To induce settlement, the crown offered ten leagues of coastline as personal property, a percentage of the dyewood trade, control over trade of enslaved natives, as well as the exclusive right to build mills. In 1580 Brazil comprised the area from Pernambuco in the north to São Vicente in the south. With Spanish assistance thereafter, the Portuguese expanded north to Paraíba, then west through Ceará and Maranhão against the natives and the French, until they founded Belém in 1616. Beginning in 1621, these possessions were divided into the state of Maranhão (embracing the crown captaincies of Ceará, Maranhão, and Pará) and the state of Brazil, centering on Salvador, Bahia. The reassertion of Portuguese independence under the Braganças in 1640 led to sporadic conflict in frontier areas and to policies seeking to hold back Spanish advances. In the Amazon and Río de la Plata river basins, the Spanish rather than the Portuguese had been first on the scene. The Spaniards included Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, who journeyed from the coast of Santa Catarina to Asunción in 1540, and Francisco de Orellana, who descended the Amazon in 1542.

The most important Spanish advances were the mission settlements, where the Jesuits Christianized native peoples. Two areas of particular importance lay adjacent to the river systems that delimit Brazil in the south and in the north: the Paraná-Paraguay Basin in the south and the Mamoré-Guaporé Basin in the north. From 1609 to 1628, the Jesuits founded eight missions among the Guaraní peoples between the Paraná and Paraguai rivers in what is now southern Paraguay. They pressed deep into what is today the state of Paraná, between the Ivaí and Paranapanema rivers, to establish fifteen more in what was called Guairá Province.

From 1629 to 1631, the Guairá missions were attacked by slave hunters, known as bandeirantes (see Glossary), from the Portuguese town of São Paulo. According to the governor of Buenos Aires, these attacks resulted in the enslavement of more than 70,000 Guaraní. Consequently, the Jesuits decided to evacuate some 10,000 survivors downriver and overland to sites between the Rio Uruguai and the Atlantic, in what became the state of Rio Grande do Sul. Other Jesuits fleeing the Guairá missions set up missions among the Itatín people on the eastern bank of the Rio Paraguai in what is now Mato Grosso do Sul, only to be destroyed brutally by bandeirantes in the 1630s and 1640s. By 1650 only twenty-two of forty-eight missions remained in the whole region. The Jesuits stopped the slave hunters in the south by arming and training the Guaraní, who dealt a significant blow to their oppressors in the Battle of Mbororé in 1641. This victory ensured the continued existence of the southern Spanish missions for another century, although they became a focal point of Portuguese-Spanish conflict in the 1750s. Broadly speaking, the Battle of Mbororé stabilized the general boundary lines between the Portuguese and the Spanish in the south.

In the north, the Spanish had established the town of Santa Cruz de la Sierra in 1561 and from there planted missions in the Mamoré-Guaporé Basin in about 1682. Called the Mojos and Chiquitos, these mission provinces were in what is now lowland Bolivia fronting on the states of Mato Grosso and Rondônia. By 1746 there were twenty-four mission towns in the Mojos and ten in Chiquitos. The bandeirantes again carried the flag of Portugal into the region, first attacking the Chiquitos missions for slaves and then discovering gold in Mato Grosso (1718-36). Unsure where these gold discoveries were in relation to the Spanish territories, the members of the Lisbon-based Overseas Council, which administered the colonies, ordered a comprehensive reconnaissance and the drawing of accurate maps. In 1723 Francisco de Melo Palhêta led an expedition from Belém to the Guaporé, reporting to Lisbon the startling news about the numerous prosperous Jesuit missions. Moreover, the question of fixing borders had become more urgent in 1722, when a respected French cartographer placed the mouths of the Amazon and the Río de la Plata on the Spanish side of the Tordesillas Line.

Because the Guaporé rises in Mato Grosso and flows into the Mamoré, which enters the Madeira, and then into the Amazon, these rivers formed a natural border. Moreover, the headwaters of the Paraguai were close and offered the possibility of linking the Amazonian and La Plata systems. In 1748 Lisbon created the Captaincy of Mato Grosso as its rampart on the Peruvian side and later in the century erected Fort Príncipe de Beira on the Guaporé. In northern Amazônia, in what were then the royal states of Maranhão and Pará, the Portuguese, worried about Dutch traders from Guiana (modern Suriname) and Spaniards from Venezuela, built fortifications at Óbidos, Manaus, Tabatinga, and on the Rio Branco and Rio Negro during the eighteenth century, thereby solidifying their claims. As it turned out, it was easier to secure the vast North region than it was the South.

In 1680 the Portuguese had built a fort at Colônia do Sacramento on the eastern La Plata shore opposite Buenos Aires to guard their claim and to capture a share of the contraband trade with silver-rich Potosí. According to the Overseas Council, Lisbon adopted the policy of fortifying and settling the coast below Santa Catarina, because "the continuation of these settlements will be the best means of deciding the question of limits . . . between the two crowns."

By the mid-eighteenth century, the Iberian powers were ready to admit the fiction of Tordesillas and to redraw their lines in South America on the basis of uti possidetis (that is, ownership by occupation rather than by claim). The Portuguese gave up Colônia do Sacramento, and in return received the lands of the Jesuit order's seven missions in western Rio Grande. This exchange led to the Guaraní War of 1756, which destroyed the missions and contributed to the Jesuit expulsion from Portuguese (1759) and Spanish (1763) possessions. With the Treaties of 1750, 1761, and 1777, Brazil took on its modern shape. The lines were drawn for the nineteenth-century struggles over the East Bank (Banda Oriental, or present-day Uruguay) of the Rio Uruguai and the Río de la Plata, the war with the United Provinces of the Río de la Plata (1825-28), and the Paraguayan War, also known as the War of the Triple Alliance (1864-70).

Thus, as a result of slave hunting, gold prospecting, and Portuguese royal policy, the Tordesillas Line became obsolete, and Portugal obtained more than half of South America. When Brazil became independent in 1822, its huge territory was comparable in size with the Russian and Chinese empires.

Early Colonization

On April 22, 1500, the thirteen-ship fleet under Pedro Álvares Cabral anchored off the mouth of the Rio Buranhém (sweet bark in Tupí) on the Bahian coast. The chronicler of the discovery, Pêro Vaz de Caminha, wrote that immediately they saw men walking on the beach, and by the time a longboat reached the shore twenty or so had assembled. Entirely naked and dark skinned, they laid down their bows and arrows as a sign of peace, while responding to offers of Portuguese hats by giving over a parrot-feathered headdress and a long string of white seed pearls. Thus did the cultural exchange begin that would evolve over the next five centuries into the distinctive Brazilian culture.

In the nine days that the Portuguese stayed at the anchorage they called Porto Seguro, the natives were fascinated by the Catholic Mass, the iron tools, and alcoholic drink. Their seeming receptivity and lack of religious symbols that the Portuguese could understand caused Caminha to predict that these people quickly would turn Christian.

The natives helped fill a ship with fine-grained timber, dyewood, and presumably some of the buranhém wood or bark that gave the river its name. Cabral sent the ship back to Lisbon with Caminha's oft-quoted letter to the king, the first report on Brazil to reach Europe. As the rest of the fleet set sail from what Cabral called the Island of Vera Cruz for the Cape of Good Hope, two male convicts were left on the shore. Rather than execute such degredados (outcasts; see Glossary), the Portuguese were instinctively creating an advance guard that would learn the local language and via intermarriage would give them in another generation the means to penetrate both the indigenous societies and the Brazilian land mass.

After so many years of remarkable contacts with newly discovered lands, the Portuguese were a bit blasé about the news of this land of parrots, naked people, and brazilwood. At that time, peppers, spices, and silks were worth more than such exotica, and those products came from India and lands farther east.

With the exception of the New Christian (Jewish converts) investors, Brazil received little attention from Lisbon for three decades. The investors scouted and defended the coast and shared with the crown their monopoly contracts to harvest the brazilwood. The Portuguese monarchs followed the practice of holding legal title to lands and to certain commodities but issuing to others licenses to profit from these lands and commodities at their own expense, or with the backing of other investors. The custom was akin to the Castilian practice of adelantado(awarding of conquistador status-see Glossary) that developed during the reconquest of the Iberian Peninsula from the Moors, whereby the crown commissioned an agent to conquer a certain area at his own expense in return for rights to land, booty, and labor. The combination of royal licenses and private initiative that worked so well for Portugal along the African coast and in India was reshaped for Brazil.

But soon other Europeans were challenging Portugal's claims to exclusivity. Spanish captains edged their ships down the coast and up the Río de la Plata. From 1504 onward, French vessels from Brittany, Flanders, and Normandy were active in the dyewood trade. The reddish-purple dyes made from the wood brought good prices from tapestry and textile makers, and the French court ignored Portuguese protests. The Portuguese sent out naval expeditions to destroy French vessels and outposts, but by 1530 it was clear that mounting an effective coast guard along thousands of kilometers with countless coves, anchorages, and bays would be impossible; Portugal either had to take active possession or lose out to more interested rivals. Portugal took two steps, one immediate and the other long term. It dispatched a strong fleet under the command of Martim Afonso de Sousa, who was instructed to clear the coast of interlopers and to establish a permanent settlement. The result was Brazil's first European town, São Vicente, established in 1532.

The crown also may have wanted to follow up on the adventure in 1524 of Aleixo Garcia, a Portuguese shipwrecked on the southern coast who led about 2,000 Guaraní on a raid against Inca border towns in what is now Bolivia. Sousa sent a government-sponsored expedition ( entrada ) back over Garcia's route, only to meet death at the hands of the Carijó tribe of Indians. Such feeble results did little to attract investors, so the crown turned to the hereditary donatory captaincy system that had succeeded on the islands of Madeira and the Azores. Under this system, each donee was responsible for colonizing his own captaincy at his own expense. To help the lord proprietor attract settlers, he was given permission to issue land grants ( sesmarias ). This step was significant because it twisted a medieval Portuguese practice that placed conquered lands in the hands of peasants into one that gave some families holdings larger than Portugal's provinces. This practice in part led to the establishment of latifundia (see Glossary) in Brazil.

Nonetheless, the nobles were not interested in risking their lives or fortunes in a land of "naked savages," and most of those who received the grants were too ill-prepared, ill-financed, and ill-connected to succeed. The northern four captaincies never went beyond the planning stage, and the rest flourished or failed depending on the management skills and competence of the donatário in dealing with the native Brazilians. Sousa, who obtained the grant to São Vicente, prospered because he took advantage of João Ramalho, a castaway who had married the daughter of the chief of the Goiana Tupiniquin. Because of Ramalho, who lived until 1580, the Portuguese were able to obtain Indian labor, foodstuffs, and women. With his help, it was possible to establish a town at the village of Piratininga, which in time would grow into the metropolis of São Paulo. He was the key player in the Portuguese alliance with the Tupiniquin, who protected the colony from other Indians and who formed the basis for the future military power of the bandeirantes . The lack of European women facilitated assimilation and acculturation with the Indians. With the steady miscegenation, a substantial population of Tupí-speaking mestizos ( mestiços or mamelucos -see Glossary) came into being.

Also important for São Vicente's success was Sousa's ability to attract investors for sugar mills, including an investor from Antwerp, which became the center of the European sugar market. Although Pernambuco in later years surpassed São Vicente in sugar production, its early success fixed Portuguese control on what centuries later would be the agricultural and industrial core of Brazil.

Similarly, the affluence of Pernambuco Province centering on Olinda resulted from successful interaction with the natives, the ability to draw investment capital (often from Italian merchants), and capable settlers. The donatário , Duarte Coelho Pereira, had married into the well-connected Albuquerque family, which helped him attract colonists and financial support to set up sugar mills. But he was especially fortunate because his brother-in-law, Jerônimo de Albuquerque, had married the daughter of chief Arcoverde (Green Bow) of the Tobajara, thereby sealing an alliance that gave the Portuguese supplies of food and workers. The alliance also gave Coelho Pereira the military superiority to eventually defeat the French and their Indian allies. As the brazilwood stands were cut down, they were replaced with sugarcane plantations, which by 1585 were served by more than sixty mills or engenhos . The captaincy was so successful that there was reputedly more luxury in Pernambuco than in Lisbon. This strong beginning would make it the northern focal point of Portuguese America.

Porto Seguro failed to prosper as a captaincy. The constant fighting with the local Aimoré people may have been related to the presence of many married Portuguese couples and, consequently, little intermarriage with the natives. Likewise, Bahia failed at this stage because its donatáriolacked managerial skills. Many of the Portuguese there were veterans of India, where abuse of the natives was routine. The Tupinambá finally tired of the mistreatment, and many of the Portuguese at Bahia, including the donatário , were captured and ceremonially killed and eaten. Ilhéus, Espírito Santo, São Tomé, Santo Amaro, and Santa Anna also failed because of poor management and hostile relations with the natives. The coast was now exposed to French incursions.

Such an outcome was not what the crown had in mind, and it decided wisely to listen to warnings. Rather than replace inept donatários with others, the king established direct royal control, except over Pernambuco and São Vicente. The crown may have acted at this juncture for several reasons: the Spanish discovery of the famed silver mountain at Potosí (1545), the decline of the Asian spice trade, and the crown's practice of reclaiming royal control after some years of leasing its rights. The enhancement of royal power was part of the general Iberian pattern of establishing royal control over the sprawling colonial ventures. In a larger sense, renewed royal control appears to have been linked to a new conservatism in Catholic Europe. The Council of Trent (1545-63) defined church dogma and practice, religious tolerance faded, and the Inquisition was emplaced in Portugal in 1547.

The king named Tomé de Sousa the first governor general of Brazil (1549-53). He ordered Sousa to create a capital city, Salvador, on the Bahia de Todos os Santos (Bay of All Saints) and to spread the royal mantle over the captaincies, defending the weaker ones and reestablishing the failed ones. Because Indian attacks were blamed for the failures, Sousa's orders amounted to a declaration of war on the indigenous peoples of Brazil. If they could be defeated, the French would have no allies and so would be less of a threat. In addition, Sousa was to increase royal revenues. The twin objectives of control and revenue were characteristic of royal policy for the rest of the colonial era.

Bahia, as the city and province would be known, was selected for its central location and its fine bay, and because the crown had purchased it from the heirs of the donatário . Sousa built fortifications, a town, and sugar mills. His knottiest task was forming a policy on the Indians, whose status remained unclear. Although he had treasury and coast guard officials with him, their roles were oriented toward Portuguese colonists and European interlopers.

As early as 1511, the crown had placed the Indians under its "protection," and it ordered Sousa to treat them well, as long as they were peaceful, so that they could be converted. Conversion was essential because Portugal's legal claims to Brazil were based on papal bulls requiring Christianization of the Indians. However, those who resisted conversion were likened to Muslims and could be enslaved. In fact, as historian Sergio Buarque de Holanda showed, by identifying Brazil as a destination of the wandering Apostle St. Thomas the Portuguese settlers were able to argue that all natives had their chance to convert and had rejected it, so they could be conquered and taken captive legitimately. Thus, a distinction was made between peaceful, pliable natives who as wards deserved crown protection and those resisters who wanted to keep their independence and on whom "just war" could be made and slavery imposed.

The dual mission of the governors was contradictory; how could they stimulate the economy using slave labor while converting the natives? To carry out the pacification and conversion of the natives, the crown chose the new Jesuit order of the Society of Jesus, which was international in membership and military in structure and which had the task of defending and spreading the Catholic Counter-Reformation. The Jesuits had a major impact on Brazil, despite their small numbers-128 by 1598. The Indians responded to the Jesuits with initial acceptance, then regression, evasion, and enmity. The objective of the Jesuits was to Europeanize the Indians by resettling them in Indian villages ( aldeias) . In a recurring pattern, the first aldeia near Bahia (1552) soon disintegrated as the Indians who survived the European-born diseases faded into the interior beyond the Jesuits' reach.

Europeanization was overcome by a sort of Brazilianization, as the Jesuits blended Indian songs, dances, and language into the liturgy and as the colonists adopted native foods, women, language, and customs. However, the first bishop of Brazil (1551), Dom Pêro Fernandes Sardinha, objected to the Jesuit accommodation with indigenous culture. He threw the weight of his authority behind subjugation and enslavement. At issue was the nature of the future of Brazilian society. The bishop, who had served in Goa and ironically had taught Ignatius Loyola, the Jesuit founder, insisted that Europeanization must precede baptism. He believed Brazil, like India, should have a dual society made up of heathen natives ruled by a small number of Portuguese.

The conflict between the Jesuits and the bishop had far-reaching significance for Brazil's future. To get away from his direct grasp, the Jesuits shifted their attention to the south, where they formed, in 1554, the aldeia of São Paulo de Piratininga on the plateau at the headwaters of the Rio Tietê high above São Vicente. Father José de Anchieta's mission village later became known as the city of São Paulo. The crown seemingly favored the Jesuit approach because it recalled Bishop Sardinha. En route back, Sardinha was shipwrecked and then killed and reportedly eaten by Caeté people.

In 1557 the crown sent out a new bishop and a new governor to consolidate royal control and to bring organization to the far-flung settlements on the verge of collapse. The new crown representatives supported Jesuit methods and returned the Jesuits to Bahia. By protecting the Indians who lived in aldeias from enslavement, the crown representatives made the Jesuit towns more attractive. The pool of slaves available to the colonists dwindled, causing such protests that Mem de Sá (governor, 1558-72) approved a "just war" against the Caeté to punish them for killing Brazil's first bishop. However, the "just war" soon got out of hand as the closer and undefended aldeias were raided for slaves. The conflict damaged native trust in the missions, and the epidemics of influenza, smallpox, and measles in 1562 and 1563 decimated the Indian population and increased colonist competition for laborers. The famine that followed the waves of disease prompted starving Indians to sell themselves or their relatives in order to survive.

This situation led to a policy under which the Indians were considered free but could be enslaved in a sanctioned "just war," or for cannibalism, or if rescued from being eaten or enslaved by other natives. Government-sponsored expeditions ( entradas ) into the interior, sometimes ironically called rescues ( resgates ), became slave hunts under the guise of "just war." The Paulista expeditions ( bandeiras ), one of the major themes of Brazilian history in the 1600s and 1700s, would develop out of this practice. The eventual exploitation of the interior and the development of gold and gem mining in Minas Gerais, Goiás, and Mato Grosso have roots in the voracious appetite of coastal plantations for slave labor.

As Indian resistance, social disintegration, and flight into the interior increased in the last quarter of the sixteenth century, the Portuguese began to import more African slaves. In 1570 there were 2,000 to 3,000 such slaves in Brazil; by 1587 there were 14,000. Considering that the European population in 1570 was 20,760 and in 1585 was 29,400, the growth of African slaves from 14 percent of the number of whites to 47 percent is striking. Much of the commentary on native slavery holds that the Indians were unfit physically to be slaves, when actually it was their strong resistance to slavery and the colonial competition for their labor that led to the African slave trade. Also, the focus of many historians on Bahia and Pernambuco has left readers with the impression that Indian slavery gave way to African slavery throughout Brazil by 1600. This was not the case. Indians continued to be enslaved in Pará, which caused the depopulation of much of Amazônia by the mid-eighteenth century.

French and Dutch Incursions

In addition to dealing with labor supply, Mem de Sá, who was the consolidator of Portuguese Brazil, dealt successfully with the French threat. The French had continued to attack Portuguese shipping and to maintain interest in a permanent colony. Noting that Rio de Janeiro's Guanabara Bay had not been occupied, Vice Admiral Nicolas Durand de Villegaignon, a French navigator, led a mix of Huguenots and Catholics there in 1555 to establish a colony, France Antarctique, on Ilha de Sergipe. After a decade, his utopian dream of finding a religious refuge for Protestants and Catholics failed. Despite their good relations with the Indians, the French could not withstand the Portuguese assaults that began in 1565. That year, to ensure future control of the bay, Mem de Sá founded the city of Rio de Janeiro, which became the second royal captaincy. Expelled from Guanabara Bay in 1567, the French turned their efforts to the northern coast. They made alliances with the Indians and settled themselves on Ilha São Luís do Maranhão in 1612, where fierce fighting led to their expulsion in 1615. They kept active north of the Amazon delta, maintaining claims to Amapá.

By 1580 the Portuguese had overcome French threats and most indigenous resistance to their command of key ports. At this point, a more profound Spanish threat appeared with the passing of the crown of Portugal to King Philip II of Spain. This event had immediate and long-range consequences. Now Europe's two greatest empires were united under a single ruler and could well have been joined permanently, save for the determination of the Portuguese to maintain their identity. The Iberian union gave the Portuguese easier access to the Spanish domains. For Brazil, however, the most important result was that it made enemies of Portugal's former business associates, the Dutch. Portugal's commerce was more open than Spain's and perhaps more practical. Portugal recognized its need for shipping and for access to markets, both of which the Dutch provided for Brazilian sugar. The spirit of cooperation faded with the union of the crowns as the Dutch, long struggling for independence from the Spanish Habsburgs, were shut out officially from the Portuguese domains. This exclusion led to the formation of the Dutch West India Company in 1621 and the seizure of Brazilian sugar lands. After being unsuccessful in holding Salvador in 1624-25, the Dutch captured Pernambuco in 1630 and eventually extended their sway from the Rio São Francisco to São Luís do Maranhão until finally being forced out in 1654.

The Dutch incursion was the longest and most serious challenge to Portuguese control by a major maritime power. The struggle to drive out the Dutch had devastating effects on the sugar plantations and sugar mills. The Dutch, particularly Governor Johan Maurits, Count of Nassau, had worked to build good relations with the Portuguese planters in the interior, supplying them with credit, slaves, merchandise, and European markets. Nassau encouraged religious tolerance, constructed buildings and canals in the style of Amsterdam, and brought in artists, engineers, and scientists to embellish, record, and study the local flora, fauna, and peoples.

Portugal and its Brazilian subjects had divergent interests in responding to the Dutch. When the Duke of Bragança took the throne as João IV in 1640, his government faced the determination of Philip IV to reconquer Portugal, and he therefore needed to maintain peace with the rest of Europe. As much as the Portuguese economy needed the revenues from the sugar trade, the court had to face the reality that in Europe the Dutch dominated a good portion of that trade. Thus, if Por-tugal attacked Dutch-held Pernambuco, it would earn an enemy in Europe and lose access to the market. At the same time, the king understood the importance of Brazil when he called it his milk cow ( vaca de leite ). Indeed, historian Charles Boxer asserted that Portugal's independence depended chiefly on the Brazil trade, which centered on sugar and slavery.

The Dutch did not show the same hesitation. In 1641 they seized Luanda, an important source of African slaves, in violation of a truce with Portugal. Holland now held sugar and slave ports in the South Atlantic and the distribution system in Europe. Although Lisbon could not merely abandon its subjects in Brazil, it realized that it would be foolhardy to fight for the sugar area without also regaining the source of African slaves.

The colonists in the Dutch-occupied area played their own game of deception. They borrowed Dutch money to restore their war-torn plantations and engenhos and to buy slaves, but they realized that their long-term interests lay in expelling the Dutch and with them their indebtedness. After 1645, together with the governor general in Bahia, they conspired, rebelled, and fought against the Dutch. Their victories of 1648 and 1649 at the Battle of Guararapes in the Recife area of Pernambuco are commemorated today. However, after nine years of war the scorched-earth tactics had ravaged the region. Although sugar prices rose in Europe, Brazilian planters could not respond and permanently lost their leading market position. The Dutch and English set up plantations in Suriname and Barbados, taking advantage of the techniques developed in Brazil and their better access to capital, merchant fleets, and the northern European market. Although there were years of recovery (1665-80, 1698-1710), sugar was no longer the foundation of the Brazilian economy. Northeastern Brazil entered into a long stagnation, and Portugal, which now depended heavily on Brazil after its losses to the Dutch in the East Indies, watched its economy deteriorate.

Gold Mining Displaces Cane Farming

The decline in the sugar economy cut off the smaller Northeastern cane farmers from the customary paths to higher socioeconomic status, producing a situation in which this potentially powerful segment of the population no longer had reasons to support the traditional colonial society. The cane farmers had the same social origins as the wealthier planter and mill-owner class but generally were less independent financially, and now their future was darkened. As sugar prices fell, the planters and mill owners' response was vertical integration; stages of production were consolidated under the control of fewer firms. Purchases from independent cane farmers were reduced and their lands acquired. The situation was potentially explosive. Historian Stuart Schwartz commented that "at no time in Brazilian history had the conditions for a profound social upheaval been more suitable." But it did not occur for two reasons: the cane farmers did not rebel against the sugar barons for fear of encouraging a slave rebellion, and in addition, newly discovered gold fields to the south soon beckoned to free and slave populations. The removal of pressures for change solidified the hold of the great landowners on the coastal plantations.

Small deposits of alluvial gold had been exploited quietly for decades in Sao Paulo and to the south. The Paulistas likely found more than they revealed, fearing that the greed of the Portuguese authorities would soon strip them of their semi-independence. The discovery of gold by Paulistas in various parts of what is now Minas Gerais (General Mines), between the Serra de Mantiqueira and the headwaters of the Rio Sao Francisco, probably occurred between 1693 and 1695, but word filtered out slowly. The greatest concentration of deposits was along Brazil's oldest geological formation, the Serra do Espinhaço, lying in a north-south direction, throughout which it seemed that every river, stream, and brook glittered with gold. Mining camps that turned into the cities of Ouro Prêto, Mariana, and Sabará soon located in its southern end, and by 1730 diamonds were coming out of the northern reaches around Diamantina.

Word of the discoveries set off an unprecedented rush, the likes of which would not be seen again until the California gold rush of 1849. The Paulistas soon found themselves competing for control with adventurers from the Northeast who streamed down the Vale Sao Francisco, from Portugal, and from elsewhere. By 1709-10 the Vale Sao Francisco had become a lawless region filled with the dregs of the Portuguese world. Considerable violence broke out between the original Paulista bandeirantes , who considered the mines theirs, and the outsiders ( emboabas ). This fighting gave the crown authorities a reason for asserting royal control and arranging a settlement of the War of the Outsiders (Guerra dos Emboabas, 1708-09). Many Paulistas moved on to new gold discoveries in Goiás and Mato Grosso.

The discoveries shifted Brazil's center of gravity away from the Northeastern coast and toward the South and West. The loser would be Bahia, which in 1763 lost the viceregal capital to Rio de Janeiro, as power followed wealth. The population also shifted, as would-be miners and those who would profit from the mines arrived with their native or African slaves. The Jesuit Father André João Antonil (whose Italian name was Giovanni Antonio Andreoni) wrote the best contemporary study of Brazilian economic and social conditions. He said that by 1709 some 30,000 people were in Minas Gerais. In the next decades, the population swelled. The 1735 tax records showed a total of 100,141 slaves, among whom there were numerous natives. By 1782 Minas Gerais's population of 319,769 included 166,995 blacks, 82,110 mulattoes, and 70,664 whites. The state had the largest concentration of population in the viceroyalty of Brazil: 20.5 percent of Brazil's 1,555,200 people.

The early population consisted predominantly of unruly males, who knew no law but their own whims and who drove their slaves hard in an existence that historian Charles Boxer tagged as "nasty, brutish, and short." Many African slaves reacted by running away to form hiding places called quilombos and were pursued by roughneck "bushwhacking captains" ( capitães do mato). However, during the first decades life could not have been easy for anyone. Items such as meat, corn, flour, and rum were rare and costly. The first local supply of hogs and chickens appeared only in 1723, and a flask of salt could cost as much as half a pound of gold.

By the last decades of the eighteenth century, however, the cities of Minas Gerais were graced with impressive baroque and rococo churches, multistoried homes and shops, and grand public buildings. Poets and musicians enlivened the cultural scene. Some 3,000 musicians, mostly mulattoes, played fine baroque pieces, often in churches built by architect Antonio Francisco Lisboa (also known as "O Aleijadinho") and under ceilings painted by Manuel da Costa Ataíde.

The overland trails from Sao Paulo and from Paratí were superseded by ones connecting to Rio de Janeiro. The new viceregal capital sent African slaves and European merchandise to Minas Gerais and received the heavily laden chests of gold and diamonds en route to Lisbon. Rio de Janeiro also served as the supply base for the newly created captaincies of Santa Catarina and Rio Grande de Sao Pedro, passing their livestock products on to Portugal. Those captaincies were linked overland to Sao Paulo and Minas Gerais via the livestock trails that ran northeast from the pampas of what was later called Rio Grande do Sul to Sorocaba in Sao Paulo Province.

Ranching had developed in the Northeastern interior as an adjunct to the sugar economy and in the South as the legacy of the Jesuit missions. In the eighteenth century, ranching was an increasingly important part of the overall colonial economy. The moving frontiers that it created drew the interior into effective relationships with European-oriented Brazil. From the interior of Maranhão, southeast through Piauí, Ceará, Pernambuco, and Bahia, then west into Goiás, and on down to Rio Grande do Sul, a set of cowboy ( vaqueiro ) subcultures evolved that still mark local traditions. It was an age of leather in which the horse was the center of life. Many, perhaps most, of the vaqueiros were native Indians, mestizos, African slaves, and mulattoes. In the northern and central areas, slaves and free men worked together unsupervised for months at a time. In the South, the gaucho culture, mixing native, Spanish, and Portuguese bloodlines and traditions, took hold throughout the pampas of the Río de la Plata up into Rio Grande do Sul. In the latter state, by the mid-1820s cattle had driven out wheat farming, and the mounted gaucho with his bolas, knife, maté tea, and open-fire barbecued beef became characteristic.

Although gold mining weakened the dominance of sugar and seemingly stimulated the cattle industry, it did not totally supersede export agriculture. It displaced sugar as the colony's leading economic activity, but during the eighteenth century the value of gold exports never surpassed the value of sugar-led agricultural exports. Even so, gold did have serious long-term effects on Portugal. The fall in the value of Portugal's colonial products in the seventeenth century had made it difficult to obtain sufficient currency to purchase merchandise from northern Europe. In response, Portugal had begun to develop industries to meet its local and colonial requirements. The discovery of gold provided needed currency.

In 1703 Portugal signed the Methuen Treaty with England, giving English woolens preference in Portuguese markets in return for a favorable tariff on Portuguese wines. This seemingly simple arrangement ended the move toward industrial development, drained Brazilian gold out of Portugal, and gave England its increasing dominance over Portugal and Brazil. The gold and diamond chests arriving at the royal treasury in Lisbon immediately were dispatched north to pay for imported cloth and manufactured goods. Local Portuguese producers could not compete with cheaper foreign prices. Furthermore, English vessels anchored in the Tagus River in the Iberian Peninsula snatched large quantities of gold from under the noses of Portuguese authorities. Instead of Brazil's wealth being used to develop Portugal and its colonies, it helped finance the English industrial revolution and Portugal's eighteenth-century struggles to secure Brazilian boundaries.

Even though an immense amount of wealth was sent abroad, much stayed in Brazil to build urban public works, such as fountains, bridges, buildings, and churches; to endow some charitable foundations, such as hospitals; and to finance the elaborate contraband trade with the Río de la Plata and Alto Perú (Upper Peru, or present-day Bolivia). However, it did not improve the condition of the poor; generate a prosperous middle class; improve agriculture, education, or industry; or produce lasting reform.

In 1732 António Rodrigues da Costa, a member of the Overseas Council, warned the crown that the heavy colonial taxes would one day lead the colonists to cast off their loyalty. It was obvious to Rodrigues da Costa that the "larger and richer" would not accept forever being ruled by the "smaller and poorer." In 1738 royal adviser Dom Luís da Cunha suggested secretly to King João V that he take the title "emperor of the west" and move his court to Rio de Janeiro, which he argued was better situated than Lisbon to control the Portuguese maritime and commercial empire. Rather than heed such advice, however, the monarchy tried at mid-century to gain more control, stop the massive outflow of gold, and contain the British. Beginning in 1755, Marquês de Pombal (Count Sebastião José de Carvalho e Melo), as secretary of state for overseas dominions, shaped a series of reforms that gave chartered companies a monopoly of the Brazil trade, encouraged national manufacturers, and worked to make commercial relations with Britain less dependent and more reciprocal. His goal was to revitalize the state and to break the stranglehold of British credit. He closed Brazilian ports to all foreign ships and hired foreign military experts to organize Brazil's defenses. To promote agricultural growth, Pombal distributed coffee and mulberry seedlings and also advocated production of indigo, flax, cotton, cocoa, and rice. Iron mining and smelting got underway in Sao Paulo, and shipbuilding and its attendant trades in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro increased. With the British seizure of Havana and Manila during the Seven Years' War (1756-63), the Portuguese wondered if Rio de Janeiro would be next. The crown responded with four goals: secure the borders, populate them for self-defense, defend the ports, and make the mines profitable.

Pombal distrusted the Jesuits, who controlled vast areas in the interior of South America. He suspected commercial links between their prosperous missions and the British, and in September 1759 expelled them from Brazil. The expulsion of the Jesuits caused the missions to fall to ruin and eliminated the strongest educational institutions in Brazil. Crown policy forbade any university or even a printing press in the colony, and modern Brazilian universities date only from the 1930s.

The crown's education policy was based on the idea that colonial and metropolitan elites would blend to shape an imperial elite united by ideology in support of the crown. During the colonial era, 3,000 Brazilians studied at Portugal's University of Coimbra, which in 1772 Pombal reformed with Enlightenment perspectives. Between 1772 and 1785, 300 Brazilians, many from Minas Gerais, were at Coimbra. Pombal placed these graduates and other members of the colonial plutocracy in judicial, administrative, and military posts. However, policy intention and outcome often clashed. Some of these students and officials would begin to think in terms of independence.

The production of gold began to decline about 1750 as the Minas Gerais society was solidifying and as the international situation was becoming more complicated. The more the Portuguese squeezed and tried to reduce the contraband in gold and diamonds, the more the divergence of interests grew. In the 1770s, as less gold reached royal coffers, the crown reacted by imposing a per capita tax ( derrama ) to make up the difference between the amounts expected and those received. Meanwhile, competition from British, French, and Dutch colonies pushed the price of Brazilian sugar down lower on the Amsterdam market, reducing still more Portuguese revenues. Moreover, the decline in available gold affected the contraband trade that the Brazilians had carried on with the Río de la Plata area, where they exchanged their illicit gold for Andean silver. The Brazilians then used the silver to buy illegal British goods, which they smuggled back into the Spanish domains. The elimination of the Jesuit missions, Spain's creation of the Viceroyalty of the Río de la Plata (1776), and the opening of direct trade between Spain and Buenos Aires further reduced the profitable trade in smuggled goods. The decline in smuggling reduced transshipments of British goods through Portugal, reducing that country's overall level of trade with Britain catastrophically. The ensuing recession made it difficult to pay for the military expeditions sent to the southern borders during the 1770s, and the crown was unable to adjust expenditures in the face of declining revenues.

In Minas Gerais, landowners had manufacturing establishments on their properties turning out cotton, linen, and woolen items, and most of the other captaincies had "workshops and manufactories" that lessened the need to import from Portugal. The basis for a more complex textile industry was being laid.

Then, in February 1777, José I (king of Portugal, 1750-77) died, and with him went Pombal's hold on power and his common sense approach of encouraging industrial development. Pombal's successor as secretary of state for overseas dominions, Martinho de Melo e Castro, was alarmed that the nascent Brazilian factories could make the colony independent and warned that "Portugal without Brazil is an insignificant power." In January 1785, he ordered that they all be "closed and abolished."

In the early 1780s, Brazilian students at Coimbra had pledged themselves to seek independence. They were influenced greatly by the success of the North American British colonies in forming the United States of America. In 1786 and 1787, José Joaquim Maia e Barbalho of Rio de Janeiro, a Coimbra graduate studying medicine at Montpelier and a critic of the colonial relationship, approached Ambassador Thomas Jefferson in France. He told Jefferson that the students intended to break with Portugal and requested the aid of the United States. One of the Coimbra graduates was José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva, the patriarch of Brazilian independence.

The failed Minas Conspiracy (Inconfidência Mineira) of 1789 involved some of the leading figures of the captaincy: tax collectors, priests, military officers, judges, government officials, and mine owners and landowners. Some had been born in Portugal, several had their early education with the Jesuits and later studied at Coimbra, a number wrote poetry that is still read and studied. But what they had most in common were financial problems caused by crown policies that required them to pay their debts, or that cut them out of lucrative gold and diamond contraband trade. They argued that Brazil had all it needed to survive and prosper and that Portugal was a parasite. They pledged to lift restrictions on mining; exploit iron ore; set up factories; create a university, a citizens' militia, and a Parliament; pardon debts to the royal treasury; free slaves born in Brazil; and form a union with Sao Paulo and Rio de Janeiro similar to that of the United States.

The history of the Minas Conspiracy is full of heavy drama. Revelation of the conspiracy turned brothers, friends, clients, and patrons against each other in an unseemly scramble to escape punishment. In one sense, the affair foreshadowed the nature of future Brazilian revolutionary movements in that it was a conspiracy of oligarchs seeking their own advantage, while claiming to act for the people. In the end, Lisbon decided to make an example of only one person, a low-ranked second lieutenant ( alferes ) of the Royal Mineiro Dragoons named Joaquim José da Silva Xavier ("Tiradentes"). His execution in 1792 in Rio de Janeiro might well have been forgotten if the nineteenth-century republicans had not embraced him as a symbolic counterpoise to Dom Pedro I, who declared Brazilian independence from Portugal in 1822. Later, with the establishment of the republic in 1889, every town and city in Brazil built a Tiradentes square, and the day of his execution, April 21, became a well-commemorated national holiday. Nonetheless, because the Minas Conspiracy was marked more by skulduggery than nobility and clarity, its value as a national symbol required selective interpretation and presentation.

Portugal resolved to watch Brazilians more carefully and reacted forcefully to a nonexistent but suspected plot in Rio de Janeiro in 1794, and to a real, mulatto-led one in Bahia in 1798. Meanwhile, the French Revolution, the resulting slave rebellion in Haiti, and the fear of similar revolts in Brazil convinced the Brazilian elites that the dream of a United States-style conservative revolution that would leave the slave-based socioeconomic structure intact and in their hands was impossible. The crown separated the residents of Minas Gerais from the revived coastal sugar producers through policies that set their interests at odds. Lisbon diverted Brazilian nationalism with greater imperial involvement.

The Transition to Kingdom Status

With the onset of the Napoleonic Wars, some Portuguese officials again raised the idea of moving the crown to the safety of Brazil. Dom Luís da Cunha's prophetic suggestion in 1738 that Rio de Janeiro was "safer and more convenient" made great sense as the French army approached Lisbon in November 1807. The British in 1801 had recommended transfer to Brazil in the event of an invasion and had promised to provide protection for the voyage and assistance in extending and consolidating Portuguese territory in South America. In 1803 the Lisbon government, faced with the increasingly deadly struggle between France and Britain, had reconsidered the idea. The choice was between losing Portugal to the French and having the British seize Brazil, or moving the crown to Brazil, from which the struggle for Portugal could be resumed. In any case, the royal government did not move until Portugal was actually invaded in late 1807.

At the time, the monarch was Queen Maria I, but because of mental illness triggered by her horror at the regicide in Paris, her son Dom João ruled as regent. His wife was Dona Carlota Joaquina, a Spanish princess and mother to their nine children, among whom the most important for Brazilian history was Pedro de Alcântara de Bragança e Bourbon. Dom João opened Brazilian ports to world commerce, allowing British goods to stream in, and eliminating the Portuguese middlemen. Rio de Janeiro substituted for Lisbon in a centralized system that placed the various captaincies in subservient positions to the new center. For the Brazilian elites, the transfer of the court meant that they could have conservative political change without social disorder. And best of all, depending on their proximity to the court, they had the chance to obtain the titles and honors that they felt their wealth had earned them. However, the pleasure of the elites was mixed with some frustration because now the monarch was close enough to keep an attentive watch on how they conducted their affairs. And with the court in Rio de Janeiro, the demands of international politics were more keenly felt.

Portugal and the Bragança dynasty were obligated deeply to the British. The British not only saved the royal family and some 15,000 courtiers but also lent US$3 million in 1809 to keep the government functioning. The British also liberated Portugal from the French and reorganized the Portuguese army. In addition, one of their officers ruled as regent in Lisbon. The Portuguese therefore had little with which to bargain when negotiating treaties. In 1810 Dom João signed agreements not only giving the British trade preferences and allowing them privileges of extraterritoriality but also promising to abolish the African slave trade. The last cut directly at the interests of the propertied classes, on whom the crown depended.

The crown had to duplicate, mostly from scratch, the government institutions it had left behind in Lisbon. It set up a Supreme Military Council (Conselho Militar Superior); boards of treasury, trade, agriculture, and industry; a Court of Appeals; a royal printing press and official newspaper; and the Bank of Brazil (Banco do Brasil). It created medical schools in Bahia and Rio de Janeiro, a school of fine arts, a museum of natural history, a public library, and the Botanical Garden (Jardim Botânico) in Rio de Janeiro. It also set up specialized courses of study in the Minas Gerais towns of Ouro Prêto and Paracatu. Most of the fleet had been transferred, but a new army was organized, naval and military academies were established, and arsenals created. The crown built a powder factory and an ironworks. It dealt with public safety by forming the Royal Police Guard, which brutalized slaves, sailors, drunks, gamblers, and prostitutes into submission. The crown also opened Brazil to European travelers, naturalists, scientists, and artists, who left a detailed picture of its life and landscape.

Curiously, by staying in Brazil after the British liberated Portugal from the French in 1811, the crown was keeping British influence under some control, because here it was removed both from Britain and the British-commanded Portuguese army. In 1815 the crown, determined to set its own course, raised Brazil to a kingdom equal with Portugal and acclaimed João as king when his mother died in 1816. The crown gained further maneuverability by arranging marriages between the two princesses and the Spanish King Fernando VII and his brother, and more important, between Crown Prince Pedro and the daughter of Franz I of Austria, the Archduchess Leopoldina.

The Kingdom of Portugal and Brazil, 1815-1821

Portuguese businessmen who invested locally in Brazil, nobles and government officials who built expensive homes there, and those who married into provincial wealth shared a common interest in remaining. Indeed, what took shape was a new concept of a dual monarchy of Brazil and Portugal, which even under the best of circumstances would have been difficult to make work. It was an expedient idea that would founder because of resistance by those in Portugal who saw their status and that of the kingdom endangered; by the British, who wanted the king back in Lisbon, where he was more vulnerable; and by the unwillingness of Brazilians to suffer the indignity of being returned to colonial rank.

The centralization of power in Rio de Janeiro met with violent resistance in the Northeast. When Pernambuco raised the banner of republican rebellion in 1817, it was followed by Paraíba do Norte, Rio Grande do Norte, and the south of Ceará, each of which acted to defend local interests without thought of federating. They resented their loss of autonomy to Rio de Janeiro and the Portuguese who had settled in the Northeast since 1808. Significantly, although they sent envoys to secure recognition from Britain and the United States and to spread the revolt to Bahia, they did not send agents to central or southern Brazil. The revolt was crushed brutally. Although unsuccessful, the 1817 "Pernambuccan revolution" shook the monarchy's foundations because it had pushed aside authority and tarnished the crown's aura of invincibility. In desperation, the monarchy responded by banning all secret societies and by garrisoning Rio de Janeiro, Salvador, and Recife with fresh troops from Portugal.

Meanwhile, the monarchy was waging war in the Río de la Plata. King João regarded the East Bank of the Río de la Plata (present-day Uruguay) as the proper and true boundary of Brazil. Over British objections, he brought veteran troops from Portugal to seize Montevideo and to wage a wearing campaign (1816-20) against the forces of independence-minded José Gervasio Artigas, the father of Uruguay. The region was incorporated into the United Kingdom as the Cisplatine Province in 1821. Nonetheless, even as it was expanding, the United Kingdom, as the Rio de Janeiro royalists termed it, was suffering from pressures in Portugal itself.

The Pernambuccan revolution in 1817 encouraged army officers in Portugal to conspire against the regency of British Marshal William Carr Beresford. Twelve of the conspirators, including a general officer, were tried secretly and hanged. Anti-British sentiment deepened. In 1820, when a military revolt in Spain forced the revived absolutist regime of Fer-nando VII (1784-1833) to restore the liberal constitution of 1812, the Portuguese military followed suit by expelling the British officers and forming revolutionary juntas. The military petitioned the king's return and summoned a Côrtes (the Portuguese Parliament), the first since 1697 when the crown had dispensed with such bodies.

Unable to do more, João pardoned the juntas' usurpation of his prerogative to summon a Côrtes and acknowledged that a Côrtes could be useful in making proposals to him on how best to govern the United Kingdom. Then, in January 1821, Portuguese officers and troops, as well as Brazilian liberals, took over provincial governments in Bahia and Belém, and in late February, troops in Rio de Janeiro threw in with the movement and forced the king to take an oath to accept any constitution the Côrtes might write. In effect, Brazil was again being ruled from Portugal. A few days later, a royal decree announced that the king would return to Lisbon, leaving his twenty-four-year-old son Dom Pedro as regent in Brazil.

On April 25, 1821, twelve ships carrying the king and queen, 4,000 officials, diplomats, and families, as well as purloined funds and jewels from the Bank of Brazil, set course for Lisbon. The city and country that they left behind no longer constituted the closed colony of thirteen years before. Thanks to the surveys, expeditions, and studies that João had encouraged, Brazil's resources would be exploited at a steadily increasing pace, but in a fashion that tied the country more closely to the rapidly expanding industrial capitalism of the North Atlantic. Nonetheless, João VI and Queen Carlota exemplified the fading absolutist regime; their son Pedro would seek to be more modern by embracing the new ideas of liberal constitutionalism.

During the thirteen years that João resided in Rio de Janeiro, international trade expanded as reflected by the growing number of foreign ships anchoring in the bay: from ninety in 1808 to 354 in 1820. By 1820 Rio de Janeiro had more than 3,000 foreigners among its 113,000 inhabitants.

Rio de Janeiro also had coffee houses serving the product that would become the backbone of the economy. Expanding from seedlings nurtured in the Jardim Botânico, coffee cultivation spread from the Rio de Janeiro area over the Serra do Mar into the fertile upland valley, through which the Rio Paraíba flows from São Paulo easterly to the sea, dividing the provinces of Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro. On both sides of the river, the tropical forests were cut to make way for the coffee groves. Mule trains that once brought gold from Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro now carried coffee in quantities that swelled from 2,304 kilos in 1792 to 7,761,600 kilos in 1820, and would reach 82,178,395 kilos in 1850.

São Paulo's entry into the coffee age lay in the future, but in 1821 it was providing herds of mules and horses for the coffee pack trains. The Cisplatine and Rio Grande do Sul were shipping abroad hides, tallow, and dried meat. In contrast, the Northeast and North were in decline because an 1815 treaty between Brazil and Britain forbade the African slave trade north of the equator, thereby reducing the demand for Bahian molasses-soaked rolled tobacco, and because Cuban competition slashed deeply into the Northeast's sugar market in the United States and Europe. Even cotton, which a few years before seemed a secure export for Maranhão, was overwhelmed by the post-War of 1812 expansion in the southern United States. The world demand for Amazonian nuts, cocoa, skins, herbs, spices, and rubber was still weak in 1821. Finally, in the Brazilian west (Mato Grosso and Goiás) gold mining had all but ended, and subsistence farming and livestock raising were predominant. Throughout the country, but more so from Bahia through Minas Gerais to Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo, the labor force was made up of African or locally born black slaves. The native heritage lived on in the substantial number of Tupí-speaking races and mixtures that lived in the tropical forest region.
Originally published by the U.S. Library of Congress, Brazil: A Country Study (1997), under an open public domain license.
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A History of Brazil from the Precolonial Era to the Kingdom Period

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Brazil's history can be divided into five economic periods, each characterized by a dominant export product. By Rex A. Hudson In 1500 Pedro Álvares Cabral's fleet, which was en route to India, landed at Porto Seguro in what is now the state of Bahia.

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Taino, Arawakan-speaking people who at the time of Christopher Columbus's exploration inhabited what are now Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola ( Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Once the most numerous indigenous people of the Caribbean, the Taino may have numbered one or two million at the time of the Spanish conquest in the late 15th century. They had long been on the defensive against the aggressive Carib people, who had conquered the Lesser Antilles to the east.

When they were first encountered by Europeans, the Taino practiced a high-yielding form of shifting agriculture to grow their staple foods, cassava and yams. They would burn the forest or scrub and then heap the ashes and soil into mounds that could be easily planted, tended, and irrigated. Corn (maize), beans, squash, tobacco, peanuts (groundnuts), and peppers were also grown, and wild plants were gathered. Birds, lizards, and small animals were hunted for food, the only domesticated animals being dogs and, occasionally, parrots used to decoy wild birds within range of hunters. Fish and shellfish were another important food source.

Traditional Taino settlements ranged from small family compounds to groups of 3,000 people. Houses were built of logs and poles with thatched roofs. Men wore loincloths and women wore aprons of cotton or palm fibres. Both sexes painted themselves on special occasions, and they wore earrings, nose rings, and necklaces, which were sometimes made of gold. The Taino also made pottery, baskets, and implements of stone and wood. A favourite form of recreation was a ball game played on rectangular courts. The Taino had an elaborate system of religious beliefs and rituals that involved the worship of spirits (s) by means of carved representations. They also had a complex social order, with a government of hereditary chiefs and subchiefs and classes of nobles, commoners, and slaves.

The Taino were easily conquered by the Spaniards beginning in 1493. Enslavement, starvation, and disease reduced them to a few thousand by 1520 and to near extinction by 1550. Those who survived mixed with Spaniards, Africans, and others. Taino culture was largely wiped out, although several groups claiming Taino descent gained visibility in the late 20th century, notably in Cuba, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. state of Florida. In 1998 the United Confederation of Taino People, which characterizes itself as an "Inter-Tribal authority," was created as an umbrella organization for the affirmation and restoration of Taino culture, language, and religion. Whereas the Taino are not officially recognized as a group by any governments, those who consider themselves Taino claim the right to self-determination.

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Taino, Arawakan-speaking people who at the time of Columbus's exploration inhabited what are now Cuba, Jamaica, Hispaniola, Puerto Rico, and the Virgin Islands. Once the most numerous indigenous people of the Caribbean, the Taino may have numbered one or two million at the time of the Spanish conquest.

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Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL)

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Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean: A Focus on the Taíno

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Jamaica Center for Arts and Learning (JCAL)

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Indigenous Peoples of the Caribbean: A Focus on the Taíno

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Farishta 4/5

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Harness the power of maps to tell stories that matter. ArcGIS StoryMaps has everything you need to create remarkable stories that give your maps meaning.

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This story map was created with the Story Map Cascade application in ArcGIS Online.

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Sophie

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There are two categories of what are sometimes referred to as 'highlanders': those minorities and indigenous peoples concentrated in the central highlands of Vietnam, and those found in the country's north highlands, located beyond the Red River to the north. Both are made up of a large number of quite distinct ethnic groups and have migrated into today's Vietnam at various points in history. The former are collectively sometimes known as Degar, or Montagnards, a term which is a carry-over from the French colonial period. The latter are sometimes known by the Vietnamese word for highlanders but that term technically could be said to apply to both categories.

The highlands of northern Vietnam are inhabited primarily by speakers of the Austroasiatic family of languages, and especially from the Tai-Kadai and Vietic groups of languages such as Tay, Thai, Muong, Dzao and Nung. The Thai, for instance, are differentiated as Black Thai, White Thai and Red Thai, according to the distinctive clothing worn by the women of respective groups. The Thai have a complex social and political organization and a valley-based principality called a muong that goes beyond the village level. Because of the great distances to markets, subsistence farming is the norm. Highlanders in the north are in the main closer culturally to the lowland Vietnamese than those in the south, though relations between the two were historically no better than in the south.

The Montagnards can be subdivided into (at least) 30 or so different ethnic groups speaking different languages belonging mainly to the Austronesian language family (such as the Gia Rai, Ede, Rag Lai and Cham), and Mon-Khmer language groups (including the Ba Na, Bru-Van Kieu, Gie Trieng, M'Nong, Xe Dang and X Tieng). Many consider these populations to be indigenous, having preceded the arrival of the ethnic Kinh, and most of their societies are matrilineal. Some of the Montagnard groups, such as the Ede and Bahnar, include a significant number of Catholic or Protestant believers. The main groups in this category are the Jarai, Rhade, Bahnar, Koho, Mnong and Stieng.

The exact numbers of these two categories are a matter of some dispute: the Montagnards of the central highlands probably number between 1 and 2 million, whereas the groups from the northern highlands are more numerous, with several of the largest peoples such as the Tay, Tai, Muong and Nung each exceeding or in the vicinity of 1 million.
Historical context
Most of the minority and indigenous populations in the northern and central highlands of Vietnam are descended from various groups who settled in the region long before the arrival of the ethnic Kinh. Many of the highland groups, for example, are thought to have arrived over 2,000 years ago, and at one point to have occupied much of the south of Indochina.

During the pre-colonial period, ethnic minorities and indigenous peoples living in the highland areas maintained autonomy from the Vietnamese state, which did not consider them a threat. However, the highland population in both the north and the south was economically exploited by the ethnic Kinh. During the colonial period, the highland areas were targets of French missionary education and commercial activities. The French played the Kinh and highland groups off against one another, sometimes supporting Kinh settlement in highland areas, at other times prohibiting such settlement and encouraging local administration by highlanders.

The reaction of highland groups to the French was also mixed. Because of the economic exploitation there were a number of revolts, including a revolt by the Jarai that lasted until the late 1930s. At the same time, many hill tribe populations supported the French for the protection they gave them from the Kinh. Montagnards, especially in the south, fought alongside French and, later, US forces during successive Indochinese wars, though at the same time some also fought against them.

In order to win support from the ethnic groups in the northern and central highland regions, French colonial authorities established before 1954 autonomous zones for the Muong and Thai in the north-western mountains and the central highlands as the 'Pays Montagnard du Sud', administered directly under Emperor Bao Dai. While Ho Chi Minh made a number of commitments promising autonomy for these minorities, the policies until independence were very much in a state of flux.

South Vietnamese authorities, however, embarked on what would later also be continued in a different form by Vietnam's Communist government: after 1955, South Vietnamese President Ngô Dinh Diêm launched the first programmes to resettle members of the Kinh to 'land development centres' in the central highlands - in effect appropriating the traditional lands of the highland communities and handing them over mainly to members of the majority ethnic group, as well as to thousands of ethnic minority refugees from the north. These policies were eventually suspended, to try to assuage some of the highland groups who had resisted violently. North Vietnam also began its own resettlement programme during its first Five Year Plan (1961-65), setting up 'New Economic Zones' in northern highland provinces. By 1975, an estimated 1 million people, mainly ethnic Kinh, were relocated into areas previously the domain of various highland indigenous peoples.

Similar policies were put into place for the central highlands after reunification in 1975, with perhaps as many as 3 million moving into the area. The ethnic Kinh today represent around two-thirds of the population of the central highlands. In addition, efforts to end swidden agriculture (also known as slash-and-burn) and to sedentarize minorities and indigenous peoples meant the relocation of hundreds of thousands to the valleys to grow rice and other cash-oriented crops. Frustration at the loss of traditional lands, restrictions on the religious practices of some minority and indigenous communities, threats to the maintenance of their languages and cultures, as well as poor access to education and health all combined to spark large-scale demonstrations by some central highland indigenous peoples in 2001. There were further demonstrations in 2004 over land rights and freedom of religion issues, as well as over the migration of large numbers of majority Kinh. The 2004 demonstrations were much more violent than in 2001, with the People's Committee building in one commune destroyed, as well as some Kinh migrants' houses and farms. On both occasions, the government clamped down on all outside access to the central highlands.

After the 2001 protests by thousands of highland groups, a number of announcements and changes were made to address some of the grievances. Among these was a 2004 prime ministerial decision to allocate land to the country's minorities and assist them in areas such as housing. However, other announcements indicate that aspects of policy detrimental to highland communities have not been abandoned. In March 2007, another prime ministerial decision on resettlement declared the aim of completely eliminating all swidden (slash-and-burn) agriculture activities of minorities and indigenous peoples by 2010. While it is too early to conclude how effective or even desirable such moves away from swidden agriculture are, early studies suggest mixed results: a 2006 report examining a remote upland village in north-central Vietnam where swidden agriculture was severely curtailed, concluded that the move towards wet-rice cultivation resulted in a lower rice production yield, and thus a lower level of food security. There was an increase in forest cover, but this was accompanied by greater use of lower areas for wet-rice cultivation and a reduction in the landscape mosaic resulting from swidden agriculture. Some reports indicate that swidden agriculture supports greater biodiversity than the binary system of forest and permanently cultivated fields.
Current issues
The Vietnam government still tends to view its minority and indigenous populations from a paternalistic standpoint as 'primitive' and in need of more civilized practices. As a result, while the state has provided some services such as bilingual education and access to health care, these programmes are not always implemented in a culturally appropriate manner. Further, Vietnam's growing tourism industry has posed problems for the cultural rights of its minority and indigenous communities, including government control and interference in practices to maintain the interest of tourists.

Rather than allowing communities to maintain and develop their practices the way they see fit, the government details how its policies aim to 'preserve selectively' and 'phase out the obsolete', including 'superstition, tradition of votive papers and social evils'. The government has used arbitrary detention to enforce these policies. For example, ethnic Hmong were recently sentenced to two years for practicing reformed funeral practices that, though less costly, were condemned by authorities as an 'evil practice'.

Vietnam's indigenous communities continue to suffer persecution by state authorities. Over the past decade, hundreds of indigenous people from the Central Highlands, collectively known as Montagnards, have fled Vietnam to seek asylum in Cambodia. Systematic religious and political persecution of this mostly Christian community is well documented by human rights groups, but denied by both the Vietnam and Cambodian governments. Human rights groups have documented the extensive surveillance, harassment and abuse that community members have been subjected to by Vietnamese authorities.

Land grabs, which also affect villagers from the Kinh majority, are a major issue in Vietnam. Vietnam does not recognize that indigenous communities have customary ties to their lands and natural resources, even though this is enshrined in international law and considered an essential part of protecting their human rights. Consequently, indigenous peoples continue to be displaced away from their ancestral lands in the name of development. In the highlands in the north, for example, the Son La Hydropower Project - the largest dam project ever built in Vietnam, completed in 2012 - ended up displacing an incredible 91,000 indigenous people. Compensation was not adequate and relocated villagers suffered from food shortages and a lack of arable land and water resources.

There are also continuing reports of mainly Protestant Montagnards being harassed, having property confiscated or being discriminated against because of their religion or for holding unsanctioned church services or material. The government has continued to prevent human rights monitors from having unhindered access to the central highlands. In July 2016, Amnesty International released its list of prisoners of conscience jailed in Vietnam: out of 84 persons listed, 29 are ethnic Montagnard Christians, many imprisoned on the charge of 'undermining national unity'. Human Rights Watch reported that in the first eight months of 2016, nine Montagnards were convicted on the same charge in central Gia Lai province for participating in an independent religion, with prison sentences ranging from five to eleven years.
Updated March 2018
Copyright notice: © Minority Rights Group International. All rights reserved.

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United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees

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Refworld | World Directory of Minorities and Indigenous Peoples - Vietnam : Highlanders

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Refworld is the leading source of information necessary for taking quality decisions on refugee status. Refworld contains a vast collection of reports relating to situations in countries of origin, policy documents and positions, and documents relating to international and national legal frameworks.

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East India Company, also called English East India Company, formally (1600-1708) Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies or (1708-1873) United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, English company formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, incorporated by royal charter on December 31, 1600. Starting as a monopolistic trading body, the company became involved in politics and acted as an agent of British imperialism in India from the early 18th century to the mid-19th century. In addition, the activities of the company in China in the 19th century served as a catalyst for the expansion of British influence there.

The company was formed to share in the East Indian spice trade. That trade had been a monopoly of Spain and Portugal until the defeat of the Spanish Armada (1588) by England gave the English the chance to break the monopoly. Until 1612 the company conducted separate voyages, separately subscribed. There were temporary joint stocks until 1657, when a permanent joint stock was raised.

The company met with opposition from the Dutch in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) and the Portuguese. The Dutch virtually excluded company members from the East Indies after the Amboina Massacre in 1623 (an incident in which English, Japanese, and Portuguese traders were executed by Dutch authorities), but the company's defeat of the Portuguese in India (1612) won them trading concessions from the Mughal Empire. The company settled down to a trade in cotton and silk piece goods, indigo, and saltpetre, with spices from South India. It extended its activities to the Persian Gulf, Southeast Asia, and East Asia.

Beginning in the early 1620s, the East India Company began using slave labour and transporting enslaved people to its facilities in Southeast Asia and India as well as to the island of St. Helena in the Atlantic Ocean, west of Angola. Although some of those enslaved by the company came from Indonesia and West Africa, the majority came from East Africa-from Mozambique or especially from Madagascar-and were primarily transported to the company's holdings in India and Indonesia. Large-scale transportation of slaves by the company was prevalent from the 1730s to the early 1750s and ended in the 1770s.

After the mid-18th century the cotton-goods trade declined, while tea became an important import from China. Beginning in the early 19th century, the company financed the tea trade with illegal opium exports to China. Chinese opposition to that trade precipitated the first Opium War (1839-42), which resulted in a Chinese defeat and the expansion of British trading privileges; a second conflict, often called the Arrow War (1856-60), brought increased trading rights for Europeans.

The original company faced opposition to its monopoly, which led to the establishment of a rival company and the fusion (1708) of the two as the United Company of Merchants of England trading to the East Indies. The United Company was organized into a court of 24 directors who worked through committees. They were elected annually by the Court of Proprietors, or shareholders. When the company acquired control of Bengal in 1757, Indian policy was until 1773 influenced by shareholders' meetings, where votes could be bought by the purchase of shares. That arrangement led to government intervention. The Regulating Act (1773) and William Pitt the Younger's India Act (1784) established government control of political policy through a regulatory board responsible to Parliament. Thereafter the company gradually lost both commercial and political control. Its commercial monopoly was broken in 1813, and from 1834 it was merely a managing agency for the British government of India. It was deprived of that role after the Indian Mutiny (1857), and it ceased to exist as a legal entity in 1873.

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East India Company | Definition, History, & Facts

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East India Company, also called English East India Company, formally (1600-1708) Governor and Company of Merchants of London Trading into the East Indies or (1708-1873) United Company of Merchants of England Trading to the East Indies, English company formed for the exploitation of trade with East and Southeast Asia and India, incorporated by royal charter on December 31, 1600.

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Life in british india

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There are few things we can all mostly agree on, and one of those things is colonialism. Colonialism was bad, and we all know it, with the possible exception of like 59 percent of the population of Britain, but never mind. Most people who take the time to look at the history of colonialism and its impact on the countries and cultures where it was practiced will arrive at the same ugly conclusion: With a few minor exceptions, people suffered under British rule. They were starved, stolen from, denied justice ... but hey, they did learn how to appreciate shepherd's pie and toad in the hole, so, perks.

India was ruled by the British for 200 years - first by the private East India Company, and then by the British government after the East India Company was finally abolished. So if you want a textbook example of the great experiment of colonialism, well, here's what life was really like in colonial British India.

Poverty in India skyrocketed under the British

Poverty existed in India before the British, thanks in part to constant war, food shortages, and the caste system, but in general Indian society took care of everyone. According to Indian Congress leader Shashi Tharoor, India was once one of the wealthiest countries in the world - and then the British showed up. "The British came to one of the richest countries in the world," he said during the launch of his book, An Era of Darkness: The British Empire in India, "a country which had 23 percent of global GDP ... a country where poverty was unknown." While that last bit is an exaggeration, the British certainly took poverty from small problem to national crisis.

The British didn't implement any policy or introduce any technology with the express purpose of helping Indians - everything they did was for the sake of enriching the British, and that meant two centuries of exploitation and looting, both the metaphorical kind and the actual kind. "This country was reduced to one of the poorest countries in the world by the time the British left in 1947," Tharoor said. So in conclusion, colonialism stank for nearly everyone except the British. End.

What life was like for women in British India

Okay so colonialism stank and it benefited very few Indians, and as much as we'd like to be able to put that to bed so we don't have to argue about it, it would be wrong to not acknowledge the few small improvements that happened under British rule.

India's two dominant religions had not-very-liberated ideas about women's rights. In both traditions, women were secondary to their husbands. In the Hindu religion, they existed only to procreate and provide company for men, and in the Islamic tradition, men were allowed to hit their wives or ditch them if they got bored with them. Female infanticide was common, and so was child marriage.

When the British Crown took over the government from the East India Company in 1858, Queen Victoria proclaimed the British would not interfere in Indian customs. But by 1870, the British had decided to act against female infanticide, and a bill was passed banning the practice. Many British were also critical of child marriage, and supportive of equal education for men and women. According to The Huffington Post, the British also translated and made widely available some of the old Hindu texts, which were generally a lot more supportive of women's rights - and that filtered back down into Hindu society, which ultimately resulted in more autonomy and liberty for Hindu women. So it was not all terrible things done by the British. Just mostly terrible things.

Also there was the whole not having to throw yourself on a funeral pyre thing

Widowed women in "upper caste" Hindu families got a huge boost in their standard of living under British rule in that they got to, you know, live. Before the arrival of the British, it was a common practice for a woman to throw herself on the funeral pyre of her husband - in fact it was actually expected and many women did it willingly, mostly because women who didn't participate spent the rest of their lives living in shame and humiliation.

The roots of this awful practice were mostly financial. A wife stood to inherit her husband's possessions after his death, but if she was no longer alive, then his possessions would go to his male family members. So it was in the interests of his male family members for her to burn to death alongside her husband's corpse. Nice.

According to The Huffington Post, an activist named Raja Ram Mohan Roy vigorously worked to end the practice of "widow immolation," but he got help from the British, especially from Christian missionaries and Sir John Malcolm, the governor of the Bombay Presidency. In 1829, the practice of widow immolation was banned, although 10 years later religious protesters convinced authorities to add an amendment distinguishing between "voluntary" and "forceful" immolation ("voluntary" was evidently a-okay). By 1861, though, Queen Victoria had issued a general ban on the practice and that was the official end of the horrible tradition.

Our charter school is better than yours

Before the arrival of the British, the Indians did have two educational systems already in place - one for the Hindus, and the other for the Muslims. According to Nauman Tahir's paper The Aims and Objectives of Missionary Education in the Colonial Era in India, both indigenous systems were focused more on spiritual and classical education rather than practical education, and the schools were only for boys (girls were often educated at home).

When the East India Company took over Bengal in 1765, it decided against promoting education among the people of India, and it wasn't until its Indian officers urged it to reconsider that it rolled its eyes and did a couple of not-very-enthusiastic things in the name of public education. Mostly, it set up language schools, but even that was self-serving - it was in the interests of the East India Company for Indians to be schooled in the local dialects. It wasn't until the Charter Act of 1813 that there was a specific plan in place and an acknowledgment of the Indian peoples' right to education.

From there, we can argue about whether the indigenous systems or the Western one were superior, and whether Indian children benefited more from one than the other. It's certainly a little paternalistic to say the indigenous system needed to be replaced; on the other hand, it's probably true Western-style education gave Indian kids opportunities they wouldn't have had under the old systems.

It was his fault you murdered him

The British also brought their system of justice to India, and it maybe worked reasonably well when it was evaluating cases of Indian on Indian crime. But whenever the British controlled justice system saw a case involving an Indian versus a British citizen, the courts tended to always favor the British citizen. How surprising.

According to The Guardian, a case involving a British perpetrator and an Indian victim would nearly always be decided in favor of the British perpetrator. The murder of an Indian by a British person would always be ruled an accident, but in the reverse scenario, it was always a capital crime. The courts would also find new and creative ways to deflect blame - for example, if an Englishman kicked an Indian in the abdomen and the Indian died from a ruptured spleen, it wasn't the Englishman's fault because the Indian clearly had an enlarged spleen as a result of malaria infection. And the sentencing was pretty disproportionately unfair, too. A white man convicted of killing his Indian servant (on those rare occasions when he did get convicted) might serve six months. In fact, during the many years of British rule, thousands of Indians were murdered by British colonists, but only three white men were ever executed for killing Indians. But hey, give credit where it's due, it could have been zero white men (sarcasm).

Life expectancy in British India was abysmal

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If you want to gauge the overall health of a community, life expectancy is a useful tool. Generally speaking, when life expectancy goes down, there is something seriously wrong within that community. And when the British took over India, life expectancy for the average Indian didn't just go down, it dropped by 20 percent all the way down to 32 years. Just put that into perspective, life expectancy for the average American today is around 79 years. If there was a sudden drop as bad in modern America as it was in British India, people would suddenly barely be living into their 60s, rather than looking forward to making it to 80.

According to the Conversation, under the British Raj - which is the term used to describe the post-East India Company era between 1872 and 1921 - life expectancy for Indians dropped but honestly, it wasn't that great during the reign of the East India Company, either. After India finally achieved independence, average life expectancy went skyrocketing up, far surpassing anything enjoyed under the British Raj or the East India Company. Today, Indians can expect to live about 27 years longer than they did under British rule. So yeah, something was seriously wrong in British India.

India's caste system still sucks, though the British kind of improved it

Just about every country has some kind of class system - in the United States it's based solely on economics, and we only talk about three different classes: lower, middle, and upper-income. But India's system is a class system gone totally haywire, and by the way it still exists and has existed for more than 3,000 years.

According to the BBC, in the caste system, people are divided into hierarchical groups based on the kind of work they do. There are four main groups: The Brahmins, who are the teachers and intellectuals, the Kshatriyas, who are the rulers and warriors, the Vaishyas, or traders, and the Shudras, who do all the menial jobs. But those four castes are further divided into 3,000 castes and 25,000 sub-castes, and then there's a final group: The Dalits or "untouchables," who don't belong in any caste. Also, there's no way to escape your own caste like ever, so there's that.

The British mostly strengthened the caste system, but they also disagreed with the treatment of the lower castes and the untouchables, and many of those people became educated and actually accumulated wealth under British rule. Some were even able to pass as members of the higher castes. Still, you really only saw an improvement in your life if you were able to become educated and wealthy - the poor still suffered under the forced segregation of the caste system.

There were 31 devastating famines in India under British rule

Even today, you'll hear people say famine is an act of God or nature, something no one can control or fix until nature finally decides to undo it. But is that's an overly simplistic, dismissive, and frankly not very insightful assessment of the complex set of circumstances that have to come together in order for a famine to occur.

According to YourStory, in the 2,000 years before the British arrived in India, there were 17 famines, which equals roughly one every 118 years or so. In 120 years of British rule, there were 31, which is closer to one every four years. So there has to be some causative association between British rule and all those extra famines, and you don't really have to dig very deep to find out what it is.

The British occupied India for one reason and one reason alone: economic gain. Before the arrival of the British, Indian farmers had been growing mostly food crops like rice and vegetables, but rice and vegetables aren't terribly profitable as far as exports go, so the British started compelling farmers to grow higher value crops like poppy and indigo. But here's the problem - you can't put your surplus of poppy and indigo in your basement to fall back on during a not very fruitful season. So when an especially dry season happened and crops failed, starvation set in almost immediately and many Indians weren't able to ride it out.

They also raised taxes ... to recoup their own losses during the famines

The Indians were already dying because they had no food stores to see them through hard times, but as they were dying the British were banging down the front door demanding their taxes. Before British rule, Indian leaders charged between 10 to 15 percent of each peasant's cash harvest, and they would usually waive the people's taxes during times of famine.

According to YourStory, the British were not nearly so sentimental. When they took over control of the government, they raised taxes to a whopping 50 percent, which means even if the peasants were growing food crops there wouldn't have been much left after taxes to put in a store room for later. Then the dry weather and crop failures happened, people started dying, and the British said to themselves, "Hmm, how can we improve things for these farmers?" Just kidding. Actually, they said to themselves, "Hmm, how can we recoup some of our own losses from all of these dead farmers?" So they raised taxes from 50 percent to 60 percent. And during famine years, the British kept on flourishing while people all over the nation they were supposed to be protecting starved to death in their homes. Tell us again how colonialism wasn't so bad.

The railroad was really not a great thing for India

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People who argue in favor of colonialism (and yes there really are people who still say colonialism was a good thing), will frequently cite infrastructure as something great the British did for India. One often-cited example is the introduction of the railroad, and yeah, there probably are instances where access to high-speed travel was advantageous for the locals. You can reach hospitals faster, for example, and you can move products from one place to another much more efficiently, thus expanding your customer base. That is, if the British aren't just taking all of your product and selling it to their own customer base.

But making life easier for the people of India is not even the reason why Britain introduced the railroad. The main motivation for bringing that particular technology to the Indian subcontinent was so the British could efficiently move troops from one place to another, which made it easier for them to put down small rebellions and to control the local people in general. Also, the railroad allowed them to easily transport food out of farming regions, which they did during times of plenty and also during times of famine. In fact according to The Conversation, mortality rates during the famines of 1876 and 1896 were highest in regions served by the railroad. So, yeah.

Divide and rule

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Take a note, America. Unified people are a lot more difficult to rule than people who are divided. The British could not have conquered half the known universe if they didn't understand that simple fact. And it was actually policy during British rule to sow dissent between the two primary religious groups in India - the Hindus and Muslims. Because if you can promote fighting amongst the people, then the people will be distracted by their imagined enemy, and not so concerned about you anymore. Also, a divided people aren't in much danger of banding together to take you down, so you can safely rule them while mostly not doing the things that make the citizens of other nations respect and appreciate their leaders.

Britain's policy of dividing the nation even had a name: It was called "divide and rule," and it worked rather excellently for most of the time the British were in power. According to The Guardian, in the early days the British deliberately created antagonism between Indian princes, and later they used the caste system to further divide the population and create a sense of disharmony in the indigenous population. Most of all, though, they nurtured the division between Hindus and Muslims, and that division is one of Britain's lasting legacies. When Britain finally pulled out of India in 1947, it left behind a populace who still, for the most part, couldn't set aside the differences Britain had worked so hard to promote.

But what about all the democracy?

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Democracy wasn't a thing in India before the British, and people who pine for the days of colonialism are pretty sure that's evidence the British did a lot of good while they were controlling India. Okay, but The Guardian says the facts don't really bear that out - the colonizers actually worked to undermine Indian politics and destroy any institution that might have otherwise resembled democracy. The British controlled everything, from tax collection to the justice system, and the Indians really didn't get a say in any of it.

When the British Raj took over from the East India Company, they threw a couple of crumbs to the indigenous population - a select few educated, upper-class Indians got to sit on a "legislative council," but those were not elected positions and the people who held them had no real power.

By 1920, Indian councils finally had elected representatives, but the people who were permitted to vote in those elections were members of a tiny, elite group - in fact the Guardian says only about one in 250 Indians had voting rights. Also, the Indian representatives only got to vote on stuff the British didn't care about, you know, like health care and education. The British were still in charge of the important things, like collecting taxes and making sure colonists got away with their crimes. So yeah, if that was democracy, well, there's a great democracy in North Korea we'd like to tell you about, too.

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What life was really like in British India

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India was ruled by the British for 200 years - first by the private East India Company, and then by the British government after the East India Company was finally abolished. So if you want to know how bad life was under colonialism, well, here's what life was really like in colonial British India.

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The original Brazilians were the native Indians who had inhabited the American continent long before Europeans arrived. At the time Europeans came there were 250 tribes of the Tupi-Guarani Indians in Brazil.

The Indian tribes of Brazil were hunting and gathering tribes that lived in a few pockets of Brazil (in Eastern and Southern Brazil) and tropical forest village farmers (in the Amazon basin, the lowlands of coastal Brazil, and the eastern slopes of Peru and Bolívia). The latter group was more prevalent in Brazil.

The first records of the Indians were made by the Jesuit Priests, whose primary concern was to protect the Indians. They worked from São Paulo to Pernambuco, learning Indian languages and teaching the native peoples. As defenders of the Indians, they were often at odds with the planters, who were clamoring for slaves. The Jesuits baptized the Indians by the thousands and gathered them into fortified mission villages ( redução). The Jesuits' fight to protect the Indians from slavery lasted 200 years. During that time they made enemies who finally caused their expulsion from Brazil in 1759.

Because of the Jesuits and other missionary efforts, the best source for family information on Indian ancestors is found in the Catholic Church records. In some instances separate records were kept for Indian groups along with the regular church records, as in the Catholic Church records of Gravataí, Rio Grande do Sul, Brazil, which records include a volume of baptisms of Guarani Indians from 1765 to 1816 and other volumes of free persons and slaves.

Modern statistics are often quite varied regarding the number of Indians in Brazil. In the 1950s there were 143 tribes and probably less than 100,000 Indians still living in Brazil. In that year 50 percent of the population was white, 15 percent was black, and 20 percent was mulatto. Only in the remote, isolated interior do Indian tribes still exist.

During World War II a group of anthropologists and archaeologists from the United States and Latin America collaborated in compiling a classification of South American Indians. The Indians of Brazil are included in volumes one (The Marginal Tribes) and three (The Tropical Forest Tribes), with additional general information in volumes five (The Comparative Anthropology of South American Indians) and six (Physical Anthropology, Linguistics and Cultural Geography of South American Indians). These books are available at the Family History Library under:

Steward, Julian H. ed. Handbook of South American Indians. 7 vols. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1963. FHL 980 F3h

Many anthropological and sociological studies have been done among the various Indian groups in Brazil during the last century. A few of these are available through the Family History Library, and many more may be obtained through university and research libraries. Studies of the Guiana Indians and Indian tribes of northern Mato Grosso, Brazil, are examples of such studies:

Rouse, Irving. Guianas: indigenous period. México: Instituto Panamericano de Geografía e História, 1953. FHL 988 F3r

Oberg, Kalervo. Indian tribes of northern Mato Grosso, Brazil: with appendix: Anthropometry of the Umotina, Nambicuara, and Iranxe, with comparative data from other northern Mato Grosso Tribes. Washington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1953. FHL 981.72 F3o

A bibliography listing many of the studies that have been done on Indians in Brazil can be found in:

Tyler, Samuel Lyman. Indians of Brazil, with reference to Paraguay and Uruguay. Salt Lake City: University of Utah, 1976.

For other sources with background information on Indians in Latin America, search the [ FamilySearch Catalog] under Subjects for "Latin America - Native Races" or "Brazil - Native Races".

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The original Brazilians were the native Indians who had inhabited the American continent long before Europeans arrived. At the time Europeans came there were 250 tribes of the Tupi-Guarani Indians in Brazil.

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Alternative Names

In Portuguese, Brasil; its citizens are Brasileiros or Brasileiras depending on gender.

Orientation

Identification. The Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral arrived at present day Pôrto Seguro (Safe Harbor) in the state of Bahia on the Brazilian coast in April 1500 and named the new territory Ilha de Vera Cruz, Island of the True Cross, thinking he was on an island. A year later, Italian navigator Amerigo Vespucci sailed to Brazil on a voyage commissioned by the Portuguese crown and returned home with a cargo of hard, reddish wood. The wood was similar to an East Indian variety called pau brasil, which was then popular in Europe for making cabinets and violin bows. Pau brasil (brazilwood), the first product to be exploited by the Portuguese in this new territory, is the origin of the country's name, Brazil.

Because of its size and diversity, Brazil is one of the nations most deserving of the name "land of contrasts." The country is often divided into five regions: Norte (North), Nordeste (Northeast), Centro-Oeste (Central-West), Sudeste (Southeast), and Su l (South). These divisions are used for administrative purposes such as the national Brazilian census and they roughly correspond to geographic, demographic, economic, and cultural variation within this sprawling nation. The Northeast has the greatest proportion of people of African descent, the South and Southeast are home to the bulk of Brazilians of European and Japanese ancestry, while indigenous peoples live largely in the North and Central-West. Still, regional migration and extensive miscegenation (racial inter-breeding) has made Brazil one of the most racially diverse nations on earth.

Aside from the official fivefold regional division of Brazil, a simpler economic distinction is made between the poor, underdeveloped North and the wealthier, more industrialized South. This distinction is sometimes referred to as the "two Brazils" or "Belindia," with the wealthy South being compared to Belgium and the poor North to India. At times these contrasts are translated into negative stereotypes as when inhabitants of São Paulo, the huge metropolis in southeastern Brazil, blame their city's poverty and high crime rate on migrants from the North.

Those who consider themselves urban sophisticates-particularly inhabitants of Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo-have a long tradition of maligning people from smaller cities and towns in the Brazilian interior, calling them uneducated hicks and hillbillies. Urban, middle-class Brazilians are generally unfamiliar with the interior of their own country and misrepresent it as a region of unrelenting poverty and backwardness-a stark place of few creature comforts that is best avoided. One consequence of this attitude is that middle-class and wealthy Brazilians are more likely to have visited Miami, Orlando, or New York than to have traveled to tourist destinations in their own country.

Brazilians are aware of these regional and rural/urban distinctions and closely identify with their place of birth. One is a nordestino (northeasterner) or a mineiro (native of the state of Minas Gerais) or a carioca (native of the city of Rio de Janeiro). Nevertheless, Brazilians share a national culture-making Brazil a true case of unity in diversity. The legacy of the Portuguese in language, religion, and law serves to unify this vast land and its people. Until the mid-twentieth century almost all Brazilians were- at least nominally-Catholic and today, virtually all speak Portuguese and identify with the dominant Brazilian culture.

Location and Geography. Brazil, the world's fifth largest country in geographical expanse and the

largest nation in Latin America, comprises slightly under half the land mass of the South American continent and shares a border with every South American country except Chile and Ecuador. It is the size of the continental United States excluding Alaska.

Brazil's physical environment and climate vary greatly from the tropical North to the temperate South. The landscape is dominated by a central highland region known as the Planalto Central (Brazilian Highlands, or Plateau of Brazil) and by the vast AmazonBasin which occupies overone-third of the country.The central plateau juts into theseaina few areas along Brazil's 4,500-mile-long, (7,240-kilometer-long) coast, but it more often runs parallel to the ocean, creating a fertile, lowland area.

Brazil is a land rich in natural resources, principally iron ore, bauxite, manganese, nickel, uranium, gold, gemstones, oil, and timber.

The physical environment in each region determined the types of crops grown or the resources extracted and this, in turn, influenced the populations that settled there and the social and economic systems that developed. Brazil's economic history, in fact, has been marked by a succession of cycles, each one based on the exploitation of a single export commodity: timber (brazilwood) in the first years of colonization; sugarcane in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries; precious metals (gold) and gems (diamonds) in the eighteenth century; and finally, coffee in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.

Brazil's northeast coast with its rich soils became the most prosperous region early on as vast sugar plantations were created to supply a growing demand for that product in Europe. Beginning in the seventeenth century, African slaves were imported to provide labor for these plantations. This is why even today the Northeast is the region with the strongest African influence.

The Southeast also received large numbers of African slaves during the gold boom of the eighteenth century and the coffee boom beginning in the nineteenth century. This region also attracted new immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and Japan who established family farms and eventually urban businesses.

In contrast, the South-with a climate unsuited to either coffee or sugar-became the destination of many German and Italian immigrants who raised cattle and grew a variety of crops. The heritage of the Northeast coast, based on slave labor and a plantation economy, was distinct from that of the South and Southeast, where plantations existed along with small family farms. Such historical differences partly account for contemporary contrasts between these regions.

Another regional distinction, that between litoral (coast) and interior (inland), arises from the fact that settlement in Brazil has always been concentrated near the coast. To say that someone is from the "interior" usually implies that he or she is from a rural area, even though there are large cities located far from the coast. Although the gold boom of the eighteenth century and the rubber boom of the nineteenth century led to the growth of inland cities, the real movement to settle the heartland of the country began only in the late 1950s with the construction of the new national capital, Brasília, in the Central-West.

Brazil is probably best known as the land of the Amazon, the world's largest river in area drained and volume of water and second only to the Nile in length. The Amazon forest contains the world's largest single reserve of biological organisms, and while no one knows how many species actually exist there, scientists estimate the number could be as high as five million, amounting to 15 to 30 percent of all species on earth.

Although now a focus of Brazilian and international media attention because of the negative ecological consequences of development, the Amazon region had long been isolated from national culture. Still, early in colonial times Jesuit missionaries traversed the Amazon River and its major tributaries and established settlements at Manaus and Belem. Both became thriving urban centers during the rubber boom of the late 1800s and early 1900s. Beginning in the 1970s with the construction of the Trans-Amazon Highway and other feeder roads, the migrant flow into the Central-West-the site of Brasília-expanded into the Amazon region.

Demography. The population of Brazil was about 170 million in 2000, the sixth largest in the world after China, India, the United States, Indonesia, and the Russian Federation. Despite its large population, Brazil's demographic density is relatively low. Although there has been significant population movement into the interior in recent decades, about 80 percent of all Brazilians still live within two hundred miles of the Atlantic coast.

Fertility rates have dropped dramatically in Brazil in the last three or four decades of the twentieth century, with the completed fertility rate at the turn of the twenty-first century down to an average of 2.1 children per woman. Nevertheless, the population will continue to grow in the first twenty or thirty years of the twenty-first century because of the nation's current youthful age structure.

The Brazilian population has three major components. Somewhere between 2.5 and 5 million Brazilian Indians inhabited Brazil when the Portuguese first arrived in the early sixteenth century. Divided into many different cultures with distinct institutions, Brazilian Indians spoke a large number of languages. Today they comprise only about .02 percent of the country's population. Their numbers fell rapidly as a result of displacement, warfare and, most importantly, the introduction of European diseases against which they had no immunity. By 1955, only 120,000 Brazilian Indians were left and they were thought to be on the road to extinction. This downward trend has been reversed, however. Their numbers are now increasing owing to improved health care, lower incidence of disease, declining infant mortality, and a higher fertility rate. Contemporary estimates of the indigenous population range from 280,000 to 300,000; the population may reach 400,000 early in the new millennium.

Afro-Brazilians, the descendants of millions of slaves brought primarily from West Africa to Brazil over a three-hundred-year period, are the second major component of the national population. Afro-Brazilians and people of mixed racial ancestry account for at least 45 percent of the Brazilian population at the end of the twentieth century.

Brazil also has a large population of mixed European, mainly Portuguese, descent. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries Brazil was the destination of many immigrants from Italy, Germany, and Spain. During the same era smaller numbers of immigrants arrived from Eastern Europe and the Middle East. Rounding out the demographic picture are, Japanese-Brazilians, descendants of Japanese who came to Brazil in the first decades of the 20th century, and Koreans who began arriving in the 1950s. Still, Brazil is among the most racially heterogeneous countries on earth and these distinct categories are somewhat misleading in that many, perhaps most, Brazilians are of mixed ancestry.

Linguistic Affiliation. Nearly all Brazilians speak Portuguese, a Romance language, belonging to the Indo-European language family. The Portuguese language was introduced to Brazil by the Portuguese in the early sixteenth century. Prior to the arrival of the Portuguese, the native population spoke languages belonging to at least four major language families: Arawakan, Gê, Carib, and Tupi-Guarani. Tupi-Guarani-which was spoken by coastal Indians, the first to come into extensive contact with the Portuguese-served as the basis for lingua geral, a language developed by the Jesuits for their missionary work with the Indian population.

Aside from a small number of recently contacted indigenous peoples, all Brazilians speak Portuguese. Brazilian Portuguese differs somewhat in grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation from the language of Portugal. Brazilian Portuguese contains a large number of indigenous terms, particularly Tupi-Guarani words for native plants, animals, and place-names that are not found in continental Portuguese. While regional accents exist in Brazil, they are not very pronounced and native Portuguese speakers from one region have no difficulty understanding those from other regions. The vast majority of Brazilians are monolingual in Portuguese, although many middle-class and elite Brazilians study English and to a lesser extent Spanish, French, and German. Brazilians are very proud of their linguistic heritage and resent that many foreigners, particularly North Americans, think Brazilians speak Spanish.

Symbolism. Most Brazilians would agree that the symbols that best characterize their nation are the exuberant revelry of the pre-Lenten celebration of carnival and the wildly popular sport of soccer, called futebol in Brazil.

Carnival is a four-day extravaganza marked by parades of costumed dancers and musicians, formal balls, street dancing, and musical contests, a truly national party during which Brazilians briefly forget what they call the "hard realities of life." Carnival is symbolic of the national ethos because it plays to many of the dualities in Brazilian life: wealth and poverty, African and European, female and male. The key to carnival's popularity is its break with and reversal of the everyday reality. Through the use of costume-notably called fantasia in Portuguese-anyone can become anybody at carnival time. Class hierarchies based on wealth and power are briefly set aside, poverty is forgotten, men may dress as women, leisure supplants work, and the disparate components of Brazilian society blend in a dizzying blaze of color and music.

Brazilians are also passionate about soccer and are rated among the best players of the sport in the world. Every four years when the world's best teams vie for the World Cup championship, Brazil virtually shuts down as the nation's collective attention turns to the action on the playing field. And when Brazil wins the World Cup-as it has on more occasions than any other country-the delirium of the populace is palpable. Brazilian flags are hoisted aloft, everyone wears green and yellow (the national colors), and thousands of Brazilians, seemingly intoxicated with pride, take to the streets in revelry.

History and Ethnic Relations

Emergence of the Nation. In 1530 the Portuguese began to colonize the new land of Brazil, but during the sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries their hold on this vast territory remained tenuous as they struggled with an unfamiliar environment, indigenous peoples, and with French and later Dutch attempts to undermine Portuguese control.

A useful exercise is to compare the early colonization of the United States and Brazil since it sheds light on the ensuing differences between the two modern nations. Both countries imported large numbers of African slaves, but in Brazil the practice began earlier, lasted longer, and involved the importation of two to three times more slaves than in the United States. Estimates range from three to four million Africans forcibly taken to Brazil. Moreover, in contrast to the large number of families who came to settle in the North American colonies, the Portuguese colonists were more often single males. Thus, in the early 1700s, when the importation of slaves into North America was just beginning, the proportion of Africans to Europeans was much smaller in the United States than in Brazil, where the slave trade had been operating for more than a century. The smaller ratio of Portuguese colonists to slave and indigenous peoples in Brazil and the resultant tendency of single men to take African or indigenous women as concubines or wives led to the great racial mix that characterizes Brazilian society today. Extensive miscegenation occurred in Brazil among Africans, Portuguese, and indigenous peoples during colonial times, and later with the arrival of new immigrants from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.

National Identity. While many people today see Brazil's racial and cultural diversity as one of the nation's strengths, foreign visitors and Brazilians themselves have at times drawn a connection between extensive racial mixing and Brazil's "backwardness." The belief that Brazil was less able to develop due to its racial heterogeneity was at the root of governmental decisions regarding immigration. Nineteenth century government-sponsored colonization schemes, for example, hoped to attract white immigrants, especially northern Europeans. And, in the early twentieth century, when theories of eugenics were popular in many parts of the world, Brazilian elites were straightforward about their desire to "whiten" the country so that it would develop economically.

Others dissented from this view. In the 1930s well-known Brazilian anthropologist, Gilberto Freyre, argued that the richness of Brazilian society lay precisely in its mixed racial heritage. The Portuguese, he argued, had laid the foundation for a "new world in the tropics," a blending of African, Indian, and European elements that made Brazilian culture unique. While later criticized as a conservative romantic who downplayed the harsh realities of life for people of color in Brazil, Freyre nevertheless was instrumental in recasting discussions of the nation's multiracial heritage, making it a source of pride, rather than shame.

Historically the emergence of Brazilian national identity followed a pattern common to many other European colonial territories. During the colonial period (1500-1822), individuals born in Brazil were subject to rules and taxes that were decided in distant Portugal and most of the top posts in colonial administration were held by those born in the mother country. The relative lack of power over their own affairs encouraged the creation of a distinct identity among native-born Brazilians, albeit one made up of diverse elements.

In terms of wealth and power, colonial Brazil was dominated by a small white elite of Portuguese ancestry who owned sugar plantations worked by Indian and later, African slaves. Portuguese of more humble backgrounds and free people of color held the intermediate positions in colonial society; they were plantation foremen, artisans, small shopkeepers, low-level government bureaucrats, and members of militias.

Following Brazil's proclamation of independence from Portugal in 1822, Brazilian national identity was thrown into sharper relief, but its constituent parts remained largely unchanged. A small European elite still dominated Brazil's political and economic life, although gold had replaced sugar as the principle source of wealth (coffee would later replace gold). But the Brazilian masses still consisted of black slaves and free people of color who labored in gold mines, on coffee plantations, and as poverty-stricken sharecroppers and subsistence farmers.

Until the 1870s, in fact, Brazil was primarily a nation of people of color. In the first national census in 1872 over 60 percent of the population was classified as black or of mixed ancestry. Then a massive wave of immigration from Europe-eventually reaching some 2.5 million-helped shift the racial balance. At first a few thousand immigrants arriving from Germany and Spain added to the nation's existing ethnic melange, but once slavery was abolished in Brazil in 1888, immigration really took off. It reached a peak in the 1890s with over one million Italians settling in the South and Southeast and additional tens of thousands emigrating from Portugal. During those years immigrants from Eastern Europe, including many Jews, also came to Brazil. In the early 1900s, as the coffee economy continued to expand, new waves of immigrants arrived from the Middle East (mainly Lebanon) and Japan.

While some cities in southern Brazil swelled with burgeoning immigrant populations, other immigrants, especially Germans and Japanese, established themselves in isolated rural communities. In many small towns and rural areas in the South and Southeast during the 1920s and 1930s, children were educated in German or Japanese and Portuguese was rarely spoken. But when it was disclosed that the German government was aiding anti- government groups in Brazil, the Brazilian authorities ordered the closing of schools in which the principal language of instruction was not Portuguese.

After World War II Brazil followed a pattern of assimilation common to many nations with a high percentage of immigrants. As the second and third generations settled in and moved up the economic ladder, they became "Brazilian" to varying degrees. They intermarried, no longer spoke the language of their ancestors, and came to think of themselves primarily as Brazilian.

Contemporary Brazilians not only share a common culture, they insist on distinguishing themselves linguistically and ethnically from other Latin Americans, a stance rooted in a sense of cultural pride, in the distinctiveness of their "race" as they call it. Brazilians have long been indifferent to their South American neighbors, dismissing their shared Iberian roots as of no particular consequence. As Brazilian anthropologist Darcy Ribeiro once remarked, "Brazil and Spanish America are divided into two worlds, back to back to each other."

Ethnic Relations. Brazilians have a strong national ideology that their land is a "racial democracy," one without prejudice towards its darker skinned citizens. The ideology, although patently untrue, nevertheless shapes the contours of interracial behavior and discourse in Brazil, smoothing its edges. While racial prejudice and discrimination do, indeed, exist in Brazil, their expression is more subtle than in the United States and perhaps, therefore, more difficult to combat.

Unlike in the United States, in Brazil there is no "one drop" rule-the custom that defines anyone with any known or suspected African ancestry as "black." The Brazilian system of racial classification is both more complex and more in keeping with biological reality. First, Brazil has never had two discrete racial categories-black and white-and Brazilians recognize and have words for a wide variety of racial types. Moreover, how individuals are classified racially does not depend solely on their physical appearance, their skin color, hair type, and facial features or on those of their relatives. Social class, education, and manner of dress all come into play in assigning someone to a racial category. As Brazilians put it, "money whitens"-that is, the higher the social class, the lighter the racial category to which an individual belongs. A well dressed, well educated woman with dark skin and Negroid features might be referred to as a moreno (roughly, brunette), while an illiterate sharecropper with light skin might be assigned to a darker racial category than his physical appearance alone would warrant.

Ironically, some evidence suggests that since the 1960s Brazil has been moving toward a system of racial classification similar to that of the United States. That is, the multitude of racial terms commonly used by Brazilians may be giving way to a bifurcate system of branco and negro -white and black.

Whatever the trend in racial classification, Brazil is far from being a "racial paradise" as Freyre claimed. Some statistics bear this out. Dark-skinned people in Brazil are more likely to be poor than light skinned-people and whites have average monthly incomes almost two and a half times greater than nonwhites. Nonwhites have fewer years of schooling than whites, with illiteracy rates of 30 percent and 12 percent respectively.

In considering these figures, social scientists have long argued that discrimination in Brazil is more a matter of social class than of race. In other words, one's life chances as a poor person in Brazil are bleak, regardless of one's color. But recent research has questioned this assumption and has shown that even when holding markers of social class such as income and education as constants, nonwhites fare worse than whites in rates of infant mortality and average life expectancy.

The Brazil-as-a-racial-paradise ideology long served to dampen Afro-Brazilian social and political movements. Moreover, because of the absence of the one drop rule, racial consciousness has always been more muted in Brazil than in the United States, making it more difficult to organize on the basis of race. Nevertheless, the more inclusive term Afro-brasileiro (Afro-Brazilian) has gained popularity in recent years, more groups celebrating Brazil's African heritage and decrying racism have emerged, and an affirmative action program, called discriminação posítiva (positive discrimination), has been instituted by the Brazilian government.

Urbanism, Architecture, and the Use Of Space

By far the most important demographic change in Brazil's recent history has been its shift from a predominantly rural to an urban society. As recently as 1940, more than two-thirds of Brazilians lived in rural areas, but by 2000 the proportion of rural dwellers had dropped to 22 percent. The "urban designation," however, includes many small cities as well as the large population centers of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro.

With urbanization has come a number of intractable social problems. The large cities of southern Brazil have long attracted migrants from the impoverished north, but the economies of these cities have not expanded rapidly enough to absorb all these migrants. Unemployment, underemployment at subsistence wages, poverty, and crime have been the result. So, too, have been the growth of shantytowns, such as the famed hillside favelas of Rio de Janeiro. Favelas are extralegal settlements consisting of makeshift dwellings that lack urban services.

Until the late 1970s various municipal governments dealt with substandard housing through urban renewal, demolishing it to make way for "modern" buildings and thoroughfares and building public housing-often miles from the city center-for the displaced poor. Such benighted attempts to solve the problem were largely replaced in the 1980s with efforts to regularize the status of favelas by providing them with electricity, sewage, paved streets, schools, and clinics, a sign of the growing political clout of their inhabitants.

The desire of many of the urban poor to live in centrally located shantytowns stems from the fact that most Brazilian cities are ringed by miles of working class suburbios (suburbs) that necessitate long commutes to jobs in the city center. In other words, unlike in the United States, poor people in Brazil are more likely to live at the outskirts of urban areas-the suburbs-while the middle class and well-to-do tend to live in more conveniently located neighborhoods in the heart of the city.

Cities, especially big cities, have movimento -a quality of liveliness and bustle that most Brazilians value. And some Brazilian cities have a great deal of movimento indeed. São Paulo, a metropolitan area of sixteenth million people and one of the fastest growing cities in the world, is Brazil's New York, Chicago, and Detroit all rolled into one. Rural zones, in contrast, are generally viewed by urbanites as backlands, as dull places of unrelieved poverty.

Cities have played an important role in Brazilian history. After all, few other countries have had three national capitals. During the colonial period when sugar was king, the nation's locus was the northeast coast and Salvador was the colonial capital. Then with the eighteenth century gold boom centered in the state of Minas Gerais in the southeastern part of the country, the capital was moved to Rio de Janeiro where it remained until the founding of Brasília in 1960.

Urban architecture in Brazil owes much to the legacy of Portuguese colonialism. Cities such as Ouro Prêto and Rio de Janeiro grew in importance long before industrialization had brought the factory or the automobile to Brazil. These cities, which influenced patterns of urban construction throughout the country, were largely modeled on Portuguese cities. The neighborhoods built during colonial times have narrow streets with continuous building facades that converge on central plazas. These open areas are often the sites of churches or government buildings, constructions imbued with symbolic power by being set off from the solid mass of private dwellings that line the streets.

Brasília was designed to be the ideal modern city and its architecture and planning were meant to transform Brazilian society. But in Brasília today the distinctions between haves and have-nots are all

too apparent, concrete reflections of the nation's social and economic divisions. In planning Brasília no provision was made for housing the thousands of workers who built the city or the thousands more who would service it. The only provision for them was the inclusion of tiny maids' rooms in apartments built for the middle class. As a result, jerry-built satellite cities ringing the urban core grew up to house the workers the planners forgot.

The complaints of Brasília's residents illuminate the customary use of urban space in Brazil. Many express dislike for Brasília's traffic circles which replace the intersections and street corners found in most Brazilian cities. This highlights the importance of the street in Brazil as a site of social encounters and public activities.

Food and Economy

Food in Daily Life. Rice, beans, and manioc form the core of the Brazilian diet and are eaten at least occasionally by all social classes in all parts of the nation. Manioc is a root crop that is typically consumed as farinha , manioc flour sprinkled over rice and beans, or farofa , manioc flour sautéed in a bit of oil with onions, eggs, olives, or other ingredients. To this core, meat, poultry, or fish are added, but the frequency of their consumption is closely tied to financial well-being. While the middle and upper classes may consume them on a daily basis, the poor can afford such protein sources far less often.

Traditionally the most important meal of the day is a multicourse affair eaten after midday. For middle-class and elite families it might consist of a pasta dish or a meat or fish course accompanied by rice, beans, and manioc and a sweet dessert or fruit followed by tiny cups of strong Brazilian coffee called cafezinho. For the poor it would be primarily rice and beans. The evening repast is simpler, often consisting of soup and perhaps leftovers from the midday meal.

As Brazil urbanizes and industrializes, the leisurely family-centered meal at midday is being replaced by lanches (from the English, "lunch"), smaller meals usually consumed in restaurants, including ones featuring buffets that sell food by the kilo and such ubiquitous fast-food eateries as McDonalds. The poor, who cannot afford restaurants, are likely to eat the noon meal at home, to buy snacks sold on the street, or to carry food with them to work in stacked lunch buckets. In rural areas itinerant farm laborers who are paid by the day and who carry such buckets have been dubbed bóias-frias, "cold lunches."

Meals may be accompanied by soft drinks- including guaraná, made from a fruit that grows in the Amazon-beer, or bottled water.

Food Customs at Ceremonial Occasions. While the principle foods consumed in Brazil are fairly uniform across the country, there are regional specialties, many of which are eaten on festive occasions. In the northeastern state of Bahia ingredients of African origin-palm oil ( dendê ), dried shrimp, peanuts, malagueta peppers-are the basis of regional cuisine in such dishes as vatapá (seafood stew) and acarajé (black-eyed pea fritters). A variety of fruit and fish native to the Amazon are featured in dishes of that region, while in southern Brazil, an area of extensive cattle ranches, meals of grilled meat ( churrasco ) are favored. Another southern specialty are rodizios, restaurants featuring barbecue in which waiters pass from table to table with large skewers of grilled meats and poultry.

Brazil's national dish, feijoada (literally "big bean" stew), is said to have originated during slave times. Traditionally feijoada contained inexpensive and less desirable cuts of meat such as tripe and pigs feet, Brazilian slaves having concocted the dish from the leftovers of the master's table. Today feijoada consists of a variety of meats slowly cooked with black beans and condiments. A feijoada completa or "complete feijoada" is accompanied by rice, fresh orange slices, a side dish of peppery onion sauce, chopped greens, such as collards, and farinha. Caipirinhas -a potent blend of Brazilian sugarcane alcohol ( cachaça ), crushed limes, and sugar-or batidas ( cachaça and fruit juice) are usually served as aperitifs; beer is the drink of choice to accompany the meal. Feijoada is served in restaurants, typically on Wednesdays and Saturdays, and when made at home, it is a favorite dish for guests.

Basic Economy. Today Brazil has the eighth largest economy in the world. It is a major producer of such agricultural products as sugarcane, soybeans, oranges, coffee, cocoa, rice, wheat, and cotton. It is also a major supplier of beef with vast cattle ranches primarily in the southern and western regions of the country. Nevertheless, because of the tremendous growth of industry, agriculture accounts for only 13 percent of the nation' gross domestic product.

Agriculture employs-directly or indirectly- about one-quarter of the Brazilian labor force. Five million agricultural workers are wage laborers concentrated in the plantations of the North (sugarcane, cotton, coffee, cocoa) and the increasingly mechanized agricultural enterprises of the Southeast and South (soybeans, wheat, sugar, oranges). More than 70 percent of these workers lack contracts and social benefits and less than 40 percent are employed year round. There are also 4.8 million landless families who survive as tenant farmers, sharecroppers, and casual laborers.

In the last decades of the twentieth century, increasing mechanization and monopolization of the best farmlands by agribusinesses has accelerated the displacement of small family-owned farms. Nevertheless, there are still some five million family farms ranging in size from 12 to 250 acres (5 to 100 hectares) that occupy about 143 million acres (58 million hectares). In contrast, large commercial agricultural enterprises cover almost three times that area.

During the 1960s and 1970s Brazil experienced economic growth from agricultural modernization and, by the early 1980s, agricultural production had increased to the extent that Brazil had become the fourth largest food exporter in the world. But, at the same time, Brazil was not adequately feeding its own people. It is sixth worldwide in malnutrition, ahead of only Bangladesh, India, Pakistan, Indonesia, and the Philippines.

Land Tenure and Property. Brazil's agrarian structure is dominated by large land holdings. Estates of more than 2,470 acres (1,000 hectares) make up less than 1 percent of the nation's holdings but occupy 44 percent of its agricultural lands, while farms of 25 acres (10 hectares) or less account for 53 percent of holdings and occupy under 3 percent of agricultural land. More than three million farmers work some 500 million acres (20 million hectares) of land, but the twenty largest landowners in the country themselves own a like amount.

Aside from inequalities of scale, there is also insecurity of land tenure in many parts of Brazil, particularly in the Amazon Basin. There, capangas (hired gunmen) are employed by wealthy landowners to ensure that squatters do not settle on their vast, ill-defined tracts of land. Insecurity of tenure, in fact, has led to a number of violent episodes in the region at the end of the twentieth century.

But there are some bright spots in terms of land security. Although encroachment on indigenous reserves-especially in the Amazon by gold miners, cattle ranchers, and others-is still a problem, today a majority of the 270 officially recognized indigenous groups in Brazil live on reserves protected for them by law. Land is now also being granted to the residents of several quilombos, communities in northern Brazil originally founded by runaway slaves.

Major Industries. Brazil has one of the most advanced industrial sectors in Latin America today and is a major producer and exporter of automobiles, textiles, shoes, durable consumer goods, steel, pharmaceuticals, and petrochemicals.

Industrial activity in Brazil is concentrated in the Southeast, with about half of the nation's industrial production in the state of São Paulo alone. Here, too, most of the country's unionized industrial jobs are found. For this reason, after the 1970s, migration from the Northeast to the Southeast and from rural to urban areas has been particularly intense. Later, however, as unemployment in the Southeast has climbed and tax incentives have led to increased industrial investments in the Northeast, the migrant flow has been reversed to some extent.

Division of Labor. One of the most significant distinctions in Brazilian society is between those who do manual labor and those who do not. Today, as in the past, it is only the working class and poor who work with their hands. This division has deep historical roots and is tied to the "gentleman's complex" that emerged during the colonial period when elite males, typically sugar planters, sported a long nail on the index finger as evidence that they never engaged in physical labor.

The Brazilian middle class is sometimes defined as those with colarinho e gravata -collar and tie-because a major marker of middle-class status is a white-collar job. In Brazil people who work with their hands are, by definition, not middle class. This is why middle-class Brazilian families are far more likely than their American counterparts to employ domestic servants; it would be unseemly for a middle-class housewife to get down on her knees to scrub the floor.

Social Stratification

Classes and Castes. "Brazil is no longer an underdeveloped country. It is an unjust country," Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso proclaimed in 1994. Today Brazil, although one of the ten largest economies in the world, has the most unequal distribution of income of any nation except South Africa. Moreover, inequality has been growing. In the mid-1990s, the poorest 20 percent of the population received only 3 percent of national income, while the richest 10 percent received 47 percent. Or, put in another way, the wealthiest 20 percent earn twenty-six times as much as the poorest 20 percent. It is estimated that some thirty-three million Brazilians live in poverty, including twenty million workers and ten million pensioners who receive the minimum wage of around $115 a month. In parts of Brazil, particularly the Northeast, infant mortality, a sensitive indicator of social inequality, has actually been rising.

This "social question," as Brazilians call the divide between rich and poor, has characterized the nation since colonial times. With industrialization and urbanization during the first decades of the twentieth century, however, the growth of the Brazilian middle class has made this simple division more complex. Today, depending on how it is defined, the middle class accounts for one-fifth to one-third of the population, but the resources and lifestyle of its members vary considerably. Some claim the Brazilian middle class admires elite values and aspires to elite status and it is indeed true that middle-class families in Brazil are far more likely to employ domestic servants and send their children to private school than their North American counterparts.

In the late 1980s, moreover, it was members of the Brazilian middle class who, hurt by then rampant inflation, began seeking their fortunes abroad as immigrants to North America, Europe, and Japan.

Still, a ray of hope emerged with the stabilization of the Brazilian currency and the rapid decline of inflation in the mid-1990s. Estimates suggest that some nineteen million Brazilians moved from the working poor to the lower middle class. For the first time these people had money to spend on consumer goods; those who remained poor also benefitted from stable prices and were better able to afford staples such as meat, chicken, eggs, and beans.

Symbols of Social Stratification. Brazilians are preoccupied with class distinctions and are quick to size up the social distance that exists between themselves and others they meet. Yardsticks of such distance are general appearance and the "correctness" of a person's speech. The degree to which an individual's vocabulary and grammar is considered "educated" is used as a measure of schooling and, hence, social class. And this, in turn, establishes patterns of deference and authority between two individuals should they belong to different social strata. When such patterns are ignored, the "elite" persons may harshly demand of their "lessers," "Do you know whom you're talking to?"-a ritualized response when someone of higher status is not accorded due deference by someone lower on the social scale.

Political Life

Government. The Federal Constitution of Brazil provides for three independent governing branches: executive, legislative, and judicial. Although the constitution has undergone several revisions in the last century, the most recent in 1988, it has always retained this division of governmental powers.

Voting in Brazil today is universal and compulsory for all literate citizens from eighteen to seventy years of age and optional for those who cannot read and write.

Leadership and Political Officials. Brazil's return to free elections in the mid-1980s after two decades of military dictatorship has not resulted in greater social and legal equity, and unequal treatment of rich and poor is ongoing. Government officials and well-to-do individuals who have committed crimes still are more likely to escape the long arm of the law than are those of lesser social status. In part, this is because Brazil is a country in which laws and regulations are passed, yet a significant proportion of them are ignored. Still, today there is growing intolerance of political corruption and a host of official inquiries are evidence that Brazilians are starting to reject impunity and demand accountability of their public officials.

One concept is key to understanding Brazilian political culture: jeitos, ways of cutting through obstacles-such as rules and red tape-to achieve a desired end. Jeitos are partly a response to Brazil's notorious bureaucratic thicket which makes getting a government document-be it a driver's license, passport, or marriage license-a cumbersome process. Those who can afford to hire despachantes (dispatchers), professional facilitators who know how to "do jeitos", to get things done. Others do jeitos on their own; perhaps a small "gratuity" to a low-paid government clerk will produce the desired document.

A personalistic system of patron-client relationships is another key to the nation's political culture. One becomes a government bureaucrat or politician and rises through the ranks by developing influential connections and getting help from personal networks. Ambitious individuals cultivate powerful patrons who promote and protect them, and their own career trajectories typically rise and fall with those of their patrons.

Social Problems and Control. Given the nation's stark economic inequalities, social control in Brazil has long been problematic, even more so at the end of the twentieth century than in the past. High rates of crime, particularly in large urban areas, are a frequent topic of conversation; kidnappings, assaults, and murder receive wide media coverage. The murder rate in greater São Paulo, for example, is some five times that of the New York metropolitan area. Killings by police are common particularly in poorer urban areas. Fearful for their security, corporate executives travel around in armored cars; elite neighborhoods are fortified as private, guarded condominiums surrounded by high walls. Also within this urban landscape of have and have-nots live tens of thousands of street children, eking out a bare existence, ever on their guard against being rousted, or worse, by the police.

Military Activity. The role of the military in Brazilian life declined significantly following the military dictatorship that lasted from 1964 to 1985. By 2000 the three forces of the military, the army, navy, and air force, had been subsumed under a new civilian defense ministry and were forced to give up their separate cabinet-level posts. Despite considerable grumbling about this reorganization, particularly among the nationalist wing of the Air Force, no evidence exists that the Brazilian armed forces have either the ability or the desire to regain their lost power through a military coup.

Social Welfare and Change Programs

Brazil has long had welfare and pension systems but they do little for poorer workers and largely benefit state functionaries. Brazil also has some of the most progressive social legislation of any developing country-such as paid maternity leave-but as with other legislation, it is more often honored in the breach.

One very successful social program that received national attention is Viva a Criança (Long Live Children), which was begun by the governor of the state of Ceará in the impoverished Northeast. A campaign of preventive health education, the program cut infant mortality in Ceará by one-third in only four years.

Nongovernmental Organizations and Other Associations

Arguably the most visible nongovernmental organization (NGO) in Brazil today is the Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra (MST), or Movement of Landless Rural Workers. Now with some 500,000 members, it began organizing the occupation of large unproductive estates in the mid-1980s after the federal government was slow to follow through on its promised program of land reform. A convoy of vehicles invade an estate at night so that by dawn too many people will have occupied the land for the police to be able to evict them. Such land occupations have escalated since the mid-1990s, enhanced by the Brazilian media's sympathetic portrayal of the MST as supporting a just cause.

Partly in response to the MST, by the end of 1998 the federal agrarian reform program had settled nearly 290,000 families on eighteen million acres (7.3 million hectares) of land, and Brazilian President Fernando Henrique Cardoso had promised an acceleration of the process.

Over the last decade or so many other Brazilian NGOs have been established dealing with the problems of street children, rural poverty, hunger, ecological issues, women's issues, and indigenous rights. Some have received international attention and foreign support.

Gender Roles and Statuses

Division of Labor by Gender. Gender roles in Brazil vary to some extent by social class, race, and place of residence. White, middle-class and elite women living in large urban centers generally have more occupational choices and greater behavioral flexibility than their poorer, darker, rural sisters. Nevertheless, even when women are employed, men are seen as the primary providers of the family, with women's monetary contributions viewed as supplementary. Moreover, whether employed outside the home or not, women remain responsible for the proper functioning of the domestic sphere, with or without the aid of domestic servants.

Today almost 40 percent of Brazilian women have jobs outside the home, although they hold only 2 percent of executive-level positions. And while the number of women in industry has more than tripled since 1970, they are primarily employed in low-skill, low-paying jobs in textiles and electronics. Poor women, especially those in the 20 percent of households with no permanently resident male, take whatever work they can get. Afro-Brazilian women are particularly disadvantaged in this regard; about 70 percent are employed in low-level agricultural, factory, and domestic service jobs.

The Relative Status of Women and Men. The mostly male Portuguese colonizers of Brazil brought with them the concept of machismo, which identifies men with authority and strength and women with weakness and subservience. Still, machismo is tempered in Brazil. It lacks the sharp-edged stress on heterosexuality and obsessive dread of homosexuality that characterizes it in other Latin societies. Nevertheless, this world view, combined with the patriarchy of the Catholic Church, laid the foundation for male dominance. As in most of Latin America, Brazil has a double standard in sexual matters. Traditionally, at least, men were expected to demonstrate their virility through premarital and extramarital sexual escapades, while women were supposed to "save themselves" for their husbands and remain faithful after marriage. So-called "crimes of passion" are linked to this dual sexual standard. In the past-and occasionally even in modern times-men who killed their wives believing them to be unfaithful often went unpunished.

Women have been slow to receive legal equality in Brazil. They were not given the vote until 1932 and, until the 1960s, women were the equivalent of children under Brazilian law. They needed permission from their fathers or husbands to leave the country and could not open bank accounts on their own.

A women's rights movement emerged fairly late compared to that in the United States and has just started influencing legislation and the political process at the onset of the twenty-first century. While it has had some success, for example, in setting up special police stations for abused women, abortion is still illegal, although widespread. Moreover, the emphasis on youth and beauty as a measure of female worth remains unchanged and it is no coincidence that Brazilian plastic surgeons enjoy international renown.

Marriage, Family, and Kinship

Marriage. Both civil and religious marriage exists in Brazil but the number of religious marriages is on the decline especially in urban areas. The poor continue to cohabit and are less likely to legalize their unions than those of higher social status. Owing to the strong opposition of the Catholic Church, divorce was made legal in Brazil only in 1977.

Domestic Unit. While the typical household in Brazil may consist of parents and children, this is not the isolated nuclear family unit familiar to Americans. Brazilian culture puts a high premium on extended family ties and Brazilians, regardless of social class, do not like to live any distance from their kin. Grown sons and daughters almost always remain at home until they marry and ideally live near their parents after marriage. Brazilians normally interact weekly, if not daily, with members of the extended kin group-cousins, aunts and uncles, married children and their spouses, and inlaws. Among the urban middle class it is not uncommon for members of an extended family to live in separate apartments in the same building.

Inheritance. Brazilians trace their ancestry and inherit through both maternal and paternal lines. They typically have two surnames, that of their mother's and father's families. When a woman marries she usually adds her husband's surname to her own and drops that of her mother's family, while her children are given the surnames of their mother's father and their own father, all indicating a patrilineal slant.

Kin Groups. When Brazilians speak of "family" they usually mean a large extended kin group rather than the immediate family of spouse and children. This large kin group, the parentela , consists of all maternal and paternal relatives, along with in-laws. The parentela is at the core of social life and in time of need ideally provides assistance to its members. Such support can also be obtained through ritual kinship ( compadrio ) in which parents select additional allies and protectors as godparents for their children. Some claim that the multiple functions of these extended kinship networks has inhibited the development of extrafamilial organizations in Brazil, such as parent-teacher associations and garden and civic clubs.

Socialization

Child Rearing and Education. Like so many aspects of Brazilian life, educational opportunities are tied to social class. Brazil has never invested heavily in public education and most middle-class and elite families send their children to private school. Education is also linked to race and geography. A white person in the Southeast has an average of 6.6 years of schooling, whereas a person of color living in the Northeast has spent an average of just 3.5 years in school.

Despite the low level of funding, the last four decades of the twentieth century witnessed a significant increase in the number of Brazilians attending school and a concomitant rise in the literacy rate- in 2000 about 82 percent of Brazilians are literate. In 1960 almost half the population had little or no schooling, a figure that fell to 22 percent by 1990. Notably, school is one setting in which females are often more successful than males. In some regions of Brazil, girls are more likely than boys to be in school and women tend to be more literate than men.

Higher Education. Two-thirds of all public monies spent on education in Brazil goes to universities, the other third to public primary and secondary schools. While public universities in Brazil-widely considered superior to their private counterparts-charge no tuition, they have very competitive entrance exams which generally favor students who have attended costly private schools with high academic standards.

The value placed on higher education by certain segments of Brazilian society may explain why it receives such a large share of revenue. Economic success in Brazil is said to come more from who one knows than what one knows, and where one is educated, influences who one knows. University education then, aside from training students in a particular profession, also confers (or confirms) social status which, in turn, provides the personal connections that can influence future success.

Etiquette

Brazilians have less sense of personal space than North Americans and are not bothered being packed together in crowded public places. They are physically expressive and convey emotional information through touch. While in some societies touching has sexual overtones, Brazilians equate it with friendship and a show of concern. Women tend to touch more than men and greet others with kisses on both cheeks, but men also welcome each other with hearty pats on the back and bear hugs. Such informality extends to conversation. Brazilians usually address teachers, doctors, priests, and other professionals using their title followed by their first name-Professor João, Doutora Maxine or Presidente Henrique.

Still, body language and terms of address vary with an individual's social standing. A domestic servant will greet her employer with a limp handshake, head slightly bowed and eyes lowered, and address her using the respectful "you" ( a senhora ), rather than the familiar "you" ( voceê ); the mistress of the house, by contrast always addresses her servants as você. University graduates or, at times, even those who appear to be well educated, are addressed as doutor or doutora (doctor).

Brazilians also have relaxed attitudes towards nudity and toward the body in general. Witness the scanty costumes of carnival performers which consist of little more than a wisp of fabric and a few feathers, and the tiny string bikinis-called "dental floss" ( fio dental ) in Brazilian slang-that women of all shapes, sizes, and ages wear on Brazil's public beaches.

Religion

Religious Beliefs. Brazil is the largest Catholic country in the world even though the percentage of Brazilians who belong to the Catholic Church has declined in recent years, down from 95 percent in the 1950s. Today about 73 percent of Brazilians identify themselves as Catholic but an unknown number are Catholics by tradition, not by faith.

Although church and state are separate in Brazil and, by law, there is freedom of religious belief and expression, a close relationship exists between the Catholic Church and the state. Major Catholic holidays are public holidays and a priest (or bishop) always presides at the inauguration of public buildings. Also, church-based welfare and educational institutions, such as religious seminaries, receive financial support from the federal government. At various times in Brazilian history the Catholic Church has either strongly endorsed the state or vigorously challenged the status quo, as in the case of liberation theology, a late-twentieth century movement that provided religious justification for questioning the yawning gap between haves and have-nots in Brazil.

Catholicism varies somewhat in rural and urban settings. What has been called "folk Catholicism," which includes beliefs and practices long abandoned in cities, is observed by people in the interior of the country. Such popular Catholicism survives in pilgrimage centers in the backlands which attract thousands of Brazilians, often from great distances. The faithful take vows to make a pilgrimage to honor the saint who fulfills their request-recovery from illness or getting a job are examples. Sometimes the grateful supplicant offers the saint a carved likeness of the body part that has been cured.

Brazilian Catholicism has always coexisted- generally in relative harmony-with other religions including those of the nation's indigenous people, African religions brought to Brazil by slaves, European spiritism, and various Protestant denominations.

Moreover, many Brazilian Catholics participate in the rituals of other religions but nevertheless consider themselves "good" Catholics.

Candomblé, the best known and most traditional of Brazil's African-derived religions, is centered in the city of Salvador and traces its origin to the Yoruba and Dahomey religions of West Africa. In Candomblé-a syncretic religion (one that combines elements of more than one religion) with both African and European elements-deities are called forth through the spirit possession of cult initiates. Despite police raids and other forms of social discrimination in years past, Candomblé has persisted and flourished as a vibrant symbol of Afro-Brazilian cultural identity.

Umbanda is another highly syncretic religion with spiritist elements that began in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1920s and spread to urban areas throughout the country. With some thirty million followers today, Umbanda has been called the one true national religion of Brazil because it embraces elements of all three of the nation's cultural traditions: African, European, and Indian.

Spiritism, based on the teachings of French philosopher Alain Kardec and introduced to Brazil in the nineteenth century, is yet another spiritual movement with a growing following. Spiritism is more an intellectual endeavor than an emotional cry for salvation. Spiritists, most of whom are from the upper-middle-class and elite sectors of society, believe that humans are spirits trapped in bodies and that moral perfection is life's goal.

The live and let live stance of Brazilian Catholicism towards other forms of religious belief and expression is absent in Brazilian Protestantism, especially in its fundamentalist variant. The so-called "new Pentecostals" view Afro-Brazilian religions and Umbanda as the work of the Devil and dramatically exorcize new converts to rid them of such evil.

Pentecostal churches have enjoyed great success in recent years. In often highly emotional services, converts claim inspiration from the Holy Spirit, speak in tongues, and perform cures. Using radio and television, the sects target the poor and preach here-and-now self-improvement through individual initiative. One relatively new sect, the Igreja Universal (Universal Church), founded in Rio de Janeiro in the late 1970s, now has churches all over Brazil and throughout the world.

A development in the Brazilian religious panoply at the end of the twentieth century was the growth of the Charismatic movement within the Catholic Church. With its strong emphasis on the power of the Holy Spirit to heal physical, emotional, and material distress; its rituals involving speaking in tongues; and its lively, emotive religious

services, Charismatic Catholicism has much in common with Pentecostalism.

Medicine and Health Care

Brazil has long had a public health system, but like other social programs that primarily serve the poor, it is vastly underfunded. In the early 1990s, per capita spending on health care was only about $50 annually, a paltry sum for a system on which over 60 percent of the Brazilian population depends. Many of the poor either self-medicate or get whatever remedies they can from local pharmacists who are the only health care providers in some rural areas. For those who can afford it at the other end of the social spectrum, Brazil has world class health care in modern medical centers, particularly in the prosperous Southeast and South.

Secular Celebrations

Most secular celebrations in Brazil are tied to the liturgical calendar since many originally started as religious celebrations and then became secularized.

The Feast of the Three Kings, 6 January. Children go door to door singing songs and requesting gifts. This tradition has almost died out in urban areas, but survives in the interior.

Carnival, variable dates, from late January to March. Brazil's famous four-day "national party" preceding Ash Wednesday is marked by street parades, samba, music, parties, and elaborate costumes. Its forms vary from city to city and region to region. The most popular street carnivals are in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Recife, Olinda, and Salvador.

Tiradentes Day, 2 April. Tiradentes (literally, tooth-puller) was leader of the Minas Conspiracy, the most important early movement for Brazilian independence. When the Portuguese Crown discovered Tiradentes was leading an independence movement, he was hanged and quartered in the public square in Vila Rica, a town in Minas Gerais.

Festas Juninas (June Festivals), June. Brazilians celebrate a series of popular festivals with origins in Roman Catholic tradition. The feasts of Saint Anthony (13 June), Saint John (24 June) and Saint Peter (29 June) are marked by huge bonfires, traditional foods and games, square dancing, and parties for children. Urban children dress up like hillbillies during these Festivals.

Brazilian Independence Day, 7 September. Brazil was a colony of Portugal until 1822 when Pedro I, the crown prince, declared its independence from the mother country.

Nossa Senhora Aparecida (Our Lady Aparecida), 12 October. The Feast of Nossa Senhora Aparecida, the patron saint of Brazil, is a legal holiday.

Proclamation of the Republic, 15 November. This holiday celebrates the demise of the Brazilian Empire and the proclamation of the republic in 1889.

New Year's Eve, 31 December. Thousands of followers of Afro-Brazilian religions celebrate New Year's Eve on Brazil's beaches to honor Yemanjá, goddess of he sea.

The Arts and Humanities

Literature. The country has a rich literary tradition and several Brazilian writers have achieved international renown, including Jorge Amado, Brazil's best known contemporary author. His books have been translated into fifty languages and his writings vividly evoke the sensual and popular delights of Brazil, especially his native Bahia, the setting of most of his work.

Brazil also has a tradition of folk literature that is little known abroad. The literature de cordel (literally, literature on a string)-derived from the custom of displaying booklets of verse by hanging them from a thin string or cordel- is a form of rhymed verse still popular in the Northeast interior. In the region with the country's highest illiteracy rate, these verses disseminate news and carry on cultural traditions. The cordel singer, who travels from town to town performing his verses to the accompaniment of a guitar or accordion, writes the verses, composes the melody, prints the lyrics in a booklet-which he also sells-and may even illustrate the work with his own woodcuts or sketches.

Performance Arts. Music is not just entertainment in Brazil, it has been called the "soundtrack" of national life. Brazil gave the world samba and bossa nova, but other musical traditions-batuque, forró, maxixe-are less well known outside the country. Like so much of Brazilian culture, the country's music borrows from its three cultural elements, although in the musical realm it is the African tradition that has the largest influence. While Brazil's musical energies are mostly focused on popular, not classical, music, the country was also home to one of the world's most esteemed neoclassical composers, Heitor Villa-Lobos, who made imaginative use of folk themes in his best known composition, Bachianas Brasileiras.

The State of the Physical and Social Sciences

Research in both the physical and social sciences was hard hit by Brazil's economic crisis since almost all academic research is done at public universities which receive about 90 percent of their funds from state or federal governments. The private sector contributes very little to research.

The social sciences in Brazil have far more visibility than they do in the United States and a number of academics are known to the general public. Fernando Henrique Cardoso, a senator and two-term president of Brazil, was a renowned sociologist before he entered politics. This visibility may be linked to the fact that all of the social sciences focus on Brazil and on national issues. The vast majority of Brazilian anthropologists, for example, have conducted their field research within national territory.

Anthropologists in Brazil shifted their interests over the years from indigenous populations to the contact situation, including inter-ethnic friction. This was followed by research on peasants, urban populations, and popular culture. Sociology, which tends to be more quantitative than anthropology, often combines an interest in policy with research. Or as one Brazilian social scientist put it, "In Brazil theory is politics."

Bibliography

Alvarez, Sonia E. Engendering Democracy in Brazil, 1990.

Brown, Diana Deg. Umbanda: Religion and Politics in Urban Brazil, 1994.

Burdick, John S. Looking for God in Brazil: The Progressive Catholic Church in Urban Brazil's Religious Arena, 1993.

Costa, Emília Viotta da. The Brazilian Empire: Myths and Histories, 1985.

Cowell, Adrian. The Decade of Destruction: The Crusade to Save the Amazon Rain Forest, 1990.

DaMatta, Roberto. Carnivals, Rogues, and Heroes: An Interpretation of the Brazilian Dilemma, 1991.

--, and David Hess, eds. The Brazilian Puzzle, 1995.

Eakin, Marshall. Brazil: The Once and Future Country, 1998.

Harris, Marvin. Patterns of Race in the Americas, 1980.

Harrison, Phyllis. Behaving Brazilian, 1983.

Hecht, Tobias. At Home in the Street: Street Children of Northeast Brazil, 1998.

Hemming, John. Red Gold: The Conquest of the Brazilian Indians, 1500-1760, 1978.

Herrington, Elizabeth Ann. Passport Brazil, 1993.

Holston, James. The Modernist City: An Anthropological Critique of Brasilia, 1989.

Ireland, Rowan. Kingdoms Come: Religion and Politics in Brazil, 1991.

Kottak, Conrad Phillip. Prime-Time Society, 1990.

Lesser, Jeff. Negotiating National Identity: Immigrants, Minorities, and the Struggle for Ethnicity in Brazil, 1999.

Lever, Janet. Soccer Madness, 1983.

Levine, Robert M., and John J. Crocitti, eds. The Brazil Reader, 1999.

MacMillan, Gordon. At the End of the Rainbow? Gold, Land, and People in the Brazilian Amazon, 1995.

Margolis, Maxine L. Little Brazil: Brazilian Immigrants in New York City, 1994.

Mariz, Cecilia Loreto. Coping with Poverty: Pentecostals and Christian Base Communities in Brazil, 1994.

Mcgowan, Chris, and Ricardo Pessanha. The Brazilian Sound: Samba, Bossa Nova, and the Popular Music of Brazil, 1998.

Oliven, Ruben. Tradition Matters: Modern Gaucho Identity in Brazil, 1996.

Page, Joseph A. The Brazilians, 1996.

Parker, Richard G. Bodies, Pleasures, and Passions: Sexual Culture in Contemporary Brazil, 1991.

Patai, Daphne. Brazilian Women Speak, 1988.

Skidmore, Thomas E. Black into White: Race and Nationality in Brazilian Thought, 1993.

--. Brazil: Five Centuries of Change, 1999.

Slater, Candace. Stories on a String: The Brazilian Literatura de Cordel, 1990.

Summ, G. Harvey. Brazilian Mosaic: Portraits of a Diverse People and Culture, 1995.

Vianna, Hermano. Samba Nation: Popular Music and National Identity in Brazil, 1999.

Wagley, Charles. An Introduction to Brazil, 1971.

Weyland, Kurt. Democracy without Equity: Failures of Reform in Brazil, 1996.

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In Portuguese, Brasil; its citizens are Brasileiros or Brasileiras depending on gender. Identification. The Portuguese navigator Pedro Alvares Cabral arrived at present day Pôrto Seguro (Safe Harbor) in the state of Bahia on the Brazilian coast in April 1500 and named the new territory Ilha de Vera Cruz, Island of the True Cross, thinking he was on an island.

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The Only Sucsseful Slave Revolt In The World

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The Only Sucsseful Slave Revolt In The World

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In this bicentennial year of Haitian independence, it's a bitter irony that celebrations should be eclipsed by political crisis. French troops, whose evacuation two centuries ago led to the 1804 Proclamation of Independence, are back again patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince. Once more, Haiti is haunted by instability, foreign intervention, and crushing poverty.

In this exhaustively researched and valuable account, Laurent Dubois, a history professor at Michigan State, looks back to the founding of Haiti. The Revolution, Dubois says, left "enduring scars" that included militarism, a tradition of dictatorship, and widespread economic hardship. In those brutal years between 1791 and 1804, more than 100,000 Haitians were killed. The Haitian economy, once the producer of half the sugar and coffee in the entire world, was ravaged.

In the period described by Dubois, Haiti fought and defeated three great European powers: France, Britain, and Spain. Moreover, the revolution liberated 90 percent of the population, which had been living under a brutal system of slavery. Haiti's was the first, and the only, successful slave revolt in the history of the world. Moreover, the Haitian Revolution would lead to the doubling of the size of the United States. It was Napoleon's loss of Haiti that convinced the overextended dictator to sell the Louisiana territory to the fledgling US.

Dubois opens the book with an impressively detailed description of Haiti's pre- Revolutionary history. Spain and France competed for the island, called Hispaniola, until the 1697 Treaty of Rhyswick granted the western part to France. The French called their colony St. Domingue and created a plantation economy based on sugar and coffee. Slaves were imported from French colonies in Africa, and an oligarchy of plantation owners ruled the land.

As Dubois tells it, the local planters resented political and economic interference from France. When decrees were sent from Paris about how slaves should be treated, the planters ignored them and treated their "property" as inhumanely as they wished. Yet there were changes in France that would have a huge impact on Haiti. In the late 18th century, French intellectuals were popularizing the case against slavery. Enlightenment thinkers such as Condorcet argued that slavery violated the laws of nature. Organizations such as the Société des Amis des Noirs demanded abolition.

The French Revolution changed everything by promoting universal ideals of liberty and equality. Plantation owners in Haiti tried to block the "dangerous" ideas coming from Paris, but the ideas spread among the slaves through smuggled pamphlets and by word of mouth. The Haitian Revolution began in August 1791 when slaves in the northern plains rebelled. Dubois describes how bands of slaves roamed the land, killing plantation owners, burning fields, and destroying equipment.

The slave insurgency escalated into a brutal civil war filled with atrocities on both sides. In early 1793, Britain and Spain declared war on Revolutionary France and so Haiti was embroiled in a larger conflict. The French Republic sent commissioners to Haiti who, hoping to attract ex-slaves to fight against Britain and Spain, decided to abolish slavery.

Haitian history changed forever in 1794 when Toussaint Louverture, an ex-slave, decided to fight for the French Republic. Within a few years, General Louverture would become the de facto military dictator of Haiti. He drove out the British and the Spanish, eliminated his rivals, and asserted control over the island nation.

Dubois adroitly describes Louverture's economic policies: The general chose to maintain the old plantation economy. Ex-slaves were given salaries, but they were forced to remain on the land. Louverture's failure to break up the plantation system was a crucial lost opportunity. The prerevolutionary economic inequalities, as well as a planter oligarchy, would continue to bedevil Haiti.

Napoleon Bonaparte resented Louverture's independence, and he coveted Haiti's wealth. In early 1802, Bonaparte sent his brother-in-law, General Leclerc, with a large army to reassert French dominance. Louverture and the Haitian people came to believe, quite rightly in the author's estimation, that Napoleon intended to reintroduce slavery. Dubois shows how Leclerc's men, some 80,000 in all, were caught in a military quagmire. After a year and a half of savage guerrilla warfare and an epidemic of yellow fever, 50,000 French soldiers were dead (Leclerc among them). Lourverture ended up dying in a French prison. In late 1803, a defeated French Army boarded ships and left.

On Jan. 1, 1804, Haiti proclaimed its independence in a moment of supreme hope. However, the centuries-old legacies of slavery and colonialism would not be so easily dismissed. Dubois, writing in an accessible style and with a wide-ranging focus, has done an impressive job depicting the tumultuous founding of Haiti. Readers wanting to place the Caribbean nation's current struggles in a larger historical context will find Dubois an eminently worthwhile resource.

* Chuck Leddy is a freelance writer in Quincy, Mass.

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The only successful slave revolt in the world

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In this bicentennial year of Haitian independence, it's a bitter irony that celebrations should be eclipsed by political crisis. French troops, whose evacuation two centuries ago led to the 1804 Proclamation of Independence, are back again patrolling the streets of Port-au-Prince. Once more, Haiti is haunted by instability, foreign intervention, and crushing poverty.

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Mordern day affects of colonization in vietnam

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Mordern day affects of colonization in vietnam

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sophie

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Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Primary, Middle and Secondary School.

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Tupian, South American Indians who speak languages of the Tupian linguistic group. Tupian-speaking peoples were widespread south of the Amazon. The similarity between dialects suggests that their scattering was fairly recent. Aboriginal Tupian speakers were found from the mouth of the Amazon to the Río de la Plata, both along the Atlantic coast and in the interior.

The Tupians were tropical rain forest farmers, rivermen, and coastal navigators. Using slash-and-burn cultivation, they grew cassava, sweet potatoes, corn (maize), beans, peanuts (groundnuts), cotton, and dyes. They collected turtles and turtle eggs and caught fish and river mammals with arrows and harpoons from large dugout canoes. They also used vegetable drugs for fishing. The hunting of wild game was secondary.

The basic unit of Tupian society was the extended family (including parents, married children, and their families), occupying a single large thatched house, but some Tupians had patrilineal clans. On the lower Amazon and the coast, palisaded multi-house villages of several thousand persons occurred. These villages warred incessantly, capturing, torturing, and eating their victims. Religion was largely shamanistic with little village ceremonialism. See also Guaraní; Sirionó; Tupinambá; Kawaíb.

Learn More in these related Britannica articles:

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Tupian, South American Indians who speak languages of the Tupian linguistic group. Tupian-speaking peoples were widespread south of the Amazon. The similarity between dialects suggests that their scattering was fairly recent. Aboriginal Tupian speakers were found from the mouth of the Amazon to

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Welcome to Britannica School , a safe, up-to-date, and age-appropriate information resource for Primary, Middle and Secondary School.