HistoryExtra
type: channel
link: https://www.historyextra.com
description: Home of Britain’s bestselling history magazine and award-winning podcast
date: 2024-09-12T08:45:52.000Z
update period: hourly
update frequency: 1
update base: 2000-01-01T12:00+00:00
items: Emma Dabiri’s hidden histories: The Harder They Fall
items: Emma Dabiri’s hidden histories: Edgar Mittelholzer
items: Emma Dabiri's hidden histories: Augustus Merriman-Labor
items: Emma Dabiri's hidden histories: Anarcha Westcott
items: Emma Dabiri’s hidden histories: William Cuffay
items: Emma Dabiri's Hidden Histories: Harriet Jacobs
items: "Afro-textured hair had no stigma before the dehumanisation of black people that emerged from slavery": Emma Dabiri discusses the changing perceptions of Afro-textured hair
items: Why black hair matters
items: Africa’s contested past

Emma Dabiri’s hidden histories: The Harder They Fall
type: item
date: 2022-01-05T14:31:37.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Column
description: "The film doesn’t engage with one of the main drivers behind the violence," writes Emma Dabiri
encoded: The recent Netflix movie The Harder They Fall – a black western, a rarity in the genre – tells a story featuring real-life characters including Rufus Buck and Cherokee Bill. Westerns almost universally depict cowboys and outlaws as white men, yet historians estimate that about 25 per cent were in fact African-Americans – including some of the most accomplished. Set in an almost entirely black context and starring black actors such as Idris Elba and LaKeith Stanfield, the film doesn’t show the mixed ethnicity of the historical figures behind the main characters – many of whom had mixed African, European and Native American ancestry – nor the multi-“racial” society in which they lived. Read more | From slave to real Lone Ranger? The incredible life of black Wild West lawman Bass Reeves As such, the film doesn’t engage with one of the main drivers behind the violent rampage it references: the imminent absorption of Indian Territory into the ever-expanding US. In the summer of 1895, in the Indian Territory that would shortly become the state of Oklahoma, a group of five teenage boys engaged in a two-week bout of robbery, rape and murder. Their leader, Rufus Buck, was – like most of the gang – of mixed African and Creek Indian heritage. Their attacks appalled local white settlers, Native Americans and African-American freedmen alike. On the podcast: Historian Tony Warner discusses some of the real historical figures depicted in the Netflix western The Harder They Fall Historians argue that the undoubtedly chilling and brutal violence wasn’t entirely random. By 1895, white people outnumbered Native Americans in Indian Territory, and the US government was rapidly absorbing that land for white settlement. Buck apparently harboured fantasies that his gang’s violence would incite a Native American uprising that would overrun the white settlers and eventually reclaim the whole territory. The author Leonce Gaiter, who has written extensively about Rufus Buck, says that “His dre…

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Emma Dabiri’s hidden histories: Edgar Mittelholzer
type: item
date: 2021-12-14T07:43:15.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: 20th Century
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Column
description: “He dreamed a career that seemed impossible and made it a reality,” writes Emma Dabiri
encoded: Edgar Mittelholzer was a Guyanese novelist who should be remembered not just for the quality of his writing, but as the earliest recorded writer from the Caribbean to make his living from the profession. I studied Caribbean literature at university, yet I don’t recall his name coming up in my studies. In fact, I came across him quite by chance thanks to a reference to his eerie ghost story, My Bones and My Flute, in Adam Curtis’s recent documentary Can’t Get You Out of My Head. As an avid reader of ghost stories, I was intrigued by this Caribbean writer as most of the canon has been written by European and Anglo-American authors. Race had a hugely formative influence on Mittelholzer’s life. Born in 1909 in what was then British Guiana, his father was of Swiss-German origin while his mother was from a light-skinned “multi-racial” family in Martinique. In a race-obsessed colonial context, the Mittelholzers had firmly established themselves as a “white” family, but their son – while still “light-skinned” – was the darkest, with features revealing him to be unmistakably of African descent. His presence was a source of deep shame for the family – a “momentous disappointment” for his father, in particular. “I was the Dark One at whom he was always frowning and barking,” wrote Mittelholzer. The pressures of repressive colonial society affected Mittelholzer profoundly. To the further disappointment of his father, the young boy retreated into reading and writing, becoming fixated on finding a London publisher for his work. Caribbean writing was dismissed at the time as a contradiction in the colonial metropolis, and Mittelholzer was subject to rejection after rejection, which likely compounded the rejection he experienced within his own family. He persisted. In 1938, he wrote Corentyne Thunder and at the end of that year received the positive response he had sought for so long. Seemingly plagued by bad luck, however, the outbreak of WW2 shut down any chance of immediate publ…

Emma Dabiri's hidden histories: Augustus Merriman-Labor
type: item
date: 2021-09-28T09:13:37.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: Edwardian
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Column
description: “Merriman-Labor’s searing satire of the British was not well received”, writes Emma Dabiri
encoded: In 1904, an accomplished young Krio man from a middle-class family in Freetown, the capital of Sierra Leone, set sail from the west African coast to London. Aged just 26, his aim was to make his mark on the literary world. Augustus Merriman-Labor had every reason to be optimistic. He was hard-working, gifted and successful, with a rising profile in his home country, and moving to London to take advantage of the opportunities the city afforded was a logical but brave next step. As scholar Danell Jones writes: “The Sierra Leone Weekly News had assured him that his colour would be no obstacle there,” and he could “go anywhere, wherever his merits... will take him”. The Krios have a fascinating history. In 1787, the Sierra Leone Resettlement saw 411 people “repatriated” to an area of land on the west African coast. Most were members of the black poor community in London; many were formerly enslaved people freed after fighting for the British in the American Revolutionary War, but who had ended up destitute. Attitudes towards black people shut down almost all opportunity and employment. Abolitionist Carl Bernhard Wadström felt that “it was necessary they should be sent somewhere, and be no longer suffered to infest the streets of London”. The Committee for the Relief of the Black Poor devised a novel solution: to persuade them to return to the continent of their ancestors, where many were accompanied by their white English wives and their children. After a first settlement was burned down in 1789 due to rising tensions between the new settlers and native people, its successor became known as Freetown. From 1792 to 1800 it was settled by Nova Scotian Settlers – freed slaves, black pioneers and Jamaican Maroons. The population was further expanded by “liberated Africans”: people who continued to be captured and sold after slavery was prohibited in 1807 but who were intercepted by the British navy and “repatriated” to Sierra Leone. These diverse groups would create what wou…

Emma Dabiri's hidden histories: Anarcha Westcott
type: item
date: 2021-08-28T09:50:59.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Column
description: “Anarcha Westcott should be hailed as a ‘mother of gynaecology’”, writes Emma Dabiri
encoded: Anarcha Westcott was 17 years old when she gave birth. Although she is listed as a “mulatto” in the census, not a great deal is known about this enslaved woman’s life in Alabama. But she should be hailed – along with two other enslaved women named Lucy and Betsey – as one of the "mothers of gynaecology". Instead, we are much more familiar with the white, slave-owning "father of gynaecology", Dr J Marion Sims. Sims has not one, but three statues in his honour in the United States (although, in 2018, his Central Park monument was removed from view after public pressure). Largely erased from the narrative are the enslaved women he experimented on, women whose bodies provided the “resources” Sims needed for his research. It is through those experiments that his name entered the annals of the historical record. Yet he failed to record most of the enslaved women’s names, other than Anarcha, Lucy and Betsey. It was on Anarcha that his experimentation was most frequently carried out, conducting more than 30 operations, with no pain relief. These led him to “successfully” perform his surgery (Anarcha never fully recovered), making Sims’ technique the first treatment for vesicovaginal fistula. He revolutionised gynaecological surgery, cementing the legacy that so preoccupied him. Enslaved women were bought to produce, and to reproduce. Yet, as is easy to imagine, being held in captivity and labour. Brutal conditions, inadequate diet and insufficient shelter meant that poor health was endemic among enslaved people. Many suffered from rickets, which affected bone development. It’s very likely that Anarcha had a severe case of rickets caused by abuse, neglect and malnutrition. This could result in conditions such as a deformed pelvis, making it incredibly difficult, if not impossible, to give birth. In June 1845, Anarcha went into labour and spent three days desperately trying to give birth before the local physician, Sims, was called. This was not necessarily out of concern for…

Emma Dabiri’s hidden histories: William Cuffay
type: item
date: 2021-08-01T06:00:03.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Column
subject: Slavery
description: "William Cuffay's story is more relevant now than ever," writes Emma Dabiri
encoded: “Blackman” was how The Times sneeringly referred to him. Others were taken aback by his small stature. William Cuffay was 4ft 11ins and born with a deformed spine and shin bones. He was mild-mannered, already approaching old age when he first drew press attention. Yet the unassuming appearance of this leader of the London Chartists had little bearing on his fierce commitment to working-class rights or indeed his abilities as a rousing orator. Born in 1788 in Chatham in Kent, Cuffay was the son of a formerly enslaved ship’s cook from St Kitts and a white English woman. He was born at a time when black people in Britain were free but slavery was still an active institution in its colonies, and into a cultural climate in which black people were looked down upon. This was the reality for Cuffay, compounded by the deprivations experienced as a member of the English working class. He trained as a tailor, and developed a love of the trade that mirrored his intense dislike of both the aristocracy and industrialists. By 1819, Cuffay had established himself in Soho, but in 1834 was unemployed. He had gone on strike with fellow tradesmen, demanding better hours and increased pay. When the strike collapsed, he was blacklisted for failing to promise not to join a trade union. Cuffay went on to set up the Metropolitan Tailors’ Charter Association and joined the London Chartists, a movement committed to establishing political rights for working people. Based on the People’s Charter, it included six demands for reform – principally that every man over 21 should have the vote, at a time when scarcely a tenth had that right (and women were forbidden from voting entirely). By 1848, William was leader of the London branch. Meanwhile, mounting tensions erupted on 4 November 1839, when thousands of Chartists gathered in Newport. As they asserted their demands, a violent confrontation with the police ensued. Twenty-two people lost their lives and 21 more were charged with high treason. Th…

Emma Dabiri's Hidden Histories: Harriet Jacobs
type: item
date: 2021-07-01T05:00:18.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: Membership
subject: Period
subject: Victorian
subject: Column
subject: Slavery
description: "Jacobs’ writing transports readers to the world of Southern slavery," writes Emma Dabiri
encoded: “No matter what the slave girl looks like, if she’s dark, if she’s light, if she’s medium, if she’s at all attractive, if she has beauty it is a curse, because the master will be after her... Even the little child will learn that if God has bestowed beauty on her, it will prove her greatest curse. Slavery is a cage of obscene birds.” This quote, from Harriet Jacobs’ 1861 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl, is emblematic of how her evocative style and relatable, contemporary voice transports readers to the intimate spaces of the world of Southern slavery. Yet for years, many people refused to believe that her book could be true, or that it could have been written by a woman of African descent. Indeed, the accepted academic opinion until the 1980s was that it was a fictional novel written by a white abolitionist. I came across Jacobs’ story by chance while researching advertisements about escaped slaves. Notices for women are not as common as those for men, and hers caught my eye: “$100 REWARD will be given for the apprehension and delivery of my Servant Girl HARRIET. She is a light mulatto, 21 years of age, about 5 feet 4 inches high.” Further digging revealed not only that Harriet eventually gained her freedom, but also that she became a tireless campaigner for black liberation. Her strength of will – which compelled this formerly enslaved woman to write herself into a historical record that would have gladly erased her – is apparent from a young age. As Harriet wrote: “My master had power and law on his side. I had a determined will. There is might in each.” In the hope of escaping the clutches of that master, Dr Norcom, young Harriet made a calculated gamble. At the age of 15 she met Samuel Tradwell Sawyer – a white lawyer aged around 30, from one of North Carolina’s wealthiest families – who took an interest in her. Harriet’s plan hinged on the fact that Sawyer was wealthier and more powerful than Norcom; she believed that if she had his baby, he might buy bot…

"Afro-textured hair had no stigma before the dehumanisation of black people that emerged from slavery": Emma Dabiri discusses the changing perceptions of Afro-textured hair
type: item
date: 2020-04-16T10:06:48.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Emma Dabiri talks to Matt Elton about her book, Don’t Touch My Hair, exploring how perceptions of Afro-textured hair fuelled historical prejudice, oppression, slavery and colonial attitudes
encoded: Matt Elton: Your new book covers a fascinating range of subjects. How would you describe it? Emma Dabiri: Ostensibly, it’s about black, Afro-textured hair and its history, politics and significance – but really it’s about a lot more than that. One of my friends described it as a kind of Trojan horse: something that presents itself as being about one thing, but which also kind of smuggles in a lot of other ideas. ME: What’s interesting about your book is that it considers hair as an artefact. You talk about societies in Africa, for instance, that use complex non-verbal languages including hairstyling. In what ways is it useful to view hair through this lens? ED: The texture of African hair means it’s incredibly versatile and lends itself to being shaped in a huge range of ways. Because this innate material was part of people’s lives and reality, cultures developed to suit that reality – and because this hair can do so much, a strong and lively hair culture emerged. Many of the cultures I explore in the book would traditionally be described as ‘oral’. There’s often an assumption that, when you speak of orality, you’re talking only about the verbal – but in most of those societies there would also have been a plethora of other sorts of language. For instance, Yoruba culture [of west Africa] uses the batá drum to mimic the tonality of the spoken language. And there are many visual languages, too, of which hair and hairstyling would have been a part. ME: You mention Yoruba culture. Does its folklore specifically reference hair? ED: There’s a genre in Yoruba called oriki, of which there are many different types, but the term can essentially be translated as ‘praise poems’. When a person is born, traditionally they would have their own oriki, which is a long name or song that reflects the conditions of their birth, their family background, their parents' aspirations for them, and so on. I looked at oriki of the orisha – Yoruba deities who act as intermediaries between the …

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Why black hair matters
type: item
date: 2019-08-05T15:45:33.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: General Modern
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Emma Dabiri explains how the history of black hair reflects themes such as capitalism, slavery and colonialism
encoded: Historian and broadcaster Emma Dabiri explains how the history of black hair reflects broad themes of capitalism, slavery, colonialism and more.

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Africa’s contested past
type: item
date: 2018-04-16T17:01:03.000Z
creator: Emma Dabiri
subject: Membership
subject: Period
description: Tom Young and Emma Dabiri explore how Africa’s past has affected its present in a discussion prompted by the themes of Tom’s new book, Neither Devil Nor Child
encoded: Historians Tom Young and Emma Dabiri explore how Africa’s past has affected its present in a discussion prompted by the themes of Tom’s new book, Neither Devil Nor Child: How Western Attitudes Are Harming Africa.

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