The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America
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The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America
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Overview
Although the Civil War marked an end to slavery in the UnitedStates, it would take another fifty years to establish the country’s civil rights movement. Dr. W.E.B. Du Bois was among the first generation of African-American scholars to spearhead this movement towards equality. As cofounder of the NAACP, he sought to initiate equality through social change, and as a talented writer, he created books and essays that provide a revealing glimpse into the black experience of the times.
In The Gift of Black Folk, Du Bois recounts the history of African Americans and their many unsung contributions to American society. He chronicles their role in the early exploration of America, their part in developing the country’s agricultural industry, their courage on the battlefields, and their creative genius in virtually every aspect of American culture. He also highlights the contributions of black women, proposing that their freedom could lead to freedom for all women.
The Gift of Black Folk provides a powerful picture of the many struggles that paved the way for freedom and equality in our nation.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780757003196 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Square One Publishers |
| Publication date: | 01/20/2009 |
| Series: | Knights of Columbus |
| Pages: | 208 |
| Product dimensions: | 5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d) |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
THE GIFT of BLACK FOLK
The Negroes in the Making of America
By W.E.B. DuBois
SQUARE ONE PUBLISHERS
Copyright © 2009
Knights of Columbus
All right reserved.
ISBN: 978-0-7570-0319-6
Chapter One The Black Explorers
How the Negro helped in the discovery of America and gave his ancient customs to the land.
Garcia de Montalvo published in 1510 a Spanish romance which said: "Know ye that on the right hand of the Indies there is an island called California very near the Terrestrial Paradise which is peopled with black women without any men among them, because they were accustomed to live after the fashion of the Amazons. They were of strong and hardy bodies, of ardent courage and of great force."
The legend that the Negro race had touched America even before the day of Columbus rests upon a certain basis of fact. First, the Negro countenance, clear and unmistakable, occurs repeatedly in Indian carvings, among the relics of the Mound Builders and in Mexican temples. Secondly, there are evidences of Negro customs among the Indians in their religious worship; in their methods of building defenses such as the mounds probably were; and particularly in customs of trade. Columbus said that he had been told of a land southwest of the Cape Verde Islands where the black folk had been trading and had used in their trade the well-known African alloy of gold called guanin.
"There can be no question whatever as to the reality of the statement in regard to the presence in America of the African pombeiros previous to Columbus because the guani is a Mandingo word and the very alloy is of African origin. In 1501 a law was passed forbidding persons to sell guanin to the Indians of Hispaniola" [Leo Wiener].
Wiener thinks "The presence of Negroes with their trading masters in America before Columbus is proved by the representation of Negroes in American sculpture and design, by the occurrence of a black nation at Darien early in the 16th century, but more specifically by Columbus' emphatic reference to Negro traders from Guinea, who trafficked in a gold alloy, guanin, of precisely the same composition and bearing the same name, as frequently referred to by early writers in Africa."
And thirdly, many of the productions of America which have hitherto been considered as indigenous and brought into use especially by the Indians, may easily have been African in origin, as for instance, tobacco, cotton, sweet potatoes, and peanuts. It is quite possible that many if not all of these came through the African Negro, being in some cases indigenous to Negro Africa and in other cases transmitted from the Arabs by the Negroes. Tobacco particularly was known in Africa and is mentioned in early America continually in connection with the Negroes. All of these things were spread in America along the same routes, starting with the mingling of Negroes and Indians in the West Indies and coming up through Florida and on to Canada. The Arawak Indians-who especially show the effects of contact with Negroes-and fugitive Negroes, together with Negroid Caribs, migrated northward and it was they who led Ponce de Leon to search for the Fountain Bimini where old men became young.
Oviedo says that the sweet potato "came with that evil lot of Negroes and it has taken very well and it is profitable and good sustenance for the Negroes of whom there is a greater number than is necessary on account of their rebellions." In the same way, maize and sugar cane may have been imported from Africa.
Further than this, the raising of bread roots, manioc, yam and sweet potatoes may have come to America from Guinea by way of Brazil. From Brazil the culture of these crops spread and many of the words referring to them are of undoubted African origin.
Negroes probably reached the eastern part of South America from the West Indies while others from the same source went north along the roads marked by the Mound Builders as far as Canada.
"The chief cultural influence of the Negro in America was exerted by a Negro colony in Mexico, most likely from Teotihuacan and Tuxtla, who may have been instrumental in establishing the city of Mexico. From here their influence pervaded the neighboring tribes and ultimately, directly or indirectly, reached Peru" [Wiener].
The mounds of the "Mound Builders" were probably replicas of Negro forts in Africa. "That this tendency to build forts and stockades proceeded from the Antilles, whence the Arawaks had come in the beginning of the sixteenth century, is proved by the presence of similar works in Cuba. These are found in the most abandoned and least-explored part of the island and there can be little doubt that they were locations of fugitive Negro and Indian stockades, precisely such as were in use in Africa. It is not possible to prove the direct participation of the Negroes in the fortifications of the North American Indians, but as the civilizing influence on the Indians to a great extent proceeded from Cuba over Florida towards the Huron Country in the north, the solution of the question of the Mound Builders is to be looked for in the perpetuation of Arawak or Carib methods, acquired from the Negroes, as well attested by Ovando's complaint in 1503 that the Negroes spoiled the manners of the Indians; and transferred to the white traders, who not only adopted the methods of the Indians, but frequently lived among the Indians as part of them, especially in Brazil where we have ample documentary evidence of the fact" [Wiener].
All this is prehistoric and in part conjectural and yet, it seems reasonable to suppose that much in custom, trade and religion-which has been regarded as characteristic of the American Indian-arose from strong Negro influences of the pre-Columbian period.
After the discovery of America by Columbus many Negroes came with the early explorers. Many of these early black men were civilized Christians and sprung from the large numbers of Negroes imported into Spain and Portugal during the fifteenth century, where they replaced as laborers the expelled Moors. Afterward came the mass of slaves brought by the direct African slave trade.
From the beginning of the sixteenth century, mention of the Negro in America becomes frequent. In 1501 they were permitted to enter the colonies; in 1503 the Governor of Hispaniola sought to prohibit their transportation to America because they fled to the Indians and taught them bad manners. By 1506 they were coming again because the work of one Negro was worth more than that of four Indians. In 1518 the new sugar culture in Spain and the Canary Islands began to be transferred to the West Indies and Negroes were required as laborers. In 1521 Negroes were not to be used on errands because they incited Indians to rebellion and the following year they rose in rebellion on Diego Columbus' mill. In 1540, in Quivera, Mexico, there was a Negro priest and in 1542 there were at Guamango, Mexico, three Brotherhoods of the True Cross of Spaniards, one of which was of Negroes and one of Indians.
Thus the Negro is seen not only entering as a laborer, but becoming a part of the civilization of the New World. Helps says: "Very early in the history of the American Continent there are circumstances to show that Negroes were gradually entering into that part of the New World. They constantly appear at remarkable points in the narrative. When the Marquis Pizarro had been slain by the conspirators, his body was dragged to the Cathedral by two Negroes. The murdered Factor, Illan Suarez, was buried by Negroes and Indians. After the battle of Anaquito, the head of the unfortunate Viceroy, Blasco Nunez Vela, was cut off by a Negro. On the outbreak of the great earthquake at Guatemala, the most remarkable figure in that night's terrors was a gigantic Negro, who was seen in many parts of the city, and who assisted no one, however much he was implored. In the narrative of the return of Las Casas to his diocese, it has been seen that he was attended by a Negro. And many other instances might be adduced, showing that, in the decade from 1535 to 1545, Negroes had come to form part of the household of the wealthier colonists. At the same time, in the West Indian Islands which had borne the first shock of the conquest, and where the Indians had been more swiftly destroyed, the Negroes were beginning to form the bulk of the population; and the licenses for importation were steadily increasing in number."
Continually they appear with the explorers. Nuflo de Olana, a Negro, was with Balboa when he discovered the Pacific Ocean, and afterward thirty Negroes helped Balboa direct the work of over 500 Indians in transporting the material for his ships across the mountains to the South Sea.
Cortes carried Negroes and Indians with him from Cuba to Mexico and one of these Negroes was the first to sow and reap grain in Mexico. There were two Negroes with Velas in 1520 and 200 black slaves with Alvarado on his desperate expedition to Quito. Almagro and Valdivia in 1525 were saved from death by Negroes.
As early as 1528 there were about 10,000 Negroes in the New World. We hear of one sent as an agent of the Spanish to burn a native village in Honduras. In 1539 they accompanied De Soto and one of them stayed among the Indians in Alabama and became the first settler from the old world. In 1555 in Santiago de Chile, a free Negro owns land in the town. Menendez had a company of trained Negro artisans and agriculturalists when he founded St. Augustine in 1565 and in 1570 Negroes founded the town of Santiago del Principe.
In most of these cases, probably, leadership and initiative on the part of the early Negro pioneers in America was only spasmodic or a matter of accident. But this was not always true and there is one well-known case which, despite the propaganda of 400 years, survives as a clear and important instance of Negro leadership in exploration. This is the romantic story of Stephen Dorantes or as he is usually called, Estevanico, who sailed from Spain in 1527 with the expedition of Panfilo de Narvaez. This fleet of five vessels and 600 colonists and soldiers started from Cuba and landed in Tampa Bay in 1582. But disaster followed disaster until at last there were but four survivors, of whom one was Estevanico, "an Arab Negro from Azamor on the Atlantic coast of Morocco"; he is elsewhere described as "black" and a "person of intelligence." Besides him there was his master Dorantes and two other Spaniards, de Vaca and Maldonado. For six years these men maintained themselves by practicing medicine among the Indians, and were the first to reach Mexico from Florida by the overland route.
Estevanico and de Vaca went forward to meet the outposts of the Spaniards established in Mexico. Estevanico returned with an escort and brought on the other two men. The four then went west to the present Mexican cities, Chihuahua and Sonora, and reached Culiacan, the capital of the state of Sinaloa, in April, 1536.
Coronado was governor of Sinaloa and on hearing the story of the wanderers, he immediately hastened with them to the viceroy, Mendoza, in the city of Mexico. They told the viceroy not only of their own adventures but what they had heard of the rich lands toward the North and of the cities with houses four and five stories high which were really the Pueblos of New Mexican Indians. Mendoza was eager to explore these lands. He had already heard something about them and he and Cortes had planned to make the exploration together but could not agree upon terms. Cortes therefore hurried to fit out a small fleet in 1537. He took 400 Spaniards and 300 Negroes, sailed up the Gulf of California and called the country "California." He then returned to Spain for the last time.
Meantime, de Vaca and Maldonado, after several unsuccessful attempts, also went to Spain, leaving Dorantes and Estevanico. Dorantes refused to take part in the proposed expedition to the North but sold his slave Estevanico to Mendoza. Certain Franciscan Monks joined the expedition and Fray Marcos de Niza became the leader, having already had some experience in exploration in Peru. Estevanico, because of his knowledge of the Indian language and especially of the sign language, was the guide, and the party started north for what the viceroy dreamed were the Seven Cities of Cibola. They left March 7, 1539, and arrived at Vacapa in central Sinaloa on the 21. Fray Marcos, probably from timidity, sent Estevanico on ahead with an escort of Indians whom he could send back as messengers. The Negro marked his journey by large wooden crosses and in this way, with Estevanico far ahead, they traveled for two weeks until suddenly Fray Marcos was met by a fleeing band of badly frightened Indians who told him that Estevanico had reached Cibola and had been killed. Fray Marcos named the country "El Nueva Reyno de San Francisco" but being himself scared, distributed among the Indians everything which his party had in their packs, except the vestments for saying Mass, and traveling by double marches, returned to Mexico.
Meantime let us follow the adventure of Estevanico: Knowing how much depended upon appearance in that unknown and savage land, Estevanico traveled in magnificence, decorated with bells and feathers and carrying a symbolic gourd, which was recognized among the Indian tribes thereabouts as a symbol of authority. When he reached the Pueblos, the Indian chiefs were in a quandary. First of all, they recognized in Estevanico's retinue numbers of their ancient Indian enemies. Secondly, they were frightened because Estevanico informed them "that two white men were coming behind him who had been sent by a great Lord and knew about the things in the sky and that they were coming to instruct them in divine matters." They had good reason to fear that this meant the onslaught of some powerful enemy. And, moreover, they were puzzled because this black man came as a representative of white men: "The Lord of Cibola, inquiring of him whether he had other brethren, he answered that he had an infinite number and that they had a great store of weapons with them and that they were not very far thence. When they heard this, many of the chief men consulted together and resolved to kill him that he might not give news unto these brethren where they dwelt and that for this cause they slew him and cut him into many pieces, which were divided among all the chief Lords that they might know assuredly that he was dead...." [Richard Hakluyt].
This climax is still told in a legend current among the Zuni Indians today: "It is to be believed that a long time ago, when roofs lay over the walls of Kya-ki-me, when smoke hung over the housetops, and the ladder rounds were still unbroken in Kya-ki-me, then the black Mexicans came from their abodes in Everlasting Summerland. One day, unexpectedly, out of Hemlock Canon they came, and descended to Kya-ki-me. But when they said they would enter the covered way, it seems that our ancients looked not gently at them; for with these black Mexicans came many Indians of So-no-li, as they call it now, ... who were enemies of our ancients. Therefore, these our ancients, being always bad-tempered, and quick to anger, made fools of themselves after their fashion, rushing into their town and out of their town, shouting, skipping and shooting with their slingstones and arrows and tossing their war-clubs. Then the Indians of So-no-li set up a great howl, and thus they and our ancients did much ill to one another. Then and thus was killed by our ancients, right where the stone stands down by the arroyo of Kya-ki-me, one of the black Mexicans, a large man with chilli lips [i.e., lips swollen from eating chilli peppers] and some of the Indians they killed, catching others. Then the rest ran away, chased by our grandfathers, and went back toward their country in the Land of Everlasting Summer...."
The village reached by Estevanico was Hawikih as it was called by the Indians and Grenada as the Spaniards named it. It is fifteen miles southwest of the present village of Zuni and is thus within New Mexico and east of the boundary between New Mexico and Arizona. Thus Estevanico was the first European to discover Arizona and New Mexico. Fray Marcos returned with Coronado and came as far as the village in 1540 while Mendoza sent others to pursue explorations that same year within the present confines of Arizona and they brought back various stories of the death of Estevanico.
After that, for 40 years, explorations rested until 1582 when again the Spaniards entered the territory. With all the Spanish explorers in Florida, Texas, Arizona, New Mexico and Kansas, there were Negro slaves and helpers but none with the initiative, perseverance and success of Estevanico.
(Continues...)
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Table of Contents
Table of ContentsForeword
Introduction
Prescript
1. The Black Explorers
2. Black Labor
3. Black Soldiers
4. The Emancipation of Democracy
5. The Reconstruction of Freedom
6. The Freedom of Womanhood
7. The American Folk Song
8. Negro Art and Literature
9. The Gift of the Spirit
Postscript
The Racial Contributions to the United States
Notes
Preface
Once in a great while a book comes out that truly changes the way people look at an important issue. Such was the case in 1924 with the publication of W.E.B. DuBois’ book The Gift of Black Folk: The Negroes in the Making of America.
In its review of the book in August 1924, the Oakland Tribune declared: “The book is one of the most valuable contributions to American literature published in a decade, the result of which should create a better understanding among the races. It proves that Negroes (sic) have the right to be considered and treated as American citizens.”
Today, more than four decades after the Civil Rights Act passed in 1964 – with African Americans having served on the Supreme Court for decades, as Secretary of State for nearly a decade, and now as President of the United States – the statement made by the Oakland Tribune seems more than obvious. However, four decades before the Civil Rights Act, in 1924, the fact that African Americans were full citizens and should be considered as such would have seemed revolutionary to many Americans. Jim Crow laws littered the books in many states, segregated schools were often the norm, and American students and readers were often led by the revisionist historians of the day to believe that white Protestant men were the only heroes in American history. Catholic, Jewish, and especially African Americans had no place on the historical timeline popular in the early 20th century.
Both despite – and because of – such widespread bigotry, one organization took up the cause of racial and religious minorities in the United States, seeking to add to the historical record of this country the important pieces that had been previously neglected. That organization was the Knights of Columbus.
As Catholics, the Knights of Columbus knew first-hand about prejudice and discrimination. The Knights were founded in Connecticut in 1882 at a time when Catholics had only recently gained the right to vote in that state, and when those who practiced the Catholic faith routinely faced discrimination, especially in employment. Things hadn’t improved much by the 1920s. A resurgent Ku Klux Klan targeted – in addition to African Americans – Jews and Catholics. At the Klan’s instigation, Oregon passed a law, targeted at Catholics, which outlawed private religious schools. With the financial support of the Knights, the law was ultimately appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it was struck down. The year The Gift of Black Folk was published was also the year that Al Smith, a Catholic, and a member of the Knights of Columbus, first ran for the presidency. When nominated as the Democratic party’s candidate for president four years later, in 1928, Smith would face the hatred and the fiery crosses of the Klan as his train travelled to campaign stops in Oklahoma.
It is small wonder that Catholics felt a common cause with those religious and ethnic minorities that were hated even more than Catholics themselves. In 1921, in the face of widespread bigotry, the Knights of Columbus adopted a resolution at its annual convention establishing a “Historical Commission,” which would seek to counter the revisionist history so widespread at the time, and to add to the historical record, the individual and collective achievements of members of minority groups. Overseeing the project was Edward McSweeney, who had served as assistant U.S. Commissioner of Immigration at Ellis Island from 1893 to 1902.
In all, three books would be published by the Historical Commission. In addition to The Gift of Black Folk, the Knights’ Historical Commission would also publish The Jews in the Making of America, by George Cohen, and The Germans in the Making of America by Dr. Frederick Schrader. In addition to anti-black racism, both anti-Semitism, and, with World War I and its aftermath, anti-German sentiment were serious issues in the United States at that time.
Even in 1924, taking a broad and visionary view on racial issues was not something new for the Knights of Columbus. The History of Knights of Columbus, written by William O’Neill and published in 1897, tells the story of the creation of Philip Sheridan Council 119 of Southboro, Mass. Before joining the Knights and forming a council, the men of Southboro had been constituted as the John Boyle O’Reilly literary society, and had elected and African American man as its president. O’Neill pointed this out and wrote that the men of Southboro were “in this act reflecting the principles of the Catholic church (sic), which recognizes all colors and races as the children of God.”
Then, during World War I, the Knights ran the “Army Hut” program, a forerunner of the USO (United Service Organizations). Knights administered centers that provided for the care and comfort of the troops on military bases in the United States and in France.
After the war, a book was published in 1919 that had special praise for the manner in which the Knights of Columbus handled racial issues. The American Negro in the Great War was authored by Emmet J. Scott, an African American who also served as special adjutant to the U.S. Secretary of War. Of the contribution of the Knights, he wrote: “Another organization was of much service in making Negro soldiers comfortable at the front. This was the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic society, which has to its credit that, unlike the other social welfare organizations operating in the war, it never drew the color line.”
So it was that in 1924, it was only natural for the Knights of Columbus to take up the cause of bringing to light the long-neglected record of achievement of African Americans. To write this book, the Knights’ Historical Commission sought out the most pre-eminent African American scholar of the day, the first black man to have received a Ph.D. from Harvard, W.E.B. DuBois. DuBois was passionate both about civil rights and about “Black History.” Martin Luther King, Jr. would later say of DuBois: “His singular greatness lay in his quest for truth about his own people.”
What DuBois produced in The Gift of Black Folk was a book that provided an extensive chronicle of African American achievements and contributions to United States. The book helped set the stage for the many books on African American history that would follow.
Today, DuBois’ book continues to have significant value and relevance. Though great progress has been made in the area of racial understanding, there continues to be ignorance of African American history. Sadly, too many Americans still believe that “Black History” consists of slavery, sharecropping, Jim Crow laws, the civil rights movement, and finally increasing acceptance and achievement at every level of society and government in the United States. What that sort of understanding misses, is exactly what DuBois filled in. From the earliest colonial times forward, DuBois recounts the stories of African American individuals and groups, who concretely contributed to the development of the United States.
There are several achievements in the history of the Knights of Columbus – an organization I have led since 2000 – that give me and our 1.75 million members a justifiable pride in our past. This book, and the Knights ability – decades before the civil rights movement – to see beyond the racist stereotypes, the hatred and the fear of African Americans, book is one of these gems in our history.
Now, 85 years after this book was first published, and 100 years after DuBois and several others founded the NAACP, the republication of this book presents us with an opportunity to look back in order to look forward better. Only in understanding the great achievements of African Americans, in the face of overwhelming obstacles, can we understand how far we have come as a nation, living at a time when an American of any color or race can aspire to any position in our great nation. This book, as an achievement of its own in the furthering of racial understanding and as a compilation of the achievements of an entire race of people, is a classic that will continue to provide readers with a more complete picture of American history, and the contributions to that history, at every stage, by African Americans.