A rich, well-researched, carefully documented historical study of the American image of Africa during the high noon of trans-Atlantic slavery - an image shaped, to a great extent, by devotees to the white supremacist tradition. Source materials are drawn from West Africa. The research is thorough, the scholarship commendable. Above all the language is very straight forward, enough to make the racist blue, the liberal red and some blacks embarassed. A provocaative and scholarly work about the civilisation of Africa and its detractors.
A Reprint. Illustrations. Bibliography. 160 pp. ISBN 0-87831-132-7
CONTENTS
THE AMERICAN IMAGE OF AFRICA: MYTH & REALITY ......... 1 How few think justly of the thinking few; How many neer think, who think they do! VOLTE-FACE ................................................................. 13 To explain foreign people with whom one has lived ...is, inevitably, to explain oneself. WEST AFRICA AND THE SLAVE TRADERS ............................ 23 In many, prejudice and interest blind the judgment. THE AFRICAN IMAGE IN 18TH CENTURY EUROPE AND AMERICA ................................................................. 35 It is impossible for us to suppose these creatures to be men, because allowing them to be men, a suspicion would follow, that we, ourselves, are not Christians. THE HUMANITARIANS ...................................................... 49 We lions tell the story differently. NOTES ON VIRGINIA REVISITED ........................................ 71 A white man, looking down upon a Negro, straightens himself An inch higher into a fool's pride! THE AMERICAN COLONIZATION SOCIETY ............................79 A Plan got up, by a gang of slave-holders ... more through apprehension than humaanity. THE AFRICAN'S PLACE IN NATURE ...................................... 111 A Skin Originally Fair THE AFRO-AMERICAN AND AFRICA .................................... 129 Colonization is no solution, but an evasion. POSTSCRIPT .................................................................... 151
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