Dan Snow's History Hit - African Europeans with Olivette Otele
Episode Date: October 16, 2020Olivette Otele joined me on the podcast to discuss the long African European heritage through the lives of individuals.Subscribe to History Hit and you'll get access to hundreds of history documentari...es, as well as every single episode of this podcast from the beginning (400 extra episodes). We're running live podcasts on Zoom, we've got weekly quizzes where you can win prizes, and exclusive subscriber only articles. It's the ultimate history package. Just go to historyhit.tv to subscribe. Use code 'pod1' at checkout for your first month free and the following month for just £/€/$1.
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Discussion (0)
Welcome everybody, welcome to Dan Snow's History Hit. On this episode of the podcast I've got
the only black female history professor in the United Kingdom. Her name's Olivette Ateli.
She's a professor of the history of slavery at Bristol University. She's a wonderful scholar
and communicator. Most importantly of all, she shares my great love of all things maritime.
She's written a great new book, African Europeans, an untold story about some of the many Africans who've played an important part in European history. They include
one of my children's ancestors, a young boy from West Africa who was taken and presented to
Tsar Peter the Great and rose to become a great aristocrat in Imperial Russia.
Anyway, I digress. Enjoy this podcast. If you want to go and watch our new Hastings
documentary, I think it's probably one of the best documentaries history has ever produced,
so I'm very excited about that. If you use the code 10661066, you can get a month for free and
then three months for just one pound euro or dollar for each of those first three months.
But in the meantime everyone here's
Olivette Ateli. Enjoy. Olivette thank you great to have you back on the podcast. Thank you it's
brilliant to be here. Okay so we're talking about African Europeans and I think so many of us, me included, have assumed that Africans are a very
recent presence in Europe. Talk to me about how far back you've been able to identify Africans
playing a part and, in many cases, playing a leading part in European politics and culture
and society. Well, I went back to the Roman Empire,
and as far as the Roman Empire,
but actually there is evidence that you can go further back.
But I chose the Roman Empire because, you know,
it's often seen as the birth of European civilization
in terms of intellectual journey and things like that.
So I wanted to, you know wanted to play a bit with this idea of the Roman Empire
being uniquely and exclusively European.
So yeah, that's where I started.
Third century, roughly.
It's interesting, isn't it, with the Roman Empire?
When you go back and read Roman writers,
they talk about Africa as the Holy Grail.
I mean, Rome got great when it conquered North Africa in many
ways, right? So it's such a fascinating, but when they think about Africa, are they thinking about
that very narrow strip of North Africa? Are they thinking about Africans as we would understand
them today, North and Sub-Saharan? Like what does Africa mean to the Romans?
Well, it means a kind of civilizations that are to be conquered.
You know, it was about conquest, but not conquered in terms of necessarily subjugated,
but conquered in terms of occupying territories and bringing in whatever is in these territories to Rome, really, within the Roman Empire.
And it's also about allowing certain cultures to exist within the Roman Empire. And it's also about allowing certain cultures to exist within
the Roman Empire. So in other words, it's not a question of assimilation. It's more
to do with living them as they are, but they must know that they're part of the Roman Empire
and therefore they have to abide to certain rules. But they exist by themselves as entities,
if you would. So yeah, for me, it's much more,
conceptually, it's much more open
that we would understand conquest in 21st century,
if you would, yeah.
We talk about Roman Africans,
like Septimius Severus the Emperor.
Do they, I mean, obviously,
I guess there's all sorts of different types of Roman Africans,
but are some of them, if you like white european settlers who grew up in africa others are people
of color playing a part in in roman politics and roman army in particular yes um you have
intellectuals fronto for example uh 100 bce you have of course septimius Severus. You have many others who became Roman emperor.
Well, Septimius became Roman emperor.
But you have a whole cohort of people who were actually a highly esteemed civil servant.
They were part of the Senate and they were sent to Asia.
They were sent across the confines of the empire.
So they were representing the empire while still being themselves.
So it's very complex and it's incredibly varied.
And that's what interested me in that,
in the fact that you have a variety of people
who occupy a variety of jobs, really.
Did the Romans see colour, do you think, like the way that we see skin pigmentation today?
I think they saw colour, but colour was not based on necessarily on the hierarchy,
as we understand it today. They saw power. So within that power dynamic, you could have
different people of different colours.
You know, it was up to you and to your connections to distinguish yourself through your intellect,
your education and make way to reach the highest echelons.
So it really is the conception of colour has almost nothing to do with what we understand as we understand it today.
It's really a colonial kind of 18th century, 17th, 18th century,
that you have a transformation of what that hierarchy, if you would,
has been put in place in a way that, well, we still see today, really.
Talk to me about other Africans.
Is it Saint-Maurice who managed to navigate the Roman world effectively as Africans?
nowadays Egypt. And the way he died, killed by, because he refused to actually abide by Roman rules, which were to pray to the god Jupiter before battle. But what is interesting,
so he was a martyr. So what is interesting is that his story was transformed and reached
across the Rhine region and reached what is nowadays Germany. So you have a statue of St. Maurice in Magdeburg Cathedral,
representing basically Europe when he was actually born in North Africa or in Egypt.
So the transformation of the myth and at the same time,
the idea that the confines of the Roman Empire were not what we thought they were.
In other words, the story has been transformed across centuries
and become something that is part of European culture.
And I really like the fact that, because there's such a fluidity
in terms of times, geography, and storytelling around the story of St. Morris.
And we're not just talking about North Africa.
I'm always really interested in those Roman sites
deep down into what we'd call Sudan today, Nubia.
I mean, there was considerable diplomatic, military,
trading activity going on with what we'd now say is Saharan
or sub-Saharan Africa, wouldn't we?
Yes, yes, of course. Again, it was about trade and power. So you have the Kandak or Kandake,
who were the queens of Meroe, who were resisting Roman invasion and strongly resistant Roman
invasion. But they had to capitulate in the end. But what is interesting is that, again,
you have the gender
question coming into the equation because these women were supposedly the the mothers of the king
but they were the ones who actually who were holding the power and for a very very long time
and that that's another aspect of that story that is both power gendered and at the same time related to military and trade.
Yes, they're fascinating characters.
Do we think Rome would look diverse and cosmopolitan potentially, the size, the very size of the Roman Empire was huge.
And the fact that, you know, they brought these people several times for several events and some of them were traveling across the empire.
So it was this circulation and there was no barrier in terms of circulation.
circulation and there was no barrier in terms of circulation these people were as long as they they wanted to make a living if they had a kind of status wherever they were they came from
they were allowed to circulate within the empire so really from north to to Rome to well to Britannia
if you would so I also like this idea of migration. I love the I love the fact that some of the first Africans to arrive in
Britain were almost certainly the African legions of the Roman army. And so Africans first arrive
in Britain as the imperial overlords. Yes, they did. And tried to take it, tried to take over.
It did quite go according to plan, but well, with Septimius dying.
Let's move on a bit. Talk to me about in the early modern period, the medieval,
how do Africans continue to cross into Europe once we're not part of one large political unit
anymore, once the Mediterranean
is more politically divided? It becomes increasingly difficult. You still have,
let's say, until the Reconquista, 1492-ish, you still have crossings. But, you know, the kingdoms
of Spain and Portugal are making it difficult because they have gotten rid of the Muslims
and they want these entities to remain what they see as Christian, first and foremost.
So crossing becomes difficult.
And then with that, with a European kind of conquest and travellings across the globe,
looking for India, as you know, and coming into contact with populations of sub-Saharan Africa and South Africa,
the idea that these populations can be transported and used as labor
becomes more valid, business-wise valid in terms of business, if you would.
And so you see slowly the transformation and the gaze that Europeans have
about these populations. And you also see slowly an erasure, if you would, of that history of
transmigration and kind of open frontiers that is slowly being shut down, erased from history.
that is slowly being shut down, erased from history.
And then you see colonial where completely, you know,
black bodies are policed and they can't circulate wherever they, as they see fit.
What do you see as the key turning point where the black body begins to be seen like that?
I would probably say for Spain and Portugal, it starts in the 15th century and then culminated in the 17th century. For the British and the French, it's mostly the 18th century. Yeah,
really, for four centuries, you have this hardening of laws about travellings and black people travelling across European kingdoms, really.
So that's the big picture. What about individual? What do you know about individual Africans in
Europe in this period? Are there any stories that you've been able to recover?
Yes, many stories, actually, that some of them we know them. Well, we know some people know them.
Others are small groups.
But you have to remember that in terms of archives left, very few were left.
So the ones that we know in the 17th, let's say 16th, 17th and 18th century are mostly those who are deemed exceptional.
And therefore, you have, for example, Juan Latino in Spain. You have, of course, you have the Duke of Florence,
Alexandre de' Medici.
You also have Jacobus Capitaine in the Dutch Republic,
the Netherlands, if you would, in the 18th century.
And of course, the Chevalier de Saint-Georges in France.
And these are stories I chose to talk about
because I wanted us to have a different outlook
of what 18th century is about.
We often talk about exclusively, almost exclusively,
about slavery and the slave trade.
But I wanted to show people who were actually evolving
in circles that many people didn't know about.
They were highly educated, privileged in many aspects,
but at the same time they were also facing a kind of discrimination and exclusion,
but they were still privileged, really.
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Yeah, tell me about the first Duke of Florence. I really enjoyed reading about him, learning about him in your book.
He's somebody who's, I'm trying to figure out if he's sympathetic or not. He seems to
have been somebody who was, well, he, in the Me Too era, he wouldn't, he wouldn't be very much liked.
But at the same time, he was, he was surfing on his privileges, because he, he was protected by
the Pope Clement, he was the Duke of Florence, he had privileges. And at the same time, he kind of used that to harass women, really.
We don't really know if he was that bad of a leader. What we do know is that there were a
lot of prejudice and the way his image has changed across time has just shifted the perception and
we turn more towards the question of race,
whereas when he was in power, it wasn't really the point, it wasn't really the question.
He was just the Duke of Florence, powerful.
And because today he would be described as mixed heritage, mixed race.
Yes, he was indeed.
Even that story has been controversial and many people argue that he wasn't. They tried to create another
heritage for him. But we do know that he was, through paintings, through testimonies, we know
that he was of dual heritage. But that information is not often known, really. Is that because when it became more politicised later,
later biographers would try and airbrush that bit out.
But at the time, it wasn't considered remarkable to be of mixed race.
Absolutely. It's always interesting.
It's a bit like Olsen.
It's always interesting because it's only after his death that you have all these uh transformation about the narrative of his uh his his heritage
and uh and the question of race that comes and as as time goes or as time went by you have the
question of race that becomes really crucial in European debates and this idea of intellect
and this idea of that you can't possibly be a Duke of Florence
if it wasn't something wrong with you. You know, dual heritage becomes the key. He was a bad leader
because he was of dual heritage. At least that's what has been argued by many just a few years
after he died. My wife is descended from a very famous Ethiopian
that was taken to Russia by Peter the Great.
He took the name Hannibal.
Yeah.
And so we're very proud.
Yeah, and she's also descended, therefore, from Pushkin
because he was Pushkin's grandfather or great-grandfather,
I think, wasn't he?
Great-grandfather, yes.
He appears in your book.
And he's a remarkable figure.
Actually, just talk briefly about him.
Well, what we know about him is that he was kidnapped from a region in Cameroon.
And as you know, he was born in Cameroon, so it was deeply personal, that bit.
And he was given to Alexander the Great, and he became his father, his godfather.
And he was educated, sent to Paris and received all the honours, military leader and recognised as an outstanding politician and leader.
And his great grandson, of course, Pushkin, wrote Honegan.
And it's beautiful because I was studying in school and I always heard these rumors.
When I was in Cameroon, that story is quite known.
But growing up in Paris, it wasn't.
And I always felt I found it extraordinary that, you know, we talk about all these people,
but we never actually make the connection with African Europeans and Africa in particular.
It's as if there was a disconnect between what we know in part of Cameroon and what is taught.
However, the story is well known in Russia.
So, yeah, it was interesting that the French kind of erased that part. Yeah, Voltaire called him the black star of the dark star of the Enlightenment, which I love.
So tell me, I mean, you mentioned there, you talk about the present and you talk about,
is that why you're writing this history? I mean, are you writing this with one eye,
as of course all historians are, but are you very consciously writing this book with one
eye set on the present? Oh, yes, definitely. It was my way of trying to make sense as both a historian and as a person
of African descent with many family connections, as in heritages in Europe, make sense of what I
have always seen as a completely fluid identity. The fact that I see myself as African-European,
so it was important for me historically to show that this is not unique and it's been going on
for what, go back 2,000 years roughly. So it's been going on for a while. So why resist what is
part of our history, our common history really? Yeah, it's very personal.
Why is it important if you are a black Briton?
Why is this history important?
It's important because it tells you that your story is not just about slavery and enslavement.
It's a story of migration that started long before you.
And that is not just about you as an African descent, because European migrated too. I talk about the Mamluks, for example, who were Eastern European Muslims, Africans.
to us there's more to history um to black britain than uh that than nowadays it's a long history it's a vibrant powerful history and we should really teach teach that history so that people
don't feel that they're just uh insignificant in the face of kind of world history so yeah it's
it's important um for them to know. Do you think that is the danger?
That's such an interesting word, insignificance.
I mean, do you think that if people are stripped of a history
or told that the history is one particular thing, one particular story,
do you think that can shrink somebody?
Oh, yes, definitely.
I know that, well, from not my personal experience, but I've been working with minority ethnic communities for the last 20 years, and I have seen what not knowing one's history or at a larger scale does to people.
people. The lack of self-worth, self-esteem, the lack of role model, and the thinking that,
you know, they can't do better. And I'm saying this because we always look at racism as having an impact on certain communities, for example, the black people. But there's also within the
black community, certainly for those who don't know
the history, who actually think their history is just that, there is the lack of self-confidence
that is born when you're very young, when you don't have those anchors where your history is
celebrated. Then I was a primary and secondary teacher. So I saw that in kids when I was
teaching. You know, when you talk about slavery they just
shrink and it becomes something really painful visibly painful so I wanted them to see that
as just a step in the history of humanity slavery was just just in between bracket it's just one
part of human history,
the transatlantic slave trade at least.
So, yeah, there's more to us than this.
Us as in us all.
Well, thank you very much for coming back on the podcast.
I should check in because every time I see you and I bond about the sea,
which is something that unites us all, but in particular you and I,
I always love that way that I thought I was unusual.
I always tell my kids whenever I'm by the sea, no matter where I am in the world, it unusual. I always tell my kids, whenever I'm by the sea,
no matter where I am in the world, it means I can get to you because I know you're by the sea and it's all joined up.
And then you told me you did that as well.
Yes, it's something that I've had with my grandmother
who was born near the equator.
So she had two double...
So you have the rainforest and the rainforest that goes
up to the sea and she was by the sea and and from the rainforest so i'm really connected with well
with the forest with the rainforest of course but the sea is something that is i thought i don't
know how to i never find word it's just magical and i need it for my sanity uh yeah and and I've seen you during lockdown, I've seen you take
lots of trips out socially distanced. I've been following on social media as you've headed to the
sea and I've been doing the same. So thank you very much. And I'm glad you've, I'm glad the book
is out. What's it called? African Europeans and Untold History. Well, thank you so much for having
me. It was lovely to see you and to talk with you.
Thank you very much. and liquidate. One child, one teacher, one book, and one pen can change the world.
He tells us what is possible, not just in the pages of history books, but in our own lives as well.
I have faith in you.
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Thanks.