# Was Europe (1500-1789) a black civilisation? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 22, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194 "2009-12-22T15:21:31Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/61 "2009-12-22T17:09:28Z")
You cannot expect people to respect your ideas if the only thing you can offer as evidence of them is your personal interpretation of centuries-old portraiture and repeated assertions. “Blue blood is black blood” may work very well as your personal mantra, but it’s not evidence. If you can show evidence that doesn’t insist on special pleading (especially special pleading that sounds an awful lot like a millennia-long conspiracy theory), you might get people here to listen to you. ---
**Author:** ![Egmond\_Codfried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Egmond\_Codfried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egmond_Codfried)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/62 "2009-12-22T17:10:47Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Actually, I read that as “Why do Asians have such racist feelings about other Asians?” Racism in east and southeast Asia is horrific. Japanese hate Koreans. Koreans hate Japanese. Everyone hates the Han Chinese, even all the way down into Singapore. Racism (against other Asians and also against Africans AND Europeans) is still enshrined in law in a lot of those countries. Japan is very polite about it, but they seriously dislike pretty much everyone who’s not Japanese. Thank you so much, as this brings us to the US Colorline which started in 1691 according to Frank W Sweet. I say that racism started because the white Americans did not want to be dominated by black royals anymore. Queen Anne Stuart was ruling during this time. You can put a date and give a reason for racism, its all quite rational if you are a rational person. such a devastating system did not drop from heaven, it was thought out and implemented and enforced. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/63 "2009-12-22T17:12:56Z")
> [@Egmond Codfried](#): > > [http://www.kipar.org/period-gallerie...kerouaille.jpg](http://www.kipar.org/period-gallerie...kerouaille.jpg) Again, we see the problem. There is no doubt that the Moorish servant in that portrait is black. The subject of the portrait doesn’t have any of those features at all. IOW, when the artists wanted to show a black person, they made them appear far different than the European nobility. Plus the idea that Stuart was too white to be painted black but too black to be described as white doesn’t make any sense. If they wanted to cover up his blackness, why would they call him black? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/64 "2009-12-22T17:13:59Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > According to eurocentrism she is shown in black face. Well, eurocentrism and [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Masque_of_Blackness). > [@](#): > > I say she is not, this is what she looked like. I get that you want to believe this, but in lieu of photographs, how do you plan to prove it? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/65 "2009-12-22T17:14:18Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > Can intelligent people look at different explanations? > The white make up was made with poisonous lead or arsenic. This made it a bleaching creme. Would whites use a bleaching creme? why do caucasion women now purchase whitening creams designed to bleach out freckles? I can assure you, I am not black in the slightest, but I have freckles and have been told I should use makeup to achieve an even skin tone … and the lighter ones skin is [historically] the prettier one was considered because it meant that one did not have to labor in the fields. Even complection also meant covering up the scars left by the pretty much endemic smallpox that afflicted europe and america until we basically cured it out of activity. Much of that elizabethan makeup was essentially human spackle to fill in the pox scars and cover freckles and moles. ---
**Author:** ![Egmond\_Codfried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Egmond\_Codfried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egmond_Codfried)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/66 "2009-12-22T17:14:28Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Not true. The farming displacement hypothesis has been pretty much discredited by DNA studies showing that while farming techniques entered Europe around that time period from the Middle East, native populations were mostly left intact. The reason why I shy away from DNA science is that both parties use the same data to come to vastly different conclusions. Look at the climate debate wether we are warming up or really are cooling down. In that case Surinam would be a dream, as its too hot at times. Most studies agree that 6000 years ago something changed. Some even insist that black Europeans suddenly became white. BS. I have been 30 years in Holland and are not prepared to become white! ---
**Author:** ![lemac](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/f19dbf/32.png) [@lemac](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/lemac)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/67 "2009-12-22T17:15:39Z")
Where did these descendants of the Grimaldi man live? They must have lived somewhere isolated if they remained visibly black for 45000 years on a continent full of white people. And why did they suddenly disappear two centuries ago? And how did they become the elite? ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/68 "2009-12-22T17:15:45Z")
wow an afrocentric kanicbird … pass the popcprn, this winter may be fascinating. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/69 "2009-12-22T17:16:24Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > [ > I urge people who will benefit from a change to get into the discussion as I feel that you and I will disagree forever. > I just hope you will not repeat you disagreement over and over. > That would be annoying. It would be annoying if you were to present weak evidence, plus your interpretation of anything that disagrees with your hypothesis as “revisionism”. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/70 "2009-12-22T17:17:00Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > [Louise de Kerouaille, french noble, mistress of Charles II Stuart: whitened, with a little Moorres, proof of her high noblity] You’re not providing the citation I asked for. This is the first painting you have provided that shows a person who might be nonwhite. And even so, it’s a painting. > [@](#): > > Why would people already white, paint themselves and wear blond wigs? Because it was fashionable. Today, people with dark skin lighten their skin and people with light skin darken their skin. Hair gets dyed in both directions. Lightening white skin is not any less rational than any of that. And if Europe was ruled by black monarchs (which it wasn’t), why was fair skin associated with virtue? ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/71 "2009-12-22T17:20:50Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > Thank you so much, as this brings us to the US Colorline which started in 1691 according to Frank W Sweet. > I say that racism started because the white Americans did not want to be dominated by black royals anymore. Queen Anne Stuart was ruling during this time. You can put a date and give a reason for racism, its all quite rational if you are a rational person. such a devastating system did not drop from heaven, it was thought out and implemented and enforced. You don’t need a freaking system to explain racism. Racism is, at the root of it, “he looks different from what I’m used to”. The Western world has been moving in the direction of including more and more under “what I’m used to”. Xenophobia was a survival characteristic, back when people lived in tribes or family groups. Our culture has outstripped our evolution…xenophobia is in our genes. We are working on making end runs around it (like massive PR campaigns for racial tolerance), but it’s going to be there for a long time. There is absolutely no need for some convoluted, conspiracy-dependent theory to explain racism. Seriously. ETA: Although there may be such a need if you’re trying to explain racism in whites, as opposed to those tolerant but despotic black rulers there. No chance you’re a “one-way racism” proponent, is there? ---
**Author:** ![Egmond\_Codfried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Egmond\_Codfried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egmond_Codfried)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/72 "2009-12-22T17:20:53Z")
> [@aruvqan](#): > > why do caucasion women now purchase whitening creams designed to bleach out freckles? I can assure you, I am not black in the slightest, but I have freckles and have been told I should use makeup to achieve an even skin tone … and the lighter ones skin is [historically] the prettier one was considered because it meant that one did not have to labor in the fields. Even complection also meant covering up the scars left by the pretty much endemic smallpox that afflicted europe and america until we basically cured it out of activity. Much of that elizabethan makeup was essentially human spackle to fill in the pox scars and cover freckles and moles. Honey, these are called eurocentric lies. They say that blue blood means blue veins! Yeah, right, as if blue veins are some great merit. ‘Small-pox’ they perhaps derive from descriptions which say that king William or Elizabeth had ‘bad complexion.’ In the 19th century, after the french revolution, bad complexion was the euphemism for black skin Germaine de Stael was described as ‘bad complexion’ and ‘too swarthy.’ Anna Boleyn, Elizabeth I’s mother was described as 'very dark, with black eyes and dark hair. Elizabeth was ‘dark.’ Her niece Mary of Scots was the Black boys great-grandmother and look black of skin. Lovely woman, yet murderous. ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/73 "2009-12-22T17:23:18Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > Honey, these are called eurocentric lies. > [@](#): > > In the 19th century, after the french revolution, > bad complexion was the euphemism for black skin You should provide some examples. And you should also answer the question I have asked you repeatedly about the meaning of black. ---
**Author:** ![Egmond\_Codfried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Egmond\_Codfried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egmond_Codfried)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/74 "2009-12-22T17:25:13Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You’re not providing the citation I asked for. This is the first painting you have provided that shows a person who might be nonwhite. And even so, it’s a painting. > Because it was fashionable. Today, people with dark skin lighten their skin and people with light skin darken their skin. Hair gets dyed in both directions. Lightening white skin is not any less rational than any of that. > > And if Europe was ruled by black monarchs (which it wasn’t), why was fair skin associated with virtue? The whites were the majority, the black kings showed deference, fake deference, to their white subjects. Kings and presidents still show fake deference to their poor, oppressed subjects. There seems to be some adherence to greek ideals which consider white beautifull. But they married black, blue blood. In holland they used the word '‘t graauw’ to descripe the whites. An unappealing dishwater colour. King Mohamed VI of Morocco looks on large billboards in the north white and in the south brown. He is brown, the elite is brown. The whiter berbers are oppressed. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/75 "2009-12-22T17:27:52Z")
So, you are not here to “discuss” this issue. You’re here to lecture on this issue, regardless of what anyone else argues. You are providing evidence-free assertions, and when people do provide some evidence for the other side of this argument, you call them “white lies”. You are not debating honestly. ---
**Author:** ![Egmond\_Codfried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Egmond\_Codfried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egmond_Codfried)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/76 "2009-12-22T17:30:08Z")
> [@Marley23](#): > > You should provide some examples. And you should also answer the question I have asked you repeatedly about the meaning of black. [http://www.gebladerte.nl/z0152.bmp](http://www.gebladerte.nl/z0152.bmp) [Germaine de Stael: bad complexion, too swarthy] You sound belligerent. I’m trying my best to answer everyone. ten anaginst one, pe patient, I’m a person and have feelings too, I’m now tired, its 6 pm overhere, I will stop soon and take this up later in the week, if permitted. ---
**Author:** ![ivan\_astikov](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/58f4c7/32.png) [@ivan\_astikov](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ivan_astikov)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/77 "2009-12-22T17:31:20Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > You know, this is the sort of thing that people would have noticed at the time. Yes, and I’m sure everyone was literate then and religiously recorded their thoughts and observations in little notebooks! ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/78 "2009-12-22T17:32:11Z")
> [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > The whites were the majority, the black kings showed deference, fake deference, to their white subjects. Kings and presidents still show fake deference to their poor, oppressed subjects. Fair enough. So when are you going to bring the evidence? > [@](#): > > But they married black, blue blood. Your attempted turn of phrase is becoming tiresome due to overuse. And you’ve provided no meaningful support for your idea. > [@Egmond\_Codfried](#): > > [http://www.gebladerte.nl/z0152.bmp](http://www.gebladerte.nl/z0152.bmp) > > [Germaine de Stael: bad complexion, too swarthy] I don’t see how this helps. It’s a sketch and does not describe her as having a bad complexion or being “too swarthy.” > [@](#): > > You sound belligerent. I’m trying my best to answer everyone. I am not being belligerent. But you seem to be dodging my question and I don’t intend to let you ignore it. You’ve responded to several of my posts, so your behavior indicates you don’t have an answer. Again: > [@Marley23](#): > > If you want your argument to go anywhere, you have to show that “black” meant the same thing to Europeans in 1500 that it means to us today. You’re asking us to take that for granted, which would be a huge leap of faith. **Why does “black,” as applied to Charles, refer to African ancestry rather than a dark (by white standards) complexion?** ---
**Author:** ![Egmond\_Codfried](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@Egmond\_Codfried](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Egmond_Codfried)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/79 "2009-12-22T17:33:26Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > So, you are not here to “discuss” this issue. You’re here to lecture on this issue, regardless of what anyone else argues. You are providing evidence-free assertions, and when people do provide some evidence for the other side of this argument, you call them “white lies”. > > You are not debating honestly. Does this mean you will finally go? I have written books and cannot be asked to reproduce them here. To me its strange that some folks cannot even bring themselves to agree that Charles II Stuart, The Black boy seems black. What’s the point of discussing other cases? These are the irrational types I warned for. They respond to the concept which they hate, and refuse to discuss the evidence I have presented. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [December 22, 2009, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194/80 "2009-12-22T17:34:09Z")
> [@](#): > > They say that blue blood means blue veins! > Yeah, right, as if blue veins are some great merit. Well, blue blood _does_ mean blue veins. That is to say, that the skin is pale enough that the veins show thru, and the non-oxygenated blood appears blue. This is not because blue veins are so great, but they are a social marker. The idea is that the person is so rich that they never have to work in the fields, or in the sun, as **aruvqan** mentions. This puts one a cut or twelve above the agricultural worker who has a deep tan from working outdoors. The Chinese had similar sorts of social markers. Rich people had excessively long fingernails, to show that they didn’t have to lift a finger to live. Likewise, they could bind the feet of their women such that more than a few steps was painful, thus showing that their women could be kept around even when they couldn’t work. Many cultures, once they develop a leisure class, find ways to rub their superiority in the faces of the lesser classes. What fun, after all, is it to be on top unless you can remind others of that fact? Which, again, is one of the (many, many) reasons your theory doesn’t hold water. If the nobles of Europe were black, blackness would be a marker of nobility, not something to be ashamed of. Regards, Shodan [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/was-europe-1500-1789-a-black-civilisation/522194.md?page=5)