Was Europe (1500-1789) a black civilisation?

Which points up a problem you don’t seem able to address. Painters of the period knew perfectly well how to depict a black person. But none of the European nobility that you allege are black look anything like that in any of the portraits presented.

The other problem is that your own cite describes the undoubted fact that people with black hair and swarthy skin - white people with black hair - are described as “black” sometimes. This is not an indication that they are Black in the modern sense of the term.

In other words, you have not presented any credible evidence. The nobility don’t look black in any of the portraits you found, and the fact that some of them are described as Charles the Black or whatever it is is not proof of any cover up.

If you want to discuss 9/11, I would recommend [list=A][li]Do so in another thread, and [*]wear your asbestos undershorts. We have done that to death and beyond, and ideas of government conspiracy don’t hold a drop of water.[/list][/li]Regards,
Shodan

[quote=“annelions, post:302, topic:522194”]

I don’t know why she made the comment. QUOTE]

Neither do I, but after three yeras of research I came up with a theory. She was talking about her own black colour, which was her nobility at a time the nobility was under fire. She wrote a poem ‘about his black brown colour (1764) about a baron from the oldest and noblest dutch families Aarnout Joost van der Duyn van Maasdam, stating that colour does not speak of merit, comparing him to the war god Mars, who was black and had the love of Aphrodite over that of her white husband and her blond lover Apollo. Boswell described baron van Maasdam as chimney sweeper and his wife as black as chimney. She came from the richess dutch family van Aerssen. No portret from her available. He was the highest military from the south of Holland. There are links to prince Charles’ present wife.

http://images.google.nl/images?gbv=2&hl=nl&q=swarthy&sa=N&start=20&ndsp=20

http://www.google.nl/search?gbv=2&hl=nl&q=swarthy&ndsp=20&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=iw

Swarthy is a very imprecise term. I take it to mean black in color but no classical african features. As you know Pakistani’s and Indian can be very, very black in colour. So what are they?
I have before offered the Grand dragon test, like if the KKK would accept Charles II, a tall black man, as a candidate for Grand Dragon, I will withdraw my theory and lock myself in a monastary or something!
Many types are considered black and coloured. I feel that people who identify with images of Moors are very clear about who they are and what they are.
I do not think that albinism affects the organs or the brains, but I wonder why people have so much trouble considering all my sources and arguments and just pick away at them piece by piece.

Since our OP has not responded to any of the points I made, I’ll have to make them again: None of these European royals had classic African features, and a photoshopped picture of Obama as a “white man” STILL looks black. Making someone’s skin light and giving him straight hair does not negate the obviously African facial features. On the other hand, there is no way in hell I am going to believe you when you say that Henry VIII and Henry Stuart, Antoine de Bourbon, and Charles V Hapsburg - the patriarchs of three of the most important noble families of Renaissance Europe, were black.

If their portraits “do not show the whole picture,” then, since their portraits are in fact the only record we have of their appearance, what does show the whole picture?

You need to understand something: the ego and vanity of these monarchs knew no bounds. If they were indeed black, or partially black, or had any traces of African ancestry in their physical appearance, they would have been proud of it instead of trying to hide it. If that portrait of Henry Stuart, Lord Darnley, who looks like he might have been the whitest person who ever lived in the history of the whole universe, was “retouched” to “hide” his supposed black ancestry, do you think Stuart himself would have allowed this to happen? Fuck no. If the painter who painted that made him look like a white man and he was really black, Stuart would have grabbed him by his neck-ruff, and said, “Laddie, either you fix that painting to make me black or you’ll never paint in this town again!”

Unless you are alleging that there was some vast conspiracy among post-Renaissance monarchs and artists to cover up their ancestors’ black features because they had suddenly decided it was no longer the hip thing to look black. Which is equally ridiculous.

You are not a historian. You are pushing a preposterous theory that nobody takes seriously except for the same people who also believe that the white race was created by an evil black scientist called Yakoob 19 trillion years ago, and that a great “mother wheel” will come from outer space to destroy the white devil.

European nobility, obviously.

Because you haven’t produced a scrap of credible evidence for anything you have stated.

Regards,
Shodan

I wondered if anyone else was thinking of that.

I don’t recall saying anything about thinking blacks as being ‘always’ wrong. Blacks, negros, whatever you want to call it… do a lot of good and are right a lot of times. This is not one of those times.

As for Louis XIV, I can only find one article, and that seems to be satire with such (translated) gems as:

Not to mention the “painting” there, which is a doctored version of File:Louis XIV of France.jpg - Wikipedia

It does, however, appear that they quote a real book with “Quelques-uns de ces corps étaient bien conservés, surtout celui de Louis XIII; mais la peau de celui de Louis XIV était noire comme de l’encre.” There is no further detail than this. It was 70+ years after Louis XIII’s death. People can turn black after death, especially, IIRC, in the presence of lead. There is no indication here that this was his pre-death appearance.

Exactly, it can be imprecise. “Swarthy” is used to describe Indians, Chinese, Pakistanis, Arabs, Italians… That does not imply Negro heritage. And since it is so imprecise, you cannot use a description of Charles II as the “swarthy Stuart” to claim that it means that he was absolutely Negro. He could just have easily been Han Chinese or Pakistani, by that description.

Black, as others have pointed out, was used to describe hair color. Although “black” was used to describe some people as early as the 1620’s, I find it far more likely that someone would’ve been called the “Blackamore Boy” if they were describing his skin and not his hair.

And what is all this about King Charles II being a “tall black man” and not being a suitable candidate for a KKK leader (whatever the hell that’s supposed to mean)?

Here is a portrait of the young King Charles II, by Anthony Van Dyck, looking very cute in a little miniature suit of cuirassier’s armour - now tell me, is that the kind of boy who will grow up into a black man? Look at his squared-off bangs of obviously straight, European hair; his red cheeks; his nose and mouth which do not look even remotely African.

Now look at this portrait of an older Charles II (my favorite portrait of him by far - it was painted while he was in exile at the court of Louis XIV, and he can be seen wearing a beautiful scalloped suit of French cuirassier armour.) Obviously he has dark hair, but other than that, where are the “black” features? He has a very large, strong, French nose, which he inherited from the Bourbons on his mother’s side - it doesn’t look remotely African. His hair and eyes are dark but his skin itself seems rather light. It is really clutching at straws to call this man “black”.

Also, the practice of calling someone “black” because of their hair can still be seen today in English in the phrase “tall, dark and handsome”. If a woman says she wants to marry a man that is tall, dark and handsome… she’s not talking about marrying a Negro man. She’s talking about marrying a man with brown or black hair and brown eyes.

Very true. Mikołaj “the Black” Radziwiłł was not called that because he was African in origin - it was to distinguish him from his red-haired cousin Mikołaj “the Red” Radziwiłł

Yet, a “brown-eyed handsome man” is code for African-American.
Not that lends any credence to the nonsense being spouted by the OP.

But you haven’t given me any source that backs up your claim that the US revolution and subsequent racism was a result of oppression by black nobility.

I’ve done quite a bit of research into the American revolutionary period (I grew up two miles from John Adams’ burial site, which kindled my interest). Nowhere have I seen any evidence that the revolutionaries thought that European nobility were black.

To heck with hypothetical Chinese, what about the Jews who still look and sound Jewish and rule America, not in 1789 but (to hear some tell it) today?

In other words, I’ve no idea what point you’re trying to make.

Anyway, enough with the quibbling over the factual accuracy of the OP’s so-called historical research. Let’s acknowledge this whole shtick for what it is - a rude and arrogant attempt to take someone else’s history, discredit it, and claim it as your own. In other words, it’s what Afrocentrism is all about. It deserves no more credence than the Christian Identity movement or Hitler’s krazy theories about the ancient “Aryans.” Believe it or not, Egmond, whitey got along just fine without secretly-black leaders at the helm of everything.

:rolleyes:

Pushkin’s great-grandmother was a black slave. And said grandaughter married a descendent of Nicholas I of Russia, NOT Queen Victoria.

:smack:

My dad is a mortician. He can tell that when you dig up a body after so long, it is going to be black, due to decomposition.

Her husband was Grand Duke Michael Mikhailovich of Russia, grandson of Nicholas I. The first only Russian monarch to be related to Victoria was Nicholas II, who married her granddaugter.

You folks can continue to post to this thread, but I have to wonder why anyone bothers.

The OP is filled with wild suppositions that have already been demonstrated to be the result of a fact free re-interpretation of history. Nothing that anyone posts is going to persuade him that his odd beliefs are not “true,” and no one else is going to be persuaded to believe his odd claims. Responding simply gives him the hope that he will persuade someone with his strange expressions.

I’m bored and “Iron Chef” is a repeat. :stuck_out_tongue:

Fair enough.
(You’ve got pr0n blocked on your puter? :smiley: )