A Study of Negro Development
Chapter I
THE NEGRO IN AFRICA
The Africa of five hundred years ago, when the modern nations first dipped into its wild and troubled life, presented at least as great a variety of racial characteristics as any other continent. Natural barriers; climatic influences; the recurring desert, swamp, and prairie areas;—all tended to segregate the tribes, and to fix widely different physical characteristics. The ancient Empires of the Mediterranean had left the posterity of their mixed families, and the tradition of their mingled religions, on the borders of that great sea. Inevitably these exercised more or less of influence on the backward people to the South of them, tingeing their blood, their characteristics, and their religion, though in a way difficult to define and to a degree which baffles measurement. Where effects have been in the making for many centuries and are remote from the causes, the links between them are not easily traceable. It is only in modern times that Mohammedanism, for example, has pushed its conquests much below the great desert region. In the time of the slave traffic, the Mediterranean influence must have penetrated to only a comparatively short distance up the Nile and down the western coast, while very gradually diffusing itself through the north Sudan area. In general, we may approach the study of the Negro in Africa with little thought of this outside influence, noting it only where marked traces are discovered either from ancient or modern sources.
Various students of the negro peoples have divided them into families; but the divisions vary, and no fixed terminology has become so dominant as to command common consent. For our purpose, the four Families hereafter described comprise the African Negroes. A minute study of these families will reveal many tribal subdivisions, each with distinguishing traits—physical, mental and moral—developed by environment, and yet plainly traceable to common family origins. Such a minute study is not our purpose, and we shall limit our view to the four Families in whose development we are especially interested.
I. The Negrito Family. In this Family are three distinct though kindred tribes—the Pygmies, the Bushmen, and the Hottentots—supposed to be the original inhabitants of Africa. As these tribes are only remotely represented in America, they may be dismissed with short notice.
They are all of small stature, ranging in height from four to five feet, and are early mentioned by the Greek and Roman historians, whose stories of the dwarf Pygmies were treated as traveller’s tales until the discoveries of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries proved the so-called fables of Homer, Aristotle, and Pliny to be true. From the nomadic, forest-dwelling Pygmies of central Africa, with their low mental and social development, there is a distinct advance in their nearest kinsmen, the Bushmen of the desert regions scattered throughout this same area. Among them, music is a distinct form of expression, and they exhibit a degree of artistic ability in the depicting of animal figures and even of scenes from their marauding life. More developed still, are the Hottentots of the South. In mental and moral character, as well as in mechanical ingenuity, they surpass their kinsmen. Language is still meager in power of expression, but the Hottentot kraal or village community represents a much higher stage of social life than is found among the Pygmies or the Bushmen. Religiously, too, the Hottentot is on a higher plane than the related tribes.
The effect of European settlement in the land of the Bushmen and Hottentots has been disastrous to these wild people. Dr. Bryce says, “Along the south bank of the Orange River and to the north of it, small tribes, substantially identical with the Hottentots, still wander over the arid wilderness. But in the settled parts of the colony, the Hottentot, of whom we used to hear so much, and, at one time, feared so much, has vanished more completely than has the Red Indian from the Atlantic States of America.” The Pygmies are still remote from the white man’s influence. Is it this alone that saves them from a like fate?
II. The Sudan Family. These occupy almost the entire Sudan country, which is the widest part of Africa, south of the Sahara Desert, and extends from the Atlantic Ocean to the Abyssinian highlands on the east. “The whole Sudan is full of animal excitement. There is never a dull hour for man or beast. All is conflict, noise and motion. Even at night there is no repose or solitude.” Most of the great rivers have their source in this region, in which also are found many lakes teeming with life. Over much of this area, nature provides all the necessities of life; literally so, since clothing is not so classed, the climate favoring the unchanging garb of nature.
The Sudan country is divided into geographical zones named after the chief product of each. The equatorial and torrid belt—the so-called Banana Zone—abounds in fruits as well as game; next above is the Millet Zone, with its combined trees and grain-fields, millet, sorghum, etc., providing edible vegetation corresponding to our wheat, corn, and rice; next above is the Cattle Zone, a prairie-country, rich in grasses, its fertile lands inviting agricultural pursuits; above this, and blending into the Sahara Desert, is the Camel Zone of which no further mention need be made.
The estimated 80,000,000 people of the Sudan Family are divided into three fairly distinct types: (1) The Negritians, a primitive and numerous negro race which claims our chief interest because it provided most of our American Negroes. (2) The Fellatahs, a mixture of Negritian and Berber, the latter a branch of the Hamitic family. This mingling has produced a fairly distinct ruling class. (3) The Arab toward the eastern section of the Sudan, who also intermingled with the Negritians, and became the ruling class of the region to the eastward.