For the #handbook Félicité asks the fundamental question: Who was allowed to sent out #emdiplomats? She explains that the actor-centred approach of #NDH has led to the neglect of the institutional side of diplomacy in favor of diplomatic actors. But in order to understand #emdiplomacy we also must pay attention to the “sending institutions”. (2/5)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #diplomacy #earlymodern #history
@histodons @earlymodern
Although we somehow consider ourselves being experts in the field of #NewDiplomaticHistory, we faced great difficulties in finding information on #black #emdiplomacy.
One reason for this is that #GlobalHistory, however, focuses strongly on the Americas and Asia. Research on Africa and #earlyModern African #diplomacy is very limited though it has existed since the #MiddleAges at least.
Another reason for the underrepresentation of #earlyModern African history in #NewDiplomaticHistory is the lack of sources. As many African regions had other traditions than written sources, it is difficult to access African #emdiplomacy. This is also why existing research heavily focuses on a few exampels and regions when it comes to #black #emdiplomacy, mostly Ethiopa, Kongo and the North of the continent. (2/2)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #history #histodons
#BlackHistoryMonth ended yesterday. Therefore, we want to share some reflections with you.
#earlyModern #NewDiplomaticHistory is still heavily Eurocentric. Moreover, there is a risk that white and European perspectives prevail even in non-European contexts despite all attemps by #GlobalHistory to questions these approaches. During the last weeks we tried to set European perspectives aside and highlight #black diplomatic actors. In doing so, we encountered a huge challange: the lack of research. (1/2)
For Cape Verde's officials to be able to confirm the high status that the Prussians themselves assigned to the Prussian enterprise, they had to embody what they considered the highest form of authority: that of the Enlightened, Christian, male and white European who was the polar opposite of the illiterate, savage, black African. In the Prussians' vision, this binary could not be destabilized: to recognize hybridity or alterity in the local elites, to question their status as “Europeans,” would be to question the legitimacy they could confer on the Prussians, which was of existential importance for them, as Gottmann argues.
This example of the encounter between representatives of the Prussian East India Company and local Cabo Verde authorities highlights the challenges of intercultural #emdiplomacy and the difficulties to deal with hybridity. (7/7)
#BlackHistoryMonth #NewDiplomaticHistory #GlobalHistory #earlymodern
However, on closer observation their identity as metropolitan Europeans was fragile. The dinner that was opened and concluded with a handwashing ceremony unfamiliar to the Prussians illustrates this. Undercooked bread, the dishes a mixture of European and African cuisine and the digestif was the most exotic of all: a decidedly un-European coconut to drink.
The dinner was not presided over by the local governor’s wife. Instead, said lady stayed in the courtyard kitchen, dressed like the locals and clearly comfortable in the company of her daughters and their black servants and slaves, all working together, laughing, joking, and cooking.
Indeed, just like the local children, the youngest of the governor’s twelve sons and daughters toddled around the house after dinner, coming up to cuddle the guests entirely naked. (6/7)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #earlymodern #history #GlobalHistory #histodons
Gottmann argues that “Demonstrative performances of diplomatic rites reinforced the local elite’s social preeminence. At a vast distance from the metropolis that conferred their status, in an uncertain and oftentimes violent local climate marked by constant fear of uprisings against a weak ruling structure without significant coercive powers, such symbolic reinforcement of social stratification was one of the few means the local leaders had to reinforce their vulnerable position.”
As part of the ongoing symbolic exchanges and performance of hospitality rites, the local governor arranged a formal dinner for the senior staff of the Prussian ship to display his social status: Real silverware and several sumptuous courses were accompanied by freshly-cooked white bread, made from white Portuguese flour, a rarity on these islands. (5/7)
#emdiplomacy #NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #earlymodern #history #histodons
In her article "Mixed Company in the Contact Zone: the “Glocal” Diplomatic Efforts of a Prussian East Indiaman in 1750s Cape Verde" Felicia Gottmann uses the case of the #Prussian East Indian company to analyse the diplomatic strategies marginalized and hybrid players could adopt to project themselves onto the #earlymodern global stage and locally counterbalance the hegemonic Northern European Atlantic powers: (4/7)
https://brill.com/view/journals/jemh/23/5/article-p423_2.xml
#emdiplomacy #NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #history #histodons #GlobalHistory
Due to their geographical location, the #CapeVerde islands were a stopover for merchant ships and thus became a diplomatic arena. The role of trading companies in global #emdiplomacy has been emphasised during the last decades, see e.g.: (3/7)
https://brill.com/display/title/62311
https://www.aup.nl/en/book/9789462983298/the-dutch-and-english-east-india-companies
#NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #earlymodern #history #histodons #GlobalHistory
Perhaps you are a longing for a #SilentSunday, in this case this week’s #BlackHistory #emdiplomacy take offers you a relaxing weekend read:
Today we focus on #CapeVerde which were discovered by the #Portuguese in the middle of the 15th c. In 1466 the islands received trading rights in West #Africa. Cape Verde provided a stopover on the transatlantic slave trading route. Moreover, plantations were established there. However, #earlymodern Cabo Verdean society was decidedly mixed. (1/7)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #GlobalHistory #earlymodern #history #histodons
How representative is the case of Al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf?
Bono #diplomats had different backgrounds. Some were relatives to the sultans, such as the already mentioned Idrīs b. Muḥammad or Cidi Ismael who went to Tripoli in 1655. Other #ambassadors were slaves or eunuchs, and then there were traders. All these people had somehow close personal bonds to the ruler.
The case of al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf reveals another common characteristic of many Sahelian ambassadors in the 16th century: their shared experience of the ḥaǧǧ, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca. (5/5)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #Africa #BlackHistoryMonth #histodons #history #histodons
However, al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf’s profile is closer to the trans-Saharan trader, who travelled back and forward than a professional #diplomat in a modern sense.
Moreover, sources indicate that he travelled in company with other traders. According to Dewière, “In Saharan context, many traders were jurists and vice-versa.The religious and legal knowledge of Yūsuf must have been of great help for performing his business.”
al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf might have gained from these missions, too. He probably used this charge to enlarge his social and economic capital and credit, as Dewière suggests. Thanks to these missions, he was able to reach Istanbul, Fes and Marrakesh and to establish contacts beyond Borno’s networks. (4/5)
#emdiplomacy #NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #history #Africa #OttomanEmpire #histodons #earlyModern
al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf, a Islamic scholar, was active as #ambassador of Borno between 1574 and 1583. During this period, we can find him in Istanbul, Borno, Morocco. These activities are closely connected to the expansion of the #OttomanEmpire in North #Africa. Between 1574 and 1579, sultan Idrīs b. ‘Alī sent several embassies to Istanbul. In 1582 and 1583 al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf was sent twice to Morocco to Aḥmad al-Manṣūr, probably in order to create an axis against the Ottomans, after the Moroccan sultan hade declared his full independency towards the Ottoman Empire. Overall, al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf crossed the Sahara six times as a diplomat. (3/5)
#emdiplomacy #NewDiplomaticHistory #BlackHistoryMonth #histodons #history #histodons
Unlike for the European context, there are in fact no biographies or autobiographies from sub-Saharan #ambassadors in the #earlymodern period.
This is due to the scarcity of sources. However, in his study, Dewiere traced the background and activities of al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf, a key actor of the negotiations that occurred between 1577 and 1583, and discussed him as the epitome of a Sahelian #ambassador: (2/5)
Rémi Dewière: Al-Ḥāǧǧ Yūsuf, Epitome of a Sahelian Ambassador? (1574–1583); In: Gebke, Julia / Mai, Stephan / Muigg, Christof (ed.): Das Diplomatische Selbst in der Frühen Neuzeit
Verhandlungsstrategien, Erzählstrategien, Beziehungsdynamiken (Münster 2022), 257-271.
https://www.aschendorff-buchverlag.de/digibib/?digidownload&tid=24863
#emdiplomacy #NewDiplomaticHistory #Africa #BlackHistoryMonth #histodons #history #histodons
We continue #emdiplomacy insights during #BlackHIstoryMonth and
want to draw your attention to the #Borno sultanate at the shores of Lake #Chad. Like the neighbouring #Kanem sultanate it was ruled by the Sayfawa dynasty from the 14th century. According to Rémi Dewière, “Kanem and Borno extended their commercial and diplomatic networks from Morocco to Mecca in the #middleAges, to northern Ghana and Instanbul in the #earlymodern period, and then to European countries in the 19th century.” The first known Borno diplomat was Idrīs b. Muḥammad, a cousin of the Borno sultan who was mentioned in the context of a mission to the Mamluk Egypt in 1391. In the decade following 1551, the sultans of Borno dispatched two embassies to Tripoli. In 1574 and 1577, the Borno Sultan Idrīs b. ʿAlī sent an ambassador, al-Hāǧǧ Yūsuf, to Istanbul. (1/5)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #Africa #histodons #history #histodons #GlobalHistory
One of these #Congolese #ambassadors to #Rome was Antonio Emanuel Ne Vunda.
We do not know much about him – a fate he shares with most #emdiplomats. He was a close relative to the Congolese king. In 1604 he left #Congo and set off for Rome where he arrived in 1608. Unfortunately, he died only two days after his arrival of illness. (6/6)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #emdiplomacy #history #earlymodern #histodons #emdiplomacysFaces
Indigenous #Ethiopian #ambassadors were usually religious officials of high rank or trusted members of the imperial household, perhaps because the Ethiopians thought that European Christian powers could best be approached by men of religion.
Indigenous #Congolese ambassadors, on the other hand, were normally relatives of the king and could be cast in a much more ‘noble’ or princely light. As high-ranking royal relatives and courtiers, they donned expensive European clothes given to them by the Portuguese monarchs or popes on arrival at court.
One other outstanding difference is noticeable between #ambassadors from these two countries, for some Congolese ambassadors brought their wives, who represented yet another facet of #Africa – African womanhood. (5/6)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #emdiplomacy #diplomacy #history #histodons #earlymodern
The situation is quite different for #Congo.
After the christianisation of the kingdom, #diplomats were dispatched to the #pope
“The problem for Congolese #ambassadors was that their route to #Rome inexorably passed through #Portugal (as they had to take ships to reach #Europe and all the ships were Portuguese), but that once in Lisbon, the Portuguese were extremely reluctant to let the Congolese out of their sphere of influence and so kept them in Portugal. [...] Portugal guarded its power over the Congo jealously, and it is not coincidental that Congolese ambassadors started appearing in Rome only after Portugal's annexation by #Spain in 1580,” as Lowe explains. (4/6)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #emdiplomacy #history #histodons #earlymodern #diplomacy
In an article from 2007 Kate Lowe explores African diplomatic representation in #Italy and #Portugal during the age of #renaissance:
https://doi.org/10.1017/S0080440107000552
She, too, picks #Ethiopia and #Congo as case studies. According to her both states were primarily interested in links with the #Pope. The number of Ethiopian #embassies to Rome significantly increased in the 15th and 16th centuries. (3/6)
#NewDiplomaticHistory #emdiplomacy #history #earlyModern #diplomacy #histodons
However, even when it comes to diplomatic contacts between African and European rulers research is biased and focuses mostly on the Christian rulers of #Ethiopia and #Congo. These relations can be traced back to the #MiddleAges as Verena Krebs’s doctoral thesis shows:
https://www.verenakrebs.com/projects/medieval-ethiopian-kingship-craft-and-diplomacy/
(2/6)
When talking about #emdiplomats most people probably think of middle-aged white men. And, honestly, most studies within European #NewDiplomaticHistory focus on just this group, thereby, reinforcing a too narrow picture of diplomatic actors.
During the last years the perspective was broadened, for example by paying more attention to female diplomats, and we have already introduced some examples of women in #diplomacy on this account. However, these attempts still remain part of a eurocentric white narrative on #earlymodern diplomacy. Therefore, we want to draw your attention to diplomats of colour. (1/6)
#histodons #emdiplomacy #history #BlackHistoryMonth
@histodons @historikerinnen @earlymodern
