African Europeans

April 12, 2021
Royal Historical Society vice president Otele (coeditor, Post-conflict Memorialization) delivers a concise scholarly history of the presence of people of African descent in Europe. Covering events from the third century to the present day, Otele contends that Africa and Africans had a greater influence on Europe than is widely known. She discusses the legend of Saint Maurice, a Roman army soldier born in what is now Egypt, who was allegedly executed in 287 BCE for refusing to make sacrifices to pagan gods. In the 10th century, statues and paintings of “Maurice the African” began to appear in northern Europe as symbols of the power and reach of the Holy Roman Empire. Other profile subjects include Jacobus Capitein, a West African–born minister in the Dutch Reformed Church who defended slavery in the 18th century, and Paulette and Jane Nardal, Afro-Caribbean sisters who helped spark the Négritude literary movement in 1930s France. Otele also explores the “racial stereotypes” found in representations of Zwarte Piet (“Black Pete”), a 19th-century Dutch children’s book character, and “the exoticization of black and dual-heritage female bodies” in contemporary France. Though short on political and socioeconomic context, Otele’s profiles reveal the richness and variety of the African European experience. This is a welcome introduction to an underexplored subject.

Starred review from May 1, 2021

Otele's (history of slavery, Bristol Univ.) sweeping new history of Black experiences in Europe asks a big question about the nature of history itself: can we "dismantle racial oppression in the present" by recovering and understanding 2,000 years of forgotten, overlooked, and misrepresented stories of African European lives and communities? Otele reveals that there are as many answers to this question as there are people, places, and systems of oppression across Europe and Africa. Beginning in 23 BCE, with encounters between the Romans and the Kushites (of present-day Ethiopia), the book recounts the stories of many Black European figures, including the Roman revolutionary St. Maurice, Renaissance duke Alessandro de Medici, and Afro-German journalist Theodor Michael. The final chapter is an overview of the ways Black Europeans have confronted and reframed questions of social and historical identity in recent decades. Particularly powerful is the way Otele leaps between the centuries to lay bare the "connections across time and space" that have shaped, and will continue to shape, the identities and lives of African Europeans. VERDICT Meticulously researched and beautifully written, this is an essential work of historical scholarship that is highly recommended for all public and academic libraries.--Colin Chappell, Anne Arundel Cty. P.L., MD

Copyright 2021 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from March 15, 2021
An extensive rendition of African European history from the third century to the 21st. In this enterprising book, historian Otele provides critical insight into the stories of Africans in Europe, beginning during Roman times and continuing to the present. Though the author maintains a steady, meticulous chronology throughout this well-written, thoughtfully considered book, she wisely leaves room for asynchronous observations when necessary. The breadth and depth of Otele's research are impressive, as are the vivid characters who populate these pages, including Alessandro de Medici, the first Medici duke of Florence and the son of a free African woman (see Catherine Fletcher's The Black Prince of Florence for more information); the dual-heritage Signare women on the islands of Gor�e and Saint Louis off the coast of Senegal; 19th-century Russian novelist Alexander Pushkin, who was ardently proud of his West African great-grandfather Gannibal; and significant figures in both the late-20th and early-21st-century French Afro-feminist movements, all the way through to the formation of the Mwasi movement, "a collective of women and non-binary women of African descent," in 2014. Otele investigates the perceptions of Black populations in European countries and the degree to which those African Europeans have been truly accepted within those societies. The author analyzes the many manifestations of racism they have faced and how that prejudice and oppression can have generational effects, including the continued "criminalization of black bodies." Otele is also highly attuned to the role of gender in her history, and she consistently draws attention to the ways in which African women have been treated in European countries. By detailing such a wide variety of experiences across a vast geographical and cultural landscape, the author causes us to rethink the way we consider the terms African and European. With impeccable scholarship, she puts them together in a new context, showing what it has meant to be African, European, or both. A thorough, dynamic, accessible narrative that pulls together disparate strands into a unique, fresh history.

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