O escravo africano: esse desconhecido

Abstract

In Africa, the records of the practice of slavery date back to the end of the fifteenth century, before the arrival of Europeans on the continent. The growth of the commercialization of African slaves between the continents is due to the presence of slavery and the slave trade within Africa itself. After the sixteenth century, attacks on villages and the kidnapping of people for the purpose of commercialization were commonplace. Slavery led to a very large social transformation in African states, when they began to use slaves in production as an instrument of political power and domestic servitude, including in sexual services. Africa was the main source of slaves for the ancient civilizations, for the Islamic world, India and the Americas. Slavery provides us with elements that help us understand the history of Africa. Among the Africans, the slave trade was of small proportions until the arrival of the Muslims in the 7th century, when the scenario changed with the elaboration of an ideology by the Arabs of an inferiority of the black race and its subhuman condition, Where even the white slaves discriminated against the Negro. Black Africa was an important source of slaves. The Europeans arrived in the African continent in search of gold, but they didn’t obtain the precious metal, so they left with the most valuable merchandise that was in their hands, African slaves. Spanish, English, Danish, French, Dutch, Swedish and Portuguese ships passed in different points of the African coast collecting captives, but each of the European nations had his areas of commercialization. There were several gangs attacking the villages in search of slaves, small caravans on the way to markets, travelers, women washing clothes in streams and children playing absent-mindedly outside their villages. But wasn’t uncommun resistance to village attacks or pursuit by family to kidnappers. Several kingdoms experienced changes brought about by the transatlantic search for slaves, where captive trade became fundamental to operation of the state. The teaching of African History was discussed throughout the twentieth century. We have an example of struggle, the Brazilian Black Front, which declared in 1930, as one of his priorities, the dedication to included African history in schooling, and engagement agaisnt discrimination to children in schools. The result after decades of struggle was the signing of Law number 10.639, by the President of the Republic, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, on January 9, 2003, when it became required to teach African history and afro-brazilian culture. Migrations combined with the slave trade and colonization, added the perversity of economic globalization, cause problems in the coexistence of different peoples. It is very common to see, within these problems, the practice of racism, xenophobia and religious intolerances, resulting in inequality and characterizing as violation of human rights, especially the right to equality and at the same time the right to be himself, different. Following the Durban conference, Brazil embraced the proposals of this conference with real policies that favored blacks, Indians and the less advantaged, including the creation of quotas in universities. In Brazil the African history was mentioned in an insignificant way until the mid-1990s and what can be deduced is a disregard for the African continent's past by failing to investigate him. Even if some historians were interested, most understood as dispensable and impractical. With the Law of Directives and Bases of Education (LDB), Law No. 9394/1996, and the National Curricular Parameters (NCPs) of History in 1998, made possible an approximation with the history of the African continent. Law No. 10639/2003 amended the LDB, making it compulsory to teach African history in Brazilian schools. In 2004, the National Curricular Guidelines for the Education of Ethnic-Racial Relations and for the Teaching of Afro-Brazilian and African History and Culture were prepared. These documents had as objective the direction of the importance or the obligatoriness of the studies of African history in the Brazilian schools of Elementary and High School. We can’t ignore the large number of studies carried out and protected by the social history of slavery in Brazil in recent decades, but remembering that the history of slavery in Brazil can’t be confused with the African history.