Isaac Samuel

The key takeaway here is that “race” is a social construct,

The so-called “children of Ham” used to include Egyptians and Berbers, until Napoleon's scientists discovered ancient Egypt in 1798 and decided to redefine who was considered racially “white.”

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Colonial postcard titled “Group of Watuzi” taken in Rwanda. ca. 1914-1918.

Colonial photography is imbued with deeply problematic visual narratives meant to furnish “proofs” for pseudo-scientific racial theories.
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The caucasiod Kintu and his wife Nambi in a children's book, ca. 1893

These are meant to represent the "white" founders of Buganda, a central African kingdom
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Entrance to the Palace at Rey, Cameroon. ca 1930-1940.
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“Saint Elesbaan having slaughtered Evil.”

18th-century painting depicting King Kaleb of Aksum defeating the Himyarite king Dhu Nuwas
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The Vase Paintings of Ancient Kush (ca. 250BC-300 CE): a pictorial history of the Nubian world. | Isaac Samuel Get more from Isaac Samuel on Patreon

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The Vase Paintings of Ancient Kush (ca. 250BC-300 CE): a pictorial history of the Nubian world.
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The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

It’s only fairly recently that archaeological discoveries about ancient African metallurgy, architecture, and state formation have discredited the last vestiges of the Hamitic myth in academic literature.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

Although the overt racism of the “Hamitic hypothesis” was repudiated by the academic historiography of Africa since the 1950s, the model of state formation through invasion or diffusionism continued to influence the work of pioneering Africanists.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

The decline of scientific racism after World War II and the decolonization of Africa brought an end to the Hamitic hypothesis, which, in any case, was never free of contradictions, even when adopted by African intellectuals
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

For the colonialists, the denial of historical achievement to Black Africans functioned to legitimate European colonial rule as the last of the “Hamitic” civilizers of Africa.

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

Despite the apparent negative connotations of the Hamitic myth, African scholars utilized the more positive aspects of the myth, most notably, the belief in the common origins of humanity from a single family and a shared universal history.
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The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

A similar problem was encountered by early Yoruba scholars of S.W Nigeria, whose traditional histories were first transcribed in the late 19th century, by which time they were already interwoven with the Hamitic myth
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

The divergent response to the Hamitic myth in Rwanda and Uganda demonstrates the complexities of transcribing African oral traditions, aspects of which are forged when the oral accounts are set into writing
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The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

Beliefs about the "foreignness" of the Tutsi, and the political marginalisation of the Hutu, culminated in the first genocide of Tutsis in 1959-62, and the violent abolition of the monarchy

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

While Rwanda had a rich collection of oral traditions, their transcription was, from the onset, tainted by the Hamitic myth
Historians, both foreign and local, such as Alexis Kagame, imposed a long-lasting Hamitic interpretation on Rwanda’s ancient history
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The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

“In the most absurd iteration of the Hamitic myth, colonial missionaries in Rwanda speculated about the origins of the Tutsi;
Some suggested that they came from the Garden of Eden, others traced them to Tibet, Ireland, and the mythical island of Atlantis!”
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

The Germans would later establish a colonial presence in Rwanda, subsuming the kingdom of Nyinginya while expanding its territorial claims over neighbouring polities
Colonial officers greatly expanded and elaborated upon the Hamitic myth in Rwanda
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The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

Speke’s ideas directly influenced the writings of Gustav Adolf von Götzen, the first European to visit Rwanda in 1894, who repeated the Hamitic-Oromo myth verbatim

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The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

In the kingdom of Rwanda/Nyiginya, which was visited relatively late by European explorers, the Hamitic myth arrived fully developed and gained widespread acceptance at the court and by Rwandan historians.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

However, for various reasons, the Hamitic myth never gained ground in the pre-colonial kingdoms of Buganda and Bunyoro,

When professional historians were transcribing the local traditions, neither the Hamites nor their foreign origins were emphasized

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

John Speke’s mythmaking had a profound influence on the accounts of later explorers, who maintained the basic outline of the story about the baHima’s supposed migration from Ethiopia
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

John Speke deliberately misinterpreted the historical traditions of the central African kingdoms, invented fictitious ancestries for groups such as the ‘Wahuma’, and made up dubious migratory routes that extended to Ethiopia

www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

The Englishman John Hanning Speke was seminal to the Hamitic hypothesis. When he arrived in the kingdom of Buganda (Uganda), he attributed its ‘civilization’ to the Hamitic Oromo of Ethiopia, thus setting the tone for the interpreters that followed him.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

In the late 19th century, the ideologies of colonialism and “scientific” racism utilized and expanded the concept of the ‘Caucasoid Hamite’, completely erasing their earlier myths of the “Negro-Hamite”, who now simply became “Negro.”
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

Excellent essay on a myth that in Rwanda became an ideology with devastating consequences.

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

The modern Hamitic theory cast a wide net to include a great variety of populations, from pale Scandinavians to black Ethiopians and the Maasai, conveniently counting every ancient civilization as the product of the “white” race.
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

“Questions on the “race” of ancient Egyptians and their interaction with other African kingdoms are often not derived from professional historiographical inquiry into Egyptian society, but are only intended to defend Eurocentric racial hierarchies.”
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

Voltaire went as far as categorizing "races" as different species

Napoleon's 'discovery' of ancient Egypt in 1798 led to an almost sudden abandonment of the “Negro-Hamite” myth, in favor of the “Hamitic hypothesis” of Caucasoid civilizers from the north
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

The rise of empirical science in the 18th century challenged the religious account of Genesis,
only to give rise to even more abhorrently racist, pseudoscientific concepts like polygenism, championed by “enlightened” writers like Voltaire (d. 1778)
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...

The myth of the Hamitic race in religious and pseudo-scientific literature: an African perspective In 1845, the abolitionist Frederick Douglass observed that American slaveholders appealed to the biblical claim that ‘God cursed Ham’ as a theological justification for slavery, an argument he rejecte...

“The rise of empirical science in the 18th century challenged the religious account of Genesis,
only to give rise to even more abhorrently racist, pseudoscientific concepts like polygenism, championed by “enlightened” writers like Voltaire (d. 1778)“
www.africanhistoryextra.com/p/the-myth-o...