The Concept of History

For Tuesday's readings, I like how we deconstructed the concepts, foundations, and ways in which we think about "history/History". Recently, I started reading a book entitled 'Sex and the Empire That is No More' by J. Lorand Matory. In it, he details the history of the West African Oyo empire of present-day Nigeria. In many basic ways, it is a history book that deals with historical events, interpretations and speculations. However, he breaks down the idea of what the term "pre-colonial" really means as well as the term "history". Many a times, we think of "pre-colonial" or even "post-colonial" as being markers in "history". However, in reference to the term "pre-colonial", many use it to describe one stagnant cultural/religious/geographic era. Specifically in reference to Africa or any indigenous peoples, the idea that they were one type of way for thousands of years before Europeans came; that there was a stagnation of their "history" is much too common, yet very problematic. He shows, in the book, the different ways in which people in Africa had been migrating, trading, travelling outside and within Africa, and picking up and letting go of different spiritualities/religions for eons. So when we discussed and further analyzed how history is "made", who it is shaped by, and who gets to decide what we learn as "history", it made me think about how we also come to think as certain peoples' histories as oversimplified, unchanging stagnations of very complex, changing realities. Furthermore, the books goes into how, coming from a oral tradition as opposed to a written one, histories that have been "recorded" have shown themselves to be biased or false in some aspects, yet depending on who one asks, those ideas are still likely to be held strongly onto.

Tying it into tomorrow's reading, Avengers of the New World, I wonder about what aspects of these histories are we not getting? What part of the Maroon communities were not written down? What narratives concerning the revolts have been fabricated to idolize the leaders? The book is a depressing read, for the most part, but it always surprises me when I read something written by someone around the 1930's and am shocked when they know about other parts of the world. My idea of "history" is that up until maybe the mid 1970's, information about other parts of the world were difficult to come by. So with Dubois' extensive research on the entirety of the Caribbean and it's practices of enslavement and production of sugar, Coffee, and other goods, I have to come to think of this knowledge as not all that difficult to come by.