SEARCHING FOR MY HERITAGE
By Dr. Eric E. Clarke
Dr. Eric E. Clarke
I was born in the Colony of British Guiana in the 1930s to parents who were chestnut brown in complexion, like me, and five siblings. The term chestnut brown is used since nothing about Africa, such as African descent, was ever mentioned. Other dark, brown-skinned people were designated East Indian, having come from India. People, such as Chinese,
Portuguese, and British, were identified by where they originated. It was clearly understood that those people came from China, Portugal, and Britain. Also, the Chinese and
Portuguese languages are different from English. All I knew was that my family and others who looked like us were described as black, even though we were various shades of brown. I was confused, however, that the Britishers and the Portuguese, who were white skinned, and we chestnut brown people were called Christians. How could this be? No one told me that they and we originated from the same place. There was no mention of where we originated.
I realized there was a place called Africa when I saw a motion picture at a cinema where a white man called Tarzan, who was purported to be the King of this place called a jungle, and dark-skinned people like me bowed down to him. I later understood that the jungle was in Africa. I therefore assumed that I came from Africa. No one ever mentioned Africa in any forum while I was in British Guiana. Other parts of the world were mentioned throughout my elementary and secondary schooling, except Africa. There were lots of lessons in our elementary school readers about the original people of the country, the Amerindians.
The British made no provision for secondary education for locals but established special schools for their expatriates' children, which they attended free of charge. In later years, they offered competitive scholarships to locals at those schools. Two locals, one Chinese and the other of African descent, established the first two secondary schools for local children. However, the schools were controlled by the British. They insisted that the curriculum for a high school diploma included the New Testament as a subject. The two high schools were given a syllabus to teach the students to take the examination for the high school certificate. The principals had no control over the contents of the final examinations. Students had to go to places other than their schools to take the final examinations. The test papers came from Cambridge University in England, the seal was broken, and the examination was distributed. The papers were placed in an envelope upon completion of the examination, and a special waxed seal was applied before it was sent back to the university. The results of the examination did not go to the principals. They were sent to the local newspaper from which the students obtained the results. Such was the indignity that these principals endured at the hands of the British. Throughout my high school years, there was a lot of British History, Shakespeare, Chaucer, and the Aeneid. Not a word about Africa.
In hindsight, I postulate that my parents and grandparents did not speak of slavery because of the inhumane treatment of the slavers, using our women as chattel, and other brutal experiences they endured, was too painful to recall. In addition, every visage of our African languages and religious practices was removed. We were then coerced to speak English to communicate and accept Christianity to get an education. I immigrated to the United States and received four degrees in higher education, two of which came from the so-called Ivy League Universities. Not a single lesson, much less a course, about Africa. In every aspect of my schooling, there were many references to the people native to British Guiana, the Amerindians, and every part of the world. There was never a mention of Africa and its many aspects of achievement in science, agriculture, and other fields over the millennia. Once, when I was in elementary school, a man in strange garb came to British Guiana, and we were told he was some King from Africa. Later, it was mentioned that he was an impostor.
As I pursued higher education and participated in significant research, I used these skills to find information about my heritage: Europe was in a crisis. With limited arable land and only able to send children through the small holes dug to extract a small amount of coal. It was starving—remember the Irish famine—and without the ability to adequately heat themselves suffered the ravages of consumption and related diseases. They needed to seek more land and food resources. Africans had no such need. They had a large variety of crops and animals, providing abundant food. Africans travelled extensively but without the need for land acquisition. Ivan Van Sertima, a Guyanese historian and anthropologist, demonstrated that Africans explored the New World centuries before Columbus in 1492.
Once the Europeans acquired land, they recruited their fellow citizens as indentured workers to develop it. This was a disaster. They did not have the skills or stamina. It was, therefore, not by happenstance that they turned to Africans, who had knowledge of crops such as rice and sugarcane and how to produce sugar, tea, and tobacco, to name a few. They were also masterful in animal husbandry, exhibiting mastery and stamina.
Africans were not compensated for their services as indentured workers like the Chinese and East Indians. They were enslaved outside their country. Some African descendants believe Europeans had superior weapons, but Africans were skilled warriors familiar with their terrain and capable of resistance. However, my research did not find significant resistance. Europeans justify their actions by claiming Africans willingly gave themselves up, though Africans did capture and turn over fellow Africans from opposing tribes to the Europeans. This tribalism enabled the European slave trade, which devastated Africa by ensnaring thousands and removing many of its youth.
Despite the absence of African history in my earlier education, my curiosity about my origins deepened as I grew older. I began to recognize how colonial powers systematically erased the narrative of Africa’s contributions and achievements, consigning generations of African descendants to ignorance about their rich heritage. This void fostered a sense of alienation and confusion, as it became evident that the portrayal of Africa in global discourse was heavily skewed. Yet, my research illuminated extraordinary aspects of African civilizations—its profound advancements in architecture, astronomy, and medicine—and the resilience of its people who, despite immense adversities, cultivated thriving societies. It became clear to me that Africa was not a continent marked solely by subjugation but by innovation, leadership, and unity, qualities deliberately overshadowed by narratives of exploitation and servitude.
Europeans dared to assert that Africans were godless because they did not practice Christianity; therefore, they could be enslaved. With that logic, why didn't they go after the Muslims, Hindus, and others who are not Christians? They also had the nerve to suggest that the favorable Tradewinds to the Southern hemisphere meant that God was in favor of African enslavement. At the same time, these hypocrites were elevating Christianity; the Roman Emperor Herod Agrippa (Ca.42 CE) was persecuting Christians. The Romans later changed their minds and established a papacy in Rome, declaring Roman Catholicism. Imagine the head of the Christian church of England, Henry Vlll, killing his wife to marry another woman, and Christians claim the high ground with such despicable and ungodly behavior. What flawed logic.
What about the black church? In British Guiana, as in all British colonies in the Caribbean, my parents had no choice. They had to send their children to a Christian school if they wanted them to get an education. There were no alternatives—the church of different denominations, Presbyterian, Anglican, Moravian, etc., controlled elementary education. The British made no provision for secondary education. That's how formerly enslaved people were indoctrinated into Christianity. Every morning, children had to recite Christian prayers. They were stripped of every vestige of their heritage, including languages and religious practices.
In the United States, according to the 1619 Project, enslaved people were encouraged to convert to Christianity to obtain their freedom. However, as the number of converts grew, they were told they could convert but would no longer get their freedom. Formerly enslaved people, once converted to Christianity, were told they could not worship in the white church. This is how the black church was formed. Nothing jn African history supports a Christian church before slavery. Booker T. Washington, in his autobiography, stated that many black men who wanted to avoid hard work would lie down in a public place as though in a trance. They got up and claimed a vision from God that they would become preachers. Thenceforth, their collars were turned around; they were preachers. It has become a way for African descendants to take advantage of their fellow black citizens. During my college days, I recall working as an orderly at a hospital where one of my co-workers, a black female, single mother with four children, told me that the pastor of her church insisted that she contribute one-tenth of her meager wages to the church. Not so long ago, I visited a church in a black neighborhood with a bolded banner stating, "A member who does not give a tenth of his earnings to the church is a thief."
It is time that we educate our youth of African descent about their heritage, which does not begin with slavery. African American history speaks to the hardships endured by the enslaved and their descendants after they arrived as enslaved people in this country. This is not African history. I therefore urge everyone of African descent to call upon the heads of Historically black colleges and Universities to teach African history, regardless of which of their patrons they offend. Sadly, African descendants throughout the diaspora are defined by slavery, when Africa has an impressive history of science and agriculture, etc., throughout the millennia.
The current movement in Africa, led by Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso, to preserve its resources for its people, must guard against world powers and organized religion to succeed. Both forces have undermined the masses in Africa through deception and religious fervor.