Black History Month 2018: The Kangs of Aksum

ARE DEEZ NIGGAS EVEN BLACK?

Eritrea is a nation on the coast of the Red Sea in the Horn of Africa.

The Horn of Africa (Eritrea, Ethiopia, Djibouti, Somalia) is very different from West Africa, Central Africa and Southern Africa in a number of important ways. Northeast Africa has been in contact with the Caucasians of Europe and Western Asia since Antiquity. The most striking thing about the Horn of Africa is that these Africans look so physically different and speak Afro-Asiatic languages.

HORN OF AFRICA

AFRICA LANGUAGE FAMILIES

It turns out there is a reason for this: the Hamitic myth is true. We know that thousands of years farmers from Anatolia and the Middle East migrated into Europe. It appears that Eurasians also migrated from the Middle East into the Horn of Africa where they left behind a major genetic impact on the region. They didn’t have nearly as great an impact on negro populations in West Africa and Central Africa. The Horn of Africa has 20 percent to 33 percent Caucasian ancestry.

FAMILY TREE

Unlike the rest of sub-Saharan Africa, the mulattoes in what is now Eritrea have been interacting with Caucasians since the Ancient Egyptians traveled to the Land of Punt in 2500 BC. It is speculated that Eritrea was the departure point from where modern Homo sapiens left Africa to colonize the rest of the world. Therefore, it is hardly surprising that thousands of years ago Arabs from Saudi Arabia and Yemen were crossing the Red Sea and settling in the Horn of Africa.

The Aethiop was known to the Greeks and Romans. This part of sub-Saharan Africa is adjacent to the Red Sea which during Antiquity was the interstate of international trade between the Mediterranean and India. The Kingdom of Aksum rose along the trade routes between Africa, Arabia, India and Europe. Like the Roman Empire, it also converted to Christianity in the time of Constantine.

AKSUM

NEARLY A THOUSAND YEARS LATER

Much can change in a thousand years.

The rise of Islam in the Middle East and North Africa left Aksum cut off from the rest of the Christian world. There was a retreat from the coast into the Ethiopian Highlands. Aksum declined and new tribes moved into the region. Eventually, the Ottomans took over the coast of what is now Eritrea. Muslims would have overrun and conquered Ethiopia if the Portuguese hadn’t shown up with their guns just in time looking for the Kingdom of Prester John and saved their Christian allies.

It goes without saying that Eritrea missed out on the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade. The Ottoman Empire dominated the Red Sea until the 19th century. As the British and French began to compete over East Africa, the British encouraged the Italians to seize what is now Eritrea. The ports of Assab and Massawa became Italian colonies in 1882 and 1885. The Italians marched in and occupied the Eritrean highlands in 1889 and established the colony of Eritrea in 1890. It was their first African colony.

ITALIAN EAST AFRICA

ITALIAN ASMARA

ITALIAN ART DECO BUILDINGS

By all accounts, the Italians built a modern civilization in Eritrea. They built Asmara which was full of these Art Deco buildings. The Eritrean colony was more about Italian pride and geopolitical rivalry than anything else. The Italians were building a “new Roman Empire” in Africa. In reality, Eritrea was subsidized by the Italian government and was a financial burden for Italy like most African colonies.

Eritrea was one of the most prosperous colonies in sub-Saharan Africa. The Italians built roads, railroads, hospitals and especially factories where nothing of the sort had existed before. The standard of living for the Eritrean population rose when it was a part of Italian East Africa. This period lasted for all of 50 years and came to a crashing end when the British invaded Eritrea during the Second World War.

ERITREAN WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

ERITREAN WAR FOR INDEPENDENCE

ERITREAN-ETHIOPIAN WAR

The British governed Eritrea for a decade before dumping it into a federation with Ethiopia in 1952. While it is true that Eritrea was part of Askum over a thousand years ago, much had changed since then and it had long since developed a separate identity from Ethiopia. After Ethiopia reduced Eritrea to a mere province in the late 1950s, the Eritrean War for Independence began and raged on from thirty years from 1961 until 1991. The fighting resumed between 1998 and 2000 and hundreds of thousands dead.

ERITREAN SANDAL MONUMENT

Eritrea has been a war ravaged country recovering under a dictatorship for the last 27 years. It has been called the North Korea of Africa due to its isolationism and militarization. It has an interesting monument to the sandals worn by its soldiers in its wars with Ethiopia. It is best known today for all the refugees that have been pouring out of the country into Israel and Europe.

Thousands of years ago, Eritrea was an important place under the kangs of Punt, D’mt and Askum who appear to have been Semites. Today, it is ranked #179 in the UN Human Development Index after spending a third of the last century fighting with Ethiopia.