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reprise of the article “Black History: Black European nobility tucked away”
Black nobility in Europe? According to black Dutch researcher Egmond Codfried and author of the book “Belle van Zuylen’s forgotten grandmother” there was black nobility in Europe, but their history and images were later carefully hidden, edited out or painted over. His claims are controversial, and of course not accepted by European historians and the man in the street. Codfried has systematically studied hundreds of paintings of famous and less famous nobility. He regularly stumbled upon people who looked black or coloured, or although they were white, clearly had African facial features.
Codfried writes: “This study of historical sources and literature on black and coloured historic persons was inspired by the chance finding of a portrait of Maria Jacoba van Goor. We get a view of the problems and of the methods to identify these Europeans. This beautiful painting was also a reason to cast an afrocentric view at Belle van Zuylens life and her works, the biographies en the origin of her financial fortune. Through her coloured grandmother, the Dutch Belle van Zuylen (1740-1805) also known as Madame de Charrière, joins the rank of writers as the Russian Alexander Pushkin, the French Alexander Dumas and Colette, the Britons Elizabeth Barrett and her husband Robert Browning. As well as the German classic composer Ludwig von Beethoven and Queen Charlotte of Britain. These are Europeans of great merit, who had black forefathers. Also we find that Belle was a friend of Pierre Alexander Du Peyrou (1729-1794), a brown coloured and wealthy Surinam plantation owner in Swiss. Belle is renowned as a close friend, benefactor and publisher of the most famous philosopher of the Enlightenment, Jean Jaques Rousseau.Also from writings of contemporaries to make that more black and colored people lived in Europe than they appear, writes Codfried. So was it written that someone “the milk of a black woman would have drunk” or “chocolate” would have eaten. Also, blacks by their surroundings as “the chimney sweeper” called. Or it was said that those “bad complexion” or had always “a burnt head”. Codfried: “Many portraits show pure white faces while it is established that the person sometimes black or chocolate brown was, as Constantijn Huygens, Charles II Stuart, Madame de Stael, Baron Aarnoud Joost van der Duyn and Pierre-Alexander Dupeyrou. Moreover it is known that the famous classical composer Ludwig van Beethoven was quite black and nicknamed “the black Spaniard” bore. Habsburg emperor Leopold I, Holy Roman Empire was Swinburne described as “a short, big black man.” His portraits show “the dancing emperor” as a black man with very thick lips and a forward lower half of the face. Duchess Charlotte Sophie of Mecklenburg Strelitz (1740-1818), queen of George III of England and grandmother of Queen Victoria, had, according to her physician a “true mulattengezicht” . In this case show the paintings by Sir Ramsay clearly a woman of color. ”
Codfried’s research is important, pioneering work. And though his book is now and then a little messy reading, it is nevertheless quite convincing. Mainly because of the dozens of images. Concepts of racism occasionally creep in, with all the talk about lip thickness, nose width, eye color, color, curliness of hair, the distance between the nose and upper lip, the protrusion from the bottom of the face, and so on. This raises associations with the skull measuring the Nazi “scientists”. On the other hand the theory, if you proceed, is justified in that there are many more black and colored people living in the Netherlands and Europe than normally assumed. Codfried is fortunately very clear that he is only comparing the appearance of people, and that he does not believe in the existence of “races”. “Skin color and ethnicity are in some ways more artificial social constructs than biological realities, but like other social structures such as gender or nobility very decisive for the individual,” he writes.
reprised from “Black and colored nobility stashed away”
and the Afro-Europe International blog
My study titled Maria Jacoba van Goor was published in 2005 and since then I have gone on doing more research and publishing more books. One of the latests is: The eloquence of her blood: Was Jane Austen (1775-1817) Black? There are about ten descriptions that tell us that Austen was brown, not a pink colour, a brunette complxion. Next we find in the novels that all personages are light brown, brown, very brown and black. She self identifies as Blacks, and was depicted as Blacks, and that why we never get to see her. The Blueblood theory is based on personal descriptions that say some famous Europeans which are presented as whites, with whitened portraits; are described as brown or black of complexion. Black portraits remain as prints.
Press Release:
OPENING SURINAME BLUE BLOOD IS BLACK BLOOD MUSEUM
EGMOND CODFRIED (Paramaribo, 1959), writer and publicist, is the curator and the discoverer of the Blue Blood is Black Blood Theory (2005) which argues that Europe from 1100 to 1848 was dominated by an elite whose skin colour was described as black and brown. He displays his collection of reproductions of historical portraits often unknown and is the only museum that deals with the actual appearance of historical figures. Prince William I of Orange (1533-1584) is described as “more brown than white,” and as “brown of complexion and the beard.” (Beresteyn 1933: 1) Some of them , like William of Orange, his father in law Maurice of Saxony, and Jane Austen (1775-1817) had in addition to the brown and black skin colour also (strong) classical African features, thick and prognastic lips and/or broad noses, frizzled hair; which traits were seen as proof of pure noble blood: Blue Blood. They were the descendants of the Blue Men, the black and brown original Europeans who came from Africa 45,000 years ago (Grimaldi Man). And a part of them proclaimed themselves between 1100 and 1200 a nobility, of true Europeans. Intermarrying to preserve colour and a noble lifestyle were requirements. They styled themselves as protectors against the invading Normans, civilized and christianized the white Europeans, who only came 6000 years ago came from Central Asia. And they now also exploited them as their serfs. Typical of their domination was the brutal stifling of opposition and cruel punishments meted out as quartering, breaking the limps on the wheel, and cutting open the belly while the intestines still attached to the body were thrown into the fire. But the cruellest punishment must be the public live flaying. There was, therefore, until 1848 a European trade in human skins and these were industrially processed into book covers, clothing and even shoes for the elite. Church doors were lined with human skin, which further demonstrates that the subjugation of the serfs by the nobility was seen as willed by god. Theirs was a caste society with the whites as the outcastes. This information illustrates clearly why there was a need for a Declaration of the Rights of Man (1760), because the white serfs asked their noble masters to be seen as humans. By that time the Enlightened bourgeois “scientists” belonging to the Black intellectual elite, invented the fiction of human races and placed for strategic reasons, the white majority to the top of the evolutionary ladder, and the Moor at the bottom, just above the Apes. The Moor (Othello, Mr. Elton, Black Madonna’s, and the heraldic Moors) symbolizes nobility and Black Superiority. This showed how they exactly regarded the high Black Nobility and their Black Superiority. The French Revolution (1789-1794) was a starter and led the bourgeois, capitalist elite to power, but for the poor people little changed. Because of restorations like those by Napoleon, it took only until the last revolutions of 1848 that the white Europeans were emancipated and the nobility lost their ‘privileges’. Jane Austen (1775-1817) was described as ‘of brunette complexion,’ and as ‘a brown, not a pink colour’, and made all her fictional characters, light brown, brown, very brown and black of complexion. She wrote against the change of status of Black Europeans. The Surinamese planters and governors were part of this colored elite and nobility. After 1848, revisionist history prevailed, and everything was painted white. They used the fashionable and propagandistic portraits of the black and brown elite, who sometimes in real life also painted their faces white, and a false, whitewashed history was created. The usefulness of the Blue Blood Theory is a deconstruction of revisionist history and a deconstruction of Racism against Black people, as caused by the cruel, but civilizing and christianising domination of whites by Blacks. Whites fear and hate Blacks because they once were dominated by them. Racism is a liberation ideology. All unscientific theories about human races, skull measurements, etc are designed to turn these historical Blacks into whites and hide the history of Black Superiority. This new museum, in the stairwell of his home, Eemstraat 36 in The Hague, with the blessing of the landlord Vestia Hague South East, and only accessible by appointment, for everyone, and why you pay only € 1 per person. One can peruse the portraits of the Black rulers and their Black queens. There are reproductions of portraits of nobles and slave owners who previously were not publicly shown and are hidden in family- or academic collections because of the black appearances. Visitors will also be able to buy postcards and studies. This The Hague museum, will lead to the founding of a Suriname Blue Blood is Black Blood Museum in Suriname in 2013. bluebloodisblackblood.blogspot.com
Information: Egmond Codfried / 068427799
June 15, 2012
this is not the face of sophie van mecklenburg but Sophhie of saxony weimar, a daughter of king William II of Orange Nassau, the king of Holland. she is clearly not a white complexioned woman and african facial traits prevailed strongly in this family, along with dark brown or black skin. Look for a big image/drawing of princes Marianne of the Netherlands, the sister of Williem II along with codfried to see what I mean. During charlotte sophies lifetime photography was not yet possible, and these were also retouched to show skin as white.