Uncovering the History of Africans in Asia

209 Pages·2008·11.85 MB·English

by  Shihan De Silva Jayasuriya

Uncovering the History of
Africans in Asia

Uncovering the History of
Mricans in Asia
EditnJt,·
Shihan de Silvajayasuriya
and
Jean-Pierre Angenot
BRILL
LEIDEN • BOSTON
2008
C'.«wr iJJIIStrtltitm: "'''he Nizam's African Dodyguanl 81 du: 1877 Imperial Durbar:
Mounted Toy Soldier by \V.M. Hocker. ..
With kind permission of Kenneth mdjO)"Ce Robbins.
This book is printed on acid-free paper.
Uncov-ering the history of Africans in Asia I edited by Shihan de Sih"ajayasuriya and
Jem-Pierre Angen01.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical rcf"et"Cnces and index.
ISBN 978-90-04-16291-4 (pbk.: alk. paper) I. Mricans-Asia-History. 2. African
n.
diaspora. I.Jayasuriya, Shihan des. Angmnt,.Jem-Pierre.
DS28.A35U53 2008
950.0496-dc22
2008009473
ISBN 978 90 04 16291 4
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or
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PIUN1'ID IN THE IG"IIII!IILAND5
CONTENTS
Foreword by Tukumbi I.Aimumba-Kasongo ........................ vii
Chapter One General Introduction .................................... ..
Shihon til Si/DQ Ja:~asur{1a &
]«m-Pil"e Angtnol
Chapter 1'Wo Identifying Africans in Asia:
\Vhat's in a Name? ......................................... 7
Shihon til Si/DQ Jtgasuri.JO
Chapter Three The Afro-Asian Diaspora: Myth or
Reality? ............................................................ 37
G~n Campbell
Chapter Four The African Slave Trade to Asia and the
Indian Ocean Islands ..................................... 57
a
&bm CoUins
Chapter Five The Makran-Baluch-African network in
Zanzibar and East-Africa during d1e XIX
Century ........................................................... 81
&atria Nt&Oiini
Chapter Six Somali Migration 10 Yemen from the I 9th 10
the 21st Centuries ........................................... 107
UiJa lngron1s & Richard Ponldttmt
Chapter Seven Nineteenth Century European References
to the African Diaspora in the Arabian
Peninsula ......................................................... 121
C/Vfiwd Ptreim
Chapter Eight Migrants and the Maldives: African
Connections .................................................... 131
Shihon til Si/DQ Jtgasuri.JO
vi
Chapter Nine The African Native in lndiaspora ..................... 139
}tanllle Pfnto
Chapter Ten Atligrants and Mercenaries: Sri Lanka's Hidden
Africans .............................................................. 155
Sllilum de Silva ]t9VlSUfiJVJ
Extensive Bibliography on the Afro-Asian Diaspora ................. 171
Jtm~-Pil"t Angtnol & Gtralda til lima A,.,.ot
Notes on Contributors ................................................................ 189
Index ........................................................................................... 193
FOREWORD BY TUKUMBI LUMUMBA-KASONGO
Why, how, and when bad Africans or Blacks from the African continent
found themselves in Asia? What pans of Africa did these Africans or
Blacks originate from? Who were these Africans or Blacks who migrated
to Asia? Where in Asia are there the majority of the people of African
descent? Who and what have they become? How had they been group
ing, integrated or disintegrated into various social and cultural fabrics of
the Asian counuies? What is the level of social consciousness of their
African-ness or Blackness, if any? And what contributions have they
been making to the development of their communities in Asia?
It is necessary that I firsdy describe the general background behind
these interesting and complex studies; secondly, I would like to present
a sincere CIJU/1 de dulptou to the Guest-Editor for a work well done; and
thirdly, I invite our readers to read and use this book critically. I am
working with the same Guest-Editor to produce another similar work
on the same topic to be published in another special issue of 1111 Jt.ftiean
ond Asian Sbulits in the Fall of 2007.
By some ad hoc common historical knowledge and some limited
anthropological, ethnographic and biological studies, it is known that
there are people of African descent in many pans of Asia. However, d1e
scholarship in this area though not static, is still minimum. It is limited
in relationship to irs potential as it calls for questioning the conventional
paradigms, and it is not intellectually legitimate yet. Many empirical
and historical research projects are still needed to study collecti\'e and
individual memories and stories of these people and how they bad
become Asians like other Asian ethnic groups for centuries.
"Thl4ftiean DiiJsfJIWa in ilsia: Historieal Gltllnings" whose Guest-Editors
are Dr. Sbihan de Silvajayasuriya of the University of London in Lon
don, United Kingdom, and Professor Jean-Pierre Angenot of Federal
University of Rondonia, Brazil, is a monumental and rich work. It is an
innovative coUection of well-studied su~ects undertaken by established
scholars dealing with various forms of migration of the Africans to Asia
from an interdisciplinary and a multidisciplinary perspective. I thank
them, including the authors, for having analyzed various aspects of a
topic that goes beyond a simple logic of linear history in the process
viii TUKUliBI LUKUitiBA•KASONGO
of studying the movements of people with their traditions, their hopes
and dreams, and their power of social reproduction.
Because of the complexity of the issues examined in d1is volume, I
would like to invite the readers to contextualize d1e whole work within
a broader intellectual discourse and historical perspeclives, to raise gen
eral issues related to the qualitative nature of the work itself, and to see
how this work could help project the implications of the locations of
large communities of people of African descent in Asia. After carefuUy
reviewing each article included in this coUection, I shared my satisfac
tion with Dr. Shiban de Silva Jayasuriya. Thus, I decided to push for
the publication of the special issue of the A.fiimn tmd Asian Sttulits as a
book. In shon, it is my hope that the readers will appreciate d1e value
of this work within a bigger historical and sociological picture as an
important step in d1e further studies of both Africa and Asia.
In 2004,1 was invited by Professor Jean-Pierre Angenot to participate
in one of his conferences organized through the TADIA International
Network, to be held in Goa. In the same year, he made a request to
me to explore any possibility of publishing some papers in lht A.ftictm
tliUl Asian Studies. After l'e\riewing the abstracts he submitted, the list of
possible contributors, and their professional affiliations, I appi"O\'ed the
project for publication in the A.fiimn tliUl A.sion Situ/Us. "I11us, with high
enthusiasm, I worked closely with Dr. Shihan de Silva Jayasuriya of
the University of London, the Guest Editor, who carefuUy paid close
attention to all the details for producing this work. I read each article
with high interest and inteUectual curiosity to make sure d1at this work
could produce high quality intellectual debates and d1at it stimulates
funher discussion and scientific investigation.
"I11e questions related to, and/or about, the African Diaspora at large
have been extensively studied mainly through two main interrelated
historical perspectives, namely European-American transatlantic slavery
and European colonialism. "I11ey are the dominant areas of interest,
which are part of the imperialist paradigms. The studies on African
internal, regional slavery and the African autonomous or independent
international migrations have been limited until recently. Thus, \\rithin
the existing world system and its international commercial routes, com
munication technology, and the axis of power, Africa bas been more
directly connected to Europe than to any other part of d1e world.
For some, the phenomenon of Africans in Asia can be considered
as enigmatic, random, individualislic or atomistic. But this is not the
view shared with some aud1ors in this coUection. In d1is publication
FOREWORD ix
a broad basis of motivations and trends have been studied. As W. E.
Burghardt Du Bois expressed in his work entitled: Till WlWid tlllll Aftita,
(1985, p. 176):
Tiac: COimection belween Asia and Amca has alwa)'S bc:e11 dose. There was
probably actual land connection in prehistoric times, and l.lac: black race
appears in both continems in the earliest records, making it doubtful
which continent is the poinl of origin. Certainl)~ the Negroid people of
Asia have played a leading part of history. The blacks of :Melanesia have
scoured dae seas, and Charles Taiiber makes l.lac:m inventors of one of
the world's finl wrillen lan~ thus, this gn:atest of all human iiM!n
tions was made b)• aborigines whose descendants today rank among l.lae
lowest, the proto-Australians.
"11te logic of this ciaation was clarified by ahe empirical facts in specific
case studies in this volume. The work dealing \\litlt 1he specific hisaori
cal, physical and social movements or migration of Mricans or Blacks
in Asia over 1he centuries is clearly a complex historical, sociological,
ethnographic and pioneering work. It is a work that can help demystify,
deconstruct, and attempt 10 reconstruct eahnicity (Black ethnicity} and
its cultures and some of its history. No single tlteory can provide suf
ficient tools which would explain comprehensively the facaors that have
led to movemenls of Mricans or Blacks and the implications and the
consequences of their migrations. As such, I hope that this work will
engender an imellectual curiosity and the space needed to challenge
the conventional push-pull theory.
The value of this work also lies in tlte fact ahat the authors have
diverse academic and cultural backgrounds and 1ha1 they are intel·
lectually located \\lithin ahe major schools of tltoughts in their various
disciplines and interests. Also, the book is published at a time when
the real and potential political debates about eahnicity in its various
dimensions are, in moSl cases, fused and reduced in the languages of
religions, power struggles, and in ahe forms of international security
and capiaalist regionalism.
While the arguments of the positive role of cultural diversity and
multiculturalism are becoming internationaUy appreciated wluable tools
and 1opics wiah which 10 formally assess institutional performances and
their development, especially in academia and multinationals, the stud
ies of specific eahnic groups, tlte races or cultures, are still considered
\\litltin ahe existing world politics as threatening to the grand paradigm,
namely tlte world system and its various categories. Slates and their
institutions and many private and public institutions the world over