By Mike Ozehkome
INTRODUCTION
It was Hegal (1857-1862) who once said about history: “History is the process whereby the spirit discovers itself and its own concept”. He also said “world history represents the development itself the spirit’s consciousness of its own freedom and of consequent realization of this freedom”.
It is lack of the understanding of history that makes our politicians behave like the Bourbons of European history who learnt nothing and forgot nothing. This was why, even after the Treaty of Versailles which was the most important of the peace treaties that brought world war 1 to an end (28th June, 1919- 21st January, 1920), the 2nd world war still broke out (1st September, 1939- 2nd September, 1945). The 2nd world war led to human misery, suffering, death and decay. It was during the 2nd world war that the twins cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were destroyed by the atomic bomb. The catastrophic consequences of the 2nd world war led to the setting up of the United Nations, and the promulgation of the UN Declaration on Human Rights, on 10th December, 1948.
WHAT IS HISTORY AND WHY IS IT SO IMPORTANT?
History is the study of past events, particularly in human affairs. It is a recording of the oden days; of things gone by. It is a narration of events in the affairs of mankind, including an account of the rise and fall of nations, and all events, connected therewith. These include the cultural, political, social and economic conditions that affected the human race.
Guess what? History is also the study, not only of past events, but also of future events. We can know these events by looking at and studying recovered letters, books, newspapers, artifacts, such as tools, pottery, human and animal remains, etc.
History’s importance lies in the fact that aside allowing us to study and understand past events, it also enables us to understand our present; and thus afford us rare insight into the future. Today is the tomorrow we talked about yesterday. History enables us understand our cultures, customs, origin, as well as those of others, thereby creating and increasing cross-cultural, cross-racial, cross- linguistic and cross- religious awareness and understanding. By studying history, we recreate the past, to enable us study the present and re-interprete it for the future. A people without knowledge of their past, history, culture and origin, is certainly like a tree without roots. Because men make history (and not the other way round), we usually accept the fact that yesterday is history, while today is a mystery that we must unravel.
The past ignites and creates the present and therefore the future. History can help us understand what particular decisions or acts had worked in particular situation, in the past and which did not. This prevents us from committing or repeating the same mistakes of the past in the present.
As few examples, inspiration can be taken from certain energizing and motivating events, e.g, the Saragarah and Thermopylae. These teach us how a few stood against many. These can help and encourage minorities who are outnumbered by neighbouring majorities who are marginalizing them, to stand up for their rights.
The study of why and how great empires fell for example, can give us rare insight into how to efficiently run our nations, by avoiding the pitfalls of these ancient powers. Perhaps, if the Germans had learnt history, they probably would never have fought in Russia in World War II during the winter, like Napoleon did.
Herodotus has been called the “father of history.” An engaging narrator with a deep interest in the customs of the people he described, he remains the leading source of original historical information not only for Greece between 550 and 479 BCE, but also for much of western Asia and Egypt at that time.
SOME DEFINING HISTORICAL FACTS AND FIGURES
Can you believe we were taught about the 300 year old Slave Trade (1856 – 1915), Booker T. Washington, an African-American Educator, Orator, Author and Advisor to many Presidents of America. We were taught that Mary Slessor (1848 – 1915) was a Scottish Presbyterian Missionary to Nigeria, who arrived Calabar, learnt the Efik language and taught the native people Christianity, in their native language. The most famous act Slessor is remembered for is that she stopped the then prevalent practice of infanticide of twins among the Ibibio people. By the time she died in 1915 at a mere 66, she had become famous for Christian missionary working Africa, women’s rights and rescuing children from infanticide.
LADY FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE
Were we not taught about Lady Florence Nightingale (1820 – 1910), the English Social Reformer and founder of modern day Nursing Profession? She organised training courses for Nurses during the Crimean war, caring for wounded soldiers. One of her most famous quotes that we were taught was that “it may seem a strange principle to enunciate as the very first requirement in a hospital that it should do the sick no harm”.
GEORGE WASHINGTON CARVER
We studied the history of George Washington Carver (1864 – 1943) in Primary School. A professor at Tuskegee Institute, USA, the African-American Agricultural Scientist and Inventor actively promoted alternative crops to cotton, and developed techniques to improve soils depleted by repeated planting of cotton.
You can see from my reminiscences and recollection of history we learnt about 50 years ago, why I was deeply pained about the deletion of history from Nigerian schools syllabi?
THE SLAVE TRADE
We were also taught about the Atlantic or Trans-Atlantic slave trade, which for about 300 years, led to enslavement and transportation of Africans from their various settlements to mainly America. From the 16th to the 19th centuries, we witnessed this inhuman, degrading and heinous triangular trade route merchantilism which involved indigenes of mostly of Central and West African countries. Started by the Portuguese in 1526, they completed the first trans-atlantic slave voyage to Brazil, promoting other European countries to follow immediately.
These human slaves were regarded by the transporting ship owners as cargo to be sold in America, to work in coffee, tobacco, sugar, cocoa and cotton plantations. They also worked in gold and silver mines, rice fields, construction industry, etc. They hewed timber for the building of ships. They were used as skilled labour and as domestic servants. The evils of slave trade were perpetrated by the British, French, Portuguese, Dutch and Spanish Empires. Many of these countries established outpost on the African continent where they purchased slaves from local African leaders and merchants.
While awaiting shipment, packed like sardines, slaves were first kept in factories. Over 12 million people were involved in this inhuman exploitation for over 400 years.
We were taken through the trajectory of Abolitionists of slave trade. We read about Thomas Clarkson (1760 – 1846), William Cowper (1731 – 1800), Olaudah Equiano (1745 – 1797), Alexander Falconbridge (1792), Elizabeth Heyrick (1769 – 1831), Toussaint Louverture (1743 – 1803), John Newton (1725 – 1807), Mary Prince.
Serial campaigns, especially by William Wilberforce, led to the Slavery Abolition Act of 1833. Wilberforce died just three days after hearing the good news of passage of the Act through Parliament.
It was Abraham Mauri Lincoln, American President, who issued the Emancipation Proclamation. On 1st January, 1863. The passage of the 13th Amendment (ratified in December, 1865) finally abolished slavery in America, with over 50,000 slave freed in Kentucky and Deware.
HENRY THE NAVIGATOR
Let us examine in details the life, times and contributions of Henry the Navigator, another great historical figure we were taught in the Primary School.
Henry the Navigator was born in 1394 in Porto, Portugal.
In 1415, Henry, his father and his older brothers led an attack on Ceuta, a town in Morocco, along the Strait of Gibraltar. The attack succeeded, and Ceuta fell under Portuguese control. Henry became fascinated with Africa, a continent about which the Portuguese knew little. He thereafter developed a desire to learn about the Muslims who lived there, primarily in hopes of conquering them and spreading Christianity. And he became aware of Africa’s many resources, which he hoped to exploit for Portugal’s gain.
Under his patronage, Portuguese crews founded the country’s first colonies and visited regions previously unknown to Europeans. Henry is regarded as an originator of the “Age of Discovery” and dubiously, of the Atlantic slave trade.
HENRY THE NAVIGATOR’S SIGNIFICANCE IN HISTORY
Henry is often credited with beginning the Age of Discovery, the period during which European nations expanded their reach to Africa, Asia and the America. Henry himself was neither a sailor nor a navigator, his name notwithstanding. He did, however, sponsor many exploratory sea voyages, along the West African Coast. In 1415, his ships reached the Canary Islands, which had already been claimed by Spain. In 1418, the Portuguese came upon the Madeira Islands and established a colony at Porto Santo.
In addition to sponsoring exploratory voyages, Henry is also credited with furthering knowledge of geography, mapmaking and navigation. He started a School for Navigation in Sagres, at the southwestern tip of Portugal, where he employed cartographers, shipbuilders and instrument makers. It was from Lagos, near Sagres, that many of his sponsored trips began.
Henry has the dubious distinction of being a founder of the Atlantic slave trade. He sponsored Nuno Tristao’s exploration of the African coast, and Antao Goncalves’s hunting expedition there in 1441. The two men captured several Africans and brought them back to Portugal. One of the captured men, a chief, negotiated his own return to Africa, promising in exchange to provide the Portuguese with more Africans. Within a few years, Portugal was deeply involved in the slave trade.
Henry died in 1460 in Sagres, Portugal. By the time of his death, Portuguese explorers and traders had advanced as far as the region of modern-day Sierra Leone. It would be another 28 years before Vasco da Gama, under the Portuguese flag, would sail clear around Africa and complete an expedition to India. (To be continued).
THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK
“What is history? An echo of the past in the future; a reflex from the future on the past.” (Victor Hugo).
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