Blue Blood is Black Blood – By – Egmond Codfried
During the Middle Ages Black peoples in Europe were called Blue men. There seem to be images of this period which show Bleu people. I know of a Renaissance crucifixion scene with a light blue Jesus. In the Renaissance we start seeing many, many images of blacks, called The Moor.
Mike Nassau writes about Nubians and Iranians which were brought to Europe in 50 BC by Caesar to fight the Germanic nations. They stayed on and had their own communities along the Rhine and the Danube. Nassau states that in the 17th century Europeans arrived in America who were called Black Dutch. They were not treated like the Africans who were held in slavery. Many Whites were also kept as slaves or slave like conditions. Later on Black and coloured families claimed descend from these Black Dutch to prevent re-enslavement or being treated as niggers. The point is that somehow Black and coloured people were present in Europe and managed to keep their Black looks through intermarriage till at least the 17 century.
I suggest we look at the Moor in European Art and take it from there. In European Art the Moor is always a Classical African: pitch black, frizzled hair, a flat and wide face, flat nosed, thick lips, and subnasal prognasty.
When you study the symbol of the Moor from The Renaissance (1500) you will find that it did not start out like a Black Servant or a Black Page. The Drake Jewel (1575) shows the profile of a Black King dominating the profile of a White woman. This symbolises Africa dominating Europe and Black superiority in Europe.
The symbol of the Moor shows a Blue man which is a Black man and means Blue Blood. We see many portraits of the nobility in which they pose very intimate with a little Black boy or girl which gives the sitter riches, mostly pearls which seem to symbolise Europe.The nobility was coloured, and some showed more African or Asian or White treats. These portraits are kept hidden or are destroyed around the French Revolution (1789).
Inside The Drake Jewel is a miniature of Queen Elizabeth I. Her father’s sister Mary Tudor was the grandmother of Mary of Scots. Mary of Scots son was James I who married Anne of Denmark. They were the grandparents of Charles II Stuart who was named “The Black Boy.”
He was described on a wanted poster issued by parliament as a tall Black man and I do not think they were fooling around.
Anne of Denmark had ordered a play “The Masque of Blackness” (1605) in praise of Black beauty which did not fade. The play was performed by members of the court and it explained how Blacks, The Sun People, came to Europe to look for a milder sun. In the play was a personage of The Niger River. The costume design shows a tall Black woman. Strange as this might sound; it took me after all three years to believe my own findings: Anne of Denmark which we know as a blindingly blond woman was almost certainly Black. As the whole Stuart dynasty was Black of skin.
When one looks for portraits of Charles II Stuart “The Black Boy” one finds many which show a White man, with long black hair and mustachio. But if one persists there are portraits which show black skin. Especially the National Portrait Gallery site shows many portraits of a Black skinned boy and later a Black adult. Still there is a lot of variations, but I have one pitch black portrait which show his classical African treats under a huge afro-like wig.
So there were Black Kings in Europe, who somehow traced their origins in Africa and symbolised their Blue blood with the image of a Moor. The portraits which show Blacks as White’s I would explain as propaganda to make them look as the White people they so despotically oppressed. Other white portraits are over painted authentic Black portraits, or whitened copies of these or outright fakes. All European museums show portraits of the European elite, with fake white skin colour. We know that all the European royal families were blood relatives.
The Black Boy’s mother, for instance, Henrietta Maria, was the daughter of Maria de Medici, Queen of France and the aunt of Louis XIV, The Sun King. The sister of The Black boy was Maria Henrietta Stuart who married the Dutch Stadholder William II. Their son was King Stadholder William III, who ruled Britain as William and Mary.
(All this can be verified in google)
VIRGINIA WOOLF’S INDIAN ROOTS
http://www.biography.com/imported/images/Biography/Images/Profiles/W/Virginia-Woolf-9536773-1-402.jpg
Virginia Woolf –Stephen must have been half or quarter Indian, her grandma was born in India, and she married an Ashkenazi Jew, Leonard Woolf, who has Dutch and German sounding ancestors. And he worked eight years in Ceylon, before he married Virginia Stephen. Virginia Woolf’s ancestors were named Pattle, clearly an Anglicization of Patel. She was clearly very dark complexioned, with full lips and thick Black hair twisted in a very Indian looking bun. Part of the fierce allure of Indian women is how they raise their arms, frame their bosom, and violently tie their beautiful locks in a bun. Her portraits which show a white skinned woman are whitened fakes, to hide her darkness. I wonder if there is any reference to India in her books, or that part of her personality can be understood as reflecting an Indian Identity. She is always shown wearing the latest flapper fashions so she and Vanessa, her even darker sister must have been a true traffic stopping spectacle to behold.
http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BMNz_EZIcqY/TpyLNznSCUI/AAAAAAAAOSs/NuPDju0v8fE/s1600/2%2BVanessa_Bell_1910_338080s.jpg
[Vanessa Bell]
http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/exhibitions/images/stephen/large24a.jpg
[Virginia Pattle Somers-Cocks (1827-1910]
There is reference to incest in her youth, starting at 14 by one or two step-brothers, who were the sons of the widow her father married, after Virginia’s mother died. He is supposed to also have molested her sister Vanessa Bell. But Virginia is also supposed to have had an intimate relation with her sister Vanessa. I need to read more to understand if she was a victim, and if this episode made her more disturbed then she already was. Somehow the fact that she took her life at an age when many people die anyway, makes it less significant to me.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_giq9fYBHrwc/SqD4d9GYw_I/AAAAAAAACJs/y0YmvOukf24/s320/edef.jpg
[Eliza de Feuillide]
I compare her to Eliza Comtesse de Feuillide, the cousin of Jane Austen. She was born in India and I suspect her father Tysoe Hancock to be (part) Indian, as her sole miniature shows her slanted oriental eyes. She also brags about ‘heightening the native brown of her complexion with a tan,’ to her niece James, by staying two years in the country. Which shows that some nobles did tan, as the brown skin stood for high birth, and nobility. Yet others also bleached their complexion, or used white make up, called ‘rouging.’ She talks with admiration of how white Marie Antoinette’s hands and arms are, while it’s clear that this was achieved by ‘art.’ She spent some time at Versailles and moved in the highest circles.
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vesftDPLNmg/ThxwUotMxkI/AAAAAAAAABY/T_c0OV_YD8s/s1600/book+cover+A5.jpg
De Feuillide also mentions that a the sister of a sister-in- law of The Austen’s married an Indian, with a British sounding name. My ‘Was Jane Austen (1775-1817) Black?’ publication already deals with the brown and black complexions of the Austens, as being part of the 2-3% brown and black Europeans who ruled the white Europeans, or the third estate. It’s highly improbable that all these rich persons managed to live with only one portrait made, so when we are told there is only one known portrait, we can be sure the others are too black to be shown.
Elizabeth Barrett Browning befriended an Anglo- Indian poet, who was a lesbian, writing how two women can make each other very happy, during a time we think such a thing could not be discussed. Virginia had lesbian relations with Vita Sackville, a noble women. She was very dark skinned and had a moustache. Woolf based Orlando on her, as it talks of how a young noble man suddenly turned into a woman.
http://image1.findagrave.com/photos250/photos/2009/326/1574_125899715147.jpg
[Merle Oberon]
Actress Merle Oberon was half Indian, and looks quite dark skinned in later photographs; so during her former film career was considerably whitened in some way. She is supposed to have been a lover of Prince Philip, who visited her in Mexico, where she had n estate. I also think about Johanna van Gogh- Bonger, who was the painter Vincent van Gogh’s sister in law. We have her to thank for his fame, as she managed and prudently exhibited his collection, inherited by her’s and Theo van Gogh’s son: Vincent van Gogh. She was a very dark skinned Indonesian or part Indonesian (?) women, described as ‘a distinguished, great lady.’
http://www.aloj.us.es/galba/monograficos/VAN%20GOGH/Fotografias/Familiares/Theo/JohannaBonger.jpg
[Johanna Van Gogh-Bonger]
http://api.ning.com/files/PmCHYsj-yF-7WH1YTvagTnTAif9NCsHUrLs92GFr1cXOADa78UdlKM2IMeZwzQ96eQm8KtT19Q-ivu*CtvxpD-JwwlsPDDwD/002.jpg
[Maria Jacoba van Goor]
It troubles me that these persons are whitened, even today, and no mention is of their roots. Bonger’s brother collected art as well, and helped her to manage the Van Gogh Collection, and his taste seems to me reflecting the love for a magical reality of Indonesians. As these persons mingled with the brown and black complexion European elite, I also wonder how strong the non-European influence really was. This we can only find out if today persons from these same back grounds start sifting through the sources. In this way even many known quotes become different and more significant to a person’s life, identity and work. When Isabelle de Charrière says ‘she does not have the white hands,’ she does not say her hands were ugly, but she confirms she was a brown skinned noble woman. As her rich, regent class grandmother Maria Jacoba van Goor (1687-1737) looks classical African on a whitened Herman Serin portrait. It was this change finding that lead me to discover the blue blood is black blood theory (1100-1848), that the nobility was brown and black, and that all old master portraits are whitened since 1848-1960.
Egmond Codfried
Curator Suriname Blue Blood Is Black blood Museum
The Hague
http://www.biography.com/people/virginia-woolf-9536773
http://archiver.rootsweb.ancestry.com/th/read/INDIA/1999-04/0924161053
http://books.google.nl/books?id=ZpQ4GG-Ng2gC&pg=PA198&lpg=PA198&dq=virginia+woolf+india&source=bl&ots=DUFaxuchiu&sig=nuvzmBjyZ6_qV8Blw3FYcqAh1gA&hl=nl&sa=X&ei=4DVIUYjiLYaV0QXt0YG4Dw&ved=0CFEQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=virginia%20woolf%20india&f=false
http://www.smith.edu/libraries/libs/rarebook/exhibitions/stephen/24a.htm