{"title":"Race-Making Festivities in Brandenburg-Prussia, 1652–1750","authors":"Alexander Bevilacqua","doi":"10.1093/pastj/gtae012","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"The four generations of Hohenzollern rulers who transformed the electorate of Brandenburg into the kingdom of Prussia — a regional player into a great power — all employed Black men at their courts and in their armies. Through court performance, including processions and tournaments, as well as through artistic commissions, the Brandenburgian rulers adapted existing traditions of representing and displaying human difference and hierarchy for their own ends. As the only member of the Holy Roman Empire to join the Atlantic slave trade, Brandenburg had a particular commitment to staging its global aspirations, both during its slave-trading venture and after it failed. Brandenburg-Prussia’s belated rise exhibits with particular clarity the importance to early modern statecraft not just of foreign enterprise but of its courtly representations. Through the display and representation of Black people in performance and art, the rulers of Brandenburg participated in forms of ‘race-making’ that altered the perception not only of sub-Saharan Africans but of the princely lineage as well.","PeriodicalId":47870,"journal":{"name":"Past & Present","volume":"17 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":1.8000,"publicationDate":"2024-09-28","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Past & Present","FirstCategoryId":"98","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtae012","RegionNum":1,"RegionCategory":"历史学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"HISTORY","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
The four generations of Hohenzollern rulers who transformed the electorate of Brandenburg into the kingdom of Prussia — a regional player into a great power — all employed Black men at their courts and in their armies. Through court performance, including processions and tournaments, as well as through artistic commissions, the Brandenburgian rulers adapted existing traditions of representing and displaying human difference and hierarchy for their own ends. As the only member of the Holy Roman Empire to join the Atlantic slave trade, Brandenburg had a particular commitment to staging its global aspirations, both during its slave-trading venture and after it failed. Brandenburg-Prussia’s belated rise exhibits with particular clarity the importance to early modern statecraft not just of foreign enterprise but of its courtly representations. Through the display and representation of Black people in performance and art, the rulers of Brandenburg participated in forms of ‘race-making’ that altered the perception not only of sub-Saharan Africans but of the princely lineage as well.
期刊介绍:
Founded in 1952, Past & Present is widely acknowledged to be the liveliest and most stimulating historical journal in the English-speaking world. The journal offers: •A wide variety of scholarly and original articles on historical, social and cultural change in all parts of the world. •Four issues a year, each containing five or six major articles plus occasional debates and review essays. •Challenging work by young historians as well as seminal articles by internationally regarded scholars. •A range of articles that appeal to specialists and non-specialists, and communicate the results of the most recent historical research in a readable and lively form. •A forum for debate, encouraging productive controversy.