The fact is after history class destroys most people’s brains into thinking that Europe was made of only White Men influencing history–and women were weak floozies made to decorate their arms, most of us come out of High School brain washed thinking that only those people existed in Europe. Who are all the great rulers mentioned, but white?
In fact, most of them are said or understood to be straight also–no handicaps, and with the exception of Henry VIII, they were all monogamous.
This is why I present you with a short real history of race in Europe because this myth persists and persists to be taught widely.
If you go back before the advent of homo sapiens sapiens, back to Homo erectus, our pre, pre ancestors, you’ll find that they managed to travel all the way to the stretches of Asia. They even have a sub species–nicknamed the Hobbit and of course us. The hitch is that if you look up Florensis (the exact classification is still under debate), you’ll find out that they are no where near Africa. They are *on an Island* which means there were rafts made to get there. Now, if our pre ancestors with a smaller brain capacity than us could travel that far and establish trade routes, why do people think it is so impossible for Homo sapiens sapiens, which is two genus classifications away to be able to do the same? It is silly to think that one would say it is impossible for someone to travel that far, nor want to–on foot alone. (Domestication of animals came later).
After Homo Heidelbergensis, and possibly two genocides on our species part where we managed to hope continents all the way down to Australia using rafts, foot track across the Bering strait and go all the way to the southern tip of South America, several thousands of years later, in say hundred thousands of years, we suddenly lost all interest in traveling?
Ha!
Look up the Roman Empire–it stretched into Africa, Western Asia and had roads going many, many places. There were certainly people of color running around in Rome. The thing is that there wasn’t racism against them, but a more refined look at religious practices.
I present to you the Romani people, who were misnomered as Gypsies. They came from India, (Not clear North or South or which–but it is India) in 1100 AD. They are people of color and if you check that date, that certainly is the Medieval period. They were first cast out on religious grounds, and then cast out on myths about Romani people being a certain way. Sedentary people suspicious of non-sedentary people. Sounds familiar somehow… as they settled, the myths about them got worse.
So if you’re writing about Medieval Europe, then why do you not consider Romani to be people of color too? They share a similar language route, they certainly travel around–you can’t squeeze in people of color that have been there since the 1100′s?
Humans are industrious. By the time the Romani settled in Europe, Polynesia was also being settled. Polynesia was probably the last stop for human kind because the rest of the continents were also settled by that time. Because humans like to travel, trade, make rules, break rules and explore–it is our nature to be curious, I have serious doubts about people thinking it is an all white Europe. It’s just more convenient for people to think that a bunch of White Christians were running the show and skip over critical figures unless one could make the women in that equation a stereotype too.
We spread so far and so wide. Why can’t your white person in a secluded village see a trader trying to pass through and want one of the wares they consider mysterious. If they are in a port or know someone in a port, then it is likely that they will know people of color.
There *were* people of color in Europe, so I can’t see why a round world with an equatoor and several continents can’t also have people of color traveling and being industrious.