Lost White Tribes: The End of Privilege and the Last Colonials in Sri Lanka, Jamaica, Brazil, Haiti, Namibia, and Guadeloupe - Hardcover

ORIZIO

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0743211979 ISBN 13: 9780743211970

Publisher: The Free Press, 2001

Synopsis

Over 300 hundred years ago, the first European colonists landed in Africa, Asia and the Caribbean to found permanent outposts of the great empires. This epic migration continued until after World War II, when some of these tropical colonies became independent black nations and the white colonials were forced -- or chose -- to return to the mother country. Among the descendants of the colonizing powers, however, were some who had become outcasts in the poorest strata of society and, unable to afford the long journey home, were left behind, ignored by both the former oppressed indigenous population and the modern privileged white immigrants. At the dawn of the twenty-first century these lost white tribes still hold out, tucked away in remote valleys and hills or in the midst of burgeoning metropolises, living in poverty while tending the myths of their colonial ancestors. Forced to marry within their own group if they hope to retain their fair-skinned "purity," they are torn between the memory of past privilege and the extraordinary pressure to integrate. All are decreasing in number; some are on the verge of extinction and fighting to survive in countries that ostracize them because of the color of their skin and the traditions they represent. Though resident for generations, these people are permanently out of place, an awkward and embarrassing reminder of things past in newly redefined countries that are eager to forget both them and their historical homelands. In the remote interior and in bustling Sao Paulo, the "Confederados" of Brazil linger on, the descendants of Confederate families that fled the American South to rebuild their society here rather than face victoriousYankees. Wrenchingly poor then and now, these would-be genteel planters cling to their romanticized memory of a proud antebellum past. In Sri Lanka, once Ceylon, the children of Dutch Burghers haunt their crumbling mansions, putting on airs and keeping up appearances. In the steaming jungle of Guadeloupe, the inbred and deformed Matignons Blancs scrape out an existence while claiming the blood of French kings in their veins. On the beaches of Jamaica, a young man with incongruously blond dreadlocks -- the destitute descendant of a shoemaker from the Duchy of Saxony who became an indentured servant to earn passage from Germany to the new world -- still gazes out at the Caribbean over a century and half later. The Poles of Haiti are descended from troops lured over by Napoleon to quell slave rebellions. His promise of independence for their homeland went unfulfilled; they persist in hidden valleys in the island's interior. In the desert expanses of Southwest Africa, the famously devout Basters, the green-eyed, mixed-race Afrikaners, still doggedly pursue vast territorial claims as the continent's new power brokers sweep them aside. These are the lost white tribes. More than an entree into a world we are unfamiliar with, this amazing chronicle opens up a world that we did not even know existed. In his masterful report, Riccardo Orizio has written the final chapter in the history of the postcolonial world, and in him these forgotten peoples have found their unique historian.

About this title

Review:

History, with its loose ends, rough edges, strange anomalies and surreal quirks, is rarely neat. The quirky and anomalous leftover colonial communities described in Lost White Tribes are a case in point. As Milanese journalist Riccardo Orizio puts it in the introduction, the European emigrants left stranded by the retreating tides of imperialism are among today's "forgotten people".

One such tribe is the Burghers of Sri Lanka, an enclave of Netherlanders who stayed East after the Dutch Empire was overrun by the British around 1800. As Orizio wanders among the Burghers' crumbling bungalows and pre-war ballrooms, he finds a half-assimilated people fond of operatic melancholy and short-wave radio, prone to singing a national anthem that sums up their linguistic and ethnic confusion: "We subjects of great England's King, From Ceylon's distant strand, To thee our loving tribute bring, Het Lieve Vaterland". Other tribes Orizio encounters are equally obscure. In Brazil he meets Confederate Americans. In Guadaloupe he uncovers incestuous Normans. In Haiti, he holes up with Poles.

But perhaps most remarkable is the last community he encounters: the Basters of Namibia. A miraculous hybrid of Bushman and Afrikaaner, these green-eyed, pale-faced, somehow "Oriental-looking" people, fled the British imperialists of the Cape Colony to settle in the deserts of South West Africa. There they survived, and even thrived: they became known for their devout ways, as well as the beauty of their uniquely petite women. Orizio's eloquent descriptions of the offbeat Basters--their tenacity, integrity, and bravery--stand comparison with some of the best travel writing of recent years, and are a fitting end to a profoundly intriguing book. --Sean Thomas

Review:

"The Sunday Times" (London) A wonderful piece of reportage...sensitively observed, vividly told and irresistibly exotic.

About this edition

• Publisher: The Free Press
• Publication date: 2001
• ISBN 10: 0743211979
• ISBN 13: 9780743211970
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 288