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Funny cuz today I wanted to share a little “woke” colonial history from the Nyasaland Protectorate about the violent history of hats. Yes, you read that correctly. Hats...
(Credit Moses Mphatso Kaufulu) https://twitter.com/swgannon/status/1350727518454734849
(Credit Moses Mphatso Kaufulu) https://twitter.com/swgannon/status/1350727518454734849
African landowner, Joseph Bismarck, of the Blantyre Mission, gave testimony of liking the British style ha but not liking being beaten by white colonisers for failing to take off his hats when passing them in the road. Yes, the hat was a colonial symbol of a “civilised being”.
So much so that Africans who failed to remove them in the presence of white men were beaten and imprisoned. Such was the fate of @TumaCMalenga’s great-grand uncle who died in prison for striking back a white man who beat him for not removing his 
in his home. https://twitter.com/tumacmalenga/status/1285596178659385344
in his home. https://twitter.com/tumacmalenga/status/1285596178659385344
This is why colonial history is important. Because I’m sure there is some wealthy hat-maker in England who glorious shares stories of introducing hats to the African people. But the objective was to humiliate & subjugate. Many African men died in jail for improper hat etiquette
This history is neither woke, nor a revision. It is an important counter narrative to the benevolent British Empire.
