The Wonderful World of Fake Black Inventions

1,267 words

History has become an increasingly politicized affair. In the case of black history, centuries of erasure and marginalization have led to efforts to embellish the contributions of African Americans and the African diaspora. Unfortunately, the ritual of rehearsing mythical black inventions is now a daily fixture on the internet. Impressionable minds are misled into believing the most incredible stories about black history solely for the purpose of inflating the egos of insecure personalities. The slightest criticisms of these contorted stories inevitably depict the critic as racist. So, to avoid the label most people ignore the topic or retweet blogs disproving exaggerated tales. However, the magnitude of these tales requires commentary in a public forum. Trolling people on Twitter dilutes the seriousness of the matter. As such, this article will briefly cover some of the more popular myths preached by the evangelists of black pride.

Benjamin Banneker: A Case of Exaggerated Achievements 

Benjamin Banneker (1731–1806) is often celebrated as a self-taught mathematician, astronomer, and surveyor who played a pivotal role in the founding of Washington, D.C. While Banneker was undoubtedly a remarkable individual, some of his achievements have been exaggerated over time. For instance, it is frequently claimed that he was the primary designer of the layout of Washington, D.C., or that his almanacs were groundbreaking scientific works. In reality, Banneker’s role in the surveying of Washington, D.C., was limited. He was an assistant to Andrew Ellicott, the chief surveyor, and his contributions, while valuable, were not as central as frequently portrayed.

Similarly, Banneker’s almanacs, which contained astronomical calculations and tide tables, were impressive for their time, particularly given his lack of tertiary education. However, they were not revolutionary in a scientific sense. The exaggeration of Banneker’s achievements, while well-intentioned, risks overshadowing the genuine accomplishments of other black figures and feeds the narrative that blacks reinvent history because their true story is not worth telling.

Lewis Latimer and Garret Morgan: Mischaracterizations of Inventorship

Lewis Latimer (1848–1928) and Garret Morgan (1877–1963) are often celebrated as prolific inventors, but their roles in the development of certain technologies have been mischaracterized. Latimer is credited with inventing the light bulb, a claim that is misleading. While Latimer was a skilled draftsman and engineer who worked for both Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison, his primary contribution to the light bulb was the improvement of the carbon filament, which extended its lifespan. This was a significant advancement, but it did not constitute the invention of the light bulb itself.

Similarly, Garret Morgan is hailed as the inventor of the traffic signal and the gas mask. While Morgan did develop an improved traffic signal and a safety hood that was a precursor to the modern gas mask, he was not the sole or original inventor of these devices. The traffic signal, for example, had already been patented by others before Morgan’s version. Morgan’s contributions were important, but they were incremental rather than revolutionary.

George Crum and the Myth of the Potato Chip Invention

Another example of historical misattribution is the case of George Crum (1824–1914), who is often credited with inventing the potato chip. According to popular accounts, Crum, a chef of Native American and African American descent, created the potato chip in 1853 in response to a customer’s complaint about thick-cut fries. However, historical records suggest that recipes for fried, and thinly sliced potatoes existed decades before Crum’s supposed invention. Interestingly, contemporaneous profiles of George Crum made no reference to him inventing potato chips. Even his obituary omitted his status an as inventor, something which would not have been done if his contemporaries had considered him the inventor of potato chips.

The Truth About Henry Cort’s Iron-Rolling Process

Elevating the status of enslaved workers is a serious project of the modern academy. Although, nothing is wrong with highlighting credible achievements of black slaves, the thrust to parachute them into the spotlight as important innovators is a bit hyperbolic. Henry Cort is remembered for developing a process that efficiently converted scrap iron into wrought. This method facilitated mass production which cemented Britain’s position as a leading iron producer. In a strange twist, Dr. Jenny Bulstrode claimed she uncovered evidence indicating that Cort’s method was inspired by a foundry built by slaves in Jamaica. Finding her conclusion odd, Oliver Jelf conducted a thorough investigation of her sources, but rather than confirming her thesis he found no evidence supporting her claim that Jamaica’s foundry was transported to Portsmouth and reversed engineered by Cort. Equally damning is that there is no evidence that the foundry left the island. Jelf’s investigation also revealed that there was nothing exceptional about the foundry’s operations.

Reassessing the African Contribution to Rice Cultivation in the Americas

David Eltis and his co-authors, in their article Agency and Diaspora in Atlantic History: Reassessing the African Contribution to Rice Cultivation in the Americas, challenge the widely accepted narrative that enslaved Africans were the primary agents behind the development of rice cultivation in the Americas. This narrative, which emphasizes the expertise of African rice growers and their role in transferring agricultural knowledge to the New World, has been influential in situating the agency of enslaved people. However, Eltis et al. argue that the evidence for this claim is limited and that the role of European planters and environmental factors has been underappreciated. Absent European entrepreneurship, financing, and experimentation, rice would never have emerged as an important crop in America. Eltis and his co-authors note that many practices required for efficient farming lack an African precedent.

A critical piece of evidence that undermines the traditional narrative is the demographic data on the origins of enslaved Africans in the low country region of South Carolina and Georgia. During the crucial formative period before 1750, when the foundations of the rice economy were being established, only about 20% of the Africans brought to the region came from Upper Guinea, where rice cultivation was practiced. The remaining 80% came from areas of Africa where rice was not a staple crop. Furthermore, the tobacco-growing Chesapeake region drew a similar proportion of its enslaved population from Upper Guinea, while other parts of North America received an even larger share of slaves from rice-growing regions. This suggests that the connection between African rice-growing expertise and the development of the low country rice economy is not as straightforward as often claimed.

Peter Coclanis, in his essay, White Rice: The Midwestern Origins of the Modern Rice Industry in the United States, also overturns traditional narrative by charting the rise of the U.S. rice industry to the late 19th and early 20th centuries, rather than the colonial period. Coclanis attributes the success of the rice industry to the expertise and financial capital of white educators and scientists who were usually connected to Iowa. These men collaborated with investors in the Northeast and Great Britain, the state of Louisiana, and various railroads, banks, land development companies, and Louisiana capitalists to establish the rice industry in America. He singles out the networks of Sylvester L Cary, Jabez Watkins and Seaman Knapp as being essential to laying the scientific and industrial foundation of the rice industry. All serious thinkers should ask themselves why blacks were not more important figures in the development of the 20th century rice industry, since they were so instrumental as rice innovators during slavery

The reassessment of historical narratives is a necessary but challenging task. While it is important to offer a balanced view of black history, this must be meticulously done to avoid exaggeration or misrepresentation. Entertaining historical delusions to appease the emotions of sentimental blacks and their white allies only succeeds in trapping blacks in ignorance by creating a fragile population.