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Kammermohr
Kammermohr (or ''Hofmohr''; pl. ''Kammermohren'') was a German-speaking term since the 18th century for a court servant of black skin colour, which had by that time long been a common feature in European courts. History People of black skin colour from the Orient, Africa and America have often been taken to Europe as valets during the time of Colonialism. This became common in the 16th-century and continued to be fashionable until the early 19th-century. The term ''Kammermohr'' was first used as an official term in a court protocol in 1747 in Saxon. The splendidly decorated Kammermohr, often in livery, served a ruler, church dignitaries or wealthy merchants as an exotic object of prestige and as a status symbol, showcasing their wealth and luxury lifestyle. Above all, however, the valets symbolized the worldwide relations of their employer. Notable examples * Anton Wilhelm Amo, kammermohr of Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. * Adriaan de Bruin, kammermohr * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Ignatius Fortuna
Ignatius Christianus Fridericus Fortuna (died 24 November 1789) was a court servant prominent in the court of Countess Palatine Francisca Christina of Sulzbach, an abbess at Essen Abbey in Essen, Germany.Ute Küppers-Braun: ''Kammermohren: Ignatius Fortuna am Essener Hof und andere farbige Hofdiener''. In: ''Münster am Hellweg'' 54, 2001, S. 17–49. (In German) Fortuna's military elite family migrated to South America as a child and given to the abbess by Essen businessman Franz Adam Schiffer in 1735. On 12 October 1737, he was given the name Ignatius Christianus Fridericus in a baptism. Fortuna was given a private room due to his royal lineage. When Francisca Christina died in 1776, her will left Fortuna perpetual free boarding and medical care at the orphanage she founded in Steele Steele may refer to: Places America * Steele, Alabama, a town * Steele, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Steele, Kentucky, an unincorporated community * Steele, Missouri, a city * ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Anton Wilhelm Amo
Anton Wilhelm Amo or Anthony William Amo (c. 1703 – c. 1759) was an African philosopher originally from what is now Ghana. Amo was a professor at the universities of Halle and Jena in Germany after studying there. He was brought to Germany by the Dutch West India Company in 1707 and was presented as a gift to Dukes Augustus William and Ludwig Rudolf of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He was treated as a member of the family by their father Anthony Ulrich, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. Amo was the first African-born person known to have attended a European university. In 2020, Oxford University Press published a translation (into English) of his Latin works from the early 1730s. Early life and education Amo was a Nzema (an Akan people). He was born in Axim in the Western region of present-day Ghana, but at the age of about four he was moved to Amsterdam by the Dutch West India Company. Some accounts say that he was enslaved, others that he was sent to Amsterdam by a preach ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Court Dwarf
Some of the first dwarfs to have their histories recorded were employed as court dwarfs. They were owned and traded amongst people of the court, and delivered as gifts to fellow kings and queens. Visual effect Court dwarfs were made to stand right next to the king or queen in a royal court during public appearances and ceremonies. Because they were so small, the king appeared much larger and visually enhanced his powerful position. Other than court jesters who were professional entertainers and clowns, court dwarfs were also used as "natural fools" to create amusement due to their unusual bodies. Their appearance also created allusions of mythology and magic like kobolds and wights. Antiquity Ancient Egypt, Greece, and Rome From the earliest historic times dwarfs attracted attention, and there was much competition on the part of kings and the wealthy to obtain dwarfs as attendants. Ancient Egypt saw dwarfs as being people with significant sacred associations, so owning a dwarf ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abraham Petrovich Hannibal
Abram Petrovich Gannibal, also Hannibal or Ganibal, or Abram Hannibal or Abram Petrov ( ru , Абра́м Петро́вич Ганниба́л; c. 1696 – 14 May 1781), was a Russian military engineer, general-in-chief, and nobleman of African origin. Kidnapped and enslaved as a child by Ottomans, Gannibal was traded to Russia and presented as a gift to Peter the Great, where he was freed, adopted and raised in the Emperor's court household as his godson.Phillips, Mike"Pushkin's African background – the Pushkins and the Gannibals."British Library. Retrieved May 26, 2016. Gannibal eventually rose to become a prominent member of the imperial court in the reign of Peter's daughter Elizabeth. He had 11 children, most of whom became members of the Russian nobility; he was a great-grandfather of the author and poet Alexander Pushkin. Early life The main reliable accounts of Gannibal's life come from '' The Moor of Peter the Great,'' Pushkin's unfinished biography of his great ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gustav Badin
Adolf Ludvig Gustav Fredrik Albert Badin né ''Couchi'', known as Badin (1747 or 1750 – 1822) was a Swedish court servant (Kammermohr) and diarist. Originally a slave, he was the foster son and servant of Queen Louisa Ulrika of Sweden and a servant to his foster sister Princess Sophia Albertine of Sweden. His original name was Couchi, but he was commonly known as ''Badin'' ('mischief-maker' or 'trickster'). Early life Badin was born either in Africa or in the Danish island Saint Croix. He himself said that the only thing he remembered about his past was his parents' hut burning, but it is not known whether this happened in Africa or in Saint Croix. It is known that he lived in Saint Croix during his childhood. He was taken to Europe, probably on a Danish East Indies ship, from where he was bought by a Danish captain, who gave him to statesman Anders von Resier sv, who, in turn, gave him as a present to the Queen of Sweden, Louisa Ulrika of Prussia, in 1757. The date of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Adriaan De Bruin
Adriaan de Bruin (ca. 1700–1766), earlier called Tabo Jansz, was an enslaved servant (''kammermohr'') of Dutch politician . Born in Africa and enslaved, he got to the Dutch Republic by way of either the Dutch Caribbean or in Dutch Surinam, and ended up a free man in Hoorn, North Holland. De Bruin and van Bredehoff stood for a portrait (1727) by Nicolaas Verkolje, now in the Westfries Museum in Hoorn. Biography Little is known of de Bruin's life before adulthood. Originally kidnapped from Africa and enslaved, he had been brought to the Dutch Republic from either Dutch Suriname or the Dutch Antilles, and became a "servant" to Adriaan van Bredehoff, a politician who had a house in Oosthuizen and was schout of Hoorn. A harbour town in North Holland, Hoorn was the seat of the Dutch West India Company (WIC), which (in its second incarnation) had begun to focus on the transatlantic slave trade. Van Bredehoff was at one point a director of the WIC. Slavery was illegal in the Dutch Re ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Kizlar Agha
The kizlar agha ( ota, قيزلر اغاسی, tr, kızlar ağası, ), formally the agha of the House of Felicity ( ota, links=no, دار السعاده اغاسي, tr, links=no, Darüssaade Ağası), was the head of the eunuchs who guarded the imperial harem of the Ottoman sultans in Constantinople. Established in 1574, the post ranked among the most important in the Ottoman Empire until the early 19th century, especially after the stewardship of the two holy cities of Mecca and Medina and the supervision of all charitable foundations (''vakifs'') in the Empire came under his purview. The wealth thus amassed, the proximity to the sultan, and the role the harem ladies played in court intrigues (" Sultanate of Women") meant that its occupant had considerable political influence; several kizlar aghas were responsible for the downfall of grand viziers and the accession of sultans. Soon after its creation and until its abolition, close to the end of the Ottoman Empire, the post came ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Chamberlain (office)
A chamberlain (Medieval Latin: ''cambellanus'' or ''cambrerius'', with charge of treasury ''camerarius'') is a senior royal official in charge of managing a royal household. Historically, the chamberlain superintends the arrangement of domestic affairs and was often also charged with receiving and paying out money kept in the royal chamber. The position was usually honoured upon a high-ranking member of the nobility (nobleman) or the clergy, often a royal favourite. Roman emperors appointed this officer under the title of ''cubicularius''. The Chamberlain of the Holy Roman Church enjoys very extensive powers, having the revenues of the papal household under his charge. As a sign of their dignity, they bore a key, which in the seventeenth century was often silvered, and actually fitted the door-locks of chamber rooms. Since the eighteenth century, it has turned into a merely symbolic, albeit splendid, rank-insignia of gilded bronze. In many countries there are ceremonial posts ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Princess Sophia Albertine Of Sweden
Princess Sophia Albertina of Sweden (''Sophia Maria Lovisa Fredrika Albertina''; 8 October 1753 – 17 March 1829) was the last Princess-Abbess of Quedlinburg Abbey, and as such reigned as vassal monarch of the Holy Roman Empire. Sophia Albertina was the daughter of King Adolf Frederick of Sweden and Louisa Ulrika of Prussia. She was thus a princess of Sweden, a princess of Holstein-Gottorp and a sister to Gustav III of Sweden. She was a member of the Accademia di San Luca. When her brother Charles XIII of Sweden and the rest of the royal family also became Norwegian royalty in 1814, that did not include Sophia Albertina who then officially was called ''Royal Princess'' (of no country). She was given her two names as namesake of her two grandmothers: the Prussian Queen Sophia Dorothea of Hanover and Margravine Albertina Frederica of Baden-Durlach. Biography At the Swedish court Sophia Albertina was tutored under the supervision of Baroness Ulrica Schönström, Baroness Kris ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Louisa Ulrika Of Prussia
Louisa Ulrika of Prussia ( sv, Lovisa Ulrika; german: Luise Ulrike) (24 July 1720 – 16 July 1782) was Queen of Sweden from 1751 to 1771 as the wife of King Adolf Frederick. She was queen mother during the reign of King Gustav III. Background Louisa Ulrika was born in Berlin as the daughter of Frederick William I of Prussia and his wife Sophia Dorothea of Hanover, and was thus a younger sister of both Wilhelmine of Bayreuth and Frederick the Great. She was given the Swedish name Ulrika because Queen Ulrika Eleonora of Sweden had been her god mother. She exchanged letters with her godmother, and it was thought that she would marry a future son by Ulrika Eleonora, as Ulrika Eleonora herself had once been considered as a consort for Louisa Ulrika's father. However, Ulrika Eleonora remained childless. Louisa Ulrika was described as beautiful, intelligent, with a fierce temperament and a strong will. She was given an advanced education in accordance with the French age of enlig ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Angelo Soliman
Angelo Soliman, born Mmadi Make, (c. 1721 – 1796) was an Austrian Freemason. He achieved prominence in Viennese society and Freemasonry. Life Soliman probably belonged to the ''Magumi'' subset of the Kanuri ethnic group. His original name, Mmadi Make, is linked to a princely class in the Borno State in modern Nigeria. He was taken captive as a child and arrived in Marseilles as a slave. He was sold into the household of a Messinan marchioness, who oversaw his education. Out of affection for another servant in the household, Angelina, he adopted the name 'Angelo', and he chose to recognize September 11, his baptismal day, as his birthday. After repeated requests, he was given as a gift in 1734 to Prince Georg Christian, Prince von Lobkowitz, the imperial governor of Sicily. He became the Prince's valet and traveling companion, accompanying him on military campaigns throughout Europe and reportedly saving his life on one occasion, a pivotal event responsible for his social a ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
