One way in which European attitudes towards African changed in the time period of 1800 to 1960 is their view of Africans in relation to science and in relation to a bit of Romanticism. To Europeans in the early half of this time period, Africa was still a foreign idea and held many mysterious. The European layman's fantasy of what Africa was like was affected by their imagination, popular opinion, and written accounts of travelers thoughts and views who had been to the land. Add “scientific” viewpoints to the mix, and racist attitudes began to unfold. Between Early science, and Romantic ideas of what Africa and Africans were like, racist viewpoints and ideas began to take shape.
One of the issues that caused many problems for Africans was the science behind races, and specifically the work of S. G. Morton, who's worked “proved” that Caucasians had larger brains than Africans, and were thus more intelligent. 1
Orientalism or Islam related to Africa also had an affect on the viewpoint of Europeans, but not such a negative force, and it in fact in some ways deterred the thinking of Africans as lesser human beings. While Islam might be seen as a radical religion, an African Muslim was seen as a smarter human being than just a regular African from the wilds of Africa. While there was still a form of separation and a splitting of race into even more groups, this still may have done some to make others not see Africans as just having lower intelligence overall because there were obvious examples that they could see of those Islamic Africans behaving in quite a civil manner.
However, Islam was also looked at negatively by Christians, and was even used in a scientific way to say that Islam showed that Africans couldn't be made into Christians because of their lower intelligence, thus they chose Islam because that is all they could understand. Darwinism and the evolutionary thought was even brought into the picture by some Christians to show that Africans were genetically inferior, and that missionaries shouldn't even be sent to Africa, and Islam was better of spreading because the Africans wouldn't even be able to grasp Christianity with their lower level of intelligence. A ridiculous thought of course, but the fantasy picture that Europeans had in their heads of Africans was now sunk in deep enough to play this large of a role, even when mixing with the scientific or religious communities. This acceptance and somewhat of a strange combination of Science and religion was known as “progress” under Darwin’s theory. 2
On the opposite side of that statement, was the argument of the missionaries who took that same view but with the point of making Africans Christians to civilize them! They disagreed with letting Islam spread, and even if they felt the Africans may have been of a lower intelligence, that Christianity could take them out of that spot and put them in a regular role of society while also saving their souls. This still had racist tones to it, but obviously not as harsh as the previous viewpoints.
These racial attitudes and the mystique of Africa changed over time, but how did the Africans deal with the attitudes towards their race? While there were a few different responses, one of the more interesting counters to the view of Africans were African intellectuals themselves. These intellects were actually raised in Europe and educated with the purpose that they would one day be leading Colonies of Britain in Africa, and would thus bend to Britain's rule and be sympathetic to the land where they received their education. However, despite being educated, they were still discriminated against, and through their education, they would realize to not trust all the goings on of colonial rule. The ironic part is that “it was in fact these two things that led Africans to form their own organizations and to combine with others in Britain to find ways to tackle common problems.” 3
These groups that were formed took on different roles, but they were nearly all in support of the African character, and while their goals may have been somewhat different, they all were there to support anyone who claimed to be from African descent, whether it be to discuss how to make their lives better, or to support the idea of Pan-Africanism. Out of these groups came the movements to make life for those of African heritage better.
Between Early science, and Romantic ideas of what Africa and Africans were like, racist viewpoints and ideas began to take shape. Out of that line of thought though, intellectual movements were later formed which were made in order to combat the thinking of African inferiority, and to create a better life for the African people. It is fortunate that while early science and fantasy ideals may have hurt a nation so profoundly, that some good did come of it, and over time, opinions were reversed and proved to be wrong.
1 Robin Hallett, “Changing European attitudes to Africa,” The Cambridge History of
Africa Vol. 5 Cambridge Histories Online pg. 475
2Et al. Pg. 479
3 Hakim Adi, "Pan-Africanism and West African Nationalism in Britain," African
Studies Review, Vol. 43, No. 1, Special Issue on the Diaspora, (Apr., 2000), Pg. 72
I remember reading the documents that had to deal with this. It was a very interesting subject on how they thought that if you had a bigger brain then you were smarter. You made some very interesting points. One of the points that I really liked and stood out for me was the fact that because they were Islamic and they were inferior in intelligence then they couldn’t be converted into Christianity. Other than that your paper was very well written and very interesting to read.
ReplyDeleteI thought you tied several sources together in a very nice way. You went out of your way to include differing views to the same subject, but in the course of your paper you showed you these opposing or even conflicting views could ultimately lead to the same conclusion, and to the same consequences. This tactic will help you immensely in you research paper, but I would advise presenting dissenting viewpoints as a SUPPORT for your conclusion right up front, so that someone scanning or haphazardly reading your paper will not get the idea that you are arguing against your main points and therefore falsely and inadvertently weaken your arguments.
ReplyDeleteThe idea of European Romantics needing Africa to be a wild, unspoiled Eden filled with uncivilized savages certainly informed the European public opinion regarding Africans, but I would postulate that European racism had far deeper, and older, roots. I would have been interested to hear your thoughts on how explanations about European superiority shifted from religiously based to scientifically based with the advent (yes, I purposely chose this word) of the Enlightenment.
ReplyDeleteI liked that you took the time to explain both sides of the argument and then from there explain the after effects of the changes that occurred. It is interesting to me that, although, they were now educated, like their peers, they were still treated unequally. This point makes it clear that history repeats itself. Yes, slavery and the U.S. civil rights are different in context, but separate, but equal seem to fit here too.
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