1. "The White Man's Burden:" Slavery,
Imperialism, and Colonialism
David Orlovid

2. Take up the White Man's burden--
Send forth the best ye breed--
Go bind your sons to exile
To serve your captives' need;
To wait in heavy harness,
On fluttered folk and wild--
Your new-caught, sullen peoples,
Half-devil and half-child.
Rudyard Kipling, 1899.

3. RACISM IN EUROPE 1870-1914
•Racist prejudices present although minimal contacts with Africans. How did
that happen?
•By the 19th century the blacks already represented a paradigm of racial
otherness – phisically, mentally, culturally from the “civilized” European.

4. Stereotypes and Race
•Racial stereotypes convey perceptions of the Other that bear no
relationship to external reality.
•Defensive mechanism for protection of conservative beliefs.
•Term “black” as a vague category for all darker skinned peoples.

5. European Expansion Overseas, Slavery and
Anti-Black Racism
•15th century onwards, charting of African coast, contact with indigenous
people.
•Christian view: the African was the embodiment of all that was most
heathen.
•17th century, systematic slavery starts. “By the eighteenth century the
association between slavery and the Afro-Carribean was so deeply
entrenched that the colour black was taken as an automatic signifier of
slavery”.
•Abolitionist period 1750-1850: humanitarian and liberal movement for slave
emancipation (Quakers, Enlightenment)
•Around 1870 the liberal view was reversed.

6. The Growth of Anti-Black Racism from c.1870
•American Civil War arose deep anxieties about an imminent slave war.
Sensational accounts on alleged black atrocities were reported in the British
press.
•Race connection with the labour class.
•Need for “benevolent guardianship” over alleged ex-slaves’ return to
primitivism.

7. The Partition of Africa and Racism

8. The Partition of Africa and Racism
•Anti-black racist stereotypes enforced by official and informal propaganda,
in schools and press, as well as from the work of missionaries and colonial
exhibitors.
•IN THE COLONIES:
•Forced labour and brutality, violent repression of rebellions
•Belgian Congo most publicized example.
•Policies in colonies would be intolerable in Europe (two-track
deployment of power)
•Idea that blacks were more resistant to pain and hardship – led to
harsher physical punishment.
•Ex-colonials brought deep entrenched racial attitudes to Europe.

9. Belgian Congo

10. Belgian Congo

11. The Black Presence in Europe
•Slaves already present in the Iberian Penisula in the 16th century.
•18th century – more Atlantic ports have slaves.
•After the end of slave trade, shipping lines hired cheap labour, and black
and Asian people visited the European ports.
•Inland from ports – a rare sight.
•Black actors, entarteiners etc.
•Servants at royal courts – symbol of wealth.
•Abram Gannibal – great-grandfather of A. Pushkin

12. The Black Presence in Europe
REACTIONS:
•workers: saw those low-paid workers as a competition
generally a naive curiosity towards them
•elites: absorbed prejudices from the Carribean plantocracy
racism incriesad at the age of colonial expansion
Russia/Austria-Hungary/Germany – little traces.

13. Exhibiting Blacks in Europe

14. Exhibiting Blacks in Europe

15. Exhibiting Blacks in Europe

16. Italian Fascism and Racism

17. Italian Fascism and Racism

18. Italian Fascism and Racism

19. Italian Fascism and Racism
Se prenderemo il Negus, If we catch the Negus,
gliene farem di belle, We will do “good” things to him,
se lui farà il testardo If he behaves stubbornly
noi gli farem la pelle! We will fix his skin!
Dai, dai, dai, l'abissino C’mon, c’mon, you will prevail
vincerai, over the Abyssinian,
se l'abissino è nero If the Abyssinian is black
gli cambierem colore We will change his colour
a colpi di legnate, Under strokes of blow,
o gli verrà il pallor! Oh, he will earn a pallor!

20. Italian Fascism and Racism

21. Conclusion
•After liberal ideas somehow eased racism in the period 1750-1850, the
“New Imperial” conquest of Africa created a new wave of even harsher racist
rhetoric and practice.
•The message was white superiority.
•The main discourse going for imperial expansion was the “civilizing mission”.
•The true reasons for it were probably internal.