Anti-Slavery, European Imperialism, and Paternalistic ‘Protection’ (1880s to 1950s) - Professor Joel Quirk
The main role of organized anti-slavery during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was to both legitimate and reinforce deeply rooted hierarchies which saw European states and their peoples position themselves at the moral and racial apex of ‘civilization’. Centuries of death and destruction associated with Transatlantic slavery firmly dispatched to the past, despite their continuing and catastrophic effects, thereby enabling Europeans to be reborn as abolitionists rather than enslavers. The foundational premise of organized anti-slavery – no one should be enslaved – would come to be primarily understood in terms of paternalistic ‘protection’, with ‘civilized’ Europeans justifying unprovoked wars of colonial conquest as ‘humanitarian’ missions to prevent ‘savage’ and ‘backward’ peoples in other parts of the globe from enslaving each other. Appeals to moral and religious enlightenment (the ‘civilising mission’) and altruistic sacrifice (the ‘white man’s burden’) proved to be hugely important. By treating their non-European subjects as ‘backward children’, who were said to be unable to make decisions for themselves, Europeans were able to both justify and excuse any number of external actions and interventions. Tragically, these actions included countless examples of death, exploitation, extraction, violence and abuse, which exposed the fundamental hollowness of European pretentions towards moral superiority. Slavery would be banished symbolically via legal abolition while many of its defining features continued alongside everyday forms of violence and exploitation. In case after case, governments who congratulated themselves on abolishing slavery would continue to justify and defend numerous acts of violence and coercion directed against ‘inferiors’ and ‘outsiders’. Readings The material presented here is primarily based upon the following paper: Joel Quirk, ‘Political Cultures’, A Cultural History of Slavery and Human Trafficking in the Age of Global Conflict, Henrice Altink (ed.) (London: Bloomsbury, in press). Minor changes in language are possible prior to publication. Other useful reading materials include: Joel Quirk, Uncomfortable Silences: Anti-Slavery, Colonialism and Imperialism, Historians Against Slavery, 13 February, 2015. Joel Quirk, Reparations are too confronting: Let’s talk about Modern Slavery instead, openDemocracy, 7 May 2015. Aimé Césaire, Discourse on Colonialism, (New York: Monthly Review Press 1972). Originally published in French in 1955. Binyavanga Wainaina, How to Write About Africa. Granta, 92. 2005. Teju Cole, The White-Savior Industrial Complex, The Atlantic, March 21, 2012. Toby Green, How the End of Atlantic Slavery paved a path to colonialism, Aeon,30 March 2021. Emily Burrill, State of Marriage: Gender, Justice and Rights in Colonial Mali (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2015). Martin Klein, Slavery and Colonial Rule in French West Africa, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). Eric Allina, Slavery by Any Other Name: African Life under Company Rule in Colonial Mozambique (Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2012). Robert Burroughs, African Testimony in the Movement for Congo Reform : The Burden of Proof (Abington: Routledge, 2018). Alice Bellagamba, Sandra Greene, Martin Klein (eds.) African voices on slavery and the slave trade, (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013). Resources Slave Voyages (essential starting point for the history of Transatlantic enslavement) UNESCO General History of Africa (free downloads, multiple languages). Basil Davidson, Africa Episode 5 The Bible & The Gun, and Episode 6 The Magnificent African Cake. Liberated Africans (database on enslaved Africans freed in the nineteenth century). Stanford, Africa South of the Sahara (online database of primary sources) Bouillagui: A Free Village (multimedia platform on slavery and abolition in Mali, in both French and English). Imperialism/Colonialism in Africa Resource Links. A