QUESTIONS
RESPONSES
askhistorians is a community for academic answers to questions about history. Polls, opinions, bigotry, grammar pedantry, and personal insults will be removed.
Was the media/church/merchants/scientific community that promoted The Scramble for Africa as a noble cause unaware of the true motives of the European colonizers, or were they all complicit?
Not a historian, but I have an ancient history degree, so i'll avoid answering any specifics for the time period you're asking about.
I think your question puts the cart before the horse: justification doesn't allow action, the action generates justifications.
It's not the strengths of the justifications or explanations that allow powerful states to exert their power. Power - violence, knowledge, organisation etc. - allows states to threaten or overcome those who would oppose them. The only states with the sustained capacity to oppose any one state's goals were other european powers, hence dividing it up between them.
Going back in time a bit, David Graeber in Debt talks about how actually very few people really tried to justify slavery. Some, sure. Industrial slaveholders. But more common was "what can we do about it? It's out of our control". How do people justify sweatshops, iphone factory conditions today? For the most part they don't. Some do and it's usually cringe: flimsy, transparently cruel, self-serving.
Mostly we all know it's unjustifiable and accept it as the way of the world.
I appreciate your knowledge. Thank you for a detailed answer to my question.
Was the media/church/merchants/scientific community that promoted The Scramble for Africa as a noble cause unaware of the true motives of the European colonizers, or were they all complicit?
It's more that motives are... multifaceted things when dealing with the behavior of entire societies, or modern states. Many members of religious organizations and the scientific community were sincere (if bigoted) in their promotion of European domination of Africa. But once a power imbalance is established, it is pretty inevitably exploited by those who have the ability to do so.
Business interests were the most nakedly motivated by the asserted interests of greed. Many, I'm sure, believed their spiel about brutal capitalist-imperialist exploitation being good in the long run, but ultimately, they would have been uninterested in 'assisting' such a process in Africa save that it promised to be very profitable to them.
The idea of glory and Empire was widespread in 18th and 19th century European polities, and many ordinary people felt that extension of their country's power over other cultures was in some way ennobling. Furthermore, ideas of progress were just beginning to dominate European thinking at this time, and that came with an ugly reverse side - that a lack of progress (such as that evinced by the Europeans themselves not long before the 18th century AD - conveniently ignored, of course) was in some way proof of deficiency that was either intrinsic, or needed to be 'corrected'.
Thank you, PugJesus, for thoroughly addressing the European history, cultures, and politics of the time, and how it all played into Africa’s staggering exploitation.
Your input is always phenomenal.
What "true motives" beyond the obvious do you mean?
The true motives are indeed obvious: subjugation, slavery, genocide, exploitation. The portrayal of the Scramble for Africa was that of benevolence. My question is two-fold.
How did Europeans allowed this?
Were the churches, merchants, media outlets, and science organizations that promoted it cognizant of the true purpose?
subjugation, slavery, genocide, exploitation
I don't see how any of those can be seen as "obvious motives" in themselves. The only obvious motives I see are the economic and strategical ones. Slavery and exploitation are direct consequences of the economic motives, while subjugation and genocide are a further consequence of forcing slavery and exploitation on a population.
I'm not defending colonialism in any way here. I'm saying that I think it's reductionist and counterproductive to understanding colonialists (i.e. answering your question) to think that a primary motivation behind colonialism was "we want to subjugate and genocide populations for the hell of it".
You’re right. As PugJesus explained, the various motives were complex but not a plan for atrocities.
The horrific results are obvious only in retrospect.
Assumes facts not in evidence.
Could you please explain what facts are assumed?
Assumes we are (or were) in a post-slavery era.
Thank you for explaining.
Specifically, slavery was either illegal or unconstitutional in the nations that declared ownership of Africa in the Berlin Conference. My question is how Europeans allowed Africa to be divided, brutally colonized, and enslaved at a time when slavery was both illegal and shameful.