European
Encounters in the Age of Expansion This article reconstructs the expansion of
Europe overseas and the multiple forms of encounters between European
navigators, explorers, conquerors, colonizers, merchants and missionaries and
"other" peoples and cultures over the course of four centuries. There
has always been a double aspect to such encounters. At an immediate and
practical level, conquest, colonization and trade led to modes of domination or
coexistence and multi-faceted transcultural relationships. In Europe, such
encounters with "otherness" led to attempts to explain and interpret
the origins and nature of racial and cultural (linguistic, religious and
social) diversity. At the same time, observation of alien societies, cultures
and religious practices broadened the debate on human social forms, leading to
a critical reappraisal of European Christian civilization. Table of Contents
Preliminary remarks Now the Great Map of Mankind is unrolled at once; and there
is no state or Gradation of barbarism, and no mode of refinement which we have
not at the same instant under our View. The very different Civility of Europe
and of China; the barbarism of Persia and Abyssinia, the erratic manners of
Tartary, and of Arabia. The Savage state of North America, and of New 1Zealand.
Written to the historian of America William Robertson (1721–1793) just one year
after the American Declaration of Independence of 1776, these words of the
philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797) expressed a European awareness of being in
a privileged position to observe and understand the world's racial and cultural
diversity.
▲1
In the second half of the 15th century, Europe entered an age of discovery
which resulted in new, increasingly dense relationships with territories and
populations all over the world. This also involved geographical, geological and
other discoveries, as knowledge of the shape and layout of the world and the
location of resources entered the Western consciousness. But there was also an
important ethno-anthropological aspect to the discoveries, as the variety of
peoples and forms of social organization affected European reflections on human
society, culture, religion, government and civilization through a continuous
interplay between the testimonies of travellers and the work of scholars at
home.
▲2
The term discovery is controversial as it implies a passivity on the part of
indigenous populations, who were "found" by Europeans. This
asymmetrical view denies an autonomous existence to indigenous populations
before the arrival of Europeans. Since the early 1990s, historians have
increasingly replaced the term "discovery" with
"encounter", which is perceived as more neutral and implying a
reciprocity rather than the subject-object relationship implied by the term
"discovery". The term "encounter" is also free of the
ideological connotations that terms such as "conquest" and
"expansion" imply, and "encounter" is compatible with a
transcultural approach to global history. The adoption of a more neutral term
does not, however, alter the fact that a process of European penetration into
regions of the world previously unknown to Europeans did occur, and through
this process Europeans "discovered" for themselves new species and
ecosystems, and new peoples and societies. During this process, European
perceptions of the encountered "others" were dominated from the
outset by a hierarchical perspective. "Diversity" in the sense of
divergence from European norms usually implied "inferiority".
"Otherness" was associated in the minds of Europeans with lower
levels in the hierarchy of civilization.
▲3
As "encounter" implies a reciprocal, two-way process, the study of
these encounters is not complete without considering the non-European
perspective. However, this article will deal primarily with the European side
of the encounter.
▲4
Encounters: With whom, where and when? For many centuries, Europe's
"others" had been the "barbarian" peoples encountered by
the Greeks and the Romans, then the Islamic Arabs and later the Mongols. For
five centuries, the Ottoman Turks remained the primary "other" for
Christendom. In all these cases, the "others" were enemies who
constituted a direct threat to Christian Europe. During the early modern
period, however, Europeans encounters were the consequence of a process of
expansion on the part of dynamic Western societies during their transformation
into modern capitalist economies and nation-states.
▲5
The first wave of expansion during the 15th and 16th centuries focused on three
main areas. Firstly, there was the Atlantic basin from the Atlantic islands and
coastal western Africa to the central areas of the American continent.
Secondly, there were the northern seas, stretching eastward from the Baltic to
the White Sea and the Siberian coasts and westward to the northern American
coasts of Canada, Labrador, the Hudson Bay and the Baffin Island. Thirdly,
there was the Oriental seas and northern Asia. The second wave of expansion
occurred during the 18th century, mainly in the Pacific region, including Australia,
Tasmania, New Guinea, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands, and also in the
northern seas between Alaska and Siberia. The third wave witnessed expansion
into central Africa by Europeans during the 19th century (the so-called
"scramble" or "race" for Africa).
▲6
Each successive wave brought encounters with new "others" for white
Europeans, and – reciprocally – brought several peoples in different parts of
the world into the sphere of influence of a self-confident, fair skinned
"other" equipped with big vessels, firearms and an insatiable hunger
for riches and souls. Together these waves of expansion constitute an age of
global plunder which primarily benefitted the Western world, but they also
prepared the way for an ever more "transcultural" world.
▲7
Besides redistributing the world's resources in Europe's favour and increasing
Europe's global power, these processes had two interrelated, long-term
consequences. Firstly, they provided a new stimulus to European thinking on
nature, man, society, religion, law, history and civilization, and brought into
being new areas of intellectual enquiry, such as anthropology, comparative
history, linguistics, biology and sociology. Secondly, they produced an
impressive array of printed travel accounts and historical writings, through
which the deeds of European adventurers, conquistadores and navigators entered
into national historical narratives. Travel and voyage accounts such as the
Jesuits' multi-volume Relations sur les découvertes et les autres événements
arrivés en Canada, et au nord et à l'ouest des États-Unis (1611–1672) and
Lettres édifiantes et curieuses (1702 and ff.) provided fundamental information
for historians and philosophers, as well as providing inspiration for literary
works. Such publications brought the 2experience of new worlds into the purview
of cultivated Europeans.
▲8
Christopher Columbus's (1451–1506) "discovery" of a "new"
world marked a qualitative, as well as a quantitative, change. European
encounters with different races of people had taken place since antiquity, as
recorded by Herodotus (c. 484–425 BC) , whose writings had been rediscovered
and translated into Latin just a couple of decades before Columbus's first
voyage. Notable sporadic voyages, and diplomatic and religious missions had
been undertaken in the 13th century to eastern Asia, to the Mongolian Empire
and to the court of the Great Khan, mainly by Italians. Naval explorations
beyond Gibraltar by Portuguese and Italian navigators had seen voyages westward
and along the southern Atlantic routes and the western coasts of Africa during
the 14th and 15th centuries. But voyages that took place from the 1490s onward
had an impact which went far beyond their economic or political significance.
The arrival of the Spanish in the "New World" would also transform
life in Europe and the Americas on the material, cultural and intellectual
levels, drawing both Europe and the Americas into an increasingly transatlantic
and transcultural relationship, producing what has been described as the 3"Columbian
exchange".
▲9
Perhaps less dramatic but nonetheless of enormous economic significance, were
the Portuguese voyages to India, which revitalized Western interaction with
southern and eastern Asia. In the West and in the East, the Europeans established
contact with different kinds of human societies and cultures. The societies and
cultures which Europeans encountered in the Caribbean and in continental North
and South America were generally viewed as "savagery". However,
Europeans also encountered civilizations which they viewed as more
"advanced" in the form of the Aztec, Maya and Inca empires, posing
fundamental historical and ethnological questions. In the East, on the other
hand, Europeans encountered civilizations that they recognized as ancient,
complex and highly structured civilizations, which – unlike indigenous
populations in the Americas – did not present them with pliable trade partners
or easily subjugated native populations. The perceived "savagery" and
"half-civilized" empires which the Europeans encountered in the
Americas invited them to conquer these societies and implant new political,
economic and legal systems there, as well as new languages and religions.
▲10
During subsequent exploration and expansion, Europeans encountered other
indigenous populations during the 16th and 17th centuries in the Americas,
South Africa, Indonesia, Oceania, as well as northern and central Asia.
Europeans categorized these as "savage societies" of hunters and
fishers, or "barbarian societies" of nomadic herdsmen. From the
second half of the 17th century, however, the efforts of Jesuit missionaries
and of French, English, and German orientalists led to the discovery of an
entirely different, culturally developed kind of "otherness": Arabic
literary traditions; the Brahminic or Vedic religious culture of India;
Confucian philosophy in China; the Baalbek and Palmyra civilizations in the
Near East; and the Indo-Iranian Avestic and Indian Sanskrit linguistic and
literary traditions which inspired the so-called 4"Oriental
Renaissance" and "Oriental Enlightenment".
▲11
In the final years of the 18th century, new regions of the African continent
began to be explored by Europeans. British rule was consolidated in India in
the early 19th century. The early and mid-19th century also witnessed the
beginning of the colonization of Australia and New Zealand; the French
expeditions to Tonkin, Vietnam and Cambodia in the 1850s; British involvement
in Afghanistan and British efforts to gain entry into the markets of China; as
well as German, Belgian and Italian imperialist activities in western and
eastern Africa. The conquest and settlement of the American West continued
throughout the 19th century until the frontier was officially declared closed
in 1890.
▲12
At the end of the 19th century, there was hardly a region of the world –
regions of China, Japan, the Arctic and Antarctic continents were the
exceptions – into which Europeans had not extended their economic and military
power, and their culture. The encounters which European expansion set in motion
processes which resulted in a world increasingly defined by transcultural and
transnational phenomena. These processes dramatically altered the demographic
and ecological history of the globe, for example, through the mass displacement
of Africans by the slave trade, through colonization and the transplanting of
social, religious and juridical ideas and practices, through the increasing
enmeshment of overseas regions in European political history and diplomacy,
through mass migrations of intermittent intensity from Europe to the Americas
and subsequently from the rest of the world to Europe, and through a massive
diversification of the range of goods available on the European market and the
gradual emergence of the world economy. The consequences of these events have
been the subject of numerous historical studies, which are summarized below.
▲13
Who are they, where do they come from, how do they live? Europe's discovery of
the Americas "not only opened a new source of wealth to the busy and
commercial part of Europe, but an extensive field of speculation to the
philosopher, who would trace the character of man under various degrees of
refinement, and observe the movements of the human heart, or the operations of
the human understanding, when untutored by science or 5untainted with
corruption".
▲14
Europeans viewed the newly "discovery" Native Americans as
"savage" societies. The term "savage" came to denote people
and societies that were not only different in language or religion. In
antiquity and during the medieval period, the term "barbarians" was
used to denote people who were different in terms of language, culture or
religion. But in the early modern period, as a result of the encounters
mentioned above, the term "savages" came to mean people who
supposedly did not meet the basic prerequisites of civilized society, who lived
by the laws of nature, or without any laws, learning, religion or morals.
▲15
Two prevalent attitudes towards the Native American quickly emerged. According
to one attitude, they were living testimony to a lost golden age before the
fall from innocence. According to this attitude, the natives were fully human
and thus had the capacity to acquire all the perceived benefits of European
civilization, including Christian doctrine and, accordingly, salvation. As
potential members of the Catholic Church and subjects of the crown of Castile,
they should not be enslaved, it was argued, and they should be granted the same
rights as any other Spanish subjects. According to this view, it was the duty
of the Spanish crown to establish a political order that would protect its
American subjects from the colonists' rapacity.
▲16
However, the other prevalent attitude defined the Amerindians as only
semi-human beings or even "beasts", lacking all the fundamental
prerequisites of civilized people. They were not "good", it was
argued, but "bad savages": cruel, immoral, stupid, incapable of hard
work, devoid of moral and political norms, and with a propensity for inhumane
practices, such as sodomy, cannibalism and human sacrifices. They were clearly
not fully human beings and had to be subjected to a superior political
authority, which would bring them the blessings of European and Christian
order. While the attitudes described above were undoubtedly coloured by debates
about legitimate authority in the newly acquired territories, the Amerindian
peoples also posed serious questions of a philosophical and doctrinal nature.
Their very existence on a landmass separated from the Eurasian-African landmass
by a vast ocean raised questions about the re-population of the world after the
biblical flood by the inhabitants of the Ark, as described in Genesis. The fact
that they had apparently not been introduced to Christianity, or the other two
monotheistic religions of the Old World, called into question other aspects of
the Bible narrative and of Christian doctrine.
▲17
Moreover, some of the newly discovered people, while physically human, had
apparently no equivalent forms of economic organization, political authority or
religion. They were nomads, gatherers, hunters, fishers, or were at best
herdsmen or simple cultivators of the soil. They lived in small, often
temporary villages and had few domesticated animals. They did not possess iron
tools. They had no formal religions equivalent to the monotheistic religions of
the Old World. To Europeans, their social life seemed to lack rules and
conventions for regulating sexual intercourse and family relationships. Those
who lived in the more sophisticated urban societies and state structures of the
great Mesoamerican empires were viewed as being not much more advanced
technologically and culturally than the "savages" and were frequently
referred to as "barbarians" to distinguish them from the
"savages". These European impressions and observations were recorded
in a vast historical, juridical, religious and philosophical literature. Its
rapid growth accompanied the process of European expansion in the New World,
providing the educated European public with an opportunity to familiarize
itself with phenomena from the other side of the Atlantic. At least three major
problems emerged during these discoveries. They related to the origins and
nature, the history, and the future of the Native American peoples.
▲18
Debates about the origins and nature of the Amerindians gave rise to a variety
of competing explanations over the subsequent centuries. According to a
biblical, monogenetic view of mankind, they were the descendants of Adam,
according to which view they had survived the biblical flood by migrating to
land that was not submerged. Another polygenetic view held that they were the
product of an act, or acts, of creation separate to the one described in
Genesis, with God creating different human beings according to the differing
geomorphology of the various regions of the world. Diffusionism and
evolutionism were two further theories deviating from traditional Christian
doctrine which were proposed to account for the existence and origins of the
Native Americans.
▲19
Connected with the above considerations was the problem of social forms and of
history. European culture gradually developed a tendency to analyse different
cultures and social organizations, which later developed into the disciplines
of ethnography, anthropology and historical sociology. The first important
contributions in this field came not from secular, but from religious authors –
the missionaries. Missionaries devoted themselves to the task of understanding
new cultures. In their endeavours, they linked the debate about civilization to
the issue of evangelization. It is therefore no surprise that some of the most
acute analyses of Amerindian societies often came from men of the church, such
as the Jesuit José de Acosta 6(1539–1600) . Acosta moved in the direction of
mature socio-anthropological thought, dispensing with the simplistic
stereotypes of the "good" or "noble savage", and the
"bad" or "ignoble savage". Exploring concepts of
"barbarism" and "savagery" more deeply, he reached a new
understanding of how natural, educational and environmental factors affect the
political life and historical development of human communities. His discussion
of the difficulties of evangelizing among people with a radically different
culture and language are noticeably more modern than previous writings on the
issue of evangelization. What is particularly relevant about Acosta's analysis
is the link between ethnology and history which he established in his analysis
of barbarism.
▲20
Acosta's comparative ethnology identified several varieties of barbarians and
homines
sylvestres feris similes ("men of the woods akin to wild beasts")
distinguishable by varying forms – or just the absence of – recognizable verbal
communication, political organization and religious observance. But his
ethnological descriptions also offered a clue to history. He held that all
races of men, before being fully civilized, had undergone an historical
development through three successive levels of barbarism. In other words, the
present state of the American peoples represented the primitive state of
mankind. Were the Indians capable of rising to higher levels of organization?
Acosta's Christian providentialism held no place for any hopeless confinement
in savagery. But the Indians could improve only under the guidance of the
politically and religiously superior Europeans.
▲21
Acosta also showed how orthodox Christian diffusionism could be reconciled with
history by applying the theory that migration and the persistence of nomadic
conditions were unfavourable to civilization. Defining the Native Americans as
the offspring of Japhet, Acosta suggested that they had probably migrated to
the Americas via an as yet unknown passage in northeast Asia. The Native Americans
had thus migrated further than all other peoples in the aftermath of the
biblical flood, losing more of the culture they had previously possessed in the
process, and having no opportunity to regain that culture in the absence of
cities and sedentary agriculture, which Acosta, in common with other Europeans,
considered to be essential prerequisites of civilized society. In this way,
Acosta's explanation of the Amerindians was entirely consistent with the theory
of the "fall of natural man", which defined the intellectual
encounter of early 7modern Europe with Amerindians. Acosta's work is thus an
example of how the intellectual debate prompted by observation of Amerindian
societies led to the emergence of ethnography and a better understanding of the
history of human society.
▲22
The development of historical sociology was one of the most enduring
intellectual consequences of Europe's encounter with "savage"
societies. Acosta's work had a lasting influence, particularly 8on the Jesuit
Joseph-François Lafitau (1681–1746) , whose writings on American savagery
helped to progress ethnological theory, particularly by highlighting the
importance of the symbolic dimension of all cultural systems and by drawing
parallels between contemporary "savage" societies and the history of
European peoples. Particularly interesting was the idea that in America the
Europeans had moved not only in space, but also in time, encountering their own
past. John Locke's (1632–1704) well-known statement that "In the beginning
all the world was America" became one of the most enduring expressions of
the intellectual conceptualization of the encounter. Bernard le Bovier de
Fontenelle (1657–1757) elaborated on this idea by comparing myths, fables and
oracles that he identified as the constituents of a primitive mentality 9common
to all people in the early stages of development. David Hume (1711–1776) and
Charles de Brosses (1709–1777) reflected on how forms of religious worship had
evolved from fetishism and idolatry, to monotheism and rational deism. These
musings supported the idea that the Amerindians' were inferior, an idea that
became particularly prevalent in the 18th century with the French naturalist
Georges-Louis Leclerc, Comte de Buffon (1707–1788) , the Dutch philosopher Cornelius
de Pauw (1739–1799) , William Robertson and the French writer Guillaume Thomas
Raynal (1711–1796) .
▲23
Alongside the development of more sophisticated, relativistic theories of
"savagery" which stressed the role of environment, education and
opportunities, the stereotypes of the "good" or "noble
savage", and the "bad" or "ignoble savage" (which were
not necessarily considered mutually exclusive) persisted in Western thought.
▲24
The idea of the "noble savage" contributed to the development of primitivistic
attitudes which exalted the simple, natural life, unspoiled by civilized
society. According to this view, the "savage" societies were
societies of uncorrupted virtue, love of liberty and pure, authentic 10customs.
James Adair's (c. 1709–1783) History of the American Indians (1775) provided a
sympathetic depiction of the Indian tribes of the Upcountry South, which the
author perceived of as members, "freemen and equals", of a new
American society. The positive stereotype of the virtuous and natural
"other" also implied criticism of European civilization as corrupt
and immoral. Two of the most notable examples of this use of the "noble
savage" stereotype were 11Baron de Lahontan Louis Armand's (1666–1716)
description of the North American Indians he visited in the late 17th century,
and, on a more refined philosophical level, Jean-Jacques 12Rousseau's
(1712–1778) Discours sur l'inégalité. Thematizing the ills of European society
through the device of wise, honest and perceptive Mohawks, Hurons, Hottentots,
Tahitians and even Incas, Mexicans, Persians and Chinese was common in literary
writings, as well as in painting and stage productions.
▲25
The negative stereotype of the "ignoble savage" was a predictable
result of persistent conflicts between aggressively expanding white settlements
in North and South America, and in Australia, New Zealand and Africa, and the
hunting or pastoral societies of nomadic aborigines, who were considered an
obstacle to progress and civilization. Competition for the control of land and
natural resources fuelled the antipathy which helped to perpetuate the
stereotype of the "ignoble savage". But the stereotype was also
supported by writings which purported to be more 13scientific. In his
influential Histoire naturelle, générale et particulière, the French naturalist
Buffon sought to draw a connection between the physical and social condition of
the American "savage" and the supposed "newness" of the
American continent and of its natural history, the supposed
"feebleness" of its flora and fauna, and the "infancy" of
its human beings and its backward social development as a result of the
continents being populated so late. The stereotype of the "bad" or
"ignoble savage" continued to influence perceptions of the Americas
in 18th and 1419th century Europe.
▲26
The "ignoble savage" also played a prominent role in 18th-century
European historical and sociological thought which sought to construct a theory
of civilization and historical progress, as well as a hierarchy of human societies
on the basis of "progress". The Scottish four-stage theory was the
most notable example of this. This hierarchical thinking completely rejected
the notion that the desirable ends of life could be attained by means other
than the property ownership, exchange, money, trade, and consumption of goods
which "civilized society", the protection of "civil
jurisprudence", and the ideological basis of Christianity provided. It was
argued that societies which had passed through all the historical stages of
development, culminating in a capitalist, urban civilization, clearly possessed
a material and intellectual superiority to those that had not. Undeveloped
societies could not progress by themselves, but only under the benevolent
guidance of more advanced societies.
▲27
Progress was defined as a linear historical path with "civilization"
as the end goal. The happiness of humans – a secular version of salvation – or
the fulfilment of the providential or historical destiny of a people, were seen
as being dependent on the accomplishment of "civilized" ways of life.
Regular encounters between what were considered to be less-developed and
more-developed societies appeared to support this concept of a hierarchy of
civilizational development. While European Enlightenment thought also contained
scepticism towards the idea of European society as the pinnacle of human
development, it ultimately paved the way for positivistic and evolutionist
theories in the 19th century. Encounters with non-Europeans, which had had a strong
Eurocentric aspect from the beginning, seemed to confirm the ideas of the
Europeans regarding their place in the hierarchy of civilizational development.
During the 18th and the 19th centuries, Eurocentric thinking further developed
pre-existing ideas of European racial, cultural, scientific and technological
superiority. The idea of the "White Man's Burden" not only justified
the conquest of non-European peoples, but interpreted it as the duty of
Europeans to spread their superior culture.
▲28
From the late 17th century onward, Europe had encountered new populations in
two other geographical areas: sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific. After the
initial Portuguese involvement on the Atlantic coast, European involvement in
sub-Saharan Africa was later maintained by the French and, in particular, by
the British, who dominated African trade during the 18th century. The interior
of Africa remained unknown for a long time and European encounters were
confined to the coastal regions. Negative views and generalizations dominated
European perceptions. Africa was depicted as a land of despotism and of abject,
immutable, and pervasive "savagery" – a subject better befitting
natural sciences than history. Two predominant factors influenced this
perception. Blackness and the slave trade combined created a negative image of
the African peoples in European minds. For Europeans, dark skin was a vivid and
immutable symbol of difference and, together with many other physical details,
reinforced European notions about the difference, the inferiority, of Africans.
From the late 17th century, the origin of dark-coloured skin became the object
of intense anatomical, physiological and medical debate, which went beyond
previous explanations, such as the "curse on Cain" and climatic
factors.
▲29
The supposed connection between external racial physical traits, and moral and
intellectual qualities (as discussed in Buffon and, in more overtly racial
terms, in Hume and Edward Long (1734–1813) ) was not defined as a direct
cause-and-effect relationship until the late 18th century, when the monogenetic
unity of mankind and the equality of the human races were fundamentally
questioned. While several important travel accounts from the late 17th century
offered a more nuanced view of western Africa with its political entities, and
ethnic and historical complexities, Europeans continued to consider black
Africans in terms of old stereotypes: uncivilized, barbarian, indolent,
unreliable, mentally and materially enslaved and lacking any of the virtues –
especially religious virtues – required for progress. Slavery apologists went
so far as to maintain that Africans were destined to be victims of Arab
slave-traders or despotic local rulers, and would thus be better off under
European masters. Some voyagers and authors, however, offered more complex –
even positive – portrayals of west African societies, such as the French
naturalist Michel Adanson (1727–1806) , and the Scottish philosophers John
Millar (1735–1801) and Lord Henry Kames (1696–1782) .
▲30
Towards the end of the 18th century, a more balanced and informed depiction of
Africa began to emerge thanks to abolition campaigners such as Anthony Benezet
(1713–1784) , as well as explorers such as Mungo Park (1771–1806) . Park's
exploration of the Niger region in the 1790s produced revelations in geography
and, especially, in ethnology. His portrayal of the population of the region as
having well-established political structures contradicted the traditional view
of this population as uncivilized. In general, abolitionist writing drew on
primitivist examples when describing African peoples, frequently depicting them
as innocent victims whom rapacious Europeans had torn from their simple and
natural way of life. In other areas which gradually 15became the object of
European observation, such as South Africa, aboriginal populations were
regarded until well into the 19th century as the most degraded representatives
of the human kind, an example of extreme barbarity, and even sub-human.
▲31
Having been denied a place in the historiography of the Enlightenment and
having been ignored by the Hegelian idealist philosophy of history, in the 19th
century Africa continued to appear as a land of great contradictions to
Europeans. Its interior contained legendary primitive populations such as the
Congo Pygmies first encountered by German botanist and ethnologist Georg
Schweinfurth (1836–1925) in the early 1870s, while the southern and eastern
regions of the Horn revealed highly organized, militarily formidable
populations capable of challenging European expansion and even inflicting
defeats on weaker European powers, as witnessed by the Italian experience in
Ethiopia. This was not, however, enough to fundamentally change prevailing
negative stereotypes of Africa as socially and economically backward, and
generally inferior. The subsequent development of physical anthropology, with
its obsession with the measurement, definition and classification of human
races, strengthened the association between exterior appearance, moral
qualities and potential for civilization in the minds of Westerners.
▲32
During the period between the end of the Seven Years War (1763) and the
outbreak of the French Revolution, Europeans greatly expanded their knowledge
of the Pacific Ocean thanks to navigators and scientists such as George Anson
(1697–1762) , John Byron (1723–1786) , Samuel Wallis (1728–1795) and Philip
Carteret (1733–1796) , Louis-Antoine de Bougainville (1729–1811) , Johann
Reinhold Forster (1729–1798) and his son Georg (1754–1794) . The three epic
voyages of James Cook (1728–1779) between 1768 and 1779, typical scientific
expeditions organized by the Royal Society, enormously increased the European
knowledge of the Pacific routes and wind patterns, island systems, flora and
fauna, and populations. They also paved the way to the British colonization of
Australia, which was to become the second largest British settlement colony,
and to the discovery of the Terra Australis Incognita.
▲33
Such encounters brought Europeans into contact with peoples which they believed
had experienced little or no external contact before. While historical genetics
has since established the migration paths and mixing of populations of the
Australian landmass and in the Pacific region, Europeans in the 18th century
believed the Pacific Islanders and the Australian Aborigines had lived in
complete isolation. The belief that these populations had been isolated from
European culture and influences was supported in the minds of the Europeans by
their perception of the Pacific Islanders as extremely primitive and barely
human other than in their physical appearance. As discussed above, the adoption
of European culture was a prerequisite for the attainment of civilization
according to prevalent European attitudes.
▲34
In spite of similarities, attitudes were not identical in the various European
countries. French explorers tended towards a sentimental, idealizing
interpretation. The British were also enchanted by Tahitian life, but were less
inclined to view it as a natural, unspoiled, joyful society. They noted
examples of inequality, oppression and strife. While describing Tahiti and
Tonga in terms of a paradise, perceptive scholarly voyagers such as Johann
Reinhold and Georg Forster could not help dwelling on more substantial
problems, such as "the Causes of the 16Difference in the Races of Men in
the South Seas, their Origin and Migration" and pondering the possible
consequences of European intrusion. Subsequent encounters with the less hospitable
Maori populations in New Zealand and the Australian Aborigines appeared to
confirm the Europeans' initial ambivalence towards the native populations they
were encountering for the first time. The killing of James Cook in 1779 during
his third voyage served to reinforce misgivings further.
▲35
Encounters with peoples of the Pacific Ocean and particularly with the Tahitian
natives had an 17important impact on the European imagination, as did direct
contact with Tahitians such as Aoutourou and Omai (c. 1753–1780) , who were
brought to Europe by Bougainville and Cook respectively. In France, the
reaction was influenced by primitivism and the revival of the "noble
savage" stereotype, as witnessed by Denis Diderot's (1713–1784) Supplement
au voyage de 18Bougainville. In Britain, a more scientific and practical
attitude prevailed, as exemplified by 19Johann Reinhold and Georg Forster's
travel account. Scottish philosophers of history incorporated the peoples of
the Pacific into their ongoing discussions of the stages in the evolution of
societies and of the relationships between environment and progress. The newly
encountered peoples of the Pacific were viewed as living proof of the
superiority of Western civilization, though what was perceived as their benign
innocence also elicited many sympathetic relativistic comparisons. The South
Seas explorations of the late 18th century thus contributed to European
philosophical debates as well as preparing the way for trade, missionary
activity and colonization in the region. The voyages also added new examples
and new varieties to the catalogue of "savage" peoples.
▲36
Other civilizations, other histories Europe's relationship with the rest of the
Eurasian continent was defined by a different dynamic. The discoveries were no
less important from a European perspective, but encounters there – which were
the starting point of longstanding relationships – were primarily with
populous, highly advanced, powerful countries. Furthermore, these encounters
were influenced to a greater extent by European knowledge and attitudes which
had developed over centuries.
▲37
European knowledge of southern and eastern Asia had been garnered from
encounters beginning with Alexander the Great (356–323 BC) , and continuing
with the Roman Empire and the travels of medieval merchants and missionaries.
Attitudes to the orient were also shaped by a travel literature which owed a
good deal to legend and myth. In 15th-century Europe, the existence of ancient
and powerful civilizations in Asia was broadly accepted, though dependable
knowledge about them was scarce. Naval exploration from the late 15th century
brought Europe into increasingly close contact with the Far East, as first the
Dutch – then the French, the English and other nations – became involved in a
region which to European eyes was vast and complex.
▲38
Trade and religion were the primary concerns of the Europeans from the start
and coloured their initial impressions. From the voyage of Vasco da Gama (c.
1469–1524) onward, Europeans learned about the vast geographical spread of the
Islamic religion, which Christian Europe was committed to containing, and the
powerful civilizations which the Islamic world contained. Secondly, they
discovered how closely interconnected the Asian economy was, stretching from
China and Indonesia to eastern Africa, the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea up to
northern Egypt and the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Thirdly, they discovered
how impenetrable China was, and Japan also –after a promising start. It proved
very difficult to gain access to China's domestic market and China's centre of
political power remained remote and inaccessible. It was also very difficult to
break into the highly structured maritime trade linking India to southern
China, the Philippines, Japan and Korea. While the Portuguese had more success
than others in establishing themselves as a maritime power in Asia, the
experiences of the first three centuries of renewed contact with Asia taught
Europeans that Asian civilizations were perfectly capable of rivalling the
Western newcomers. In Safawid Persia, Mughal India, and especially in Qing
China, the degree of political and administrative organization, the economic
resources, population sizes, architecture and urban centres, as well as the
technological and manufacturing skills, and cultural and artistic refinement
were on a par with – or surpassed – anything in Europe.
▲39
The European encounter with the Orient during the early modern era was mainly
the work of individuals or small groups. Europeans – lay and clerical –
residing in Asia numbered in the hundreds, rather than thousands. Until the
late 18th century, Dutch Batavia and Spanish Manila were the only large
colonial towns with a consistent European population. Sojourns in Asia were
normally comparatively short due to health difficulties caused by the climate
and tropical diseases. Before the 19th century, direct, intensive contact at
the local level was rare. This also applied to European governors, diplomats
and officials, who regulated European trade and financial activity in the
region. Representatives of European trading companies cooperated in their daily
activities with local banyans (Hindu trader), merchants, bankers, interpreters
and domestic servants. Co-habitation and intermarriage was less common, except
in Dutch Batavia, where it was encouraged from quite early on. Examples of Anglo-Indian
intermarriage and social relations only began to emerge from the late 18th
century onwards. Official representatives of the East India Company and members
of their staffs in towns across India began to socialize with, and even marry,
Hindu or Muslim bibi (name for a lady in Urdu and Persian) or courtesans and
mistresses, adopting Indian customs as a result. The phenomenon of the
"white Mughals" represented a "succession of unexpected and
unplanned minglings of peoples and cultures and 20ideas". In the early
decades of the 19th century, a new racist attitude erected a barrier between
the British and their Indian subjects. Until the late 18th century, then, the
European encounter with the Orient was not – with the partial exception of
Dutch Indonesian possessions – characterized by large-scale white settlement,
territorial acquisitions and political control; and subsequent European
involvement in the region involved these phenomena to a considerably lesser
degree than elsewhere in the world.
▲40
Trade in Asian goods and fabrics had a profound effect on the economic,
political, diplomatic and social spheres in Europe. European consumption
patterns and social habits were increasingly shaped by new products coming over
from Asia, which came into vogue: spices, tea, tulips, fine printed muslins and
calicoes, silk garments and accessories such as pyjamas, shawls or fans,
wallpaper, furniture in exotic and lacquered woods, fine blue porcelains,
Oriental gardening, later opium. These expensive luxury goods especially
adorned aristocrats but also the bourgeois upstart and became status symbols.
The European balance of trade was deeply affected by this growth in import from
Asia. European trading companies therefore strove to develop new finance
systems for their so-called "investment" in exports from their
factories in Asia. In order to establish favourable trading conditions European
governments tended to engage in more permanent relationships with Asian states
and to actively interfere with their internal affairs. The effect on Asian
economies and societies was no less profound. From the 16th century and to a
greater degree from the late 18th century onward, an increasing volume of
images, narrated accounts, and literature of various kinds disseminated information
about, and impressions of, the Far East throughout Europe. These had a
considerable effect on European culture and, in 21particular, on European and
Western concepts of the Orient.
▲41
While European culture possessed concepts and representations of Asia from the
time of Herodotus and Aristotle (384–322 BC) , this "knowledge" was
limited in scope and referred to a little portion of Asia. The travels of the
brothers Niccolò (fl. 1252–1294) and Maffeo Polo (fl. 1252–1309), father and
uncle of Marco (c. 1254–1324) , and the catholic missionaries sent to the Great
Khan's court expanded this knowledge a little. But the lack of regular contact
and the scarcity of accurate information meant that European concepts of Asia
owed more to legend than fact and, on the eve of da Gama's voyage to India,
Asia was still a largely unknown part of the world to Europeans. Up to that
point, the continuing influence of ancient Greek sources meant that the
predominant concept of Asia was of ancient, refined and wealthy civilizations,
dominated by centralized imperial monarchies with despotic forms of government.
javascript:void(0);
▲42
Subsequent encounters with the Islamic world in the form of the menacing
Ottoman Empire reinforced this view of Asian "otherness" and
"strangeness" and added religious overtones to it. Asia was perceived
as a more or less undifferentiated land mass where, for mainly climatic and
environmental reasons, political despotism, slavery and heretical and
idolatrous religions dominated immutable societies. The perceived high degree
of refinement of Asian societies meant that Europeans viewed Asian societies as
being on a par civilizationally. However, the impression of profound
"otherness" persisted and was reinforced by religious and cultural
differences, as well as linguistic barriers to communication. Difficulties in
promoting European economic interests and the spread of Christianity in various
parts of Asia accentuated negative perceptions of those areas. The
representation of the Moghul and the Chinese empires as despotic persisted in
European thought and was strengthened by influential travel accounts like those
by Thomas Roe (c. 1581–1644) , François Bernier (1620–1688) and Jean Chardin
(1643–1713) and by the writings of political theorists such as Montesquieu
(1689–1755) . These authors depicted the various political entities between the
Sublime Porte at Constantinople and the Qing court in Peking as being of a kind
and characterized by despotic and arbitrary rule.
▲43
However, countervailing interpretations did exist. A trend in 18th century
thought offered an alternative interpretation of the Orient. Prominent
Enlightenment intellectuals such as Voltaire (1694–1778) attempted to challenge
prevailing negative views of Asia. Scholars of Asian history and law, such as
Abraham-Hyacinthe Anquetil-Duperron (1731–1805) , disproved the perception of
the lack of written laws, private property, dependable justice and regular
administration of public affairs in the Orient. However, these common
prejudices continued to affect how most Westerners evaluated the position of
the Asian countries on their scale of civilizational development. Thus, two
contrasting attitudes emerged. One was distinctly Eurocentric and identified
the causes of Oriental "otherness" in negative terms. The other
identified the Orient as a positive alternative model, not just different to,
but in many ways better than, contemporary Europe.
▲44
During the late 18th century, the most common Europe perception of Asia was
that of an "immobile" society. What had previously frequently been
interpreted in a positive way as stability was now interpreted as an incapacity
on the part of Asian societies to improve and progress in the same Europe was
progressing. At the same time, it was acknowledged that many Asian countries
had nonetheless achieved much in the past, with their high-level manufacturing,
and technological and artistic traditions. An established school of thought in
France, Great Britain, and Germany maintained that Asia was the cradle of civilization,
from which science, philosophy and religious doctrines had been transferred to
the West.
▲45
At the same time, Europeans believed that contemporary Asia was stagnant, and
the economic and technological gap between Europe and Asia was widening,
particularly in the case of those countries that refused to open their markets.
New expressions entered the language of economics 22and general discourse, such
as "stationary state", which was frequently applied to contemporary
China. One attempt to explain this supposed immobility discussed environmental
and cultural causes. It was argued that, in the case of the Islamic countries
and Confucian China, the combination of climate and religious beliefs had
resulted in indolence, idleness and lack of initiative. However, the role of
the physical environment was not considered to be of primary importance. The
perceived link between immobility, the absence of civil and political
liberties, and the consequent lack of individual security in the case of
contemporary Asian societies only confirmed European beliefs about the link
between freedom, progress and civilization, as exemplified by contemporary
Europe.
▲46
This form of Sinophobia became the prevalent attitude towards China in the late
18th century 23and vastly outweighed the Sinomania which had caused the
"crisis of the European mind" and the element of Enlightenment
culture and thought which had a respect for well-administered monarchical
government and nobility based on merit, as well as for the promotion of
agriculture, of moral teachings as the basis of social intercourse, and of
tolerance in religious matters. Appreciation of Chinese civilization was often
motivated by Christian scepticism. Chinese historical traditions based on
recorded astronomical observations suggested a chronology of historical time
that was incompatible with the bible and thus handed a powerful weapon to those
in Europe who believed that the world was much older than the Judaic scriptures
suggest. Scepticism towards the Christian, and particularly the Catholic, view
of world history, and advocacy of natural religion and of tolerance contributed
to Sinomania. Sinomania was not only an intellectual trend; it manifested
itself – perhaps more enduringly – in artistic tastes and material goods.
▲47
The shift from Sinomania to Sinophobia was a change in intellectual attitudes,
rather than a change in tastes in consumer goods. Two circumstances, in
particular, contributed to this change. The Society of Jesus was discredited by
controversy and ultimately suppressed in 1773. As a result, the sympathetic
attitude towards China and Chinese culture which had informed the writings of
many Jesuit missionaries active in China decreased in influence. Prior to the
suppression of the order, the Jesuits had originated a considerable volume of
translations and original literature about Chinese civilization, which was
aimed at accentuating the image of China as a powerful empire, thereby
underlying the importance of their missionary activities there. Together with
the work of French academics like Nicolas Fréret (1688–1749) and Joseph de
Guignes (1721–1800) , the Jesuits' study of the Chinese language and their
collections of Chinese texts formed the basis of modern sinology in the West.
The second circumstance promoting Sinophobia was the growing impatience of
Great Britain and other European powers with the Chinese authorities'
restrictions on European trade. British expansion and supremacy in India meant
that the Chinese market could not remain closed and Britain and other European
powers adopted a more forceful approach on the issue. This growing impatience
and antipathy towards China manifested itself more generally in European
culture. Influential commentators such as Johann Gottfried Herder (1744–1803) ,
Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) , Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) ,
Alexis de Tocqueville (1805–1859) and John Stuart Mill (1806–1873) dispensed
with sympathy for China and advocated a more forceful approach, such as the
"gunboat diplomacy" of the 1830s and 1840s.
▲48
In the meantime, the British defeat of the French in 1763 led to the start of
direct British rule in north-eastern India, and to a more intensive study of,
and interest in, India's past and present. In order to be able to contribute to
the debate on how India should be governed and to comment, as Edmund Burke did,
on the misgovernment of the first decades of British administration, a more
detailed knowledge of the country was necessary. India's past, Hindu
civilization and religion, its ancient Muslim traditions, and its more recent
history begun to be studied by the first generation of Sanskritists and
scholars of Islamic law and culture, headed by William Jones (1746–1794) .
Before becoming a pejorative term in the post-colonial era, "Orientalism"
– an expression which came into use in the early 19th century – denoted the
discovery of Oriental cultures by European academic (and religious) scholarship
in the second half of the 17th century, and also the vogue for Oriental styles
and subjects in European art and in European culture generally which began in
the early 19th century. The latter phenomenon was doubtlessly responsible for
distorted representations of Oriental culture and society, which was often
reduced to stereotypes of a fabulous, exotic, mysterious and sensual Orient.
The contribution of the first wave of erudite Orientalism to subsequent
scholarship should not, however, be underestimated. Among the scholars,
travellers, and missionaries who participated in this first wave of Orientalism
were Anquetil-Duperron, the French discoverer of the Avestic religion,
translator (in 1772) of the Zend-Avesta and critic of the theory of
"Oriental despotism" (in his Législation orientale of 1778); Joseph
de Guignes, who did ground-breaking work on the ancient history of China and
Central Asia; the British Orientalist Charles Wilkins (1749–1836) , who first
translated the 24Bhagavad-Gita; and William Jones, the scholar of Hindu
mythology, Vedic religion and 25ancient Hindu and Muslim law who translated the
classical play Sakuntala from Sanskrit and 26was the first to propose a common
Asiatic source for many European languages. Among the most significant
contributions of this scholarship was the discovery of Oriental – mainly
Islamic and Hindu – written legal traditions and jurisprudence . Ancient legal
codes, collections of sentences, edicts and ordinances were translated;
institutional forms and administrative practices were studied. Agrarian
relationships, land ownership patterns, and economic systems were better
understood as they came under British rule. The realization that many Asiatic
societies possessed a regular administration of justice, protection of property
rights, contracts and individual rights helped to undermine the Western prejudice
of "Oriental despotism".
▲49
The concept that modern Europeans, Asians, Africans and native Americans had a
common Asiatic origin, as suggested by comparative linguistics, provided some
with welcome evidence supporting the biblical narrative of creation.
Orientalism and Christianity were thus by no means contradictory. Sylvestre de
Sacy (1758–1838) , Friederich Schlegel (1772–1829) , Henry Thomas Colebrooke
(1765–1837) , Max Müller (1823–1900) and others continued scholarly research of
the Orient in the 19th century. The discovery of Hinduism, Buddhism and the
literary, religious and mythological Sanskrit traditions, as well as India's
history, art and architecture, which resulted from British presence in India,
continued to inspire enthusiasm and admiration among many Europeans throughout
the 19th century. While many aspects of "Orientalism" are
inextricably linked to British imperialism, it is nonetheless possible to
discern a genuine scholarly Orientalist tradition, which cannot be dismissed as
merely providing a justification for the imperialist and capitalist
exploitation of Asia or as being coloured by power relationships. It should
also be noted that many Asian cultures underwent something of a rejuvenation or
renaissance, as witnessed by the so-called Bengal renaissance of Rajah Ram
Mohan Roy (1775–1833) and Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) and similar movements
elsewhere, which sought to reconcile Asian tradition and Western modernizing
influences.
▲50
Close encounters of a third kind A distinct aspect of European discoveries and
encounters with "otherness" is the transportation of non-Europeans to
Europe and the West. The presence of non-Europeans in Europe and the West in
the early modern period is a broad and varied subject. It is possible to categorize
these non-Europeans in a number of ways: Did they come voluntarily or were they
brought by force (like, for example, bondservants)? Did they move permanently
(like, for example, prisoners of war) or temporarily? Did they travel to the
West in a large group (like colonial slaves) or small group? Flows of migrants
are an example of voluntary, large-scale and (usually) permanent movements of
people. These flows were predominantly from Europe to elsewhere in the world
for a long period, though this trend was reversed in the second half of the
20th century. However, non-Europeans previously came to Europe as trainee
interpreters, diplomatic envoys and religious converts. The often short-term
sojourn of these native Americans, Asians and Africans played a considerable
role in the formation of European images and concepts of the "other".
▲51
From the very beginning of European exploration and expansion overseas, there
was a widespread practice of seizing individuals, families, or groups belonging
to "exotic" ethnic groups and transporting them to Europe. They were
captured and transported to be trained as 27interpreters (the problem of
linguistic communication was immediately recognized as crucial); to act as
sources of information for officials, navigators and colonial entrepreneurs;
and to receive a religious education, though these activities were frequently
combined with temporary periods of servitude. However, non-Europeans were often
abducted merely as living samples of "otherness" and, conversely, as
embodiments of European superiority and supremacy. These 28people were
frequently exhibited in "ceremonies of possession". In fact, whatever
the primary reason for their capture and transportation to Europe was, very
many non-Europeans participated in public displays of various kinds, in which
they featured as examples of human "otherness".
▲52
This phenomenon has received increasing attention recently, particularly with
regard to 19th century Europe and the United States, when such human
exhibitions acquired a systematic, commercial and even scientific character.
For many Europeans, these encounters were the only possibility of seeing
representatives of non-European groups in the flesh. However, the purposes and
contexts of these abductions and encounters, as well as their effect on
European perceptions of "otherness" varied from the 15th to the 20th
centuries. It must also be noted that the practice of abducting members of
other ethnic groups is by no means a purely European phenomenon. It was common
among very many non-European people and, indeed, was in some cases a two-way
29process where Europeans and non-Europeans came into contact and conflict. The
forcible transportation of people from their places of origin to far-away
places may have been an intrinsic 30aspect of the process of European discovery
and expansion, but it was not an exclusively European phenomenon.
▲53
Recent research has provided much information about this phenomenon in early
modern Britain 31and 19th and 20th century France, Britain and the USA. It has
been calculated that in the two and half centuries before the American
Revolution, 175 American natives had been transported 32or had travelled to
Britain as envoys or captives. While not all of these people were transported
for exhibition purposes, the idea of exhibiting them was never very far away,
even when the primary role of the non-Europeans was that of informers,
apprentice interpreters, future guides and intermediaries, or guinea pigs for
Europeanization experiments. There are even cases of North American Indians
being transported to 17th and 18th century France and Britain with the purpose
of dazzling them with the splendour of the respective royal court and the
military power of the respective realm, in order to gain their allegiance and
loyalty in colonial conflicts.
▲54
An instructive connection can be made between these captives in early modern
and modern Europe and the ceremonial practices of the ancient world, in
particular the Roman "triumph". With its ritual public exhibition of
the defeated barbarians, particularly chiefs, kings, generals and nobles, the
triumph can be considered an antecedent and a source of inspiration for later
33exotic exhibitions. A primary purpose was to exhibit captives as tangible
evidence of victory, 34as the "physical realization of empire and
imperialism". One important difference between ancient triumphs and modern
exhibitions was that modern exhibitions were not always war captives. Native
Americans defeated in conflict were indeed captured and dispatched as slaves to
Europe from the first phase of discovery. There are examples of North American
Indian prisoners being taken as war trophies to England, and being subjected to
the same treatment as Turkish prisoners displayed in parades in Italian and
other European cities in the 16th century. But captives – there are also some
examples of Native Americans travelling by consent – were also brought to
Europe not as prisoners of war, but rather as curiosities. Interest in these
exotic people was partly an extension of the Renaissance impulse to catalogue,
and thereby tame, the 35natural world, but the freak show or "cultural
spectacles of the extraordinary body" also 36provided the symbolic context
of their reception.
▲55
From the early 16th century, individuals, families and small groups of exotic
people – Inuits, North American Indians, Lapps, Brazilians, etc. – had been
brought to Europe and displayed or 37employed in either public or private
ceremonies. The vivid impression which encounters with exotic peoples left on
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) , whose reflections on cannibalism and on
barbarism may have been inspired by his encounter with a Tupi tribesman, who
probably came to France with a contingent of Brazilian Indians employed in the
Royal Entry of Henry II (1519–1559) in Rouen in 1550, may not be typical of
their effect on the European public generally. However, the regular appearance
of such "others" in European cities could not but have an effect on
the common people's views on human diversity, though this is difficult to
quantify. Exhibitions occurred at first almost exclusively during public
ceremonies, at princely courts or in aristocratic mansions. Later on, they took
place in marketplaces, taverns, coffee houses, theatres, showrooms and
exhibitions halls, and at national and international industrial or colonial
exhibitions, and subsequently became an aspect of the entertainment industry in
the 19th and 20th centuries. Engraved portraits, printed descriptions and
subsequently also photographs of these presentations circulated widely,
purporting to convey the physical appearance, clothes, artefacts, weapons and
tools of these exotic "others".
▲56
From the late 18th century, as European dominance of the non-European world
increased further, representatives of a much more diverse range of ethnic
groups began to arrive in Europe and the West as part of a more systematic
commercial exploitation of the interest in them. Not only Native Americans, but
also Africans and Asians, began to be transported to Europe to adorn the
temporary European museums of mankind. At the height of this vogue in the
second half of the 19th century, they were taken on extensive tours, often
lasting several months and visiting several countries. Purporting to show living
"others" in their "native" dress, re-enacting their
customary ways of life in reconstructions of their "natural"
environment, these "human zoos" with their "black villages"
were not only a form of entertainment, but a public enactment of the perceived
superiority of the white race as reflected in the backwardness of
"savages". Notwithstanding the occasional protests of humanitarian,
religious or political associations, French anthropologists and ethnologists in
19th century established the practice of studying living people as though they
were insouciant beings, photographing, measuring and classifying them by
physical traits. "Scientific" and "popular" racism both
contributed to the objectification of non-Europeans in exhibitions and
"human zoos".
▲57
From the late 15th century, when the first "savages" were transported
to Europe, to the first decades of the 20th century, when exotic people were a
regular feature in colonial and imperial exhibitions, many aspects of this
phenomenon changed. The triumphal parades of Columbus and Hernán Cortés
(1485–1547) through Seville, Toledo or Barcelona were echoed by the contingents
of colonial troops taking part in European military parades into the 20th
century. In the meantime, however, an industry had come into being to exploit
European interest in "savage" and exotic humans. Capitalist
entrepreneurs like the German wild animal importer Carl Hagenbeck (1844–1913)
and the American impresario Phyneas T. Barnum (1810–1891) transformed ancient
practices of freak or alien exhibition into a large-scale commercial
entertainment industry in the age of leisure, mass entertainment and
consumerism. Ethnic shows were much more diverse and their audiences
considerably larger. The phenomenon of the "professional savages"
eventually emerged with members of ethnic groups entering contractual or
quasi-contractual agreements to appear as warriors, hunters, horsemen and
dancers in ethnic shows. What did not to change, however, was the core
ideological message conveyed by such spectacles: non-European people were
depicted as inferior, as mere objects for the entertainment of Europeans. These
ethnic exhibitions afforded the opportunity to a Western mass audience to
personally encounter human "otherness" and to realize how remote it
was from European civilization. The sense of dislocation, as well as cruel and
degrading treatment, meant that the lot of the human exhibits was frequently a
miserable one. Even after death, many were denied the dignity of being treated
like human beings, as their corpses were handed over to comparative anatomists
and others for further study and display.
▲58 Guido Abbattista, Trieste Written by Guido
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