The Dark Heart of King Leopold II of Belgium

1. Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at CSU East Bay The Dark Heart of King Leopold II of Belgium Kevin P. Dincher www.kevindincher.com

2. Kevin P. Dincher Atlantic Slave Trade Changed the conversation

3. Kevin P. Dincher Ancient Western World • Slavery • Rarely questioned • Accepted as normal aspect of society • Natural order (Aristotle) • War/Conquest • Not race-based • Slaves • Domestics • Army/Navies • Entertainment (Gladiators) • Concubines and sex slaves • Hard labor (e.g., mining)

4. Kevin P. Dincher Slavery in the Middle Ages (400 – 1400) Widespread practice Everyone enslaved everyone else and traded slaves Natural order • Aristotle Not race-based • White Europeans • Enslaved White Europeans and Black Africans • Christians • Enslaved Muslims and European Pagans • Muslims/Arabs: • Enslaved Christians, European Pagans and Black Africans • Black Africans • Enslaved Black Africans

5. Kevin P. Dincher Slavery in the Middle Ages (400 – 1400) The Church • Aristotle • Augustine • The Bible • Prohibition: • Christians could not enslave other Christians • Don’t enslave unjustly • Not racial • But amounts to a prohibition against enslaving White Europeans

6. Kevin P. Dincher Age of Discovery (1400 – 1600)

7. Kevin P. Dincher Age of Discovery (1400 – 1600) Things Change • Arab Slave Trade • Black Africans to trade with Europeans/Americans, Russians, Ottomans • No market for White slaves • Black Africans • Black Africans to trade with Arabs and Europeans/Americans • Europeans/Americans • Chinese to East Indies • Natives in both N. and S. America to West Indies • Black Africans in huge numbers to work the plantations in the New World

8. Kevin P. Dincher Age of Discovery (1400 – 1600) Enslaving Black Africans • Becomes norm among White Europeans/Americans • Justification: Natural Order (Aristotle)

9. Kevin P. Dincher Age of Discovery (1400 – 1600) Enslaving Black Africans • No significant/successful dissenting voices • 1462: Pope Pius II: “slavery is a great crime” • Enslaving Christians • Did not condemn the slave trade

10. Kevin P. Dincher Age of Discovery (1400 – 1600) • Catholic Church • Forbid enslavement of Christians by Christians • Codified by European nations • Approve enslavement of non-Christian native peoples and appropriation of their property • Slavery is compatible with Natural Law • 1815: Congress of Vienna urged suppression of the slave trade under pressure from the British

11. Kevin P. Dincher Slavery Becomes about race

12. Kevin P. Dincher Slavery Becomes about Race • Primary Slave Traders • Shifts from N. African Arabs to White Europeans • Primary Slaves • Black Africans in huge numbers • Illegal to enslave White Europeans • But indentured servants are OK • Justifications for Slavery • Becomes Racial • Second Wave of European Colonization (1830 – 1914) • Africa/Asia • US in Caribbean/Pacific

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14. Kevin P. Dincher Philosophy The Enlightenment (1600-1800)

15. Kevin P. Dincher The Enlightenment (Late 1600s – 1800) • Emphasis on Reason and Science • Skepticism regarding tradition, religion and revelation • Opposed to superstition • Partially a consequence of the Age of Discovery • Experiencing rapid changes • Demographic, social, technological • Old theological and philosophical understanding of the world no longer adequate • Importance of the Individual • Freedom; equality; human rights Voltaire

16. Kevin P. Dincher The Enlightenment (Late 1600s – 1800) • Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679) • Society = voluntary contract incompatible with slavery • Rene Descartes (1596-1650) • Silent on slavery • John Locke (1632 – 1704) • Natural state of “all” humans is freedom • Slavery is a continuation of war • Denis Diderot (1713 – 1784) • Encyclopédie (1751 – 1772) Diderot

17. Kevin P. Dincher The Enlightenment (Late 1600s – 1800) • David Hume (1711-1775) • Blacks have the same intelligence as orang-utans • Voltaire (1694-1778) • Candide • “…at what price we eat sugar in Europe“ • If all human beings have common origins as the Bible taught, it makes them cousins, concluding that "no one could treat their relatives more horribly". • Polygenist • Monogenism: Single common ancestors (Adam/Eve) • Polygenism: Each race has separate origins • Questioned if blacks fully shared in the common humanity or intelligence of whites • The negro race is a species of men different from ours as the breed of spaniels is from that of greyhounds. • Voltaire

18. Kevin P. Dincher The Enlightenment (Late 1600s – 1800) • Thomas Jefferson • Declaration of Independence (1776) • All men are created equal • Effort to include slavery in Declaration of Independence • Notes on Virginia (1787) • I advance it therefore as a suspicion only, that the blacks, whether originally a distinct race, or made distinct by time and circumstances, are inferior to the whites in the endowments both of body and mind. … This unfortunate difference of colour, and perhaps of faculty, is a powerful obstacle to the emancipation of these people

19. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism • Common in many ancient cultures • 1500-1700 • Biblical interpretation: Heretical (incompatible with original sin) • Lucillio Vanini (1616) • Blacks descended from monkeys; other races were not • Hierarchy of races • 1700s • Scientific Polygenism • Voltaire • Hume: "Whites ... Negroes ... [and] the yellow races are not descended from the same man".

20. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism • 1700s: Scientific Polygenism • Hume • Whites ... Negroes ... [and] the yellow races are not descended from the same man. • Voltaire • It is a serious question among them whether the Africans are descended from monkeys or whether the monkeys come from them. Our wise men have said that man was created in the image of God. Now here is a lovely image of the Divine Maker: a flat and black nose with little or hardly any intelligence. A time will doubtless come when these animals will know how to cultivate the land well, beautify their houses and gardens, and know the paths of the stars: one needs time for everything

21. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism • 1830s/1840s: Mainstream scientific thought in America, Great Britain, France and Germany • Georges Cuvier • French naturalist and zoologist • Major influenced scientific polygenism and scientific racism. • Fixity of species • Anatomical and cranial measurement of difference races • Physical and mental differences between races = worth • Human races are all distinct

22. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism • Indigenous Races of the Earth (1857) • Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon • "Negroes" were a creational rank between "Greeks" and chimpanzees.

23. Kevin P. Dincher • Harpers’ Weekly (1899) • "The Iberians are believed to have been originally an African race, who thousands of years ago spread themselves through Spain over Western Europe. Their remains are found in the barrows, or burying places, in sundry parts of these countries. The skulls are of low prognathous type. They came to Ireland and mixed with the natives of the South and West, who themselves are supposed to have been of low type and descendants of savages of the Stone Age, who, in consequence of isolation from the rest of the world, had never been out-competed in the healthy struggle of life, and thus made way, according to the laws of nature, for superior races."

24. Kevin P. Dincher Someone in class wants ask about “Phrenology” “Hang on a minute! We’ll get there!”

25. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism or Monogenism? • Sparks Competing Evolutionary Theories • From common ancestors or from different ancestors? • Critical to imperialism of the 19th century

26. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism • Pope Pius XII: Humani Generis (The Human Race, 1950) • Conservative – but an openness to science • Nouvelle théologie • Evolution • Polygenism • Old Testament

27. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism "The different human races developed from different breeds of ape... …the following eight pages show startling resemblances between types of ape and different human races" The Beginning Was the End (1974)

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29. Kevin P. Dincher Religion The Great Awakenings

30. Kevin P. Dincher Polygenism/Monogenism • Types of Mankind • 1854: Josiah Clark Nott and George Robins Gliddon

31. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings First Great Awakening • 1730s and 1740s • Protestant Europe and British America • England • George Whitefield • Methodism • Scotland • Revival Meetings • Presbyterianism • Germany • Pietism • Moravian Church • United States • Jonathan Edward • Revival Meetings

32. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings Second Great Awakening • 1780s to 1830s • American Protestants • New American Religions • Seventh Day Adventists • Millerites • Mormons • Spiritualism • Baptists (not new) • Utopian Societies • Shakers • Oneida Community

33. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings Third Great Awakening • 1850s to early 1900s • American Protestants • Republican Party • New Religions • Christian Science • Salvation Army • Jehovah’s Witnesses • Social Gospel • International Perspective • Missions • Peace Movement • Prophecy Conferences

34. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakening • Personalized Spirituality • Personal revelation and introspection • Emotional • Personal morality • Personal authority/independence • Millennialism • End times • Evangelical • Emphasis on the Bible • “Return to Fundamentals”

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36. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings • Millennialism • Derived from Book of Revelations 20:1-6 • Not the end of the world • Jesus’ return and 1000 year reign prior to the final judgment and “New Heavens and New Earth”

37. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings • Millennialism: Be Prepared!

38. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings • Millennialism: Be Prepared! • Personal Repentance • Social Reform • Social conscience • Bible = blueprint (Evangelical)

39. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings: The Races Adam and Eve • Common Ancestry • St. Paul • “He … has made of one blood all nations of men.” • All humans = one species • Original sin • Salvation - missionaries • Abolition

40. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings: The Races Adam and Eve Noah • Common Ancestry • St. Paul • “He … has made of one blood all nations of men.” • All humans = one species • Original sin • Salvation - missionaries • Abolition

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42. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings: The Races Adam and Eve Sons of Noah Curse of Ham Genesis 9:20-27 St. Paul 1 Corinthians:7-24 Letter to Philomen • Common Ancestry • St. Paul • “He … has made of one blood all nations of men.” • All humans = one species • Original sin • Salvation - missionaries • Abolition

43. Kevin P. Dincher • Redemption of Ham • Brazil, 1895

44. Kevin P. Dincher The Great Awakenings: The Races • The Curse of Ham: Race and Slavery in Early Judaism, Christianity and Islam David Goldenberg • The Good Book: Reading the Bible with Mind and Heart Peter J. Gomes

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47. Kevin P. Dincher Science Phrenology and Evolution

48. Kevin P. Dincher Phrenology • 1796: Franz Joseph Gall • Popular in the 19th century, especially from about 1810 until 1840. • 1820: Edinburgh Phrenological Society

49. Kevin P. Dincher Phrenology • Mr. Burns: “…the sloping brow and cranial bumpage of the career criminal." • Waylon Smithers: "Uh, Sir? Phrenology was dismissed as quackery 160 years ago."

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