Issue of Slavery in United States

. . by treading in the paths prescrib'd by his ancestors, paths natural, pleasant, and diverting, is in the plain road to be a bully and happy man; exclusively the European has sought so many inventions, and has endeavour'd to put so many restrictions upon nature, that it would be conterminous to a miracle if he were either happy or effectual (99).

This attitude would be brought to bear in antislavery campaigns as roughly Europeans fought against the excogitation, and ennobling the victims was bingle way of showing how pernicious the institution itself might be. As a consequence, twain opposing conceptions certain in Europe:

Henceforward, Europeans would be increasingly divided into two opposed contemplates: one, the traditional, lean to hold that Africa had never possessed elaborations that were honorable of respect or even of serious investigation; the other, the scientific, tending to argue the reverse (100).

Davidson shows how ideas changed not just with reference to the slaves but with reference to their homeland. Some, such as Charles Wheeler and others who thought the same, considered Africa to be a country which had developed its own civilization, much of which had disappeared. in that respect was evidence that archaeologists and others would unearth that this was so, but the idea did not sufficient with the prejudices developing in the European mind over the compass point of slavery. Davidson notes that by 1900 the average European

had the effect of Africa that it was a country without any culture of its own, and any culture found there, they believed, had been brought by Europeans. Davidson cites Sir Harry Johnston to the effect that the Lusitanian had brought improvements to regions of tungsten Africa:

Davidson, Basil. The African Slave Trade. Boston: Little, Brown and company, 1961.

. . . the judgments of the nineteenth century, the limit of outright invasion and occupation, would abound in convictions of a European superiority which was clean as well as stuff (160).

Yet the truth--as any diligent inquirer could have know even in 1910--was precisely the reverse. For the kingdoms of the Congo had preceded the Portuguese; and the Portuguese in truth destroyed them (101).

From Davidson's account, racism does not appear to have been an innate human quality but one that was developed in response to economic, political, and social changes during the era of conquest, colonialism, and slavery. at that place had been slaves throughout history, though usually the fact of slavery was not a

As Davidson shows, the very idea of the awful godforsaken, musical composition seeming to elevate the wild to a higher think of moral existence, also contributed to the opposite belief, that these people were just savage and could create nothing on their own. The idea of the noble savage itself begins by separating the European from the African and by couching this separation in moral terms. The backlash to the idea that the African was a noble savage had to be that the European was the one with the stronger moral sense, the great culture, and the ability to lead, while the African lacked culture, had no innate moral sense, and needed guidance to develop one--a European one, transplanted to the mind of the child-like black.

As long as Europeans were superior in morality they could view their actions in the slave trade as benefiting the enslaved people preferably than harming them. Obviously, thoug
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