During the development of the slave trade, the Europeans had created an ideology specifically for racism; the ideology was used to justify trade (Peter 71). The blacks were thought to be uncivilized, sub-human and inferior to European way of life. Because they considered them as not one of them, hence they were sold and bought. Racism development was linked to the slave trade racism cannot be separated with the slave trade in any study. This paper discusses on racism in England during the 1800s and how the blacks were considered unwanted in the community.
The English equated the blackness with death and evil long before they met the Africans. This explains the reason of their reaction towards the blacks. They assumed they were monsters or devils. From these perspectives and the travelers’ tales, grew a stereotype that the Africans, as prone excess sexual desire, lazy, barbarous, untrustworthy and also cannibalistic. Only a few denied this view. In his book, a true & exact history of the Island of Barbados, (1685) Sheer Pluck opposed against the popular perspective. The racist ideologies were strengthened by false sciences in the 19th centuries (Peter 32). It was believed that character of the person was reflected by skull’s shape. Africans were classified as inferior to white races culturally, intellectually and morally by the phrenologists’ theory of African skulls.
Teleology study focused at natures design. It gave grounds for men to argue that blacks were by nature suited to hard work and not thinking. Therefore, they were made for the service of the white people. Sir Harry Johnson, a British administrator of the colonial in Africa in the 1890s said, “The Negro in general is a born slave”. The blacks in England and in their own countries had to cope with racism. Racism was and is a central black people’s experience in Britain over the centuries.
- Peter Fryer. Staying power. London: Greenhaven Press, 2010. Print.
