What would be the effect of a colonial movement to impregnate "savages" to spread white Gene's and civilize them?
Genetic Imperialism
- Thread starter Dominic Harvey
- Start date
God.the.Truth
Banned
I've heard about this vaguely but don't know about it that clearly. Can you explain about it, a bit?
Brazil is like all of the Latin colonies in that they’re mostly Meztizo but in Brazil there wasn’t the same race-based hierarchy there was in the Spanish colonies.
It was public policy to encourage Euro immigration in order to "breed out the black" out of Brazilians. They still thought Blacks were inferior, but instead of segregating them, they sought to get rid of them by making it so that they're "blackness" disappeared from the physical appearance of they're descendants.
...which was summarized in this painting by Modesto Brocos, himself an immigrant from the Spanish region of Galicia, entitled "The Redemption of Cain":
I am unsure of the premise here, because as previously well noted by others here, there were plenty of programs across Latin America and other parts of the world (I am just most familiar with Latin America), where there were at least de facto whitening programs whereby white immigrants and marriages to make the eventual kids whiter were encouraged.
But if the premise is to possibly make it a reverse "one drop rule", whereby any shred of "white/European" heritage among anyone would then make them classified as so could be a very interesting scenario.
But if the premise is to possibly make it a reverse "one drop rule", whereby any shred of "white/European" heritage among anyone would then make them classified as so could be a very interesting scenario.
I understand people of mixed African and European descent were able to sit atop the social ladder in the colonies and later countries on the African continent, and were even quite prominent in the Atlantic Slave trade (at least for the Portuguese), but its not like they were ever seen as actually equal with "pure" Europeans. And although OP has not responded to my question on the premise, OTL example you stated goes against I guess what I had in mind.
In my mind I was seeing it like this:
In the Southern US - One drop of African blood = you are black and therefore almost surely enslaved.
Reverse this in colonialism to get
One drop of European blood = you are European and therefore equal, no matter what the rest of your heritage/blood is.
I just know this is an almost ASB stretch but I wonder if it is possible.
West Africa had a population of locals who were partly descended from European traders?
God.the.Truth
Banned
A very relevant point. Unless the imperialist nation's population is almost impossibly high, this will never go as per what they will expect since you can't force people to go against their nature to support your empire's ambitions. The people of the colonized land would see them as a leagacy of the colonization and the colonizer would see them as "too dark".
And if the population of the imperial power is so large that they can support such a population in the first place, it would be a immensely big nation/empire with good resources and stability and if so, why venture out into the lands which are full of people who you think as "savages"? And if the natives are a small tribe with a small number of people, what will your empire get from shoving down your genetics on them when you can carry about your business even if you leave them free? I have pointed out to this paradox quite clearly. It will not work and will quickly go down the steep and a slippery slope to what Hitler did.
it was pre-colonial, it depended on the status descent systems of african polities or communities mentioned and yes they were not only "quite" prominent but critical in the formation of the Trans-Atlantic world. In Africa and the early era of European-African relations they were near equals and if there are tweaks made with Papal Edicts and Iberian royal decree a middle ground of minimal blood and or cultural acculturation could result in a very different landscape.
There is a reason why in English, French, Dutch and Spanish colonies africans were so known or called say "Antonio the Portuguese" even though he may have been from Angola, these people by the time of the Early Colonial era of the Americas were shown distinction given the un-solidified notions of what in fact race was or worked in that era and depending on region.
In Western and Central Africa blood but moreso performance, culture and language defined Whiteness.
absolutely.
Intriguing. Is there much history on them? Were they traders or merchants?
Why does it have to be Europeans attempting to play genetic politics. Maybe because we are closer to such attitudes in time. Why not the Moors trying to dilute the European peoples in Iberia. The Turks in the Balkans. A Bantu empire doing it to the San. Or to get really original, the San to the Bantu.
Maybe the Dutch or somebody else succeeds in importing the plantation system using African slavery or South Asian coolie labor to Taiwan/Formosa, and after an alt-Japanese takeover the Japanese institute such a system to try to Japonify the population there?
The policy was called "racial whitening" and I've always found it interesting...which was summarized in this painting by Modesto Brocos, himself an immigrant from the Spanish region of Galicia, entitled "The Redemption of Cain":
Miguel Lanius
Banned
Joke's on them, dark skin is dominant, white skin is recessive.
Rather than just turning us into average european people, they made us into something far cooler