Much too much research ... and a question
OK, this is going to take a little more effort and will become a long term project.
However, what I have noticed is that each of the colonial powers (including the US) looked at the issue of how to deal with the indigenous population differently. The US had two models, internal and external. Internally we were interested in assimilation – forcing the indigenous population to become good American citizens (over their dead bodies if necessary). Externally, modernization did not become an issue until the start of the Cold War.
The French saw social change through the lens of their own revolutionary period (1789 -1871) and the related social revolution. They expected the peoples of Indochina to go through a smiliar transitional period (yet seemed to fight them tooth and nail when they tried).
The British seemed to simply view the locals as a lower form of life at least until the 1850s but from there on I am not sure. I have a book on sociological theory that talks about the odd dichotomy in British Social theory where there was one theory for them and another theory for everyone else in the world well into the twentieth century.
I am curious if anyone knows how the Germans and the Spanish viewed their colonial subjects in the period from 1850 to 1940. Was there any obligation based on sociological theories, or ethical obligation, to help their colonial subjects modernize?
Nation specific Attitudes.
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Originally Posted by
TTucker54
Also regarding how the Germans might have viewed their colonial subjects. it might be helpful to review the Herero Rebellions and the Maji-Maji Rebellions.
It might also be helpful to re-look Eugene Fishers experiments during this time. ))
Thanks for the information. After a little more research it was interesting to see how the attitudes and activities during that period well before WWI were recreated in the Nazi ideology, including conducting medical experiments on a population deemed eugenically inferior. Another country-specific response to how to deal with unruly indigenous peoples.