Book contents
- Visions for Racial Equality
- Visions for Racial Equality
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Maps
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Among the Wild Scotsmen
- 3 Champagne and Slaves
- 4 The Universal Vernacular
- 5 Frightful Libel upon Humanity
- 6 Rhodes Must Not Rise
- 7 A Future Foreclosed
- 8 Grief Never Wears Out
- 9 Liberal Translations
- 10 The Rest Is History
- Bibliography
- Index
5 - Frightful Libel upon Humanity
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 10 February 2022
- Visions for Racial Equality
- Visions for Racial Equality
- Copyright page
- Contents
- Figures
- Maps
- Preface and Acknowledgements
- Maps
- 1 Introduction
- 2 Among the Wild Scotsmen
- 3 Champagne and Slaves
- 4 The Universal Vernacular
- 5 Frightful Libel upon Humanity
- 6 Rhodes Must Not Rise
- 7 A Future Foreclosed
- 8 Grief Never Wears Out
- 9 Liberal Translations
- 10 The Rest Is History
- Bibliography
- Index
Summary
Scott held the conviction that his mission was founded on common humanity between the missionaries and their African interlocutors. While late-twentieth-century social scientists would come to question ‘humanity’ as a notion of any consequence in progressive politics, Scott lived in an era when its true scope was open to debate – and to openly racist efforts to restrict the scope. Scott’s responses to two apparently different expressions of racial thought illustrate these dynamics. Henry Drummond, a popular Christian scientist, visited the Blantyre Mission during Scott’s tenure and wrote a book that combined evolutionary thinking with an assertion of a fundamental rift between Europeans and Africans. Scott considered the book a ‘frightful libel on humanity’. On the other hand, a much less-known figure named J. Albert Thorne canvassed support for the repatriation of Black people from the US to Central Africa. While sympathetic to the idea, Scott questioned its racialized design for developing Africa. Scott saw instances of common humanity in local non-Christian practices, such as music, but he also objected to certain customs. The building of Blantyre’s famous church brought together Africans who had only recently been in conflict with one another.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- Visions for Racial EqualityDavid Clement Scott and the Struggle for Justice in Nineteenth-Century Malawi, pp. 103 - 131Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2022