Where do the stereotypes about Africa come from?
In the seventeenth century, stereotypes about Africa and its inhabitants became deeply ingrained in European culture. PhD candidate Matthias Lukkes is going to investigate the role played by Dutch culture in this process.
In the seventeenth century, the Republic of the Seven United Netherlands broke the monopoly of Spain and Portugal on world trade. As a new major player on the world stage, the Republic not only secured an important trading position, cities such as Amsterdam and, to a lesser extent, Rotterdam and Enkhuizen dominated the information market. Much influential knowledge about the nature of the world was produced here, precisely at a time when stereotypes about Africa and Africans were becoming more deeply entrenched in European culture.
‘I want to know how these two developments are connected,’ says Lukkes. ‘It is currently widely accepted that in the seventeenth century, “Africanity” was “invented” in Europe: the idea that there is such a thing as a collective identity among the various regions and peoples of the continent, something “African”. This early form of African identity is characterised by negative stereotypes that would haunt the continent and its people for centuries to come, and would be used to justify such issues as the slave trade, land expropriation and colonial rule. What has not yet been properly investigated is why this emerged specifically in the seventeenth century.’
New or existing stereotypes?
Lukkes, together with his supervisor Michiel van Groesen, applied for an NWO M grant to answer that question. Now that the grant has been awarded, he intends to delve into a wide range of sources, from maps, engravings and travel accounts to merchant networks. ‘That way, I can map out what appeared on the European market and thus influenced perceptions. I then want to compare that with what was already known beforehand. Is there a difference between what was published in Amsterdam in 1600 and what was circulating in Portugal a century earlier?’
Lukkes is thus joining an existing debate. To what extent did negative stereotypes of ‘Africans’ emerge in the colonial world of the seventeenth century? Lukkes: ‘Some see them as reinforcing images that date back to antiquity, medieval Arabic travel literature, or Italian and Iberian works from the Renaissance period. Others argue that something truly changed during the colonial era, with stereotypes becoming intrinsically linked to ideas about civilisation and culture. I’m curious to see exactly how this developed when you examine it more closely. Where did a shift occur, and above all: why?’
Network around Africa
In this context, Lukkes will focus specifically on the global flow of information. Lukkes: ‘Up to now, we have been very preoccupied with book printers in Amsterdam and the question of what they did or did not print. I want to take a broader view of how knowledge is formed, from the African coast to the Amsterdam printing houses. Local informants who pass on information about the interior, where no Dutch people had yet ventured, appear constantly in Dutch letters, reports and travel accounts. What role does this information play in the creation of new ideas, and do we see a change over time in how local informants are viewed and treated? I want to investigate this in the company archives.