19th Century: (Race and Culture — European Attitudes Hardening from Assimilation to Disillusionment, the Wolseley Ring’s Contempt for Semi-Westernized Africa…

19th Century: (Race and Culture — European Attitudes Hardening from Assimilation to Disillusionment, the Wolseley Ring’s Contempt for Semi-Westernized Africans, Monogenists Versus Polygenists, the Indian Uprising of 1857 and Jamaica Rebellion of 1865 Carrying the Question of Native Ingratitude to the Fore, and Race as a Deliberate Construct Necessitated by Sociopolitical Change): European attitudes toward race hardened in the course of the nineteenth century. Ideas about assimilation and the improvability of the native — embodied in Sierra Leone — gave way to growing disillusionment about native character, intelligence, and capacity for change. A profound contempt developed for what was seen as the mere mimicry of Africans who crudely aped European culture. Sir Garnet Wolseley and his Ring, who dominated British military thinking about Africa, highlighted intrinsic Asante savagery but argued that this natural state was preferable to semi-westernized Gold Coast Africans. From Enlightenment debates about the noble savage emerged the monogenist and polygenist camps — monogenists, drawing from Scripture, held all men shared common origin with differences explained by environment, while polygenists held all races evolved separately, with cross-breeding leading only to degeneration. Global events clustered in mid-century — the Indian uprising of 1857–1858, the Jamaica rebellion of 1865, and the American Civil War — carried the question of native ingratitude to the fore. As indigenous peoples took up Christianity or adopted European dress and manners, they became threats to the social order, and new interpretations of race became necessary to maintain social distance. Race was in fact a deliberate construct necessitated by sociopolitical change. Nor were racial attitudes a European preserve — Africans used race and culture to justify expansion and servitude, and these same elites would become partners of colonial administrations.