Esther M. Zimmer Lederberg
Blackamoor cameo: c. 1600
The growing Colonialism in Great Britain included not only African
slaves, but the growth of an Imperial ideology. The ideology depersonalized
African slaves (as well as Caucasian indentured servants, already being
exploited in guilds). The ideology included reasons to justify the
extermination (soon to be called "genocide") of Amerindian aboriginies
(the "enlightened" idea of John Locke, later to be renamed as "genocide").
However, the ideology also included literature (poems), paintings of exotic
Blackamoors (African slaves) used by the aristocracy and the growing
mercahant class, and jewelery. Great Britain also preyed upon competing,
but dying empires such as the Iberian union of Spain and Portugal, and
eventually the Dutch.
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