British administrators deemed Egyptians constitutionally incapable of opposing slavery

Evidence

But as intellectuals in Egyptian society were beginning to consider the possibilities of new and different roles for women, as Egyptian women began to insert themselves more and more into the discussion, most of the British administrators in Egypt had difficulty believing in the viability of any of these changes as long as slavery existed. Many in fact felt that Egyptians were constitutionally unable to oppose slavery or even to manage without it. … As one highly placed and experienced administrator phrased it in a letter to the president of the Anti-Slavery Society,“I need scarcely remark to you that no Turk and no Egyptian[,] whether Moslem or Christian in his religion[,] can be trusted to desire or carry out effective measures for preventing the introduction of slaves into the country, because [he] neither has any conscientious feeling or opposition to the system itself as existing in the Turkish Empire. No native Egyptian official has any heart in anti-slavery movements.” — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 669

Categorization

• SEED: A racialized ‘they cannot reform themselves’ justification for colonial trusteeship — useful counterpoint showing how anti-slavery rhetoric doubled as a colonial-domination instrument while Egyptian thinkers were themselves already debating women’s emancipation.
• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on humanitarian/abolitionist justifications for empire (the ‘white man’s burden’ framing) and to how reform discourse was used to deny colonized agency.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Eve M. Troutt Powell, A Different Shade of Colonialism_…, 669