Colonial liberal assimilation differed fundamentally from later racialized exclusion

Evidence

How striking it is that this liberal still proposes to ‘extinguish’ his Indians in part by ‘declaring them free of tribute’ and ‘giving them private property in land’, rather than exterminating them by gun and microbe as his heirs in Brazil, Argentina, and the United States began to do soon afterwards. Note also, alongside the condescending cruelty, a cosmic optimism: the Indian is ultimately redeemable – by impregnation with white, ‘civilized’ semen, and the acquisition of private property, like everyone else. (How different Fermín’s attitude is from the later European imperialist’s preference for ‘genuine’ Malays, Gurkhas, and Hausas over ‘half-breeds,’ ‘semi-educated natives,’ ‘wogs’, and the like.) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 63

Categorization

• XREF: The shift from assimilable ‘barbarians’ to unassimilable ‘half-breeds’ is the pivot toward modern race-thinking — directly scaffolds the field’s racialization-of-Muslims arguments and the shift from civilization discourse to biological race. — connects to: Polygenism justified colonial intermarriage bans and mixed-race discrimination; Formal liberal citizenship equality masks an assimilationist strategy; Britain deliberately pursued cultural conversion while excluding colonial subjects by race — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on…, 363 (+15 more)
• SEED: Angle: the genealogy of ‘redeemability’ in colonial thought — how ‘you can become us’ gives way to ‘you will never be us’ — and how that arc recurs in contemporary anti-Muslim discourse.
• QUESTION: When exactly does the shift from ‘redeemable via assimilation’ to ‘permanently racialized’ occur, and does it track capitalism’s labor needs?

Related

• Polygenism justified colonial intermarriage bans and mixed-race discrimination (similarity 0.83)

Broader Connections

• Colonial race was judged by conduct and affiliation rather than appearance #expands (0.85)