Colonial treatment of native peoples was justified by claims about their essential humanity

Evidence

The question of how the natives and nations of the New World should be treated in the evolving colonial system was directly linked to the question of what sort of people and societies they were—which in turn depended on the West’s knowledge of them, on how they were represented. Where did the Indians stand in the order of Creation? Where were their nations placed in the order of civilized societies? Were they “true men [sic]”? Were they made in God’s image? The point was vital because if they were “true men,” they could not be enslaved. The Greek philosophers argued that man (women rarely figured in these debates) was a special creation, endowed with the divine gift of reason; the Church taught that man was receptive to divine grace. Did the Indians’ way of life, their lack of “civilization,” mean that they were so low on the scale of humanity as to be incapable of reason and faith? — Stuart Hall, Essential Essays, Volume 2, 648

Categorization

• XREF: Directly sets up the classic representation-of-the-Other dynamic that later Islamophobia readings will build on — the West’s knowledge/representation of a people determines their moral and legal standing. — connects to: Colonial peoples suffered the same dehumanizing treatment as ancient slaves; Colonial extraction justified first contact through preemptive legal-religious claims — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 299; Settler schooling functioned deliberately as deculturalization of native peoples — Rebecca A. Martusewicz, Jeff Edmundson, and John Lupinacci, EcoJustice Education: Toward Diverse,…, 1197 (+1 more)
• DEFINE: Introduces the mechanism where representation (knowledge of a people) precedes and justifies treatment/enslavement — a foundational representational logic.