Enlightenment thinkers conflated colonization with civilization despite condemning Spanish brutality

Evidence

It should be noted, however, that the philosophes-famous for their denunciation of the brutality of the Spanish conquest of America-did approve of the “civilizing” work certain missionaries were carrying out in the New World. Although not enthusiastic about the religious content of missionary activity, Abbe Raynal in his Histoire philosophique, Voltaire in the Essai sur les moeurs, and Buffon in the Histoire naturelle all noted the success with which the Jesuits in Paraguay and the Quakers in North America had overcome the “ferocity” of the local inhabitants and remade them in their own image. This approval suggests that the Enlightenment figures, too, were close to conflating colonization with civilization. — Alice L. Conklin, A Mission to Civilize_ The Republican…, 920

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to Edward Said’s Orientalism argument about Enlightenment-era frameworks justifying colonial knowledge and control.