Missionary universities funded by mining fortunes were tools of colonial civilising missions.

Evidence

Yet the AUB was not just an island of religious tolerance; it was also evidence of the tight bond between commerce and Christianity. The university was established using the fortunes of the Dodge family, whose mining interests in the United States had given them a particular interest in the ‘civilising’ of indigenous peoples, upon whose un-ceded land they built mines. Those who built the Dodge fortune also committed themselves to the ‘assimilation and uplift’ of African-Americans in the South during Reconstruction – but only after the failure of their preferred option of resettlement in Liberia. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 135

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader literature on missionary colonialism as economic infrastructure — parallels with the reader’s reading on extraction and indigenous dispossession. — connects to: Institutionalized academic networks supplied colonial projects with trained personnel; Ethnophilosophy originated as a tool for colonial civilizing missions — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 430; Colonial officials justified coercion as a legitimate corollary of the civilizing mission (+6 more)
• SEED: Angle: the American University of Beirut as a case study in how ‘philanthropic’ education was underwritten by extractive wealth and settler-colonial displacement — a throughline from Liberia resettlement to Middle East mission schools.

Broader Connections

• Ethnophilosophy originated as a tool for colonial civilizing missions #expands (0.85) — Frans Dokman, Beyond Bantu Philosophy_…, 430
• Colonial officials justified coercion as a legitimate corollary of the civilizing mission #expands (0.85)
• Missionary conversion aimed to manufacture a new colonial subjectivity, not just religious belief #expands (0.85) — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 1416
• Institutionalized academic networks supplied colonial projects with trained personnel #expands (0.80)
• Benthamite reformers saw schooling as a tool for colonial rule #expands (0.80) — Timothy Mitchell, Colonising Egypt, 938
• The plan-versus-material split created the need for organized colonial education #expands (0.80)
• Civilizing missions demanded tutelage, training, and conversion to Christianity #expands (0.78) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 754
• Museumizing and education of the colonized were launched together as twin colonial projects #expands (0.78) — Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, 708