Colonial Masters Posing With Women In The 70s

- May 30, 2023

Here is the moment when the colonial masters are posing with women

Hammock boys carry a railway engineer/track inspector in colonial Nigeria, 1910.

Hammock boys, as they were referred to by the colonial masters, were paid 25-30 shillings carrying their masters from village to village.

“When we speak of ‘shooting’ with a camera, we are acknowledging the kinship of photography and violence.” Teju Cole

This visual essay will assess the ways in which early photography was used as a tool to justify Europe’s colonial project in Africa in the 19th and 20th centuries, by depicting Black Africans as inferior to white Europeans. It will also consider how the camera was used during the same period in the United States for a similar purpose, namely, to further the cause of white racial superiority.

Africa: photography and the colonial project

The invention of photography occurred at a most opportune moment for Europe’s colonial powers. Photography was used to justify Europe’s colonisation of Africa and helped to further cement the ideological basis for white racial superiority. Between 1870 and 1900, Europe’s unrelenting imperial aggression towards Africa, eventually led to the colonisation of the continent. By this point, the first photography studios had already been established on the continent decades prior, and by the turn of the century, photographers travelled widely, hired by colonial regimes to produce images.

Let’s begin by looking at the way in which photography fed into a discourse of European superiority.