Ancient Egyptians in Black and White: ‘Exodus: Gods and Kings’ and the Hamitic Hypothesis

In this essay, I consider how the racial politics of Ridley Scott’s whitewashing of ancient Egypt in Exodus: Gods and Kings intersects with the Hamitic Hypothesis, a racial theory that asserts Black people’s inherent inferiority to other races and that civilization is the unique possession of the White race. First, I outline the historical development of the Hamitic Hypothesis. Then, I highlight instances in which some of the most respected White intellectuals from the late-seventeenth through the mid-twentieth century deploy the hypothesis in assertions that the ancient Egyptians were a race of dark-skinned Caucasians. By focusing on this detail, I demonstrate that prominent White scholars’ arguments in favor of their racial kinship with ancient Egyptians were frequently burdened with the insecure admission that these ancient Egyptian Caucasians sometimes resembled Negroes in certain respects—most frequently noted being skin color. In the concluding section of this essay, I use Scott’s film to point out that the success of the Hamitic Hypothesis in its racial discourse has transformed a racial perception of the ancient Egyptian from a dark-skinned Caucasian into a White person with appearance akin to Northern European White people.

“Grandfather in the Bones”

Evangelical Anglicans of the Church Missionary Society constructed a triumphal narrative on the growth of the Ugandan Church circa 1900–1920. This narrative developed from racial theory, the Hamitic hypothesis, and colonial conquest in its admiration of Ugandans. When faced with closing the mission due to its success, the missionaries shifted to scientific racist language to describe Ugandans and protect the mission. Most scholarship on missionaries argues that they eschewed scientific racism due to their commitment to spiritual equality. This episode reveals the complex ways the missionaries wove together racial and theological ideas to justify missions and the particularity of Uganda.

The Libyan/Trans-Mediterranean Slave Trade, the African Union, and the Failure of Human Morality

In this article, I argue that the recently exposed slave trade in Libya involving Black African migrants seeking opportunities in Europe is not merely a crime against humanity that has been justly condemned by the international community, but is also a serious indictment on the failings of the African Union’s leadership. It is a reflection of the duplicitous nature of Europe’s commitment to human rights and exposes the African leaders’ moral and leadership deficiencies. Through the use of the Hamitic hypothesis and the cultural racism theory, I discuss some causal factors that have led to the abuse of sub-Saharan Africans migrating to Europe and also the African response to the migrant crisis. Finally, I draw parallels between what I term the New Slavery and the evolving narrative of racism and conclude that poor African leadership is the Achilles’ heel in the restoration of African dignity.

Beyond Tribalism: The Hutu-Tutsi Question and Catholic Rhetoric in Colonial Rwanda

Post genocide commentaries on colonial Rwandan history have emphasized the centrality of the Hamitic Hypothesis in shaping Catholic leaders’ sociopolitical imagination concerning Hutu and Tutsi identities. For most scholars, the resulting racialist interpretation of Hutu and Tutsi categories poisoned Rwandan society and laid the groundwork for postcolonial ethnic violence. This paper challenges the simplicity of this standard narrative. Not only did colonial Catholic leaders possess a complex understanding of the terms ‘Hutu’ and ‘Tutsi’, but the Hutu-Tutsi question was not the exclusive or even dominant paradigm of late colonial Catholic discourse. Even after the eruption of Hutu-Tutsi tensions in the late 1950s, Catholic bishops and lay elites continued to interpret the Hutu-Tutsi distinction in a wide variety of ways. Catholic attitudes and the escalation of Hutu-Tutsi tensions stemmed more from contextual political factors than immutable anthropological theories, however flawed.

The “Hamitic Hypothesis” in Indigenous West African Historical Thought

This paper explores the use of versions of the “Hamitic hypothesis” by West African historians, with principal reference to amateur scholars rather than to academic historiography. Although some reference is made to other areas, the main focus is on the Yoruba, of southwestern Nigeria, among whom an exceptionally prolific literature of local history developed from the 1880s onwards. The most important and influential work in this tradition, which is therefore central to the argument of this paper, is the History of the Yorubas of the Rev. Samuel Johnson, which was written in 1897 although not published until 1921.

Of Origins and Colonial Order: Southern Nigerian Historians and the ‘Hamitic Hypothesis’ c. 1870–1970

The professional Nigerian nationalist historiography which emerged in reaction against the imperialist Hamitic Hypothesis – the assertion that Africa's history had been made only by foreigners – is rooted in a complex West African tradition of critical dialogue with European ideas. From the mid-nineteenth century, western-educated Africans have re-worked European ideas into distinctive Hamitic Hypotheses suited to their colonial location. This account developed within the constraints set by changing European and African-American ideas about West African origins and the evolving character of the Nigerian intelligentsia. West Africans first identified themselves not as victims of Hamitic invasion but as the degenerate heirs of classical civilizations, to establish their potential to create a modern, Christian society. At the turn of the century various authors argued for past development within West Africa rather than mere degeneration. Edward Blyden appropriated African-American thought to posit a distinct racial history. Samuel Johnson elaborated on Yoruba traditions of a golden age. Inter-war writers such as J. O. Lucas and Ladipo Solanke built on both arguments, but as race science declined they again invoked universal historical patterns. Facing the arrival of Nigeria as a nation-state, later writers such as S. O. Biobaku developed these ideas to argue that Hamitic invasions had created Nigeria's proto-national culture. In the heightened identity politics of the 1950s, local historians adopted Hamites to compete for historical primacy among Nigerian communities. The Hamitic Hypothesis declined in post-colonial conditions, in part because the concern to define ultimate identities along a colonial axis was displaced by the need to understand identity politics within the Nigerian sphere. The Nigerian Hamitic Hypothesis had a complex career, promoting élite ambitions, Christian identities, Nigerian nationalism and communal rivalries. New treatments of African colonial historiography – and intellectual history – must incorporate the complexities illus-trated here.