Abstract
SummaryThe Mikomeseng leprosy settlement in Spanish Guinea (present-day Equatorial Guinea) was widely promoted during the 1940s and 1950s as the embodiment of the Francoist ‘civilizing mission’ in Africa. Its prominence reflected the important role which colonial health and social policy played in establishing the legitimacy of the Franco regime, and particularly in helping to overcome its international isolation in the immediate post-war era. But a major protest by leprosy sufferers in 1946 revealed the everyday violence underpinning life in Mikomeseng, showing how the language of welfare and social justice which pervaded Francoist propaganda masked the reality of a coercive colonial system. The image of Mikomeseng as the embodiment of benevolent colonial rule was constructed by Francoist experts and officials around a brutally repressive institution, one which encapsulated the violence of Spanish colonial rule in West Africa and of the Franco regime as a whole.
Highlights
Its prominence reflected the important role which colonial health and social policy played in establishing the legitimacy of the Franco regime, and in helping to overcome its international isolation in the immediate post-war era
A major protest by leprosy sufferers in 1946 revealed the everyday violence underpinning life in Mikomeseng, showing how the language of welfare and social justice which pervaded Francoist propaganda masked the reality of a coercive colonial system
The image of Mikomeseng as the embodiment of benevolent colonial rule was constructed by Francoist experts and officials around a brutally repressive institution, one which encapsulated the violence of Spanish colonial rule in West Africa and of the Franco regime as a whole
Summary
The use of sulfones spread across the world in the immediate post-war years and quickly supplanted chaulmooga oil as the principle method of treatment.16 These developments would prompt a shift away from settlements and segregation in the treatment of leprosy, but during the 1950s the success of sulfone treatments within Mikomeseng could be held up by Spanish colonial experts and officials as evidence of the medical and scientific achievements of Francoist rule. It will use the protests of 1946 to explore the violence, repression and neglect to which the residents of Mikomeseng were subject, their causes and effects, and the acts of resistance they provoked It will show how Mikomeseng, the fight against leprosy and colonial health policy more generally were used to re-establish Spain’s status within the international scientific community following its period of post-war isolation
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