To Maintain or Adjust?: On the Whiteness of Swedish Men in the Congo Free State (1884–1914)

Abstract

ABSTRACT During the High Imperialism era, it was not unusual that Nordic Europeans took up colonial positions in African colonies. Given the high number of Swedish citizens in the Congo Free State, this paper analyses the written and visual ego-documents of those who worked there as missionaries, soldiers, steamboat captains or traders. The presented sources include diary entries, letters and a photograph. The goal is to establish to which extent Swedish men in particular tried to maintain or adjust their status as white men and how they engaged with being part of an inherently racist colonial system that encouraged notions of white supremacy. Some questions to be addressed are to which extent ego-documents and a micro-historical approach help analyse how Swedish colonisers understood their roles and identities as representatives of white culture and how they communicated those to themselves and other audiences. To which lengths did these men go to practice whiteness when in the Congo Free State and when did so-called contact zones lead to acculturation and acceptance of local habits? How important was the sense of a white identity to them? To this purpose, a set of tools is presented that includes the analysis of private documents in combination with micro-history, whiteness and masculinity studies. Ultimately, a selection of transimperial agents and their sources shows how whiteness was more important than citizenship and how features of masculinity engaged with the former.