Mechanisms of Dehumanization
There were many mechanisms by which colonialism dehumanized all non-white people, both through perception as well as maltreatment. African people were dehumanized both as motivation for and a consequence of colonization and slavery. This process of dehumanization is rooted in the understanding of religion but has expanded far past it. Of the many mechanisms of dehumanization, there are two religious concepts that had a very strong influence on this process: The Doctrine of Discovery and Polygenesis.
The Doctrine of Discovery
The Doctrine of Discovery acted as legal grounds for the seizure of any land that was not occupied by Christians (United Nations, 2012). It essentially asserted Christianity as a superior religion to all others, which allowed Christians to steal land from any non-Christian. It consequently asserted Christian culture, and European culture, as the superior culture to all others, and allowed these “superior” people to treat others as inferior, or less than human. This provided legal grounds for the entire acts of colonization and slavery and established a cultural and religious hierarchy which valued European Christians above all others (United Nations, 2012). This is a clear example of the role of religion in dehumanizing African people, and has lasting effects to this day.
Polygenesis
Polygenesis was the theory that each race evolved separately and independently. By arguing that each race had their own history of development that was separated from all others, it suggested that some races may be superior or inferior to others, as they all had their own route of evolution (Keel, 2013). While there were varying understandings of this theory, the primary understanding was as follows: God created a single pure race from which each of the races degenerated, with Black people being the most degenerated and white people being the least (Gould, 1996). White people were framed as the purest race, establishing their superiority over all non-white people who were considered less pure. This religious argumentation was utilized to dispute the humanity of non-white people, and led to the denial of equality between races.
Conclusion
Overall, this pattern of dehumanization has attempted to separate white people from non-white people, especially Black people. By animalizing, infantilizing, and dehumanizing African people, they were then viewed as less human than white people, and the idea that Black and white people have different biology was supported. While this could not be further from the truth, there have been centuries of scientific effort to show that Africans are biologically and pathologically different from European people. This history has lasting effects that can be seen today, with a massive example being Excited Delirium Syndrome.
It is for these reasons that Jesús also argues that this syndrome can be tied to religion through every step since the beginning of colonialism in Africa, when European colonizers began to dehumanize Africans based on their perception of African religion (2024). African Caribbean religions, such as Vodou and Obeah, were criminalized in many places including Jamaica and Haiti, although these were not the only places where this occurred (Cole, 2019). I, along with scholars such as Jesús, argue that this criminalization of Afrolatiné spiritual traditions has been extended to the present day United States with Excited Delirium Syndrome, where Black and Brown people disproportionately die at the hands and knees of police only to have Excited Delirium Syndrome listed as the cause of death (2024).