Southern Darkness, Northern Light: ‘Civilisation’ and ‘Savagery’ in Anders Sparrman’s Southern African Travelogue

Abstract

This article interrogates how the entangled concepts of civilisation and savagery were envisioned and brought into play in the globetrotting Linnaean disciple Anders Sparrman's (1748-1820) southern African travel account, how far and along which lines the dichotomy between them was tempered and challenged, and to what extent exposure to a foreign continent encouraged critical and destabilising introspection. The analysis deals with his representations of the inhabitants of Africa in the form of colonists, slaves, and Khoisan, as well as with his renderings of the Europeans. The investigation sheds further light on the erudite construction and employment of 'civilisation' and 'savagery' at the threshold between early modern and modern. It also provides a fresh take on Sparrman himself, while addressing the scholarly debate on his human-related conceptions and proposing a new approach to them.

The Embodiment of the Indigenous People by European Travel Writers at the Cape Colony, Southern Africa

“…Most of his travel accounts were influenced by on-the-spot observation which combined both the historical and political contexts. It is in this context that Barrow and (incidentally) Sparrman were extremely critical of the Dutch colonists at the Cape(Persson 2019).…”