The beliefs of ethnocentrism and Social Darwinism can be seen in a famous poem by Rudyard Kipling called ‘The White Man’s Burden’. Social Darwinism was particularly popular in the early 1870s, when Europeans were carrying out their massive imperialistic campaigns as part of the Age of Imperialism. Therefore, supporters of Social Darwinism attempted to use the ideas of Charles Darwin to scientifically justify or prove ethnocentric beliefs. While Darwin was referring to biological studies of species, others used his ideas and applied them to human beings. Charles Darwin was the renowned British scientist who is credited with developing the theory of evolution in his famous book ‘Origin of Species’. In short, Social Darwinism is the idea that some ethnic groups or races are superior to others and therefore more ‘fit’ to rule over those that are less ‘fit’. These Eurocentric beliefs were justified by European governments due to a concept called Social Darwinism. Eurocentrism is similar to ethnocentrism but focuses specifically on Europeans and the views of superiority expressed in relation to the timeframe of imperialism. Further to this idea is the concept of ‘eurocentrism’. The term that best relates to this concept is ‘ethnocentrism’, which is the concept of judging other cultures based upon the views of your own. As such, European beliefs about their own supposed racial superiority helped inform their interactions with the people they encountered, including native Africans.
More specifically, as Europeans travelled the globe and colonized different regions, they came into contact with all sorts of different indigenous people. Another cause of the Scramble for Africa was the view of racial superiority that Europeans expressed throughout the 19th century.
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