The only adequate cause of this preparation was conquest and conquest, not in Europe, but primarily among the darker peoples of Asia and Africa; conquest, not for assimilation and uplift, but for commerce and degradation.
Du Bois highlights the exploitative nature of European conquests, particularly in Asia and Africa.
Share
More from W.E.B. Du Bois
Years have passed away since then,—ten, twenty, forty; forty years of national life, forty years of renewal and development, and yet the swarthy spectre sits in its accustomed seat at the Nation’s feast.
The form and disposition of the laborers’ cabins throughout the Black Belt is to-day the same as in slavery days.
By 1830 slavery seemed hopelessly fastened on the South, and the slaves thoroughly cowed into submission.
Away back in the days of bondage they thought to see in one divine event the end of all doubt and disappointment; few men ever worshipped Freedom with half such unquestioning faith as did the American Negro for two centuries.