Chapter 5 British Humanitarianism, International Law and Human Sacrifice in West Africa
In: International Law in the Long Nineteenth Century (1776-1914)Search for other papers by Inge Van Hulle in
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Abstract
Within the history of international law and imperialism during the nineteenth century, the resort to the civilising mission played an essential role as a justification for taking legal measures that targeted the rights of non-Western peoples. Such legal interventions formed part of a wider nineteenth-century imperialist trend for the gradual expulsion of all indigenous cultural institutions that did not accord to Christian worldviews. This chapter focuses on one particular instance of cultural imperialism, namely British efforts to abolish human sacrifice during the mid- and late nineteenth century through the conclusion of treaties with African rulers and use of force. It discusses interventions in Dahomey, Asante and Benin. Under pressure of humanitarians, including missionaries, treaties were concluded with African rulers that prohibited human sacrifice. These treaties in turn laid the legal foundations for the resort to forcible measures couched in humanitarian language. The widespread use of treaties for the formalisation of international relations in West Africa, of which the suppression of human sacrifice was merely one objective, gave imperial agents the ability to appeal to the binding force of written obligations as a basis for intervention.