Say what?
The mid 19th century Europeans were heartily exploiting colonial ventures around the world. While movements had either banned slavery or were on their way to doing so worldwide (at least in European influenced cultures) having superior technology justified (along with Darwinism) the concept that Europeans were more evolutionarily advanced humans, and thus exploitation was justified, often in the guise of propelling more primitive people to advance, but commonly in the form of shameless exploitation.
While the ideas that "Gott Mit Uns", and 'taming the savage heathen' are nothing new (what conquering army isn't either asserting its natural superiority or converting the unbelievers?), in the end all loot, pillage, and burn, and subjugate their conquests (Alexander the Great may have been a notable exception).
This forcible exporting of culture, language, and religion (and attempts to subjugate that which existed prior) masks the looting which accompanies it, but behind it all is a feeling of being superior to the natives.
That Darwin walks hand-in-glove with such assertions or assumptions of natural superiority leaves the conquered peoples lower on the 'civilization' pole, less developed, and in second place, evolutionarily, in the minds of those infused with such beliefs during the 'Age of Reason'. Even Natural Histories (Ackermans, 1848, pre-Darwin) expressed the concept of some races being more 'advanced' than others, Darwin provided an evolutionary framework for those prejudices.
I do not embrace any of that, but my beliefs don't influence that which has passed, and it was evident in the colonial movement which spanned the globe, with the subjugation of indigenous peoples everywhere.
