Black Lives in 18th Century Europe
Joseph Bologne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges (1745-1799) was born into one of the most contradictory eras of modern European history. On the one hand, the valorous ideals of the Enlightenment caught fire during Bologne’s lifetime, as Enlightenment thinkers such as Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) called for the individual to pursue knowledge and to expand their worldviews. On the other, the horrifying principles of scientific racism, coupled with the booming market of the transatlantic slave trade, unleashed violence upon the Atlantic world in a manner that remains unprecedented. Joseph Bologne arrived into the world when, as Henry Louis Gates Jr. writes, “Enlightenment-era [...]