How White Southerners Distorted the History of Ancient Egypt to Justify Slavery in the U.S.

"When Napoleon Bonaparte embarked upon a military expedition to Egypt in 1798, he took with him a team of scholars, scientists and artists. Together, they produced the monumental Description de l'Égypte, a massive, multivolume work about Egyptian geography, history and culture. At the time, the United States was a young nation with big aspirations, and Americans often viewed their country as an heir to the great civilizations of the past."

"In the slaveholding South, ancient Egypt and its pharaohs became a way to justify slavery. For abolitionists and African Americans, biblical Egypt served as a symbol of bondage and liberation. As a historian, I study how 19th-century Americans-from Southern intellectuals to Black abolitionists-used ancient Egypt to debate questions of race, civilization and national identity. My research traces how a distorted image of ancient Egypt shaped competing visions of freedom and hierarchy in a deeply divided nation."

Napoleon's 1798 expedition produced the Description de l'Égypte, sparking intense American interest in ancient Egyptian culture and history. Southern slaveholders appropriated ancient Egypt and its pharaohs as a cultural and historical justification for slavery and for visions of agricultural empires along the Mississippi. Abolitionists and African Americans invoked biblical Egypt as a powerful symbol of bondage and eventual liberation. Place names and promotional rhetoric compared American landscapes to Egyptian counterparts. Distorted images of ancient Egypt thus influenced 19th-century disputes over race, civilization and national identity, fueling competing visions of freedom and social hierarchy.

Read at Smithsonian Magazine