colonial – Switzerland’s Global Entanglements

Ever since the 16th century, Swiss society has been increasingly globally intertwined. In eleven chapters, the exhibition revealed colonial fields of action in which Swiss men and women were involved. They range from involvement in the slave trade to mercenary service in the colonies to scientific research as a form of exploiting of both humans and natural environments.

On the tour through the exhibition, visitors encountered not only Swiss protagonists and institutions based in present-day Switzerland, but also enslaved and colonized people, who put up resistance but whose traces have almost been lost today.

The legacy of European colonialism still shapes the world today. The exhibition called on visitors to engage in the ongoing debates.

Here you will find a selection of the contents of the exhibition, which was on display at the National Museum Zurich from 13 September 2024 to 19 January 2025. The exhibition will be on display in an adapted form at the Château de Prangins from 27 March 2026 to 11 October 2026.

'The multifaceted yet elusive role of our country presents us with a decision. Do we turn away from the subject because it is so complex, even seemingly impenetrable? Or do we take a closer look because that is the only way to understand what it really was like? And how this colonial legacy shapes our present?'

Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider, vernissage in Zurich, 12.09.2024

Federal Councillor Elisabeth Baume-Schneider and Henri-Michel Yéré, historian and poet from the University of Basel, spoke at the vernissage of the exhibition.

Enslavement

In order to operate plantations in the Caribbean as well as in North and South America, European traders deported over 12 million people from Africa to the colonies between the 16th and 19th century. This was also possible because there already existed an intra-African slave trade.

More than 250 Swiss entrepreneurs and companies were involved in the deportation and trade of roughly 172’000 people. Prerequisite for such a form of exploitation was the dehumanization of enslaved people. The Atlantic slave trade created the conditions under which racism evolved, starting in the 16th century.

Wealth through exploitation
The Atlantic slave trade reached its shameful climax in the 18th c. Cities such as Bern and Zurich also invested in the slave trade; both were shareholders in the British South Sea Company, responsible for the deportation of more than 38,000 enslaved people.

Stock of the South Sea Company, London, 1729 | Sammlung des Schweizer Finanzmuseum, Zürich

Manufacturer, trader, investor
The company Christoph Burckhardt & Cie. produced chintz fabrics in Basel and dealt in colonial wares. The Burckhardt family was involved in 21 slave crossings and the deportation of 7,350 enslaved people.

Account statement for the slave ship Le Cultivateur, Ch. Burckhardt & Cie, Basel, 1815–1817 | Schweizerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Basel

The listing of human beings alongside normal trade goods shows that enslaved people were treated like commodities. Slavery was by no means an invention of European colonialism, but the transatlantic slave trade added a new dimension to the capitalization of the human body. Enslaved people were reduced to mere freight and abducted to the colonies by means of unspeakable violence.

Chintz
Printed cotton fabrics were an important trade goods in exchange for enslaved people. This fragment is probably the only preserved piece that was produced specifically for this kind of exchange.

Le lion et la chèvre, Manufactory Petitpierre & Cie, Nantes, around 1790, woodblock print on cotton | Swiss National Museum

Enslaved people as property

From the 17th century on, Swiss men and women privately owned plantations which were run on slave labour, for instance, in the Caribbean or Brazil. The exploitation of enslaved men, women, and children brought them tremendous wealth.

Swiss entrepreneurs and mercenaries also owned enslaved people in European colonies. In Asia, for example, mercenaries often cohabited with enslaved women. Of some of them we know that they brought enslaved people back to Switzerland.

What about today?

For years, calls for reparations for the crime of slavery have been voiced but it remains unclear whether and who should pay and who should benefit from the amends. The historian Hans Fässler puts it into perspective.

In Brazil, the name Helvécia bears witness to the place’s Swiss past. The memory of slavery lives on in the descendants. The pictures of the Brazilian-Swiss photographer Dom Smaz and the embroidered fabric panels created by the Swiss artist Denise Bertschi reflect this memory.

Descendants of slavery
When slavery was finally banned in Brazil in 1888, roughly 2,000 enslaved people gained their freedom in Helvécia, the former German-Swiss colony of Leopoldina, among them Dona Cocota’s grandfather.

Dom Smaz, Dona Cocota, Helvécia, Brazil, 2015 | Swiss National Museum

Swiss family traces
Apart from the descendants of formerly enslaved people, descendants of the Swiss family Sulz still live in Helvécia today, the former German-Swiss colony of Leopoldina.

Dom Smaz, Carlos Henrique Cerqueira (grandson of Henrique Sulz), Helvécia, Brazil, 2017 | Swiss National Museum

Trade

Swiss merchants began trading in so-called colonial wares in the 16th century: among them silk, spices, tobacco, and tea from overseas. Later, textiles became the main currency in the Atlantic triangular trade – a highly lucrative business for the companies involved.

From the mid-19th century, Africa and Southeast Asia served as sales markets for European industrial goods; in return, Europe imported raw materials to drive its industrial production. In Switzerland, a country short on raw material resources, a few merchant companies benefitted from the development and grew to become the world’s largest commodity traders.

Cocoa
The cocoa plant only grows in tropical regions. In the 18th c., it was one of the most important commodities, harvested by enslaved people, and traded on the world market, amongst others by Swiss trading companies.

It was only in the 19th c. that cacao reached Africa from South America. The triumph of Swiss chocolate was only possible thanks to cocoa from the colonies and the link between the chocolate industry and the growth of the dairy industry.

Cocoa fruit, cacahuatl (Nahuatl, language of the Aztecs), Ghana, 2024

Cocoa drying area in Accra
The Basel Missions-Handlungs-Gesellschaft was founded as an offshoot of the Basel Mission in 1859. The company traded in cocoa and grew its own cocoa plants. As of 1921, the Union Trading Company became one of the largest trading companies in Switzerland.

Accra, cocoa drying area, around 1904/1905 | Mission 21, Bestand der Basler Mission

The Missions-Handlungs-Gesellschaft was a member of the European Trading Cartel and was therefore able to keep the producer price low, thus effectively hindering other African companies from competing on the market. Shown in the picture: local laborers and a foreman in ‘colonial white’ dress – so clearly revealing the power divide.

Transit trade

Transit trade companies deal in commodities without the goods ever entering their own country. Thanks to free market access and high capital coverage, companies like the Basler Missions-Handlungs-Gesellschaft or Volkart & Cie. made large profits and benefitted from the fact that colonies were geared to commodity production.

Falling transport costs and new communication technologies triggered a substantial increase in trade from 1880 onward and made Switzerland one of the major hubs in the commodity trade.

Why is Switzerland – with no commodities of its own and topographically at a disadvantage – so rich?
The question whether Switzerland (as a nation) grew rich off its colonial involvement is difficult to say, based on the current state of research. Individual companies and families certainly benefitted from colonialism while, around 1900, the majority of the population was poor and struggling.

Myths and facts: The origins of Swiss wealth, discussion between Markus Somm, journalist and historian, and Hans Fässler, historian, Echo der Zeit, 21 Dec. 2021

What about today?

trading companies were registered in 2021, covering roughly a quarter of the global commodity trade.

The profits still flow to the global North, while the producing countries are forced to bear the costs of environmental damage and inhumane working conditions. The local population barely benefits from their country’s wealth in raw materials.

Blog article: Cocoa in Ghana: how it all began

Mercenaries

Swiss mercenaries began serving in European colonial armies from the end of the 16th century on which meant they often took part in violent conquests and helped to uphold the colonial order.

Crucial factors that made Swiss men sign up for foreign military service included unemployment and poverty but also fanciful images of manhood promising adventure and heroism. Although actual mercenarism was banned in 1859, serving in a foreign army still remained possible. Thousands of young Swiss men joined the French Foreign Legion or the Royal Netherlands East Indies Army and served in colonial Asia and Africa.

What about today?

Well into the 20th century, Swiss mercenaries were still venerated as heroes, as valiant men who went to battle. The fact that mercenaries frequently helped to uphold violent regimes, but often also died abroad or returned to Switzerland heavily traumatized by what they had witnessed, was often ignored.

In former colonies, mercenaries and excessive acts of violence are remembered differently. In 2008, the ethnologist Edgar Keller from Zurich and his colleague Yoseph Agato Sareng interviewed people living on Flores whose parents and grandparents witnessed the massacre ordered by Hans Christoffel in 1907.

In 2023, Keller and Sareng conducted another round of interviews with the descendants. In the film, Franziskus Rema Lawa, Thomas Mite, Petronela Ene Sugi, Martin Lalu, and Mosolaki Kristoferus Oramu speak about the violence that their forefathers experienced, as well as about the resistance against the Dutch.

Settler colonies

From 1600 onwards, colonial governments founded so-called settler colonies in which European men and women were invited to cultivate allegedly unoccupied lands and engage in trade. In truth, the land was seized from the respective resident indigenous population.

Although most Swiss emigrants came from poor backgrounds, they, being white, benefitted from the existing power relations in the long run and contributed to the forceful eviction of indigenous populations – above all in North and South America, at times also in Asia and Africa.

New Bern

In 1710, Christoph von Graffenried founded the colony of New Bern in what is now North Carolina in the USA. The British colonial authorities allotted him 16,200 hectares of land. However, the area was already home to families of the Skarù·ręʔ (also called Tuscarora) who had been fighting for independence for years.

In 1711, it came to war. The Skarù·ręʔ attacked New Bern, destroying almost the whole town. A year later, the Skarù·ręʔ were defeated; many of them were either killed or captured and sold into slavery.

San Carlos

When, from 1809 on, the South American countries began breaking away from their Spanish and Portuguese colonial masters, free states emerged; these were governed by small white and creole elites. The aim was to develop white societies modelled on European standards.

Between 1856 and 1896, more than 20 Swiss settler colonies were founded in Argentina – mostly by impoverished farmers from the mountain valleys of the Valais – among them the colony of San Carlos.

Poverty
Many settlers emigrated from Switzerland in the face of poverty. Most of them did not grow rich in their new homeland; usually it was only the second or third generation that fared better economically.

Colony of San Carlos, 1883 | Schweizerisches Wirtschaftsarchiv, Basel

One the one hand, this photograph reveals the poor living conditions that settlers often faced, on the other, it feeds into the notion of wide, unoccupied land. What it does not show is that, in many cases, settlers occupied land that was inhabited by Indigenous people, at least temporarily, who were driven off by force.

What about today?

Towards the end of the 19th century, the Chilean state occupied large swathes of what is now southern Chile, home to the self-governing Mapuche; many of them were murdered, dispossessed, and disenfranchised. The land was distributed among settlers from Europe, among them the Luchsinger family from Engi (Glarus).

To this day, the Mapuche are still fighting for the return of their lands, including land now owned by descendants of the Luchsingers, who, of course, regard themselves as the rightful owners.

Selling what isn’t yours to sell
The work Free To All combines a historical poster of the Kansas Pacific Railway and the image of a member of the Kaw nation. The Kaw man, who occupies the centre of the poster, is superimposed on the legend advertising the extraordinary landscape that can be experienced on a rail journey.

The poster promises millions of hectares of land Free To All: this inscription can be seen in the stamp at the top right of the poster. Chris Pappan put the historical photograph of the Kaw man in the centre to show that this land was anything but free for the taking: land that rightfully belonged to the Indigenous population was sold and privatised at a great profit. The Indigenous population paid the price – in the form of forced relocation or with their lives.

Free To All, Chris Pappan, 2013, acrylic and gold leaf on wood, NONAM Collection

Poster of the Kansas Pacific Railway Company, between 1880 and 1900, Kansas Historical Society

Photo: A member of the Kaw nation, perhaps No-pa-wy. Alexander Gardner, Washington, D.C., 1867, National Museum of the American Indian, P10140

The art of Chris Pappan
The art of Chris Pappan (*1971, Colorado Springs, USA) brings the stories of his Osage and Kaw ancestors into the present. His works, which are based on ledger art, a traditional Native American art form that has been widespread on paper since 1865, show that the history of these people did not end with their expulsion to the reservations and that they remain part of American society to this day. Thus the central message of his art is: 'We are still here.'

Individuals, not stereotypes
The artist draws on historical photographs as inspiration for his current works. The images help Pappan to immerse himself in the lives of the people. However, the disadvantage of these photos is that they were often manipulated and used to disseminate and perpetuate stereotypes.

In Scouts Honor, Pappan shows a bandanna from 1971 with a stereotypical printed design in the centre. Pappan juxtaposes this print with two portraits of two autonomous, individual people with different facial features and characteristics. These two people stand only for themselves, as individuals – unlike the print, which represents a stereotypical and superficial amalgam of various population groups.

Scouts Honor, Chris Pappan, 2019–2020, photo: Chris Pappan

Blog article: A pioneer with a dark side

The missions

Ever since the 16th century, Swiss missionaries – starting with the Jesuits in Latin America – have attempted to bring indigenous peoples across the globe into the folds of Christianity. One of the first and largest of the European Protestant mission societies was the Basel Mission.

Missionaries built schools and hospitals, often with the help of local rulers. Although they occasionally initiated social change, the relationship with their followers was usually governed by a paternalistic attitude. Back home, the missionaries often painted a picture of inferior cultures in the colonial territories.

The Basel Mission

In 1815, devout citizens of Basel‘s bourgeois elite founded the Basel Mission together with Pietists from southern Germany. From 1828 onward, missionaries were sent to the Gold Coast (modern Ghana) and from 1934 to southern India. Their task was to convert the local population to Christianity and bring them ‘benevolent civlization’.

From 1901 on, unmarried women, too, were sent to missionize abroad – the hope being that women would probably achieve a better ‘conversion rate’ among ‘pagan’ women.

Clay figures
Clay figures from India helped familiarize prospective missionaries as well as the congregation in Basel about life in the mission area. They also served as an introduction to the structure of Indian society.

Model figures, India, ca. 1886 | Sammlung der Basler Mission Depositum 1981, Museum der Kulturen Basel

Diary of a missionary
Maria Müller-Kapff (1871–1958) was the wife of the missionary Wilhelm Müller in Calicut, British India. She wrote an account of their situation during World War One when the British interned missionaries. Her husband was taken into preventive detention.

Diary entries on war-time experiences in India, 1914–1915, Maria Müller-Kapff | Mission 21, Bestand der Basler Mission

Until 1901, women were barred from working as missionaries. Their only chance was to enter into an arranged marriage with a missionary. Many were willing to move overseas and marry a man they had never met because at their husband’s side, they would be able to lead an independent life. Basel Mission began to recruit single women for missionary work after 1901.

What about today?

From the start, the Basel Mission also faced criticism, ultimately bringing an end to their missionary quest in the mid-1950s. Criticism was directed against the practice of proselytization which was driven by a sense of civilizing mission fuelled by a supposedly superior European culture.

The Indian historian Mukesh Kumar considers the health and education facilities as positive achievements; in many cases, they made life easier for the converted segments of the population.

Queer activism
As a queer artist, Sandeep TK deals with the tensions between varnas, classes and gender, but also incorporates global power structures that have arisen from the legacy of the colonial past. Queer people in particular often leave their home villages to escape these structures, at the cost of leaving part of their own culture behind and having to adapt to a new way of life:

'I am also looking at small-town queer aspirations to move to a bigger city to be a part of urban culture and the more extensive queer network. […] it’s a collective experience of small-town queers who aspired to move to big cities that comes with the difficulties of facing a new urban culture, language, and ways of navigating life in the town.'

Photo: Social media of the artist

Photo series 'Let me add something in my own melody'
In his creative process, the artist realizes that people in photographs he found in the archives of the Basel mission are often photographed passively, without self-determination and dependent on the person taking the picture. He connects the passive position of the people in photographs with stories of his ancestors in the environment of colonial structures. He therefore decides to tell these stories differently and to photograph himself in the process. With self-portraits, he creates his own, new images of the past that show a self-empowered person - himself.

The photo series shows the artist in staged poses, telling the stories of his grandmother, his father and letters from the time of the Basel mission.

'Basel mission came to Malabar with the aim to spread Christian messages while attempting to achieve their goal, they established Schools, tile factories and weaving units to employ people from the lowest of the communities.'

From the series 'Let me add something in my own melody', 2020 | Courtesy of Sandeep TK

'Have worn suit and pant in front of mirror when nobody watching when I heard the news, I got the Job. Never gathered the courage to wear it in front of friends but I did wear it once when I moved 'to a city.'

From the series 'Let me add something in my own melody', 2020 | Courtesy of Sandeep TK

Research at the Basel Mission Archive
'Some years ago, through a Pro Helvetia residency, I had the opportunity to spend some time in their (mission) archive in Basel. (…) The Basel Mission was a Christian missionary operation, a European venture with all the imperial overtones of the time. But they did bring fresh eyes to the region and could see the situation of untouchable castes for what it was: oppression. And to the extent they were able to help, people were grateful, however much the exercise was propelled by the fervour of religious conversion and the civilising mission. As someone from the same untouchable castes they affected, from a family that did not convert, I had an understandably complex reaction to their legacy in my homeland.'

Quote from: Reading the Body: In Conversation with Sandeep TK, MALLIKA VISVANATHANFEB 26, 2024, Asap Art, alternative South Asia Photography

Photo: Social media of the artist

Experts

From the mid-19th century onward, numerous Swiss experts stood in the service of colonial powers. Geologists searched for oil, engineers designed bridges, civil servants collected taxes. Their expertise served the colonial development and administration of a territory.

Roughly 200 Swiss worked in the Congo Free State (1885–1908), the private colony of King Leopold II of Belgium. Some like Daniel Bersot criticized the ruthless profit maximization along with the use of excessive violence. Others like Erwin Federspiel relativized the events and justified the practice of colonial rule. Owing to such reports, the Congo Atrocities including forced labour in rubber extraction and brutal acts of violence became known and were publicly discussed in Switzerland.

Ambivalent criticism
Daniel Bersot from Neuchâtel (1873–1916) spent three months of 1897/98 as a colonial administrator in the Congo Free State. On his return home, he criticized the colonial system, and in a book described witnessing corporal punishment using the ‘chicote’, a hippopotamus hide whip that was used, for instance, to punish individuals who failed to deliver their allocated quota of rubber. Nevertheless, there are also racist statements in the book.

‘Under the chicote! These three words sum up the history of Central Africa over the last quarter of a century; they characterise the regime of oppression and ruthless exploitation that a huge country is made to suffer; they encapsulate the entire life of fear and toil of the N— of the Congo.’

Sous la chicote, Daniel Bersot, Geneva, 1909 | Patrick Minder, Fribourg

An attempt at vindication
In 1898 Erwin Federspiel (1871–1922) signed up for ten years in the Congo Free State's force publique. It was the military and civil police force, and brutally quelled local resistance. Involved in the collection of taxes himself while the Congo-atrocities Congo atrocities were taking place, Federspiel played down events and sought to justify them in a pamphlet he wrote.

Wie es im Congostaat zugeht (What is happening in Congo), Erwin Federspiel, Zurich, 1909 | Zentralbibliothek Zürich, Bro 12780

The recruiter
Jean Boillot-Robert (d. 1913) was appointed Belgian consul in Neuchâtel from 1901. Working on commission, he recruited local Swiss to work as officials in the Congo Free State. To that end, he published this collection of whitewashed ‘eyewitness accounts’ by Swiss nationals who had returned home from the colony.

Leopold II et le Congo – Nos fils au continent noir, Jean Boillot-Robert, Neuchâtel, 1904 | Patrick Minder, Fribourg

Science

Swiss scientists took advantage of the colonial patronage to conduct research, for instance, in botany, tropical medicine, or linguistics. Their findings were useful: cartography, ethnographic knowledge, or geological findings helped colonial powers to exploit natural resources and control colonised populations.

Indigenous knowledge was either ignored or appropriated. Colonial researchers ‘discovered’ landmarks along with plant and animal species, albeit all of them long known to the colonized peoples, allowing Swiss scientists to reap in fame and profit without naming the original sources.

Natural scientists
Between 1883 and 1907, the Basel natural scientists Fritz (1859–1942) and Paul (1856–1929) Sarasin undertook research expeditions to colonised regions of Ceylon (today Sri Lanka) and Celebes (Sulawesi, Indonesia). Equipped with measuring instruments and exploiting forced labour, they explored the geological, biogeographical and racial-anthropological boundaries.

Telescope of Paul Sarasin, around 1900 | Historisches Museum Basel, Erben Beatrix Staub-Sarasin

Research expeditions
Geologist Arnold Heim (1882–1965) conducted research on every continent. Many of his trips were funded by oil companies. Over the course of his career, he became an environmentalist and advocate of decolonization.

Virunga Expedition, Lake Mutanda (Uganda), 1954 | ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv, Hs_0494b-0090-003-AL

The lonesome, courageous explorer, who expands the boundary of the known world and was the ‘first’ to discover or photograph this or that, is a myth. Colonial research was impossible without local cooperation. Without exception, colonized people played a crucial role in the building of shared knowledge, yet their contribution to the discovery and understanding of their own environment was never recognized.

What about today?

Since the 1970s, former colonies have been demanding the restitution of looted cultural assets and human remains. It is only in recent years that the proper way to deal with colonial museum collections has been publicly debated. In 2023, the Federal Council appointed an Independent Expert Committee on Disputed Cultural Heritage.

Decolonization has now also reached the museums: Many of them have turned to investigating the circumstances of acquisition and the potential return of objects to their original owners.

Exploiting nature

The expansion of colonialism in the 19th century caused far-reaching changes to and the destruction of landscapes along with their flora and fauna – with notable effects on the climate.

Colonies served as seemingly inexhaustible sources of natural resources; the rise of European industrialization increased the demand for them exponentially. Swiss men and women, too, helped to plunder these resources through large-scale plantation farming or big game hunting, as examples from Sumatra and East Africa go to show.

‘Beginnings of a Plantation’
Photos in the albums of Swiss ‘planters’ show cleared areas of forest. On Sumatra, vast areas of it were lost to the colonial plantation economy. Profound changes to the natural world were viewed as inevitable in an effort to increase profits.

Album, Sumatra, ca. 1880–1900 | Swiss National Museum

Biodiversity under threat
Forest clearance aimed at increasing the amount of land for plantations entails habitat loss and a sharp decline in biodiversity, and is detrimental to the climate. Colonies were exploited as if their natural resources were inexhaustible.

‘Planter’ on cleared land, Sumatra, late 19th c. | Museum Heiden, Nachlass Traugott Zimmermann

Resistance
The plantation economy held great potential for conflict. Sent to the plantation owner Carl Fürchtegott Grob (1830–1893) from Zurich, this letter indicates local resistance. Its sender threatens an arson attack if his demands are not met.

Threatening letter with inscription in a Batak language, Sumatra 1875–1880 | Völkerkundemuseum der Universität Zürich, Inv.nr. VMZ 01006, © Kathrin Leuenberger

What about today?

Not least, colonialism also drove climate change. To this day, the environmentally damaging plantation economy is still engulfing huge areas of natural forest. The carbon stored there is released into the atmosphere, thus significantly fuelling the greenhouse effect.

The former colonies have to bear the costs. They are disproportionately affected by the consequences of climate change, for instance by rising sea levels; this is one reason why activists and international organizations are demanding 'climate justice'.

Continuity
The Indonesian artist Maryanto addresses the exploitation of nature and postcolonial structures. With this painting of palm oil fruit, he draws attention to the expansion of plantations in Borneo, the displacement of indigenous communities, and deforestation.

Maryanto, Fresh Fruit Bunch, Yogyakarta 2023, acrylic on canvas | Yeo Workshop, Singapore

The Journey to Find Palm Oil
Maryanto conducts research for his art in his homeland, Indonesia. In video recordings, the artist describes his arrival on the island of Kalimantan:

‘Initially, I had imagined Kalimantan to be a naturally beautiful area with dense forests and big trees, but I was met with a different reality. The journey was dotted with big trucks carrying coal and palm oil.’

Maryanto, Perjalanan Kelapa Sawit (The Journey to Find Palm Oil), 2023 | © Maryanto

Palm oil in daily life
In this work, the palm plant is engulfed by a deluge of logos from multi-corporations and household brand names not foreign to us. From Oreo to Nestle, these products all contain palm oil that could have originated from these plantations in Indonesia. Maryanto urges us to acknowledge how ubiquitous palm oil has become in our lives, perhaps even unwittingly. Recalling the sensibilities of a makeshift signboard by activists and protestors, Palm oil in daily life is imbued with the same ardour as the acts of valour these indigenous communities are making to protect their forests.

Maryanto, Palm oil in daily life, 2023 | © Maryanto

Racism

Up to the end of 17th century, the alleged superiority of Christian culture was seen as an expression of ‘divine order’. In the course of the Enlightenment, this view was seriously questioned.

At the turn of the 19th century, so-called ‘racial theories’ became firmly established in Europe. These theories explained the alleged superiority of the ‘white race’ no longer in religious but in ‘biological’ terms based on bodily features such as hair structure, colour of the eyes, or shape of the skull. The resulting ‘race theories’ provided the legitimization of imperial rule and the exploitation of ‘foreign races’ in the colonies.

Although even then, racial research was occasionally denounced as pseudo-scientific, scientific racism remained an acknowledged branch of research up to the Second World War (1939–1945). Today the concept of ‘human races’ is definitely considered refuted, not least thanks genetic research.

Scientific racism

Around 1900, the universities of Zurich and Geneva became international centres for ‘Racial anthropology‘. ‘Racialist theorists’ measured human skulls from across the globe and grouped them into ‘races‘. The method applied by the ‘Zurich School‘, in particular, became the internationally recognized standard from the 1920s on.

The studies also served the purpose of preserving the ‘white race’ which allegedly was under threat. ‘Racialist theory’ and eugenics were practised in Switzerland up to the 1960s, albeit rarely.

Measurement
The Zurich Institute of Anthropology gained notorious fame for its measuring methods – such as measuring human skulls. The methods and instruments were developed and tested in the colonies.

Callipers, Siber Hegner & Co. AG, Zurich, around 1960 craniometry | Institut für Medizingeschichte, Universität Bern

Swiss 'race scientists'

An influential Harvard professor
Louis Agassiz (1807–1873), a zoologist, palaeontologist, and glaciologist, emigrated to the US in 1846 and went on to become one of the foremost opponents of Darwin’s theory of evolution. In his theory of the hierarchy of the “races”, he established a clear ranking of humanity in which the “white race” was regarded as superior to the “black race”. Agassiz rejected “racial intermingling”, defined “mixed-race” people as inferior, and wanted to obligate the American state to institute racial segregation and expedite the disappearance of “mixed-race” people.

In 2007 the Swiss Federal Council rejected demands to rename the Agassizhorn mountain, as did the three municipalities of Grindelwald, Guttannen, and Fieschertal in 2010 and 2020. In Neuenburg, by contrast, the “Espace Louis-Agassiz” was renamed “Espace Tilo-Frey” in 2019.

Carte de Visite von Louis Agassiz, William Shaw Warren, c. 1865 via Wikimedia Commons

Evolutionary theory as a cornerstone
As a staunch supporter of polygenism, the theory that the human races are of different origins, Carl Vogt (1817–1895) held that humans did not evolve from one single, but from several different human-like apes. From this he concluded that Black people, especially Black women, were the least developed in evolutionary terms. Based on the shape of brain and skull, Vogt believed that the biggest differences were not between Black and white people, but between the genders within a ‘race’. From 1839-1844 he was Louis Agassiz’s assistant; in 1873 in co-founded the university of Geneva.

Carl Vogt, royal court photographer, Vienna, ca. 1860 | The New York Public Library

The strict division of ‘races’
The physician Auguste Forel (1848–1931) was a proponent of eugenics and called for the homogeneity of the white race to be preserved and promoted. His eugenic and racist ideas fed into Swiss scientific discourse, thus underpinning the colonial claim to superiority.

Auguste Forel, from: Clark University, 1889-1899, decennial celebration, Worcester, Mass, 1899 | Internet Archive

Superior by nature
The mechanical engineer Julius Klaus (1849–1920) was a staunch Darwinist and believed in the existence of genetically superior and inferior ‘human races’. By way of nature, the white race was allegedly superior to all others; this was an opportune way to justify colonialism. With the help of funds from Klaus amounting to over CHF 1,275,000, the Julius Klaus Foundation was founded in 1922, now regarded as a ‘catalyst’ of genetic and race research.

Julius Klaus, regulations of the Julius Klaus-Stiftung, Zurich, 1925 | Wellcome Collection

Hierarchy of ‘races’
Between 1880 and 1910, the zoologist Emile Yung (1854–1918) advanced numerous theories in comparative anatomy regarding the various human ‘races’ and apes. Like Carl Vogt, he did not restrict his hierarchisation to ‘race’ but also included gender and class. Yung also took measurements of the bodies of Black people that were being exhibited in the ‘Village Noir’ at the Swiss National Exhibition of 1896.

Emile Yung, Jean Lacroix, Genf | Bibliothèque de Genève

'Racial hygiene' and ethics
Like most university psychiatrists of his time, the psychiatrist Paul Eugen Bleuler (1858–1939) based his research on the theory of degeneration according to which mental illness was to be viewed as a kind of ‘degeneration’. In the course of time, the theory of degeneration merged with eugenics and, later, with notions of ‘racial hygiene’. In his essay Die naturwissenschaftlichen Grundlagen der Ethik (The scientific foundations of ethics, 1936), Bleuler emphasized the necessity of strict racial hygiene as the basis of a healthy and sustainable social order.

Paul Eugen Bleuler, ca. 1910 | ETH-Bibliothek Zürich, Bildarchiv, Portr_09914

The politicization of ‘racial hygiene’
Ernst Rüdin (1874–1952), once a student of Auguste Forel, co-founded the journal ‘Archiv für Rassen- und Gesellschaftsbiologie’, published by the German Alfred Ploetz. In this radical pamphlet for ‘racial hygiene’, Rüdin described the educational achievements of Black Americans ‘as a danger to the white race that should not be underestimated’ and warned of any ‘mixing with white blood’. In 1905, he was one of the original founders of the Society for Racial Hygiene that was presided by Alfred Ploetz.

Ernst Rüdin, from: Erblehre und Rassenhygiene im völkischen Staat, Ernst Rüdin, Munich, 1934 | Zentralbibliohthek Zürich, JKS A 1292

Pseudo-scientific anti-Semitism
George Montandon (1879–1944) became known throughout Europe in October 1940 when, after France's capitulation, he formulated his anti-Semitic ‘racial theses’ in the work Comment reconnaître le Juif?. His ‘racial theses’ were put into practice in the German Reich from 1941 to 1942. In France, Montandon worked for the Nazis as a ‘racial expert on the Jewish issue’.

George Montandon, Neuchâtel, 1913 | Zentralbibliothek Zürich, BR 435

Preserving the ‘white race’
In 1921, the anthropologist Otto Schlaginhaufen (1879–1973) was a co-founder of the Julius Klaus Foundation for Hereditary Research, Social Anthropology, and Racial Hygiene whose aim it was to prepare and implement ‘practical reforms for the improvement of the white race’. For the purpose of creating the basis for a racial typology of the Swiss population, Schlaginhaufen measured skulls of Asian people and was head of the first major Swiss eugenics project during which over 35,000 draftees were measured anthropologically between 1927 and 1932.

Otto Schlaginhaufen, Franz Schmelhaus, Zurich, 1914 | Universitätsarchiv Zürich, UAZ AB.1.0873

New authority for Swiss ‘racial research’
Marc-Rodolphe Sauter (1914–1983) was a disciple of the Geneva anthropologist Eugène Pittard (1867-1962) and held the chair for Anthropology at the University of Geneva after the latter retired. Sauter kept racial research on the agenda of Geneva anthropology for several decades. In his research, he tried to prove that the European population was divided into separate ‘races’, not least in an attempt to lend Swiss racial research new authority after WWII.

Marc Roldolphe Sauter, befor 1952 | Bibliothèque de Genève

Structural racism today

Structural racism is rooted in institutions and norms and refers to the discrimination of people of colour in education, healthcare, on the job market, at work, or through ‘racial profiling’ practised by the police.

The baseline study conducted by the Service for Combating Racism in Switzerland in 2022, which was based on field reports, shows that people from southern Europe, Black people as well as religious minorities are commonly exposed to structural discrimination.

Resistance and empowerment

Various associations and individuals have been campaigning against racism and discrimination in Switzerland since the 1970s. In 1995, the provision on racism was incorporated in the Swiss Criminal Code. It is meant to protect people from being discriminated, threatened or humiliated on the basis of skin colour, ethnicity or religious background.

In addition to numerous independent networks and associations, nearly every canton has a state office for combating racism and discrimination.

Robin Bervini, *1989, Ticino

It took me a long time to accept my skin colour and my Black heritage. Through my work and my journey of self-acceptance, I hope to speak and connect with others – regardless of their culture, gender or class.

Robin Bervini is a Swiss photographer and artist. His work focuses on people as well as on discovering new forms of expression through technical experimentation. As a student, Bervini initially concentrated on portraits and the human body, which he explored with traditional and instant film photography. At present he is studying new techniques for depicting individuals through photogrammetry, 3D modelling, and virtual reality, focusing on ethnic identity, gender, and social belonging.

Robin Bervini is currently working at Stojan.com as a creative producer.

His works have been exhibited in Tokyo, Paris, Zurich, Geneva, Lugano, and Locarno.

Marion Hermann, *1975, Zurich/Berne

I try to help those people who don’t have the same privileges as I do to become visible in their own right.

Marion Hermann is the co-owner and manager of the Zurich interim use project 'Das Dazw/schen'.

'Das Dazw/schen' seeks to ensure that people affected by structural racism have equal access to rented property and can acquire space. She tries to keep administrative processes as short as possible and is happy to take extra time to provide support if desired. As a result, many NGOs also find their way into 'Das Dazw/schen'.

Hermann describes herself as an activist and can frequently be found at events and demonstrations that promote human rights.

Mardoché Kabengele, *1995, Bern

In order to have a discussion about racism, it's important to commemorate the history of racism and the battle of civil society against racism.

Mardoché Kabengele is a member of the anti-racism initiative Berner Rassismus-Stammtisch, where he seeks to connect people with different life realities and to mobilise against structural discrimination. He is also active in various collectives, such as the 'Living Room' community centre and the 'We talk – Schweiz ungefiltert' discussion format. Since 2020 he has been an administrative employee of a branch of the Institut Neue Schweiz. Now 29 years old, he is currently engaging with questions about activist utopias and promotes an'unheated discourse' about (post-)migration. In Kabengele’s view, migration today is not an exceptional situation; it is part of everyday life in Swiss society.

Sandra Knecht, *1968, Basel/Buus

Heimat – home and belonging – must be constantly renegotiated afresh. And this is exactly what I do in my work.

Sandra Knecht grew up in the Zurich Oberland. Before she decided to live and work mainly as a full-time artist, she was a social education worker for 25 years. In her art, she focuses primarily on the themes of identity and Heimat (home and belonging) or what she calls 'Heimatidentity'. Her work My Land Is Your Land, which was awarded the Swiss Art Prize in 2022, explores the concept of Heimat, which she regards as being powerfully influenced by inclusion and solidarity. For several years she has been preoccupied by Heimat as somewhere unknown (Home is a Foreign Place). Here her point of departure is rural life. In November 2015, Sandra Knecht opened the 'Chnächt' barn in Basel’s harbour area, where she created a 'home' in which all are welcome in the midst of a 'non-place'.

Her artistic work also includes cooking, film, and performance.

Shyaka Kagame, *1983, Geneva

I wouldn’t necessarily describe my work as 'committed'. At best, I’d say that I take the approach of Hip-Hop: exploring what you are and what our fellow human beings experience.

Shyaka Kagame was born in Geneva in 1983 to Rwandan parents.

After studying political science, he started making documentary films, the first of which, Bounty (JMH & FILO Films/RTS), ran in cinemas in 2017.

The film deals with the identity issues of the first Afro-Swiss generation, focusing on the everyday lives of five people with different profiles.

In 2018 he filmed a report for the TV news magazine Temps Présent (RTS) titled Policiers Vaudois, une violente série noire, which was about the increase in the number of deaths of Black men in connection with police operations in the canton of Waadt.

Walesca Frank, *1991, Lucerne

What makes us strong as a society are our individual differences.

Walesca Frank describes herself as an activist communications designer. In 2022, together with the 'Black Stammtisch' initiative, she established a project to combat racism and discrimination in Lucerne. Her goal is to increase awareness of cultural diversity and to give centre stage to the visual representation of Black people. She is concerned not only with portrayals in the media, but also with physical reality and the complexities of being Black and being Swiss. Another 'Black Stammtisch' was established in Zurich in early 2024.

While studying for her master’s degree, she focused on how we talk about racism and went on to develop several discussion formats, one of which is the 'Black Stammtisch' initiative. This is a protected space for people to meet and share their experiences of racism as well as talk about 'Black Joy' and mental health.

Racism is a multidimensional phenomenon that manifests systematically in everyday life at the individual, institutional, and structural levels. These levels are inextricably linked and influence one another. They involve power relationships that give rise to social norms and practices while also affecting institutions and individuals as well as their interrelationships.

Resistance against these power relationships occurs when individuals are confronted with these institutions, practices, and relationships. The six portraits displayed here depict people who are actively involved in combating racist, discriminatory practices and structures. The images demonstrate their resistance to racism by not ignoring it, engaging with it, sharing their experiences with it, reporting about it, or creating awareness of it through their artworks.

The images were taken by photographer Yasmin Müller in 2024.

Blog article: Knocked off his pedestal

Colonial Continuities

Toppling monuments
In 2021 the Geneva-based artist Mathias C. Pfund placed his upended and reduced-scale copy of the statue of David de Pury (1709–1786), who was involved in the ‘triangular trade’ and who therefore had a hand in the trade with enslaved people alongside the original that was raised in Neuchatel in 1855.

Mathias C. Pfund, Great in the concrete, ex. 2/5, 2022, bronze | Swiss National Museum

Agassiz upside-down
In 1906, an earthquake in San Francisco was so strong that the statue of Louis Agassiz fell from the facade of Stanford University. The Swiss naturalist and glaciologist, who also developed racist theories in the USA, landed headfirst and became embedded in the ground. Years later, this event was interpreted as a symbolic gesture of nature, and the image of the sunken Agassiz was used in the Demounting Agassiz campaign.

Sculpture of Louis Agassiz toppled by the earthquake, Antonio Frilli, Stanford University, San Francisco, 1906 | Newspaper article 'The Fall of Agassiz at San Francisco', The Sphere, 1906

Monument to David de Pury
In 2022, the district council of Neuchâtel launched an art competition of which Mathias C. Pfund is the co-recipient. He took the picture of the toppled sculpture of Agassiz as his point of departure for questioning the monument to David de Pury (1709–1786), a banker and slave trader. In this work, he is less concerned with establishing a link between the two biographies than with drawing attention to the way “great men” are represented in public spaces.

Pfund describes his inverted, small version of the sculpture as a footnote to the homage paid to de Pury in public spaces.

Mathias C. Pfund, Great in the concrete, 2022, Bronze

Videoinstallation

What does the colonial legacy mean for Switzerland today? The video installation shows a staged panel discussions consider topical social issues from a variety of perspectives. Discussions address the following topics:

Colonial traces and blind spots
The colonial legacy and remembrance culture
Historical responsibility and restitution

The speakers are individuals with knowledge and experience of these subjects.

Accompanying Guide for Teachers

240911_kolonial_begleitdossier_en_download.pdf

Blog articles

More about the exhibition

Today

Opening times

Museum, boutique and bistro

Library

Special opening times

Today

Opening times

Museum, boutique and bistro

Library

Special opening times

colonial – Switzerland’s Global Entanglements

Contents

Enslavement

Trade

Transit trade

Mercenaries

Settler colonies

New Bern

San Carlos

What about today?

The missions

The Basel Mission

What about today?

Experts

Science

What about today?

Exploiting nature

What about today?

Racism

Scientific racism

Swiss 'race scientists'

Structural racism today

Resistance and empowerment

Colonial Continuities

Videoinstallation

Accompanying Guide for Teachers

Blog articles

Cocoa in Ghana: how it all began

Fritz Ramseyer – Swiss missionary and colonial agent

The transatlantic slave trade

accessibility.sr-only.opening-hours-term

Today

Opening times

Museum, boutique and bistro

Library

Special opening times

Today

Opening times

Museum, boutique and bistro

Library

Special opening times

accessibility.sr-only.body-term

colonial – Switzerland’s Global Entanglements

Contents

Enslavement

Trade

Transit trade

Mercenaries

Settler colonies

New Bern

San Carlos

What about today?

The missions

The Basel Mission

What about today?

Experts

Science

What about today?

Exploiting nature

What about today?

Racism

Scientific racism

Swiss 'race scientists'

Structural racism today

Resistance and empowerment

Colonial Continuities

Videoinstallation

Accompanying Guide for Teachers

Blog articles

Cocoa in Ghana: how it all began

Fritz Ramseyer – Swiss missionary and colonial agent

The transatlantic slave trade