ABSTRACT
By the eighteenth century the image had reached the opposite extreme of unmitigated despotism. If the eighteenth century would not have condoned reports of anarchy, it would have found them palatable than they seemed in the early seventeenth century, with its emphasis on civil order and strong government. Negro Africa of course embraced many systems of government. But it was not until the mid-eighteenth century that descriptions of near-anarchy rested on the observations of contemporaries. The geographical popularizers perhaps had an even more important role than the observers in projecting an image of corrupt despotism in the mid-eighteenth century. Anti-slavery writers helped to paint the picture of bloody despotism not in abstractions about natural rights but more by the reiteration of specific allegations about the practical circumstances of the trade. Some claims that whole populations were slaves to their rulers stemmed from the stereotype about despotism and were comparable to the common eighteenth century equation of slavery with political repression.
