Neither Settler nor Native: The Making and Unmaking of Permanent Minorities

by Mahmood Mamdani

Furthermore, the concept of crimes against humanity originated earlier, in a colonial context in which it meant something very different. The notion of crimes against humanity arose in reference to atrocities unleashed by Belgium in the Congo more than a half century before the Holocaust; the term described acts so horrific that they transcend statutes of limitations. The charge was formulated in 1890 by George Washington Williams, a historian, Baptist minister, and lawyer and the first black member of the Ohio state legislature. After a visit to the Congo, he wrote a letter to the US secretary of state documenting atrocities committed by King Leopold’s colonial regime and concluding that Belgian conduct should be condemned as a “crime against humanity.”